Tuesday, July 10, 2012
What happens when the world acquiesces to madness - today's edition
As we know, the Islamic Brotherhood is in control of the presidency and legislature in Egypt now - pending its standoff with the military. Clerics there are now calling for the destruction of the Great Pyramids.
He's counting on you to be stupid - today's edition
The MEC's tax-policy announcement yesterday was a real gem of disingenuousness. He knows it isn't some nice clean line of demarcation between the folks down the block and the muckety-mucks. He knows it doesn't do diddly to reduce the deficit. He knows it will put a further damper on hiring. And he knows it's naked class envy. But he's appealing to the most vulgar and juvenile aspects of the human character, which is all he has left.
He can feel it coming in his office
New York-based physician and professor of medicine Mark Seigel says that the main results of FHer-care are going to be a loss of freedom for everyone, fewer doctors for anyone, and the end of innovation in the field of medical technology.
We pretty much knew that, but he speaks as someone versed in both public policy and seeing living, breathing patients in his office.
We pretty much knew that, but he speaks as someone versed in both public policy and seeing living, breathing patients in his office.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Is our worst fear being realized?
I'ms seeing way too many articles like this Jed Babbin piece at The American Spectator for my own comfort. There's a pervasive sense taking hold among conservatives that, within Romney's character makeup, the ratio of ideologically principled warrior to decent guy who's got a great business head is tilted in favor of the latter. In short, he's too afflicted with Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome to rescue America. It's looking disturbingly like we've cast our lot with yet another mush-head, just as we have every damn election for the last fifty years excluding the two when we chose Ronald Reagan whether we won them or lost them.
There is an ample supply of fire-breathing, plain-talking champions of freedom and American greatness on the political scene today - Allen West and Paul Ryan come to mind (as do a number of Romney's primary opponents) - but in general, there is something about the right-of-center sensibility that renders it ill-suited to go up against those who will spare no thuggery in their imposition of statism and decline. From committed conservatives to those skirting the center line from the right, we all tend to assume a level of comity among our opponents, a shared sense of decency. Even the fact that I would here choose the term "opponents" rather than "enemies" in order to keep my prose from striking the reader as distractingly purple demonstrates in the first person what I'm addressing.
By definition, conservatism is about preserving that which fosters human refinement. It is about high standards for interaction with others. We rightly champion the ideas and verities that define us. The irony is that one such core principle is a national willingness to mount a defense against foreign forces that would violate us that's commensurate with the challenge. Nothing short of victory, ever. Why would we bring any lesser degree of resolve to political stuggles?
My alarm level was raised considerably a few months ago when Romney said, "He [the MEC] is a good guy; he's just in over his head." It is now time for him to walk back that statement. It's the kind of admission of a mistake that would not only not harm his standing at this point in the race; it would galvanize his whole campaign and electrify huge numbers of currently wary voters. He could say, "I've had a chance to consider my opponent from a wider perspective now, and I can see that he is not a good guy and the problem is far worse than his being in over his head; he's a socialist who holds the country he presides over in utter contempt."
I mean it. It's time to talk about the MEC's lifelong radicalism, about how the principle that a person's money is his own knows (or at least should know) no class boundaries, about how the EPA, the HHS, the Departments of Justice, Agriculture, Thransportation, Education and the Interior have been turned into tools of a mad regime, about the peril posed to the world from no longer having American leadership, about czars, executive fiat, ruinous debt, the vulgarity and nacricissm of the celebrities with whom the MEC chooses to associate, the childishness of class envy, about how health care by definition cannot be considered a right, and about how late in the day it is.
Maybe there's somebody on Team Romney whose job duties include taking the pulse of the conservatism, reading articles like Babbin's, listening to Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh. If so, that person ought to be authorized to bitch-slap our ostensible standard-bearer and tell him to get a clue and fast.
There is an ample supply of fire-breathing, plain-talking champions of freedom and American greatness on the political scene today - Allen West and Paul Ryan come to mind (as do a number of Romney's primary opponents) - but in general, there is something about the right-of-center sensibility that renders it ill-suited to go up against those who will spare no thuggery in their imposition of statism and decline. From committed conservatives to those skirting the center line from the right, we all tend to assume a level of comity among our opponents, a shared sense of decency. Even the fact that I would here choose the term "opponents" rather than "enemies" in order to keep my prose from striking the reader as distractingly purple demonstrates in the first person what I'm addressing.
By definition, conservatism is about preserving that which fosters human refinement. It is about high standards for interaction with others. We rightly champion the ideas and verities that define us. The irony is that one such core principle is a national willingness to mount a defense against foreign forces that would violate us that's commensurate with the challenge. Nothing short of victory, ever. Why would we bring any lesser degree of resolve to political stuggles?
My alarm level was raised considerably a few months ago when Romney said, "He [the MEC] is a good guy; he's just in over his head." It is now time for him to walk back that statement. It's the kind of admission of a mistake that would not only not harm his standing at this point in the race; it would galvanize his whole campaign and electrify huge numbers of currently wary voters. He could say, "I've had a chance to consider my opponent from a wider perspective now, and I can see that he is not a good guy and the problem is far worse than his being in over his head; he's a socialist who holds the country he presides over in utter contempt."
I mean it. It's time to talk about the MEC's lifelong radicalism, about how the principle that a person's money is his own knows (or at least should know) no class boundaries, about how the EPA, the HHS, the Departments of Justice, Agriculture, Thransportation, Education and the Interior have been turned into tools of a mad regime, about the peril posed to the world from no longer having American leadership, about czars, executive fiat, ruinous debt, the vulgarity and nacricissm of the celebrities with whom the MEC chooses to associate, the childishness of class envy, about how health care by definition cannot be considered a right, and about how late in the day it is.
Maybe there's somebody on Team Romney whose job duties include taking the pulse of the conservatism, reading articles like Babbin's, listening to Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh. If so, that person ought to be authorized to bitch-slap our ostensible standard-bearer and tell him to get a clue and fast.
Isn't it just like the Most Equal Comrade . . .
. . . to invite new Egyptian president Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood to Washington for a state visit?
That would be the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood whose chairman just reiterated the organization's tenet that it is the duty of every Muslim to bring about the end of Israel.
That would be the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood whose chairman just reiterated the organization's tenet that it is the duty of every Muslim to bring about the end of Israel.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
The plain truth is that this regime is nothing short of totalitarian - today's edition
Check out what Transportation secretary Ray LaHood had to say at the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival last month about the advantages of the Chinese system for getting infrastructure built. Take in each aspect of it - his praising of a decision-making process that only involves two or three people, his ongoing enamoration with high-speed rail, even though it's been a costly failure for his beloved Chinese, his castigation of the Congressional Pubs sent to Washington in the midterm elections for "doing nothing."
What kind of madness makes a person love civilizational ruin?
What kind of madness makes a person love civilizational ruin?
Friday, July 6, 2012
30 times out of 32 reports
That's how many times the regime has told us "not to read too much into one month's report" on job creation - often using the very same words.
It's on purpose - today's edition
As we know, culture precedes politics. If proof were ever needed, the current state of the societies of Greece and California serve well as examples. A populace that has opted for perpetual adolescence is going to get a government that, on the one hand, is going to see to all its needs and wants from cradle to grave (even long after it's doing so on borrowed money) and, on the other hand, is going to lead it around by the nose.
The regime with its grip around America's throat has many instruments for ruining the nation at its disposal: the EPA, the Department of Justice, HHS. The Department of Agriculture is one of its most insidious. It seems said department is sending agents into pockets of Appalachia to overcome "mountain pride" and get people to sign up for food stamps. Trying to convince folks of hardy Scots-Irish stock that government handouts for seeds for their gardens is what they should aspire to. It's overt. The regime agents speak of it this way themselves.
This is downright sinister. "Mountain pride" is merely the colloquial from of the basic human urge to declare individual sovereignty and take charge of one's destiny. They are telling us plainly now that they want to destroy that.
I wish there were a sufficiently effective countervailing force that could defeat what we're up against, but I'm not at all encouraged.
The regime with its grip around America's throat has many instruments for ruining the nation at its disposal: the EPA, the Department of Justice, HHS. The Department of Agriculture is one of its most insidious. It seems said department is sending agents into pockets of Appalachia to overcome "mountain pride" and get people to sign up for food stamps. Trying to convince folks of hardy Scots-Irish stock that government handouts for seeds for their gardens is what they should aspire to. It's overt. The regime agents speak of it this way themselves.
This is downright sinister. "Mountain pride" is merely the colloquial from of the basic human urge to declare individual sovereignty and take charge of one's destiny. They are telling us plainly now that they want to destroy that.
I wish there were a sufficiently effective countervailing force that could defeat what we're up against, but I'm not at all encouraged.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
The model of a doctor being a supplier of a service to a consumer is so yesterday - kind of like the notion of a United States of America
One level on which conservatism can be demonstrated to be true, right and good is that on which its simplicity is apparent. It is rooted in what can actually be observed and experienced. It doesn't doll up its core tenets with nuance or special circumstances.
The current battle over health-care policy is a great example. Along with the destruction of our country and the increased cost to me personally, one reason I hate FHer-care is the yet more complexity it will add to a system that is already downright bewildering. It's a good thing my wife and I are basically healthy. Especially her. She is now eligible for Medicare, and I have no idea what all the different Schedule Thises and Schedule Thats and supplemental coverage and doughnut holes mean. We're used to going to the doctor to have things fixed and either paying on the spot or setting up a payment plan.
If you get sick in America, be prepared to deal with a towering citadel of paperwork.
Daniel Henninger at the WSJ says that this is also the case if you are a doctor. Those who slog through the process of getting their credentials and enter the field of medicine expecting to spend most of their time looking actual patients in the eye and consulting with them on actually caring for their health are going to be quickly disillusioned. And many of them will say - are saying - "the hell with it," and leave for other lines of work.
The current battle over health-care policy is a great example. Along with the destruction of our country and the increased cost to me personally, one reason I hate FHer-care is the yet more complexity it will add to a system that is already downright bewildering. It's a good thing my wife and I are basically healthy. Especially her. She is now eligible for Medicare, and I have no idea what all the different Schedule Thises and Schedule Thats and supplemental coverage and doughnut holes mean. We're used to going to the doctor to have things fixed and either paying on the spot or setting up a payment plan.
If you get sick in America, be prepared to deal with a towering citadel of paperwork.
Daniel Henninger at the WSJ says that this is also the case if you are a doctor. Those who slog through the process of getting their credentials and enter the field of medicine expecting to spend most of their time looking actual patients in the eye and consulting with them on actually caring for their health are going to be quickly disillusioned. And many of them will say - are saying - "the hell with it," and leave for other lines of work.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Damn right, I'm an absolutist
That's why I adore the clarity of Calvin Coolidge's July 4, 1926 speech on the eternal verities enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
Monday, July 2, 2012
We'll be discerning his motives forever
The CBS News report that Roberts had originally sided with the four conservative SCOTUS justices and subsequently switched is going to engender an avalanche of speculation. So far, anyway, I can't think of a single theory that doesn't reflect poorly on his integrity as a jurist. His reasoning was too tortured and, as we've seen since, too susceptible to being ignored by a regime that, now that it's squeaked by the Court, wants nothing to do with the tax characterization, for me to think he felt like he was on solid intellectual ground.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
On the approach of this year's Independence Day
The comment thread under some post at Free Republic the other day included several proclamations that those commenting would not be celebrating Independence Day this year. Their hearts weren't in it; it would be pointless given the unrecognizability of this country at present; it would be an empty gesture that could be coopted by the enemy.
I hadn't stopped to think about it for myself. Since I put that holiday on the same plane of sacredness with Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Thanksgiving, it's pretty much hardwired into me.
But now I am thinking about it. What is the meaningful way to - let's say commemorate; celebrate probably doesn't fit this year - acknowledge the day's special nature? It's an important question. How to do the flags, patriotic music, classic American summer food, fireworks (which are actually out of the question this year, given the drought and heat wave) and reflective pronouncements in such a way that takes into account the deeply damaged and - yes, let's use the Most Equal Comrade's term here - transformed country in which we presently live? Rah-rah Sgt.-York/ Yankee-Doodle-Dandy/Judy- and-and-Mickey-Strike-Up-the-Band boosterism is no weapon at all (as is also the case with some kind of Sean Hannity-type mullet-fest; thankfully he has let his yee-haw concert series run its course) in the struggle to re-establish the actual nation founded in 1776.
I think the first step is to be up-front about our level of alarm - in any greetings we post on Facebook, in any public speaking we do, in any conversations around the grill, picnic table or pool. Speak plainly of the defilement. This is not the time for "it's-still-a-great-country" rhetoric. For God's sake, the Pentagon now celebrates Transgendered Month. Per the post below, NASCAR has inked a deal with the EPA - as wicked an agency as any to be found in North Korea or Cuba - to go "green." The government can now tax any kind of inactivity that a legislative majority deems taxable. Russia, China and Iran treat us with contempt. One seventh of our population is on food stamps.
What this leads to is a focus like never before on our Founders and our founding documents. This may actually be an opportune moment for reaching those who can be reached in order to impart a sense of the uniqueness - indeed, miraculousness - of the circumstances of this nation's birth. To state once again the commonly made point about it, no country before in human history had been founded on the idea that human beings were naturally free, designed by God to so live. Expediency, pragmatism, and focus on the particulars of contemporary economic or foreign-policy issues were not the central concern of those who crafted the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist, or the Constitution. There eye was on the long term - indeed, on matters eternal.
Be completely candid about the element of mourning and the element of fury in your celebration this year. When challenged by those who think developments of the last three years - indeed, the last eighty years - have refined and improved a nation commonly referred to as the United States of America (presumably because we are now more "fair" or "compassionate"), sharply disagree. Look the person so asserting in the eye, stand your ground and be a worthy patriot. The exchange may not end pleasantly. On the other hand, the United States of America is not ending pleasantly, and no one is doing enough to reverse that.
I hadn't stopped to think about it for myself. Since I put that holiday on the same plane of sacredness with Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Thanksgiving, it's pretty much hardwired into me.
But now I am thinking about it. What is the meaningful way to - let's say commemorate; celebrate probably doesn't fit this year - acknowledge the day's special nature? It's an important question. How to do the flags, patriotic music, classic American summer food, fireworks (which are actually out of the question this year, given the drought and heat wave) and reflective pronouncements in such a way that takes into account the deeply damaged and - yes, let's use the Most Equal Comrade's term here - transformed country in which we presently live? Rah-rah Sgt.-York/ Yankee-Doodle-Dandy/Judy- and-and-Mickey-Strike-Up-the-Band boosterism is no weapon at all (as is also the case with some kind of Sean Hannity-type mullet-fest; thankfully he has let his yee-haw concert series run its course) in the struggle to re-establish the actual nation founded in 1776.
I think the first step is to be up-front about our level of alarm - in any greetings we post on Facebook, in any public speaking we do, in any conversations around the grill, picnic table or pool. Speak plainly of the defilement. This is not the time for "it's-still-a-great-country" rhetoric. For God's sake, the Pentagon now celebrates Transgendered Month. Per the post below, NASCAR has inked a deal with the EPA - as wicked an agency as any to be found in North Korea or Cuba - to go "green." The government can now tax any kind of inactivity that a legislative majority deems taxable. Russia, China and Iran treat us with contempt. One seventh of our population is on food stamps.
What this leads to is a focus like never before on our Founders and our founding documents. This may actually be an opportune moment for reaching those who can be reached in order to impart a sense of the uniqueness - indeed, miraculousness - of the circumstances of this nation's birth. To state once again the commonly made point about it, no country before in human history had been founded on the idea that human beings were naturally free, designed by God to so live. Expediency, pragmatism, and focus on the particulars of contemporary economic or foreign-policy issues were not the central concern of those who crafted the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist, or the Constitution. There eye was on the long term - indeed, on matters eternal.
Be completely candid about the element of mourning and the element of fury in your celebration this year. When challenged by those who think developments of the last three years - indeed, the last eighty years - have refined and improved a nation commonly referred to as the United States of America (presumably because we are now more "fair" or "compassionate"), sharply disagree. Look the person so asserting in the eye, stand your ground and be a worthy patriot. The exchange may not end pleasantly. On the other hand, the United States of America is not ending pleasantly, and no one is doing enough to reverse that.
When venerable American institutions succumb to the totalitarian regime under whose thumb we currently live
Last month, NASCAR lost any claim it ever had to being an embodiment of the American spirit by signing a deal with the EPA to "promote awareness" of the Freedom-Hater regime's mad environmental vision.
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