Back to the future

So what is this allergy that the Obots have about the 1950s?

This has been a recurring theme in the Obama campaign, and I really don’t understand it. It works because most Americans didn’t live through it and don’t know their history.

1950s: near full employment.  Married women didn’t HAVE to work (but could). Lower crime. Stable families. Much lower rate of divorce and out-of-wedlock births. HIgh point of the Catholic Church in America, and a better time for churches in general. Strong unions that weren’t Communist, and a Democrat Party that was not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the CPUSA. Real money made out of precious metals. Journalists who at least pretended to report. Millions of babies not being murdered in the womb. No War on Poverty programs creating a permanent underclass. A vigorous space program. Mail-order guns. Classical music on commercial TV and radio. Ven. Fulton Sheen. Few chain restaurants.

Negatives: segregation. Restricted access to birth control (not sure that’s a negative, but I’ll give it to them). The Cold War (we have one of those too, only it’s religious). High taxes to pay off WWII. Nightmares about mushroom clouds. More boring (but healthier?) food. The beginning of Richard Nixon’s career. Electric coffeepots that cost as much or more than the modern ones in fixed dollar terms, but brewed less good coffee (they did last longer though).

Technology doesn’t count. No society has ever willingly abandoned a technology, so if Romney takes us “back to the 50s”, we’ll still have Internet, cable, MRIs, etc.

Given that, just why again shouldn’t I regard this as a Romney campaign ad?

The Derbyshire thing

John Derbyshire is out at National Review. I don’t have a lot of opinion about that, any more than I had a lot of opinion about the piece that sparked it.  The premise was flawed, because most of us don’t have “the talk“; the talk happens incrementally, and for better or worse, most of us have the race thing figured out by puberty (and the “us” there is race-inclusive).  The timing was colossally bad for such an article. And any collective conclusions on race, no matter how exhaustively hotlinked, are by definition racist. If I were to write, “Ashkenazi Jews are more intelligent than the rest of us,” that would be a racist statement, because the individual Jew in front of me could be a complete moron.

But that word “racist” is the issue. The boy has cried “wolf!” once too often. (Wait, can I use “boy” in a discussion about race?). It’s the new “Witch!”  When people can seriously suggest that Mary J. Blige singing about fried chicken for Burger King supports a racial stereotype, the concept is bankrupt…. because of course all black people like their fried chicken cut into strips and served in a tortilla with three cheeses and lettuce, just as they eat cut and seeded watermelon from sherbet glasses, and a wealthy and accomplished black artist had to take Burger King’s money and turn race traitor because she’s oppressed.

Does anybody really truly give a shit about what one blogger has to say, except insofar as it can be used to score points against National Review (where, it should be noted, it did not appear)?  Well, National Review does, because it’s their brand, and Derb is associated; that’s understandable. But if nobody cared, and nobody complained, what then? And if people really gave a shit, wouldn’t they try to refute Derbyshire’s links, to discredit the idea, instead of deciding that the author had, in the memorable words of one commenter, “intellectual lice”?

Let’s talk about some real racism. A guy in his 20s shoots a teenager. That’s a tragedy, not only for the now-dead teen, but for the shooter, who must second-guess his own actions, run the legal gauntlet, and know he is responsible for taking a human life.  Then let’s add the element of race. Now the tragedy for the shooter is multiplied, because he lives in fear of mob violence. But that’s only the beginning, the stone in the pond creating its ripples. Neo-Nazis and New Black Panthers (but I repeat myself) walk the streets of Sanford Florida (or at least pretend to). An old man in Toledo is beaten by teens avenging Trayvon (or so it’s at first claimed) . Black people in Tulsa are shot for no apparent reason, possibly by a white man. A video surfaces of a white man being beaten and robbed by a black mob.

To my white friends pushing the “Racist!” meme to score a few cheap political points: most of you live in mixed race or even white-minority areas. How fucking stupid is it to foment a race war in which you are highly likely to be a casualty?

Stupid manufactured outrages

We have Obama’s Infamous Halloween Party, which the dextrosphere is so outraged about that they’ve suddenly discovered class warfare. And when called on that, they backtrack and say, “It’s not the party, it’s the cover-up”, even though their previous statements made the cover-up perfectly understandable. Look, the White House throws parties; always has, always will, and they are always lavish by 99%-er standards. We don’t know how much or if Johnny Depp et al charged to be there, but most of the rest is penny-ante stuff. (Punch in blood vials…what a cool idea, and not that spendy.) When they start throwing parties that involve showering in the blood of virgins, I’ll get excited. (Not that that would ever happen; if a Democrat ever actually found a virgin, she’d be deflowered before she got to the White House.) Yes, the cover-up was a bad idea, but this is the President that considers his school records to be a state secret; it’s not exactly new behavior. The only people to really look bad in all this are the White House press corps, who are revealed to be total lapdogs and should resign en masse.

In the sinistrosphere, we have Pat Cunningham of the Rockford Register Star claiming that Kansas House speaker Mike O’Neal “prays for Obama’s death”. Well, not that, exactly. There’s this email that’s been going around for awhile, I received it several months ago. Here’s the text as I received it:

—– Psalm 109:8
My wife and I were in slow-moving traffic the other day and
we were stopped behind a car that had an unusual Obama bumper sticker on it.
It read: “Pray for Obama. Psalm 109:8″.

When we got home my wife got out the Bible and opened it up to the scripture.
She started laughing & laughing. Then she read it to me.
I couldn’t believe what it said. I had a good laugh, too.
Psalm 109:8 ~ “Let his days be few and brief; and let others step forward
to replace him.”
At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president!
Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray.
Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN?

Here’s the version which was passed on by Speaker O’Neal, per Cunningham:

In another of O’Neal’s emails, he referenced Psalm 109 from the Old Testament, which reads in part:

May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.

O’Neal wrote: “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!”

Now, I suspect “referenced” mean about what my version says. And you’ll notice that “O’Neal wrote”, miraculously, exactly the text which I received…which he probably received too. Now, “O’Neal wrote” this in the sense that he forwarded it to others, which DOES make him responsible for the content. But his crime here is stupidly and thoughtlessly forwarding emails…a crime that I suspect Pat Cunningham is not immune from. And if forwarding an email is “praying” for anything, well, I’m going to start saying the e-rosary: email the Hail Mary to 10 of my friends, the Our Father to another, and the Fatima tag to another. Of course, soon I’ll be blacklisted by all my friends, but that doesn’t matter; I can still “pray” electronically, even if it bounced back.

Now, why are we worried about trivia like parties and an itchy trigger finger on the “send” button when the nation is collapsing?

Second verse, same as the first

In the wake of the revelations about that miserable little twink Jamie Kirchick’s hatchet job against Ron Paul, I found myself reading blog posts from the last Presidential election cycle, in search of links from back then. I remember being pissed at cur-CHICK at the time, but there wasn’t a lot on the blog, unless it was all slightly earlier and on the Case blog. The WordPress search functions are virtually nonexistent. During the worst of it all, I was abandoning the anti-Paul blogs and reading a lot more at lewrockwell.com.  I don’t so much now; Lew’s crew can get into a sort of kneejerk libertarian negativity. But that concentration of Catholic libertarians were certainly instrumental in my own conversion. And in reading back, the current froth-at-the -mouth about Ron Paul seems very old hat. I have to wonder if Ace of Spades might actually be James Kirchick’s beard. All those busty cheerleaders and talk of hobo-hunting…the man doth protest too much, methinks.

Sheeps is skeered of wookies

“I don’t agree with Pauls extreme position on libertarianism either.” (comment here)

Effin’ ay, you think that a sitting US representative who earmarks has an ‘extreme position on libertarianism’?? Sir, you don’t know what the term means (as is proven by the rest of your comment.)

Breitbart isn’t taking his trash out

Memo to Republicans: Where’s ObamaCare’s Replacement?
by Dr. Susan Berry

Dr. Susan Berry is a practicing clinical psychologist. Susan uses her skills to help people learn how to empower themselves.

Listen, shrink: if you want us to be empowered, leave us the fuck alone, OK?  We need to replace Obamacare like we need to replace cancer with heart disease.

Carla Rees and the savages of England, and their defenders.

I’m a member of a society (well, more of a mailing list, as I haven’t actively promoted my music through them) of tonal composers. These are folks who, by and large, like to complain that their music has been blacklisted because it isn’t atonal, and blame the Academy for all their problems (notwithstanding that many of us have no problem getting performances, and that most music being performed is tonal to one degree or another). When they are not complaining about not getting unmerited performances, they complain about not getting unmerited money from the filthy rich, or about others not doing so.

Well, a piece was posted about the recent misfortunes of contemporary flutist Carla Rees. It’s sad, absolutely. My boss lost a Baroque lute in a car theft, and it took him 4 years to replace it. Ron Andrico of Mignarda lost 3 lutes in a carjacking, but managed to recover them. But it’s not intrinsically more sad than some working-class person who last their family photos.

Immediately the tut-tutting began, and I lost it:

Unfortunately, this is what happens when people are poorly educated (ethics isn’t taught in most schools and is neglected by parents), and social and economic problems are allowed to fester.

No, this is what happens when the state refuses to perform its one unarguable duty of protecting property, when the intelligentia argues that religion doesn’t matter, and when artists make excuses for barbarians. Y’all own this one, far as I’m concerned.

Immediately, I was accused of being “partisan”

There are many elements that brought this about, but I don’t think blaming the ‘state’ for not protecting property in the face of widespread rioting is going to achieve anything.

And there was conflation of the property crime of the original Tea Party with the current Tea Party:

> Sorry, but today’s Tea Party movement just doesn’t get it. When a society and its government ignore your misery and kick you down, they, too, must acknowledge their own role in bringing about violent upheaval. The violence is indefensible–but it is explainable.
>
No, it’s you and Anthony who don’t get it. People have been miserable and kicked throughout human history. Why didn’t they burn their villages down?

You want to make this partisan. I didn’t. I figured that we could agree that a government at a minimum exists to keep order. I wasn’t addressing any functions beyond that. If we don’t agree that government exists to govern, then why does it exist at all? Note that Britain is currently ruled by what passes for the moderate Right over there, and they couldn’t even decide to deploy water cannon until well into the crisis. With somebody like the craven Home Secretary Theresa May in charge, who needs Labour?

There are three options for citizens: fear God, fear Man, or fear nobody. To fear nobody is to get what we’ve just had. To fear Man is either to have a police state, or a fully-armed populace…and without the fear of God, what makes that populace or that state anything other than an armed counter-mob? To fear God(s) is the foundation of Western civilization, because people control themselves, therefore needing a minimum of external control. “Teaching ethics” won’t do it, because any ethical system that can be rationally derived can be rationalized away. Pride in doing what’s right will only extend so far. In Britain, you had government unwilling to act, a citizenry unable to act (having been disarmed), and a nation badly in need of reconversion…so there is no reason not to do whatever you want to. When (not if) sharia law comes to Britain, the citizenry will dance in the streets, because at least those streets will be safe.

When I said, “You own this”, I meant it, because you’ve been making excuses for the inexcusable. You lament Carla Rees, because her values are yours. But she played music for toffs; if the poor dears were oppressed, didn’t she get what she deserved? What about other less-privileged victims? Aren’t family photographs irreplaceable, even more so that Rees’ instruments and scores? … What is ironic is that the members of a society which believes that there are objective canons of beauty in music refuse to recognize that there are objectively-correct moral beliefs.

BTW, I don’t think that the Boston Tea Party was morally right, and it was short-term counterproductive… I’ve seen nothing equivalent from the modern Tea Party.

Why AoSHQ will no longer be linked at QatD

Why Ron Paul Will Not Be Listed In Any Future Candidate Polls at the HQ

Actually, I agree with Gabriel’s view of Paul’s take on the Osama raid. Libertarianism is not a suicide pact. What could we have done…come in there with video cameras blazing and embarrassed the Pakistanis into extraditing him? It appears to me that they can’t be embarrassed.

But I’ve had it with

he’s a barely functional retard who couldn’t express a coherent foreign (or economic) policy even if all our lives were at stake

and all the comments by the little Morons.
Ron Paul has been right on every economic issue, and ahead of anyone else. His foreign policy needs tweaking, but it’s also more right than anyone else’s. The man deserves respect. I pretty much cut off the Reasonoids in ’08 over their Paul smears. Ace of Spades almost fell then too. It could still happen. Not that they would care.

UPDATE: Ace supports his co-blogger. More depth, but still ultimately disrespectful.

Will the last one at HuffPo please unplug the server?

Lee Stranahan, who is developing a reputation as the last honest liberal, just quit the Huffington Post over their dumping of Andrew Breitbart for things he said somewhere else.. So there’s two.  Then there’s the strike. Apparently AOL has once again demonstrated their exquisite sense of market timing. Pretty soon Arianna is going to be playing with herself.

Nooner: you’re fired

What civilian needs a pistol with a magazine that loads 33 bullets and allows you to kill that many people without even stopping to reload? No one but people with bad intent. Those clips were banned once; the president should call for reimposing the ban. The Republican Party will not go to the wall to defend extended clips. The problem is the Democratic Party, which overreached after the assassinations of the 1960s, talked about banning all handguns, and suffered a lasting political setback. Now Democrats are so spooked that they won’t even move forward on small and obvious things like this. The president should seize the moment and come out strong for a ban.

Here they’ve got a rule about PG language. Here I don’t, but it’s Sunday, so I should at least make an attempt at Christian forbearance, right? All I will ask is why in the fucking hell is an alleged conservative telling Obama (nonironicly) how to improve his SOTU?

Well, hey, two can play that game. Here’s my improvement to Noonan:
“Here are three things he can do in the speech that would be surprising, shrewd, centrist and good policy. He can come out for the manufacture of a “people’s car” that everyone could afford. He could advocate for construction of a national freeway system to drive it on. And he could take a firm stand against smoking.”

Hey, meets all 4 criteria, right? Too bad that nothing else that guy did fits the bill…though Peggers would doubtless approve of this law.

And what is it about Noonan women and guns? I dated a Noonan for awhile who was anti-gun. I fired her too.