Tag: linkery

Who Should We Worry About?

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Interesting piece from “Robin of Berkely” – “a psychotherapist and a recovering liberal” now writing for American Thinker. In her latest piece, Obama’s Mind Game, she opens:

It’s a chilling moment when the light goes out in someone’s eyes. A once-radiant child hardens from abuse. A woman’s heart shrinks after her husband’s abandonment.

The person looks the same, maybe acts the same. But something is gone, and what’s lost is irretrievable. It’s like when a person dies: in a heartbeat, the soul vanishes.

I witnessed this alteration recently when I visited my goddaughter, a radiant girl. Her mom, a hardcore progressive, has started exposing her to the darkest elements of the left. And the last time I looked in the girl’s eyes, the light had gone out. Disappeared. Just like that.

I see this phenomenon every day: a light dimming. The friendly shopkeeper snaps at me. My cheerful neighbor seems flattened.

And you hear it in the news: people acting strangely, going off the deep end. The most bizarre behavior becoming the new normal.

A thug bites off a finger. Sarah Palin’s church is torched. Bullies intimidate voters.

Last week, an esteemed Columbia University black architecture professor punched a white female coworker in the eye for not doing more about white privilege.

He has no history of violence. So why now?

Why now? This may be the most important question of our time. Why are some people reaching the boiling point? Why do many others look vacant, like an Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The shootings at military bases, from Little Rock to Fort Hood — why now?

It’s Obama, of course.

Quite aware of what she just said, she follows it with:

Liberals will excoriate me for writing this.

Can I have “DUH!” for $1,000, Alex?

Interesting piece. The howls of anguished outrage will be more interesting still.

(h/t: MK Freeberg)

Quote of the Day – Primary Sources Edition

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“Geek, I am surprised to find that I think I am really a Republican, and this frightens me. It isn’t that the Republicans are scary…well, some of them are, but not the ones I’ve actually seen. The people who really scare the hell out of me are the Democrats. I used to think I was one of them, until I saw how they really behaved once they have power. I can see that they’re just interested in power, and in instituting as much of a Socialist scheme as they can get away with…”

I probed. “Socialist? Really? A lot of people bandy that word about, and a lot of Democrats will tell you that it really doesn’t apply, and its inaccurate and misguided to suggest that’s what they…” Kurt cut me off, with a chopping motion of his hand and annoyance that is very uncharacteristic for him.

“Yes! Socialist! A little bit more and more, every time I look closer!” Kurt stopped to compose himself. “Geek, trust me, I know socialists when I see them. I came here to get away from all that krap in Germany, and I don’t like seeing it here, not one little bit.”

— Musings of The Geek with a .45, 20 Years Ago Today…

And from TSM:

I am a new NRA member. I have been a citizen for only fourteen years. I believe in the Constitution and the Second Amendment, and when I see Obama, I see Communism, and I am afraid.

— Mrs. Ly Chho, quoted 10/10/08.

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

Found at The Emigré with a Digital Cluebat:

It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system; it eliminates the possibility of considering capitalism; it switches the choice of ‘Freedom or dictatorship?’ into ‘Which kind of dictatorship?’ — thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice — according to the proponents of that fraud — is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism). That fraud collapsed in the 1940’s, in the aftermath of World War II. It is too obvious, too easily demonstrable that fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory — that both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state — that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders — that under both systems, the poor are enslaved and the rich are expropriated in favor of a ruling clique — that fascism is not the product of the political ‘right,’ but of the ‘left’ — that the basic issue is not ‘rich versus poor,’ but man versus the state, or: individual rights versus totalitarian government — which means: capitalism versus socialism.

— Ayn Rand

I may not be an Objectivist, but the old lady was right far more often than she was wrong. Interesting that she says here what it took Jonah Goldberg an entire book to say.

But she was wrong. The rival gangs are at it again, by all appearances, else Jonah’s book would have been unnecessary.

Quote of the Day (Repeat)

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In keeping with my recent Education posts, here’s a repeat of a QotD from May – Ballistic Deanimation‘s discussion of the education system from a “primary source.” Do read the link.

You’re a product of the public system, they say. You turned out all right, so it must be…..

No.

Stop looking for outside influences as the root cause of problems. I drank, I smoked, I slept with girls and went to parties and ditched class and got into trouble. I also realized that the school systems are a joke, and learned to work that in my favor. Yeah, I learned…how to skirt the system, just as these jokers today are doing. But in my case, I had a genuine hunger for knowledge.

I read ceaselessly outside of school. I worked on chemistry and physics stuff at home, because I liked it. I did computer science classes at the JC. I learned…just not in that system. I played catch up in college for it, but that was easy. For me…not them.

So, no…the problem is the system.

But…

No.

The kids are getting dumber.

I have data to support this statement. It is not an opinion.

Every. Single. Year. It happens. The graduating class scores lower on their tests than the year before, and the next year is lower, and lower, etc. All this while classes are being cut due to budget constraints, schools are tightening admissions requirements and looking for higher and higher test scores and GPA’s.

They’re still being filled up, but not by local kids.

Local kids are failing. They start college level math, something for which they should be prepared, and then throw their hands up in defeat because they never learned the foundation materials.

You can’t do quadratics when your teacher let you watch TV in class instead of teaching you the order of operations.

Do you understand?

I’ve got a girl here, born in the US, schooled here to 13 years in this system, ready to receive a diploma from this system. I give her a test on college level material, and she does so poorly THE COMPUTER ASSUMES SHE MUST NOT SPEAK ENGLISH!

Does that not concern anyone else?

Ballistic Deanimation – Dumbing Down