You have met them. Those oh so logical Libertarians where every acceptable thought has to be a verified part of a system. They have to tie themselves in logical knots to come to the proper logical conclusion.

Ralph has a few words about that.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Now that I'm a Republican I no longer have to compromise my logic to come to a predetermined conclusion. What a relief.

Well any way - we are neural computers, not digital logic machines. Correlation machines not computing machines (generally). Our reasoning for the most part is different. Einstein didn't compute all the partial derivatives when he wanted to pick up a glass of water.

And you can quote me on that.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Yes indeed. A female police officer, Sgt. Kimberly Munley, put an end to jihadi Nidal Malik Hasan's murderous rampage at Fort Hood.

A female civilian police officer is being hailed as a hero in the aftermath of a gunman's rampage at Fort Hood -- an outbreak of violence that the officer is credited with ending by shooting the alleged gunman four times despite being shot herself.

The attack killed 13 people and wounded 30 others at the Texas military post, but the carnage ended there, thanks to the quick response of Fort Hood Police Sgt. Kimberly Munley.

Munley and her partner responded within three minutes of reports of gunfire on Thursday, Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said Friday. Authorities say Munley, 34, exchanged fire with the gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who remains comatose in a Texas hospital. Munley is in stable condition, officials said.

"It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer," Cone said.

Which reminds me of Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester who together with Sgt. Timothy F. Nein charged an ambush by at least 34 men in Iraq. The final count for the enemy was 27 dead, six wounded, and one captured.

Don't f*** with our women you jihadi bastards. Because they will shoot your ass. And if you are sufficiently unlucky you will get bagged. Body bagged.

I married a sturdy Midwest girl. She likes guns. A true credit to her gender.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Libertarian Republican has some excellent news for Constitutional Republicans. You know, small government, low spending.

I'm just going to give short excerpts. Follow the links for details.

Republicans sweep Westchester County, New York on Anti-Tax message

Voters ousted Democratic supervisors in Yorktown and Lewisboro and elected GOP majorities in both towns, as they did in North Castle, North Salem and Somers. A 24-year-old Republican even cracked the all-Democratic Ossining Town Board.

As one specific example, Yorktown shifted from a Town Board of 4-1Democrat to 3-2 Republican.

The issues that caused the stunning GOP Wins? Taxes and the Economy.

Democrat elected officials have become such a pariah in this heavily Blue New York City suburb that one Democrat even got beat by a Libertarian.

And there is more. Libertarian "RINO" wins County Council seat in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Total of 8 Libertarian Victories throughout Pennsylvania

Bill Beeman is a former Libertarian Party member. He recently switched parties to Republican, and became the non-establishment GOP nominee for County Council District 6 in Erie, Pennsylvania. He was staunchly opposed by the local establishment.

Maybe this has something to do with my suggestion that Republicans need a rebranding campaign.

We are coming to get you elected bastards who think you are our masters. This is America you sons of bitches and the People Are The Masters. You are our servants. Get it mofos?

I was listening to Song Of The Warrior when I wrote this. Can you tell?

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Project Valour-IT helps provide voice-controlled/adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries. Items supplied include:

# Voice-controlled Laptops - Operated by speaking into a microphone or using other adaptive technologies, they allow the wounded to maintain connections with the rest of the world during recovery.
# Wii Video Game Systems - Whole-body game systems increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists in therapy sessions (donated only to medical facilities).
# Personal GPS - Handheld GPS devices build self-confidence and independence by compensating for short-term memory loss and organizational challenges related to severe TBI and severe PTSD.

Another place to donate: The Warrior Song

For those of you who want to sing along: The Warrior Song lyrics

H/T IMAO

Cross Posted at Power and Control

From Veeshir (who has left so many helpful comments here that I treat an email from him like a homework assignment), my attention was directed to a perfect -- perfectly dreadful that is -- example of the contempt some of our highest elected officials have for the Constitution:

James O'Connor, Burris's communications director, later told CNSNews.com that although the word "health" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution, the senator was referring to the Preamble of the Constitution which says the following:

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

But don't trust me. Here's what constitutional author James Madison had to say:

If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. (James Madison, Letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792 Madison 1865, I, page 546)

As Walter Williams pointed out not long ago, Madison later added this:

"With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."

I know it's just Burris now, but it'll spread.
And when you try to show them those comments you showed me when I (facetiously) said that, you'll be ignored.

If they can deny that there's a right to bear arms while simultaneously saying that there is a right to abortion, they can do anything with that document.

[Hoyer] added that Congress has "broad authority" to force Americans to purchase other things as well, so long as it was trying to promote "the general welfare."

Either the man has no idea what the Constitution or federalism means or else he's a demagogue.

Quite incidentally, in the course of looking up Madison quotes, I found another very specific warning from Madison, quoted by a reliable commenter to an Ed Morrissey post:

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America."

Sorry if I sound like a crank, but here's the problem. I loved reading the above purported quote from Madison, and I'd love nothing more than to be able to cite it, as it sounds as if it was specifically written to rebut the noxious position of Steny Hoyer. I hate to be a spoilsport, but if I am unable to find it at the source* provided, I really can't cite it in good faith. This should not be a game of stuffing words in your favorite founder's mouth and then citing them because you like them. Yet the above is all over the Internet, attributed to Federalist 41. Or else simply quoted without a source, as it is here. That prompted this very reasonable comment:

Where is this quote from? When did he say/where did he write this?

Madison is referring to a bill to subsidize cod fisherman introduced in the first year of the new Congress
http://www.barefootsworld.net/nortonuc12.html

Anyway, it's not Federalist 41, but I'm delighted to help do my part to save it from the fate of unsourced or badly sourced quotes. Why would anyone need to that, when what Madison did say in Federalist 41 is more than adequate to rebut Steny Hoyer?

It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States," amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.

Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare."

But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.

The objection here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are "their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare." The terms of article eighth are still more identical: "All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury," etc. A similar language again occurs in article ninth. Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever. But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare?

* By the way, it's always a good idea to beware of unsourced Madison quotes, of which there are many floating about. The general rule has long been that the burden is on whoever does the quoting to come up with a verifiable source. Repetition on the Internet is not proof of anything.

So, the true 10-year cost of Obamacare is... $1.8 trillion.

A trillion in new taxes, $800B in new deficit spending (oh, excuse me, I mean "imaginary Medicare cuts that will never happen"). And the next ten years are going to be even worse.

It's like 1938 all over again...

Linking my earlier post about the Fort Hood shooting, M. Simon quoted what I said about the shooter's imam:

Hasan's imam Faizul Khan is no ordinary imam. He is on the Board of Directors of the ISNA, a radical Wahhabi outfit which "enforces extremist Wahhabi theological writ in America's mosques.

Anyway, I am sure that Simon's reaction to what I said would be shared by a lot of people:

The Whabists need to be expelled from America. Whether they are native born or foreign born.

Radical Islam is not a religion. It is a traitorous political party masquerading as a religion and should be treated as such.

At the very least, it seems like a no-brainer they should not be given positions as officers in the military for God's sake.

But that latter is up to the Commander in Chief, isn't it?

Hmmm....

Perhaps someone should ask the president why the military he commands says no to gays and yes to radical Wahhabists.

MORE: Ralph Peters excoriates the total inability of the president, the media, or military to call Hasan's act what it is -- terrorism -- and offers a grim prediction:

I guarantee you that the Obama administration's non-response to the Ft. Hood attack will mock the memory of our dead.

And Ann Althouse wants to know how this man was allowed to become an Army psychiatrist:

I want to know why what was wrong with Hasan was not detected? Was he given a pass because he was Muslim? Is there a fear of suspecting or offending Muslims in the military that keeps people who should see signs of dysfunction from acknowledging what they see or doing anything about it? On the other hand, if it really is the case that people in the military are harassing Muslims, that too should not be ignored. There should be rigorous equality for Muslims. It shouldn't even be necessary to point out what is obvious: Muslims in the military shouldn't experience special treatment either of a positive or a negative kind.

He talked about how if you're a nonbeliever the Koran says you should have your head cut off, you should have oil poured down your throat, you should be set on fire.

Now 12 soldiers and a security guard lie dead. 31 soldiers were wounded, 28 of them seriously. If heads don't roll in this maggot's chain of command, the Army will have shamed itself beyond moral redemption.

MORE: ShrinkWrapped (who is a psychoanalyst) takes a critical look at the Islamic terrorist from from a psychiatric point of view, and warns that reacting in a P.C. manner only aggravates the situation:

When the immediate reaction of Islamic spokesmen is to warn everyone of Islamophobia, they too are supporting the projection and externalization that is the hallmark of radical Islam and the "lone, psychiatrically deranged" paranoid.

Every effort should be made to resolutely maintain a posture that specifically and emphatically denies the use of projection and externalization to the radical Islamists. Groups like CAIR should be confronted by our MSM and government on a regular basis to expose their use of such psychological processes for all to see. Whenever a "lone, psychiatrically deranged" individual commits an atrocity, we must be alert to attempts to shift the psychological impetus for the attack from the attacker to the surround. It is an unhappy reality that confronting a paranoid's projection and externalization does not work in a therapeutic context. It either convinces the paranoid that you are part of the persecutory conspiracy or, if accepted and internalized, leads to significant depression. However, we cannot treat terror as a therapeutic situation. When Muslims support, in their speech and writing, convictions that reflect the use of projection and externalization, they must be considered potential dangers to the community. This requires a form of "racial profiling" but the alternative is to wait for an atrocity of such significant proportions that "lone, psychiatrically deranged" non-Muslims begin to take things into their own hands.

Psychologist Dr. Helen asks a number of good questions:

This man was being entrusted with the mental health of soldiers, and no one could be bothered to take the time to find out if he was mentally stable himself? After a poor review, remarks that make you wonder which side this guy was on, and possible writings on a web posting that are troubling, he was not investigated?

Was it political correctness and concern for his Muslim heritage that kept officials from looking further into his mental health? Was the army so desperate for a psychiatrist (there is always a shortage) they didn't dare do anything?

The public deserves an explanation.

It seems that a Libertarian can actually win in one of the most liberal areas of the country. New York City.

Libertarian Dan Halloran wins City Council Seat in New York City

Dan Halloran was elected to the Queens City Council in District 19. He was nominated by the Republican, Conservative, Independent and Libertarian parties. Dan is simultaneously a Libertarian Party member and a registered Republican. He serves as State Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Frank replying to a commenter had a few cogent words on the subject.

Sorry you missed my point so completely on the theocrat comment.

It was not to accuse anyone of being a theocrat, though that is what those who would supplant the Constitution with the New Testement most certainly are, but only to say those charges are inevitable when the social issues take center stage. Why play into them?

The leftpress will seize, bend, lie, and mailiciously contort any hint of religion because it feeds their theocrat boogeyman narrative. Knowing this, how could emphasizing religious beliefs possibly build a larger audience than promoting fiscal sanity and smaller government?

I would defend to the death your right to practice your religion but kill you in a heartbeat if you abuse my constitution to force it on me.

I am not suggesting we keep the socons off the bus, just away from the steering wheel, and especially the microphone. Moderates, you know, the ones that actually decide elections, are about as comfortable with blatant displays of religiosity as socons are with are with a cross dresser in a gay pride parade.

Here is what I think should be done: Keep repeating "I'm against abortion but I believe reproduction is none of the government's business". The Palin strategy.

Yes it is offensive to my pro-life friends. But keep in mind that in America elections are won among the least committed voters. So will it be smaller government and lower spending or Democrat Rule as far into the future as you can imagine?

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Resist Net has this from Walid Shoebat a former jihadist.

TO WHAT LEVEL IS US MILITARY, FBI, CIA, DEPT. OF HOMELAND SECURITY INFILTRATED W. MUSLIM JIHADISTS?

In the wake of the cowardly Ft. Hoot mass fatal shooting of 11 or more unarmed U.S. soldiers by Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan, America has the right to know the truth about sleeper war cells in the U.S.

Walid Shoebat Former Islamic Terrorist who was once part of Jihad war cells in the US and understands fully the mindset of terrorists has been warning America of the potential of this very type of tragedy and worse for many years.

Shoebat contends that the US Army, Navy, Air Force, FBI, CIA, Dept. of Homeland Security are all infiltrated with Muslim Extremists.

"America needs to awaken from its sleep and its unwillingness to face the issue of fundamentalist Islam in our midst which undoubtedly is the cause of the tragedy in Ft Hood" says Mr. Shoebat, adding, "Some very serious decisions need to made when it comes to having Muslims protecting our country, as it is impossible to know whether they maybe honorable or foxes in the hen house."

Walid is the author of the book Why We Want to Kill You: The Jihadist Mindset and How to Defeat It

INTERVIEW TALKING POINTS
By Walid Shoebat:

-- Nidal Malik Hasan is NOT a convert but Jordanian Muslim SINCE BIRTH! Infiltration by Islamists in the military is a fact My own brother served in the United States Air Force and his loyalty was to his ideology, yet allowing him to guard nuclear facilities should be on check. Religion is a sensitive issue but we should not undermine our security from fear of 'Islamophobia.'

-- Muslims by Sharia Law are mandated never to fight Muslims. Muslim soldiers need to be questioned whether this is an issue, yet we virtually never question them.

-- Converts to Islam are susceptible to Islamization, the case of Sgt. Hassan Akbar from Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait killed two Americans and was influenced by the MSU (Muslim Student Association), also Ali Muhammad a double agent that worked for the FBI and collaborated with Al-Qaeda

-- Speaking at the Air Force Academy in Colorado to expose the infiltration of Islamist. Not only were over a hundred of Middle Eastern Muslims allowed to infiltrate, but were also allowed to threaten us with death with no repercussions whatsoever -- Omar Khalifa, a student, got away with the threats and while Khalifa was related to Osama Bin Laden's son-in-law, he was largely ignored!

-- At the Marines, our event was cancelled as to 'not to offend Saudi visitors. At Camp Bullis was a Muslim in the U.S army who said he was 'offended' that I spoke on the issue of terrorism. Has 'Political correctness' seeped into our military apparatus to the point where no one can say anything lest they risk we offend someone? When Americans are being killed,all issues should be on the table.

-- The big question: Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome or Terrorism?
Nidal never served in Iraq or Afghanistan to qualify as a candidate for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

I have posting privileges at Muslims Against Sharia.

So what do I think? We need to carefully differentiate between those Muslims who want to be Americans and those who don't.

Eric at Classical Values has this to say about Hassan's imam:

Hasan's imam Faizul Khan is no ordinary imam. He is on the Board of Directors of the ISNA, a radical Wahhabi outfit which "enforces extremist Wahhabi theological writ in America's mosques."

Radical Islam is not a religion. It is a traitorous political party masquerading as a religion and should be treated as such.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

More Ayn Rand videos. The above video is from 1979. Obviously well before our current dust ups in the Middle East.

And don't forget her novels:

The Fountainhead

Atlas Shrugged

Cross Posted at Power and Control

That's what Shepard Smith on Fox News just said about the officer who is described as the primary gunman who killed 12 people and wounded 31 in a mass shooting at Fort Hood Texas.

He is described as "a convert to Islam" and a major who was about to deploy to Iraq, and who was known to be upset about the fact that he was about to deploy.

They are not giving out the name on Fox News, although they keep saying "We've been given a name" and "the name tells us a lot."

This aroused my curiosity, so I checked around online. According to this news site, the shooter has been identified as Malik Nadal Hasan:

Fort Hood, TX (WSYR-TV/ABC News) - Twelve people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting spree at a Texas military base by what officials believe was possibly carried out by an Army officer.

The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Malik Nadal Hasan.

The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.

MORE: The dead suspect's name is all over the Internet, so I don't know why Fox is stalling in reporting it.

Frankly, I'm not surprised. We live in a time when "mainstream" American Muslims support a violent, murderous advocate of a Sharia state in the United States (also a convert to Islam) and call him a "respected Imam" after a fatal shootout with the FBI.

MORE: At 5:56 p.m. Shepard Smith explained that they will not release the suspect's name until the Pentagon confirms it.

Suspects names have become more sensitive than ever, haven't they?

AND MORE: As of 6:03 p.m., Fox News had confirmed the name from the Pentagon. It was Major Malik Nadal Hasan.

I hope no one calls the murderous bastard a martyr, but they probably will.

My opinion is that I hope he rots in hell.

AFTERTHOUGHT: If Major Malik Nadal Hasan was a convert to Islam as is being reported, does that mean he originally had another name?

If so, I assume that will be reported eventually, but these days I don't like to take anything for granted.

Is it reasonable to speculate that a mass shooting of U.S. soldiers (apparently by multiple plotters) might have been, um, an act of war?

MORE: Glenn Reynolds has a roundup of links, and says this:

Note that early reports are usually wrong, but it sounds quite bad, and likely to have some sort of terror connection. But stay tuned.

AND MORE: Drudge has this picture up of Hasan.

He reportedly worked as an Army psychiatrist, who had accomplices.

The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.

Hasan allegedly opened fire and killed 11 people on the base before he was shot dead, bringing the total number of fatalities to 12.

The general said there were "eyewitness accounts of more than one shooter," and the others were tracked to an adjacent facility.

Cone called the attack "a terrible tragedy, stunning." He said the community was "absolutely devastated."

According to sources, Hasan attended the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD. He graduated in 2003 with a degree in Osteopathy and later finished his residency as a psychiatrist.

In 2009, Hasan completed a fellowship in Disaster and Preventive Psychiatry at the Center for Traumatic Stress.

There's also this:

The CounterTerrorist Unit said they have "no word" yet on whether this incident was terrorism-related.

MORE: Regarding the ongoing mystery of the man's background, investigators say they're not clear on his religion or how and when he got his name (which strikes me as peculiar, for the Army would keep records on all officers):

A source tells the CBS News investigates team that Hasan is a licensed psychiatrist in Bethesda, Md. He is a drug and rehab specialist who got his Virginia psychiatry license July 12, 2005.

It was not known whether he was treating people at the base.

Officials says it was not clear what Hasan's religion was, but investigators are trying to determine if Hasan was his birth name or if he may have changed his name and converted to the Islamic faith at some point.

According to the Army Times, Hasan was promoted to Major, medical corps on April 22, 2009.

MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds (who notes than Hasan's degree is from Damascus University), Donald Sensing has this:

As of now, the lead agency for the investigation would be US Army Criminal Investigation Command, know by its historic initials of CID, because the crimes took place on Army territory. Interagency cooperation with the FBI and ATF and state law enforcement agencies is already being done. If, however, the shootings are deemed to be terrorism (perhaps an Islamist connection), by federal law the FBI is the lead agency for all terrorism investigations.

In 2003, just before the invasion of Iraq by American and allied forces, Sgt. Asan Akbar of the 101st Airborne Division's 326th Engineer Battalion threw a grenade into a tent area in Kuwait filled with 101st troops, killing one and wounding 15. He said his Muslim religion was a factor in the attack.

US officials have been concerned about Islamist infiltration of the US military for many years. See this statement of J. Michael Waller, Professor of International Communication, Institute of World Politics, before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary six years ago: Terrorist Recruitment and Infiltration in the United States: Prisons and Military as an Operational Base.

MORE: Gateway Pundit puts it simply:

This was jihad.

And if this man was some sort of enemy agent, he should not have been in the Army in the first place.

AND MORE: The latest reports are that Hasan is alive:

Authorities said immediately after the shootings that they had killed the suspected shooter, but later in the evening they recanted and said that he was alive and in stable condition at a hospital, watched by a guard.

"His death is not imminent," said Lt. Gen. Bob Cone at Fort Hood. He offered little explanation for the mistake, other than to say there was confusion at the hospital.

A law enforcement official identified the shooting suspect as Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

The violence was believed to be the worst mass shooting in history at a U.S. military base.

(Assuming he did it, of course. He now becomes the alleged shooter.)

MORE: In yet another (but more recent) version of the story, Hasan is now described as the only suspect in the case:

The U.S. soldier accused of carrying out a mass killing at Fort Hood in Texas is still alive and in custody according to the U.S. military, with no other suspects.

Twelve people were killed and over 30 injured in the shooting at the world's largest military base.

Ford Hood commander Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said Army psychiatrist Major Malik Nadal Hasan is the only suspect in the shooting, saying he was shot "multiple times" but would not reveal his condition except to say his death is not imminent.

Lt. Gen. Cone refused to make any comment about Major Hasan, except to confirm he was the suspect and one of the firearms he carried was a semi automatic weapon.

He said the shootings took place in two facilities adjacent to each other, and the quick actions of military personnel prevented more deaths. He talked of soldiers ripping their uniforms apart and applying first aid on the scene to save lives.

Lt. Gen. Cone said the evidence does not suggest it was a terrorist attack, but limited his comments saying he wanted to make sure he only gave the facts.

The FBI was assisting the military in the investigation which was on-going, he said.

I think it's going to take some time to get the facts.

MORE: Something does not make sense. There still persistent reports that the man converted to Islam. According to the Huffington Post, "late in life":

Arab and Muslim political groups are bracing themselves for a wave of anger and attacks after news broke on Thursday that the primary suspect behind the shooting deaths of twelve soldiers at Fort Hood had a Arabic and/or Muslim-sounding name.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a native of Virginia, is believed to have been responsible for opening fire on his fellow soldiers at the U.S. Army base.

It was not immediately clear whether Nidal Malik Hasan was, in fact, a Muslim, though reports surfaced that he had converted to the religion late in life.

Everyone agrees that Major Hasan was Muslim. Most say that he was a recent convert, but his cousin says that he had been a Muslim all his life.

And now, the motive. The cousin says that Major Hasan had taken a great deal of "harassment" over his Muslim faith and his Middle Eastern heritage, and had expressed distress over his pending deployment. But Colonel Terry Lee USA (retired), who once worked with Major Hasan, says that he had expressed sympathy with Abdulhakim Bledsoe, the suspect in the shooting at a Little Rock, AR, recruiting office last summer, and even said that "it's about time that Muslims stood up against the aggressors," and words to similar effect. This officer further states that Hasan had had similar arguments with several people, on such themes as whether Muslim should fight Muslim. (Furthermore, Col. Lee says that no one ever "harassed" Hasan or called him any racial names. Hasan, not any of the others, started those arguments.)

Something does not make sense about the man being a "recent convert," because if he was born with a Muslim name to Muslim parents, he is presumably Muslim from birth.

Unless "recent convert" means he was a recent convert to a radical form of Islamic fundamentalism.

Video here of Hasan's comments on the Little Rock incident. He's quoted as saying that "maybe the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor," and even "strap bombs on and go into Time Square."

Colonel Lee (who knew him) asks, "Why was he transferred to Fort Hood?"

I have to ask a question.

Why the hell was he allowed to be in the Army?

And why did they say he was dead?

I'm beginning to smell something fishy about the whole thing.

MORE: From Allahpundit, some great questions:

The $64,000 questions: What was he doing at Fort Hood among the population if he thought suicide bombers were heroes? And why are the feds tipping the AP about this if they haven't even confirmed that he was the author yet?

So here's where we are right now, near 11 p.m. ET. This guy raged about Muslims standing up to aggressors, praised suicide bombers, and the lead theory in the media is ... PTSD? For a guy who's ... never been deployed? A friend just e-mailed me with a good question: Even if he was suffering from some type of trauma from listening to vets' war stories, shouldn't a shrink trained in dealing with trauma been able to diagnose himself and seek treatment?

If this guy had PTSD, then so did Mohammad Atta, and so does Osama bin Laden. And Timothy McVeigh. And I'm sure Stalin and Hitler did too.

Since when do we put incidental psychological factors ahead of primary motivations?

MORE: Also from Allahpundit, there's this from NPR:

A source tells NPR's Joseph Shapiro that Hasan was put on probation early in his postgraduate work at the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. He was disciplined for proselytizing about his Muslim faith with patients and colleagues, according to the source, who worked with him at the time.

I'm hearing on Twitter that Fox interviewed one of his neighbors within the last half-hour or so and that the neighbor claims Hasan was handing out Korans just this morning. Does anyone have video? Or is this a bad lead? Smells fishy to me but multiple people have mentioned it.

I think there's a lot of disinformation floating around and there's sure to be more.

MORE: Amidst the rest of the chaotic reporting, I found a report that according to his imam, Hasan considered himself to be a Palestinian:

At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.
Story continues below

They had not determined for certain whether Hasan is the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.

One of the officials said late Thursday that federal search warrants were being drawn up to authorize the seizure of Hasan's computer.

Retired Army Col. Terry Lee, who said he worked with Hasan, told Fox News that Hasan had hoped President Barack Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Lee said Hasan got into frequent arguments with others in the military who supported the wars, and had tried hard to prevent his pending deployment.

Hasan attended prayers regularly when he lived outside Washington, often in his Army uniform, said Faizul Khan, a former imam at a mosque Hasan attended in Silver Spring, Md. He said Hasan was a lifelong Muslim.

"I got the impression that he was a committed soldier," Khan said. He spoke often with Hasan about Hasan's desire for a wife.

On a form filled out by those seeking spouses through a program at the mosque, Hasan listed his birthplace as Arlington, Va., but his nationality as Palestinian, Khan said.

"I don't know why he listed Palestinian," Khan said, "He was not born in Palestine."

If Hasan's parents were Palestinians (or descended from Palestinians), wouldn't that make Hasan a Palestinian according to the commonly accepted definition of that term as it is used in virtually every Arab and Muslim country in the world, as well as many other countries?

Here's the Wiki definition:

In its common usage today, the term "Palestinian" refers to a person whose ancestors had lived in the territory corresponding to British Mandate Palestine for some length of time prior to 1948.

Or is there something fishy going on here too?

MORE: Hasan's imam Faizul Khan is no ordinary imam. He is on the Board of Directors of the ISNA, a radical Wahhabi outfit which "enforces extremist Wahhabi theological writ in America's mosques."

AND MORE (This is now November 6): According to the base commander at Fort Hood, Hasan yelled "ALLAHHU AKBAR!" when he started shooting.

That sounds like Jihad to me. The only question in my mind is whether this was part of a larger plot.

But I expect to see a lot of denial.

Via Glenn Reynolds, my attention was drawn to an irresistibly funny comment left here:

Dear Barack, Please continue to campaign for Democratic candidates in future elections. The Republicans welcome all your help. Thank you.

Nothing wrong with giving credit where credit is due.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

It looks like Sarah Palin may not be able to pass the Republican Abortion Litmus Test. This is a report from March of 2009.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) recently appointed Anchorage Superior Court Judge Morgan Christen, who once served on the board of Planned Parenthood, to the state's Supreme Court, the AP/Anchorage Daily News reports. According to the AP/Daily News, Palin's selection went against the advice of the Alaska Family Council -- a conservative group that opposes abortion rights -- who said that Christen was the more liberal of the governor's two choices for the vacant position. The two candidates were recommended by the Alaska Judicial Council, an independent citizen's commission that evaluates judicial appointments for the governor.

AFC said the other candidate, Palmer Superior Court Judge Eric Smith, would be more likely "to turn back the tide of activism" on issues like abortion rights. According to the group, Christen is more likely to side with justices who struck down laws like a 2006 measure requiring girls 16 years and younger to obtain parental consent to receive an abortion. According to the AP/Daily News, the state legislature currently is considering a similar parental consent bill. The current bill includes a provision allowing a minor to petition a superior court judge to bypass parental consent.

Palin, who opposes abortion rights, said she has "every confidence that [Christen] has the experience, intellect, wisdom and character to be an outstanding Supreme Court justice." Christen served on the Planned Parenthood board in the 1990s before the organization began performing abortions in Alaska in 2003, according to the AP/Daily News. According to the AP/Daily News, Christen will be the second woman to serve on the state's high court -- current Chief Justice Dana Fabe was appointed in 1996 (Sutton, AP/Anchorage Daily News, 3/6).

It also ups my esteem for her since I believe reproduction is none of government's business. A rather libertarian position. And Sarah is very libertarian leaning. And yet she lives her beliefs. Maybe we have come upon that small government Republican we hear so much about.

I ♥ Sarah'cudda more than ever.

Prompted by a discussion at The Other McCain.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Two posts I read yesterday hammered home the importance of something I hate.

TELEVISION.

My inability to watch it occasionally places me at a disadvantage in evaluating politicians. The problem is that I'm too impatient to put up with people spouting their opinions. When people talk, I can't skim through and "scroll down" to get to the point and save time. And with the tube, there's no human interaction the way there is if the person is sitting there talking to you. I feel completely passive watching it, and if the person is trying to persuade me of something, that oncoming sense that I'm being conned or manipulated triggers that instinctive urge to resist that is unpleasant because I cannot shut off. Now, some people are more honest than others, and there are people who say what they think without trying to play tricks or resorting to demagoguery, but political types are usually engaged in partisan debates, which means they are advocates who slant and spin, spin and slant, always looking for new openings and new ways to sneak their point in. The prevaricate and they exaggerate, and I just don't find the process of listening to them entertaining.

What I hate even more than that is commercials. Pure noise pollution -- every bit as bad as hearing the young people's vehicles which go "THUMP-THUMP-TH-THUMP!" as the bass loudspeakers blast everything in a two block radius to kingdom come. (Unlike television, the phenomenon at least provides some emotional satisfaction, as a hearing specialist once explained to me precisely how these idiots are doing physical damage to their interior parts of their ear structure. Tiny fragments actually break off and are gone permanently, which means that about the same time their tattoos start getting blurry and ugly, they won't be able to hear the upper range of a violin. Knowing that they will be punished for their noise eases my irritation somewhat, although I know it is not nice to revel in people's future hearing disabilities.)

Anyway, once a commercial comes on, I'm out of there. Back to whatever commercial-free classic movie might be on, and if I've seen it or it looks dumb, then I've usually had it with the TV set.

But being ruled by these emotional reactions is not wise, and I need to suspend them at election time. Normally I do, but this time I just wasn't in full-blown election mode, and I failed to watch the candidates. Well, I did watch the Corzine-Christie fat insult video -- but all that did was to heighten my loathing of Corzine and increase my sympathy for Christie. As I said,

Like most people, New Jerseyans don't seem to take kindly to personal insults, and I think it proved to be an unforgivable error for Corzine to have ridiculed his opponent's personal appearance. (If I lived in NJ, I'd have voted for Christie for that reason alone.)

What I completely missed because of my TV-phobia was a chance to evaluate the television styles of the two candidates running for NY-23.

First, here's Ann Althouse, quoting one of her commenters:

We have been inundated with TV commercials here. On TV, Hoffman comes across as exceedingly weird, skinny and overeager with googly eyes, bright yellow teeth, and an odd, halting way of speaking.

He kept repeating a slogan that he was a common-sense Reagan conservative and common sense isn't so common any more. It got annoying.

Owens, by contrast, is big and rugged-looking. He's an Air Force veteran and he has that military solidity, calm and self-possession.

He seems like a country guy, and this is a rural district. He presented himself as a centrist. On the human level, Owens is the kind of person voters around here feel comfortable with. Hoffman's not. Neither was Scozzafava.

What is he like?

That is not something to be found on a platform at a web site. The guy in question -- Doug Hoffman -- said he was like Reagan. But -- and this is a very important but --

What was Reagan like?

He was more than his platform. The man was so affable and charming that his worst enemies were disarmed, and he was one of the most personally likable politicians this country has ever known. Not only that, his long background as a Hollywood and television star gave him such command over the media that all he needed to do to turn the tables on his opponents was to manage to get in front of a camera. This is no exaggeration; I saw it at press conferences. He could get the press to laugh at each other even when the questions were considered serious and damning.

I hope I will be forgiven for this digression, but I remembered and found a link to one such instance -- in which Reagan had been supposedly "cornered" by the Grand Dame of the White House Press Corps, Sarah McClendon. (A woman so respected as a left-wing feminist icon that she got away with being "an ardent supporter of the Confederate Memorial Association and continue[d] to serve on its board.")

Like the testosteronized female pit bull McClendon was, she really had him by the balls -- or so everyone thought at the time. But that damnably affable Reagan turned the tables on her, first by a self-deprecating comment about his own age, and then saying that if the obsessive questioning continued, the press conference would have to be given an R rating:

Sarah [Sarah McClendon, McClendon News Service]?

Legal Equity for Women

Q. Sir, you have a report before you that was given to you from the Justice Department. It shows the discriminations that actually exist on the books in Federal agencies and departments against women. Now, you're committed to take care of legal equity for women, and this report has not been made public. Would you please let us see it, and will you do something about it?

The President. It hasn't reached me yet.

Q. Yes, sir, it did. It came to you in the Cabinet meeting, and you admitted at your last press conference that you had it. And I have checked this out thoroughly -- [laughter] -- yes, sir. It came from Assistant Secretary --

The President. Don't tell me I'm losing my memory. [Laughter] Well, Sarah, let me tell you this. First of all, I don't know of any administration that in the first 16 months that it was here placed as many women -- certainly not the last administration --

Q. Sir, that's fine, that's fine.

The President. -- in high positions, a great number of them requiring confirmation. And that is continuing along that line, and that has a task force now -- in the Justice Department there is a task force that is working on this very question.

Q. You've got it; you've got part of it; you've got the first quarter of it. It was given to you at the Cabinet meeting by Brad Reynolds [William Bradford Reynolds, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice] and it says that there's been a lot of sex--harassment of women-- [laughter] .

The President. Harassment? [Laughter]

Q. Sir, I suggest you look into that. He talked about it at the Cabinet meeting. He was there.

The President. Now, Sarah, just a minute here with the discussion, or we'll be getting an R rating. [Laughter]

I only wish I had the video. And I say that as someone who hates television. Reagan never disappointed people who saw the medium as a form of entertainment -- not even if they hated his politics (which I did -- and on culture war issues, still do).

I realize that expecting ordinary politicians to have Ronald Reagan's media skills is unreasonable, whether the politician is Doug Hoffman or anyone else. But here's the problem with Doug Hoffman.

Seen on television, this man who says he's like Reagan is as un-Reaganlike as it's possible to get.

Seriously, when forced myself to watch him -- for the first time yesterday, when it was too late -- I was horrified.

So was Oregon Guy, whose discussion of the following video raises some very unpleasant issues, including the possibility of Asperger's Syndrome.

There he sits, uncomfortably sandwiched between the Thompsons, almost as if they're hoping to hide him in plain sight. The guy has so little charm that in comparison to Reagan he's like a lobotomy patient who can only recite from a script. Might Hoffman's personality have factored into the original decision not to select him as a candidate?

Anyway, I found myself wincing in embarrassment. I don't even want to watch a video of his opponent. That Hoffman did as well as he did despite his appallingly bad television personality truly shows that the level of wrath that so many people have towards incumbents is so high they'll overlook almost anything.

This is all easy for me to say now that the election is over and Hoffman has lost. Had I made these observations last week, I might have been seen as a biased, foot-dragging naysayer, as someone who refuses to "get with the program."

(Probably another reason I can't stand the TV. All those people, all trying to make me "get with the program." Whatever the program is....)

The lady, Jessica Corry, was a press secretary for a Republican Senator.

Here is some more information on her.

She and her husband have a few words to say on Huffington Post.

While leaders from both major political parties whisper privately about the insanity of the drug war, they decline to take a rational public position in support of legalization or decriminalization. Instead, they continue to cater to an ill-conceived misunderstanding of what their respective constituencies believe our marijuana policies should be.

Democrats, ever fearful of appearing soft on crime, calculate that they will have nothing to gain by supporting legalization. Instead, they throw scraps of sentencing reform out in an effort to silent those most passionately calling for change. Republicans, meanwhile, fear angering a socially conservative base of voters all too eager to forget its beer-bonging college days.

What is her game plan for bringing Republicans on board?

...Corry, who does not smoke pot, is trying to organize Republican women around the cause. So far, she has commitments from 20 fellow Coloradoans, most of them lawyers, like Corry. Her husband, also an attorney, represents medical marijuana users.

Corry's arguments focus not only on the inhumanity of further punishing sick people who seek relief through pot, but also on protecting her own children should they decide to try marijuana someday. There's nothing like imagining one's own children as "criminals" to put irrational laws in perspective.

Corry is hardly alone and, in fact, may be part of a "toking point." (Is there a drug yet for "Tipping Point Fatigue"?) In its October issue, Marie Claire magazine featured "Stiletto Stoners" about accomplished career women who prefer to relax with pot. A September Fortune cover story, "Is Pot Already Legal?" examined the issue. In April, former (2006) Miss New Jersey, Georgine DiMaria, outed herself as a stealth marijuana user to treat her asthma.

States' rights and conservatism are old friends - except when they're not. While many Republicans nurse a libertarian streak, the party has been selective in its support of federalist principles.

Let me just say this. Med pot consistently polls in the 55% to 65% range. In Maine it just garnered 58% in a referendum to make medical marijuana growing and SALES legal. What are you waiting for Republicans? The votes are there for the taking.

Want to grow your own where it is legal? This should help:

Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible

Let me add that Jessica talks about the safety of marijuana. Here is a book on the subject:

Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?

Here is a video made in Israel that is short and funny. It shows a guy drinking and getting belligerent and who do the police arrest? The pot smoker. Sorry no English subtitles. One thing that is amusing in an ugly sort of way is that the one minute clip represents something that is unfortunately nearly universal.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Power and Control

An animal rights nut I am not. Quite the opposite, in fact. However, I do think animals have a right not to be treated cruelly, and while it might be another example of my less than perfect libertarianism, I have no problem in making it a crime for human beings to torture animals. I would remind people who have philosophical problems with this to keep in mind that people who torture animals have a demonstrated tendency to be psychopaths, and are likely to be very dangerous to humans, so a good case can be made that locking them up is not just for the animals' sake.

A case I read about today involved a sicko who raped a 21 year old horse:

Vereen was arrested in July after Barbara Kenley caught him entering the barn at Lazy B Stables in Longs, about 20 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach. She had been staking out the stable for more than a week after setting up a surveillance camera and videotaping Vereen's assault on her 21-year-old horse named Sugar.

Kenley said she became suspicious because her horse was acting strange and getting infections, and she noticed things were moved around the barn and dirt was piled up near the horse's stall.

It wasn't the first time she'd caught Vereen. In late 2007, Kenley found him asleep in the hay after assaulting her horse. For that offense, he also pleaded guilty to buggery, received probation and had to register as a sex offender.

On Wednesday, the judge sentenced Vereen to five years in prison, but he will only have to serve three years behind bars as long as he successfully completes two years of probation. Vereen also was ordered to undergo additional mental treatment after he gets out of prison and was told to stay away from Kenley's stable.

But if we contrast his crime and punishment with that of Michael Vick, there are huge disparities that I think are worth examining. What Vick did went far, far beyond sexual penetration, and unlike Sugar the horse, Vick's dogs died indescribably agonizing deaths -- not from fighting, but from the sadistic and gratuitous "punishments" inflicted on them:

Most people are aware that Michael Vick was "convicted of dog fighting." They know he went to prison, and they've also probably seen the news stories, including a moving Sports Illustrated cover story, about the Vick dogs that were rescued and rehabilitated after being seized from his Bad Newz Kennels.

But that's only part of the story.

"What Michael Vick did was not just dog fighting," said Marthina McClay of Our Pack, a pit bull rescue group in Santa Clara, and the owner of one of the Vick dogs, Leo. "It went so far beyond that, and most people who defend him are uninformed. They don't really realize what Michael Vick did."

If you're one of the people McClay is talking about, let me invite you into Donna Reynolds' nightmare.

Reynolds is the co-founder of Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls (BAD RAP), an East Bay organization with a national reputation for rescuing and rehabilitating pit bulls. They rehabbed and cared for many of the dogs seized from Vick's Bad Newz Kennels after his arrest in April of 2007.

She's definitely not what you'd call a fragile flower, and she's been working with ex-fighting pits for longer than a lot of the people reading this have been out of kindergarten. It's fair to say she's seen the worst things that people can do to dogs, but there's still a story she can't get out of her mind.

It was a sweltering day in September of 2007, and Reynolds was in Virginia to evaluate the 49 pit bulls found alive on Vicks' property. A federal agent who had been at the scene when the property was searched was driving her to the various facilities holding the dogs, and they got to talking about what the investigation had turned up.

"The details that got to me then and stay with me today involve the swimming pool that was used to kill some of the dogs," Reynolds wrote on her blog. "Jumper cables were clipped onto the ears of underperforming dogs, then, just like with a car, the cables were connected to the terminals of car batteries before lifting and tossing the shamed dogs into the water."

She continued, "We don't know how many suffered this premeditated murder, but the damage to the pool walls tells a story. It seems that while they were scrambling to escape, they scratched and clawed at the pool liner and bit at the dented aluminum sides like a hungry dog on a tin can.

"I wear some pretty thick skin during our work with dogs, but I can't shake my minds-eye image of a little black dog splashing frantically in bloody water ... screaming in pain and terror ... brown eyes saucer wide and tiny black white-toed feet clawing at anything, desperate to get a hold. This death did not come quickly. The rescuer in me keeps trying to think of a way to go back in time and somehow stop this torture and pull the little dog to safety. I think I'll be looking for ways to pull that dog out for the rest of my life."

So what's with the disparity in punishment? What happened to the horse was wrong, but sexual penetration does not even come close to having jumper cables put on your ear and being electrocuted while slowly drowning in a swimming pool. Screwing someone's horse is sick, but what happened to Vick's dogs was much sicker (at least, by any logical standard).

Might it have something to do with Vick being a rich celebrity? Or am I wrong about what is considered more sick? Is there something in the sexual nature of the crime against the horse that makes it "worse" even though the horse recovered? Surely a sexually violated horse would not trade places with a fatally tortured dog.

And yet, I can't help wondering whether Vick might have been treated differently had he been caught screwing a horse instead of torturing dogs. I'm not so much talking about sentencing, but would he be welcomed back into the NFL as he is now? Would they just be saying, "Come on, the dude paid his debt to society" as they are now?

Surely, screwing a horse is not more immoral than torturing dogs to death.

Or is there something I am missing?

MORE: Commenting on Ann Althouse's post about the horse screwing conviction, Glenn Reynolds notes a distinction I missed -- that this was someone else's horse and not the man's own horse. (That might make a difference to the horse, too.)

Is it a factor that Vick was torturing his own dogs as opposed to someone else's?

I don't know, but I still think what he did was far worse than having sex with a horse, and what I can't figure out is why society doesn't seem to think so. If (as one commenter pointed out), sex is something over which we generally have less control than other things, that would seem to be a mitigating factor.

And I just can't shake my suspicion that the many people who think it's just fine for Michael Vick to deliver morally uplifting lectures to children would feel differently had he been convicted of horse screwing, and while I don't understand it, I think it has something to do with the way sex is viewed. It is considered "worse" than brutal violence.

It strikes me that running for office is an inherently bothersome (if not annoying) thing to do -- both to yourself and to other people. I suspect that this is why people who want to leave people alone tend not to run for office.

It also might explain why the people who are running for office often tend to be precisely the types of people who don't want to leave other people alone. And when they get elected, you can depend on them not to leave you alone.

So how about someone running on a platform of "VOTE FOR ME AND I WILL LEAVE YOU ALONE!" Sounds pretty lame, doesn't it? The people who vote might even wonder whether a candidate with such a self-canceling platform was out of his freaking mind. So maybe a better slogan would be "VOTE FOR ME AND I WILL FIGHT THE PEOPLE WHO WON'T LEAVE YOU ALONE!" (Except no one would believe it, as experience has taught them that people who run for office almost never have truly idealistic or altruistic agendas.)

I think there are a lot of people out there who want to be left alone, and who really do try to vote accordingly. In many cases, whoever seems to the more reasonable candidate is the one who wins. Unless people are fed up. Then it becomes "THROW THE BUMS OUT!" The problem is, throwing out Bum A can only be accomplished by replacing him with Bum B. Not voting means having no say on the bums at all, even if you think that they should all be thrown out on general principle.

The fact is, government has not gotten less intrusive over the years. It has grown ever larger, ever more malignant, ever more unconstitutional, ever more wasteful, ever more vengeful, and ever more eager to not leave anyone alone. Voting in the Republicans has never really worked as a solution, and now it's become clear to many voters that replacing Republicans with Democrats is even worse than replacing Democrats with Republicans.

Voting is when people who want to be left alone are forced to choose between candidates to whom the idea of leaving people alone is anathema, and who only disagree on whom they plan to leave alone. It's like having to vote for a crime boss by selecting between two criminals, one of whom promises to steal only jewelry from houses with wood siding (on a platform of "spreading the wealth") and another who promises to steal only electronic appliances from houses with brick walls (on a platform of "promoting fairness and efficiency"). As to the people who live in houses with both brick walls and wood siding who have both jewelry and electronics, well, fortunately, they belong to a tiny minority. Besides, shouldn't they have thought about it before they asked for trouble? After all, we have to elect someone.

What is a person who wants to be left alone supposed to do? Vote for whoever does the best job of telling them what they want to hear? If that has not worked before, why would it work this time? Isn't that like Einstein's definition of insanity?

If the purpose of voting is to elect people to government, and if the purpose of government is not to leave people alone, then I think a related form of insanity is to imagine that people running for the express purpose of not leaving you alone somehow will.

As a commenter recently accused libertarians of being like anarchists,
let me say that I do not advocate anarchy. However, I do advocate imposing the Constitution on the government rather than imposing the government on the Constitution (as has been happening since around 1914 or so).

But such chatter about the Constitution is silly, because the Government has long superseded it -- to the point where anyone taking the constitutional literally has become an anarchist for all practical purposes. In fact, in terms of today's federal government, constitutional literalism can be seen as nihilism. You might be free to talk that way in blog posts, but if you tried running for office on such a platform, you'd never get the endorsement of either major party. I suppose you might be able to wangle a spot on the Libertarian Party ticket, but you'd be stuck having to run as a kook. However, you could promise honestly to leave people alone, and you could even mean it, but it wouldn't mean much. Because the people who want to be left alone want to be left alone by real candidates -- people who are serious about running for the job of not leaving them alone!

UPDATE: Some advice to the Republicans from our friends across the sea at Samizdata:

...the Republicans need to rediscover the "leave me alone" agenda of limited government, low taxes, tight spending and free trade. And they need to rediscover it convincingly, and learn the lessons of George W. Bush's terrible error of talking the free market talk while doing the exact opposite. The GOP also needs to remember that being in favour of small government is not just about economics, either.

Let's face it, neither constitutional literalism nor libertarianism offers many employment opportunities for the think tank policy wonks, and the political reality is that the many people it takes to put someone in office expect to be rewarded for their efforts.

Maine has voted against legalizing gay marriage. And of course cultural conservatives are crowing. Or at least greatly relieved if you can believe the pictures. The final tally is not in but the numbers are running about 53 to 47 against.

But Maine also voted on medical marijuana. And the results there are a little different.

Mainers who use marijuana to relieve the symptoms of certain medical conditions will have easier access to the drug after voters approved Question 5 on Tuesday's statewide referendum ballot.

With 86 percent of precincts reporting at about 1:04 a.m. Wednesday, the measure was winning 58.61 percent to 41.39 percent.

Statewide, the number of votes was 293,694 in favor to 207,419 opposed.

The measure eases access to marijuana for individuals with certain medical conditions. It expands the list of qualifying medical conditions, creates a state-regulated registry of qualified users, and allows for a statewide system of storefront distribution centers.

While 13 states permit medical use of marijuana, only Rhode Island and New Mexico have similar dispensary provisions, according to the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. The national organization on Tuesday night called the Maine vote "a dramatic step forward."

Another interesting stat. As of this post there are 29 comments on the med pot story and 759 on the gay marriage story. Which more or less says that Medical Marijuana is a non-issue for voters. Now if only politicians could get that message. Especially the crooks in DC.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Power and Control

I'm having a little discussion with a commenter at The Other McCain about abortion. I know more than a few social conservatives read this blog so maybe they can help me out. Here is the comment I was replying to:

The Indentured Servant Girl said...

M. Simon: women were not, and would not be charged with murder for procuring an abortion. It is the doctors that the law goes after.

You mean the women are not at least accomplices in premeditated murder? Then abortion is not really murder is it?

Suppose there is no doctor? Just a black market RU-485 pill? Or ergot? Or oxytocin? Or a heavy dose of birth control pills? Still not murder?

It would be really nice to see a person with real conviction arguing that abortion is murder. I have yet to find one.

The question for me is enforcement. How intrusive will the government have to get to make it work? Weekly pregnancy tests? (the Drug War precedent) And of course with new technology coming on line - maybe electronic sniffers to look for changes in the body? Then every miscarriage becomes a murder investigation.

Wouldn't it be safer for your liberties to keep government out of it and just convince women not to have an abortion?

So is abortion premeditated murder or not?

Well maybe pregnant women are not in their right mind. So I could see that as an out. Of course that argues that pregnant women ought not be allowed to vote. Maybe menstruating women too. In fact with the monthly hormone roller coaster ride I can see a lot of things women in their child bearing years should be denied the opportunity to do. You know how some women get PMS? We need laws to protect us from those she devils.

Or maybe the government should just stay out of reproduction all together. It might just wind up another expensive boondoggle like the Drug War.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

On the issue of gay marriage, I have always been skeptical about state involvement. I realize my position is hardly the conventional libertarian one, but I have long had misgivings, and I vacillate between sympathy towards those of good will on both sides and general apathy. Analyzed in terms of freedom, I could almost go either way. However, I find myself easily irritated by the shrill tactics of activists, and I don't like political harangues. What this means is that when gay activists throw hissy fits, they not only fail to persuade me, they actually make me less sympathetic to their cause, and more sympathetic to the cause of the people who just want to be left alone. Perhaps that's because I'm a live-and-let-live person who (in an ideal world) would like to be left alone.

How I can be that way and also be a daily political blogger is one among many of the endless contradictions that inspire my blogging.

Here's what I am intrigued by today. When I woke up, I thought about the last thing I wrote last night -- about the evolution of the gay marriage issue from something which had been a joke not long ago into something that came respectably close to winning in Maine:

Frankly, I'm surprised it's this close, and I'd have been amazed if it won. Just a few years ago, the vote could easily have been expected to be 70-30 against gay marriage.

Why is Matt Barber of all people trying so hard to convince me to support gay marriage?

Like I say, I've long been a skeptic, and I can understand the arguments on both sides, but I worry that it could be a back door for creeping statism -- government getting into the very bedrooms where it supposedly did not belong.

But the way Barber frames the gay marriage issue, he makes it very difficult for me to sit on the sidelines, whether in the spirit of laissez faire or in the spirit of old-fashioned compromise. He sees it as a battle involving the "forced affirmation of homosexuality" in which brave truth tellers combat radical deviancy:

This is an historic battle for the minds and souls of our children - for our very culture. The mealy-mouthed approach must end. This is not just about 'marriage.' It has everything to do with forced affirmation of homosexuality - under penalty of law. Indeed everyone who fought hard to defend marriage in Maine is to be congratulated, but if it weren't for a brave group of truth tellers - Paul Madore, Peter LaBarbera and Brian Camenker - who came to Maine in the final hour to hold a press conference and address the pink elephant in the room - homosexual deviancy and the radical 'gay' agenda - counterfeit marriage might have prevailed."

I don't know, but my advice to the gay activists would be to send money to Barber and La Barbera and the boys, because I suspect that the more they scream, the more the ordinary people who want to be left alone will be inclined to vote against them.

And what the gay activists need to do instead of throwing their usual hissy fits is absolutely nothing. Go indoors, go on vacation, and let the straight people be convinced by Matt Barber, who is so convincing that he's making me feel like going wobbly.

But I won't. Because even though I might be wrong in my gay marriage skepticism, I don't want it said that Matt Barber changed my mind.

MORE: While it didn't attract much attention, it just so happens that the top vote-getter in Houston's mayoral race was gay, and Michael Petrelis argues that the key to winning is to avoid support from what he terms "Gay Inc.":

The immediate lesson I saw from tonight, other than the boring old one of Gay Inc really knows how to lose these things, was that if you want to be a top vote-getter, avoid lots of public backing from or be seen as the darling of the HRC/NGLTF/GLAAD/Gill Action/DNC axis.

[...]

Obviously, Parker is doing something very right, and in Texas, of all places, and coming out on top, without any overt push from Gay Inc that I am aware of. To win the run-off, it's best to continue to keep our national orgs far, far away.

While I don't intend to give advice to the other "side" in the gay marriage debate, I like Petrelis's characterization of the HRC/NGLTF/GLAAD/Gill Action/DNC axis as "Gay Inc." And I think the Barber/LaBarbera/Camenker/AFT axis people have probably earned the title of "Anti-Gay Inc."

I think that when seen together (and what would they be without each other?) "Gay Inc." and "Anti-Gay Inc." represent another axis of sorts -- an axis of axes to grind.

Working together to build a more contentious world.

AFTERTHOUGHT: I may not have been making myself clear enough, but the process I describe is called collusion, and I think Gay Inc. and Anti-Gay Inc. provide a classic illustration of it. They need each other badly, because whether they will admit it or not, both are working toward a common goal --

the continued stigmatization of a minority for political ends.

Both sides need this stigma, and both sides want being gay to matter, but for different political purposes.

Without the stigma, who on earth would care about gay identity politics?

First off. I got my numbers from Obama/Keyes and Kerry/Bush.

So let us start with the numbers. Also let me add that this is going to be somewhat simplistic since I did not look at exit polls to determine who did what and why. It should give some idea of what went on though. Not counting vote fraud.

Obama 3,597,456
Keyes 1,390,690

Total 4,988,146

===

Kerry 2,891,550
GBush 2,345,946

Total 5,237,946

Let me start with the undervote. 249,800 more people (probably Republicans just to make things simple) voted in the Kerry/Bush (K/B) race than in the Obama/Keyes (O/K) race. Probably Republicans who couldn't stand either candidate.

So let us see how that looks for O/K. If we subtract Kerry from Obama we get 705,906. That means (roughly) that 705,906 Republican voters voted for the Communist over the Socon. I was one of them. It was a protest vote by me against the R party for putting a socon on the ballot who was running on a Theocon platform.

So am I against socons? NO. I support Sarah Palin nationally and Doug Hoffman in NY23. Why? Hoffman is running on a strictly fiscal responsibility platform with NO Culture War issues. And Sarah Palin Governed Alaska on a fiscal responsibility/anti-corruption platform.

So what about the Theocons? The American Taliban is rather apt. Not in terms of the culture they want to enforce but in the fact that they want to enforce culture.

My attitude? On social issues the socons should lead by example not government force. The persuasion of Jesus is better than the sword of Rome. If you are trying to get votes.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

Libertarian Republican reports.

Libertarian Republican has just learned that 73 elected officials on the county level throughout Texas have just switched, are in the process of switching, and will be switching by the end of the week, from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party. The news comes to us from Bryan Preston, Communications Director for the Republican Party of Texas out of Austin.

"Obama's name is becoming poison here in Texas."

So what about these new Republicans? Opportunists. Still. It does tell us where the opportunity lies. At least in Texas.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

In what seems a mini referendum on government economic policies, the Democrats lost big in Virginia, and in New Jersey Governor Corzine lost to Chris Christie, despite the personal intervention of President Barack Obama in both races. Like most people, New Jerseyans don't seem to take kindly to personal insults, and I think it proved to be an unforgivable error for Corzine to have ridiculed his opponent's personal appearance. (If I lived in NJ, I'd have voted for Christie for that reason alone.)

As to the race which so many people are watching (NY-23), in what is described as "not good news for political junkies," there may not be final results any time soon because of scanner problems:

This is not good news for political junkies hoping to get a winner in New York's 23rd Congressional District before bedtime: There are voting machine problems in St. Lawrence County, one of the more populous areas in the district.

The Watertown Daily Times says there are problems with the new scanners that read the ballots in the towns of Louisville, Waddington, Rossie and Clare.

"We may not have results from those towns tonight," St. Lawrence County Board of Elections Deputy Commissioner Thomas Nichols told the paper.

St. Lawrence County accounted for 41,000 votes -- about 17% of the total -- in the 2008 congressional election.

Public opinion polls suggested that tonight's race between Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman and Democrat Bill Owens would be close. The polls closed at 9 p.m. ET in New York.

So in terms of the big nationally watched elections, there's really nothing for me to report or "live blog" -- other than to remark the obvious fact that if this is a test of the national mood, the Democrats are not holding up well.

As to social issues, I think it's worth noting that so far, this appears to have been a good night for gay rights. According to John Aravosis, a gay rights ordinance in Kalamazoo, Michigan is passing:

...65 percent of Kalamazoo voters have approved Ordinance 1856 by a vote of 6,463 to 3,527, adding protections for gay and transgender people to the city's nondiscrimination ordinance.

Voters had to decide whether to repeal or affirm a state law that would allow gay couples to wed. The law was passed by the Legislature in May but never took effect because of a petition drive by conservatives.

Early returns showed a close contest, as had been forecast. With 70 of 608 precincts reporting, the gay-marriage side had 53 percent to 47 percent for the other side.

A vote to uphold the law would mark the first time that the electorate in any state endorsed gay marriage. That could energize activists nationwide and blunt conservative claims that same-sex marriage is being foisted on states by judges or lawmakers over the will of the public.

It's a mixed bag, but if I had to venture an interpretation based on what I've seen so far, I'd say things are looking pretty good for economic and social laissez faire.

MORE: The Ann Arbor measure to increase property taxes I blogged about earlier is failing by a fairly wide margin.

Even in ultra liberal Ann Arbor, voters don't like tax increases.

Democrats take note!

AND MORE: According to the Washington Examiner, Owens is beating Hoffman in NY-23:

In New York's 23rd Congressional District, Democrat Bill Owens had a substantial lead over Conservative Doug Hoffman.

...in NY-23, Democrat Bill Owens is peforming a lot better than expected. Thirty-one percent of precincts are reporting and he's leading Conservative Doug Hoffman, 51.1 percent to 43.9 percent.

This despite Monday's Siena poll that found Hoffman leading by five percent with 18 percent undecided.

Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, whose name is still on the ballot despite the fact that she ended her campaign last Saturday and threw her support to Owens Sunday, is receiving 5 percent of the vote.

The mood here at the Hotel Saranac is grim - at best. There's a lot of muttering going on and worried phone calls being placed.

Hmmm...

Perhaps the voters had had it with all the national hype, and finally decided they'd rather just vote for a Democrat who said he was a Democrat rather than be dragged against their will into a much-hyped "referendum" on a "bloody Republican civil war" they never asked to fight.

If you think about it, it is a way of voting against the incumbency. (The outside media incumbency, that is...)

Maybe even an act of leave-us-the-hell-alone laissez faire.

MORE: Same sex marriage now appears to be losing in Maine:

With 69 percent of precincts reporting, roughly 51.8 percent of voters had voted in favor of rejecting the same-sex marriage law passed by the Legislature earlier this spring. Roughly 48.2 percent of voters had voted no on Question 1.

CORRECTION (11/04/09): I was mistaken in last night's analysis of the Ann Arbor election results. While WWISD PROPOSAL I (the property tax increase) did in fact fail, it failed county-wide, but appears that a majority of Ann Arbor voters favored it. (I have not done the totals, but I can see that it only lost in one precinct, and lost among the absentee voters.)

AND MORE: I am glad to see I am not alone in my thoughts about what might have happened in NY-23. Here's Don Surber:

In choosing Democrat Bill Owens over Conservative Doug Hoffman, perhaps the people of the district were telling outsiders to butt out.

AND EVEN MORE: Speaking of not being alone in my thoughts, don't miss Roger L. Simon's analysis!

In a year where the GOP racked up a 20% margin in Virginia and coasted easily in Jersey, a state in which Obama romped in '08 by 16%, what was the problem?

Well... I might as well say it... social conservatism. America is a fiscally conservative country - now perhaps more than ever, and with much justification - but not a socially conservative one. No, I don't mean to say it's socially liberal. It's not. It's socially laissez-faire (just as its mostly fiscally laissez-faire). Whether we're pro-choice, pro-life or whatever we are, most of us want the government out of our bedrooms, just as we want it out of our wallets.

Hoffman's capital-C Conservative campaign, however, tried to separate itself from the majority parties by making a big deal of the social issues. He was all upset that Scozzafava was pro-gay marriage, seemingly as upset as he was with her support for the stimulus plan. He projected the image of a bluenose in a world that increasingly doesn't want to hear about these things. Hoffman's is a selective vision of the nanny state - you can nanny about some things but not about others. I suspect America deeply dislikes nannying about anything.

However, I think the opponents of laissez faire will simply gear up for the next battle.

As today is Election Day, I thought that as a public service message, I'd remind everyone to vote.

I just did, and the only issue of any importance here in Ann Arbor is a proposal for a double digit property tax increase. Ann Arbor already has the highest property taxes in the state, but that's not enough for the tax guzzling bureaucrats, who say they need more money for the schools.

I voted NO, but only because there wasn't a choice that said "HELL NO!"

In marked contrast to last November (when it took me two hours to vote) the polls were nearly empty today. Whether that means that raising taxes is not a hot-button issue, I don't know. Certainly I saw no Tea Party anti-tax demonstrators anywhere, but that doesn't mean there isn't any opposition to the tax millage. There is, but as Ann Arbor is a very left wing town, opposition to tax hikes is marketed via a cleverly packaged attack on Bush. No, I am not kidding:

Several groups have organized to defeat the millage, but taking the lead is the Citizens for Responsible School Spending, spearheaded by former AAPS board member Kathy Griswold and Ted Annis, a technology entrepreneur who's on the board of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority.

"Fear-mongering"

Speaking to The Chronicle just before a meeting of CRSS on Sunday afternoon, Griswold characterizes the rhetoric of millage advocates as misleading and fear-mongering, likening it to the tactics that former president George W. Bush used to drum up support for the war in Iraq. She says the per-pupil amounts are misleading, too, and that per-pupil funding for AAPS is much higher - over $12,000 per pupil, not the $9,723 figure that's quoted by the district. She calculates that amount by taking the district's most recent audited financials (from the 2007-08 fiscal year) with general fund revenues of $192 million, dividing that by the number of students in the district, and adding another $1,500 per pupil from revenues of the sinking fund and bond millages.

I'm glad I read that after I voted, though. Because, over the years I became so conditioned by years of kneejerk anti-Bush attacks that I might have been tricked into voting for the millage by mistake!

Instead, I voted against the millage without knowing that I was actually voting against Bush's misleading, fear mongering tactics!

Hope I did the right thing.

These days, you have to be careful!

The combination of Gaia worship, agitprop and rent-seeking pays very well indeed.

So, given that Gore is reaping huge rewards, doesn't this call into question just a teensy bit the objectivity of his business partner James Hansen, the man NASA has administering the numbers telling us how much the climate is allegedly warming (when he's not busy comparing coal trains to Auschwitz or getting arrested outside power plants)?

I mean, if warmies can get upset at a mere $10,000 "blood money" in funding for anti-AGW research, how much outrage is a billion dollars worth?

Quoth the Goracle:

"Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?" Mr. Gore said. "I am proud of it. I am proud of it."

UPDATE: You thought I was kidding about the religious angle, didn't you?

Al's Gore's much-anticipated sequel to An Inconvenent Truth is published today, with an admission that facts alone will not persuade Americans to act on global warming and that appealing to their spiritual side is the way forward.

Glenn Reynolds raises the unsettling question of whether there's a bad driving gene. I have long suspected there's some explanation along such lines, but it now appears that there's some scientific evidence for it:

People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it - and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant.

"These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away," said Dr. Steven Cramer, neurology associate professor and senior author of the study published recently in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

We are not all as well adapted genetically to industrialized civilization. This one gene, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), is just one of many genes where we differ from each other in our ability to handle the many products and environmental niches we've created with industrialization. Some people can't handle beer or cocaine or addictive drugs. Some other people can't handle the sleep deprivation made easier by Thomas Edison's invention of the light bulb. Still others can't handle easy access to online gambling or online porn.

But there is no right to drive. So, if we assume the bad driving gene goes along with a genetic inability to "handle the many products and environmental niches we've created with industrialization," it strikes me as commonsensical that the people with the bad driving gene ought to have the simple human decency not to compound their predicament by using cell phones while driving.

However, I think it is an undeniable fact that there are some people who can. As I discussed in an earlier post (prompted by my frustration over the usual idiots who are unable to talk on a cell phone while driving) even at the height of the 1970s CB radio craze, no one ever proposed banning the use of CB radios by drivers, and I think this was because their users tended to be more mechanically inclined people. Remember, the CB radios began with truck drivers, who hold special commercial drivers licenses, and for them, talking while driving just goes with the turf. It spread from them to those drivers who so badly wanted to communicate that they would actually go out and buy a CB radio, a special antenna, and (at least in the early stages) actually get an FCC license. In those days, cell phones ("car phones") were big, bulky, permanently-wired affairs, not the sort of thing anyone could carry around, and expensive to use. Eventually they made CB radios revert to something only truckers who wanted to talk to other truckers would want.

The point is, everyone has a cell phone now, even kids who are too young to drive. Here in the heavy student areas of Ann Arbor, I've noticed that some young people are incapable of even walking safely while using their phones. I have had them walk right in front of me, eyes riveted to tiny screens while I slam on the brakes to avoid hitting them.

Things have gotten to the point where in almost every situation where I'm amazed and baffled by the degree of utter incompetence behind the wheel, it turns out that the driver is lost in some sort of mental process while using a cell phone. At this point, calling them "cell phones" has become less than accurate. They are multitasking gadgets that do everything including taking pictures, checking and sending email, text messages, and of course, playing whatever vast collection of music has been stored in them by the user, who has often compounded his or her visual awareness problem by blocking all incoming sounds with headphones!!

Like I say, it's bad enough when they walk in front of you, but when they're behind the wheel, it's scary. And some of them are young women with the additional distraction of children, driving vehicles so huge that they are unaware of how much space surrounds them.

Should there be laws?

Based on what? Abilities? Or common sense?

That's the problem. I try not to do things beyond my mechanical competence, and it strikes me that catching up with my email while blasting music into my ears while walking into city traffic (much less while driving) is not wise. Yet passing a law to stop people from doing such things reduces us all to the idiot level. I don't want to live in a vast national kindergarten.

But in a free society, how is the law to distinguish between those who have this "ability to handle the many products and environmental niches we've created with industrialization" gene and those who don't? I worry that technological advances might be accelerating a social divergence which isn't really being acknowledged as it should. (Even though the idea of Future Shock is decades old.) If some people are genetically more capable of being adults, what are the implications?

Should we just let Darwin sort it out? Or would that be antisocial? I'd hate to think that not wanting to live in a national kindergarten is antisocial.

But on the bright side, the regulations that come on the heels of technology might a bit like the taxes that come on the heels of wealth. There would be no regulations on technology without the technology to regulate....

Nah, scratch that! There's already a movement to regulate certain kinds of technology before it happens.

At this rate, I will never be allowed to have sex with a robot.

I'm having a long conversation about the future of the Republican Party at The Other McCain. There is a lot of back and forth and if you go to the link you can follow the discussion. What I would like to present here is my conclusion. I was replying to a comment by BD.

BD,

Since you don't understand politics let me explain it to you. But first let me say that the Republicans have to get more in line with their fiscal conservative, limited government rhetoric.

But there are other considerations too. The limits of what are possible for a Presidential candidate are the swing voters. How far can a candidate go and attract enough swing voters to win a national election? Or even State wide elections.

One only need look at how social conservatives have destroyed Republican chances in California. Giving the State to Democrats who have destroyed the State. And why has Governor Arnie caved to the Democrat agenda? Well he was not very principled for one. But that is only part of the problem. He has no significant support in the legislature.

I don't see why Republicans can't take that message to heart.

The difficulty is that social conservatism is concentrated in the Southern United States. It may be 40% of the nation but 60 to 80% of that 40% is concentrated in the South. So the votes of social Conservatives are diluted every where else.

That means that outside the South the Party must become more libertarian to attract the swing voters. It is just like they say in the military. You can't win wars if you can't read a map.

And what does that mean overall? A National Party will likely be around 50% libertarian even if their percent of the party is only 30 to 40%.

I'm against big spending RINOs. I favor libertarian Republicans (fiscally conservative, socially liberal, strong on national defence) where only they can win. You know - California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Oregon, Washington, New York, New Jersey, etc. Of course it will vary for Congressmen according to the district they represent. For Statewide offices (Senators, Governors, etc.) it is more important than for some Congressional Districts.

The party national platform should reflect that even if social conservatives are the majority of the party.

That is a basis for a national political party. And from what I can tell so far it is Palin's strategy. She is one very smart lady. She can read a map.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

For entertainment purposes only, I thought I'd juxtapose two radically different opinions on the future of the Democratic Party.

From WSJ's Daniel Henninger in "Why Dems Should Start to Sweat":

...what we are seeing with this massive legislation is that the Democrats in Washington have a bigger problem: Their party is looking so yesterday.

In a world defined by nearly 100,000 iPhone apps, a world of seemingly limitless, self-defined choice, the Democrats are pushing the biggest, fattest, one-size-fits all legislation since 1965. And they brag this will complete the dream Franklin D. Roosevelt had in 1939.

Not only are non-whites a growing share of the electorate and highly likely to vote for Democrats, but both non-whites and whites are increasingly likely to vote for Democrats. Republicans are in deep doo-doo. This idea has been gaining traction over the past year, but it cannot be repeated enough.

I mean, suppose the Democrats are tired (I think they are), and that non-whites prefer the tired politics of the past (which I hope they don't).

To my mind, the latter might suggest that a growing number of Americans are being led instead of thinking for themselves.

That would suck, so I'm going to hope it's wrong.

As a lot of people are sounding off about Frank Rich's latest silly column, I thought I'd chime in.

I don't know whether he's trying to outdo himself in terms of pure buffoonery, but this time, Rich is hell-bent on proving that the conservatives who support Doug Hoffman in the NY-23 race are a bunch of "Stalinists." In a piece titled "The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York," he refers to a "riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war" and a "G.O.P. killing field." And later (after an embarrassing historical mismatch in which he refers to the "Hoffman putsch"), he claims conservatives are "re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode."

It's easy to dismiss this as overwrought political hyperbole, which it is. But like a lot of hyperbole, every little bit adds more incrementally more damage to the ability to communicate. What is happening in NY-23 is democracy from in action and the political process at work. Voters like Doug Hoffman more than they like the dishonorable Dede Scozzafava, and (as appears most likely) more than they like Democrat Bill Owens. That they will elect Hoffman is the antithesis of Stalinism. Stalinism is state terrorism and murder -- directed from the top down. This is peaceful democracy from the ground up, against the tyranny at the top.

And while Frank Rich may not realize it, no one was killed. Despite the "riotous and bloody" civil war, not one single corpse lies on the killing fields of upstate New York.

Words and terms become useless when they're abused this way ("racism" is another example of a word which no longer means anything). My guess is that Rich (in addition to bashing conservatives) doesn't want Stalinism to mean anything.

Yet under Stalinism, more people were killed than under any other "ism" known to man. So, aside from being inaccurate, Rich's analogy trivializes mass murder on a grand scale.

All too easy for me to say. But I may be wrong, for the bloody Stalinist putsch will take place tomorrow, when Doug Hoffman stands poised seize power and murderously overthrow all of those democratically elected Czars.

Would it spoil Frank Rich's fun if I venture that no one will actually be killed?