Erick Erickson, in what is an otherwise very nice post, writes:
Romney made a conscious decision to blow off Hispanic voters. Yes conservatives, we must account for this. The Romney campaign to the hispanic community was atrocious and, frankly, the fastest growing demographic in America isn’t going to vote for a party that sounds like that party hates brown people. That does not mean the GOP must offer up amnesty. It does mean that a group that is a natural fit for the GOP on social issues, must in someway be made to feel comfortable with the GOP.
It seems like this is becoming something of a tradition with me, making this kind of argument in response to an election postmortem written by someone on my side, but it has to be done, and I’m evidently the one willing to do it. So here it goes: the fact that constitutional conservatives / classical liberals / members of the GOP don’t actually hate brown people is what matters — not that, by the standards of the left, we are comprised, as a political faction, of those who sound like we hate brown people.
And that is the point that has to be made. Again, I have no problem with Erick’s suggestion that a group that he believes is a “natural fit for the GOP on social issues” be made to feel more comfortable with the GOP. This, demographically speaking, is a given. But what I sense lurking beneath that suggestion is that we take a more Jeb Bush approach to introducing ourselves to Hispanics — that is, we treat them as separate identity group to which we must promise special dispensations — rather than the approach we should have been taking all along, which was to introduce Hispanics to the ideas of individual sovereignty, religious liberty, a stable rule of law, and a system of government that, at its ideological core, promotes industriousness and innovation, freedom and self-reliance.
The free market doesn’t care what color your skin in. Individual liberty applies to everyone in a constitutional republic — and we can’t have it if we give over control of our natural rights to an ever-expanding nanny state. Not only is it unsustainable financially, but from an ontological perspective, it is transformative: free citizens become subjects, and the political class becomes entrenched, distributing favors, freedoms, and wealth in whatever recipe it must to keep power. This is the message we need to get across — and to do that, we must first stop accepting as a natural rhetorical baseline the way we are portrayed by the left. That is, we must refuse to allow the left to make us sound like we hate brown people, we must refuse to let them consistently define us, then react defensively to their accusations and slanders.
We needn’t pander or change our beliefs. We instead need to be willing to fiercely and effectively articulate and defend those beliefs, and when the left tries to race-bait and demagogue, we must refuse to accept their characterizations and grow vocally indignant or laugh bemusedly at their tactics, and more, point out those tactics: what they are doing, why they are doing it, and what they hope to accomplish by playing to emotions while hiding the effects of the policies they hope to promote as a result of creating warring identity groups and economic classes. We must ridicule those tactics, expose them for the intentional and divisive distractions they are. We must teach people that when the left engages in such rhetoric, it is not only cynical, but it betrays their contempt for the very people they claim to champion, suggesting as it does that without their progressive favor, the poor brown people couldn’t possibly hope to compete in a free market under a system that insists on equality of opportunity, natural rights, and stability of law, but instead they must rationalize taking from others — their betters, it turns out, regardless of what nefarious way “the rich” got their money, because those rich were able to negotiate the system, and most of the brown people simply don’t have the mental wherewithal to do so, it would seem — being as they are naturally inferior creatures in need of white liberal charity.
I’m already hearing from GOP pundits that we must start putting up more Hispanic candidates — another “pragmatic” foray into the “us too!”-mindset that has always, since Reagan, kept us rushing to keep up with the left, to “disprove” what was never necessary to disprove in the first place. It’s a defensive posture, it smacks of desperation — I felt it at the last GOP convention, and I’m sure it seemed as hamfisted to many Hispanics as it did to me — and worse still, it performs the very Balkanization the left relies upon to keep its identity group politics paradigm viable.
That is, it agrees to play by the left’s rhetorical rules. And they who own the rules own the game.
We’ve tried nothing but “moderate” Republicans since Reagan. And that’s because the GOP establishment likes the idea of bigger government, more centralized power, and the ability to reach into every aspect of our lives every bit as much as does the left. They just wish to get there with lower taxes — and don’t insist upon the speed of the fundamental transformation the left so longs for.
This isn’t “pragmatism.” This isn’t about “winning” — because every victory would be Pyrrhic one under such circumstances, built on repeating the panders necessary to gain power in the first place while keeping hidden the core principles of conservatism, and so perpetuating the left’s paradigm for governance.
That’s no way to play. Either change the rules, or change the game. And to do so begins — as it always has — with language.
And the left controls the language precisely because we’ve allowed them to institutionalize linguistic and hermeneutic ideas that are a systemic foundation for tyranny and collectivism. Our language — how we conceive of it, how we believe it to function, how we’ve allowed its abuses to become found truths and bedrock foundational assumptions — is what is moving us inexorably toward authoritarianism.
The way forward is through a reclamation of language. Because a reclamation of language leads to a reclamation of epistemology — which in turn creates a problem for leftist indoctrination, itself reliant on those incoherent linguistic assumptions that they’ve managed to turn into perceived linguistic truisms.
Once we regain the ability to think in a way that is consonant with Enlightenment principles, we’ll then be able to begin our own long march through the institutions, clearing out the false prophets and would-be tyrants and all the jargon-rich sophistry they’ve laid as a fancy veneer over what is essentially a creaky, moldering foundation.
So, if they think we hate them slightly less, they’ll vote for the Democrats, just with less gusto? Sounds like a nicer way to lose to me.
From where I sit, I’m pretty sure the Democrats will win any bidding war for Hispanics who aren’t middle aged Miami Cubans.
I heard the words “becoming more brown” come out of the mouth of Kirsten Powers last night and it was on hearing that I concluded the vision of MLK Jr. is made obsolete, that we are a now a nation of the rule of skins.
Have we then no choice but to be the shirts?
Hispanics are the new Italians. Just a mass of dumb monkeys who’ll scatter across the political divide when they’re good and ready to do so. I really get tired of this “brown people” shit, as this country is really just blacks and then everyone else.
Or perhaps it is better described as the rule of the unchecked?: Reid to use ‘nuclear option’ on filibuster in next Senate
That didn’t stay up long, sdferr.
How do you mean Abe?
Here I had hope that ole Kirsten was coming around. Not anymore.
Fucking Alan Colmes is comparing a home mortgage deduction to student loans. Same thing!
I say to hell with these people who want ‘stuff’ and want the rest of us to pay for it. Why should we pander to them? All of this Balkanization of the country has landed us where we are: doling out the Dole to anyone who has his hand out.
In the meantime, our soldiers, both active and retired are getting the shaft. Jugears still hasn’t learned that deeds must follow words. He says a lot of words. His deeds put the lie to those words.
The end can’t come fast enough.
Page not found.
Oh look. Ace is trying on a new tank to see if he can see himself in it or not.
Is he stuck on stupid, too smart to learn, or a crypto-apparatchik spinning new webs to catch more flies with? I dunno anymore. I’m tired.
“Ten Reasons Why Romney Lost”
http://minx.cc/?post=334729
huh, it’s still there when I click on it. Should I do an extensive copy-pasta?
It’s not there sdferr.
You probably have it cached. Yeah, just paste it.
S’ok:
“we are a now a nation of the rule of skins.”
The impromptu emergence of the “white hispanic” and Fauxcahontas suggests a great deal more capriciousness is at work than merely a noticing of skins.
Okay! Time to get serious about how taxes are going to get raised, you guys.
Yaaaaaaaaaaay.
Heh. Maybe it was replaced by: Reid extends olive branch to Boehner and McConnell ahead of lame duck
They can break it in half and send it back.
Or they can walk to his office with it and give Reid a good hiding.
Dr. Sanity just shuttered her blog.
I’m out. Errands call.
Reid extends olive branch to Boehner and McConnell ahead of lame duck
You might as well just give it up willingly since it will hurt less in the end, huh?
Good call:
What use sanity in an insane world?
Unlike every other country in the history of the world, this country was not created based upon specific borders, or a specific race or religion, but rather on an idea — that of a federal republic with limited government and enumerated powers deriving their power from the consent of the governed. The primacy of the individual over the state was a new and very radical concept. Alas, we seem to be done with that. We are now asked to accept and act on the balkanization of the electorate into groups with rights that supercede those of the individuals. This point is perhaps subtle and I cannot do justice to it here. The implication that women or Hispanics or union members or the LGBT commiunity or single mothers or whatever group you want to name must be catered to at the expense of the others. The party that can assemble 50% + 1 of these groups and pay them off with money confiscated from the 50% – 1 (or borrowed or printed by fiat) now rules by force of will. So much for anyone being the president of the whole country any longer. The protections offered by the US constitution to individuals and minorities is being eroded faster than a New Jersey beach facing Hurricane Sandy.
Racist
“Racist”
That’s meant to fit into the “charity” part of BHO’s victory speech: “And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That’s what makes America great.”
It doesn’t matter how you explain it, when it gets down to the political pukes it always ends up meaning, “We have to pander. Pandering is the answer. Pandering is always the answer, and if it doesn’t work we obviously didn’t pander hard enough.”
And of course that’s how it sounds to the target demographic, which inevitably concludes that if all they’re going to get is pandering they’ll go with the party that’s had the most experience.
Hint: it ain’t the party of the pachyderm.
The Myth of the Hispanid Conservative is just that, a myth. You will get occasional defectors from the mass, and maybe 10 to 20 percent voting conservative when the Dem social issue whoring gets particularly egregious, but that’s it. In most Hispanic communities you won’t get even that, Puerto Ricans for example. The fact of the matter is that Reagan was wrong, they are NOT Republicans without realizing it. The cultures they come from encourage strongman/patronage systems, and thats what they vote for when they get here. A more Hispanic country means a Democratic country, plain and simple…
And yet, the Tea Party in TX promoted and elected (with my 1 vote worth of help) Senator Ted Cruz to replace Kay Bailey, our old white woman. What a world…
Of course, he’s one of those Cuban brown people, so maybe that really doesn’t count.
er, Hispanic. I’ve lived next to Puerto Ricans in PA. Mexicans in Texas, had friends in the military who were from Central America, and it’s the same, they are, as a culture, natural Democrats.. The only ones who were any different were the Cubans, and that’s for reasons of refugee demographics. The ones who fled Castro were the upper classes, and so extremely conservative. Their children are very much falling into line as I saw that the Republicans only got 50% of the Cuban vote.
The Hill story is back and posted again, with slight changes:
has become
There is no notice that the article was removed or of the changes made.
I live in South Texas, down by the border. When I first moved down, my mom and step-dad went to a very large Evangelical church. It was a very socially conservative church, but almost everybody there who was Mexican voted Democrat. They didn’t, and still don’t as far as I can tell, vote their religion.
Erickson would blow the corpse of Che Guevara to win an election.
Almost every hispanic friend I have is a Republican. The difference is that all of them have progressed beyond their skeezy latino culture and live among the white peoples. I don’t think we’ll ever see the day when barrios or anything approximating them become Republican though.
Team R just has too much baggage to even begin to think about widening its anemic appeal
rape babies good god
Cool it with the rape babies. Yeah those people are useless morons, but the Democrats are the party of truly stupid people. We’re just the party of big belt buckles and thick skulls.
fucking idiot
They aren’t useless, they are what the Democrats use to beat you like a borrowed mule every election.
Chris Matthews: “I’m So Glad We Had That Storm Last Week”
– That weasle assed idiot better hope our paths never cross.
“They aren’t useless, they are what the Democrats use to beat you like a borrowed mule every election.”
Heh.
I thought we were all done with team r
I know I am
It’s just too gay anymore
I don’t have a team to join. I hate most everyone. I just hate liberals more.
Has it occurred that perhaps, just perhaps, the reason Romney’s numbers are down compared to McCain and Bush is that, awful as the economy is, a formerly Judeo-Christian (in fact, if not in name) nation that condones the murder of 3, 4 (again, asspulling but I’m in the ballpark) million babies every year in the name of choice, and because we’re a post-Judeo-Christian nation, so deal wingnut godbothering bitterclingers, isn’t a nation that’s worth saving in the eyes of those wingnut godbothery bitterclingers?
Food for thought.
Or go ahead and try to grow the big tent by throwing out the social conservatives to make room for all the moderates and independents.
I don’t give a damn anymore.
I don’t want social conservatives gone, I just want them to wake the fuck up about how politics work. There is never a good reason to argue for rape babies. There isn’t even a good reason to discuss the issue in mixed company. The fact that social conservatives are such big fucking meatheads frustrates me way more than any of their beliefs do.
every cross below represents like a billion aborted wee small children
+ + + + + + + + + + + +
when you see it laid out like that it really drives it home
What Abe said.
Without putting too fine a point on it, has it occured to you rabid social cons that your refusal to shut up about this shit is probably the prime reason we just re-elected this fucking moron?
well that plus christie sitting on romney’s head and farting in his face on the playground in front of everybody
The way you think (or at least accede to) that politics works is the reason that I think we lose.
As the man said.
Now, to be clear, I don’t think a candidate should do a Hi! I’m so-and-so, running for such-and-such because I believe even rape-babies deserve a chance to be born. On the other hand, I don’t think opposing abortion even in cases of rape is or ought to be a disqualifier from holding public office. If Romney et. al. hadn’t panicked and demanded that Akin get out immediately, had instead taken the position that they respected his right to his viewpoint, and to represent those who shared that viewpoint, even if he didn’t share that viewpoint, it might not have become an issue with Louder in Indiana.
That economy is the most important thing works both ways. If I’m supposed to support a social moderate because of Teh economy, how come social moderates don’t have to support so-cons for the same reason?
I think you’ll find Abe, that many So-Cons did shut up
–by not voting.
So tell me, again who’s responsible for Romney’s pitiful showing?
As I recall, Akin and Mourdock and that other candidate up north were asked about abortion.
Now, one can argue that they should have refused to be baited — but let’s not act like they just couldn’t keep from bringing it up out of the fucking clear blue sky.
And as Ernst points out, when you tell social cons to shut up, they tend to interpret the request perhaps more broadly than a smart anti-statist necessarily intends. Team R needs them a whole hell of a lot more than they need Team R.
well tons of the precious wazzles are gonna get borted for sure if we keep doing it where we make fetus idolatry part of the presidential litmus test
TONS
I’d assume that the reason that a social conservative gets crapped on for saying moronic things about rape and pregnancy is because it’s fucking embarrassing. Mitt may well be deeply religious, but he is not from your culture. Neither am I. This really is two distinct countries, and the problem for social conservatives is that the plates have shifted to such an extent that elections are won and lost in states that increasingly have little use for the way you look at the world. You have to learn to be more slimy and deceptive like lefties in the way you fight for what you believe in, or we’ll all be stuck going down the drain with you.
Mourdock, whatever.
Thanks for the correction McGehee.
“I think you’ll find Abe, that many So-Cons did shut up
–by not voting.
So tell me, again who’s responsible for Romney’s pitiful showing?”
Seems to me the only facts here are that Obama won, and social conservatives lost. But yay for petulance!
By we you mean you and the other social (il)liberals.
I don’t follow.
if someone believes in the healing powers of abortion why should they have to vote for someone who’s an avowed abortion denier?
Every single time?
It gets old.
Doesn’t matter. The GOP is dead. It’s a turd in a water fountain now.
I am not so sure about that any more.
No, what gets old is the predictable blaming of conservatives for Rockefeller Republican screw-ups.
A trillion fetuses could not be reached for comment.
I’m not going to support Republicans again. Fuck ’em. Let ’em be clever, demanding, punchy failures on their own. This is their moment to shine. Or sparkle. Or look a little damp. Whatever.
I think we should split up. We can have the New Republican Party and the Abortion Is Murder Party.
This way everyone can vote their conscience.
Enjoy your RINO breeding.
We’d also need an Abortion is Murder So I Won’t Have One Party.
Toodle-oo.
whatever as long as I get to be on the team what doesn’t have huckabee on it
Social cons care more about living a virtuous life than about having a virtuous government. That whole “render unto Caesar” thing? They take that seriously.
If they think voting for Team R will lead to a more virtuous government, well, okay, they’ll play along — but if Team R only wants their money and votes but not their input, Team R is going to lose elections.
Like they’ve been doing since they started listening to the “shut those social cons up” fringe of the party.
In.deed
he said wryly.
Look, I’m just offering my take, same as you.
My posts and Tweets cost me like 50 Twitter followers. Not that I had all that many to begin with, but just noting.
Like I said. People on the right will bitch and then go right back to listening to the “pundits” who tell them pretty lies.
The horn looks a little like a trunk if you squint.
Hmmm. I dunno. Better move it a little to the left. No, a little more. A little more. More. Move left more than Scott Walker did. Better move a little more left just in case.
One of your lost followers is because I deactivated my Twitter account. I want to get something written that I can publish to Kindle and Twitter is too much of a timesuck.
I still haven’t gotten a decent start on a next chapter of the two I already published, and after this election I’m not all that interested in writing about life on 21st-century Earth.
My 4:41 was in reply to happyfeet’s 4:24
sorry for the confusion.
McGehee – re: your 5:10 comment – well said.
But the Fromans and the beemoes don’t really care about winning elections – they care about being well thought of by liberals – and being able to say “I told you so” after sabotaging Republian candidates.
I can’t speak for B Moe, but I’ve burned through so many left wing friends over the years by being an asshole about their politics that they could fill a trailer park in Jesusland.
With all due respect Smoke, fuck you.
Winning elections is exactly what I care about, I could give a fuck what you believe other than when you believe you can tell me what I believe.
My priority first and foremost is protecting the rights of the individual and limiting the power of government. Frankly, I think the social con wing has a vastly over-rated sense of self. I know several orders of magnitude more people who won’t vote Republican because of all the religious right ranting than who won’t vote Republican because there isn’t enough religious right ranting.
If a devout Mormon isn’t religiously right enough for you I don’t know what to say.
Just to make it perfectly clear: I am not nor have I ever been a Republican.
If I have to choose, I can tolerate Republicans, I fucking hate Progressives.
I vote Libertarian most of the time.
I am EXACTLY the type of person you need to help you beat Democrats.
because of all the religious right ranting
such as
If I have to choose, I can tolerate Republicans, I fucking hate Progressives.
I vote Libertarian most of the time.
I am EXACTLY the type of person you need to help you beat Democrats.
I second this. I am registered republican since it’s either that or dem to vote in the primaries.
And not to get all me too! But, I have also lost a lot of friends when pointing out their hypocritical stances on issues political and moral.
I’m exhausted with the whole thing. If the country wants to go to Hell in a handbasket, they can go right ahead and buy their own handbasket. I’ll gladly kick them off the fiscal cliff just so they can go first.
Such as Paul Broun, my local Congressman, giving speeches declaring the Earth is 6000 years old and Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden.
No way in Hell am I voting for that lunatic.
Sorry.
That makes two of us.
Of course, most of the “religious right ranting” in the first instance is about the religious right rather than from the religious right; and in the second instance it seems to me that there’s more ranting at the religious right than to the religious right.
And not all social conservatives are religious, merely traditional.
Agree basically with that Ernst, so you need to find candidates who will stop walking into punches and learn to fight.
Santorum drove me absolutely batshit with his refusal to deflect questions about contraception.
Such as Paul Broun, my local Congressman
any others because algore/proggtards ranting about gaia is dying from co2 is just as crazy
Santorum drove me absolutely batshit with his refusal to deflect questions about contraception.
yea he should be more like baracky and benghazi
Isn’t that what’s known as a teachable moment?
Or do you expect him to be embarrassed because he believes the doctrines and dogma of his church?
Unlike say, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy.
Maybe he should have phonied himself up to be more acceptable, like Mitt Romney, who never missed a chance to be on both sides of an issue?
(now I’m just messin’ w/ you)
Nuttin’ like a good schism to winkle out the points and principles of final agreement. Carry on.
As I’ve said before here, the problem that the religious right has is that they’re largely confined to their own insular confines in much the same way that progressives are. The difference, and it’s a big one, is that evangelical depravity is an easier sell than the doughy-eyed Jesus lifestyle. And the fact that the former is spreading while the latter recedes is not going to reverse itself.
We should have one every five to ten years to get rid of the bad blood.
Just like Puzzo’s Five Families.
“yea he should be more like baracky and benghazi”
To reach into my golden oldies again, maybe if more evangelicals did well in school and pursued careers in media or pop culture fields, there’d be a more level playing field. But as things stand, well, it’s their culture and you’d better either learn to deal with that or quit yer whining.
Overlooked this earlier:
Whom was Akin supposed to fight beemoe, the Left or the backstabbers on the Right?
Until it does Abe. Depravity wasn’t discovered along with sex in 1963 (or however the line goes).
I do like the “evangelical depravity” turn of phrase. I’m going to steal it.
Being up half the night sick with worry is catching up to me. Back later maybe.
I dunno about the Puzzo details, but it (the regular engagement) is potentially desirable so long as the fundamental agreements are reached before the barbarian left takes total control, wiping out all the contenders: that is, eventually the differences have to be recognized as defined well enough, whereupon the turn to agreement begins and intensifies.
You mean like Katie Perry?
Really that’s it for me now.
I should have said it isn’t gonna reverse itself anytime soon. If AIDS couldn’t stop rampant casual sex, it’s hard to imagine what will.
if more evangelicals did well in school and pursued careers in media or pop culture fields
no thanks to becoming proggtards. did well in proggtard schools algore gaia loving losers
If AIDS couldn’t stop rampant casual sex, it’s hard to imagine what will
aids another proggtard big lie from the ’80’s
Katie Perry? She willingly married and had sexual intercourse with Russell Brand.
She has disqualified herself. For anything except singing catchy pop songs.
“no thanks to becoming proggtards. did well in proggtard schools algore gaia loving losers”
That’s a concern for the psychologically weak. But you have to send a number of eager young Jesus people over the fence in order to yield a serviceable number of warriors … who can get meaningful jobs. I don’t think the networks show up at Bob Jones University career day.
“What are your feelings on x, Mr. Candidate?”
“Well now, I think that we need to focus on the real issues facing the country right now like the deficit and unemployment and leave such personal matters up to the individual to sort out for themselves.”
This isn’t that hard. You can either learn to be a politician and try to get elected playing the game without totally compromising your principles, or you can make bold statements and speak truth to power. And lose.
aids another proggtard big lie from the ’80?s
I get the visual of a starship going into hyperdrive everytime newrouter goes off the rails like this.
But you have to send a number of eager young Jesus people over the fence in order to yield a serviceable number of warriors … who can get meaningful jobs. I don’t think the networks show up at Bob Jones University career day.
why not just pull the plug on the whole “higher education” bs via fed gov’t money? effin sink the proggtard ship. proggtard degrees aren’t worth the fiat money they are 1-0 stored on
get the visual of a starship going into hyperdrive everytime newrouter goes off the rails like this.
nah aids was a “queers gone wild” time in the ’80s in their lead up “queer marriage” 20 years later. the lgbtxyz commies are a battering ram for the proggtards
It shouldn’t be hard, BMoe, but it is when you have a sitting president out there pimping his social agenda and a lapdog media willing to do his bidding to make anyone with an ‘r’ or an ‘l’ after his/her name into a threat to Social Justice™.
Presbo: A woman’s right to choose trumps all. ‘Nuff said.
Challenger: Life begins at conception. “Nuff said.
Media: There you have it ladies and gentleman. Candidate X favors incest rape babies!!!!!!!!!!
Public: Presbo lurvs women’s rights! Candidate X is a Neanderthal who wants to return women to the dudgery of the 1950s!
Let me try to explain it this way, more in line with the defining principles of this blog, and using B Moe’s Universal Rule of Diplomacy.
There are different ways of using words. Classic Liberals, libertarians and such tend to use words in the traditional way, as a means of communication. To reason, teach and negotiate with others. Progressives use words like lawyers, as tools and weapons. They use words to build walls and parapets, and to hurl at others as projectiles or to beat them like cudgels.
B Moe’s Rule says:
You can’t have a unilateral negotiation. You can have a unilateral ass-whooping.
We are making the same mistake with our political enemies that our political enemies routinely make in foreign affairs: we are not recognizing them as real enemies and are trying to have a unilateral negotiation while they are whupping our ass.
We can’t win an assymetrical war with them, too many voters are too stupid and ignorant. We have to unify and play to win, even if that means compromising a few principles along the way.
Or we can wait til the crash and hope we are strong enough to defeat the barbarians in a real war.
even if that means compromising a few principles along the way.
dude lincolnesque
“why not just pull the plug on the whole “higher education” bs via fed gov’t money? effin sink the proggtard ship. proggtard degrees aren’t worth the fiat money they are 1-0 stored on”
That’s practical.
“nah aids was a “queers gone wild” time in the ’80s in their lead up “queer marriage” 20 years later. the lgbtxyz commies are a battering ram for the proggtards”
My college was probably 90% Republican, and I would have wished you good luck in finding a heterosexual female who’d make the beast with two backs with ya without a condom. Proggtard lie or not, it weighed heavily on peoples’ minds, though it didn’t deter anyone.
even if that means compromising a few principles along the way.
effin yea let’s put all of them on blue 21
it weighed heavily on peoples’ minds,
telling a big lie via msm does that to a population
havel
Ideology, in creating a bridge of excuses between the system and the individual, spans the abyss between the aims of the system and the aims of life. It pretends that the requirements of the system derive from the requirements of life. It is a world of appearances trying to pass for reality.
You can have a unilateral ass-whooping.
This is indeed our problem on the starboard side. Whenever we get ourselves a fearsome beast of a competitor, he tends to find too many jackals in our own pack who are ready to turn on him for the sake of the other side’s approval.
It’s not Candidate Fearsome Warrior who is the problem. It is the pack of jackals who get more facetime than Candidate FW.
It’s time for a paradigm shift.
You can’t have a unilateral negotiation
ax the orangeman he done did that today
President Peacenik-Bomberjacket is paradigm shift aplenty for me.
I’d sooner people simply reexamine the meaning of politics from the beginning up, and see if they don’t discover the important things they’ve lost — like why the Melians could take the stance they did, and why it’s critical the US doesn’t find itself taking either the Melian nor the Athenian stance any time soon.
Nr, you’re being grouchy, pal. Are yinz gettin’ snow, ‘nat? The weather report says you had light snow.
Yes, that would be best, sdferr.
you’re being grouchy
disagreeing doesn’t = grouchy tho that be a proggtard method of squelching dissent. label it distasteful to the masses of drones
Whatever you say.
All’s I know is, if I go to a party and the people there tell me I’m not welcome but I can leave the bottle of Scotch, I’ll take my Scotch and go home.
If they only wanted to invite the bottle, it should’ve said that on the
fundraising letterinvitation.baracky be grouchy shutting down the coal industry
Whatever you say.
the bmoe school of sucking up to proggtards
Nice. I guess instead building a third party, we’ll point fingers. Always an effective way to herd cats…
As long as that’s that mood of the thread, fuck it, I’ll play.
Stupid libertarians…can’t they shut up about legalizing the dope?
Well, how else are you going to build and/or maintain a (favorable) public persona?
I mean, if you want to pollute your brain, go for it! But why ya always gotta be pushing your mellow? Jeez, don’t you see how, well, dopey you
sound?
Fight democrats with democrat policies that have the edges filed of a little. It’s sort of like inoculation, only it doesn’t work.
Oh hey, that’s like an opening for anyone who wants to toss a shot at that embarrassingly wacky christer, the honorable Star Admiral “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann who KNOWS how to enjoy a corny dog at a fair, and barely held on to her seat, but at least doesn’t have any busty daughters for David Letterman to make underage slut jokes about. AMIRITE?
Am I the only person who thinks that the first real candidate who favors legalizing marijuana will kick ass? I hate the stuff, personally, but it’s pretty harmless. More so than booze, anyway.
Hell if I know, Abe. Are there enough people around who vote and smoke weed to make it worth it?
The NORML folks are messed up.
I’m not sure about the numbers. But given how easy it is to get, I kind of have to believe that millions of people use it regularly.
Respectfully, what I’m hearing is that I have to compromise a few principles, because, even though he may be rock solid on economic liberty (low taxes, chainsaw away burdensome regulation etc.) it’s just too embarrassing to vote for a Bible literalist/creationist.
What exactly is it that you think we’re winning short term by compromising principles here and there? I mean, isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the last twenty years?
So instead of just accepting that an iron law of politics is too many voters are too stupid and ignorant to be trusted and must be coddled lest their stupidity and ignorance be leveraged against us, I prefer to try to educate them about my positions, and why they’re better than my opponents.
And if that means losing in the near term in order to win in the long term, then so be it.
Because we’ve been trying to do it the way you would have us do it (if not as well as you would like for us to do it), and we’ve lost anyways.
Didn’t somebody post a link to some study about long term marijuana use making you schizo or something?
? I hate the stuff, personally, but it’s pretty harmless. More so than booze, anyway.
free jerry sandusky and munia! effin’ idiots
Bachmann prevailed? Good. That’ll drive my sister-in-law’s husband crazy.
Am I the only person who thinks that the first real candidate who favors legalizing marijuana will kick ass?
black culture rocks like that prison stuff real dress for sucess
I’m not sure what principles you think you’re compromising on. You’re pretty much talking about self-indulgent preening. Abortion is never going to be illegal. Most well-adjusted pro-lifers understand that, yet instead of simply attacking the monstrosity that is late-term and botched abortion killings, they have a persistent compulsion to tell the world what wonderfully humane people they are.
Ernst, serr8d posted it yesterday, I believe.
“Didn’t somebody post a link to some study about long term marijuana use making you schizo or something”
I suppose that’s possible in some instances, but are we that party? It seems so Democrat to me.
I’ll go on record as saying boozeis bad,bad stuff. Especially after 40.
Science!
Actually, I’m all for the decriminalization of pot. I do think pharmaceuticals need to be controlled though.
However, earlier, when I mentioned dope, I was making a a different point. More of a comparison really, between the perception of the stereotypical social con pro-lifer, and the likewise libertarian dope pusher.
And yes, I’m sure the candidate who favors legalizing marijuana will kick ass.
The American public are dopes.
Potheads love Ron Paul and he’s pro-life. I smell two-fer.
Oh horseshit.
They believe a fetus is an individual that has inalienable rights, and they don’t want the government promoting their murder by financing abortions.
The claim they do it because of a compulsion to tell the world what wonderfully humane people they are is pure projection.
Ron Paul is an isolationist, which clashes with good economic policy.
We gotta be willing and able to protect our interests in the world, an idea Paul thinks beneath him.
Opposing government financing of abortion is a credible position that even baby-killing advocate happyfeet agrees with. If you actually think that’s a what causes inter-party tension you’re delusional.
Why? Because all progressive victories are final?
I think what we understand is that not all forms of abortions are going to be outlawed in all places. What we also understand is that merely trying to end the practice of partial birth
abortioninfanticide inevitably becomes about protecting the fundamental right of a woman to exercise choice. The left never gives an inch. Maybe we could learn something from that.The first part I’ve already answered. As to the second, you’d have to give me an example of what your implying with your sarcasm there before I could answer that. I’m trying (more or less) to stay on the appropriate side of provactive and avoid unnecessary insult and offense.
Off the top of my head, issues I’m being asked to compromise my principles on:
Abortion
Public decency (can we have at least one hour of broadcasttv in the evening that’s family friendly? Just one? hypersexualization of the culture)
Homosexual marriage
Public displays of religion (school prayer, crosses, nativity scenes)
The principle I’m being asked to compromise is the right to live my raise my family in a way consistent with my beliefs and values and have that right tolerated, if not respected. I’m supposed to backburner all of that indefinitely so we can focus on the economy. Also, since I’m being told to shut up about the social issues, I’m being asked to forgo my right to advocate in the public sphere –either for my views or against the views of those with whom I disagree.
Finally, one campaign focused on the economy, the other focused on social issues. Which won? I would think our side would want to motivate our social issue voters, if only to cancel out their social issue voters.
Personally, I think the inter-party tension is because people who oppose abortion on moral grounds, specifically, religious tenets, are culturally suspect. Unlike people who oppose it purely on the issue of public financing.
“live my life and raise my family”
Maybe it’s time to try to go back to bed.
Oh, here’s the link to the linky on the dope – schizophrenia tye-dyes.
You’ll have to roll your own; I left the HTML skins on my desktop… )
https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=45122#comment-927957
That’s a lot to get to. I’ll try and respond in the morning, Ernst.
Abortion is a pair of pliers in the eugenics toolbox. People who feel comfortable using and supporting abortion aren’t so very far from grabbing the next handy tool that they’ll find inside.
Take your time Abe.
I appreciate your point of view.
you godless pagan idolator Gammorah-by-the-Hudson dweller you /snark
LBascom says November 7, 2012 at 10:17 pm
As long as that’s that mood of the thread, fuck it, I’ll play.
Stupid libertarians…can’t they shut up about legalizing the dope?
Damn right. I am a card carrying legalize everything libertarian, but they need to stfu always talking about legalizing pot. It scares off more folks than it attracts and makes it easy for other to paint you as a loon.
Its hard to educate people who are ignoring you.
Ernst Schreiber says November 7, 2012 at 10:40 pm
Respectfully, what I’m hearing is that I have to compromise a few principles, because, even though he may be rock solid on economic liberty (low taxes, chainsaw away burdensome regulation etc.) it’s just too embarrassing to vote for a Bible literalist/creationist.
What exactly is it that you think we’re winning short term by compromising principles here and there? I mean, isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the last twenty years?
Yeah, but its been a different set of principles that what I am suggesting.
Excellent piece Jeff. Thanks.
Christians, in other words. The proggs have won. Who needs Jesus when you’ve got Margaret Sanger?
[…] yesterday, I heard that the GOP needs to change in order to appeal to the coming minority majority.Jeff G. I have no problem with Erick’s suggestion that a group that he believes is a “natural fit for […]
This is what is called a “tremendous trifle.” I mean, I was unaware that there was a binding resolution pending in the House that would declare that the Earth is 6000 years old and that Adam and Eve were dinosaur jockeys. I simply didn’t know that the matter was up for a vote with –apparently – grave consequences. In any event, it would appear that his belief has precisely 0.0000000000000000% effect on anything of consequence.
But you wrote this:
It would seem to me that this statement is demonstrably false. Your first and foremost priority is to demonstrate that you’re more sophisticated and urbane than people like Paul Broun, who is part of the Tea Party caucus in the House and likely much more amenable to your views on limiting the power of government (with narrow and notable exceptions) than his opponent.
I think we have a winner here, folks. You know who else is getting culturally suspect with the hipster crowd? Old white people who don’t like high taxes and profligate spending. Chuck Todd told me so.
If we’re going to have a standoff, can we at least get credit for having a Mexican one?
Damn right. I am a card carrying legalize everything libertarian, but they need to stfu always talking about legalizing pot. It scares off more folks than it attracts and makes it easy for other to paint you as a loon.
The majority of the kids at the restaurant I work at smoke (a lot) of pot.
It doesn’t represent the argument well.
Just saying.
I am a legalize pot kind of guy. If people are going to get high on the job, they’ll do it irrespective of whether that high is obtained by smoking or by drinking something out of a brown paper bag.
I used to work with guys who, every day, would go out to the parking lot and drink beer at lunch. Out of quart bottles. One each.
I don’t know that being stoned is a lot worse. These are people who don’t think for a living, anyway.
What do you mean? I’m sure when we embrace the Libertarian’s 10% issue they’ll thank us for removing the sword of Damocles from above their heads and become otherwise upright, contributing citizens with no hand extended out for free munchies.
Just to note, that phrase “culturally suspect” is peculiar in the light of positivist argument (not that I object to it, mind), at least insofar as it has a sense somehow of “outside the cultural norm” — yet the idea of culture was, I’d thought, intended to be a matter of description (providing a handle social science could hold onto when making trans-societal comparisons) rather than prescription (providing a path to the good life of the sort religious tenets might do). Science, or so it said, doesn’t do “value judgments” — for it has no basis on which to make them, it claimed.
So has the idea of culture (or should that be the ontological account of culture?) moved on from its presumptively innocent investigative origins to become an active player in the assignment of categories of good and evil? Or was science always hiding its own prescriptive nature while only pretending to float above the fray?
If you’d prefer politically suspect, that’s okay by me. The dominant culture is susipicious of and hostile towards anybody who doesn’t suscribe to its tenets –particularly the religious and most especially of those holding to orthodox, traditional judeo-christian beliefs.
Anybody who doesn’t depend on the outcome of the political process for his happiness and mental well-being is obviously non compos mentis.
I hadn’t had my own preference in mind really. I was curious about the function and effects of the idea of culture in our political life. Has culture become the touchstone wherein we are to discover the meaning of justice, piety, moderation, national purpose and so on. Has the multi-cultural description of America as a preeminent exemplar of a culture of cultures among the nations of the earth become the test of its virtues as a political organization? Or to say, has replaced the outmoded notion of a nation based on natural right and the social contract model? These are merely questions brought on by the predominance of social scientific (so-called) thought among us.