Now THIS is a Fisking!
Rise of the Common Man does an EXCELLENT fisking of an LA Times op-ed. (Nod to Alphecca for the pointer!)
Month: October 2003
More Political Cartoons
It beats writing another essay (which I’m fermenting in my mind even now…)
Robert Arial (The State, SC) comments on Congress’ reaction to the $87B reconstruction package for Iraq:
John Cole of the Durham (NC) Herald-Sun puts a bit more pop-culture spin on it.
But you’ll note that Congress isn’t quite as hated as Mr. Bartman.
Mike Ramirez (who remains about the only good thing about the LA Times) makes an accurate and pithy comment on the ACLU’s choice of what they defend and what they attack:
And another on China’s space program (which I comment on below:)
Jim Day of the Las Vegas Review Journal is a bit more pointed in his comment on that topic:
Randy Bish of the Pittsburg Review-Tribune puts a more comical spin on it:
Chip Bok of the Akron Beacon Journal comments on Rush Limbaugh’s addiction. (See? I told you it would be interesting!)
Dick Wright of the Columbus (OH) Dispatch comment (at some risk to his job?) on media bias:
And finally, Clay Bennet of the Christian Science Monitor does too:
Call it Synergy
Several people commented over the weekend on this Washington Times piece, Democrats rethink gun-control stance, not the least of whom was C. Dodd Harris of Ipse Dixit (which got him another Instalanche). Quoted in the comments to Dodd’s piece was this paraphrashing of a post on Blaster’s Blog:
Some things are beliefs. Those things aren’t messages. And if you don’t believe those things, your message can’t be credible, no matter how good you are at faking sincerity.
And Commoner gets right down to the bullet points:
Mainstream Americans are sick of being told by politicians of all stripes that they’re simply not good enough.
While the Republicans are hardly innocent, consider the long list of Democratic positions that are elitist in nature:
School vouchers. What’s more fundamental than deciding how your child should be educated?
Citizens shouldn’t be allowed to put some of their social security money in the private sector; they’re not smart enough to make that decision.
Blacks and Hispanics, no matter how well off, simply can’t keep up with white students; they need help. Note that the logical alternative– basing affirmative action on poverty– is scoffed at.
California recall. Two major objections to the most direct form of democracy were that it gave the people too much power, and that they were voting for Arnold simply because he was a movie star. Both send an unmistakable message: You’re not smart enough to vote. While on the subject of that recall, remember the one debate that Arnold participated in? How many times did Cruz use a variation of, “You don’t understand the issue.”. If he feels that way about other candidates, how does he feel about you?
The oft-heard talking point that those who support the president in Iraq do so out of ignorance or misplaced patriotism.
Contempt for commercial media. How many times have you heard a Democrat complain about Fox News? It doesn’t matter that millions of people watch it every day; they’re obviously all deceived dupes.
Indeed, it often seems that the only decision the people can be trusted with is to abort fetuses.
But of course – we’re all morons, so the abortion of morons is a net good thing. Nothing should stand in the way of that. The fewer voters there are, the better democracy works.
This all relates back to the reaction to the California recall election so many of us discussed. As the OpinionJournal put it,
If it comes as a revelation to the Democratic Undergrounders that 20% is less than a majority, they’re not exactly rocket scientists, are they?
Well, granted the DU denizens aren’t in Von Braun’s class, but that doesn’t stop many of them from being elitists. Other comments from that thread:
I would prefer 20%-25% voter turnout!!!! There are very few people on either side of the aisle who understand the issues! The masses can be so easily mislead that they really should not vote!
I know – maybe they should start giving tests to voters
(T)he public means well, but they are uninformed, reactive, fearful and the part of the brain they are voting with now is reptilian. I could go into the zillions of factors behind this but bottom line is the educational level of 75% of the voter base is approximately 7th grade, beyond this point they have closed off.
It’s no good being smarter, better educated, better informed, and a kinder, gentler border collie if you don’t know how to herd the sheeple. Obviously, our leaders have lost the herding instinct. We need new blood.
Current shepherd Evan Bayh complains “We (Democrats) cannot be perceived as cultural elitists,” but he isn’t really interested in not being cultural elitists – just not being perceived that way. Or, as Blaster put it, he’s interested in faking sincerity better, as evidenced by “Democratic Pollster” Mark Penn, who was quoted in the Washington Times piece as saying:
“The formula for Democrats is to say that they support the Second Amendment, but that they want tough laws that close loopholes” in current gun laws, Mr. Penn said, adding that polls show the term “gun safety” is received better than the more commonly used term “gun control.”
As I wrote earlier when commenting on another Washington Times piece,
“Gun SAFETY” = “Gun ELIMINATION.” Just Like “Gun CONTROL” Used to.
Cultural elitists who know what’s best for the proles. And in the ultimate irony, they call themselves democrats.
Update: John Moore of Useful Fools links to this SFGate story about the recall and comments on the arrogance of the Anointed.
China in Space
James Rummel of Hell in a Handbasket posts that he’s not all that worked up about China’s recent orbiting a manned spacecraft. He writes:
So why hasn’t an old space and technology enthusiast like me talking about it much?
Pretty much because I’m in waiting mode. What am I waiting for? I’m waiting for the Chinese to do something original, something that we didn’t do more than 30 years ago.
I left him this comment:
Just my 2ยข:
China has (at the moment) the only kind of government that can pursue an ambitious space program – a dictatorship. More precisely, a well funded dictatorship.
If you accept (as I do) that the future of mankind rests in getting our genome off this planet, then exploring and colonizing space is a high priority in and of itself. But it’s expensive, and the free nations of the world have pretty much demonstrated that they’re not willing to pony up the dough required to build an infrastructure capable of getting us off Earth in any permanent manner. (Or apparently in much of the way of a temporary manner, come to think of it.)
For the military, the high ground is best, and space is that high ground. Untold mineral wealth exists in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. There’s literally unlimited acreage and power just within our solar system.
But the entry cost is high.
China can be the nation that gets there firstest with the mostest.
They may actually have that vision. They may have the necessary will. We’re providing the money (Thanks, Walmart!) and we’ve already provided most of the technology. They’ve got the necessary scientific minds (take a look at the postgraduate Physics departments of most major universities here.)
Pardon me if the idea that space will be the domain of Red China a bit disturbing.
We should have had a lunar colony twenty years ago, and we should be exploring the asteroid belt now.
But of COURSE!
In the long tradition of butchering good books, and the only slightly more recent tradition of making movies “politically correct,” and the split-second more recent tradition of pushing a political agenda, Hollywood brings us “Runaway Jury“ – the big-screen version of John Grisham’s bestselling courtroom thriller.
Of course, Grisham’s book was about a lawsuit against a tobacco company, and that was before the big settlements rolled in, so in the footsteps of Paramount’s production of Tom Clancy’s The Sum of All Fears where they replaced Arab Muslim terrorists with neo-nazis, Fox replaces the tobacco company with an assault weapon manufacturer, which (being, of course a billion-dollar business) can afford to hire high-tech thugs to fix the jury (because Jebus knows that’s the only way these evil purveyors of death could escape JUSTICE!)
This, of course, has nothing to do with the upcoming sunset of the Assault Weapons Ban.
I’ve got this bridge for sale. In Brooklyn? Drop me a line if you’re interested.
Sorry ‘Bout the Lack of Posting
I was called away unexpectedly for the last three days (work related) and just didn’t have time. I’ll try to do some posting this weekend, but posts might be few and far between for the next couple of weeks.
PRE-FVCKING-CISELY!
Den Beste (I’m getting repetitive, I know) comments on our two-party system and the stability it lends in this piece, (and as always, RTWT) but here is the kicker quote that current high-school graduates and almost anyone who call themselves liberals just don’t get:
In general, we tolerate a great deal which in Europe would be suppressed as “hate speech”. We let Holocaust Deniers make their case, which is also illegal in much of Europe. There’s no benefit in letting them exist, but there’s a huge benefit in not having the government decide what is and is not “acceptable” political speech (including “hate speech”), since there’s such a huge potential for abuse if it has that power.
That’s the founding concept behind the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – restriction of government power because of the huge potential for abuse.
Every single law that is passed has a potential for abuse. Each new law confers a new or greater power to government, thus increasing the risk of future abuse. And it’s, if not a logarithmic, at least a geometrically increasing expansion. I wrote a long time ago (Bloggers archives seem to be screwed at the moment) “It’s frightening when you think that we started out with just ten commandments”. While our Founders didn’t establish a two-party system in the Constitution, and in fact some railed against the Party system, it has proven to be one of the things that has kept America stable and moderate over the course of over 250 years.
It works.
So of course progressives want to change it.
Steven Den Beste Predicts a Democratic Nadir
In November 2004 when Bush will be re-elected.
As usual, I find myself in agreement with Steven’s cogent analysis – except I differ a bit with his conclusion:
Barring extraordinary events, in 2004 the Democrats will crash and burn, and then many in the Democratic party will finally start asking whether the “Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party” is actually a liability rather than an asset, something to be isolated and frozen out instead of pandered to. Given that they, like the religious right, have nowhere else to go, it’s not even clear that the Democrats actually need to pander to them. If that happens, the Democrats may again become viable in the US.
The Republicans eventually did that to the Falwell-Robertson religious right, and that’s part of how they regained viability. But the practical effect of that was for the overall party ideology to move closer to the uncommitted American center. It wasn’t just a cosmetic change, an attempt to find a new way to deliver the same old message.
If the Democrats eventually marginalize the Tranzis, they too will move closer to the American center, from the “opposite side”. If a disaster in 2004 doesn’t bring that about, they’ll suffer further disasters in 2006 and 2008 (and 2010…), and eventually they’ll make that change, and once again become competitive out of narrow self interest. For in the long run, not even leftists like being ideologically-pure losers.
Yes, indeed, the Religious-Right were marginalized by the Republicans – and they had nowhere to go. They certainly weren’t going to vote Libertarian, and Ross Perot’s Reform Party was stillborn, though the miscarriage did cost Bush 41 re-election.
But the (to be less charitable) “Barking Moonbat Wing” of the Democratic Party does have the Greens to move to. And the moonbat wing is, apparently, not insigificant given their representation in the current “Deep Space Nine” array of presidential hopefuls. The best the Religious-Right ever managed was Pat “Idiotarian” Robertson. According to this recent Gallup poll on media bias:
(A)bout 4 in 10 Americans today identify themselves as conservatives and about the same number identify as moderates, while less than 20% identify as liberals.
And that “less than 20%” is apparently in control of the Democratic Party, something I don’t think you can really say about the Religious Right. They were pandered to, but never had their hands on the reins. The Moonbats apparently do, and most aren’t going to be “marginalized,” I think. They’ll leave first, and remain fervently active.
I’ll be the first to admit I may be wrong, but the thing that has changed as far as I can see is the militance of the far-left. They don’t care about being “ideologically pure losers.” They just condemn the conservatives and the moderates for being “ignorant sheep” and soldier on in their efforts to save us from ourselves like good socialists should. Evidence for this militance? Increasing eco-terrorism for one thing. Earth First!ers setting fire to SUV dealerships and luxury homes under construction, PETA activists raiding labs and fur farms, protesters actively advocating soldiers killing their officers – and forums praising such action.
The Information Age has allowed everybody to politically organize, and nowhere is this more apparent than at the fringes, and yes, I realize that I represent one of those fringes. They no longer feel alone and helpless. Gun control activist are acting in our own self-interest (I believe preserving the Constitution is self-preservation, anyway). The liberals are crusaders out to save us from ourselves, and they will never rest until they do. (Scratched that last out because there’s always one more crusade for the true believer.) For the Religious Right, being politically marginalized just made them resigned to wait for the Second Coming. For the Moonbat Left being marginalized will just make them more fervent. Crusading is their religion.
So, I don’t think the Democrats will quite reach their nadir in 2004. I think it will occur after the more moderate forces of the Democratic Party attempt to marginalize the moonbat wing – and the moonbat wing, in large part, leaves. When that happens, the Greens will gain strength – and may actually manage to elect a representative or two, especially in areas such as San Francisco where they have a strong following. The Green Party will certainly further harm the Democratic Party – until the Democrats complete the second step and sell themselves to the electorate to the point where they can draw more from that 40% of the population that identifies itself as moderate. That will be a few years after 2004, I think, and it’s going to be a definite two-step process.
But, while the third-party of the Greens will remain ineffective as far as getting candidates elected, I think it’s going to be a drag on the Democrats for some time to come. There are just too many moonbats out there.
OK, I’m LIVID!
Keepandbeararms.com has a court transcript of a hearing in the Seegars v. Ashcroft case where a suit has been brought to overturn the D.C. firearm ban. Stephen Halbrook, as lawyer for the Plaintiff isn’t exactly trying to win on a Second Amendment basis. And though Dave Kopel recent wrote two NRO pieces slamming the non-NRA Silveira case on the basis that they’re not taking the “slow-and-careful” approach and that the chief counsel for Silveira isn’t a hot-shot NRA lawyer, Halbrook comes off pretty badly in the transcript IMHO.
If that’s how the NRA is working to protect our Second Amendment rights, I want them off the job, and they’re going to get a letter from me to that effect.
And the Silveira team is going to get a check.
Fuck ’em when the counsel for the NRA says:
YOUR HONOR, WE ARE HERE WANTING TO REGISTER HANDGUNS. WE ARE NOT HERE WANTING UNRESTRICTED ACCESS. WE’RE NOT HERE ASKING TO CARRY THEM, OTHER THAN IN THE HOME.
Tell me that THAT quote won’t show up in every anti-gun newsletter, publication, and website – and bet your ass it will end up on the Nightly News.
“We are here wanting to register handguns“???? Even IN context I cannot abide that statement.
UPDATE: Halbrook is the author of Registration: The Nazi Paradigm, which opens:
It would be instructive at this time to recall why the American citizenry and Congress have historically opposed the registration of firearms. The reason is plain. Registration makes it easy for a tyrannical government to confiscate firearms and to make prey of its subjects.
And concludes:
Individual criminals wreak their carnage on individuals or small numbers of people. As this century has shown, terrorist governments have the capacity to commit genocide against millions of people, provided that the people are unarmed. Schemes to confiscate firearms kept by peaceable citizens have historically been associated with some of the world’s most insidious tyrannies. Given this reality, it is not surprising that law-abiding gun owners oppose being objects of registration.
And yet he could say what is quoted above?
And you wonder lawyers have such a bad name?
Read Lileks Today
He’s on an anti-idiotarian Fisking RANT, and it’s EXCELLENT.