Doubleplusundead responds to a US News report that a Harvard study finds that the celebration of Independence Day has become a rightwing holiday.
I find I can add nothing of value to Edward von Bear’s stirring retort.
Tag: politics
Lend Me Your Ears!*
I come not to praise the Constitution, but to bury it.
The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with the Constitution. The noble Progressive hath told you that the Constitution was outdated. If it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath that document answer’d it.
Here, under leave of the Progressive and the rest – for the Progressive is an honourable man. Woman. Gender-neutral being.
So are they all, all honourable beings. Just ask them.
Come I to speak at the Constitution’s funeral.
It was my friend, faithful and just to me. But the Progressive says it was outdated, too rigid, too difficult to understand.
And the Progressive is an honourable being.
The Constitution hath brought much freedom to America, which benefits did the general coffers fill. Did this in the Constitution seem outdated?
When that the poor have cried, the Constitution hath left their succor to the Citizens, who violated that document to provide that succor.
A rigid contract should be made of sterner stuff. Yet the Progressive says it was too rigid. And the Progressive is an honourable being.
I speak not to disprove what the Progressive spoke, but here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love it once, not without cause. What cause withholds you then, to mourn for it?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason. Bear with me. My heart is in the coffin there with the Constitution, and I must pause till it come back to me.
Recently, the Washington Post sold its interest in Newsweek for $1.
Time must be worth all of 12¢.
(*With all apologies to the Bard.)
I Think the “News” Segment is a Bit Too Large
More Linkery
If you haven’t read Walter Russell Mead’s When Government Jumps the Shark, I strongly advise you to. In it, Mr. Mead divides .gov programs up into five distinct stages that I think are brilliant in their concise descriptivity:
- Great White Hope
- Great White Father
- Great White Elephant
- Great White Shark
- Great White Whale
My first exposure to Mr. Mead came from another brilliant essay, The Jacksonian Tradition, which I found via Steven Den Beste many years ago, and I’ve cited it in several pieces here. He’s not lost anything in the ensuing decade.
Unintended Irony
From Politico‘s piece, Long-lost Sarah Palin surfaces in emails:
That’s not to say the picture of Palin is all rosy. She whines constantly about her treatment by the press. She uses subterfuge to manipulate her image, ghostwriting a letter to the editor praising her, for instance, or conducting a phony television interview in which she reads answers from a teleprompter.
She increasingly sees enemies all around, repeatedly demanding to know whether her privacy has been breached. In one case, it turns out her husband Todd, not a hacker, sent an email from one of her accounts. She convinces herself that rumors about her last pregnancy have been deliberately and maliciously spread by an enemy in the state Legislature.
The seeds of the paranoia and belligerence that so prominently mark her current public persona are visible in early form.
This on a piece about the media’s pathetic feeding-frenzy over the publication of nearly 25,000 emails dating back to prior to 2008.
Here’s a hint: It’s not paranoia when they actually are out to get you, and it isn’t “whining” when the press is the instrument of that attack. As JammieWearingFool puts it, linking to the Politico piece:
How badly has this fishing expedition blown up in the faces of the left? Well, for one, the cartoon character portrayal of Palin is now gone forever.
Coming next: The media will launch an exhaustive background check of the current occupant of the White House.
Yeah, right.
She appeared on the media radar in 2008 and they haven’t stopped trying to dig up dirt on her for a minute since.
Obama?
Yeah, right.
See also today’s QotD.
I LIKE It!
UPDATE: Now available.
What’s This? Truth from the MSM?
U.S. funding for future promises lags by trillions
The federal government’s financial condition deteriorated rapidly last year, far beyond the $1.5 trillion in new debt taken on to finance the budget deficit, a USA TODAY analysis shows.The government added $5.3 trillion in new financial obligations in 2010, largely for retirement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. That brings to a record $61.6 trillion the total of financial promises not paid for.—The $61.6 trillion in unfunded obligations amounts to $534,000 per household. That’s more than five times what Americans have borrowed for everything else — mortgages, car loans and other debt. It reflects the challenge as the number of retirees soars over the next 20 years and seniors try to collect on those spending promises.
But not to worry, a “liberal” spokesman says:
Michael Lind, policy director at the liberal New America Foundation’s economic growth program, says there is no near-term crisis for federal retirement programs and that economic growth will make these programs more affordable.
“The false claim that Social Security and Medicare are about to bankrupt the United States has been repeated for decades by conservatives and libertarians who pretend that their ideological opposition to these successful and cost-effective programs is based on worries about the deficit,” he says.
That’s because conservatives and libertarians have been RIGHT ABOUT IT FOR DECADES. The liberals have pooh-poohed the warnings for decades because of their ideology, and the chickens, as the saying goes, are now coming home to roost. “Cost effective”? COST EFFECTIVE??
The government has promised pension and health benefits worth more than $700,000 per retired civil servant. The pension fund’s key asset: federal IOUs.
I don’t have any money? Well let me write myself an IOU!
We are well and truly screwed.
Aren’t Almost All Politicians?
There’s been a bit of interest in a recent post about psychopaths in places of power. Excerpt:
Rape a housekeeper… you might be a psychopath.
Lie to the nation about having sex with an intern… you might be a psychopath.
Having multiple public affairs while putting at risk the largest endorsements in the world… you might be a psychopath.
Cheat on your wife and have a love child with house hold staff… you might be a psychopath.
Cheat on your wife with $3,000 an hour prostitutes while prosecuting others… you might be a psychopath.
Divorce your wife while she is recovering from surgery… you might be a psychopath.
Cheat on your wife, father a love child, have a sex tape, and asking for a divorce, while your wife is dying form cancer… you might be a psychopath.
Blow a million dollar TV career on coke and hookers… you might be a psychopath.
Create financial instruments that you knew were going to blow up the housing market… you might be a psychopath.
Create a billion dollar Ponzi scheme to steal billions… you might be a psychopath.
Hide billions of losses in off the books shell corporations to pump up your stock… you might be a psychopath.
Claim that you are doing “God’s work” while your company sucks the life blood out of the company… you might be a psychopath.
Show no remorse for 500,000 dead Iraqi children… you might be a psychopath.
Lie to a nation about the real reason we are going to war… you might be a psychopath.
Lie to a nation about the real strength of the dollar… you might be a banker.
Talk about coming back as a deadly virus to eradicate over population… you might be a psychopath.
Create and fund wars to steal others natural resources… you might be a psychopath.
Help support tyrannical regimes all over the world… you might be a psychopath.
Holding up the American taxpayer to bailout your buddies… you might be a psychopath.
Perpetuating a huge lie in order to to become a carbon credit billionaire and sexually assaulting a masseuse … you might be a psychopath.
These are the people who grasp for the levers of power. These are the people we’re supposed to trust to do what’s right, not what is personally beneficial, expedient, easy. These are the people the media is supposed to vet, not anoint.
There’s also this recent book, The Psychopath Test. Watch the embedded video there.
There’s a preponderance of psychopaths, people with a complete lack of human empathy at the heart of the political and business elites.
But Government = Good, Business = Bad! That’s what we’re constantly told. Just put the right people in charge of government, and things will be made RIGHT!
But it never is. And it’s never their fault. The solutions were just poorly implemented! There was too much resistance from reactionaries! We didn’t spend enough money! The philosophy cannot be wrong! We must do it again, only HARDER!
The Founders understood, and that is why they wrote a Constitution of defined, limited powers. And that’s why that Constitution had to be folded, spindled, mutilated and made void.
Entropy sucks.
Can’t Afford Gas? Trade in Your SUV!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKdScVerrBU?rel=0]
It’s not bad when they do it. It’s the intention that matters, not the results.
The syphilitic camel is getting more and more attractive.
Bloggers in the White House?
Stacy McCain has brought back an old idea. Glenn Reynolds for President! Hell, I’ll even go with the original Vice Presidential nominee, Rachel Lucas, regardless of the fact that she’s living in Europe now.
(Original artwork by Chris Muir)
The cabinet secretaries and ambassadorships will have to change, but what the hell, Elect the Great in 20082012!
Glenn’s fingers say “No, no!” but his heart is saying “YES! YES!” (He’s got to be better than a syphilitic camel, right?) Expect a national tour by luxury coach, wrapped in patriotic imagery to begin July 4!