Tag: linkery

Also On the Topic of Elites

Another very good piece, also from Rational Passion – McCain Will Win – I Will Abstain. An excerpt:

For (Bill) Maher and (Sam) Harris, the Democrats fight for the little guy, peace, justice, and all good things. And if you don’t vote for them, you’re an idiot. And a narcissistic idiot for not realizing how stupid you are! You are to defer to the wisdom of your betters–people like Maher, Harris, Obama, and other left-liberals–and shut up! Why? Because you’re stupid, fool!

If this is how you view the little guy–as a bitter, narcissistic, idiot who clings to religion, guns, and xenophobia to give him comfort and security in a world without the blessings of “progressive” Democrats in charge–how can you be said to be his representative? Note that I have nothing against elitism. I have a problem with a certain kind of elitism. I have a problem with an elitist who claims to support the little guy out of one side of his mouth while sneering at his stupid Wal-Mart-shopping-gun-toting-Bible-believing ways out of the other.

Being a left-liberal elitist is not a function of one’s economic class or educational attainment per se. Being a left-liberal elitist means believing that helping the little guy is the purpose of politics and simultaneously believing that the little guy would abandon the things that he says he values if only he had a few more dollars in his pocket and a better job, thanks to left-liberal government programs. Some people, shockingly, don’t like being told that their values–right, wrong, or in-between–are symptoms of economic deprivation! Might they be? Sure. But people don’t like being told that, and if you’re going to insult them, don’t expect them to vote for you.

READ THE WHOLE THING. This includes YOU Margaret Soltan.

And here’s the Quote of the Day, from that same piece:

No, it won’t be racism that does Barack Obama in, if he does in fact lose. For every racist white who won’t vote for Obama because he’s a black man, there’s probably a guilty white liberal desperate to vote for a black person to prove how non-racist he is. I think the racial issue is a wash–it may help Obama, and it may hurt him, but on balance, it won’t be the deciding issue. I think the deeper reason for Obama’s probable defeat is something he said in his convention speech. Obama told us why John McCain won’t embrace the brilliant Obama plan of hope and change. Obama said “It’s not because John McCain doesn’t care. It’s because John McCain doesn’t get it.” That, really, is all left-liberals have. To those of us who don’t “get it,” they can offer no reason to support their candidate or their worldview. The bulk of the press, Hollywood, academia, and our cultural institutions generally–they “get it.” They “get it” so well that the need to argue for and explain their views is a skill they’ve lost. And there are a whole bunch of us who don’t “get it” and resent being told that we don’t “get it” by people who use sneers and smears to make their case instead of arguments.

I think I need to add Rational Passion to my daily reads.

Another Female’s Take

More linkery:

I have no interest whatsoever in being a citizen of the world. The world actually sucks. In the world, having indoor plumbing and electricity are signs of disproportionate wealth. Never mind personally owned vehicular travel that is not mammal powered.

It drives me crazy when the “for the people, but not of the people” folks get their Atkins full bellies out of their Eames chairs, put down their iPhones, and take a stand from within the palatial air conditioned splendor of their fucking vacation homes.

Wealth in this country is general. The lowest common denominator has a plasma t.v. and a vehicle. Or at least knows someone closely who has one or both. Electricity is taken for granted, and it is considered suffering if one has it turned off temporarily. If the indoor plumbing is faulty, lawsuits follow. If you go anywhere else in the world, that’s not the case. Unless you hit an upside down imperialism, guilt-ridden, welfare (dhimmi tax) paradise like the U.K..

In most places in the world, there’s a trench in which everyone goes, or perhaps, more creatively, a platform off of which one can perform. Even in Europe you’re as likely to find a hole in the ground as a throne. It was about 50/50 last time I was in France. Yes, even in quite a bit of Paris.

And when the sun goes down the light is gone. Dinner is likely gruel cooked over dung. And may have included insects, on purpose. Women are stuck at home when they bleed, are quite probably beaten, even just a little as needed, and babies come too often and die almost as much. Charms are medicine, hope is a luxury, and exploitation is a step above the starvation alternative. Disease is rife, 40 is old, political unrest is daily a clear and present danger, and the idea that we put our plastic organic yogurt containers in the dishwasher before we send them to be recycled is so inconceivably wasteful of resources it cannot even be explained. – Valiens, A Brain Like Mine: Diary of a Feminist Housewife, “Palin, World, War & Kissing Girls”

Another one that’s worth your time.

Quote of the Week

Forgive me, I’ve been ill. This is the first time I’ve seen this. If you haven’t, you absolutely need to read the whole thing, print it out and spread it around. Media Still Doesn’t Get It, from Ace of Spades, authored by Slublog. A masterful fisking this piece of slime by Roger Simon (no, the other Roger Simon). The quote:

You want to know why conservatives roared last night when the media was bashed and why many of us have spent the week in a simmering rage? It’s because you’re hypocrites. You claim to be objective, yet have spent the past few days absolutely smearing a woman and her family because she had the audacity to be a conservative Republican. You have expended more time and effort discussing her daughter’s sex life than you’ve spent looking into the business and political associates of the Democrat candidate for president of the United States. When you did explore Palin’s actual record, you have often done so with little regard for the truth. You and your colleagues have relinquished your right to be taken seriously as honest brokers of information.

And what this column shows me is that you know it.

I’m serious. Read the whole piece.

I can hear Bernie Goldberg saying “I told you . . .”

I wonder if anyone knows how to get in touch with Bernie. I’d bet there’s a bunch of us pajamahadeen who would like to interview him over these latest, most blatant examples of Bias and Arrogance.

And not one “legacy media” outlet that will touch him.

No, Wait – Quote of the Day

(W)e live in a time where Jesus himself couldn’t get elected because someone would bring up the whole unmarried mother thing and that he changed water into wine without a proper Class B Miracle license. – Robb Allen, Sharp as a Marble – “What, no mention of her vulva?”

Ain’t THAT the truth?

Now I AM going back to bed.