I really can’t tell you much about where I am exactly, because I was pretty fucked up when I got here, and I kinda kept passing out during orientation. If I had to guess, though, I’d say I’m in Heaven. Because already I was able to score several ounces of crystalized Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, and I didn’t even have to blow Carrot Top under the table at Nate ‘n Al’s to do it.

I think I’m going to like Heaven.

Not really surprising

How going green may make you mean

When Al Gore was caught running up huge energy bills at home at the same time as lecturing on the need to save electricity, it turns out that he was only reverting to “green” type.

According to a study, when people feel they have been morally virtuous by saving the planet through their purchases of organic baby food, for example, it leads to the “licensing [of] selfish and morally questionable behaviour”, otherwise known as “moral balancing” or “compensatory ethics”.

Do Green Products Make Us Better People is published in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science. Its authors, Canadian psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong, argue that people who wear what they call the “halo of green consumerism” are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. “Virtuous acts can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviours,” they write.

It’s not just “green”. This is just the latest example of what happens to people who “love humanity but can’t stand individuals”. A classic example is the cliched and ubiquitous Thanksgiving media attention to some Hollywood celebrity serving up dinners at a homeless shelter. The same celebrity who treats “the little people” he or she comes in contact with — from hairdresser to car valet — with undisguised contempt and entitlement.

These kind of collectivist “causes” – Save the Whales! Save the Trees! No more War! Do it for The Children! — attract followers exactly because of the “moral balancing”. They are easy macro-causes that allow someone to strut their “moral creds” — “oh look, I’m gathering signatures to ban paper OR plastic in supermarkets!” — to their neighbors and allows them to act like jerks in private. The old-fashioned practioner of Judeo-Christian principles who everyday engages in the micro-practice of small kindnesses or charities — generously tips the waitperson, does grocery shopping for the housebound next-door-neighbor, is polite with the harried cashier — doesn’t get the press even as focus on helping individuals in a pay-it-forward model makes an immediate difference in each individual’s daily life.

This is not to say that even so-called religious “leaders” haven’t succumbed to the temptation to be public paragons while engaging in private perversions. The abandonment of one of the central tenents of ethical monotheism — that God wants us to act good individually — comes first.

There is little difference between a Christian pastor preaching increased taxes regardless of the individual harm it does in the service of “social justice” and environmentalists advocating increased regulation of carbon. Both rarely figure it will affect them, only that other guy.

Individuals can be beautiful, humanity sucks.

(h/t Daily Caller via Wizbang)

cutting off your nose to spite your face.

John Bolton, on the Obama administration’s relationship with Israel, WSJ:

We are moving inexorably toward, and perhaps have now reached, an Israeli crisis with Mr. Obama. Americans must realize that allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is empowering an existential threat to the Israeli state, to Arab governments in the region that are friendly to the U.S., and to long-term global peace and security.

Mr. Netanyahu must realize he has not been banking good behavior credits with Mr. Obama but simply postponing an inevitable confrontation. The prime minister should recalibrate his approach, and soon. Israel’s deference on Palestinian issues will not help it with Mr. Obama after a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program. It would be a mistake to think that further delays in such a strike will materially change the toxic political response Israel can expect from the White House. Israel’s support will come from Congress and the American people, as opinion polls show, not from the president.

Mr. Obama is not merely heedless of America’s predominant global position. He is also embarrassed enough by it not to regret diminishing it. In fact, we have achieved pre-eminence not simply to preen our American ego, but to defend our interests and those of like-minded allies. Ceding America’s role in world affairs is not an act of becoming modesty but a dangerous signal of weakness to friends and adversaries alike. Israel may be the first ally to feel the pain.

Asked to expand the critique of the Obama administration’s handling of our relationship with Israel, Mr. Bolton’s straight-talking mustache, Regis, took a drawn-out belt of Lagavulin (rocks) and shrugged, “what’s to ‘expand’? Our President’s a total wad.

“But relax, he’ll be out soon. Meantime, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”

(h/t Terry)

related: If one didn’t know better, one might suspect that President Obama was partial to Muslims — and not too altogether fond of the Jews.

Okay, now this is clever:

This:

This two-votes-in-one gambit is a brazen affront to the plain language of the Constitution, which is intended to require democratic accountability. Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution says that in order for a “Bill” to “become a Law,” it “shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate.” This is why the House and Senate typically have a conference committee to work out differences in what each body passes. While sometimes one house cedes entirely to another, the expectation is that its Members must re-vote on the exact language of the other body’s bill.

As Stanford law professor Michael McConnell pointed out in these pages yesterday, “The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote. The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill. But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form.” If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of Madison’s core checks and balances.

These are the stakes.

Otherwise: The New Deal + The Great Society + Health care “reform” = European soft socialism / Liberal Fascism.

The end.

epilogue: Did “conservatives” bring this on themselves?

And where’s the End of History now? China…?

(h/t Terry H)

Pfffffffft! Obama wants you little people to remember, “I Won.”

WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal agencies haven’t lived up to President Barack Obama’s promise of a more open government, increasing their use of legal exemptions to keep records secret during his first year in office.

An Associated Press review of Freedom of Information Act reports filed by 17 major agencies found that the use of nearly every one of the law’s nine exemptions to withhold information from the public rose in fiscal year 2009, which ended last October.

(more…)

Byron York:

If you have any doubt that the Democratic leadership of the House views passing the current health care reform bill as the beginning, not the end, of the process of creating a national government health care system, just note what Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a group of bloggers on Monday. “My biggest fight has been between those who wanted to do something incremental and those who wanted to do something comprehensive,” Pelosi said, according to an account by Washington Post reform advocate Ezra Klein. “We won that fight, and once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow.”

But since the current bill is unpopular, and Pelosi at the moment does not have enough Democratic, much less Republican, votes to pass it, the door she will be kicking through is the back door. Pelosi told the bloggers she favors using the “self-executing rule” strategy in which the House would pass the Senate health care bill without going on the record as specifically voting for it. “I like it,” Pelosi said of the scheme, “because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.” The strategy of passing the Senate bill while avoiding a direct vote, writes Klein, “is all about plausible deniability for House members who don’t want to vote for the Senate bill.”

In a particularly Alice-in-Wonderland moment, Pelosi argued that the debate over health care reform can begin after the bill is passed. “Pelosi said passing the bill would allow Dems to undertake a ‘debate’ with Republicans over ‘what is the balanced role that government should have,’” writes another pro-reform blogger at the Post, Greg Sargent. According to Sargent, Pelosi explained, “We have to take it to the American people, to say, this is the choice that you have. This is the vision that they have for your health and well being, and this is the vision that we have.” Again, in Pelosi’s scenario, that debate would occur after the bill is passed.

As every post needs a kind of point, let me leave you with this:

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more–
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

“But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,
“Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!”
“No hurry!” said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.

“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,
“Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed–
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.”

“But not on us!” the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
“After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!”
“The night is fine,” the Walrus said.
“Do you admire the view?

“It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf–
I’ve had to ask you twice!”

“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said,
“To play them such a trick,
After we’ve brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“The butter’s spread too thick!”

“I weep for you,” the Walrus said:
“I deeply sympathize.”
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none–
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.

Go ahead and squint. You’ll see it.

In contrast to the hickish tea partiers and “all their blather,” here’s how the the more politically sophisticated among us operate to effectively advance a cultural conversation.

Note the clever use of visual / iconic adianoeta, which in this instance works to gently nudge readers toward an unspoken (yet somehow inevitable) association between reactionary movements peopled by Jesus-pimping proto-Klansman, and the social practice, enjoyed by many in the gay community, of deep throating scrotum (scroti?)

So true. So fraught. So edgy.

Prominent figures on the right — up to and including that snowbilly hicktard Sarah Palin and the retard she totes around like a handbag– could learn a thing or two from the educated elite at the New Republic about framing culturally provocative arguments in a more intellectually rigorous and honest manner.

As could that Tebow cooz she’s been palling around with.

Until they do, progressives — by virtue of their… well, virtue — will continue to hold the rhetorical high ground in our cultural conversations.

And well they should. After all, it takes quite a bit of schooling to be able to draw the kinds of subtle connections those on the left so routinely are able to draw (tea partiers → tea bags → teabagging → ball sack dunked in an eager maw) — and we would do well to emulate them.

It’s bad enough the majority of us conservatives think Kristeva is a fancy shampoo or an expensive liquor favored by PDiddy; do we really have to advertise it?

(h/t JHo)

****
update: TNR has swapped the picture out for a new picture. Which means it never happened. Kind of like the entirety of Scott Beauchamp’s ourvre. Synchronicity!

“Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn / Next stop is Vietnam, uh, say, the King Sooper’s parking lot off Route 16…?”

Michael Barone on the Tea Party movement:

Like the antiwar activists of 40 years ago, the tea partiers include many good citizens moved to political involvement because of intellectually serious concerns about public policy. Similarly, they include a much smaller number of cranks, conspiracy theorists and congenital malcontents.

Tea partiers have caused some internal party splits (see the New York District 23 special election) and some may launch primary challenges or third-party efforts that will elect Democrats. Any time a large number of motivated people inject themselves into electoral politics, they cause a certain amount of chaos.

They also add a lot of energy, political creativity and enthusiasm into a moribund and dejected political party, like the Democrats of 1968 and the Republicans of 2008. New people change the positions and focus of their parties. The Democrats before 1968 were a pro-Cold War party. Since 1968 they have been, with occasional exceptions, a dovish party. Hawks need not apply (ask Joe Lieberman).

The Republicans for the last two decades have been a party whose litmus tests have been cultural issues, especially abortion. The tea partiers have helped to change their focus to issues of government overreach and spending. That may be a helpful pivot, given the emergence of a millennial generation uncomfortable with crusading cultural conservatism.

It’s not clear whether the tea partiers’ influence on Republicans will last as long as the antiwar cohort’s imprint on Democrats. But their concern — the fact that government spending is on a trajectory to increase far beyond revenues — seems likely to persist. In which case a spontaneous movement that no one predicted and that no one person led could end up, again, reshaping one of our great political parties.

[my emphasis]

In a quiet way, Barone makes a resounding argument here — and it is one we’ve explored on protein wisdom for several years now: namely, will fiscal and legal conservatism — which to my way of thinking is tied to free enterprise, smaller government, and individual rights (and so can properly be called classical liberalism or even libertarianism) — sell better, in national elections, than the standard rhetoric of “cultural conservatism” that has for years been (in many cases appropriately) tied to the GOP?

My own opinion is that yes, such a change in message is precisely what is needed to reinvigorate the popularity of the classical liberal ideals on which this country was founded. And my reason for believing this is twofold: first, the rhetorical strategy of the left has been to try to tether the tea partiers to precisely the kind of social conservatism they have for years caricatured. And so we have the popular depiction of Tea Party participants as uptight racists and Bible-clinging gun nuts — unsophisticated hicks whose prudishness can be highlighted with a “clever” and risque play on the name (teabaggers! Lulz!) — precisely because this is where, politically speaking, the left finds the “right” most vulnerable.

Second, I’ve long argued that a move to re-emphasize individual rights and true tolerance (of the kind intended in the First Amendment) — that is, a move to rectify the bureaucratic determinism of the PC culture — is a message that, while it might not cut across ideologies, will almost certainly cut across party lines, with many who self-identify as Democrat (rather than, say, “progressive”) willing to support candidates who run on such promises.

If, as many argue, we are truly a center-right country, there is no reason we should be held hostage by far left progressivism. But in order to win over “moderates,” we don’t need “compassionate conservatism”; what we need is fiscal restraint, and the foregrounding of classical liberal ideals.

I believe such a political formulation would resonate with many Americans; and I believe it would also take power away from left, who’d be forced to try to fit their caricatures around a message that demonstrably refuses to wear such buffoonish clothing.

Consider it the new culture wars. Only this time, the culture we are trying to save is “American,” first and foremost.