Tag: QotD

Gigging the Paulites, (or: I Need the Traffic)

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The first comment on the post where I endorsed Fred Thompson for President was from a Ron Paul supporter. Ron Paul has a fiercely dedicated (but very small) base of supporters who believe his understanding of the Constitution is the only valid one – and I’ll say up front they very well may be correct. However, as I tried to explain in those comments, Congressman Paul’s position ignores decades, nay, two centuries of political entropy, both here and abroad.

There are two quotes that I think well express the problem that the mainstream public has with Ron Paul. One is directly related to the Congressman. One is more general. From Rachel Lucas’ comments:

Like all strict libertarians, Ron Paul believes, truly believes, that he has found the Grand Unified Theory of human political relations, that all good political rules stem from a single principle that can be encapsulated in two or three sentences. He is rigidly ideological, which makes him, by definition, a zealot. Like all zealots, he thus appears to the rest of us like he is batshit crazy… because he is. The rest of us live in a far more complicated, nuanced world, where human interactions and human government cannot neatly be reduced down to a 3-sentence rule.

The other quote is by an ex-blogger, Dipnut from Isntapundit, and it’s about Ayn Rand, the inventor of the philosophy of Objectivism:

Perhaps the biggest mistake an intellectual can make is to try to parlay his one brilliant insight into a unified theory of existence. Ayn Rand made this mistake with Objectivism. Objectivism was useful for thinking in certain limited realms, but Rand sought to apply Objectivist thinking to every aspect of the human experience, including love. The result is a sterile philosophical landscape, extending out of sight in all directions. Tellingly, Rand was unable to live according to her ideals. This is part of what makes Rand so disagreeable; the almost hysterical denial of subjectivity’s inevitable, essential role in our lives. And it makes her not only disagreeable, but wrong.

I believe both Rand and Paul have important insights and have important things to say, but the extremes that both insist are necessary ignore the reality that is human existence. We are not (at least not most of us, and certainly not all of the time) rational creatures – but both the libertarian and the objectivist philosophies depend on high-percentage rationality, and so they fail.

The Geek with a .45 put it very well, also in a much older comment:

A truly enlightened society must ultimately be composed of 95%+ enlightened individuals…and the bell curve just doesn’t support that premise.

Ron Paul, if elected, could not fix anything. As I said in the Fred Thompson comment thread:

If there were 50 Ron Pauls in the Senate and 220 Ron Pauls in the House, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Unfortunately, there’s only one, and one isn’t going to accomplish anything, even if he’s President. While it would be amusing to watch him throw sand and monkey wrenches into the machinery of government from the height of the Oval Office, it’s not something I think we can afford to indulge ourselves in at present.

Most especially since we’re in a war that he thinks isolationism can get us out of.

Quote of the Day

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By Lyle in a comment at SayUncle explaining the liberal worldview:

There is no right or wrong, just the inability to get along. Therefore you must either agree with me or be accused of causing an argument.

It takes two to make a fight, so stop fighting me.

If you don’t have anything nice to say about me, you must refrain from criticizing anything I choose to do to you.

If anything I do to you makes you angry, it proves you are a hateful person.

If you cannot accept what I do to you, it means you are closed-minded.

If you don’t give me what I want, it proves you are materialistic and selfish.

Seems to meet all the tests…

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Only Democrats and Dictators Fear Elections.

That’s a line from James Hudnall, from a post no longer available on the web. It stuck with me, and I’ve quoted it a couple of times here. It seems once again pertinent.

OpinionJournal carries a piece today on the efforts of T.J. Rogers, Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Dartmouth alum who got himself elected to the board of trustees at Dartmouth in an attempt to effect some positive change.

Things have not gone well. The powers-that-be in the board of trustees are not at all happy to have their power challenged by diversity of thought.

Here’s the quote of the day from that piece:

This is not a conservative-liberal conflict. This is a libertarian-totalitarian conflict.

Please read the whole piece.

This is just one more facet in something that’s been stirring in the back of my mind for a while, waiting to become another essay.

(h/t: Instapundit.)

KevinLeave a comment

Quote of the Day, Pt. II

From Kenn Blanchard:

Guns are not the problem with the increase of violence in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Detroit and New York. The problem is the community is waiting for someone else to fix the broken home, the un-parented child, the illiterate graduate, and the spiritually bankrupt. We collectively spend more attention and give more love to animals than we do our children. And then when they grow up into prostitots, thugs and mirror the images from People magazine we want to blame something. I have seen the enemy and it is us.

(H/t to PGP)

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Quote of the Day.

From Looking Iraqis in the Eye by Rocco DiPippo:

I am an American. I have never had to live in fear that something as harmless as a joke about my president could get me, my parents, brothers, sisters and cousins, tortured and murdered by my government. I had never lived in a place where a slip of the tongue could get me killed. My country is the United States of America, where just about anything goes, even when criticizing one’s government — where calling one’s president a liar, an idiot, a murderer or someone worse than Hitler is far, far more likely to get you a seat at the Oscars than a bullet to the brain.

That should leave a mark, but the intended recipients won’t acknowledge it. Commentary on the rest of the piece in the next post below.

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Quote of the Day.

From Cabinboy at Western Rifle Shooters:

Just remember – never, ever get on the government bus to the “emergency shelter/evacuation camp”.

Once you do, you are irretrievably finished.

I know it sounds paranoid, but after New Orleans, not so much any more. “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” isn’t the joke it used to be.

KevinLeave a comment

Candidate for Quote of the YEAR.

Now, this is just my opinion, but if your money-handling skills are so poor that you can’t even make a profit selling sex, then you have absolutely no business getting involved in more complicated financial areas.

In other words, if “Slam, bam, thank you ma’am, here’s a hundred bucks” is too complicated for you to make a profit, then you might just want to keep your meat-hooks out of, say — health care.

LawDog speaks a fundamental truth.

KevinLeave a comment

Quote of the Weekend.

I think much of the greatness went away when we were all encouraged to turn inward and question America in general.

The days of swagger, of press on regardless, the “let’s give THIS a try!”, the “sure! We can do that!” have been left behind in favor of how awful we are, how badly we treat the rest of the world, how this and how that. How all of our manufactured goods are crap (we keep telling ourselves). Our children are now taught how bad we are and how much we pollute, how evil our founders were, etc.

We are, in short, buried in an era of angst, nannyism, and self-loathing. I put much of that right at the feet of my own generation, the boomers. We went from being a nation of John Waynes and Robert Mitchum strength and bravado to one of Alan Alda wussiness and Rosie O’Donnell nation-hating. – the friendly grizzly

Can I get an “Amen!”?