The Spirit of Independence lives, in Northville, Michigan! (06:50 PM)
As regular readers know, I've been talking about the Tea Parties for some time. So today I decided that it was high time I went to one.
The nearest Fourth of July Tea party event I could find was this one at the Northville Community Park in Northville, Michigan (about a half hour drive from Ann Arbor).
I have no experience in estimating the size of crowds, but I'd say it was a pretty good turnout, at least a couple of thousand people. Here's a very brief video I took:
And some signs and faces in the crowd:
A lot of people are saying that these Tea Parties are organized by political lobbyists or other fat cats. I've been around long enough to spot that sort of thing, and I saw no evidence that this was anything but a true grass roots event. People made and brought their own signs, and they were as genuine and individualistic as the real people, ordinary people who were there. The event did not have any sort of organizational feel that I could discern. Just people who are fed up with high taxation and bureaucracy, and who fear American socialism as much as I.
It was a nice reminder that the spirit of Independence Day lives.
:: Comments left behind ::
The hallucinatory classes (11:25 AM)
A minor story that I found at the Philadelphia Inquirer's web site provides yet another illustration of an increasingly hopeless problem. Police were forced to shoot a "homeless" man whose homelessness was a symptom of his chronic mental illness.
From a call box in the below-ground concourse of the Municipal Services Building, he kept calling - and hanging up.
Calling - and hanging up.
After the 40th time, a police officer was dispatched at 8:25 to see what was going on.
What started as a response to disorderly conduct ended with two police officers fatally shooting the homeless man - the 12th person killed by city police this year.
Police were withholding the identity of the 59-year-old man pending notification of his family, said Sgt. Ray Evers, a police spokesman.
Evers said the man had no identification on him and had to be identified using fingerprints.
Homicide and Internal Affairs units are investigating the shooting. Both officers, whose names were not released, have been on the force for more than 20 years.
After arriving on the scene, a foot-patrol officer was joined by a bike officer. Evers said that as the foot-patrol officer approached the man, he was again using the emergency call box.
"He confronted him, saying, 'What are you doing? You can't do that,' " Evers said.
A security guard inside the municipal building, who did not give her name, said she saw the officers chase the man through a tunnel leading to the concourse.
Once he was outside and near a bench where he often slept, the man pulled out a utility knife.
Evers said the knife was the type used to cut drywall or carpet. "The officer tells him over 50 times to drop the knife," Evers said.
Police said he lunged at the officers. They fired, hitting the man in the torso.
The victim was pronounced dead at Hahnemann University Hospital at 9:02 a.m.
I've seen and had an occasional close encounter with this type of person. They're in a paranoid, hallucinatory and hostile state, and they often seem to be yelling at no one in particular, as if carrying on angry conversations with demons only visible to them. But because they have eyes, they can see other people, and if you get too close to them in a crowded train station, you might find yourself suddenly factoring into their demonology and become a target for an incomprehensible torrent of threatening abuse. Now, the poor guy who does this might only think he is defending himself, and he might see a perfectly harmless citizen as a menacing alien to be engaged in immediate combat by any means necessary (one "homeless" man in New York felt compelled to saw another man's chest open with a nearby contractor's power saw), and then we all wonder "why?" The left pontificates about "housing rights" for the "homeless" (or proposes criminalizing knives) while the right demands crackdowns on crime in the streets. The problem is, this is no more ordinary "crime" than a rabid dog biting someone is a "behavioral problem." It's illness, and it goes untreated because of a twisted interpretation of rights theory on the one hand, and a desire to save money on the other. Yes, mental hospitals are very expensive, and rights theory has made them more so. As a result, the guy who got shot to death in Philadelphia can be (and probably has been) committed for a couple of weeks to get "stabilized" on his meds, then released so that he can start the process of getting un-stabilized all over again. Of course, when they release him, they'll give him a piece of paper (called a "prescription"), and they'll tell him to take it to a pharmacy to have it filled, and take it as directed. (Riiight! And they'll do this with a straight, bureaucratic face -- as if he's no different from a guy who went to a clinic to get treated for strep throat! I say this because I've witnessed it firsthand.)
Hallucinating in public is perfectly OK, and yelling at total strangers is, well, free speech or something. Try calling the cops if a crazed "homeless" man with fire in his eyes calls you Satan and threatens you. Even if you're not laughed at, nothing will be done. Because nothing can be done. They might ask him to move, but only normal people (college drunks and the like, who show up in court and actually pay their fines) are going to be arrested and booked on disorderly conduct charges. Not that I blame the cops. Putting myself in their position, I'd probably do the same thing. As I explained in another post about "homeless" "crime," I saw how the system worked firsthand:
When I served as a Berkeley Police Review Commissioner, I used to hear laments from officers who just didn't know what to do with crazy people when they were the subjects of complaints. Some -- not all -- were called "homeless," and this was reflected on police cititions with the word "NOMAD" appearing as the "address." The cops knew they'd never show up for court, and they didn't want them to. They didn't want crazy filthy homeless people urinating in their nice clean police cars either.
Do I blame them? Hardly.
One time, a homeless man broke into my car, tore open a bag of dog food I'd left inside, ate some dog food, washed it down with engine coolant I had in the back seat, then passed out. I know this because the next morning when I saw a man sitting in my car and angrily told him to get out, he promptly puked all over himself and the front seat -- and after he staggered away I saw the open coolant container and dog food bag along with the mess he'd made. I say this not to engage in mindless homeless-bashing, but to illustrate a simple fact of life: no one wants to deal with mentally ill, dysfunctional people. I'm not sure the problem is that they slip through the cracks so much as it is society's game to ignore them in the hope they'll just go away. Only when they finally do something really serious do they get attention. Until then, there really is no system.
And in Philadelphia, one of them finally did something serious enough to get attention.
Needless to say, the jailers don't want members of the hallucinatory class in jails, and the wardens don't want them in prisons. And obviously, the nice people who run mental hospitals don't want them there.
What should be done about the hallucinatory class? Go on ignoring them by calling them "homeless"? Most citizens -- you know, the decent normal people using the train stations to go to and from work and stuff like that -- pretend they're not there. They hope that if they just ignore them, they won't become targets of their hallucinations.
But what about not seeing something that is clearly there? Isn't that almost hallucinatory behavior? I said almost because the good citizens actually can see these people; they just deliberately avoid seeing them. I don't blame them one bit, as I do the same thing myself. Avert my eyes. I ignore them in the hope that they'll just go away. Not seeing them is a good, common sense way to get around when you have to wait in train and subway stations in the big city.
I realize that they don't belong anywhere -- and that they are not welcome in any of society's nice clean institutions. So they must wander the streets instead while ordinary people are forced to hallucinate them out of existence.
Hallucinating them out of existence may be fine for ordinary people, but is it good social policy?
:: Comments left behind ::
IT seems to me that the problem of the homelss crazy became more manifest in hte late '70's when do-gooders petitioned for their rights to act crazy in public, and to roam freely.
What about the "it feels good, it must be good" crowd who think the chemically-imbalanced shouldn't feel the need to stay on their medication?
Mental illness is a sad affliction, but there are medications and other support systems for those people, but how much can society do to encourage the mentally afflicted to use them.
:: Rob July 4, 2009 03:12 PM
... and how exactly does this navel-gazing over the "hallucinatory class" jibe with this blog's longstanding opinion in favor of legalizing drug use?
Does anyone doubt that the ranks of the hallucinatory homeless will swell if hard drugs are legalized?
If nothing else, the presence of these people in public acts as a warning - the only such message with the emotional punch of much "drugs are cool" media and cultural messages.
:: Ben-David July 4, 2009 03:29 PM
Forty years ago, many of those whom we call "homeless" would have been housed in state mental hospitals. The hope was that de-insitutionalizing these mental health warehouses would occur along with outpatient care and access to medications.
It didn't turn out that way. For one thing, many do not like taking meds,a stance which given some of the side effects of meds, has some validity.
"Free to be you - and me" turned out in their case to be a chimera.
:: Gringo July 4, 2009 05:18 PM
Happy Fourth of July! (09:09 AM)
I complain a lot (probably more than I should -- although that seems to be the nature of blogging), so I like it when I find something that seems worthwhile. As a pragmatic libertarian, I enjoyed Roger L. Simon's Fourth of July thoughts, especially the conclusion:
We should junk the liberal and conservative orthodoxies that have divided - and blinded - us for so long and go back not to Eighteenth Century America, but Nineteenth, to the days of that most American of philosophies - pragmatism. "The pragmatists rejected all forms of absolutism and insisted that all principles be regarded as working hypotheses that must bear fruit in lived experience." Now there's a thought that might brighten even grumpy me on the Fourth of July.
Imagine. Principles as working hypotheses instead of dogmatic restraints.
I like it so much I won't even get into the definition of principles!
Happy Fourth!
:: Comments left behind ::
Friday, July 3, 2009
The eve of what? (11:49 PM)
Sarah Palin has resigned -- on the eve of the Fourth of July, and right in the middle of the reporting of a Republican familyfeud.
It looks like Andrew "I had Trig Palin's Baby" Sullivan and the rest of the Palin haters have caused Sarah Palin to decline to run for a second term as Alaska's Governor.
Because if Simon is right, people will say that Sarah Palin should have stood up to Andrew Sullivan and stayed.
I can describe this move in three words: Stupid, stupid, stupid. And the reason doesn't matter.
She needs more time to run for President? What does she think holding the job is like, time-wise? President Obama could manage to serve as a totally undistinguished Senator while running for the White House; surely Palin could manage to govern half a million people a bit.
She wants to protect her family? Heat, low tolerance, kitchen, stay out of. And again, if she wants to be President, how does she think her family would fare in the White House?
...
No matter the reason, however, Palin made a commitment to the people of Alaska, and she's turning her back on them. Maybe I'm rash in saying this, but I think that makes her unfit for higher office.
It's a shame. But in terms of proximity to 2012, it is only a week closer than the eminently forgettable news of Mark Sanford's adultery.
As the old saying goes, two weeks is a long time in American politics...
Caveat: What follows is based on the notion that Palin will continue her political career, and is setting herself up for a run for the White House in 2012.
1. Start putting her national team together now. Recruit from the best and the brightest of real conservatism.
Maybe, but what is real conservatism? Does it include the paranoid anti-sex wing of the Republican Party, and the WorldNetDaily Birth Certificate Truthers? As a libertarian, I would hope not, but if I were working for Obama, I'd hope so.
(OTOH, it could be argued that the best thing for the libertarians might be to have as little a hand as possible in losing 2012.)
MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, Katie Granju sees the resignation as a shrewd move with no downside, and concludes with this:
Don't underestimate Sarah Palin. Any woman who can calmly stare down David Letterman, without blinking, forcing a humiliating public apology out of a man who routinely makes lesser mortals weep via his withering excoriation is a woman with a plan. A big plan.
You wait and see.
I see her biggest asset as her biggest problem -- what Granju calls her "very enthusiastic and cohesive base: the rightest of right wing Republicans, plus Evangelical Christians."
And what about the paranoid anti-sex wing of the Republican Party, and the WorldNetDaily Birth Certificate Truthers?
Well, at least her performance with Letterman showed that she knows how to handle snakes.
:: Comments left behind ::
Why can't people read? Or why can't reporters report? According to Sarah Palin, she didn't resign because of twitter or plans for the presidency, but because political opponents were wasting her time and the state's money with a barrage of frivolous ethics claims. Staying in would have made her miserable and led to an ineffectual governorship.
It's premature to say that "they" have won. If we can take her at her word, then this was offensive move. The state will still be in Republican hands, but those of someone without a target on his back. They can't come after her any longer through the channels they've been using, and she regain her sanity.
There's sense in what she's said, despite the new stories that gloss over her words and speculate about what's underneath.
:: Dennis July 4, 2009 12:31 AM
This sounds pretty good to me:
But I have given my reasons... no more "politics as usual" and I am taking my fight for what's right - for Alaska - in a new direction.
Now, despite this, I don't want any Alaskan dissuaded from entering politics after seeing this REAL "climate change" that began in August... no, we NEED hardworking, average Americans fighting for what's right! And I will support you because we need YOU and YOU can effect change, and I can too on the outside.
We need those who will respect our Constitution where government's supposed to serve from the BOTTOM UP, not move toward this TOP DOWN big government take-over... but rather, will be protectors of individual rights - who also have enough common sense to acknowledge when conditions have drastically changed and are willing to call an audible and pass the ball when it's time so the team can win! And that is what I'm doing!
I wouldn't count her out. Should she choose to, she will continue to draw crowds and support wherever she goes.
I listened to Mark Levin's podcast, and I think his analysis and comments are pretty accurate.
:: Rob July 4, 2009 09:05 AM
I seem to recall that most Alaskans were rather surprised during the presidential campaign at her church because she had not run nor governed based on any of that stuff. This tells me she isn't a big part of the anti-sex crowd, at least in the way she governs (her followers may be another matter). I wish her well and hope she is successful.
:: andrewdb July 4, 2009 12:07 PM
I think she's great. And while I think some of her followers are nuts, I try not to judge people based on who likes them.
It looks like Andrew "I had Trig Palin's Baby" Sullivan and the rest of the Palin haters have caused Sarah Palin to decline to run for a second term as Alaska's Governor. From Facebook.
Some say things changed for me on August 29th last year - the day John McCain tapped me to be his running-mate - I say others changed.
Let me speak to that for a minute.
Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt. The ethics law I championed became their weapon of choice. Over the past nine months I've been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations - such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporters' questions.
Every one - all 15 of the ethics complaints have been dismissed. We've won! But it hasn't been cheap - the State has wasted THOUSANDS of hours of YOUR time and shelled out some two million of YOUR dollars to respond to "opposition research" - that's money NOT going to fund teachers or troopers - or safer roads. And this political absurdity, the "politics of personal destruction" ... Todd and I are looking at more than half a million dollars in legal bills in order to set the record straight. And what about the people who offer up these silly accusations? It doesn't cost them a dime so they're not going to stop draining public resources - spending other peoples' money in their game.
It's pretty insane - my staff and I spend most of our day dealing with THIS instead of progressing our state now. I know I promised no more "politics as usual," but THIS isn't what anyone had in mind for ALASKA.
Even more interesting is that she is considering resignation from the Governor's Office.
So what is my prediction for her next move? She is going to start running for President of the USA.
The implosion of Andrew Sullivan is now complete. So, a Cousin Jack, along with a consort of like minded MSM fellow travelers, has caused a state governor to put her family ahead of her career.
Even if she decided to run for president, the damage has been done to her personally, and politically.
This effete little fag, who holds himself so high because of debating ability and mastery of the Queens tongue (vicious pun intended) must be positively gloating at her resignation. Or more likely, he's donned the CPAP with a few poppers, and is really celebrating!
I'm no great fan of Sarah Palin. We could have other more qualified people on the national stage. But her personal attributes, her, yes, family values, so expose the emptiness & treason of Sullivan that he just can't stand it. His vendetta against her is pathological.
What perfect justice that the Marxist pol he supported for President is about to allow his deportation. It doesn't get better than this.
:: Frank July 4, 2009 12:26 AM
Support your local (non-AFA) Tea Party (08:54 PM)
I like and support the Tea Party Movement. But as I explained in this post, I don't like the idea of anti-sex crusaders in the form of the American Family Association taking it over.
So naturally, I was disappointed to see that the supposedly mainstream conservative Human Events, in its writeup of tomorrow's Tea Party Events, saw fit to discuss and link only the American Family Association's Tea Parties (which the group's website refers to as "AFA Registered"), in a manner clearly implying the AFA is responsible for the movement -- a preposterous notion.
I can't think of a better way to destroy the Tea Party movement than for the AFA take them over, and I sincerely hope that is not allowed to happen.
Unfortunately, there's not much I can do much one way or the other, as I'm not in a leadership position with any of the groups, and I'm not the type who goes to meetings. I'm not much of an activist, and I really don't like going to organized events with speakers. But I figured the least I could do was to donate some money to Tea Party Patriots.
Go to a Tea Party event if you can tomorrow. And if you can't, I suggest making a donation.
:: Comments left behind ::
I think the AFA is desperate to be relevant and therefore is hijacking the tea parties so people think they are behind them - they are NOT.
:: andrewdb July 3, 2009 11:51 PM
Well, they have a powerful ally on their side -- the LEFT!
I was initially concerned when I found the AFA website awhile back. But no one else (except Glenn and PJM) is gathering this stuff in one place. If I am looking for a local tea party to attend, where do I go to find this information? AFA is trying to fill that vacuum and build their mailing list at the same time. Now, I don't trust them any further than I can throw them (less actually). This is part of the problem of a decentralized, bottom up movement. Someone needs to begin organizing "Committees of Correspondence."
When I was at Cal I learned that the revolution needs a vanguard of committed cadres - the proletariat will not organize themselves and probably just have a false consciousness anyway. Of course that way just leads to a Gulag.
:: andrewdb July 4, 2009 12:14 PM
The Latest Bikini Edition (08:05 PM)
This year's July 4th Bikini edition is up at Power and Control (I keep GMT). Here are a couple of samples to give you an idea or ideas. You can click on the pictures for more information.
Ladies. I guarantee that most men watching this bikini will be seeing stars. Unless they are distracted by the stripes.
For those who still may need a calendar, not exactly an American Flag motif. But still.
The young lady in the picture sure has some great guns. The rifle she is holding looks pretty interesting too.
You get the idea.
I also have links to past bikini editions. Have a happy and exciting Fourth.
:: Comments left behind ::
Art critics with better brains? Yes, it is scientifically possible! (04:13 PM)
Pigeons, it seems, can discriminate between art techniques and can even judge their quality.
According to scientists, given the incentive of food, racing pigeons can be trained to study the colour, pattern and texture of paintings and evaluate them like an art critic.
Like an art critic? Considering the state of art today, I'm not sure that that's much of an accomplishment, even for avians.
But as I read more closely it appeared that professional art critics were not involved:
Their experiment was divided into two halves: the first saw four pigeons placed in a chamber with a computer monitor displaying watercolour and pastel paintings by schoolchildren.
The paintings were divided into 'good' and 'bad' categories by 11 adults, including an art teacher, depending on whether the images were clear and precise.
Clear and precise? That's a dead giveaway that professional art critics were in no way involved in teaching these pigeons, who are probably by now better qualified to judge art than most art critics.
The pigeons were shown some of the paintings from each category and rewarded with food when they pecked at the good pictures, but not the bad ones.
They were then presented with a mixture of new and old paintings from both categories and the researchers noted the birds consistently pecked at the 'good' paintings more often.
I have to say that while I don't approve of wasting taxpayers' money on studies like this, think of the money that could be saved by failing newspapers like the New York Times. Instead of paying out huge salaries to bird-brained art critics, they could simply keep a few pigeons on the roof, and they'd only need to spring for an occasional, say, $5.99 for a 5 lb. bag of pigeon food. For better bird brains! (Besides, pigeons already know how to hunt and peck, so they have basic keyboard skills, and while their reviews might need editing, isn't that what all those layers of editors and fact-checkers are for?)
As the study proves, not all bird-brains are equal. A trained brain is better than an untrained brain.
By the way, an earlier study by the same psychologist found that pigeons can distinguish Monet from Picasso, as well as between impressionism and cubism:
psychologist Shigeru Watanabe and his colleagues at Keio University in Tokyo, describe how they trained pigeons to distinguish a Picasso from a Monet, and more generally, impressionism from cubism, by pecking the correct picture.
They trained the pigeons to distinguish between Monet and Picasso with 90 per cent accuracy. Once trained, the pigeons maintained their ability even for works they had never seen before. And when presented with paintings of other impressionists, such as Cézanne and Renoir, the birds lumped these in with Monet's portfolio but distinguished them from works by cubists such as Georges Braque.
The cluckings by protesting art critics were anticipated and addressed:
Art critics might protest that these pigeons have not developed any aesthetic sensibility but have merely learnt to respond to simple cues, such as the sharp angles and bold colours of cubism compared with the fuzzy contours and pastel shades of the impressionists.
But Watanabe and his colleagues showed the pigeons remained accurate judges of style even when the images were blurred, or shown only in black and white. "We integrate several cues to recognise which is impressionist and which is cubist," he says. "The pigeons may do the same thing."
Indeed, the art critic's only remaining advantage is that they do not peck the paintings.
Yes, and they probably don't leave their droppings on the drippings either. But so what?
Again, the cleanup work is a job for the layers of editors and fact checkers.
MORE: While it wasn't easy, I just taught this pigeon to quote Disraeli!
Truly, art criticism is for the birds!
:: Comments left behind ::
Pot Goes Legit (04:04 PM)
I remember when the micro-computer trade shows started. A few years after the first ones we had an industry. I think hemp/marijuana will follow a similar track.
This video was put out by the same folks who put out the It Gave Me Hope video. If you want to grow your own hope this book might be helpful:
My experience was somewhat different. I became a libertarian by being around liberals, and I remained a libertarian by being around conservatives. In general, though, while I prefer hanging around conservatives to hanging around liberals, sometimes hot-button cultural issues will surface, and because I don't conform to the usual stereotypes, people misread me. Liberals assume I'm like them, and conservatives assume I'm like them. I probably put out the "wrong" signals, all the time, without meaning it. Liberals will assume I couldn't possibly be a life member of the NRA, and social conservatives will assume I'm a Rush Limbaugh fan who must take a dim view of homos. But in general, though, conservatives are more welcoming of political differences than liberals. If you say something a conservative disagrees with, he's not as get likely to get angry or turn pale like a seminary student who just met an admitted Satanist.
the bloggers on the right link to you when they agree and ignore the disagreements, and the bloggers on the left link only for the things they disagree with, to denounce you with short posts saying you're evil/stupid/crazy, and don't even seem to notice all the times you've written posts that take their side.
To which a commenter added,
the Right is looking for converts and the Left is looking for heretics.
John Hawkins weighed in, and cited Charles Krauthammer's fundamental law:
Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.
Actually, under Bush that rule became a bit fuzzier, because under the new liberal meme we had a conservative president who was both very stupid and very evil. A guy who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time, yet who managed to plant explosive timers inside the World Trade Center just before having fake planes pretend to fly into the buildings -- while alerting the Jews not to go to work. Amazingly (and despite a plethora of government whistleblowers), that stupid evil genius never got caught!
It was a little tough living through the Bushitler years, but I made it, and I voted for the evil stupid one twice -- all the while still managing to consider myself a libertarian. Plus, I voted for McCain, and considered myself a libertarian through that. While I like conservatives, and agree with them on many if not most things, I have stubborn little philosophical differences with certain aspects of the conservative philosophy, and I just don't want to be in bed with people like Ann Coulter and Michael Savage. Red meat culture war conservatism just plain turns me off. Plus, I don't think it's likely to remove Barack Obama from office.
However, the fact remains that I have more in common with red meat conservatives than I do the liberals. They're also more likely to ignore my heresy.
:: Comments left behind ::
Here's the way it really works.
Liberals think poor people are stupid and need social workers to guide them to work.
Conservatives think poor people are lazy and need slavedrivers to force them to work.
:: chocolatier July 2, 2009 12:09 PM
It's been my experience that very few liberals (at least of the "yeah, let's talk politics!" crowd) know very much about economics, or even about comparative political philosophies.
If/when I enter into political discussion with such a liberal, talk invariably turns to economics, or at least to the systemic, downstream effects of actions taken today for results tomorrow but in ignorance of the longer-term consequences. It turns that way because I steer it that way, because, for me, the act of consideration of the complete set of economic and social downstream effects of any governing act is the sine qua non of competent and effective governing, and liberals are just really, really bad at it.
Point being, though, in a thoughtful discussion of economic or financial policy, most liberals run out of slogans in the first two minutes, and then have nothing to fall back on. Mention velocity of money to a liberal, and she'll probably duck. Mention multiplier effects, or stimulus, and she'll likely take you wrong and she'll either slap you or get very friendly.
All of which leaves them unable, with any amount of credibility, to call you stupid.
So, instead, they'll call you "evil", because that lets them off the hook - they don't need to be able to refute your logic concerning, say, where money ought to go or be left alone, they don't have to understand M1 v M2, and they can comfortably ignore discussion of the beneficial effects of capital growth for those with no capital.
If the argument you oppose is logical, reasonable, and intuitive, still, you can sneer and walk away from it unanswered if you know that it only serves evil, that its root motivation stems from a desire to own slaves, that anyone professing it seeks only to hold on to her ill-gotten blood money in the face of huge and awful need of "the people."
:: bobby b July 2, 2009 01:54 PM
chocolatier--
Libertarians are like Bhuddists: if you're hungry, get something to eat. If you are stupid or lazy, that may be a more difficult task, but not everyone is suited for success. By the degree to which it is ones choice, one must take responsibility for those choices.
bobby--I agree. When someone wants to engage me in a "political" discussion, one of the first questions I ask them is "where does money come from?" If they can't answer that question, why would I care what their opinion is?
.
Heresy? The only heresy that frosts my bonnet is when smug self-satisfied elites commit the heresy of claiming scotch is superior to bourbon. For shame!
I'm a conservative because when conservative policies fail, the consequences are short term and correctable. When left-wing policies fail, the consequences are long term and difficult to fix: People die. And that's why I'm a card-carryin' member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
:: Rhodium Heart July 3, 2009 12:28 AM
Far from an elite here, but a mediocre scotch is superior to a mediocre bourbon! When you get into the better stuff, it gets more difficult to decide. Further tasting is usually required.
Vin Suprynowicz, a libertarian columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal here and also here, apparently decided that McCain/Palin was the best choice in the last election, in spite of usually going for the Libertarian ticket.
:: Gringo July 3, 2009 09:57 AM
I don't like the sweetish taste that bourbon has in comparison to scotch, but I never knew that was a form of elitism -- any more than the fact that I can't stand port wine!
Wouldn't mind being in bed with Ann Coulter, at least that way I could get her to shut up a minute.
Sorry, I've been out here in the desert too long.
:: Billy Oblivion July 3, 2009 02:37 PM
Bourbon v.s. scotch?
That's like asking Chainsaw v.s. Axe, or Shotgun v.s. SMG. Different tasks, different tools.
When you want to sit peacefully and conteplate a good book with a nice piece of dark chocolate then a good scotch is CLEARLY the choice.
However, if you're going to adulterate...I mean mix anything in with it (ice, water, coke, 7up etc.) then you MUST NOT use a singlemalt, Bourbon, especially the lesser stuff (JD, Jim Beam, Ole Grandad) is particularly well suited to this role.
There are areas of overlap--just as it's a matter of preference (or department policy, but that's a quibble) between a Benelli M4 and a "normal" M4 for the entry guy, so too is it a choice between single cask bourbons and single malts scotches for after dinner drinks or with desert (other than dark chocolates)...
I did mention being out here too long, right?
:: Billy Oblivion July 3, 2009 02:46 PM
Poor Billy. I've been trying for years to figure out a way to upload chocolate and booze.
Your candidate's adultery is worse than mine! (08:35 AM)
Speaking of adultery (which almost everyone agrees is bad) I'm wondering whose adultery is worse -- Mark Sanford's or Newt Gingrich's. I realize that I'm not the only one asking, but the question was just sort of thrown in my face earlier as I read yet another strong online moral condemnation of the eminently condemnable Mark Sanford, only to see Newt's mug staring at me from an ad placed right smack in the middle of the text I was reading.
Hey wait a second! I wondered. Newt had an affair, right? How come he gets to run for president and Mark Sanford not only shouldn't, but the latter should be kicked to the curb?
Are some adulteries more immoral than others? Actually, yes. When Tom Delay discussed his adulterous affair in his book, he specifically said it was less immoral than that of Newt Gingrich:
The difference between his own adultery and Gingrich's, he said, "is that I was no longer committing adultery by that time, the impeachment trial. There's a big difference." He added, "Also, I had returned to Christ and repented my sins by that time."
So because Mark Sanford's affair is more recent (even if he has cut it off), he's still a lot guiltier than Tom or Newt.
While there is a certain logic to the proximity in time argument, 2012 is still a ways off. But the problem I'm having is with the argument that adultery should be a disqualification from office, but only for some candidates.
MORE: Commenting below, TigerHawk raises an interesting point about prostitution:
Eliot Spitzer tried to claim that routinely patronizing prostitutes was less bad than what Sanford did, because he did not fall in love. We took a light-hearted poll on the subject, and our readers see it quite the other way.
Unfortunately for the purpose of polling, this issue is so hopelessly contaminated by the partisan political considerations (as well as Spitzer's personal dishonesty and his background in prosecuting prostitutes) that it's tough to get a reading of how people might feel if polled in a politically neutral manner.
As I observed in reply to TigerHawk, many Victorian women used to consider prostitution a necessary evil. Have evolved in our thinking to a better, cleaner world in which loveless sexual cheating is more evil than sexual cheating with someone who is loved? Has sex ceased to be a matter of getting one's rocks off? Common sense would suggest to me that while cheating on a spouse is bad, loveless cheating would be less of a threat, and thus better.
But that's just me. How about a poll?
If you don't like being polled on this issue, don't blame me! It was TigerHawk's fault -- for being a bad influence and creating a light-hearted poll climate!
AFTERTHOUGHT: Looking at that poll, it occurs to me that women and men might answer the questions very differently.
Also, I revised the poll to change "It would make no difference at all" to "It would make no difference at all as both are equally wrong."
:: Comments left behind ::
Eliot Spitzer tried to claim that routinely patronizing prostitutes was less bad than what Sanford did, because he did not fall in love. We took a light-hearted poll on the subject, and our readers see it quite the other way. (Apologies for dumping a link in your comment field, but it seems germane.)
Thanks for the comment, and my apologies for the stupid hold the anti-spam feature puts on all html.
Many Victorian women would have agreed with Spitzer, back in the days when prostitution was considered a necessary evil. Odd to consider that old-fashioned uptight "Puritans" might think that way.
Why do we forget the handling of John Edwards and Bill Clinton by the MSM in these cases and only point out the Conservative idiots? JFK, LBJ - the list is seeming endless.
Politicians are "stars", many "stars" (movie,athletic...) take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to them. For some it is money, others sex, and some it is just power...
A media focused on the story and fairness instead of supporting their political view might help curb the excesses in the political class and might as a side bar help their sales...
:: Eddie July 2, 2009 11:55 AM
For the liberals, Sanford represents another opportunity to point and laugh and say "hypocrite". Which is what they say to anyone who doesn't hold to what a liberal THINKS that person's moral worldview is.
For the conservatives, Sanford represents an embarrassing dereliction of duty.
In other words, like with Clinton, it isn't the sex, it's what he was putting aside to GET the sex.
"If you don't like being polled on this issue, don't blame me! "
- - - - -
Given the subject matter, I'm assuming this is a spelling error?
(I've always assumed that "social liberals" do not carry the taboo coding that seems to predominate amongst social conservatives - to the social liberal, sex isn't something to be furtively not-quite-enjoyed in the hidden guilty darkness of your own bedroom with your spouse only, but an open and free and natural biological function that can serve many different needs at different times - that, between two people in (mutual) love, it can be a vehicle for affirming that love, and that, between customer and service technician, it can be loads of fun and a profit center.
So, viewing conservatives as being mentally or emotionally crippled in that one area, to the point where they lose most of the utility of sex, to many liberals it's simply fun to watch as conservatives get caught exhibiting the lie, the contradiction, that binds them up and conflicts them.
:: bobby b July 2, 2009 03:11 PM
Actually, I view Newt more negatively than any of the recent GOP "moral casualties".
The fact that he presided over the f-ed up "Contract with America" dooms him WAY worse than just putting his own libido over the wishes of his constituents or the steadfast discharging of his duties.
:: guy July 2, 2009 05:43 PM
Guy: It's funny, but I had never actually read the text of the Contract with America before. Your content-free slam prompted me to look it up and actually do so, because I have learned in subsequent years to never base my political opinions on what the Democrats and their lapdogs in the MSM say about Republican proposals. (As I
suspect you have.)
And so, having done so, I have to say; what exact issues do you have with it? Much of it seems to be straightforward good-government proposals, especially centering around House practices and encouraging transparency and fiscal prudence. Many of them are things that the Democrats promised to do in 2006 (and didn't, in fact they undid some CoA reforms instead). Other parts center around Welfare Reform, which was such a success that Clinton later took part of the credit for it (lol). Some (like the line-item veto - Act #1) were ruled unconstitutional by the SC for legal reasons that had nothing to do with how good an idea it was.
But despite the quibbles I might have with some of the elements listed in the capsule descriptions of the 10 acts there, it overall seems to be a pretty good plan, and I am sure that if the Republicans that won a majority in the House based on it had been able to fully carry it out we would be far better off now. What say you?
Of course, I distinctly remember how loudly the Dems and the MSM screamed, yelled and complained about it at the time, claiming it was completely horrible and proves how evil and nasty the Republicans were. Things really haven't changed all that much since then, have they?
:: Eric E. Coe July 2, 2009 09:39 PM
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Whose favorite villains are to blame for the latest horror? (08:25 PM)
When I wrote about the Mark Sanford sex scandal, I had no idea that it might be considered even remotely related to gay marriage. Well, apparently it is -- at least to some people. Rod Dreher explains:
The argument goes like this:
1. Mark Sanford is a social conservative who advocated against same-sex marriage rights.
2. But by having an adulterous affair, he dishonored his own marriage vows.
3. Therefore it is hypocritical for him -- and by extension, other social conservatives -- to argue against same-sex marriage.
4. Because some opponents of same-sex marriage are unfaithful to their spouses, there is no good reason to oppose same-sex marriage.
To demonstrate the absurdity, Dreher analogizes to the latest horror story from Duke University, in which a gay administrator adopted and then allegedly molested a small boy:
It is in no way a convincing argument against gay adoption, and no argument at all. Neither does Sanford's failings have a thing to do with the rightness or wrongness of the case against same-sex marriage.
He's right of course. There are plenty of arguments to be made against gay marriage and gay adoption, but saying that because a gay man molested an adopted child there shouldn't be gay adoptions is about as logical as saying that because a gay man murdered his lover there shouldn't be gay marriage. I'm sure there are people who would make such arguments, though. (Yes, there are.)
As it turns out, the man accused of prostituting his five year old was also very active in the Episcopal Church. Should such truly horrific acts reflect badly on the church? According to some, yes, it should.
The poor child subject to this sordid event should symbolize the horrid evil being promoted by [The Episcopal Church].
What horrid evil is that? Is the Episcopal Church promoting pedophilia? If so, then why is the local church scrambling to remove pictures of the man from the web site?
I'm sure some will say this awful case implicates Duke University as well. Considering the way so many at Duke behaved towards the falsely accused Lacrosse team, there will probably be people who will want to retaliate by somehow using this case against Duke, but I don't see much of a connection. Maybe a double standard, though, were the case to be ignored or go unreported. (Uproar over the innocent Lacrosse players, and silence over the pedophile.) So far, the latter does seem to be receiving considerable press attention -- at Duke and elsewhere. (CNN, however, does not mention that the adopted boy is black.)
The frenzy to blame people other than the accused reminds me of the way some people reacted to the murderer at the Holocaust Museum.
In what has become a numbingly familiar pattern over the decades, when deranged killers strike, people with political axes to grind will invoke their favorite demons for blame. In what I'll call the "Columbine tradition," the Columbine killers were said by leftists to be a product of "the gun culture," and by rightists to be a product of the "climate" of the 1960s. (And, of course, "depravity on the Internet.")
Why people don't focus on the individuals themselves, I don't know. It would be one thing if a killer were acting on behalf of (or with the approval of) someone else, or an actual identifiable organization. But when a murder is committed by a single individual, it makes about as much sense to blame "the right" or "the left" (much less a "climate" created by either) as it would to blame the Republican or Democratic Party if he happened to belong to one of them.
Well, at least no one (so far) is blaming the Duke child molester on a climate created by Mark Sanford.
This stuff gets a little tedious.
MORE: Townhall writer Mike Adams implicates the deceased Michael Jackson for a symbolic coincidence:
That Frank Lombard was arrested on the day of Michael Jackson's death is highly symbolic. Christians need to take a break from worshipping this culture and the idols it produces.
Hear hear! A guy commits a heinous crime and the culture is to blame.
If it weren't all so predictable.... Really, I feel as if I've written this post a hundred times over the years.
:: Comments left behind ::
It's ironic that in an Newsweek profile some months back, when they were building him up,
to tear him down later; he was talking about the christian right had to get out of politics, a detail forgotten in all the kerfluffle.
:: narciso July 1, 2009 11:15 PM
It's ironic that in an Newsweek profile some months back, when they were building him up,
to tear him down later; he was talking about the christian right had to get out of politics, a detail forgotten in all the kerfluffle.
