While I’m off having my shoulder and arm poked, twisted, bent, and torqued, you all are free to enjoy some of the following — which, because I’m pressed for time, I’ll summarize only briefly.
1) David Harsanyi — McCain is the suck. Admit it.
2. Jimmie Bise — If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it still not crush shit?
3. Bill Whittle — It is my right to link this.
4. Video — Farrakhan finds in the messiah The Messiah. Jesus wept.
5. Video — John Gibson does not heart Rashid Khalidi
6. The human foot, should you remove all its bones and tendons and veins, would look very much like a rubber chicken — particularly if you painted a beak on the nail where the big toe is supposed to be.
And if the dude you killed to do so happened to be yellowish.
I recently had my foot x-rayed and was dismayed to see it is basically a long webbed hand.
I’m a monkey-man!
One looks upon a yellow foot with a jaundiced eye.
My size 14 foot (steady ladies) would look like Jeremy Piven after a jump out of a very high window.
“Non servitum!” I cried, and plunged into the pit…
6. The human foot, should you remove all its bones and tendons and veins, would look very much like a rubber chicken  particularly if you painted a beak on the nail where the big toe is supposed to be.
“Hmmm, I’ve always wondered why they are called club sandwiches”, Billy admitted with his usual charming absence of self-consciousness. “I’ve only been deboning and putting little sailor suits on the severed feet I happen to find – you know, for target practice, at least if I don’t have any dead ducks lying around. Many thank’s for the learning, stranger.”
Aren’t feet kind of a cumbersome trophy, though? You can’t wear them on a string around your neck or anything.
That’s why I collect spleens.
“And, I’ll just never see my rubber ducky the same way, either!”
I am rather glad #6 is not linked.
Dude.
You just melted my O!FORCE Dogwhistle Decoder Ring.
Fortunately, I’d left it on my other cock.
But still. It was an antique.
That’s why I collect spleens.
“Plus, I’ve heard tell down to the Nature Supplement Store, they help you vent. Not that I have much trouble letting my gut do the talking, mind you.”
In America we have a “revolution” every two years. We call them elections.
ACORN is plotting a coup d’etat.
Who mentioned a big yellow chicken?
I hope your shoulder is okay. Shoulders are important and injuries can be dispiriting. Other Guy gets injured all the time but he stays very cheerful and I kind of admire him for that even if he’s probably fucking up our health plan.
My hip was really bugging me for weeks and weeks – making it hard to sleep or walk. Then I discovered this MIRACLE cure called “STRETCHING PROPERLY” before you work out.
Honestly, I think I’m gonna get a website going touting my miracle cure. I’ll try to remember all you little people when I become rich and famous.
Stretching is very wise. There used to be morning stretch classes but they are hard to find these days unless you count yoga which I don’t cause it’s too damn expensive and everybody sweats so much it’s gross and you might could pick up that staph infection what was incubated in the Los Angeles prison system.
Shshssh – I don’t have my website up and running yet. Stretching™ is gonna be all the new rage.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand…
It’s a big yellow chicken.
I had a buddy get an MRI on a bad shoulder once. He said it was a cross between “House” and “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” They apparently weren’t too gentle with the dye.
Someone is launching or has launched a Supernatural Chicken franchise that I’m supposed to get on top of at some point. I don’t know if there’s a tv show or what. I’ve been kind of slacking on the staying abreast thing.
Whittle:
”
Well, back in the day, we would simply say that a right has legal authority  it’s in the Constitution and therefore it’s a not just a right, it’s a birthright. So why shouldn’t we amend the Constitution to include the rights to health care, food, housing, education  all the rest? What’s the difference between the rights we have and the “rights†Obama wants to give us?
Simply this: Constitutional rights protect us from things: intimidation, illegal search and seizure, self-incrimination, and so on. The revolutionary idea of our Founding Fathers was that people had a God-given right to live as they saw fit. Our constitutional rights protect us from the power of government.”
If we keep this frame of mind, I am 100% behind a Constitutional Amendment protecting me from government infringement of my right to healthcare. Breaking up the AMA monopoly would solve a whole lot of problems.
Comments:
1) McCain is the suck; but the alternative is sooooooooo much suckier!
2)Acorn is a biiiiiiig problem, and Mav must hang them around O!s neck…
3)Health Care a right,WTF???? Our only rights are spelled out in the Constitution, and no matter how some judge feels any new rights must be ensconsed in that same document through the procedures outlined by it!
4) This video is suuuuuper creepy. Make it go viral, all. America deserves to know what they’re getting. Even though I’m sure that by mere objection to it, I’m a RAAAAACIST!!1!1eleventy!11!!!
5) Surprise, I don’t heart Rashid Khalidi either! But again, that must mean I’m a Zionist, a nationalist, and a terrorist alluding fear-mongerer; the trifecta of RAAAAAAAACISM!
I never found rubber chickens particularly tasty…And I’m sure I’d feet the same way about boneless feet!
Good luck at the Doctor Jeff, I’m sure it’ll be good for what ails ye…
Number 4, 6, and possible 5 are all racist, Jeff. This kinda stuff won’t stand in Barack Obama’s America.
POULTRYGEIST!
Question – what’s with all the nuns in the Farrakhan audience?
(I denounce myself)
I think today is the day that Mark Steyn gets the verdict from the kangaroo court – noon your time.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
One of those is the right to free chicken.
But maybe it’s rubber chicken for you!
If I had a supernatural chicken, I might wish for Reagan to be alive. With hilarious unintended results.
Zombie Reagan, teeth bared.
Musty wet pelt, glistening RED
that eats brains
Stepping on the brains
that the Reagan eats,
they crunch.
A little chuckle from Crittenden –
“In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.”
Bloviatin’ Joe’s Neighborhood:
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/42190/view/?service=1
ACORN must be hung around Baracky’s neck from now until the election.
ACORN is the suxXor
trading crack and booze for votes
And Baracky smiles
By the way Orin Kerr’s egotism is a despot in a devastated creation. That is off-topic.
ACORN must be hung around Baracky’s neck from now until the election.
Sounds like it is starting to get some traction.
This is same as ACORN. A back-door fairness doctrine almost.
That’s the little nazi McCain was slobbering over the other day.
1) McCain is the suck; but the alternative is sooooooooo much suckier!
I’ll drink to that, especially since that’s what it’ll take to suffer the impending double-denouncement I’m about to incur from both voting against a blackish man, and essentially committing treason in doing so. Plus, it just makes sense to get in shape for the Victory Gin total diet/health care plan apparently right around the corner.
Well, I’d better get started….
I wonder how long it will take this socialist healthcare system to refuse service to people that smoke? Either that or use it as a reason to ban ciggerettes. Sooo many problems I see coming down the pipe if we suddenly by Executive “decree” have a right to healthcare. Second-hand smoke as an assault charge when done around a child, can you say “Yes we can!!!!”
Christopher Buckley, son of WFB, just endorsed Obama:
I amâ€â€drum roll, please, cue trumpetsâ€â€making this announcement in the cyberpages of The Daily Beast (what joy to be writing for a publication so named!) rather than in the pages of National Review, where I write the back-page column. For a reason: My colleague, the superb and very dishy Kathleen Parker, recently wrote in National Review Online a column stating what John Cleese as Basil Fawlty would call “the bleeding obviousâ€Â: namely, that Sarah Palin is an embarrassment, and a dangerous one at that. She’s not exactly alone. New York Times columnist David Brooks, who began his career at NR, just called Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.â€Â
As for Kathleen, she has to date received 12,000 (quite literally) foam-at-the-mouth hate-emails. One correspondent, if that’s quite the right word, suggested that Kathleen’s mother should have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a Dumpster. There’s Socratic dialogue for you. Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.†Well, the dear man did his best. At any rate, I don’t have the kidney at the moment for 12,000 emails saying how good it is he’s no longer alive to see his Judas of a son endorse for the presidency a covert Muslim who pals around with the Weather Underground. So, you’re reading it here first.
***
As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,†pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR. As for his intellect, well, he’s a Harvard man, though that’s sure as heck no guarantee of anything, these days. Vietnam was brought to you by Harvard and (one or two) Yale men. As for our current adventure in Mesopotamia, consider this lustrous alumni roster. Bush 43: Yale. Rumsfeld: Princeton. Paul Bremer: Yale and Harvard. What do they all have in common? Andover! The best and the brightest.
I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.
But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.
Obama has in himâ€â€I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for†silly rhetoricâ€â€the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.
So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.
I actually think his dad would approve.
Which demonstrates conclusively how little your opinion can be worth.
Comment by Mr. Pink on 10/10 @ 10:27 am
Ahh, those goddamn kids from those anti-smoking commercials will goose step around the country making sure everyone commits.
Like the commercial says Dash it will just be “tough love”.
They’ll probably try and take away my Copenhagen too, but that’s the point where I paint my face and stand on my room ululating with an explosive tipped crossbow.
They’ll outlaw tobacco as “toxic” and make marijuana the “socially responsible” drug-of-choice.
A stoned electorate won’t make trouble.
Comment by mojo on 10/10 @ 10:38 am
cf. Bernadine Dorhn’s comments about that.
I’ve read Senator Obama’s books, and they are first-rate
Oh brother.
That just tears me up into a million little pieces. Now.
May his tiny kidneys enjoy the health care he has chosen.
“I’ve read Senator Obama’s books, and they are first-rate”
White people’s greed runs a world in need, Bittttcccccchhhhessssssssss. Fuck you too, cracka.
“what the historical moment seems to be calling for”
1. Socialist/communist ass rainbows?
2. A whole lot of Jew-hate?
3. Competent ureters
“what the historical moment seems to be calling for”
A laxative?
But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.
Christopher Buckley is an idiot.
Regardless, he writes fluff pieces for NR, not deep political analyses. But, whatever.
Honestly, though, it makes me question the NR price-tag if it’s authors are voting for O!
I know I vote based on whether or not I enjoyed a politician’s ghost-written book.
So basically what Buckley is saying is that he “hopes” Obama will not do what he has always done. Wow superb analysis there.
It’s only inevitable that some will succumb to the now months, nay years?, long deluge of O! puff pieces and fellating that this election cycle has brought. Sort of the like the end of ‘1984,’ we love Big Brother sort of way.
I for one welcome our new overlords.
NR is fags. I tried to warn you.
People magazine told me O! and his family were just like me. Everyone has associations that include 20 years at a racist church, unrepentant domestic terrorists, and convicted felons who our of the kindness of their hearts sell us land at a couple hundred thousand under the selling price. That Palin b!tch though, someone should send her back to Alaska she is a radical right wing nutjob.
/
“That Palin b!tch though,” snark, she doesn’t even want to suck out those icky fetuses.
Yep,h is son will get a deluge of hate mail and promptly be forgotten in the next round of hate orgies scheduled for next week.
No one gives a flying fuck about founding conservative principles anymore. Not that founding liberal principles have faired much better. The only two ideologies still standing in American politics are “hang together” or “hang separately”.
“No one gives a flying fuck about founding conservative principles anymore”
Heh, except half the country. I guess representative gov’t is out too vis-a-vis ACORN.
I wonder if the fat girl is voting for Baracky. Goldberg won’t cause he’s a contrarian what knows what side his fag toast is buttered on I think.
Sarah,
To get away from the rubber chicken problem buy fryers not stewers.
Just be sure to stay away from the green wobbly bit.
Comment by sashal on 10/10 @ 11:03 am is what you get when history is no longer studied. I doubt it knows what Federalism is.
Woot, the course of history must be altered by the strong! Viva le Ubermenschen! Deutchland Uber Alles! Lebensraum for the chosen people! Hope! Change! We’re so fucked.
Publius from OW has a great comment on David Brooks latest.
David Brooks wrote a good column yesterday criticizing the GOP’s excessive anti-intellectualism. Brooks theory goes something like this  the GOP’s criticism of narrow aspects of elitist liberalism has morphed into a broader hostility against the educated classes as a whole.
In short, conservatives told educated people to go away, and they have.
Brooks writes:
The GOP has lost the educated class by sins of commission  by telling members of that class to go away.
Of course , there’s nothing about college that necessarily makes you a better or even smarter person  drunker, maybe, but not better. Instead, college forces you  often for the first time  to experience diversity.
Anyway, once you’ve had these experiences, it’s beyond disgusting to see, for instance, the rabid gay-bashing of 2004, or the immigrant-bashing of 2005, or the “Barack Hussein Obama†business, or the audacity of an idiot vice presidential candidate claiming that Obama “pals around†with terrorists  you know, people who murder Americans.
Urban educated Republicans don’t even try to defend this garbage, but instead are embarrassed by it  probably far more than they publicly acknowledge. Sometimes, though, the embarrassment spills out  see, e.g., David Brooks and David Frum.
In short, the GOP has made an unholy alliance with the mob  and now the long-term debt is coming due. And they deserve it. After all, it’s not that the GOP establishment merely tolerated them, or treated them like the crazy uncle you basically nod at but ignore. They’ve been riling them up  feeding the hate. They’ve based campaigns on things like gay marriage and immigration and terrorist appeasing. They go on the Rush Limbaugh show, and validate his venom. They tell people who don’t have time to learn otherwise things like giving mortgages to poor minority families caused the housing crisis
And you know, it sort of makes sense. If I thought Obama was a Muslim terrorist communist committing perpetual voter fraud, I might get mad too at the prospect of an Obama presidency. And so that’s what you have  a lot of angry, proudly uninformed conservatives out there.
that’s how D.Brooks nails it today:
but he nails it today:
over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Michael Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads.
Over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts.
***
The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.
Conservatives are as rare in elite universities and the mainstream media as they were 30 years ago. The smartest young Americans are now educated in an overwhelmingly liberal environment.
***
And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission  because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission  by telling members of that class to go away.
College is for diversity training.
Intellectualism, is that anything like refusing rational discourse in favor of cocktail party trumpery? Because that seems to be the implication..
David Brooks’s comment is ridiculous. Honestly – wanna give me ONE example? Who has been told to pack their bags and go home? I mean, I know when you read this it prolly gave you a tingle up your leg …
As for Christopher – he’s voting for Obama but praying that he doesn’t follow his plan to lead. That he doesn’t do a single thing he’s said he plans to.
Why … what a GENIUS strategy!
“GOP’s criticism of narrow aspects of elitist liberalism has morphed into a broader hostility against the educated classes as a whole.”
Yo dog, I been to the ‘Kremlin on the Krum,’ Swarthmore College, but I guess I’m not part of this mythical educated class because I’m conservative. Took me a full year before I realized how full of shit my socialist peers are. They couldn’t actually bring themselves to talk to Republicans, but instead would commiserate over their anorexia or pass around gonorrhea to each other on a saturday night after taking some X. Mostly me and me econ major buds would laugh at them and harbor our secret conservatism.
carin, I know, I would be ashamed to be republican as well, if I were honest conservative
With the help of Cooks illustrated, bouquet garni, and a le Creuset pot, I can make a degloved foot tender.
Roost-ist!
Again with the talk radio=hate speech and classification of anti-illegal immigration as anti-immigration/racism. Where is this CHANGE I keep hearing about?
“As for Christopher – he’s voting for Obama but praying that he doesn’t follow his plan to lead. That he doesn’t do a single thing he’s said he plans to.”
Ah, yes. Intellectualism
Intellectuals need constant validation is what David Brooks is saying. It’s cause when you don’t get validated and listened to it’s super-hard not to feel parasitic, when you feel you are an important intellectual. You need to be part of something bigger that the non-intellectual peoples acknowledge as a grand thing and an important thing and a I am so not you, little non-intellectual person thing. What intellectuals deny is that we are all specialists now, and there’s nothing particularly special about theirs no more. The Davids, whole armies of them, and the intellectuals are a lot dismayed.
David Brook’s analsis is flawed. Sorry.
. Once conservatives admired Churchill and Lincoln above all  men from wildly different backgrounds who prepared for leadership through constant reading, historical understanding and sophisticated thinking. Now those attributes bow down before the common touch.
That’s must be why two of the most respected conservative journalists are Brit Hume and Charles Krauthammer. We just lurvs us some hillbilly.
But over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare.
Conservatives LEFT the cities because they didn’t like what was happening there. High taxes and all the social problems.
Honestly, this whole piece is a joke.
Intellectual is a sort of meaningless term now I think, because Brook’s intellectuals tend to be the most narrow minded of all and believe in Gaia spirit and gender studies and the Bolivarian Revolution but can’t change a tire or don’t know what a wheatstone bridge is or couldn’t do a diffy q if their life depended on it.
David Brooks is the past. Mr. Goldstein is the future. Mr. Reynolds is the future. Me I know which ones the intellectuals are.
It’s amazing that a “good conservative like David Brooks” is using everything the liberal media has been saying since 2000 as support for his argument.
I think David Brooks and Andy Sullivan went to the same conservative school.
It is hard not to be anti-intellectual when our supposed intellectual “betters” are telling us that illegal immigration is good and that opposing giving morgages to people that can’t afford them is racist. Just saying.
David Brooks is a pussy. His lispings are much valued by NPR and the New York Times, but if you dropped him off somewhere on the turnpike, it would be a lot hysterical.
That piece could have been written by Rachael Maddow.
ps I hope I spelled her name wrong.
Part and parcel of the whole liberal assimilation of choice terms. Intellectual tends to mean liberal in the media segment of the population. By virtue of holding conservative views, one is no longer considered for intellectual status. Engineers and physicists and biochemists are sure smarter than the humanities intellectuals.
Oh, the Left has made their own Devil’s Bargain with the mob. Its just being carefully ignored. But perusing zombie’s site gives you a decent start on it.
I say the punishment for Christopher Buckley should be that he is forced to spend a weekend at a Bed and Breakfast with David Brooks and PowerGlutes.
#77, HF
hopefully most likely you will at least 4 years to think about the future and the past, retrospecting on the what the fuck went wrong and how GOP could have screwed the country so bad…
Chris Buckley apparently doesn’t.
Mostly I hope the peepers find out about the scumbags like Dodd and B. Frank and Schumer and Pelosi/Reid and Baracky and JFKerry and how their very own GSE made the whole world all financially jittery and we don’t have a socialist to in office to make things worse.
Anyway, the President is supposed to be leader for everybody, from hillbilly to Harvard snob. At least the ‘anti-intellectuals’ have a venue for representation in the Repub party. And intellectuals and minorities are welcome. The Dems are the ones which exclude and rank who to listen to, to ignore.
David Brooks couldn’t “nail it” with a 4lb sledgehammer.
But there’s one thing we agree on. Just not for the reason he thinks.
Surprisingly or not, sashal, I’ll agree with you that – many – people don’t give a ‘flying fuck about conservative founding principles’ any more. I also don’t think people will give a flying fuck about Liberal principles, either. Both will be sacrificed, and likely the Hamiltonian tradition is about to become acendant. Hope you can guess why.
Brooks invented “concern trolling” before the Web even existed.
sashal, David Brooks just lisped on and on about how intellectuals are hopeless group-thinkers that need to be coddled just so. Whole professions of them. These intellectuals, they are smart though. They’ll figure it out at some point.
…how GOP could have screwed the country so bad…
I can tell you that now, sashal. By failing to stick to their guns domestically and in particular by failing to communicate with the people better. When the going got tough trying to get their message out, instead of getting tough right back the GOP quit trying.
see, I told you , what Bush administration Rovian tactics inciting hatred and alienating to the half of the population might do. Now McCain campaign keeps instigating and promoting the hatred.
Weimar republic anyone ?
91, urt, great.
May be it is the first step to mutual understanding and reconciliation
Settle down now boys! It’s almost over. Just 4 more weeks and then we’ll find something else to bitch about for the next 4 years. It’s just a revolving door, shit in, shit out!!
Bush administration Rovian tactics “inciting hatred and alienating…”
-“White people’s greed runs a world in need”
-“Go out and get in the infidels’ faces”
-Threats to revoke licenses of stations broadcasting NRA ads
-Obama truth squads in Missouri
-Jeremiah Wright
-Fairness Doctrine
-Terrorist pals
We know Rove is your favorite boogeyman, but methinks you doth project too much.
see, I told you , what Bush administration Rovian tactics inciting hatred and alienating to the half of the population might do. Now McCain campaign keeps instigating and promoting the hatred.
Weimar republic anyone ?
Gov. Palin must be wearing white, again! Racist!!1!
“Intellectual” and “anti-intellectual”, the Ivy League elite have their own definitions. That leads to their own elite reality. It holds sway inside their towers. Which are burning even as they reject the flames.
sashal, boy, oh boy do you miss the point, as does Brooks and Chris Buckley.
Let me be perfectly clear lest you try to frame me and my argument as something else.
I am a conservative. Not a neo-con. Not a member of the Christian Coalition. Not a stinkin’ foot soldier for the Republican Party.
A conservative, who believes in the essential genius that was the founders’ vision and the document that resulted.
The difference is a little something called principles. I believe in the idea that government should be in the business of guaranteeing and defending rights rather than creating them. I believe that fiscal responsibility ought to be the default and not the exception. I believe that defending our country is the highest form of honoer and can take many forms depending upon the threat.
Etc. Etc. I’m not here to write a manifesto.
What you and Brooks and Buckley represent are the wood paneled power salon Republicans who call themselves conservatives but don’t have the spinal cord to actually back up the sorts of principles upon which this country was founded. Instead they look askance over their snifters of expensive brandy at Sarah Palin while bemoaning the loss of the “working class.” What a f*#king joke these guys are. Buckley “secularly prays” that Obama is actually telling us the truth that his far left background in politics has matured into a hodge podge of liberal/moderate bromides, ever morphing, ever growing like the ivy at Cubs field which, by the way, tends to cover up rather than illuminate. Buckley’s “analysis” may be the single dumbest, dishonest, most condescending pile of monkey crap I have ever read, liberal or conservative.
The transit is complete and we are pulling into the station of Bizarro World. Everybody off and oh, by the way, leave your cynicism behind, Y’all.
I just had this argument with my libertarian/conservative/atheist brother, who informed me that he’s voting for Obama (and is trying to convince me to do the same.) He is convinced that, despite his world of differences on principle he sees in Baracky real “leadership.” Flabbergasted, I asked him to give one real, concrete example of Barack’s leadership moments in his entire career. His choice was that Obama said, during the last debate, that McCain “was right” on a point, something that McCain would never do.
And there you have it, ladies and germs, the circle will be unbroken, Michael rowed the boat to shore and I’m supposed to make my voting preference based not upon political principles or issues but upon … wait for it … HOPE!! The fuzzy character and background issues, the utter lack of positive executive experience, a 20 year relationship with a BLT church and a radical preacher, growing up and hanging out with radicals, socialists, communists and activists of every stripe (including those one or two domestic terrorists,) hundreds of politically motivated “present” votes, an almost perfect liberal score on those times that he did vote, a working relationship with ACORN and Chicago Machine Politics (a 2 for oner!) … all of these things are to be cast aside like so many pearls to swine because he brings the HOPE that he will lead in such a way that will be … better.
You know what, sachel? Why don’t I just save everybody a lot of time and lobotomize myself with my 18 volt portable drill. I’ll use the masonry bit as my skull is a little thick. Once reason and logic have been pulverized into a goey mash you, my brother, Brooks and Buckley can take me by the hand with the recently registered homeless guys to my local polling place and I’ll mouth the word HOPE while I pull the lever for Obama, principles be damned.
Living Constitution? We can only HOPE for the CHANGE!
sashal: Saying that the Hamiltonian tradition may become acendant is not necessarily a Good Thing. Only that it will likely be seen as Necessary. It has repercussions.
Obama circa 2010 “It moved OMG it is still alive!!! Shoot it! Shoot it!”
good post, BJ, but one point.
Wrong on Obama. You let your judgment on the guy be dictated by the lies, smears, exaggerations, half knowledge, obfuscations, baseless fears etc….
Other then that as far as the conservative true principles you proclaimed I am in your boat… no need for Michael there, I can row..
Random thoughts thread…cool
-Silver Whistle, Canada is way further down the road to socialism, obviously, than we are. Their government system made them a much easier mark than us because the Prime Minister can basically appoint parliament. They essentially have a super-majority ruling all the time. But we are poised to catch up in a hurry.
How long before we get out own kangaroo courts?
-MrPink, Again, to answer your speculation about cigarettes, I point you to Canada. A socialistic government doesn’t mind if you shorten your slaves life with any level of debauchery, as long as you pay for the it. I was in Alberta last July, and a pack of cigs was over ten bucks. A pack of cigars comparable to Swisher Sweets, $14. Plus each pack had a picture of some effect of smoking, like a pair of black lungs, a set of ugliest of teeth you ever saw, or a human brain ravaged by cancer.
The real outrage? A 12 pack of beer sold out of the Government Store that enjoys a monopoly in alcohol sales is $20.
-Sashel, I think shame is one of the emotions most of the conservatives here are dealing with, and have been since McCain was thrust on us. There are many other emotions too. Betrayal, frustration, despair, anger, etc.
Non of them or all of them are not as powerful as the fear of the loss of our Republic that a Obama presidency threatens.
Oh, and I skip completely your long, cut and pasted comments. Learn to link, and work toward pithy, you will thank me later.
-Carin, Brooks do confuse cause and effect don’t he?
I wonder how he explains the black population fleeing San Francisco?
“You let your judgment on the guy be dictated by the lies, smears, exaggerations, half knowledge, obfuscations, baseless fears etc…”
You wish they weren’t true.
Any thought on all the Acorn raids this week sashal? Any concern how deeply Obama’s ties are to this organization promoting voter fraud ?
I’m all ears.
Brooks and Buckley is just pussies trying to exempt themselves from the purge I think. Cowards.
our supposed intellectual “betters†are telling us that illegal immigration is good and that opposing giving morgages to people that can’t afford them is racist
Rush said today five million illegal immigrants were given subprime home loans.
Don’t think that was a great idea? Racist.
Please. The guy smells crooked, and he’s a Chi-town drone pol. Strictly from commercial, y’dig?
Death mewlings of entitled boomers.
sashal: You need to demonstrate in a clear, sourced manner how any of the things I brought up about Obama are in any way “lies, smears, exaggerations, half knowledge, obfuscations, baseless fears etc….” You are still not getting it. The entire concept of principles over blind faith. My blind faith starts and ends with the Christian God and Jesus. Everyone else pays cash.
You, on the other hand, will take the mountain of evidence and convert it into the Obama chanted mantra of “lies smears, etc.” because you are so disillusioned with neo-cons and Bush and the rest of it that, near as I can tell, you would vote for sh#t on a shingle if it promised you a purge.
I’m all for the purge, sashal, but I’m not willing to “willingly” throw away my reason just to accomplish a genial putsch.
It won’t be genial.
This is the midnight – let no star
Delude us – dawn is very far.
This is the tempest long foretold –
Slow to make head but sure to hold.
Stand by! The lull ‘twixt blast and blast
Signals the storm is near, not past;
And worse than present jeopardy
May our forlorn to-morrow be.
– R. Kipling
Anyone know what bright shining genius made it possible to get a home loan without a SSN?
In sashal’s world, it will be. HOPE and CHANGE will conquer all.
With special emphasis on “conquer.”
Fake SSN’s, Mr. Pink. I denounce myself.
sashal thinks himself genial, then, BJT? Hmmm, what does that tells us?
you are absolutely correct, BJ, bravo, seriously.
I would vote for my cat if it were a democrat and running over any republican this time around.
I am truly utterly disgusted with the last 8 years of the GOP rule( and no, business was not that bad up until recently).
Decidedly not genial. There will be blood probably but not me cause I will show them how I recycle and also my many squiggly bulbs. I will make chai lattes and we will laugh at how my name could have gotten on their list like that.
Yup, Dash. Cue slouchy rough beast.
question to all:
will this ruling bring more business to my home goods business now( considering new marriage couples and new households?)
link
Progressives tend to melt into some baser form when socialism is at stake:
“Feminists applauding women who were bowed down by hundredweights of coal, Quakers applauding tank parades, and architects looking at buildings with awe and admiration that had just been put up but were already falling down. They got themselves into a very strange mental mood. I think it was the worst thing about the whole century. Something went wrong with people’s minds.”
-R. Conquest, 1968, ‘The Great Terror,’ regarding Stalinism
I miss Jeff already. oh. sashal, stop patronizing gay people.
Have you ever noticed that barbecue sauce doesn’t make a good topping for ice cream?
At the yogurt shop the other day this lesbian was putting red bean paste on her yogurt. I asked her if that was good and she looked at me like I was a Republican.
Stage Left: Aaarrghhhhh
Well, sashal, then you will have to forgive me as a bitterly cling to my principles. In the meantime I’ll start work on what I would like to see become a nationwide grassroots movement:
CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS
lee,
What price conservatism, when “true conservatives” like sashal will vote for O! I smell Canada coming.
127.LOOOOOOOOL
I think Alaska is where its at, Sarah P notwithstanding. All that room, we could build some nice cabins and have our own sort of anti-Kool-aid state. Salmon is nice too.
Even conservatives recycle HF. The question will be: Have you ever spoken against the One?
You’re fucked.
The diversity hall putsch.
132 – there’s the free state project too.
Am I projecting or is there something slightly unhinged about Instapundit’s randomness lately? Deep breaths, Glenn. Or is it me?
I don’t know what that smells like and I doubt I want to know.
But I can imagine what it sounds like.
“Ooh. Ooh that’s nice, eh? Pass me the bottle opener, will ya?”
I think Instaman is off b/c “I’M KIND OF TIRED OF ELECTION NEWS…”
Nonviolence soon to be denounced because it works, I’ll betcha.
thor: Time and again you have demonstrated a willful disregard for any concerns about Obama. I don’t hate the guy, I don’t think he is a bad man, his kids are as cute as a button and his wife is very attractive. His idea of political principles is fungible and I am left to balance what he says on the one hand and what he has done om the other, with a healthy dollop of who he has hung out with.
And no need to insult my faith. It is the only place where I lean on the unseen. Everything else, Republican or Democrat, Wall Street or Union. rich or Poor, Mayflower descendant or recent immigrant, gets to prove themselves before I jump on board. Don’t patronize me by assuming my religious faith wanders into the sphere of politics because it ain’t so.
BJ it was possible up until recently to get a morgage without a SSN. I know someone that did it.
If sashel is a true conservative, I’m a dead foot with a beak painted on my toe.
Randomness of the day:
“The members of the Red Tsar’s court included the sinister bisexual dwarf Yezhov…”
I still have my copy of Gentle Ben, Dash. That’ll help.
Oh. My hope lee is that it won’t be up to Baracky levels of efficiency to worry about ousting the unbelievers what are living in 99.2% liberal enclaves. I worry more about work, but they’ve been tolerant so far. But then I am pretty ostentatious about the recyclings. That buys a lot of cheap grace with these people.
Mr. Pink: That is just too depressing to contemplate.
Not that I wasn’t depressed by the stock market continuing to vomit up its own intestines. (Dow 30 -537.71)
hf: You are a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. Cheap grace is my new favorite phrase.
Now if we could only domesticate bears, maybe get them to wear ties and act all respectable, we could get the AGW crowd off our back.
Dead papers and ‘Bama comin’
We’re finally fucked for good
This summer I hear the callin’
Vote fraud in O-hi-O…
Ooh. Ooh that’s nice, eh? Pass me the bottle opener, will ya?â€Â
No McGehee, I have never heard a Canadian utter those words.
He would pry it off with his tooth first.
BJTex, my friend once said (can’t find a link at the moment), that there would come a time when real serious conservatives would look at the Republican ticket in horror. National party affiliation shouldn’t be a suicide pact.
Forget for a moment that a badly run campaign and a sense of entitlement has driven John McCain off the deep end. His selection of Palin was the death knell of his campaign. As a national candidate, Sarah Palin is a pet rock. And while the idea of a pet rock is initially kind of cute and novel and amusing, at the end of the day, it’s just a rock that sits there and does nothing… and we already have one of those sitting in the White House and look where that got us.
148 – LOL but I at first thought you were writing Pound
“Perhaps nothing better illustrated the utter ideological poverty of Marxism-Leninism as applied to Africa than the famine in Ethiopia that killed over one million people in 1984. In common with Stalin and Mao, the communist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam saw starvation and the fear of it as political weapons with which he could reduce the number of his enemies and terrorise the rest of the population.”
-A. Roberts, ‘Hist. of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900,’ pp 545
Maybe I should build myself a nice greenhouse, could endear me to some neighbors down the line.
“In common with Stalin and Mao, the communist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam saw starvation and the fear of it as political weapons with which he could reduce the number of his enemies and terrorise the rest of the population.â€Â
Sounds kinda like Pelosi allowing the bailout to the floor when she had no idea if it would pass.
Over the line maybe but tanking the economy so you improve your chances to win an election seems pretty sick to me.
Barack is i-cumin in,
Lord, sing goddamn!
Markets drop and braineths pop
And now the free speech ban
Sing goddamn!
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing goddamn.
Goddamn, goddamn, tis why I am goddamn,
So gainst the doctor’s balm.
Sing goddamn, sing goddamn, DAMN!
She may or may not be a pet rock, sashal, but her principles work a hell of a lot better for me than Obama’s. The rest is fluff and dash. Feel free to embrace the smoke.
I haven;t decided whether or not I’m voting for the Republican choices. I won’t compromise principles and vote for someone I know doen’t embrace them in any manner, shape or form. I may just write in “CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS” and start a movement.
Republicans may be a lousy choice but so it sh#t in a shingle.
From Wiki —
Before the Iraq War, Brooks argued forcefully on moral grounds for American military intervention, echoing the belief of conservative commentators and political figures that American and British forces would be welcomed as liberators. …
In a March 2007 article published in the New York Times titled No U-Turns, Brooks explains that the Republican party must distance itself from the minimal-government conservative principles that had arisen during the Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan eras.
So does attempting to tank a war, but it seems like the Rubicon had been crossed a while back without much fanfare.
You mean to say those you selectively chose to believe Obama hung out with. Does Obama have any Republican neighbors? Any Republican friends?
Oh, sorry, speaking in realities ruins your talking-points narrative.
He’s an interesting man and it’s nice to see you give him at least some credit for being a decent human when not framing him politically.
“being a decent human when not framing him politically”
Born alive infant protection act. Nuff said.
He might could be a bad man, thor. We just don’t know. There’s definitely something dark about him.
His media scares me more than he does though.
BJTex.
Here is some new info for you(if you missed it this morning).
From the guy who led the prosecution of the Weathermen:
Re “Politics of Attack†(editorial, Oct. 8) and “Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths†(front page, Oct. 4):
As the lead federal prosecutor of the Weathermen in the 1970s (I was then chief of the criminal division in the Eastern District of Michigan and took over the Weathermen prosecution in 1972), I am amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child.
Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.
Because Senator Obama recently served on a board of a charitable organization with Mr. Ayers cannot possibly link the senator to acts perpetrated by Mr. Ayers so many years ago.
I do take issue with the statement in your news article that the Weathermen indictment was dismissed because of “prosecutorial misconduct.†It was dismissed because of illegal activities, including wiretaps, break-ins and mail interceptions, initiated by John N. Mitchell, attorney general at that time, and W. Mark Felt, an F.B.I. assistant director.
William C. Ibershof
Mill Valley, Calif., Oct. 8, 2008
I guess it is worth pointing out that the folks screaming the loudest about that jackass William Ayers are, in large part, the same folks who, the past eight years, have embraced and excused the same Nixon era surveillance tactics that kept him out of jail in the first place. One of life’s little ironies, I guess.
h/t J.Cole
I choose to make my own decisions about people and their principles. It’s a multilayered critical analysis. Obama’s been found wanting. You choose to call it partisan hackery or religious nuttiness. None of that was accomplished by anything other than your obsession with snark and broad brushing.
To may to, to mah to
He’s an interesting man
Yeah I find it real interesting that in Missouri they are threatening prosecution against free speech, or when his mind numb robots try to intimidate radio stations into silence. Or his “community organizers” committing election fraud.
All are things which you ignorant piss ants have falsely accused President Bush of doing but have no problem with now. There is nothing I admire or respect about Zero.
Christopher Buckley gave an interesting rationale for voting Democrat over two years ago.
What have they done to my party? Where does one go to get it back?
One place comes to mind: the back benches. It’s time for a time-out. Time to hand over this sorry enchilada to Hillary and Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and Charlie Rangel and Harry Reid, who has the gift of being able to induce sleep in 30 seconds….
My fellow Republicans, it is time, as Madison said in Federalist 76, to “Hand over the tiller of governance, that others may fuck things up for a change.â€Â
“Nixon era surveillance tactics that kept him out of jail”
Data. Mining. Whose rights have been violated? Who has Georgie been listening in on? Why did B. Obama vote for FISA?
sashal, unlike some, I’m not worried about whether or not Obama knew him when he was a terrorist. I’m more concerned with Obama having a working and political relationship with a guy who is unrepentant about his past violent acts and sees education as an opportunity for revolutionary change and social justice. I would like Obama to tell me about his time with Ayers at CAS and why or why not he felt the program succeeded and what, if any, educational philosophies he shared or didn’t share with Ayers.
That cut and paste was a complete waste of time.
“I am amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child.”
The author sets up a nice little straw man and then takes 2 paragraphs to take it down. I think the quibble was not that O! is connected to terrorist activities in the 60’s, but that he saw nothing wrong with being connected to a man that commited them as long as it was advantageous. By completely misconstruing his opponents arguments, I think on purpose, the author of your link proves he is a piece of sh!t. IMHO.
Sashal, in a nutshell.
Well, that and BOLSHEVIKS!!!
Gee a fucking lawyer setting up a strawman to defend a Democrat, That does it now I will vote for Zero…….. Not!
BJ was more to the point however that Ayers is still trying to effect the same “change” now as he was in the 60’s. Now he is just using a different method. O! sees nothing wrong with the ends that Ayers wants to see take place.
Looking like classic capitulation pattern today. The tidal wave has got us already, drowning many, the outgoing tide has passed to sea… time now to stagger around in the debris, save the salvageable, and then start to assess the monumental rebuilding tasks before us that have months yet before they begin.
BJ, and do you regard Annenberg who hired Ayers, and who is a republican and just has endorsed McCain the same way?
Whether or not the terrorist attacks Ayers admitted to happened while Obama was in a Muslim school in Indonesia, the fact is, Ayers still has the same beliefs, just different tactics.
Obama has built his career around radicals like Ayers and Wright. Ignore that fact at your own peril.
you guys want more laughs?
Here:
McCain Blames Self For Economic Meltdown
hilzoy
And he even says he did it on purpose! Just look:
John McCain, yesterday:
“The fact is, that the same people that are now claiming credit for this rescue are the same ones that were willing co-conspirators causing these problems we are in.”
Politico, “McCain claims bailout credit”, Sept. 28, 2008:
“Previewing a McCain campaign message for the days ahead, top strategist Steve Schmidt claimed Sunday that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is partly responsible for the tentative agreement on a mortgage bailout that congressional leaders announced shortly after midnight.”
My friends: you will know their names.
Walter Annenberg born 1908, has been dead since 2002.
My apologies for not linking to Confederate Yankee:
Even though you are not speaking to me I have to say F Annenburg. Him and the endless parade of people I see on TV referring to Ayers as a “respected” teacher. Who respects this piece of navel lint? I certainly don’t.
Someday I’ll write about that, flailing away at why this may be so, impugning my bland, insipid countrymen with every pass.
Badly, but still…
urthshu,
Barack is i-cumin in,
Lord, sing goddamn!
Markets drop and braineths pop
You use your mouth purdier than a $20 whore. Braineths pop – I love it.
ron paul
was he the “cute’ one?
Sachel, if Ayers is now pure as the driven snow, why wasn’t he on stage at the DNC convention? Wouldn’t it have been an appropriate gesture, being as Ayers was the one who launched his career in politics?
Annenberg’s organization granted the money and then stepped aside. Wlater Annenberg knew nothing about how the money was spent or about Ayer’s past. In other words, utterly irrelevant.
I would love to be able to interview Walter Annenberg today and ask him, after reviewing the record of the CAS educational “accomplishments,” whether he thought his money was well spent.
Lenin- chubby- fat dude-was married
got shot?
yawn….
he was not “stab-worthy”
I guess it’s worth pointing out that you’re deluded and arguing with the cartoons in your head. If you ever come back ’round to reality, look us up.
The people that see nothing wrong with Ayers and “respect” him, are the same people that burn flags and hold up signs saying “Bush is the world’s #1 terrorist”. I don’t know though, even some of the people burning flags probably would think twice before allowing an unrepentant domestic terrorist to teach their kids. Obama not so much.
“Invite a Russian peasant into your house and he will put his feet up on your table.”
Joseph Stalin
Silver Whistle – E. Pound was a fascist, so blame him, I guess. ;^D
Steyn verdict in – sock puppet’s case dismissed. Allah be praised.
OT: Starting to look for a good inexpensive .22 SA rifle. Anybody got thoughts on the Mossberg and Savage lines compared to the Ruger 10/22?
E. Pound was a fascist, so blame him, I guess.
Oh, I didn’t recognize it – my bad. I’m always willing to blame fascists. Just like Sash.
Nooooo, sashal, the balloon needs hot-air to rise. Your pin-pricking is not helpful to their narrative.
Who else has ever worked with this, this, this odious little man who sits on charity boards! Witchhunt! I’m calling for a full investigation in search of anyone who has shaken this Professor’s Ayers hand!
BJT, to go along with your assumptions is to believe that there is something awry in sitting in a room with persons you disagree with. Even Jeff, I believe, has lowered himself to shake hands with writers, authors and professors of differing political persuasions. Which is why I don’t believe for a second in the validity of his faux outrage in Obama having willingly done the same, nor yours.
Ward Churchill, I’m not impressed, but I’d share a conference table with the guy if it meant working on a large charitible trust’s board. I wouldn’t take a swing at him, shout him down, would spit in my hand before shaking his. This is America. He’s entitled to his asshole opinions. He’s entitled to have Maj (P) John swing a rifle butt into the face of someone who’d try to silence his voice, and I’m entitled to stomp Maj John if it’s Maj John who tries to silence Ward Churchill. (imagine me standing over you, John, my foot on your chest)
We benefit from voices of dissent, even unpopular ones. If that sounds like a rudimentary if not down-right childish reminder, look what the fuck your arguments stand on. Shit! Anti-American, anti-intellectual shit.
Calvino, Marti, Marx, Barrett Brown! (ha), Orwell, we read and wrestle ’em all in the cage match that is America, baby.
Nixon/ OSHA
EPA-
still-charect-a- sure[sorry-spell check]thank God he never ordered tanks to “flush” out those Texas religion nuts
aside- don’t know if this is true- was Waco the biggest killin[extermanation] of minorities?
I’ve read that alot of those killed were not caucasian/anyone have link/ info?
I could bee wong/ thanks
would = wouldn’t spit
Goddamn Freud!
It’s not a question of silencing as you well know. Clever try though.
Anybody got thoughts on the Mossberg and Savage lines compared to the Ruger 10/22?
Don’t know anyone who has an S/A .22 that isn’t a 10/22. That says something.
He is Lord of the Second Advent, the unriddling of many ills. His voice leads them out past love and joy, past the beauty of their mission, out past miracles and surrendered self. There is something in the chant, the fact that chanting, the being-one, that transports them with its power. Their voice grows in intensity. They are carried on the sound, the soar and fall. The chant becomes the boundaries of the world. The see their Master frozen in his whiteness against the patches and shadows, the towering sweep of the stadium. He raises his arms and the chant grows louder and the young arms rise. He leads them out past religion and history, thousands weeping now, all arms high. They are gripped by the force of a longing. They know at once, they feel it, all of them together, a longing deep in time, running in the earthly blood. This is what people have wanted since consciousness became corrupt.â€Â
– Don DeLillo, ‘Mao II’
It’s about silencing through illogical disqualifiers, rump rummager, but nice try, not really though.
Still wrong. But keep going by all means.
I always preferred this poem myself.
1. The version found written on the wall in Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta:
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
Ayers is a scum bag communist who has taken upon himself the task of turning government schools into nice communist indoctrination camps. He’s scum and he’s a fucking trust fund terrorist.
193
A+
Invite a thor into your house, and he will shit on your rug.
-N. O’Brain
Amen, Brother Pink.
203
Epic fail
Strawmen, strawmen everywhere strawmen. Yawn
My concern, thor, is not that he sat on a board with him but worked with him to implement an educational reform system that was politically motivated and, by the way, a complete failure. This raises questions as to why Obama would agree to having this program put forth as a chapter and verse reflection of Ayer’s “unusual” educational philosophy. Celebrate the Black Liberation Day but let’s not talk about the utter failure to have any impact on, oh what’s that thing now, oh, yeah learning! I want to know what he thought of Ayer’s philosophy of social revolution through education and he seemed to be OK with the implementation of the program through “community organizations” rather than allowing the schools to receive the money directly.
Inquiring minds want to know, thor.
Nice try to make this about “association” and “sitting down at the table.” The real concern is not only the failure of the program but Obama’s apparent embracing of Ayer’s revolutionary educational concepts. Too harsh? Maybe so but until Obama quits lying about his connection and starts answering questions about CAS then we are left to speculate, as long as the brown shirt E-Mail alerters don’t call our houses or threaten our employers.
Which begs the last question: Why won’t he just sit down and talk about CAS and Ayers rather than work so hard to beat up anybody who raises the question? Like you and sashal are so anxious to drop a load an anyone here who dares to comment on this association.
By the way: Ward Churchill? I’d happily sit on a charitable board with Ayers and would also happily resign if I felt the board’s direction was wrongheaded. Ayers seems like an amiable guy and would be interesting in a standoffish way. Ward Churchill? No thanks, not because he’s so radical and leftist but because he’s an idiot and insufferably arrogant. Personalities matter, too.
I’d happily sit on a charitable board with Ayers and would also happily resign if I felt the board’s direction was wrongheaded.
Didn’t Ayers put Obama on the board because he knew Obama would be on board with the direction?
I like unpopular voices. I like it when they say it would be ok if I went shopping. That’s how I got my toaster. Baracky? Can I go shopping? oh. Maybe tomorrow you think? Text me.
Also, guys, there are some principles that can’t be negotiated away. There is no way I’m going to buy into a revolution for social justice in public schools. I’m willing to listen but I’ve read enough excerpts from Ayer’s book to know that ain’t happening for me.Why? Because it’s education from a particular political point of view
I already have enough problems with public education proselytizing political viewpoints to students (Global Warming, anyone?) and want to see education be about, well ,education not about molding minds into better progressives/conservatives/socialists. Learn to solve a three variable equation, not whether or social mores are corrupted ot some such.
Damn, If healthcare is a right, then I want a right for one of these: http://www.wired.com/imageviewer/?imagePath=/images/article/magazine/1610/ff_walker_f.jpg&imageCaption=From%20King%20James%20to%20James%20Bond,%20Chaucer%20to%20Sputnik,%20a%20personal%20library%20like%20no%20other.&imageCredit=Andrew%20Moore.
Comment by lee on 10/10 @ 12:25 pm #
Random thoughts thread…cool
-Silver Whistle, Canada is way further down the road to socialism, obviously, than we are. Their government system made them a much easier mark than us because the Prime Minister can basically appoint parliament. They essentially have a super-majority ruling all the time. But we are poised to catch up in a hurry.
How long before we get out own kangaroo courts?
-MrPink, Again, to answer your speculation about cigarettes, I point you to Canada. A socialistic government doesn’t mind if you shorten your slaves life with any level of debauchery, as long as you pay for the it. I was in Alberta last July, and a pack of cigs was over ten bucks. A pack of cigars comparable to Swisher Sweets, $14. Plus each pack had a picture of some effect of smoking, like a pair of black lungs, a set of ugliest of teeth you ever saw, or a human brain ravaged by cancer.
The real outrage? A 12 pack of beer sold out of the Government Store that enjoys a monopoly in alcohol sales is $20.
Lee, allow me to point out a couple of errors in your post:
First, the Parliament of Canada consists of three parts – the sovereign (in name, the Queen of England, represented by our Governor General) the House of Commons, and the Senate. The Governor General is appointed by the sovereign, the House of Commons is elected by popular vote, and the Senate is appointed by the Governor General on advice from the Prime Minister. As to the “super-majority†ruling all the time, it’s far more common for a minority government to be in power, which more or less means that the “ruling” party can’t really accomplish much unless they get the Opposition party to agree with them.
An over-simplified explanation, to be sure, but it provides a basic outline for the workings of our government.
I should probably also mention that Canadians, in general, neither consider our form of government to be “socialism”, nor do we anticipate arriving at that point any time soon.
Second, and as I happen to live in Alberta, so I can offer slightly more insight into this point – cigarettes are expensive all over Canada due to special interest groups convincing the government that smoking is “bad for you”, and have raised taxes (and subsequently, the price for consumers) on tobacco products as part of an attempt to convince more people to quit smoking. As an ex-smoker, I agree with the health concerns involved with smoking, but I think that people should be left to make that choice for themselves.
And before anyone points to this argument as evidence of “socialism†in Canada, let me point out your own government’s interference in your lives in the form of the Patriot Act, and the monitoring your phone calls, emails, medical and financial records, under the banner of “for your own goodâ€Â.
To address the issue of the “Government Storeâ€Â, Alberta used to run government sponsored liquor stores, but those were shut down in 1993, after our premier (a political position similar to your state Governors) was elected. The liquor industry in Alberta is now the only privatized liquor industry in the entire country, and as such, prices have consistently gone up over the last 15 years. It sucks ass, but that’s capitalism for you.
Anyhow, I have neither an opinion nor advice to offer regarding your current political situation, but please try to keep in mind that Canada is not some sort of “less perfect†version of the USA. We are we what we are – nothing more, nothing less.
Just out of curiousity, whereabouts in Alberta were you visiting?
Dash screwed up the margins. Bad Dash! Bad!
Oh how I wish you hadn’t done that, dash.
Heh.
Yea I know, I effed up real bad. Damn, gots to learn the HTML.
208, BJ, you are in the stark minority if that is your concern( as far as an education I may be concerned too what were the children tought ?).
Most McCain/Palin team fans are concerned about exactly the thing thor pointed to so masterfully.
I would love to be able to interview Walter Annenberg today
Moral of the story: spend all your money before you die.
Putting it in a trust fund guarantees that your money will wind up supporting useless parasites like thor and Ayers.
Thor is very similar Ayers, come to think of it. Major daddy issues. It goes to show that money will not replace competent parenting.
One difference: Ayers at least manages to hold a job of sorts, and at one point actually took some personal risks for his beliefs (as evil and fuckheaded as those beliefs are/were). Thor is just a sniveling coward who likes to talk tough on the net. He’s never done anything useful in his life, nor will he ever.
BJ, you are in the stark minority if that is your concern( as far as an education I may be concerned too what were the children tought ?).
Really! Everyone else is just a racist! Bullshit!!!
Just because you don’t consider it socialism does not mean it isn’t. From my perspective, it is. High taxes, government-run health care, anti-free-speech laws, and the list goes on. As far as your statement about how our government interferes in our lives, it’s quite true they do, and many of us are against it, but the examples you gave are pretty much a sign that you’ve been getting talking points from lefty sites.
ACORN is plotting a coup d’etat.
Wll, yeah. I think so. You can tell cause of how NPR is doing hour-long shows totally focused on the “myth” of voter fraud. I know that’s not what the synopsis says the show is about, but go ahead … listen. Creepy times. Probably Pew’s idea. They’re devious like that.
anti-free-speech laws
Really? That’s a new one to me. Where did you get your information on that?
As far as getting “talking points” from lefty sites, I gather information from a variety of sources, then attempt to confirm details as much as possible, and formulate opinions based on the facts that I can verify. That’s just the way my little socialist brains works.:)
Really? That’s a new one to me. Where did you get your information on that?
Try here, troll.
, BJ, you are in the stark minority if that is your concern( as far as an education I may be concerned too what were the children tought ?).
Most McCain/Palin team fans are concerned about exactly the thing thor pointed to so masterfully.
He is not in the minority at all.
oh. that was *well, yeah* … I have no idea how that happened.
SBP, you can’t blame CanuckJ if the CBC didn’t feel that was a free speech issue!
Canuck J ,
Sorry if my characterization of Canadian parliament was off, I thought the majority party was necessarily the same as the Prime Minister.
Regardless, the point was, your style of government is easier for socialistic programs to be implemented. That’s why cigarettes are 3 times more expensive there.
I don’t know about the alcohol deal, but when I got to Calgary, I had to go to the provincial co-op to get packaged beer.
My parents live in MT. View, close to Waterton Lake. I was there for their 60th anniversary. I realize Canada isn’t a less perfect version. She is a different branch from the same root. But I don’t think you can deny Canada is much further along the path to socialism than the US.
Spies: So…..you’re telling me that no special interest group in the U.S has ever abused the legal system in order to further their own agenda?
lee: Waterton is a beautiful place to visit in the summer. Hope you enjoyed it.:)
I’m more than a little curious about this provincial co-op you’re describing, though. Do you happen to remember the name of the store? Every single liquor store in Alberta is a privately run business, so I have no idea what you’re referring to.
So…..you’re telling me that no special interest group in the U.S
So… you’re telling me that you got FUCKING OWNED and are now trying to change the subject?
That’s what I thought.
That was the name of the store. And that’s all they had. No magazines, tobacco, nothin’. Just alcohol.
Where are you? Are you familiar with Calgary?
lee, what lying Canuck trollbot won’t tell you is that liquor stores were only privatized in Alberta in 1994.
So, yes, he does “have an idea” what you’re talking about. He’s just lying about it.
Spies: Owned, eh? (obligatory Canadianspeak) Well, whatever helps you sleep at night. That case was a result of a special interest group taking offense to the article in question. Dude was found not guilty, which, I admit, I just learned of when I followed the link you provided. If you want to hold that up as an example of how Canada suppresses freedom of speech, then it’s obvious to me that you are adamant in your belief, and you have no desire to hear dissenting opinions.
lee: Co-op? I remember those stores from when I was a kid, but I haven’t seen one in years. I remember them as being a type of department store or something.
I’m in Edmonton, a city about a 3 hour drive north of Calgary. Or 2 1/2 hours, if you drive like I do.
Well, whatever helps you sleep at night.
Translation: you lied. Repeatedly. You got caught at it. Repeatedly.
Have a nice day, eh?
Oh, and Spies? Re-read my first post. Thanks.
Associating with racist pastors? No sweat.
Associating with violent socialist activist brainwashers of children? No problem.
Associating with felons? Fine, as long as they buy you houses and public offices.
Appearing on Fox for a political debate? Never gonna happen. Obama don’t associate with *those* kind of people.
Canuck,
Steyn wrote an article that this “special interest group” took offense to. He gets hauled before a kangaroo court which drags the process out for many months, costing him both time and money. Do you honestly not see how this represses speech?
Ursuthu, the 10/22 is an excellent S/A .22 rifle.
However, the Ruger 22/45 .22 pistol shoots well, but sucks *ss in the maintenance dept.
One more thing, plan to try several brands of ammo; .22 rifles will have individual preferences, even from the same maker.
Please, explain to me how his freedom of speech was repressed. The article containing an excerpt from Steyn’s book was written. The Canadian Islamic Congress took offense, and began legal proceedings. Steyn went to court, and was ultimately found to be not guilty. At no point was his book removed from the shelves, thereby allowing anyone who wished to do so to read it.
I would envision “repression” as having all copies of the book in question pulled from the shelves, and having Steyn thrown into prison without the benefit of a trial.
Canuk,
I guess it was the Mccloud Trail Co-Op.
I was wrong, misunderstood the deal, it is privately owned.
Still, it’s not like I could by an 18 pack for $11.99 at any filling station.
Socialistic, my friend.
I used to visit my Grandparents in Edmonton, when I was young. My sister lived there also, she’s in Calgary now. Still have cousins up there.
Dash Rendar #114:
GK Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse.
“I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
“Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?”
Removing his book from the shelves would be censorship. No one has made that claim. He was dragged into court for nothing else than what he wrote. Not slander, nor libel. Simply his opinion. It took him months to clear this. Do you not see that publishers will look at this example and maybe decide that printing something that someone might find objectionable is just not worth the risk? They call that the “Chilling effect.” Repression by intimidation is what this group was going for and the Canadian gov’t was all too willing to help. That ought to scare you, Canuck. It is one thing to have two private entities go at it, quite another when one of those entities is backed by the state.
Oh, but he was found not guilty, so all’s well that ends well?
Canuk,
If only it was only Steyn, you might have a case.
The fact that there’s a law Steyn might have been found guilty of violating (and Ezra Levant before him) is by itself evidence of an assault on free speech. This government star chamber stood in judgment of whether his article was a crime.
What’s the point here?
I’ve been friendly with socialists. But the minute they asked me to teach the denaturing of meaning and will to power, I giggled and told them to get bent. Of course, they were allowed to stay for more beer, provided they tossed some cash into the kitty.
Communism Lite, I called it.
Doesn’t look like Canuck J appreciated you pointing out his ignorance of what’s going on in his own country, lee! Funny that.
#137 McGehee:
If you knew my Canadian cousins that is about what it would be. One of my cousins is renovating an old church into a house, and if I know Beej it will be one heck of a good place. He already has the wood stove in the undercroft, and the beer and rye will always be at the ready.
NPR is spoon-feeding their poison now. They passed self-parody still accelerating at 150mph and are auguring into abject propaganda as the afterburners come on.
The latest is a straight-faced reassessment of capitalism. Because, you know, after more than two centuries it’s high time we got the system right.
rudimentary if not down-right childish…
All hail Teh Hammer !
#201 Mr. Pink:
Kipling’s “If” is the better poem.
Communism Lite: Less God, More Self!
And what did you do when those evil Socialists asked you to teach your chosen texts as you saw fit?
Communism Lite: Less God, More
Self!Fixed it for you!
Communism Lite: Less God, More
SelfState!Now I fixed it for you!
#213 Canuck J:
A parliamentarian system is, as you noted, very different from the American system. In a parliament, MPs are elected from districts (ridings). The party that has a majority, or has a coalition majority with a smaller party selects the ministers. The Prime Minister is from the largest party or coalition in the government.
That is the difference – in a Parliamentarian system the executive is a member of the legislature, in the US System the executive is elected seperately from the legislature. This means that parties mean less in the US system than in a Parliamentarian system – each memeber of the US House or Senate runs a seperate race from each other, and those races do not necessarily translate into taking the executive.
#230 Canuck J:
In Ontario the beer and liquor stores are run by the provincial government. And you better be there during their hours of operation. You can’t just go to a Mac’s and pick up a six-pack.
The latest is a straight-faced reassessment of capitalism. Because, you know, after more than two centuries it’s high time we got the system right.
Two centuries?
More like all of human history. If I trade a few tomatoes from my backyard garden for a bicycle, then sell the bicycle for $50 and use the profit to plant more tomato plants, that’s capitalism.
Socialism is when the idiots that would trade a $50 bicycle for two tomatoes get together, and make the guy with a 20 acre tomato field give them five bushels of tomatoes for a bicycle.
Now the tomato guy losses his incentive to produce, since his crop can be devalued by fiat rather than the market, and the idiots are still idiots.
We have seen where that leads, despite the clumsy analogy. Not now, but when Frannie&Freddie first became a government backed security for the subprime market, we took a stumble towards socialism.
Unfortunately, neither parties candidate will pull us back.
sPies got McSorly’d, got nut-fucked by a Canuck, haha.
Hey Canuck, forget the rectal release known as sPies. When he starts screeching like an orgy of zoo macacaques just blast bug spray in his eyes and he’ll scurry off quicker than a rat-bitten Tom DeLay-ian Redumblican.
lee, we had the makings of centrism and socialism when we instituted central banking and a fiat currency, government schools, Social Security, the welfare system and entitlements, federalized medicine, and trillions and trillions of annual dollars in social programs, policies, and services.
Not to mince words, but these Socialist States of America have existed to one degree or another for approximately one of those two centuries.
And I just read Egalitariesto Calvino! My GOD!
I don’t have any idea what this is supposed to mean.
But maybe this post from my first month at this site, Dec 2001, will give some of you an idea about how the academy works to mainstream leftism as “centrist thought.”
Comment by Canuck J on 10/10 @ 2:40 pm #
anti-free-speech laws
Really? That’s a new one to me
Canuck, from memory: Canada has no right to free speech expressed in its Constitution to begin with, unless you think ~ “except if the soverigns/interests of the State dictate otherwise” does not imply that that anything said can be found to be against the law, completely ex post facto.
Repression by intimidation is what this group was going for and the Canadian gov’t was all too willing to help. That ought to scare you, Canuck. It is one thing to have two private entities go at it, quite another when one of those entities is backed by the state.
Oh, but he was found not guilty, so all’s well that ends well?
Big D & lee: The Criminal Code of Canada contains a law prohibiting the promotion of hate speech and hate propaganda. Once charges are brought forth, the court has a legal obligation to hear the case and make a ruling. Do I think that Steyn deserved to be hauled into court over this matter? No, but I’m not the Crown Prosecutor who had to make that decision.
And yes, I think that being found not guilty of a crime is a very good thing.
The fact that there’s a law Steyn might have been found guilty of violating (and Ezra Levant before him) is by itself evidence of an assault on free speech. This government star chamber stood in judgment of whether his article was a crime.
Pablo: Again, the law is specifically to prevent hate speech and hate propaganda, and in this case, was manipulated by a special interest group. In spite of that manipulation, I firmly believe that this law is indeed necessary. If such a law had existed in the U.S in 1865, the KKK may never have gotten past a group of guys sitting around bitching and drinking whiskey. If such a law had existed in Germany in the 1930s, the Holocaust might not have taken place. If such a law had existed in the Balkans, Somalia, or Darfur, millions of lives might not have been lost. All of those vile events began with someone just….speaking.
Doesn’t look like Canuck J appreciated you pointing out his ignorance of what’s going on in his own country, lee! Funny that.
SevenEleventy: I’m sorry, but I had to attend a Socialist meeting so we could determine the best way to take money away from hardworking people who earned it and redistribute it to all the leeches of society.
In Ontario the beer and liquor stores are run by the provincial government. And you better be there during their hours of operation. You can’t just go to a Mac’s and pick up a six-pack.
Mikey NTH: Yes, Alberta is the only province that allows private liquor stores. Fortunately, most of the are open until at least midnight. And if you’re still sober enough to get yourself to a liquor store by midnight, you’re not having a good day.
J. Peden: Actually, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is part of our Constitution guarantees freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and of other media of communication, freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom of association. The caveat, however, is this, stolen directly from Wikipedia:
These rights are generally subject to the limitations clause (section 1) and the notwithstanding clause (section 33). The limitations clause in section 1 allows governments to justify certain infringements of Charter rights. Every case in which a court discovers a violation of the Charter would therefore require a section 1 analysis to determine if the law can still be upheld. Infringements are upheld if the purpose for the government action is to achieve what would be recognized as an urgent or important objective in a free society, and if the infringement can be “demonstrably justified.” Section 1 has thus been used to uphold laws against objectionable conduct such as hate speech (e.g., in R. v. Keegstra) and obscenity (e.g., in R. v. Butler). Section 1 also confirms that the rights listed in the Charter are guaranteed.
Canuck,
Big D & lee: The Criminal Code of Canada contains a law prohibiting the promotion of hate speech and hate propaganda. Once charges are brought forth, the court has a legal obligation to hear the case and make a ruling. Do I think that Steyn deserved to be hauled into court over this matter? No, but I’m not the Crown Prosecutor who had to make that decision.
You are trying to justify the whole Star Chamber system of thought crimes (Section 13), wherein citizens get dragged before tribunals, without due process, without rules of evidence, forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars defending themselves against frivolous actions brought by people who are funded by the state? You think this is hunky dory? Do you know what the sock puppets were trying to achieve with Macleans? Control of the magazine, that’s all. If they had won their case, Macleans would have had to allow them to print whatever they wanted in the magazine in rebuttal to Steyn’s piece, without any editorial control. And if Steyn or Macleans would have been forbidden from ever mentioning the subject again. Trudeaupia? You can keep it.
More here, here and here.
So, we can agree that the intent is to restrict free speech because of content. Just what is the definition of hate? It isn’t popular speech that needs protection.
That’s a pretty huge assumption to make, Canuck. Do you really think a hate speech law would have stopped anyone who wants to kill from doing it?
Ezra Levant on how this got started, and then the video of his mindcrimes trial, including his most excellent opening statement.
Is Levant wrong, Canuck?
Pablo- I can’t define “hate speech” but I know it when I see it and I think we need to haul thorazine up on charges.
thor should be heavily medicated for his own safety. It’s the compassionate thing to do. Fortunately, being such an absolute zero, he’s only a danger to himself.
If such a law had existed in the U.S in 1865, the KKK may never have gotten past a group of guys sitting around bitching and drinking whiskey.
Really! What happens when some slick racist, like David Duke, dresses up his hate speech and propaganda, in the form of white’s rights?
The sheer illumination of that statement has me reeling: It is because it is.
So again: He was found not guilty. Is all well that ends well? Or is the law up there oppressive and counter to basic rights and freedoms the rest of the civilized world finds (or should find) essential and unalienable?
Feigning! Yes, I think you are, but I’ll re-phrase the question.
What happens when the Socialists you encounter don’t act like the caricatures you often make them out to be, moreover, specifically, what happens when academic Socialists have no problem with you teaching your texts as you see fit? You said you tell Socialists to “get bent” on certain occasions, what do you say on other occasions?
Answer!!!70!!!the question!!!11!!!
What happens when they welcome your literary interpretative theory? Do you scowl? Do you go full-jaw-flex Hannity on their smirky asses? Stomp their toes? Foul the air with effluvium? Straddle their faces? Fart straight into their snot-filled sinuses? Do you rigorously rub together a hard cover copy of Gore Vidal with an Elmore Leonard paperback in a ghastly defiling gesture meant to challenge their elitist notions that unpretentious fiction meant for the masses can co-exist equally with the supposed difficult to-read shit!!!&&@@**!!!
Nothing, from my first-hand knowledge, pisses ’em off faster than interrupting ’em mid-sentence by blurting out “firstly, let’s agree that Proust sucked cock! Let’s end that debate!” at their first utterance of “Proustian.” Go there! Because I have! It’s a no pedestrian rage, swearing on Lyotard’s post-modern balls, which they harbor for talk of Marcel-Proust-as-cock-sucker! Simpler still, using a pen and sharply smacking an invisible metaphoric drum on your desktop whenever adjectives that you find annoying as chubby girls in tight pants leave the Socialist literati’s lips: breezy, erudite, sui generis, ever-inward! I’ll get up and leave the room at the first invocation of “taffeta,” no lie.
How/when have you responded with a modicum of respect when it was due the Socialist and what acts of revolutionary subversion have you employed to undermine the Socialist academic cabal?
Answers!!! Specifics!!!
Well, yeah, he was shot in the head. But he LIVED!! Isn’t that a good thing?
can = can’t
I think all this talk about it’s okay if someone wants to be a socialist is stupid. Socialists hurt people. They hurt the very idea of people. Someone should key their car.
On the passenger side to where they don’t notice til later and they can’t focus their anger about it so their feelings of alienation from society are enhanced. Later on we can taunt them to their face.
I haz some pie, but can I haz some more!
I think demonizing Socialists is stupid, but keying their Volvos is often unavoidable.
I love the smell of consensus in the morning.
My slice wasn’t big enough!
I love the smell of consensus in the morning.
It smells like…justice!
Again, the law is specifically to prevent hate speech and hate propaganda, and in this case, was manipulated by a special interest group. In spite of that manipulation, I firmly believe that this law is indeed necessary. If such a law had existed in the U.S in 1865, the KKK may never have gotten past a group of guys sitting around bitching and drinking whiskey. If such a law had existed in Germany in the 1930s, the Holocaust might not have taken place. If such a law had existed in the Balkans, Somalia, or Darfur, millions of lives might not have been lost. All of those vile events began with someone just….speaking.
Chilling.
It’s a well-meaining chill, though!
How much of you has to die to where you’re that shallow? I don’t know how to help these people. I really don’t.
A lot of these people aren’t near as busy as they would have you think.
What’s so fuckin’ “chilling” about it?
It’s exactly the essence of what the PW duuuuh-squadron does when they wave their little e-fists and try to jump anyone who breaks from the conservative victimhood talking points meme.
For Steyn, the ideal outcome would have been a guilty verdict:
The whole sorry sham of the Human Rights Commissions would then have come under scrutiny – by dismissing the case, they get to pretend some more.
It’s exactly the essence of what the PW duuuuh-squadron does when they wave their little e-fists and try to jump anyone who breaks from the conservative victimhood talking points meme.
Jeeeeeefffff, will you please ban thor(not really)!
happyfeet – There is no cure for industrial grade stooopid. Fortunately, they tend to Darwinize themselves in interesting and funny ways.
If such a law had existed in the U.S in 1865, the KKK may never have gotten past a group of guys sitting around bitching and drinking whiskey.
And likewise for abolitionists penning hateful diatribes against slave-owners.
“Little e-fist” would be a great, descriptive moniker for thor. Mostly because “Little flaccid e-penis” is sort of cumbersome.
Speech codes would have definitely prevented the Holocaust. There’s a deep thought.
Pablo, you’re an e-pube.
It’s like when I went to the store with my Baracky voter friend and we were checking out and she was behind me and she got pissed and made a big show of going to another line cause food stamp guy ahead of me was taking too long. She finished checking out before me and she stood out front cause she wanted to see what kind of car food stamp guy got into. It was a newish Honda she said, and she was disgusted. I told her aboput how in Texas food stamp people have a swipe card and they don’t take any longer than normal people. She said they shouldn’t be given the dignity of a swipe card. I told her it was Bush’s fault and she seemed kind of mollified.
thor’s an e-tard!
from when he was governor
Because Hate, she’s a shape-shifter. Sometimes she even calls for mocking the Downs-Syndrome children of military “niggers” serving in battle zones.
One hell of a tirade from the guy who
refuses tocan’t lay out his position.Gonna go read me some Agharta Sandinista now. While playing my Clash records.
*about* … this page has gotten all stretchy. I think that’s just a Firefox thing though.
Re: SW @286, Ezra Levant:
Like I said, Pablo – you can smell it.
It’s as if the Leafs are cursed. This commission may very well be responsible for their vexed inability to win The Cup.
I saw the recordings, Pablo. The response to that lovely speech was bewilderment: the idiots in charge were unable to process. They appeared genuinely taken aback.
They were broadsided by simple and elegant reason about the state of life rational humans would take as fundamentally given.
So what’s worse, willful destruction of rights or ignorant destruction of rights under cover of statist dogma? One wonders.
One therefore wonders to what degree the question points to intent. Especially with what we’re all about to endure.
Likewise the Cubs, thor. You’d think it was the Superdome or something.
Luckily, Steyn has a sense of humor about it – he’s volunteered to chip in a grand to help the Canadian Islamic Congress to appeal the verdict!
It’s as if the Leafs are cursed. This commission may very well be responsible for their vexed inability to win The Cup.
It has to be a “flagrant” curse, doesn’t it?
JHoward, such was the beauty of Levant’s rant that the little bureaucrat in charge of that particular circus recused herself. Shame is a wonderful thing.
The Cubs have no curse. They just suck.
Comment by JD on 10/11 @ 7:45 am #
The Cubs have no curse. They just suck.
If O! wins all MLB players will be given a consolation ring, because of “teh fairness.”
JD, saying the Cubs suck is hate speech, therefore, racist.
DENOUNCED!
But Brad Gushue is teh shizzle, shussssssssssssssss.
264. Silver Whistle – Yes, I am trying to justify my faith in the law and our legal system. I believe that the law must be adhered to by all, especially the entity responsible for interpreting and passing judgments based on that law.
265. Pablo – I think a hate speech law could possibly contribute to preventing violence. I look at it this way – some jackass starts spewing some hate speech at say, folks who wear eyeglasses. He stands on a corner ranting about the evils of eyeglasses for a month, and no one stops him. He moves on to printing up pamphlets outlining how eyeglass wearing chumps are going to come into your neighborhood, steal your job and take over your house, and not only does no one stop him, other people start to hang out and listen to him. Eventually, they start to congregate in the park, screaming about purging the vile eyeglass-fiends, then they run off and start beating eyeglass wearing citizens with baseball bats.
Now if the anti-eyeglass messiah had been grabbed up and charged with hate speech, then it’s possible that no one else would have had the opportunity to be exposed to his message of hate, and therefore the resulting violence against eyeglass wearers could have been prevented.
270. JHoward – Again, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms contains a caveat that allows the government to infringe upon certain rights if it determines that such an infringement on an individual’s rights are necessary in the public interest, which, as I pointed out earlier, is not all that dissimilar from the violations the U.S government places upon the rights of its citizens through the Patriot Act. So, yes – the law is the law, and we have to follow it.
289. Salt Lick – Excellent point.
291. Carin – I suggested that laws against hate speech may have contributed to preventing a tragedy. See above.
OK, I’m convinced Canuk. The USA could save billions of lives if we just repealed the 1st amendment!
Oh. Wait. That’s kinda stupid.
Never mind…
But it would definitely restrain the free expression of opinion. See, for instance, this. That ruling isn’t going to prevent any violence, it only serves to infringe upon politically incorrect expression. Mandatory lobotomies could possibly contribute to preventing violence. That doesn’t make it a good policy.
Your argument seems to be that crazy people might find a following, so restricting speech that some might find crazy, and for which they can extrapolate a path to possible wrongdoing is necessary to the prevention of wrongdoing. But isn’t violence already illegal?
Adultery has been known to cause violence. Why don’t we outlaw that?
Yeah, see our Constitution has certain inalienable rights, that protect the individual from the government and the tyranny of the masses.
So you can see how Canada’s lack of such protections make her more susceptible for socialism.
“Tyranny of the masses”? Is that anything like hate speech or hate propaganda?
:)
You still haven’t gotten around to defining hate speech, CanuckJ, so how the heck am I supposed to know whether what I would mean by tyranny of the masses conforms to your idea of hate speech or hate propaganda? Hate speech and hate propaganda worthy of criminalizing (or more mildly, sanctioning punishment for in some other way) are your ideas after all, not mine.
You’re absolutely correct. You can find the definition here.
G. Orwell, 1984
Canuck J, I couldn’t help but notice you ignored my point about David Duke’s strategy, i.e., advocating for white’s rights to mask his racism. Isn’t that a way to get around any hate speech and propaganda legislation?
SevenEleventy: I apologize; I missed that comment. That would certainly appear to be a way to circumvent the hate speech law. Unfortunately, loopholes exist for a great number of laws. What can you do?
“Tyranny of the masses� Is that anything like hate speech or hate propaganda?
Nope. That would be a majority of citizens deciding there should be limits on speech, and voting to punish an individual for something the Constitution says he has a right to do. The first amendment wasn’t put there to protect people talking about puppy dogs and grandchildren.
It is, of course, possible to repeal the 1st. When that happens, then we will decide who gets to decide what hate speech is.
Hopefully Canuk, you don’t start having a rash of linguistic vigilantism up there.
Pardon my confusion, CanuckJ. Is this intentionally facetious? Inadvertent? Missing an hyperlink perhaps? Or something other on the scale of duh to oh?
Incidently, this current crop of democrats think if you don’t climb aboard the “Obama for King of the World” bandwagon, it must be because of your latent racism. Criticize Obama, hell, even examine his background, and you are labeled racist.
I hope they don’t decide what the forbidden phrases should be.
Too late for that hope, lee, they already are and long have been as your own citation notes. What, you think somehow what they have been doing doesn’t matter yet? It can all be repaired if Baracky merely looses?
You two whining victims should get a room.
Room 101 is free.
thor probably has a picture of O! in his bathroom. No waiting!
It could be much worse Sdferr(see. Human Rights Commission, above.), but no, I don’t think the war ends with an Obama defeat.
I feel fairly comfortable the 1st amendment isn’t going to be repealed anytime soon.
But the question of appropriateness of principle in light of certain fundamental and assumed rights you’ll forever ignore. Right. Got that part again. As would those who died to establish and protect free speech except for they’re dead and everything.
I’m tempted to reduce this lack of seriousness on your part to a frivolous criticism of the once-proud nation wherein you live.
Not because it’s appropriate but because it’d be just as damn easy.
Starting out with a reliable and honorable ethic I find works.
By the way Canuck, based on eyeglass beatings, may I take it you’re a product of the Canadian government school system?
Because I find I just did.
Sdferr: Apparently, my html skills are somewhat lacking – http://www.efc.ca/pages/law/cc/cc.319.html
JHoward: Any lack of seriousness on my part was unintentional. The point I was attempting to make was simply that all citizens have a responsibility to act according to laws set out by our country, regardless of whether or not we agree with them.
Starting out with a reliable and honorable ethic I find works.
A reliable and honorable ethic in regards to the legal system? What an intriguing thought….
By the way Canuck, based on eyeglass beatings, may I take it you’re a product of the Canadian government school system?
If by “government school system” you’re referring to public school, then yes. I didn’t wear eyeglasses, though.
well, sure, but I wouldn’t rule out gentle mangling by the courts.
True maggie, the fairness doctrine is not a child of conservatism.
Neither is McCain-Fiengold for that matter…
CanuckJ, while I’m still perusing your criminal code, may I invite you to comment on the current thoughts of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga) with regard to what he sees as “…Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division…” and “As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy.”?
Of course I am well aware that Rep. Lewis’ views as to what does and what doesn’t constitute hate speech has no direct bearing on the Canadian Legal Code at all, nor your take on it. Nevertheless, I wonder whether you find the sorts of charges Rep. Lewis makes apt or inapt in light of your understanding of the proper sense of “hate speech” or “hate propaganda”? And the case has the further value of being an examinable concretion of the general concept in a real time political campaign.
Sdferr: I’ve been following the upcoming U.S election, mainly because it’s far more entertaining than our own electoral process, and I have read transcripts of the statements made by Gov. Palin and Sen. McCain. I do think that they are attempting to rally negative emotions against Sen. Obama in order to win votes for themselves. References to terrorists, given the tragedy of 9/11, are almost certain to invoke a strong emotional response is a large number of people, as is the emphasis on both Sen. Obama’s skin color and middle name, as evidenced by the crowd’s reaction during Sheriff Mike Scott’s recent introduction of Gov. Palin during the rally in Lee County.
In a legal context, however, I do not believe that their statements would meet the definition of hate speech if these events had occurred in Canada, mainly because my own understanding of the law in question suggests that it is intended to prevent “hatred” and/or violence directed toward a group of people, rather than an individual.
You aren’t really a lawyer, huh Canuck?
Oh, hell no.
http://www.solgps.alberta.ca/programs_and_services/public_security/peace_officers/Pages/default.aspx
Oh, you mean you are a Peace Officer?
Canuck, welcome to PW. PW is like hockey, sometimes you drop the gloves and just throw.
Or, in thors case, you fall down and drool.
Well of course such references will provoke strong emotional responses. And they should. And indeed, that is the point, isn’t it, namely that there is something offputting about Obama’s ease, his willingness to work with, to ally with, to sup with this disreputable character, Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dorhn, and further to hide, to distort, to weasel, to dodge, to do anything he can to minimize the simple truth of the matter. He still, to this day, has not been straightforward about his alliance with Ayres.
Yet political campaigns somehow to be off-limits to the truth of the matter when the truth of the matter happens to provoke a strong emotional response? What an odd thought. What then, do you make of the strong emotional response provoked when Rep. Lewis invokes the name of George Wallace in the context of his criticism of McCain and Palin? Hmmm, that’s funny, you don’t even mention it.
This is silly, since the charge Rep. Lewis has made is against McCain and Palin directly — (though I did notice that this deflection upon others is already a talking point in the Obama camp’s rebuke to Rep. Lewis. But why not get eat the cake and have it too, so long as a complicit press won’t deign to take it away?) — and neither of them to my knowledge has ever invoked Obama’s color or his middle name, as I suppose you already know. Obama, actually, is the sole exponent of speaking of skin color in this campaign.
It so happens that I live in Lee County. Now, what, pray tell, did Sheriff Scott intend by his recitation of Barack Hussein Obama? You do not know? Or you claim to know? Let me suggest that on the best reading, you cannot know and therefore have no means to know whether Sheriff Scott intended to provoke anything at all, let alone whatever thing you read into the reaction of the crowd, which I can take as evidence of right about anything I like, as have you.
What then, do you make of the strong emotional response provoked when Rep. Lewis invokes the name of George Wallace in the context of his criticism of McCain and Palin? Hmmm, that’s funny, you don’t even mention it
No, I did not, because I have no information regarding Rep. Lewis or George Wallace other than the link you provided, and as such, cannot place his comment the proper context. I’m Googling both of them, though. Hopefully I can come up with an intelligent answer for you in time.
Obama, actually, is the sole exponent of speaking of skin color in this campaign.
Yes, the skin color reference was an error on my part. However, when I observe a white person make a statement about a black person being “not like usâ€Â, I tend to arrive at the conclusion that they are, in fact, referring to skin color.
Now, what, pray tell, did Sheriff Scott intend by his recitation of Barack Hussein Obama?
From the video I watched of Sheriff Scott, I was given the impression that the inflection placed on Sen. Obama’s middle name was intended to draw a correlation with Saddam Hussein, and therefore capitalize on Gov. Palin’s allegations that Sen. Obama associates with terrorists, as I have heard rumors that a large number of Americans still believe that Saddam was involved with the 9/11 attacks.
How many times do people get introduced by their first, middle, and family name? Unless you’re attempting to differentiate between two people who share similar first and last names, it’s not a common practice.
lee: Yes, I am a Peace Officer. Don’t let the fancy title fool you, I’m not with the police; I’m more of a babysitter for mental health patients, with some education in criminal law and law enforcement. I still get to wear a nifty uniform, though.
In fact, the first appearance of that “not like us” business came from Obama’s mouth. Any subsequent use by white persons was purely ironical (whether intended or not, heh).
Give yourself more credit, Friendly Canadian, for surely that was no failed attempt! This being the third/fourth/whatever time and I do believe I understand now: Free speech bows to The Law.
Which, of course, gives rise to the notion of contemporary laws — engineered on behalf of entirely democratic majorities, naturally — trumping prior declarations of fundamental rights and with them supreme courts, but for that we have the Left.
Thanks!
Gosh Friendly Canadian, are there really 284 state agencies in Alberta, or is that the entire land? And 3000 peace officers in Alberta alone?! No wonder crime and misbehavior there never makes the news down here! I hear that some of us still think Saddam was involved in 9/11!
Are there really 284 pressing concerns in Alberta needing actual state management, Friendly Canadian? I guess I wasn’t entirely clear before!
Well. The problem is that you have no way of knowing what was intended.
For instance, another plausible reading is to attribute Scott’s use of Obama’s middle name to an ironical play on Obama’s own many invocations of his middle name as a token of racism, so as if Scott is to say, “How about that! Barack, if you can use your middle name in this ridiculous way, then so can I. You Barack, cannot place your middle name off limits, a toy for you and your acolytes alone, a thing to play with at painting other people who are not racists as though they were, ya dummy. We too can take possession of this word “Hussein” as a toy with which to play. This is the United States of America for crying out loud, ya putz.”
Of course, that is only one fanciful interpretation, a hypothetical as valid as any you might conjure up for all its frivolousness.
JHoward: Yes, we’re swamped with bureaucracy and agencies that are responsible for duties ranging from animal control to mental health patients. And yes, that’s just in Alberta. The 3000 peace officers mentioned on that website don’t include sworn police officers, though. There is at least an equal number of police in this province, too.
Sdferr: Point taken.
Here in California, there is a ballot initiative to give farm animals rights.
I weep for future generations.
They shall have the right to fill our bellies!
Well, duh. And Obama is trying to rally negative emotions about McCain and Palin. This effect works both ways and both camps are doing it because they want to win an election, which, as you well noted, involves winning votes for themselves, preferably from the opponent. This is what we here in the lower 48 refer to as a political campaign.
Are you suggesting there’s something more sinister here? What did you think about Obama’s very intentional 100 year war lie and what he was trying to accomplish by telling it?
You’re just going to confuse it Pablo.
History started this morning, you know…?
351. Spot on.
The point I was attempting to make was simply that all citizens have a responsibility to act according to laws set out by our country, regardless of whether or not we agree with them.
A very noble and civic minded attitude, peaceful Canuck. And nothing troubles that attitude, not even the grotesque Section 13 offenses, even when they are in direct contradiction of Section 2 of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So you would not campaign for or support those like Mark Steyn or Ezra Levant in seeking to have the hate speech section declared unconstitutional? Presumably because you do not hold freedom of speech in high regard? Or do I put words in your mouth? Forgive me if I do; I am having a hard time grasping the idea of someone who holds a fundamental right in such low esteem.
rumors that a large number of Americans still believe that Saddam was involved with the 9/11 attacks
Don’t believe the rumors Canuk. But, it is a fact that large number of Europeans believe we did 9/11 to ourselves.
Or that the Israelis did it to us. The combined percentages in Europe far outweigh any consideration for Islamic Jihadists.
Reality: The other white meat!
“Comment by thor on 10/11 @ 5:53 pm #
Canuck, welcome to PW. PW is like hockey, sometimes you drop the gloves and just throw.”
thor on the other hand, just blows.
“The point I was attempting to make was simply that all citizens have a responsibility to act according to laws set out by our country, regardless of whether or not we agree with them.”
Somewhere, Martin Luther King wants to kick some Canadian ass.
But wasn’t the Rev MLK a Christian, N.O’B? If not, Gentle Canuk surely must be.
Gentle Canuck is not getting the difference between civil redress for libel and slander as opposed to making certain types of speech AGAINST THE LAW and subject to CRIMINAL PENALTIES. Also, while he admitted that the Islamic organizations “took advantage of the law” he fails to see both trees and forest in missing the idea that THAT IS PRECISELY THE POINT.
I don’t think I’m capable of being more angry and depressed than having freedom of speech arguments with someone who claims to support the concept but excuses the laws designed to suppress the same.
Also, the idea that Hate Speech Laws might have prevented the rise of Nazi Germany is one of the 2 or 3 silliest ideas I’ve ever read.
Um .. should have been THAT IS PRECISELY THE PROBLEM. NyQuil makes me loopy.
…..I give up…..
Seriously.
oh. It didn’t seem like you were making much of an impact. It wasn’t your writing I don’t think. You speak very good English.