My copy is on its way from Amazon, and once it arrives I plan on continuing my “provocateurism” series using the book as a jumping off point for discussions — most of which, I realize, will devolve into happyfeet redefining moderate as “staunch” while trying to cast conservatism as homophobic, xenophobic fringe extremism engaged in by Mexican-hating hill people and vacant-eyed Jesus vessels determined to persecute the gays, using the rhetorical tactics of the left to bolster the assertions.
Still, I’ma go for it anyway.
In the meantime, here’s Levin, introducing several of the premises of his book (I’d embed the videos here, but the player CNS uses doesn’t want to embed on my site — at least, not using the embed code on offer):
1. “You Cannot Have This EPA and a Constitution”
2. “Obama and the Dem Party Have Become Fanatical Utopians”
3. “U.S. Now ‘A Post-Constitutional Country’ And ‘It’s Going To Destroy Us'”
Discuss.
[note: as I was writing this post, UPS delivered my copy. Kismet?]
Umm… now that you’ve got your copy, I take it this means you’ll be in the can for the rest of the day?
Mine doesn’t arrive till tomorrow according to Amazon.
But did UPS go for style points when delivering? Was it drop kicked onto your welcome mat? Was it perhaps the full twirl in the air with with the perfectly flat slam onto the concrete?
Hey, I thought this was the 21st Century. One-Click to the Kindle and all that!
I’ll be in my bunk.
I’m actually quite eager to tie my language arguments directly to the arguments Levin lays out, because they are one and the same. I hope to prove that there’s nothing fundamentally unserious (as one blogger on the right once put it) about looking at how language influences epistemology and forms the frameworks of our thinking. In fact, it’s essential that we do so if we’re to understand how and why our liberties are being taken away piecemeal.
What IS fundamentally unserious is spending time getting “our side” elected if “our side” has bought into the assumptions that animate the leftist project. Because then the endgame is inevitable. Which is what I mean by losing more slowly.
Sadly, “our side” is more comfortable with horserace politics and the superficiality of election management than it is with the foundational principles upon which we have to rely, or else we will devolve into tyranny by necessity.
Can you annotate your Kindle copy?
Serious question
Tyranny, or in a softer sense, authoritarianism, looks almost the default position of human political arrangements, if we look across the sweep of human history. What’s actually unusual, or “radical”, in the sense of a novel position, is the accomplishment of the United States of America, which in turn, puts “conservatives” in America into an unusual stance, one in contradistinction to “conservatives” elsewhere in the world, who have not benefited from the radical political measures embraced in America. We American conservatives are radical as all get out, when seen in that light. And in contrast, Obama and his ilk, the Democrat party of today, are authoritarian throwbacks of the commonest sort: hence the ease with which Obama’s head can fit on French King Louis’ shoulders so easily, or Michelle’s on Marie’s.
I think so, but haven’t tried yet. I know that you can highlight and save. I’ll give it a shot tonight.
But the most useful thing is increasing font size for these tired eyes.
“hence the ease with which Obama’s head can fit on French King Louis’ shoulders so easily, or Michelle’s on Marie’s.”
I thought you were going say something about heads fitting on a pike or necks in a guillotine. But that would be h8ist.
I haz the portraits in mind, is all.
Highlighting and underscoring are nice, but sometimes you just want to write “what the hell is this guy talking about?” next to a passage.
I’m the mostest staunchest one, keenly sensitive to how identity politics on the right is extraordinarily corrosive to what used to be a quintessentially American ideal… individualism. There’s no Utopian thinking what is out of bounds when you have Perry saying it’s the government’s job to force brutalized young girls to have rape babies for white trash Jesus. When you have the odious Santorum insisting it’s the role of the government has to support families through the tax code. When any number of these Rs want to pervert the Constitution for to fashion of it an implement to exclude gay people from civil society.
hasI hope to prove that there’s nothing fundamentally unserious (as one blogger on the right once put it) about looking at how language influences epistemology and forms the frameworks of our thinking.
If that’s an unserious endeavor, the Eric Arthur Blair led an unserious life.
I think Jeff’s arguments are positively Orwellian. Fortunately for him.
None of that negatively Orwellian socialism or tuberculosis or getting shot in the throat by fascist snipers.
grieferspecialpleadswhatnow?
And those individuals what don’t want their sovereignty surrendered to the crushing debt accrued at least partially in the service of temporary politicians who wish to buy new constituencies and rely on identity politics and emotional appeals to do so should just shut up shut up shut up cause the brown ones are the best among us and just want to pick lettuce in California where its nice and not as hot as where their own lettuces are in need of picking racists.
Santorum is odious for promoting the arrangements that give us new citizens plus he wants to stone gays and if not that at least wants them to call their relationships something other than marriage which is practically the same thing as putting them in holes and having them stoned amen.
I don’t really have anything to say cause of I don’t think there’s any danger of our little country electing a Santorum I just wanted to respond to the post is all so you didn’t think I was ignoring you.
it’s the government’s job to force brutalized young girls to have rape babies for white trash Jesus.
a quintessentially American ideal… individualism.
1.3 million Americans wonder how those two ideas are squared …
thank you Lila for that important contribution
Jeff
but the player CNS uses doesn’t want to embed on my site — at least, not using the embed code on offer
Looks like you’ll have to go over to http://flowplayer.org/ and download their app. Then the embed code should work.
hf
when you stepped in the pro-abortion ring, deliberately forgetting it affects at least TWO individuals, so the balancing of rights is something a bit more serious then your racist Christophobia, expect pushback even from a reluctant pro-choicer.
I’m done with this topic with you, ghoul.
This.
back to the for reals topic I’m very disappointed that Mr. Governor Perry didn’t do more to make the case against the EPA… as a governor of a state that the EPA has relentlessly bullied he was in a much better position to do a lot to raise awareness than anyone I can imagine and he totally squandered the opportunity
but he would have had to make the sentences
You’re like Levin doing blue.
btw
I got a Kindle for Christmas … just ordered it. Though it was offered as “pre-order” and will download to my Kindle tomorrow.
Levin (from the third link, a little past midway in the extended interview):
Seems to me the critical question. Jeffery, unfortunately, lets it slip by without further immediate examination, fixing on it, emphasizing this question. Though they do return to it, sidling toward it once again. Still.
“you have Perry saying it’s the government’s job to force brutalized young girls to have rape babies”
I’m going to need a link for “it’s the governments job to” part.
“When you have the odious Santorum insisting it’s the role of the government has to support families through the tax code”
Allowing a deduction on your reported income to compensate for a dependent does not equal “support” of the family. More like avoiding hindrance of the family.
Maybe if they repealed all the child labor laws so the hungry little curtain climbers could finance their own grocery bill…
“When any number of these Rs want to pervert the Constitution for to fashion of it an implement to exclude gay people from civil society”
Like the people of California, that bastion of republicans and oppressors of the queer, who rejected same sex couples as married…twice? Frankly, I’m more worried about the perversion of the constitution where the will of the people was rejected by the Republican Governor. For Hollywood fashion.
Sdferr, that jumped out at me too. My sense was neither of them really had an answer is why they hurriedly moved on.
A: Kismet.
Also, Utah is finally getting some snow, and radar shows Colorado getting widespread snow showers, though it seems a fairly tame storm, as storms go.
I did manage to spot a sharp-shinned hawk in the neighbor’s tree. I only see them when it’s snowing.
Given that feet’s xtianist hysteria has no rational support, given that said irrational hysteria does not equal discussion, given that said irrational hysteria therefore has no support at PW whatsoever, I can only confirm that griefer thing. It’s inevitable. I have no choice.
Help us feets; you’re your only hope.
I don’t believe that they’re exactly in the same boat, LBascom. That is to say, I suspect — though I cannot layout with any precision — that Levin has more extensive views, or developed thoughts, on the subject than Jeffery, if only due to the long period of researches and writing that Levin has been involved in regarding this book (which itself, I think, is a manifestation of Levin’s general ideas of what it takes). But this is only a guess.
A review.
Kindle is a good way to lose a lot of bookage when the zombie apocalypse comes and there’s no way to charge your batteries anymore.
Fie on any book that requires an interface besides my cornea.
so the hungry little curtain climbers
For that, you’d need to repeal the labor laws for the itty bitty kitteh committee.
it’s not my xtianist hysteria … Team R is saying very loudly this primary season that it would rather nominate spineless obamacare-inventing Wall Street Romney than a candidate what has evangelical support Mr. Howard
it’s a thing
I’m going to need a link for “it’s the governments job to” part.
I’m so busted Mr. lee I don’t have a link for that.
who rejected same sex couples as married…twice?
that argument only works until California passes gay marriage, which is as inevitable as Romney
I guess what I was getting at is there really is no answer. We can’t return our constitutionalism and our liberty within the existing institutions and system. From listening to Levin for the last year or so, he doesn’t go much further with an answer than we have to defeat them at the ballot box. I may have missed something more profound though.
Oh, #39 for sdferr.
“that argument only works until California passes gay marriage, which is as inevitable as Romney”
Depends on how it’s passed. When it’s done in the courts, against the peoples will as I’m sure will be the case, then my argument works now, then, and forever more.
maybe… we’ll see
Let’s say instead of that “there really is no answer”, that whether there is an answer satisfying our heartiest desires regarding our late lamented Republic, isn’t certain. There may be, for all we know, many answers, or one, or none. But I suggest we say that this question, “what is the answer?” isn’t closed to us, though we may not have some definitive instruction in hand. It’s the thing we need, as well as the thing we want, and could be we’ll find it, or could be we won’t. Anyhow, seems to me it’s surely worth thinking seriously about.
I’m pretending TrollHammer works, and that there are no pictures of a Pokemon on this page. It’s making for a more pleasant Monday than I’ve seen in a long time.
peace be with you Mr. McGehee
and also with you my lil pikachu friend
there’s pie in the fellowship room
What it comes down to is there is no way to get where we want to go with the present system, so the system needs to be totally gutted, and reset on constitutional limits. Exactly how we accomplish that is the answer we all eagerly await.
the system needs to be totally gutted
The Zombie Apocalypse will do that for us, I fear. The trick is preventing the ensuing chaos from devolving into Afghanistan.
And to shoot them solidly in the head, because that’s the only way.
I mean, just take this: “You Cannot Have This EPA and a Constitution”, and consider the chances, regardless who we elect, the EPA will be abolished. Much less the rest of the alphabet bureaucracy ruling over us.
I’ll put it out there…it ain’t going to happen without a good ol’ fashion revolution.
To paraphrase something I read once, every institution not explicitly conservative eventually comes to be dominated by progressives.
Totalitarianism is the natural state of government, and too many men strive to make it happen.
“a good ol’ fashion revolution.”
I think I have to dissent, unless you mean something different from what is ordinarily considered a revolution, the run of the mill of which looks to me to result in more authoritarianism. We ain’t, in other words, the people we were waiting for. We ain’t even close. And that’s the problem.
That’s kinda the “curse of success” Republics seem to face at some point. When the essentials of existence are secured, the people turn their concerns to more frivolous things, and the foundations crumble from neglect.
Like worrying about rape babies, child deductions, and gay marriage when we’re looking for a president that will simply uphold the freak’in constitution…
And by uphold the constitution, I don’t mean forcing free men to buy insurance.
That’s the most honest thing happyfeet has written in recent memory. Revealing too.
I think it’s no accident that Wag the Dog is on the teevee today.
Ernst, California homosexuals are like Terminators, they never die, they never stop, and they absolutely never, ever quit. They’re kinda like radical feminists in that way.
Currently the plan is long range; they’ve implemented a policy to glorify the gay to school children.
Inevitable…
Just like Commies, eh?
Lee
Yep, here’s some more agenda propaganda masquerading as “science.”
And Romney.
Gays comprise about 3% of the population, regardless of what television and movies would like to have us believe.
brutalized young girls to have rape babies for white trash Jesus
Let’s explore what else might happen in such situations, shall we? Something that actually happens here in fly-over country?
Young (or old) girl is raped, then conceives. Girl is traumatized by the rape and understandably is also upset about the pregancy.
Loving couple approaches the rape victim and offers to take care of her (all expenses, including psychological help) during the pregnancy if only she’ll let them adopt the child, because they so desperately want the kid. They ask her which outcome she’s more likely to be able to live with: aborting the child or giving it a good home. They bring by other rape victims who gave birth then adopted the kid out. The rape victims express how glad they are that they chose that path.
Rape victim consents, and during her pregnancy is given all kinds of moral support and love and counseling. Her heart begins to heal. The baby is born. They consent to an open adoption.
Rape victim visits the child from time to time and watches the lovely little thing grow up. Although she’s not glad she was raped, she’s glad that something so wonderful came out of it, something that ultimately is better than the rape was bad. In fact, the baby’s life has helped her heal from the trauma of the rape. She tells her story to other rape victims, who choose the same path and are glad for it.
This is not something that gubmint should mandate or be involved with to the least degree. Obviously, there are times when rape victims (such as the mentally disabled or ill or extremely young or old or drugged-out) should not be encouraged to give birth. Obviously, any rape victim might opt out of giving birth entirely.
But your bitey little statement assumes that the only reasonable course of action for an impregnated rape victim is abortion, and that carrying a rape baby to term is just awful, and that only a white-trash Jesus would urge the scenario I just described.
Because it’s just that satisfying to force the little whore to pay for her being raped. The more suffering the better. Because that’s what those Jesus-freaks are all about: making people suffer so that they can feel powerful.
Of course, you’re not the only one, ‘feets. You’re expressing a fairly widespread opinion in the Elite Costal Areas such as Lost Angels.
But it would certainly be nice if the society’s accepted default for “problem pregnancies” (including non-rape pregnancies) would be to encourage the child to go to term, and then adopt it out to those thousands of desperate parents, both here and elsewhere.
I heard 10%, but I’m not sure what it means. How reliable is the census on such a personal and fraught subject? Does that include bi-sexual(it seems to me it should)? Is that all age groups, is there one age group that dominates, and if so, why?
Also, what has that to do with anything?
Homosexuality is neither here nor there. Not caring a whit how you get there, so long as it’s somewhere you want to be is front and center.
i only know a small fraction
I think people should have the choice of recycling their rape baby into a loving home if they want
but if they don’t want to that’s fine too
I don’t think anyone should give a shit what the president of the united states thinks about the matter though
“I don’t think anyone should give a shit what the president of the united states thinks about the matter though”
Then why do you? Seems to be your driving motivation.
Also, what Ernst said @63.
dicentra, this is where I come in conflict with the tenets of my church; the whole life is a seamless garment thing.
Which is the greater evil? The act of rape itself? The decision of the mother to terminate the child? The damage done to the mother by both the rape and her decision to abort? Or her (perhaps coerced, if she is very young) to carry a child to term that she then turns over to another to rear? The damage to the marriage/relationship a woman may have with her spouse/SO when she finds herself pregnant with a rapist’s child? If married and she and her husband decide that it is part of their faith to keep and raise the child, how to mitigate the damage to the husband and their other children (if they have any)? If they decide to carry the child to term and then adopt it out, how do they explain to their other children that they will not in future give them away as well?
I appreciate your thoughts on this matter and please be assured that I am not trying to be a wiseguy or a troublemaker. Thanks.
yeah well it’s not I wanted a campaign aimed to get a mandate about the spendings and the oils and regulatings and all I got was santorum stains all over my new t-shirt
plus endless natterings about our illegal immigrant friends
Gays comprise about 3% of the population
In Hollywood, and maybe academia (definitely the Humanities), the percentage is higher.
NTTAWWT. But it would explain a few things about popular culture.
I have no doubt that lesbians and gays can make perfectly good parents: they’re as capable of being loving and responsible as straights.
But what that article (in #58) does not address is whether a lesbian makes a good father or a gay man a good mother.
Answer: no. Not because there’s something wrong with them, but because children are hard-wired to get input from both a male and female parent. We’re hard-wired to take cues from the same-sex parent as to how to be a woman/man, and from the opposite-sex parent we learn how to relate in a healthy way to the opposite sex.
It’s a fact that boys raised without fathers have a harder time with their male identity than boys with fathers in the home. Those boys often take their cues about manhood from gangstas and other toughs rather than from a Civilized Male.
It’s also a fact that girls raised without fathers have a harder time forming healthy relationships with men. They mistrust men too much or they become promiscuous, desperately seeking the paternal love they didn’t get as a child.
Lefties who assert that men and women are fungible in parenting insist that kids don’t relate to their parents according to their genitalia.
Which, I have never seen my father’s genitalia and I don’t ever plan to. Hallelujah.
But “boy” and “girl” are concepts that kids understand by the age of three. They know that there are mommies and daddies and that mommies are girls and daddies are boys. They recognize the secondary sex characteristics (facial hair, breasts). They know which of the two they are. Try telling a three-year-old boy that he’s a girl and see how far that gets you.
Kids also find it important to know whether the cat or the dog or the horse is a boy or a girl. It’s a hard-wired dichotomy that conforms to the reality of a species with two sexually dimorphous members. (When she was little, my mom thought that all dogs were boys and all cats were girls [of the same species], whereas all horses were boys and all cows were girls.)
Sexuality is a fundamental part of who we are and how we see ourselves and others. It only makes sense that children would need parents of both sexes to learn how to navigate that reality in a healthy way.
And THAT is the alpha and omega of my objection to same-sex “marriage,” not the idea that homosexuality is inherently sinful (I don’t think it’s a choice in most cases) or that God Hates Fags or that gays can’t love kids in a healthy way.
It’s about what children need to grow into healthy adults.
Without which we cannot have a healthy society. QED.
I heard 10%
Ten percent comes from Kinsey’s extremely fraudulent studies on prisoners. The figure gets repeated for political reasons.
I too wanted a campaign about fiscal responsibility, but I’m not getting one. Tinkering around the edges is not going to solve the problems that we are hip deep in.
There are candidates and then there are candidates. Choices and responsibilities for them, or not.
“I don’t think anyone should give a shit what the president of the united states thinks about the matter though”
link
Heard Levin talk about his new book on Hannity’s radio show. Mark has a pithy rhetorical question: How can you trust people to choose their elected leaders when you can’t trust them to buy lightbulbs? Good question, as far as it goes. The better question is, how can we trust elected leaders who don’t trust us to buy lightbulbs?
or french fries
sugary soda water
candy bars
salty snacks
crisco
Maybe if we gave a shit about unborn babies and the centrality of the traditional family to a stable society, it would be easier to not give a shit about lightbulbs, salt, sugar, transfats, and all the other moral crusades crusading leftists are waging on us.
Crazy talk, I know.
Aaaaargh! Kindle doesn’t deliver it till tomorrow! jeff will have finished before I even get it!
Back to technical discussion of Kindle Fire (upgraded at Christmas): Ernst- “Press and hold on a word to access the dictionary or to add a Note or Highlight”. So, it will accept Whiskey Tango Foxtrots. Dicentra, they do make these little solar charger thingies that will charge via mini-USB, so I’m good for the first wave or two of Zombies. After that, most of the important writings (“How Things Work”, “The US Constitution”, “Liberty and Tyranny”, “The Bible”, “The Art of War”), I have on cornea compliant paper.
whatever the fraction of gays is the fraction of them ones what will get gay married is even smaller and the fraction of them ones what will want kids is even smaller…. it’s not a statistically significant factor what affects child welfare in America dicentra, especially given that they would be highly motivated parents and the extremely vastly larger child welfare problem in America involves kids from traditional homes what have shit parents
And Di, what you said in 70.
Which is the greater evil?
That’s not the question so much as “How do we make the best of a bad situation?” Because there are no perfect answers after the rape occurs.
I’m sure it depends on the mother’s internal fortitude, but I don’t think you’ll find too many rape victims wishing they’d aborted instead of carrying to term for adoption. You’re more likely to find those who aborted and wished they hadn’t.
Remember, pregnancy and childbirth release enormous amounts of endorphins into the brain to help prevent the woman from hating her offspring. And yes, other pregnancy-related hormones make her crazy. And it can be physically dangerous. All things taken into account, of course.
it is part of their faith to keep and raise the child
What faith frowns on adoption in case of rape? At most, they’d feel in their hearts that they should keep this kid in this situation, in which case the kid will be a net blessing.
how do they explain to their other children that they will not in future give them away as well?
By not telling the kids about it until they’re old enough to understand.
I don’t think anyone should give a shit what the president of the united states thinks about the matter though
It says a lot about his general world view, which goes into his decision-making.
The current occupant thinks that kids who survive an abortion aren’t entitled to health care. What does that tell you about the value he places on human life?
if President Obama loved the shit out of rape babies we’d still be royally fucked I think
I too wanted a campaign about fiscal responsibility, but I’m not getting one.
Because the fiscal problem that we’re in is so enormous and so unmanageable and the only real solutions are going to be so painful that the political class (and most voters) are in total denial.
Life is weird.
I’m sure it depends on the mother’s internal fortitude, but I don’t think you’ll find too many rape victims wishing they’d aborted instead of carrying to term for adoption. You’re more likely to find those who aborted and wished they hadn’t.
That is certainly quite possible. It would be difficult to gather data about such an emotionally charged topic, even in anonymously, I would think. Likely, there are just as many rape victims who would never think to carry a child conceived in such a way to term. I’ll have to check, but I had thought that women who had been raped were given the option of taking the Plan B medication after they were treated at the hospital.
The fact that illegal immigrants are part of the spending problem has been discussed at length here. That it is persistently and intentionally ignored to revert to the characterization of the fact as “endless natterings” is why I call happyfeet a griefer.
I read that story when it first was published, Pablo. It was quite touching.
I want numbers how much do our immigrant friends take take take and how much do they contribute?
I think personally that the fiscal problem that we’re in is so enormous and so unmanageable that we’ll need to grow the economy, and we can’t do that without our immigrant friends, legal and illegal. The fact that we draw motivated workers from faraway places is one of the few advantages we yet retain.
If we weren’t paying 2 years of unemployment, we would have so much use for illegal, largely unskilled immigrants.
no you don’t understand America illegal immigrants had given us a wonderfully large and largely unregulated work force and you’re doing everything you can to squander that advantage and bring all workers under the thumb of your fascist cowardly government
bad move
“I want numbers how much do our immigrant friends take take take and how much do they contribute?”
link
it’s not a statistically significant factor what affects child welfare in America dicentra, especially given that they would be highly motivated parents and the extremely vastly larger child welfare problem in America involves kids from traditional homes what have shit parents
Not traditional homes: fatherless homes.
Most kids raised in a two-parent home who engage in delinquent behavior (drugs, pregnancy, violence, drop out of high school) do so not because their parents screwed them up but because they’re strong-willed or rebellious or Just That Way on their own. I had a Narcissist for a father, and I have plenty of issues resulting therefrom, but I still benefited mightily from having a father in the home, if for no other reason than my mom could stay home with us.
Furthermore, delinquency rates with two-parent homes are identical for all races: there’s no black/white/brown/yellow difference. What does that tell you?
Look, the reason we have so many fatherless homes is because society has accepted that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” Welfare checks have replaced fathers. People like me who declare that children are entitled to be raised by a married mother and father are ridiculed as god-bothering fanatics and told to STFU because we’re on the verge of economic collapse (and we can’t address more than one topic at once, especially because the welfare state is the RESULT of the degeneration of the family).
To legalize same-sex marriage is to further codify in law, custom, and culture that children are NOT entitled to be raised by a mother and a father.
Back in the day, there was a pretty small percentage of women with Welfare-check husbands. Now the percentage is higher.
given that they would be highly motivated parents
You’re accepting that conclusion from the “study” without question. Why? If same-sex marriage becomes the norm, gays raising kids won’t be a novelty, so parenthood won’t be the exclusive province of the highly motivated.
if President Obama loved the shit out of rape babies we’d still be royally fucked I think
Those who value individual human life, especially the unborn, are less likely to loot the future to bribe the present.
we’ll need to grow the economy
Kinda hard to do when $20 to $25 billion per annum are being siphoned off and sent out of the country.
Which, it’s better that the money be sent to individual Mexicans to spend on Useful Things (as opposed to official foreign aid, which disappears down rat holes).
But it’s a big enough amount to skew things, n’est pas?
“I want numbers how much do our immigrant friends take take take and how much do they contribute?”
More Terminator.
But really, we need P&L charts to show us whether hordes of foreigners illegally entering the country in an uncontrolled manner is a bad thing. ‘Cuz of this is America! Where is your heart?! Who needs fetuses when you gots lots of poor Mexicans willing to do your lawn for cheap!?
no you don’t understand
What you say about illegal aliens never includes facts, figures, or even basic cause-and-effect but rather pie-in-the-sky assertions that will keep you from looking xenophobic to Our Betters.
For that matter, you do the same with your pronouncements on gay marriage: You don’t want to be mean or unfair to the gays. Fair enough. But there are reasons to object to SSM on Larger Social Grounds that don’t include h8.
The fact that a few people don’t get what they dearly want doesn’t mean that something is wrong. Just that it’s painful.
Like most of reality.
Those who value individual human life, especially the unborn, are less likely to loot the future to bribe the present.
that’s a Hallmark card not a for real aphorism
Go look it up. And while you’re doing research, look up “illegal,” too.
25 billion dollars just means that they performed work valued at 25 billion dollars plus some reasonable amount of profit for the employer
capital outflow in America is an energy problem… America is too stupid and too cowardly to stick pipes in the erf and suck out the oil, unlike those brave Venezuelans and Cubans…
after you fix that then we can talk about these paltry remittances
Palin: “drill baby, drill!”
happyfeet: “shut up cumslut hoochie media whore fuck you fuck you twangity twang twang.”
You’re a fraud. And a griefer. And it’s sad that this is how you spend your time.
if you’re doing a job what someone values enough to pay for then you’re all good – it doesn’t matter if some fucked in the head fascist American government honors or respects your work or not
you and me we don’t have a problem
economic freedom is what made this country great for a period of time
If you expect anything other than assertions from the assertion monkey, you will be disappointed.
what about the assertion that Pedro and Marisol are raping America’s bounty Mr. cranky?
I find this idea very dubious
I find everything you write dubious.
Jaybus, hf. Go have a few cupcakes and twinkies (if you can find any). Widen the load so you can’t sit quite so close to a keyboard.
““I want numbers how much do our immigrant friends take take take and how much do they contribute?””
link
that’s a Hallmark card not a for real aphorism
That’s partly Mark Steyn.
And it doesn’t need to be a for-real aphorism to be true.
The people doing the thieving are likely the white Jesusy whores, newrouter. The brown ones are the best of us and even if they did it I blame the bigotry of the Jesusy whores for making the best of us lash out just so, if only that we learn to recognize their basic dignity.
Plus, copper sells big!
“I find this idea very dubious”
It’s ‘cuz you place more importance to society on your delusions of superior compassion over the rule of law.
The proggs call it “social justice”. Classic liberals call it the road to destruction.
nr, that article is a good one by VDH. He has been writing about this problem in the San Joaquin Valley for a number of years. Since my mother and a lot of my family live there, I hear about this all of the time. Voting does no good. Policing does no good. Deportation does no good.
What is the answer? I am as frustrated as the next person by the porous nature of our borders.
“What is the answer? I am as frustrated as the next person by the porous nature of our borders.”
Give them a free college education, obviously!
If ya got a heart that is.
You have a group of people who refuse to assimilate, with a significant number of them thinking that stealing is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
I think a castle doctrine that applies to your entire property would be an appropriate response. That will never happen in California, so I guess they plan on turning the whole thing over to Mexico.
The Dream Act is like alligators in a moat and an electrified fence rolled into one.
The lack of assimilation is indeed a big part of the problem, Dave. I grew up in Santa Barbara and can speak a lot of pidgeon Spanish because of it. My father’s housekeeper has been here nearly all of her life and still barely speaks English and she is well into her 50’s.
As early as the late 1970’s I can remember having a rather heated argument with one of my friends about immigration when we were attending college. She was from Baltimore and had a “fuck ’em!” attitude. I was still idealistic at 19 and was all “yeah, but what about ‘Give me your tired, etc?'” She retorted that altruism was for suckers. I had to agree after we talked about it a little further.
That said, I can see where they are coming from. If I lived in Mexico, I don’t care how many times they tossed me back over the border, I’d sneak right back.
Castle Doctrine? The folks are old school and from the Depression Era. Also heavily armed. They figure God will sort them out later.
Never mind, Lee, that Gov Perry has done more to actually close the borders than any other candidate. Look at where the TX budget actually spends ~100 mill.
“In Texas we have sent Texas Rangers to the border, spent hundreds of millions to fight border crime, outlawed driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and passed Voter ID.”
link
The fact that we let them sneak in and then sneak back is part of why Mexico is a shithole. Without that pressure release valve, they’d have to stay and do something about the kleptocracy that keeps it a shithole.
On the other hand, the last time the Mexicans tried to clean up their act, Pershing spent two years south of the border, so maybe we don’t want to close that valve off.
But then again, at the rate the narco drug gang failed-states within a failed state are going, it’s only a matter of a decade at most before they show-up Pancho Villa for the piker he was with those measly couple of bank robberies, and then we’re nation-building in our own backyard. So maybe we should just go ahead and get it over with.
Any of you know what the Spanish word for “Raj” is?
The closest I can think of, Ernst, is “jeffe” which means “boss”.
Jefe, actually
Or better yet, patrón.
Why not, Cranky? Most Californians have probably been brought up to believe that California was stolen from Mexico, so it’s only fair to let the Mexicans try and steal it back.
That all those asian immigrants had nothing to do with it is neither here nor there.
Patronate then. It sounds paternal and benevolent.
Okay, now, where do we establish the summer and winter capitals?
Jefe, yes. I agree that patron is better.
Most Californians have probably been brought up to believe that California was stolen from Mexico
Not even. That stuff only started in the last 15 years or so.
So, getting back to Levin and what we actually do . . . Do you notice how Mark is very careful to stress that the change is going to come from the ballot box? I suspect that he has less faith in that than he professes. “Incitement to revolution” can be a deadly thing if you are on the losing side.
Without invoking black helicopters (but thinking about DHS), I also suspect that someone, somewhere, has a big black notebook (or database) that keeps track of talk radio and free-speaking blogs. Doesn’t that just make you sleep well at night?
OMG, I sound like a birther or truther.
OMG, I sound like a birther or truther.
Or like someone who read this article.
That’s the one, di. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that someone isn’t really out to get you.
Or this one.
I can say this, I will be watching very closely to see how the book affects the politicians in the race for the Republican nomination, i.e., do they adopt the rhetoric Mark lays out, do they ignore it, do they modify their own approaches to the issues they’ve raised heretofore, in light of the wider considerations in the book? We’ll see.
link
sdferr, my money is on “they ignore it.” If it was important to them, it would already have surfaced. They are going after the independents, who are independent because they are low information until they have to take notice, like just before the election.
Oh, bullshit. I would love to repeal the 20th Century, in terms of that which can actually be repealed.
“They are going after the independents, who are independent because they are low information until they have to take notice, like just before the election.”
If this is so, then there ought not to be any harm in broaching the issues Levin raises, on his playing field, since which independent voters would be noticing this early on, given they don’t pay attention until their own electoral duties are fast upon them? And too, what harm, to the extent that the hypothesized politician is merely expressing simple truths of fundamental American political philosophy, and perhaps tying those truths to his own proposals? Shouldn’t cause much stir, should it?
“hypothesized politician” is the key. Those simple truths, expressed, have to be filtered through the media’s prism before reaching the independent.
I’m going to see if “1984” is on Kindle.
RI Red, I don’t have much difficulty imagining Rick Santorum speaking about the book, even possibly thinking hard about it if he can find the time. Not to say he will do, just that I don’t think it out of character for him, to the extent that I understand his character. For one. Gingrich, is, meh, another . . . possible. From Paul, I’d expect nothing (save perhaps contempt). From Romney, lip service galore galoriously.
Now you see it, now you don’t.
How fitting/ironic is that?
The Republicans want us to repeal the twentieth century.
Hell yeah, we do.
whatever the fraction of gays is the fraction of them ones what will get gay married is even smaller and the fraction of them ones what will want kids is even smaller…. it’s not a statistically significant factor what affects child welfare in America
But it already has… Catholic Charities has closed shop for doing adoptions in MA, so how many kids welfare has been detrimentally affected by that fraction demanding everyone celebrate them OR ELSE!!1!
And Illinois, Darleen.
Darleen, “celebrate” is it. I’m very tolerant – don’t bother me, I won’t bother you. But the definition of marriage is one male/one female. If a gay couple wants to live together, share property rights, have sex together – fine; not my business. But for them to force me to accept, no, celebrate their definition and incorporate it into law (mostly by judicial edict, since the general population seems to have a problem with it), is a bridge too far.
Same thing for diversity, by the way. Diversity is a fact of life, just like gravity. I accept gravity, but don’t celebrate it.
Hey, my chicken showed up!
But for them to force me to accept, no, celebrate their definition and incorporate it into law (mostly by judicial edict, since the general population seems to have a problem with it), is a bridge too far.
Ah, but they’ll use the law to force you … wedding photographers today, churches tomorrow!
Thanks for posting a link to that article, newrouter. Yet another example of the government destroying the private, and at the same time costing all of us more money.
Notice that our host has been remarkably quiet? I think he’s still in the can reading Levin.
just cause catholic charities closes down doesn’t mean someone else won’t step in… that market’s gonna be served I think cause of the demand for babies is inelastic
What are the numbers on gays who adopt? The ones I’ve known over the years have grown their own kiddos.
I may be wrong, but aren’t US adoption rates rather abysmal? A lot of people seem to shop for orphans in Russia and China, not domestically.
So who stepped in?
How many US babies are up for adoption? 1.2 million per annum aren’t. Why are people looking for babies in Russia and China?
So who stepped in?
The girls drafted a friend. The guys did likewise with a surrogacy agreement.
The reason for people adopting abroad, from what I hear, is that US adoptions re expen$ive, long waits, and birth mom can swoop in and reclaim the kid.
My aunt and uncle adopted back in the 50’s, domestically. But that was before I was born and they are dead, so I can’t ask for details.
So where are these massive orphanages full of unwanted, unadoptable US babies?
“just cause catholic charities closes down doesn’t mean someone else won’t step in… that market’s gonna be served I think cause of the demand for babies is inelastic”
you pikachu’s are brain dead.if the state closes the “market” only the lgbtwxyz peeps are LEFT
jesus luvs some pikachus don’t you’ll know
To the best of my knowledge, Pablo, there are no orphanges in the US. The little dears are in the foster care system.
They’d be safer in orphanages.
Yes, they would and I wish we had them again. I’ve met too many end products of the foster care system to feel differently.
Too bad we can’t trust religious institutions to not get their religious all over their charity, huh?
I’ve too many relatives involved with the foster care system, and personally know too many of the parents and kids, to accept any assertion that orphanages would be better.
For the most part, with foster kids, we aren’t talking about typical middle class kids suddenly orphaned. We’re talking about kids removed from unfit parents. Most of them have been long suffering, and are emotionally damaged. It may seem better to stick them in a institutional setting, but I believe their chances of developing into well adjusted productive citizens are much greater through the foster system.
Depends on the kids, the foster parents and the quality of the “system,” doesn’t it.
I’m talking about the abuses where kids are found dead years after the fact because some lazy (excuse me, long suffering overworked) bureaucrat falsified reports.
I’m honestly not sure which experience is the exception and which is the rule.
Your point is a valid one, Lee. I’m talking about children who are shuffled through foster care, reunified with the family, then back in foster care. Would it not be better to give these children a structured life fom the beginning? Kids thrive with routine, e.g., regular meals, bedtimes, play time, schooling &c.
Ernst, I believe the orphanages, whether they were religious or state run, fell out of favor in the 60’s when they were wrongly perceived as warehouses for the unwanted.
My personal beef with the foster care system is the facilitators. They are overworked and spread too thin. The courts as well. The overarching goal is always reunification of the family. Adoption, closed adoption, would end this circus.
My point is more philosophical: State charity is an oxymoron because the State is incapable of Caritas.
That doesn’t make it theological, does it?
For a different perspective of the foster system, I give you guest commenter, the lovely Mrs. Bascom:
[@ Ernst #154] You are correct, in the quality of the system and the foster parents. From my experience (7 years as an administrator and social worker in a foster family agency) the oversight from the state licensing division is built to where those incidents you speak of are quite the exception. The average home and it’s residents would not even qualify to house and care for foster children here in California.
I am a few years removed from that line of work, however, because I know the background of the children I worked with, and because of family ties and my fierce respect for the loving, nurturing and altruistic nature of the foster parents I worked with, I will defend against any generalities of the foster care system based upon exceptions which do unfortunately exist within it.
Leigh, I considered myself and advocate for “my kids”, as I called them, and worked through the “system” to get the best of everything for them. You are correct the system is terribly flawed with the rules of reunification. When I was working the parents had 18 months to get their shit together. Hell, in many instances the kids had already bonded with the foster parents, and the foster parents with the children, and with the parents incapable of taking care of them. The parents could make some unfounded complaint to their court ordered attorney, and have the children moved to another home. This would cause the case to continue on to reunification causing the children to remain in foster care yet another 18 months allowing the parents to remain fucked up and irresponsible for their own children.
My point is, I can’t tell you how many of our kids left the system, then came back to our parents with their own spouses, newborns, and careers to thank our parents for the care they were shown in their homes. Comparatively speaking, to say an orphanage is better than the foster care system is ridiculous.
Holy Jesus, who is Kelly Evans, and why have I not been introduced to this woman?
The fact that Catholic Charities had to shut down its adoption service is EXTREMELY BAD, ‘feets, on account of it being totally fascist and stuff.
That’s not something to be brushed aside: it’s a terrible injustice, a way for the filthy socialist state to eliminate its competitors.
Which both families and churches are. Hence the Long March through the Nativity Scenes and Ten Commandments and Prayer in Schools: to neutralize the competition and ensconce the State as Church.
Boy, for someone who professes to hate him some filthy socialisms, you’re sure not tuned in to what filthy socialists have been up to, in order to track their filthy socialist footprints all over our little republic and put their filthy socialist boots on our necks.
You can’t truly be against socialism while denigrating Church and Family; otherwise, you’re trying to replace an ugly something with nothing at all.
This Kelly Evans?
catholics charities are more than welcome to do adoptions they just can’t discriminate against gay peoples in some states cause of that’s what the law in that state is
if Santorum thinks states should be able to outlaw contraception surely he agrees it’s in their purview to outlaw dicrimination
surely
*discrimination* I mean
…“endless natterings” is why I call happyfeet a griefer.
That’s not welcoming to Catholics.
it’s just a contract issue apparently… the point is just that someone is gonna end up serving that contract if the catholic charities people don’t want it anymore – and I haven;t seen anything to suggest that’s not exactly what happened
So who is serving that contract?
I have no idea but it’s been five years I imagine someone is
BTW, that’s not exactly what happened in MA. It is illegal for anyone providing adoption services to exclude gay couples. Romney tried to get an exemption for religious organizations and the legislature refused it. Contracts are irrelevant to that.
Free Exercise means free to act according to the tenets of your religion, not shut the fuck up. Catholic charities being prevented by the State from offering adoption services whether another player steps into that vacuum or not is the descent into tyranny gathering momentum.
But what if you imagine it’s all OK? Staunch.
Religions by nature are “discriminatory”; it is the leap of faith in their central beliefs that make them such, and which (among other things) separate those who subscribe from those who do not. Which is why we have religious exemptions for certain supposed forms of “discrimination” wherein basic rights are not violated. There are other venues for gay adoption; forcing Catholic charities to comply is no different than forcing Catholic doctors to perform elective abortions against their wills.
This is an attempt to centralize conformity under the guise of “equality.” It is anti-Americanism disguised as quintessentially American by self-righteous statists (and those who want to appear magnanimous while maintaining a claim to being “staunch”).
Hell, I’ve studied enough history to know that the Universe itself is discriminatory against the stupid and unlucky. It’s only through stealing the hard work of millions to employ thousands of lawyers that we’ve managed to protect that benighted minority.
http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/01/tale-of-two-works-andrew-sullivan-vs.html One should be ignored and one should be read several times. Guess which?
More Levin, an interview at NRO.
Jeffery Lord, on Levin’s book in the midst of the presidential campaign.
Comparatively speaking, to say an orphanage is better than the foster care system is ridiculous.
Thank you for your perspective, Ms. Bascom. One of my very good friends is an MSW who is a child advocate in PA. She echoes much of what you say.
As per orphanages, being “better” than foster care; it depends on the orphanage (moot, since there are none) and the foster parents (of which there are many.). Since there is no basis from which to make a comparison, “ridiculous” is a stretch.
Historically, Catholic Charities worked in concert with Catholic Orphanages. Children, babes in arms, generally, were placed with foster families to be raised in a good Catholic home until the age of seven, at which time they were returned to the agency. This is part and parcel of Catholic teaching that holds that one’s character is molded by the age of six and is immutable in the main after that.
Thank you again.
The left wants to replay the 20th century all over again — this time with the totalitarianism here in the US.
speaking of the adoptings these are the hot baby gift for the wee newborn little babies just for so you know in case someone up and adopts a romanian baby or two
So, 3d season of “Justified” starts at 10 EST. Do I put down Levin for an hour and make it up at lunch tomorrow? Or just stay up reading all night?
can’t help you mr. red. i don’t know what “justified” is and i’m watching levin on hannity @ 9
nr, “Justified” is a modern John Wayne epic. Good, Evil, Love, Sex, Guns. Lots of Guns.
is it online(hulu)? because i just gots basic cable and the intertube.
Mad Men returns at the end of March. Finally!
It’s on FX. You should get that if you get FNC.
oh i watch fnc online on various sites that routinely get shut down. buts that the price of not paying more to comcast .
It’s on hulu 30 days after airing, nr.*
If you’re comfortable with torrents, it’ll be on your average public tracker not long after airing on the east coast tonight.
And Boyd Crowder.
thanks bh
Seasons 1 and 2 are out on Dvd. Worthwhile setting things up. Think Firefly without rockets.
Killer show
Justified episodes here also, so they say.
http://www.tv.com/shows/justified/
A few are at the official FX website.
http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/justified/
Yeah, you really want to start from the beginning, or you’d be kinda lost.
This is genius. Obama to give acceptance speech at Bank of America Stadium.
He did? It looks stuck.
I’m wandering what they’re going to do when it doesn’t sell out? Drape the seats like they do when a game sells badly?
#occupyboa!
yes baracky speaking at the bank of amerikkka sums it up. this is real/insane?
I hope we see the return of the styrofoam Greek columns. Maybe he can wear a crown of laurel leaves, like Caesar.
Whoa, dude! I feel a lot better now!
I thought he was running for re-election on this planet.
President of the Galaxy is the only job that suits him. President of the Universe is on tap for 2016.
NSFW
Naked Suckers Flouncing Willingly?
Yeah that too.
That’s awesome, geoff. I guess it’s not true what they say, eh?
That is fantastic, geoffb. “If I could move, I’d teabag this asshat.” is a classic.
Heh. Got mine on the Kindle last night.
“Kristie Greco, spokeswoman for the Democratic convention”
That bodes well for the return of styrofoam columns, Leigh.
so levin doesn’t like the slaughter of the horsey for food. nor does levin like drug stuff. but levin thinks that the regulation of toilets, cars, et al is a bridge too far. well levin can’t have his cupcake and eat it too. cue happyfeet with a cupcake recommendation.
I’m looking forward to it, RTO. I hope there is an errant wind an they topple.
And he wouldn’t even have to have half his brain removed and put in a spare head.
Barack’s just this guy, you know?
mr. levin should address 9th and 10th amendment “rights” vis a vis the current federal fiasco. he’s a statists too. in the nixon big gov’t mold.
oh yes the tricky dick gave us the epa. you CAN look it up.
He does. All the time. Have you been drinking?
Levin personally doesn’t like drug stuff, but when asked, he said he’d be in favor of decriminalization. Not legalization.
The horsey stuff I believe he was wrong on, but then I don’t think he gave it much thought, to be honest.
I’m totally in the dark on horsey stuff? Was is something came up on Hannity’s tv show?
It had to do with legislation included in some bill by a Dem that would allow the sale of horse meat. Levin opposed it on the air when he read it — then was confronted by ranchers, etc., who tried to explain how and why the legislation was actually good for them.