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Conservatism 2.0 at CPAC

No, I’m not invited, but I’ve been thinking it might be a hoot to hold our own classical liberal symposium on those same days, in which we lay out a plan to disseminate (sorry, Amanda! If it helps, we can later move on to fertilization) our ideas, and come up with a strategy for taking back both liberalism and conservatism from the statists on either end who have supplied themselves with labels that, frankly, don’t fit what they preach or even believe.

— Of course, none of this can happen unless I can find a plumber to serve as a keynote speaker. But hey, one hurdle at a time.

Thoughts?

358 Replies to “Conservatism 2.0 at CPAC”

  1. happyfeet says:

    Is this like where we make lists of people we like and people we don’t like? I don’t like Charles Grassley. Or John McCain. Or his little dog Lindsey. The one I like is James Inhofe cause he’s such a clear thinker on climate change issues.

  2. JHoward says:

    My thoughts on the matter are all too disgusted to allow themselves to be heard in public.

  3. Carin says:

    We’re the univinted, Jeff. Which says a lot, honestly. What has CPAC done for us the last 8 years?

    I have a plumber … Andre. Pumped the water from my basement for only $700, and called me the next day to see how things were going.

  4. Slartibartfast says:

    disovulate?

  5. Bob Reed says:

    I’m with you Jeff,

    But it might be more fun to crash CPAC, and be all Outlaw! on them…

    Might be interesting to know how they’re protecting the conservative belief in the right to free speech by, you know, giving PJM the monopoly on the bloggers row facilities…

    Doesn’t sound to conservative and free-markety to me…

    I’m just askin’ the question, that’s all…

  6. Bob Reed says:

    And plumbers?

    All the ones here in NYC gouge you waaaaaay too much…

    That’s why I was fixing my own boiler 3 weeks ago…

    I don’t think I’d be much of a keynote speaker though; too wordy generally…

    But I’d be happy to introduce everyone…No charge either!

  7. router says:

    plumbers? hmm g.gordan liddy and he certified OUTLAW too!

  8. Jeff G. says:

    I like the way you think, router.

  9. pledgepolish55 says:

    Will a layed off security guard work in place of a plumber?

  10. Buffoon says:

    Bob Reed is sniffing up the correct tree… crash it!

  11. Jeff G. says:

    Didn’t you just link it, Dan?

    Rusty is too kind.

  12. Mr. Pink says:

    How about someone just sneak in there with a bag of dog poo, then stick it in a microwave and set it for as long as it will go and turn it on. Wait outside with a video camera afterwards to record the hilarity.

  13. Cowboy says:

    Jeff:

    I’ll loan you a pipe wrench and some plumber’s tape!

    –Oh, and leave your belt at home.

  14. thor says:

    I would not concoct a coconut creme pie with blended cat urine and goat sperm additives and then send it crashing into the pudgy face of that Roger Simon buttfucker while he’s at the podium.

    I would not do that.

    That would not be a good idea.

    Using a hand blender means risking your fingers.

  15. iowahawk says:

    I don’t know what went wrong. The whole PJM thing made sense to me three years ago.

  16. We’ll have to pick a name first. Any of you smart guys know a word for the near side of a circle?

    Get it? Seeing as both sides have gone so far in opposite directions that they met on the far side of the circle?

    Ah shit. Whatever.

  17. Seth says:

    Of course, none of this can happen unless I can find a plumber to serve as a keynote speaker.

    Well, I’ve successfully used a plunger or two in my time…does that count? Without even being late on my taxes, so we’d dodge that little proggy talking point.

    In all seriousness, where would such a meeting of minds take place?

  18. Seth says:

    Guess I don’t know the “quote” HTML tags after all.

  19. N. O'Brain says:

    hawk!

    I remember when you used to post at Lucianne.

    Ah, the good old days.

  20. Bob Reed says:

    LMC,

    How about lunatic fringe, because both sides have gone so far down their respective ideological roads, that there is little difference in the respective nutbaggery…

  21. N. O'Brain says:

    Me and plumbing are like nitro and glycerine.

  22. N. O'Brain says:

    Well a surrey has a fringe on the top.

  23. iowahawk says:

    N.O’Brain:

    How happy and carefree we were! Remind me to tell you the story of my lifetime L.com ban.

  24. Dan Collins says:

    Wow. Lifetime? Lucky bastard.

  25. thor says:

    That’s because feces and urine sticks to you like a corner back in single coverage.

  26. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    How about Salon des Refusés?

    BTW, there is no clearer sign that someone Does Not Get It than calling something “2.0”.

    That’s a name that Dilbert’s boss would come up with.

  27. Bob,

    Nope, because now the only way I’ll get that damn song out of my head is to either listen to “Life is a Highway” or expose myself to the old folks tonight at VFW bingo.

    Bingo will probably hurt less.

  28. Dan Collins says:

    How about OUTLAW beta Conference?

  29. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Not a plumber, but I do have several pipe wrenches, a 50 foot snake, a portable oxyacetylene torch, and a tubing flaring tool, among other useful things.

  30. McGehee says:

    Thoughts?

    If Conservatism 2.0 is going to be based on the same kinds of assumptions as PJM, I think a better name for it would be Conservatism Vista.

  31. Slartibartfast says:

    I’d say that thor’s getting tedious, except “getting” is way back in the rearview mirror.

  32. Slartibartfast says:

    Conservatism ’95!

  33. Slartibartfast says:

    Conservatism Millenium Edition?

  34. N. O'Brain says:

    “Comment by thor on 2/2 @ 12:59 pm #

    That’s because feces and urine sticks to you like a corner back in single coverage.”

    I’m sure you are quite familiar with with shit sticking to things.

    Do you ever get it out of your hair, btw?

  35. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Whigstock.

    Locke and Load.

  36. thor says:

    How about a Karaoke teleconference where rethuglidums sing the blues?

  37. Bob Reed says:

    Sorry LMC,

    Bingo probably will hurt less; and at the VFW there is sure to be a bar!

  38. Slartibartfast says:

    CFWG?

  39. Jim in KC says:

    I plumbed my house, if that helps.

  40. Mr. Pink says:

    So is this like those Vista commercials where they lie to people and say hey look at our new operating system and the people go wow this is really cool, but then they get surprised by the ad guy when he says it really was Vista all along, and then the people start laughing like it was a big joke which they find very funny. In some places you would get beat up for that shit though.

  41. N. O'Brain says:

    thor has plumbed the depths of asshole behavior.

    And is still digging.

  42. Bob Reed says:

    Whigstock.

    Locke and Load.”

    I kinda like that SBP…

  43. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Oh, this is going to be one of those dealies where everyone flies to D.C., stays in a cheap hotel, and sits around in smoke-filled rooms (except you’re not allowed to smoke in them any more)?

    ‘Cause that doesn’t sound very “2.0” to me.

  44. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Which one, Bob? Or I guess they could be combined:

    Whigstock: Locke and Load

  45. Conservatism 2: Electric Boogaloo

  46. Warren Bonesteel says:

    You need a ditchdigger, not a plumber. We need someone to help dig us out from under this mess…and we’ll need a shovel to bury the bodies when we’re finished…

  47. Dan Collins says:

    Maybe we could steal a march on them and go straight to 2.7.4

  48. Jeff G. says:

    I’m fond of “Outlaw 2 point FUCK YOU, POSERS!”

  49. alppuccino says:

    Don’t have my glasses on, thought it said “plumper” which, I imagine, would be a non-union fluffer. Unless I’m mistaken.

  50. N. O'Brain says:

    Freedom’s Border

  51. Dan Collins says:

    Outlaw 2 point FUCK YOU, POSERS, it is. I’m not arguing with that shit.

  52. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    alppuccino: I’d advise against putting that word into Google Image Search.

  53. Mr. Bingley says:

    Both parties are wholly corrupt entities who continually re-jigger the rules of the game to keep themselves in power. They make me want to vomit.

  54. Dan Collins says:

    I don’t think you’re allowed to say “re-jigger” with reference to Dems, Bingley.

  55. Bob Reed says:

    Comment by Jeff G. on 2/2 @ 1:11 pm #

    I’m fond of ‘Outlaw 2 point FUCK YOU, POSERS!’

    That captures the sentiment pretty nicely Jeff…

    But what about it’s effect on the cheel-runs?

  56. mojo says:

    I have plumbed the depths of moral depravity for years. It’s kind of dark, and stinky sometimes. But there’s a lot of good drugs available, so there’s that…

  57. Mr. Bingley says:

    yes, they are being rather niggardly with regards to acceptable vocabulary, aren’t they?

  58. alppuccino says:

    I’d advise against putting that word into Google Image Search.

    MADE YA LOOK!

  59. SarahW says:

    Hey, come to Williamsburg. You can borrow my panniers.

  60. Jim in KC says:

    Collins is right, Bingley. Sounds too much like niggardly.

  61. Bob Reed says:

    Don’t worry Dan,

    “Re-jigger” wouldn’t be as controversial as you think…

    I mean, we’ve never really had a black president before…

    And if we get Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, or Michael Steele to do the promo; well were insulated then…

  62. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    BTW, Tim O’Reilly claims to own the trademark on (whatever) 2.0 in conjunction with conferences of any kind.

    So, they might want to look into that.

    It’s not like they have a history of poor research into intellectual property issues, so I’m sure they’ve already done that.

    Just sayin’.

  63. happyfeet says:

    Why isn’t it conservativism? Like permissivism. You’d never say permissism. This is probably the first thing that should be addressed I think.

  64. BJTexs says:

    They should call it Shitfaced Conservatism. I mean, Hastert and Frist were drunk, weren’t they?

  65. thor says:

    We can hold our very own free and fair erections in the face of America. Outlaw Democracy!

  66. Dan Collins says:

    I had a chat with BJTex, today, and he’s prepping for his mom’s memorial service on Friday, putting together a slide show. So, email him, if you will.

  67. Jim in KC says:

    There’s a bar a few blocks from my house called–I kid you not–The Bigger Jigger.

  68. Bob Reed says:

    You’re right ‘feets,

    They were so enamored with using the hip, edgy, 2.0 thingy that they never stopped to worry about the proper word usage…

    Me? I blame Obama…

  69. MAJ (P) John says:

    I rather like #36/#45.

    “Of course, none of this can happen unless I can find a plumber to serve as a keynote speaker.”

    My father-in-law is a reired pipefitter. I’d offer him up, but he would probably go off on some conspiracy tangent about the Rothschilds or somesuch.

  70. MAJ (P) John says:

    BJT,

    I live in Hastert’s old district. I honestly couldn’t tell you if he was drunk or not… too difficult to tell by behavior.

  71. BJTexs says:

    No, MJ, no! NOT THE ROTHCHILDS!!!!!!!

    say no more…

  72. Mr. Bingley says:

    C.L.O.D.: Classically Liberal Outlaw Drunks

  73. Bob Reed says:

    I always knew the Rothchilds were involved somehow…

  74. BJTexs says:

    Well, MJ, I’ve sorted through several reasons for their abominable leadership over the last 8 years and “drunk and stupid” is all I have.

    As in “Drunk and stupid is no way to lead a Congress, boys.”

  75. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Chateau LaFeet Rothschilds would make a great name for a foot fetish porn site run by French Jews.

  76. BJTexs says:

    Thanks, Dan! bjtexs at gmail dot com. Love to hear from whoever!

  77. happyfeet says:

    To be honest I’d have to google to remember what CPAC is exactly. All I know is they like the Ace person bunches and when Ann Coulter spoke poor Cap’n Ed had one of his spells. Wrote a letter, he did. I hope this year we can avoid all that sort of unpleasantness.

    oh. BJ I’m sorry. The slideshow thing is hard to do. We didn’t do a slideshow just pictures but I didn’t do that part. It’s hard.

  78. router says:

    i used to smoke Rothschilds in the Bohemian Grove.

  79. happyfeet says:

    is router buttons? there’s something buttonsy about router I think. router are you buttons?

  80. Sorry for the previous threadjack. My answer is yes, I’d be interested in that symposium.

  81. Kevin B says:

    I think it needs to be done locally rather than nationally.

    Pick the most egregious Senate or Congress douchebag in your state and run an Outlaw candidate against them. (Yes, call them the Outlaw candidate.)

    Don’t piss about finding some ‘common ground’ manifesto. Just attack the bastard incumbent on every dubious deal, dodgy earmark, dirty contribution and filthy socialist policy they’ve ever been part of.

    Shout it out in every forum you can find and shout it loud, and if some local newsperson asks you what your policies are tell them “Our Policy is Throw the Bums Out”. And when they say you must have something you stand for, just proclaim; “We are not the mendoucheous, trough snuffling, aristoctratic robber barons who are stealing from us and blaming us because we don’t create enough wealth for them to steal more!”

    And if they persist in trying to get some handle on you, tell them: “We are “We the People!”, we are Outlaw!”

    Of course it won’t do any good, but we can all feel better for having tried.

  82. Carin says:

    Happy, I was thinking teh same thing as you in 81. If we get a poem, we’ll know for sure.

  83. Carin says:

    Kevin, I think Michigan would be a good place to start.

  84. happyfeet says:

    That would make my day I think.

  85. dicentra says:

    If we’re going to go for the Classical Liberalism angle, ought we not hark back to the original dewds what lit this candle?

    George Washington, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine.

    Maybe there’s something they said or did that would make a good slogan or name thing.

  86. dicentra says:

    Hey router: are you a woodworking router or a networking router?

  87. Carin says:

    Well, if router is someone else … you know, a door closes, and a new one opens up.

  88. dicentra says:

    Michigan? As in the People’s Republic of? Are you high?

  89. Carin says:

    No … give me a minute. We had JOhn Engler for 8 years. And, after everything that’s happened. The time is RIPE.

  90. Dan Collins says:

    I might just change my handle to Roto-Rooter.

  91. Carin says:

    Not to mention all the corruption – Kwame. And John Conyer’s wife! I mean, tell me he had no clue. Please.

    Kwame’s dad is going down too (ex husband of Caroline Cheeks Kilpatrick). SOME of this shit has to stick.

  92. Mr. Bingley says:

    Anyone want to come join me in NJ?

  93. thor says:

    You want to see some changes at CPAC? Best not to simply go charging in there swinging nail-studded wooden planks. Ya have to think of more painful lasting effects. Ya spike their fruit trays with fishhooks and fill the air conditioning vents with the foul odor of Sarah Palin’s panties. Think in terms of what a human can never really recover from.

  94. Dan Collins says:

    I’d love to, Bingley. I think that Jeff’s going to be meeting up with some of the gang in Chicago.

  95. dicentra says:

    Hey Jeff. You could team up with John Cox and take Allan Forkum’s place. Forkum got tired of it all, but maybe you could have a go as the idea man for a bit.

  96. N. O'Brain says:

    Comment by thor on 2/2 @ 2:06 pm #

    You’re a dick, thor, a worthless piece of human garbage.

  97. Bob Reed says:

    I’m down with meeting you guys in NJ…

    How far from NYC?

  98. Cowboy says:

    I know it’s not very exciting, but how about ACPAC

    Actually
    Conservative
    Political
    Action
    Conference

    …or RCPAC for Really CPAC

  99. BJTexs says:

    How about an Outlaw stand in PA? I’d like some help to get rid of that squishy, buttinsky, “Is Roe v. Wade a super precedent, Judge Roberts?” Arlen Freakin’ Specter.

    Forget the above: Santorum broke with the Social Cons to campaign for Spector during a bruising primary four years ago. He was rewarded by being totally ignored by Arlen when he had to run against (and lose to ) Bob Casey.

    As JD would say: Mendouchious Twatwaffle!

    Mr. Bingley: Good luck in NJ, by which I mean enjoy beating your head against that East Coast liberal wall.

  100. N. O'Brain says:

    “Anyone want to come join me in NJ?”

    What exit?

  101. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    See, that’s what’s wrong with this idea that everyone has to meet in the same city. Very 1.0, I’d say, especially for outlaw-type people that have jobs and shit.

    Stream the fucker. Live, two-way sessions. None of this one-way crap. If people wanted to have multiple simultaneous face to face meetings near their own cities, cool, but don’t make it so that you have to either show up in one city in person or be the kid out in the cold with his nose up against the glass.

  102. BJTexs says:

    Oh, I’d love to meet Bob Reed and Mr. Bingley and any other PW’s in Jersey!

  103. happyfeet says:

    Specter is beneath contempt I think. Such a sad pompous joke.

  104. BJTexs says:

    Mr. O’Brain. Let’s carpool!

  105. Joe says:

    Is the term plumber some coded reference to Watergate or are you having problems with your sink? Because you know them conservatives, they use code words all the time.

  106. MAJ (P) John says:

    Heck, I’ve been approached to run for the IL House. I’d only do it as an OUTLAW, seeing as the Dems are basically one inch away from being a RICO and the IL Repubs are still wandering around with their fingers up their noses…

  107. Mr. Bingley says:

    Let me work on figuring out a spot. I’m near Red Bank. What are we talking here, very end of Feb, right?

  108. BJTexs says:

    Oh, Joe, of course it’s codeword for breaking and entering. We are ReThuglicans, after all.:-)

  109. thor says:

    Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 2/2 @ 2:13 pm #

    See, that’s what’s wrong with this idea that everyone has to meet in the same city. Very 1.0, I’d say, especially for outlaw-type people that have jobs and shit.

    Stream the fucker. Live, two-way sessions. None of this one-way crap. If people wanted to have multiple simultaneous face to face meetings near their own cities, cool, but don’t make it so that you have to either show up in one city in person or be the kid out in the cold with his nose up against the glass.

    I don’t want my laptop looking like Berlin’s red light district. Creepy sPies on a teleconference would be too much like staring at one of those flabby whores in the window.

  110. mcgruder says:

    just read wolcott’s screed.
    hes not a fan of what were doing here in a nutshell.
    lotta hate in this world.

  111. happyfeet says:

    Feb. 5, 2006, AP

    Specter criticizes rationale for spying

    Hope Yen

    Sen. Arlen Specter said Sunday he believes that President Bush violated a 1978 law specifically calling for a secret court to consider and approve such monitoring. The Pennsylvania Republican branded [Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales’ explanations to date as ‘strained and unrealistic.’

    Stunningly weak-minded person of very poor character.

  112. Bob Reed says:

    Mr. Bingley,

    Is that the Red Bank near NWS Earle, or the one closer to Philly..?

  113. router says:

    the real question is if it violated Scottish law.

  114. Dan Collins says:

    Sometime during the winter break, I’d hope, when my monsterlings aren’t in school. My excuse would be that I’m driving Aidan to meet up with his COS buddy, Parker.

  115. Mr. Bingley says:

    The NWS Earle, pretty easy to get to from NY (boats/trains/buses, only about an hour by car).

  116. Bob Reed says:

    thor,
    The whores in the windows are in Amersterdam’s historic redlight district; you know, the one centered around the historic church!

    I don’t recall anything like that in Berlin…

    But, maybe we hang with different sorts of folks…

  117. Mr. Bingley says:

    Which week in March, Dan?

  118. Bob Reed says:

    Thanks Mr. Bingley,

    Yes that’s very close. 2 of my brothers-in-law live near there, and work in Manhattan…

    I’ll leave it to you all to work out the details; but the missus and I are going to Fla. to visit some of our relatives around that time so let’s work out the details relatively soon…

  119. Dan Collins says:

    No, I think it’s two weeks, beginning around Valentine’s Day.

  120. Jeff G. says:

    People still read Wolcott? I only visit when I need to find another way to say “jowels.” He’s inspiring that way.

  121. Mr. Bingley says:

    Lemme know what dates work Dan and I’ll see what I can rustle up.

    Bob, that’s exactly how I do it (just leaving Manhattan right now, in fact).

  122. thor says:

    I read Walcott, does that count?

    He’s either nobody or a nation, or both.

  123. BJTexs says:

    Wolcott is an overarching ass, rife with self important sniffy disease. He has some kind of a jilted lover man crush on you, Jeff.

    This is just too much:

    *If I ever venture into porn stardom, that could be my stage name: Woody Musk.

    Here’s a thought, Mr. Musk: If you were ever to venture into porn the only “woody” any of us would have to worry about would be the fraternity paddles we’d use to beat the horrific image out of our mind’s eye.

  124. Warren Bonesteel says:

    Outlaws…pfft. Ain’t no outlaws, here!

    This boat is sinking, people! You want to try to save it? It’s time to organize shotgun brigades, get the logistics in place and have an recent combat Vet train you in MOUT and ‘hit and get’ operations.

    You gotta do the whole George Washington rebel thing. Water the tree of liberty. Alla that.

    Meet in Chi-town…for what? Tickets to Oprah? The Pizza? …well…the pizza might be worth it… Meet in Denver to do what? Get drunk and cry in your whine? “If only we’d been here during the convention, we coulda done something…”

    Talk is freaking cheap. Actions speak louder than words.

    Outlaw couch potatoes…

    …and excuses are like…

    Talking and writing and emailing and calling your local politico has worked pretty good over the last six years, eh? Waiting on the Republican party to get some big brass balls and lead you – somewhere, damned if you know where – is really workin’ for ya, isn’t it? Ya can’t make money blogging or running a newsletter, so to hell with it, eh?

    Sunshine patriots and believers in personal liberty, as long as you don’t, you know, actually have to do anything…

    Kick inn a ass? Yeah. Someone around here needed it.

    Next time I go all Sergeant of Marines on your pussy asses.

  125. happyfeet says:

    That’s a lot to ask on a Monday I think Warren. Tomorrow. We can water the tree tomorrow. It’ll be fine.

  126. mojo says:

    “Sergent of Marines”

    What is this, the freakin’ RN? You mean DI, SAY DI…

  127. Jeff G. says:

    Tell you what, Warren. You try doing this daily for seven years with open comments and tell me how invigorated you are to keep it going because people like the commenter version of you questions your heart.

    I’ll wait. We can talk in ’16.

  128. BJTexs says:

    Warren: Did your hemorrhoids flair up this morning? Or did you fall asleep to “The Very Best of Ted Nugent?”

  129. Jeff G. says:

    STOP TALKING, PEOPLE! WARREN SAYS GO KILL A HIPPIE, OR ELSE SHUT THE FUCK UP!

  130. happyfeet says:

    I can’t even get motivated to take a cigarette break.

  131. BJTexs says:

    Oh, crap! I accidentally pissed on my Tree of Liberty and watered my bidet.

    HELP ME, SGT MARINE SIR!!!

  132. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    I lit one up in my office last week when I was working late and it was snowing like a bastard outside.

    OUTLAW!

    Maybe not quite as cool as having one of Warren’s hippie-skin rugs, but it probably smelled better.

  133. I can’t even get motivated to take a cigarette break.

    oh yeah? I can’t get motivated to let the dog in.

    Mostly I hate that little “woof” she does that sounds all like, “You better open this door, beyotch!”

  134. Jeff G. says:

    What did I miss, re: Wolcott? I didn’t even know he still had a blog.

  135. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    He wants you, Jeff.

    Bad.

  136. Bob Reed says:

    SBP,
    Don’t worry, in today’s nanny-state world, smoking in a public building, in your office no less and not standing on a toildet exhaling into the return duct, is Outlaw! behavior…

    I mean, it carries a fine if you’re caught and prosecuted I believe…

    And you oughta work out the details of the tele-conferencing thing you mentioned earlier and fill us all in on what would be required. Since we’re all flung so far and wide it would make subsequent meetings more convenient for those of us who might be unable to travel as easy…

    Because you’re a very web-saavy guy, like that…

  137. Mr. Pink says:

    Warren would you mind showing me how to polish up my jackboots? After that I will be motivated as hell to start watering some trees with blood.

  138. Silver Whistle says:

    On the off-chance that powder blue tuxes are mandatory, I’m going to pass on the invite.

  139. happyfeet says:

    He wasn’t really particularly caustic. Just sort of schadenfreudey. It was actually kind of entertaining.

  140. Bob Reed says:

    I’ve never heard of this Walcott guy…

  141. Bob Reed says:

    sorry for the typo

    saavy = savvy

  142. alppuccino says:

    With so much shovel-ready liberalism in the offing, a neat way to gain outlaw cred will be to whip some rotten tomatos at all the new road workers this summer. I’m planting the big ones this year.

  143. B Moe says:

    I’ve never heard of this Walcott guy…

    Imagine a old bull dyke doing a Van Morrison impersonation.

  144. TheGeezer says:

    Which boat is sinking? All we have to do is bide our time and Obama will sink himself, soon enough. We must pray that he and his cronies do not sacrifice the nation to its enemies, or make our standard of living shit.

  145. Jeff G. says:

    Well, anyone who can type in gloves and a boa deserves our respect — if only because “Will and Grace” is no longer available to us.

  146. happyfeet says:

    Bargaining with God is just the third stage, Geezer. Keep working through it. You’ll get there. Acceptance. Yup. It is what it is. We’re in big big trouble.

  147. parsnip says:

    This is no time to go wobbly!

    Coming off a shellacking at the polls in November, the plurality of GOP voters (43%) say their party has been too moderate over the past eight years, and 55% think it should become more like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

    http://tinyurl.com/b3mwam

  148. BJTexs says:

    Seriously, the next four to eight (shudder) years are going to be the C.L.C. version of a Texas Style Cage Death Match. The fact that Republicans, now that they’ve been effectively neutered, have suddenly discovered their inner curmudgeon just makes them grumpy, old men. Kathleen Parker and her ilk, along with RINO’s and Main Street Republicans are trying to convince conservatives that the right way to win elections is to “re-brand” ourselves, as Ric Locke put it, “Democrat Lite, Only Cheaper!”

    It’s time to set aside many of the petty differences and start with the core principles that set us apart from the “unwashed progressive masses:”

    1) Limited Government
    2) A strong, proactive, modern defense
    3) A real commitment to the GWOT and a statement of purpose that clearly reflects the idea that, regardless of circumstance or upbringing, Jihad is NOT AN OPTION IN A MODERN, LIBERAL SOCIETY!
    4) A firm commitment to lowered tax burdens on all Americans.
    5) Individual liberty, writ large.
    6) Constitutional Originalism
    7) Second Amendment rights that really mean a right to bear arms, not just at the government’s convenience
    8) Free Market principles buttressed by sensible regulation and aggressive prosecution of those who “gin the system.”
    9) The death of the concept of “Compassionate Conservatism” as it relates to a notion that compassion starts and ends with government programs rather than our fellow citizens.

    The rest of it, either the Social cons’ agenda or the Libertarian point of view on social issues gets worked out at the state/district level. We start with core principles and hold our politicians accountable to those ideals from top to bottom.

    The rest, as they say, can be worked out in committee.

  149. Warren Bonesteel says:

    I haven’t had my coffee… and in my old newsletter, I had two million daily readers onna list…with all of the email that resulted. It took ’em two years to figger out what I was really gettin’ at… They thought it was all about havin’ just so much fun with words…

    Plus I’ve worked night and day for eight years to re-arrange grassroots global narratives and spread a few viral memes.

    Those viruses have spread around the world.

    Reagan was right, of course. It’s absolutely surprising how much one man can accomplish…if he doesn’t care who gets the credit…or how much he has to sacrifice…

    oh…that’s a Sergeant of Marines who lived and breathed the Fleet? Pfft… That’s real life, boys and girls. Ain’t no pretty uniforms, funny hats, marching and gettin’ yer rocks off by screaming at raw recruits involved in any of that.

  150. happyfeet says:

    #5 seems the most problematic.

  151. Jeff G. says:

    Well GET BACK TO WORK, WARREN! This is no time to be a pussy!

  152. TheGeezer says:

    I buy every one of your points, BJ, and in time more will come to those same conclusions, especially as the coming failures of Obama grow. I just pray that the nation will survive long enough for that invigoration.

  153. BJTexs says:

    That Rasmussen Report that alphie/parsnip linked has one awesomely insightful headline:

    Republicans Like GOP’s Conservative Direction, Democrats Don’t

    Um. ya think?

  154. Rob Crawford says:

    Plus I’ve worked night and day for eight years to re-arrange grassroots global narratives and spread a few viral memes.

    Which means, essentially, that you’ve done nothing.

  155. TheGeezer says:

    Democrats want the Republicans to imitate and adopt Mavericky ideals. Why the hell would anyone do what the enemy wants? Unless you are, of course, an appeasement freak.

  156. Warren Bonesteel says:

    As fer the rest… Did it sting just a bit?

    Good!

    I meant it to sting.

    Now, mebbe you folks’ll quit yer whinin’ and you know…actually get off yer duffs and do something. …even if it’s wrong, ’cause even if it’s wrong you’ll learn from yer mistakes, do it better next time …and keep movin’.

  157. Jeff G. says:

    Parsnip seems to think linking that is ironic in some way. Hell, we’ve been preaching that same message for years here, with the clarification that what I am talking about is legal conservatism.

    McCain was a disaster, and his actions after the election suggest that his much lauded honor has eroded over the years.

    The Senate will do that to you, I guess.

  158. BJTexs says:

    HF: Number five is always the most problematic and the least realized.

  159. Mr. Pink says:

    Warren until you bathed in warm hippy blood then everything you say is bullshit. Get out there and get to work.

  160. Jeff G. says:

    Consider me duly stung, Warren. In fact, I just keyed my neighbor’s car for wearing an Obama bumper sticker.

    “Give Hope a Chance” my ass.

  161. happyfeet says:

    McCain was just Soros’ insurance in case Baracky imploded I think. McCain is bereft of honor. Profoundly useless man. Also he calls his wife mean names and did sexual favors for his Vietnamese captors, what I heard.

  162. B Moe says:

    Make that
    4) A firm commitment to http://www.fairtax.org
    and I am in.

  163. Are you responsible for all the douchebags calling each other bro?

    ’cause that’s a meme gonna get someone shot.

  164. Roland THTG says:

    Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 2/2 @ 2:56 pm #

    I lit one up in my office last week when I was working late and it was snowing like a bastard outside.

    OUTLAW!

    Oh Good GOD!
    Next you’ll be peeing standing up!

    Damn Get a Grip, Man!

  165. BJTexs says:

    Congress, nay government will do that to you.

    Our government has become a district/state pick a ticket operation. The legislators maneuver to snag as much goodies as possible for their own constituents while occasionally lending their names to “lofty” bills designed to impose a little more government on our daily lives. In the meantime government gets bigger and the complaining by voters grow larger, except for any complaints about their representatives, of course, because they are the ones bringing home the pork, baybee!

    Look at that evil toad Murtha. He calls his voters racist, slanders Marines, runs against a strong conservative ex-military opponent and still freakin’ wins with 59% of the vote! We have become, in large measure, a nation seduced by “stuff,” handouts and make work that provide little in lasting good but salve the ever needy desires of the citizen. They’ll yell and scream about da bums in Congress and the idiot President but send their bacon grease smeared lackey back to Washington, time after time, as long as the feeding tough overfloweth with earmarks.

    Regional economic selfishness is not a pretty picture nor is it a long range strategy for national strength.

  166. BJTexs says:

    BMoe #164: Done!

  167. like at the bar:

    Douchebag 1: “bro, bro, I need something with Red Bull in it. bro. I’m gonna be up alll night bro.”

    Douchebag 2: “Yeah bro. Do it. bro. awesome.”

    Bartender: “Whattaya need.”

    Douchebag 2: “Yeah bro. Coors Light and a Diet Pepsi for my bro.”

    That shit needs to stop.

  168. parsnip says:

    …with the clarification that what I am talking about is legal conservatism.

    …55% think it should become more like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

    That is irony defined.

  169. Mr. Pink says:

    I am going to start Sprint Relaying my friends who I know are Obama voters and pranking the hell outa them.
    https://www.sprintip.com/index.jsp
    Bathing in warm hippy blood is not one of my hobbies.

  170. MarkD says:

    Comment by BJTexs on 2/2 @ 2:53 pm #

    Oh, crap! I accidentally pissed on my Tree of Liberty and watered my bidet.

    HELP ME, SGT MARINE SIR!!!

    The response is, “don’t call me sir, I work for a living.”

    Former Sgt, USMC. Not quite “when the ships were wood and the men were steel” former, but let’s just say that the Amtracs they are getting rid of now had yet to arrive then…

  171. kelly says:

    McCain was a disaster, and his actions after the election suggest that his much lauded honor has eroded over the years.

    Preach it, brutha. As much as I can’t stand to hear about how bad this country was before the ONE was conceived by virgin birth and grew into the Light of Teh World, I’m glad McCain is not Prez. If I going to get ass fucked it may as well be by some young Othello with a rhetorician flair and a penchant for socialism. You know, the real deal.

  172. kelly says:

    Yes, I can conjugate the verb form “to be”. I just type sloppy.

  173. BJTexs says:

    MarkD: I hope you understand that that comment was directed to Warren as a gentle parody of him invoking the Sgt meme in his rant. There is no intention whatsoever to, in any manner shape or form, put forth anything that would impute the honor of Marines or any other member of our services.

  174. Jeff G. says:

    No, Parsnip, that’s you believing your own cartoons. Having opinions that you are willing to put aside to govern by the Constitution is something Palin actually did. Not a trait possessed by many progressives — McCain and Huckabee included.

  175. happyfeet says:

    Marines are cool. They free people. Or at least they used to.

  176. BJTexs says:

    Also, monkeyboy, we can easily separate the personality from the principle. Whether or not Palin ends up being a viable “vessel” for the aforementioned principles remains to be seen but, as Jeff pointed out, her willingness to set aside clesely held Social Con views to govern from principle is just the sort of thing I’m trying to promote here.

    I also recognize that this level of nuance doesn’t fit with your BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, EXTREME RIGHT WING LOsERS, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, narrative.

  177. parsnip says:

    Palin pushes for road to Nome

    http://www.adn.com/news/government/legislature/story/675137.html

    That comes to about $1,000,000 per resident of Nome.

  178. Jeff G. says:

    And?

  179. that’s because they misspelled gnome and that little fucker is a moving target.

  180. cranky-d says:

    Well I for one thank G-d Warren showed up to put us on the straight and narrow. What we need is a frelling newsletter, people!

  181. Jim in KC says:

    I think wood ships might have been faster than at least one old LPD I rode on, MarkD.

    We still had Jeeps, by the way, when I first joined up, so that dates me a bit.

  182. parsnip says:

    I think you Palin supporters are dazzled by her fading, rugged beauty and haven’t really spent more than 5 minutes studying how she actually governs.

    Anyhoo, should be interesting to see how she deals with Alaska’s widening budget deficit.

    Wouldn’t a real conservative cut taxes?

    *giggle*

  183. BJTexs says:

    Oh, alphie, you mean that heavily investing in infrastructure during a time of economic crisis is a bad idea? You might want to have a chat with your President. Of course, millions to Filipino WWII veterans in the Philippines or contrception use or ACORN volunteers will create tons of jobs for Americans.

    Won’t it?

  184. Jim in KC says:

    Roads, parsnip, are a legitimate function of government. Health insurance for the children of people too lazy to work is not.

  185. If you can somehow wrest the name of Liberal back from the radical leftists who have raped it and bastardized everything Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, and the others stood for, I’d be proud to hold that title. Conservative has an uncomfortable association at this point with Archie Bunker stogie smoking fat cats who want women to be chained to a sink. While that is an absurd, crude, and childish crayon-drawing of hate held up to the camera to hide real conservatism, it has taken far too much of a hold on society and at this point I doubt the term is salvageable. And lets be honest, for too long that’s what much of the movement really did stand for.

  186. Leftists, as usual, have a difficult time comprehending basic civics, such as the fact that legislatures make laws, and Governors merely run the executive department.

  187. Wouldn’t a real conservative cut taxes?

    Yep.

  188. Vladimir says:

    If you can book Thomas Sowell I’ll walk to the seminar from Boston.

  189. Carin says:

    I think you Palin supporters are dazzled by her fading, rugged beauty and haven’t really spent more than 5 minutes studying how she actually governs.

    God knows the left tried to help us out there by focusing on Trig’s birth!

  190. mojo says:

    I say we get the number of Bambi’s Platinum VISA card and, like, max that sucker out. See how he likes it.

    Nancy and Harry too. More the merrier.

  191. To be the equivalent of the spending they want, we’d have to max the cards, then get loans equal to three times the max credit limit. Then tell the credit card companies they can’t collect until we decide they can.

  192. Joe says:

    Jeff: If you need an actual plumber, maybe you can make up with Roger Simon and he can send Joe the Plumber to your house–some insightful PJM TV discussion, followed by cleaning those clogged traps! Win Win.

  193. thor says:


    Comment by Jeff G. on 2/2 @ 3:58 pm #

    And?

    And I’m telling if I lobbed a pair of her panties at Nome it’d kill the last of the Nomites and we wouldn’t need no stinkin’ road to Nomedom nome more.

    But seriously, Jeff, I’ve been thinking. What you need is another you, a cheaper more fuel efficient, greener, harder working sort’a you. There’s the Indian women in Mumbai that can literally clone you. That’s right, I’m talking a Jeff G. snark generator powered by dark-skinned former British colonials with ketchup stains on their foreheads. They have colonial educations, good ones, they even spell practise the right way.

    Give one of ’em a month to learn your quips, snarkles, biting rejoinders and over-arching metanarratives then let ’em replace you at the keyboard. Rumor is they’re already writing all the restaurant reviews for the weekend edition of the New York Times. No, I’m not shitting. They’re straight up stealth. Best thing – $200 per month buys you your freedom, and your very own Jeff G. generator.

    Free up your time for more interesting endeavors. Ever taught a falcon to hunt for you? See there, you can free up time to train animals to free up even more of your time time.

    You are the trickle down you’ve been waiting for.

  194. N. O'Brain says:

    “Comment by happyfeet on 2/2 @ 3:50 pm #

    Marines are cool. They free people. Or at least they used to.”

    STill do.

    Ask the Iraqis after the last election. One with no violence.

  195. Bob Reed says:

    BJT,
    I like the list of principle points that you listed. Lemme mull them over a while and see if there’s anything that could possibly be added…

    But definately the whole Democrat lite outlook must be avoided at all costs…

  196. cranky-d says:

    I got the plumber joke immediately. A few others, not so much.

    OUTLAW!!

  197. N. O'Brain says:

    “powered by dark-skinned former British colonials with ketchup stains on their foreheads….”

    A racist, too.

    Truly a shit in human form.

  198. cranky-d says:

    others->other people.

    Time to go drinking I think.

  199. N. O'Brain says:

    Nice Ranty McRant:

    Obama embraces torture.

    Posted by Moe Lane (Profile)

    Sunday, February 1st at 10:55AM EST

    72 Comments
    I told you.

    I damned well told you.

    Rendition is back, you pro-torturing, posturing, hypocritical Leftist fools:

    http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2009/02/01/obama-embraces-torture/

  200. thor says:

    #

    Comment by N. O’Brain on 2/2 @ 4:42 pm #

    “powered by dark-skinned former British colonials with ketchup stains on their foreheads….”

    A racist, too.

    Truly a shit in human form.

    Go collect palm tree frawns to roof your mud bunker with, ya weepy ass blister.

  201. Bob Reed says:

    BJT@167

    Sometimes I think returning the corrupt representatives and senators for term after term is as much about intellectual laziness on the part of voters as it is about bringin’ home the pork…

    just an opinion…

    Just Words!

  202. N. O'Brain says:

    “Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. ”

    -Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

    “Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. ” Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

    -Via Insty

  203. Velociman says:

    Wolcott called me “pessimist porn”, that noisome bastard. He’ll never get an invitation to one of my live-branding oyster roasts. Although searing a Circle V into his prunish buttocks would be grimly satisfying.

    Also, I’m game for a go at these revanchist swine at CPAC. This could be a seminal moment. We could be the mucus plug of Rebirth of a Nation.

  204. N. O'Brain says:

    “Go collect palm tree frawns to roof your mud bunker with, ya weepy ass blister.”

    Could someone please translate that into Sane?

  205. Jeff G. says:

    I wonder what might happen if, say, Wolcott and Billy Jack had a chat?

  206. parsnip says:

    I thought all the “real” conservatives are gonna back Mittens Romney next time around.

    Will Palin settle for being on the bottom again?

  207. thor says:

    #

    Comment by Lost My Cookies on 2/2 @ 3:39 pm #

    like at the bar:

    Douchebag 1: “bro, bro, I need something with Red Bull in it. bro. I’m gonna be up alll night bro.”

    Douchebag 2: “Yeah bro. Do it. bro. awesome.”

    Bartender: “Whattaya need.”

    Douchebag 2: “Yeah bro. Coors Light and a Diet Pepsi for my bro.”

    That shit needs to stop.

    Dawg replaced bro back in 2004, dawg.

  208. Jeff G. says:

    Attempting to think without your training wheels was your first mistake, parsnip.

  209. I wonder what might happen if, say, Wolcott and Billy Jack had a chat?

    We’d all be surprised that Billy Jack has a penchant for Ocecats?

  210. kelly says:

    Don’t you have a sewer to clean out with your tongue or something, snip? You really are an annoying piece of shit.

  211. Jeff G. says:

    Well, I’m off to work out for a bit. Enjoy what time you have left.

  212. thor says:

    Using Skype to hash out the deal with Mumbai costs you nothing, all I’m saying.

  213. parsnip says:

    In the chaos that is the current Republican party, a committed group of conservatives lined up behind a candidate for 2012 would have an inordinate amount of power.

    What a pity y’all are split between Mittens and Sarah, canceling each other out.

  214. geoffb says:

    “Why the hell would anyone do what the enemy wants? Unless you are, of course, an appeasement freak.”

    Or a mole.

  215. Warren Bonesteel says:

    The point is, that you folks’re still thinking inside the box, when ya need to improvise, adapt and overcome.

    Just as one e.g.: Bitch about PJM’s business model and their treatment of bloggers who gave them some modicum of success, yet the talk is about using the very same – epic fail – traditional media business models and methods to achieve your stated goals. How does repeating an epic failure magically become a success?

    iow, placing palm fronds on your bunker isn’t providing any cover from arty…or even from a well-thrown rock.

    …which is why the liberals here are having so much fun throwing rocks…

    Everyone has a skill, a talent, an insight, an ability to offer. Self-deprecating humor is one thing. False humility is as much a lie as is false pride. False humility is to deny your own value to yourself and to your community. Accepting the mainstream dictum that you ‘Must Be Somebody’ before you can change the nation, or even your own lives for the better, is to accept yet another lie. That is to accept the narrative which has propelled The One into the White House. Once you accept that narrative, you are no longer free. Freedom is more than the mouthing of socially acceptable words and approved phrases…and then complaining because your empty words changed nothing.

    The question remains: Can you actually do what you say you want to do, and are you actually going to do it?

    …or are you just going to have meetings, drink espresso and wine …and talk…and talk…and bitch and moan…and whine…and talk…and talk…complaining about how helpless you are before the vicissitudes of fate? Telling each other how unfair it all is?

    Are you children? Or are you men and women of maturity and fortitude and courage?

    …or are you just here for the dancing armadillos?

  216. thor says:

    If Sarah Palin ran for President in 2012 under the banner of the Alaskan Independence Party that’d be some Naughty Monkey batwing.

  217. Mr. Bingley says:

    #

    Comment by BJTexs on 2/2 @ 3:17 pm #

    Seriously, the next four to eight (shudder) years are going to be the C.L.C. version of a Texas Style Cage Death Match. The fact that Republicans, now that they’ve been effectively neutered, have suddenly discovered their inner curmudgeon just makes them grumpy, old men. Kathleen Parker and her ilk, along with RINO’s and Main Street Republicans are trying to convince conservatives that the right way to win elections is to “re-brand” ourselves, as Ric Locke put it, “Democrat Lite, Only Cheaper!”

    It’s time to set aside many of the petty differences and start with the core principles that set us apart from the “unwashed progressive masses:”

    1) Limited Government
    2) A strong, proactive, modern defense
    3) A real commitment to the GWOT and a statement of purpose that clearly reflects the idea that, regardless of circumstance or upbringing, Jihad is NOT AN OPTION IN A MODERN, LIBERAL SOCIETY!
    4) A firm commitment to lowered tax burdens on all Americans.
    5) Individual liberty, writ large.
    6) Constitutional Originalism
    7) Second Amendment rights that really mean a right to bear arms, not just at the government’s convenience
    8) Free Market principles buttressed by sensible regulation and aggressive prosecution of those who “gin the system.”
    9) The death of the concept of “Compassionate Conservatism” as it relates to a notion that compassion starts and ends with government programs rather than our fellow citizens.

    The rest of it, either the Social cons’ agenda or the Libertarian point of view on social issues gets worked out at the state/district level. We start with core principles and hold our politicians accountable to those ideals from top to bottom.

    The rest, as they say, can be worked out in committee.

    An excellent starting point.

  218. Jeff G. says:

    I’m here for the wine and armadillos. Can’t speak for anyone else.

    On a serious note, though, I think Warren missed the 400 comment threads where we trained to brainstorm new models and methods of influence. Which is good, because he’s on a roll, and I don’t have the heart to stop him.

  219. dicentra says:

    Trouble with being an OUTLAWâ„¢ running for office is that the party establishment says, “you don’t like the party establishment? Then you can raise all your own money yourself.”

    And if the OUTLAWâ„¢ makes it into office, the party establishment says, “you think you wanna clean house? You don’t want to play by our rules? Then consider yourself Isolated and Marginalized. Nobody will support any bill you propose and you’ll get no other kind of support from us.”

    Anyway, you can sum up most conservative/libertarian views with one phrase:

    ENFORCE THE TENTH AMENDMENT!

  220. dicentra says:

    What’s C.L.C? I looked here and got no help.

  221. cranky-d says:

    Well, I’ve been schooled.

  222. happyfeet says:

    I don’t get how the swine are revanchist. Also the enjoy what time you have left part is disheartening. I think CLC is the COnservative Leadership Conference.

  223. cranky-d says:

    I was referring to the bonemeister up there. He’s certainly told me what’s what.

  224. happyfeet says:

    *Conservative* I meant…

  225. happyfeet says:

    The everyone has a skill, a talent, an insight, an ability to offer blah blah blah is kind of empowering. I like that.

  226. N. O'Brain says:

    Comment by thor on 2/2 @ 5:14 pm #

    Did your mother drop you repeatedly on the head when you were a baby, hor?

  227. The Lost Dog says:

    Hey, Dan.

    I love people who profess individuality. but can’t wait to dive into the slop with the absolute jackasses who can afford three piece Brooks Brother’s suits.

    I am not much of a bible thumper, (or even a [western] Christian), but watching what is going on is beginning to make me think that “the end of days” is not at all far fetched.

    OT, but are you anywhere near Okemo? I’ve started skiing again, after thirty five years, and am headed that way soon, in the indistinct future. I’d love to hook up with you – if only to find out that a PW regular can drink more Guiness than I can, and see if you can beat me down the bunny slope..

    Don’t be fooled by that. I’m not triple A, but I ain’t no beginner, either.

    Best, Dan, and thank you for your input here.

    TLD

  228. Bob Reed says:

    Dicentra,
    I believe BJT was referring to center/left-of-center…

  229. geoffb says:

    I thought CLC was Classical Liberal Conservative.

  230. happyfeet says:

    oh. I thought Classical Liberal is usually the way you put that. Just the two words. I was just keying off his later mention of that Parker hoochie.

  231. geoffb says:

    You could be right too.

  232. geoffb says:

    I’d never heard of a Conservative Leadership Conference though I have heard of a Christian Leadership Conference but that is the social cons.

  233. parsnip says:

    BJT seems to have put forth Contract with America 2.0

    Too bad the first one left such a bad taste in everybody’s mouth.

  234. happyfeet says:

    Now I’m confused. Where’s BJ?

  235. Mikey NTH says:

    A conference on conservatisim?

    If we do that then we’ll just end up a bunch of stodgy old liberals.

  236. Rusty says:

    I got a butt crack. Does that count?

  237. geoffb says:

    Let’s try it both ways.

    Seriously, the next four to eight (shudder) years are going to be the Classical Liberal Conservative version of a Texas Style Cage Death Match.

    or

    Seriously, the next four to eight (shudder) years are going to be the Conservative Leadership Conference version of a Texas Style Cage Death Match.

  238. Disseminate? Isn’t that like… when you use a spermicide?

  239. Warren Bonesteel says:

    Nope. I read ’em, Jeff. There were a few, very few, outside the box suggestions in alla that. The rest were pretty much the same corporate, self-promoting and ideologically-driven, ‘me-me-me’ nonsense that got y’all mad at Roger. So ya turned right around and started to plan to do the same thing he did, but because it was you folks, it was all going to work out just fine and dandy! (Same theories, same underlying premises, but it was gonna be different, this time!!)

    Problem is, we’re all arguably a product of the same institutional – and now traditional – educational, political, cultural and social system(s) that we’ve come to despise and find to be so oppressive. One question I have is how can that system be changed or even brought down …when we’re using the – harmless – tools that were provided to us by that same system? …or when we’re only using those tools in ways approved of by the same system that we claim to despise?

    If the theoretical and synergistic framework that has been used to limit our freedoms is the same framework that we use to bring it down, how can that system be changed or brought down? By magical thinking? …or by rebuilding our own ideological and theoretical foundations. By re-arranging our knowledge base to make better use of the tools we do possess? By examining our own assumptions, presumptions, preconceptions and ideologies and beliefs? By changing the layout of our websites and blogs? It’s all re-arranging the deck chairs! The system is now collapsing around our ears, the below decks are flooded, the ship is listing and the engine room is flooded. …so…let’s wait for the Captain to tell us what to do? Let’s go back to the lunge and have a few drinks and complain about the navigator and the builders while we wait for the ship to sink?

    “The Massa gimme this dull, useless tool to work in the fields. I can’t do the job right! If I can’t do the job right, Massa punishes me! Why won’t Massa gimme a sharp tool?”

    Because he knows you’ll use it to lop off his head, ya fool.

    Find a rock, sharpen the tool and lop off his head anyway…

    Or do we begin by honestly allowing others the exact same freedoms and liberties that we allow ourselves…and then by allowing them more freedom and liberties than we allow ourselves? What about the rule of law? Of what value is the rule of law when the law changes with each administration and with each change in Congressional leadership or with one single change in the Supreme Court. The rule of law is presently arbitrary, intrusive into our privacy and is otherwise restrictive of our liberties and oppressive. Yet, many would choose to work within the same restrictions of the law that they claim to be oppressive and which are created by men and women who are known to be corrupt and without honor and ethics and any sense of justice? That’s insanity. That’s the mind of a slave.

    Think outside the box. Adapt, Improvise and Overcome.

    (Last two times I went off on a group for whining like you guys have done, they booted me…but after they did…they FINALLY went out and got the job done. One member of such a group posted a comment on this site yesterday…they still hate me…(You wouldn’t think that such a cultured gentleman was capable of such…uh… inconsiderate language) but they finally went and got the job done…after months of doing nothing but talk and talk and bitch and moan and whine and complain…)

  240. Rusty says:

    What if there was , like, teleconfrencing from different places around the country that everybody can get to and put their two cents in. Like Chicago and Denver and Owens Mills Maryland. Which always sounded so pastoral and pleasant. Unlike Detroit, but Detroit has more contributors. I just always wanted to mention Owens Mills Maryland. I don’t like socialists either they smell like they use cologne to cover up something much worse.

  241. happyfeet says:

    I think yours has an edge. While we wait for BJ we can watch the GI Joe trailer … this is the one we talked about a long time ago where they were gonna make GI Joe some sort of unAmerican UN fruitcake person. I can’t watch it cause they block it at work.

  242. Dan Collins says:

    TLD, you’re welcome here anytime. We’re closer to Bolton and Mad River Glen and Sugarbush and Stowe, but I’d be happy to meet up with you for some skiing at Okemo.

  243. Pablo says:

    In the immortal words of Stork, well, what the hell we s’posed to do, you moron? I see a lot of high flying rhetoric from you, Warren, and very little substance. We just elected that and it seems that’s what were trying to get away from. First things first and that means agreeing on some specifics and an implementation plan.

    Unless we just go out and kill hippies and see how that works.

  244. happyfeet says:

    I could think out of the box more better if I had this. I’m almost sure of it.

  245. The Lost Dog says:

    Dan (sorry everyone else) OT

    zino3@comcast.net Bolton’s cool. Discounts from the ski club!

  246. Snap! I leave a thread-killing comment and old mister Warren Bonehead has to go fuck it up with a treatise of epic proportions. Getcher own feckkin’ blog!

  247. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    That reminds me of something out of Wall-E, hf.

  248. Dan Collins says:

    What’s the 0-60 on that thing, hf?

  249. Jeff G. says:

    Warren —

    It’s easy to tell everyone else to think outside the box. How about contributing a few examples. When I started this place, I don’t think much of what I was doing had been done before by bloggers, particularly those in the political arena. I flatter myself to think that I have influenced the grammar of blogging, in fact.

    I take time off now and again because I get frustrated when I’m constantly butting up against walls. So tell me: what are some ways forward? I’m all ears.

  250. Jeff G. says:

    Oh. I see Pablo beat me to it. Okay them. Proceed.

  251. Carin says:

    So far, the only innovative strategy was Pablo’s kill hippies idea.

  252. Carin says:

    I mean, they’ve proven impervious to reason. Killing them is, perhaps, the only way forward?

  253. pledgepolish55 says:

    Fine, Warren, I accept your challenge, and hereby volunteer to hold a bake sale.

  254. paisana in Atlanta says:

    How about contrapasso? Find it in your Dante. Can’t stay. Going to watch 24.

  255. Rusty says:

    I think outside the box a lot. Unfortunately I get tripped up by the other recycling.

    Hire a skywriter.

  256. geoffb says:

    Ok, an analogy.

    The immune system (constitution and legal system) of the body (free country) has a flaw that allowed a retrovirus (socialism) get in and start to destroy the immune system and let a cancer (tyranny) start to grow.

    Can the immune system be modified to both cure the disease and prevent future infections or will a new way need to be found that bypasses the immune system and attacks the retrovirus and the cancer directly and from a new direction?

    What would an anti-viral drug look like. Killing the “hippies” is the surgery option.

  257. Mikey NTH says:

    Saying ‘think outside of the box’ is a neat thing. Actually doing it? Finding a new way to do something? That’s lot more difficult.

    Once it is done everyone says ‘Oh, Henry Ford! Having the car move past the work stations rather than have all of the parts just brought to the same workers is so obvious!’

    But if it is so G-D obvious, why wasn’t it picked up on earlier? Part of genius, I think, is making the obvious apparent. And that isn’t as easy as it sounds.

    The jibsail is an obviuos thing – use a stay or small line from the bow to the foremast/mainmast to provide a means of moving a small sail up and down at the bow of a ship, to provide the leverage to bring the ship about on a different tack. Yet how many centuries did it take before someone saw that? Or adding a stirrup to a saddle, some place to put your feet when you rode a horse and to provide stability for a cavalryman?

    Both the jib and the stirrup are so fricjin’ obvious, but centuries of very intelligent people passed before either were invented.

    It ain’t so easy to ‘think outside the box’.

  258. Rusty says:

    #254
    What I want to know is, where are all the new ones coming from?

    I’m thinkin’ maybe there should be some sort of education on about how classic liberalism started this country and what that means in a constitutional rights kind of way, because a lot of people don’t even know anything about their own constitution. Take parsnip for example, who thinks that it was written by FDR on grocery bags. And that you can just crumple a grocery bag and start all over when it looks like the results aren’t going to be in your favor.

  259. Carin says:

    Well, I think there are large swaths of Dem voters who simply don’t realize that Baracky and friends want us to go socialist. They don’t understand what it is, and what it means.

  260. Carin says:

    I would say that the most powerful force for pushing the progressive/liberal agenda is Hollywood and it’s affiliates. It’s like a propaganda machine for just about every liberal program. What we need to do, somehow, is find a way to combate THAT.

  261. Rusty says:

    I’m not wedded to the skywriter idea. Just so you know.

  262. Pablo says:

    Saying ‘think outside of the box’ is a neat thing.

    As is saying “synergize” and “value added” and “bleeding edge” and “core competency”. Great stuff for Buzzword Bingo, but not terribly helpful in getting things done.

  263. Carin says:

    You know, I think we’re losing our edge. All this talk about outside-box-thinking, and no one has yet tied in a Schrodinger’s cat reference.

  264. Mikey NTH says:

    Mr. Schrodinger’s cat just called and said ‘Okae, I did that. Now wares that cheezeburger? I waz promised cheezburger.’

    If no cheeseburgers are in the offing, I would suggest that Mr. Schrodinger sleep lightly.

  265. McGehee says:

    When people start talking about thinking outside the box, I reach for my Buck knife.

    ‘Cause I have no clue whereTF the boxcutters are in this house.

  266. happyfeet says:

    The Hollywood thing is easy. Don’t be part of the problem. Yup, that means you too, sports fans. The John Galt of the dirty socialist media age doesn’t withhold his productive energies. He withholds his eyeballs I think.

  267. Cowboy says:

    hf:

    I’m pretty sure my Colts are Classically Liberal.

    Please don’t take my Colts from me.

  268. router says:

    if the box only comes to my shoulders am i thinking outside of the box?

  269. happyfeet says:

    I’m just sayin’.

  270. JHoward says:

    I don’t know about the rest of your guys, but I think Bonesteel’s work product could power Nebraska for a year or something. Impressive really doesn’t begin to describe it.

  271. Big D says:

    Do you mean power Nebraska or fertilize it? If it’s the latter, I agree.

  272. Warren Bonesteel says:

    “I believe in what I fight for
    And I have paid for it with pain
    I am here because my contributions
    May help turn this fate away

    And all who stood by and did nothing
    Who are they to criticize?
    The sacrifices of others
    Our blood has bought their lives.”
    – Cruxshadows. Eye of the Storm.

  273. thor says:


    Comment by Jim in KC on 2/2 @ 4:04 pm #

    Roads, parsnip, are a legitimate function of government. Health insurance for the children of people too lazy to work is not.

    I cherry picked this gem and I had to re-read it a couple of times to double check it for the necessary mark of sardonic jesting.

    It seems to be lacking any such punchline.

    To be honest I’m not totally against dropping a select few out of an airplane in revenge for Pinochet.

    AHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhh…PLOP!

    Watch there, when he lands his heart squirts right out of his asshole! Bookies pay up! What were the odds he owned one?

  274. dicentra says:

    Can the immune system be modified to both cure the disease and prevent future infections or will a new way need to be found that bypasses the immune system and attacks the retrovirus and the cancer directly and from a new direction?

    The Constitution was premised on the idea that people cannot be trusted with power, and that the structure of government PLUS the populace would help keep the Will to Power in check.

    The founders knew that this system would work only if the populace hated tyranny more than it desired security, and if the machinations of government were sufficiently transparent so that the voters could get rid of those who were out of control.

    But our long era of prosperity and ease is like living in null gravity: you inevitably lose bone mass and muscles atrophy. We’re going on 50 years of that kind of null gravity. About two generations are lost to it; they’ve (we’ve) never had to fight gravity.

    And now that we’re used to prosperity and ease, we want to install ourselves in a zoo, where the zookeepers will guarantee our safety, nutrition, and healthcare. Zoo animals have it easy; never mind that they don’t reproduce, or when they do they make rotten parents.

    Living in the wild is too dangerous, dontcha know. There’s predators out there, and disease, and accidents.

    The only way to make a governmental system that is immune to the Totalitarian Temptation is to fill it with people who are immune to it.

    And people, generally speaking, aren’t.

    Prepare for a Very Hard Lesson, I’m thinking, only we all get to pay for the stupidity of some.

  275. JHoward says:

    That’s actually funny, thor. Coming to Chicago are we?

  276. dicentra says:

    And all who stood by and did nothing
    Who are they to criticize?

    Warren. What would you have us do? The way things are going now, we’d have to spend every waking moment lobbying against (for) every little thing that has happened since 1929.

    Go read Liberal Fascism to get a better idea of what we’re up against; then come back with some viable ideas. Sometimes the only way to change things is to let the ship run aground: people aren’t in the mood to hear that we’re headed in the wrong direction, what with that sweet siren song and all.

  277. JHoward says:

    Warren. What would you have us do?

    Emulate, di. Emulate. The meek ye have with ye always.

  278. Bob Reed says:

    Rusty,

    It’s Owings Mills, Maryland…Still sounds pastoral, but is really a northwest suburb of Baltimore…

  279. Rusty says:

    #281
    Oh.

  280. Jeff G. says:

    Owings Mills? I used to work in that mall.

  281. Stephen M says:

    My oh my.
    This place is infested with trolls who will yap about anything but Obama.
    No need to wait for his corruption, he appoints it.

  282. thor says:


    Comment by JHoward on 2/2 @ 8:53 pm #

    That’s actually funny, thor. Coming to Chicago are we?

    I’ve pre-paid a high class call girl to supplicate the festivities.

  283. Warren Bonesteel says:

    No one, ever again, particularly those who claim to love life and liberty, be so full of pride as to ask any military service man or woman or military Veteran, “What have you ever done for freedom’s cause.”

    You ungrateful, decadent, soft, sheep fucking whore bait.

    The worst shitbird and the most recalcitrant REMF who ever wore a uniform, has more honor and greater courage than any man or woman who has the gall, the arrogance, the childish hubris, to ask them, “What have you ever done?”

    …while you whine and groan under the many feather-light burdens of your own ennui and your soft, decadent, lives and self-deceptions…

    In my own family’s case, seventeen generations of Bonesteel men and women have served this nation in uniform. I am, admittedly, the least among them, but I served – and sacrificed all but my life – that others might be free. From Generals to privates, we’ve changed this nation, and in the process, we’ve changed the course of human history.

    Any man or woman who has ever worn the uniform has done the same.

    Don’t ever again ask me that question, and don’t ever again be so disrespectful of those who have worn the uniform.

    …and you wonder why I went on my little rant? That is the epitome of intellect among you? That is the height of honor and ethics to be found in your midst? Speech without thought, words without consideration, even of what you have said yourselves. It’s always someone else’s fault? Someone else’s responsibility, yet when they act, when they speak, when they share their skills, talents, abilities and insights, you denigrate their efforts and deride their input, but you hope to assemble a great under-taking to set your nation free from liberal-progressive control and the passivity of contemporary Republican national socialism?

    HA!!!!

  284. happyfeet says:

    Someone’s feeling a little judgey tonight I think.

  285. thor says:

    Kick Bonesteel the hackey-sack. Let’s not leave him out of the circle too long.

  286. The only real way to change is a cultural shift toward personal responsibility, rugged individualism, ethical and personal virtue, and a return to the values that the country was founded on.

    Now stop, before you roll your eyes so bad you sprain something. All the advances that socialism has made in the US were due to incremental attacks on the social fabric: family, community, church, ethics, virtues, and personal responsibility. Each of those had to be broken down so that instead of asking “how can I fix this?” people ask “what can the government do for me?”

    This is the heart of it all: the culture has to change. Unless that happens nothing that people do to fix matters will be anything but a band-aid washed off by the first hardship.

  287. thor says:

    We’re pop-gun pussies, the British, now they kicked some major league ass in the name of the Crown. And the Spanish Conquistadors, let’s not forget their glorious tally.

  288. B Moe says:

    The founders knew that this system would work only if the populace hated tyranny more than it desired security, and if the machinations of government were sufficiently transparent so that the voters could get rid of those who were out of control.

    They also only let tax payers vote. I think that is the single most crucial flaw in our current system: allowing a political party to base its sole existence on plunder and vote buying.

  289. MAJ (P) John says:

    Lighten up Francis, er, Warren.

  290. geoffb says:

    “Prepare for a Very Hard Lesson, I’m thinking, only we all get to pay for the stupidity of some.”

    That would be the full body irradiation with a possible bone marrow transplant.

    I know analogies can stretch too far and break but I was hoping for it to send thoughts in different directions.

    My belief is the language work that Jeff G. is doing is the start of a way to immunize against the base infection before the cancer can take hold. The first corruption of the left is of the language used to think about freedom and liberty.

    Now I have broken the analogy to bits I expect. I can’t compete with the masters on this site.

  291. Warren Bonesteel says:

    I didn’t complete the triadic relationship properly, but many of you have finished it for me.

    …and that was the point.

    A call to arms.

    A call to action.

    A call to freedom.

    Besides, if a Brit punk rocker has clue…

  292. Bob Reed says:

    You make some good points Chris Taylor…

    The institution that most likely is the common denominator of all of those eroded cmponents of the social fabric is the academy and public education in general…

    Bill Ayers, and others who think like him, have slowly gained control of these two institutions. It began in the Academy, under the guise of tolerance of differing ideas, with the whole Euro/Socialist/Communist chic ideology. It spread to other great institutions across our nation and has been slowly disseminated down to our public schools. And we as a society have apparently traded, or delegared, the right to inculcate our own family’s individual values to a public school system that instead instills the state’s values into them…

    I saw a few comments in this thread where the obvious was stated; that many people just don’t know enough about our Constitution, the intent behind it’s wisdom, or the actual history of our great nation. And forget about our national culture. The same forces that have transformed these institutions fundamentally believe in the moral equivalence of all cultures. And in the name of liberty and tolerance have warped those ideals to mean that regardless of how self destructive, or even injurous to society at large, a persons actions are they must be affirmed, accepted, and internalized as a legitimate part of our social fabric…

    These generations of useful idiots don’t realize what they have done; through employing the strategy of divide and conquer they have all but stripped us of any national identity, shared set of basic values and morals, or feeling of national unity with our fellow Americans. They have accomplished for the Marxists their long term goal of destroying our society from within. And in the long arc of prosperous times that we have enjoyed since the end of the WWII, we’ve had the luxury of entertaining their cancerous connivances.

    The irony though is biting. The divisive, vitriolic, and all too often personal political rhetoric and dogma they have employed is actually gotten beyond even their control. To wit: Obama calling for unity and a post-partisan atmosphere; but he himself can’t resist the urge to remind his opposition that he won and to lower himself to criticizing a radio blowhard talkshow host, all in a cunning and conniving way to fill the boogey-man void that Boooooooosh! inconveniently, for them, vacated. And let’s not even talk about the behavior of his followers. The smug and graceless commentary and derision is all too evident here, and on threads all across the blogosphere…

    The result is that at a time when we should most be working together to get out of the fiscal mess we’re in, all that can be proffered are partisan, my-way-or-the-highway plans. And no one honorable to own up to their own part in bringing this mess upon us…

    The Democrats have stoked this politics of personal destruction since the late ’80s; anyone who remebers the circus that was the Bork or Tower hearings can attest to that. And, they’ve been desperately tearing down anything they could for the last 8 years. For many years Obama and friends have sown these ill political winds; now they can reap the whirlwind!

  293. parsnip says:

    the most powerful force for pushing the progressive/liberal agenda is Hollywood

    Carin, any cracker can buy a digital camera, film their own right wing masterpiece and put it up on the internets.

    Owens Mills?

    Isn’t that where Louis Rukeyser filmed his show before PBS threw him under their socialist bus?

  294. B Moe says:

    the most powerful force for pushing the progressive/liberal agenda is Hollywood

    Carin, any cracker can buy a digital camera, film their own right wing masterpiece and put it up on the internets.

    Just when you think it isn’t possible for him to say anything any fucking stupider….

  295. Autoweek is in Owings Mills.

  296. parsnip says:

    What’s the matter, B Moe?

    No faith in PajamasTV?

  297. thor says:

    PJTV, I mean, it’s satire, right?

  298. parsnip says:

    Whatever it is, it costs more than HBO to subscibe to, thor.

    *giggle*

  299. easyliving1 says:

    Whatever the fuck we do, it’s gotta involve a large metal trash can being beaten with a wooden baseball bat.

    Really, really hard and loud.

    This will represent our rage, and the tone must be an homage to Gene Hackman in Unforgiven kicking the “John Bull” English Bob’s ass, along with O. Welles old man destruction scene in C.K.

    The 30 second clip will be funded by some rich patriots after a while, but at first it’s gotta be done and spread around by us.

    We will need to use all of our powers and skills. I can provide the baseball bat and metal trash can.

    Others provide: camera, lighting, set design, actors, director(s), dialogue, and anything else that comes up.

  300. thor says:

    So I’m at the Waffle House and who do I bump into but my favorite half-black dude with jug ears. I says to him “Barack, dawg, are you really the Messiah?” Without blinking an eye, because you can’t blink an eye in the face of a question like that, he says “yes I am, believe it,” going very hard on the consonant in “it.” Itttah, he says it like that.

    Of course the natural follow up, I ask him what I can do to help promote the Ayers-Marxist agenda, and not merely from within the academy and the fourth estate but on the street. “Do you really want to destroy the social fabric of a proud nation?” he asks. I’m, like, “fuck yeah!” Barack looks at me, grabs my forearm, leans toward me and whispers in my ear “moral fuckin’ equivalency,” then politely adding “excuse my French, if you will.”

    Of course, moral equivalency, I think to myself for a few moments.

    “Now you’re a man of the secret,” he goes on, “nothing you can’t handle, you look like you already knew.” The only thing I could think to say was “yeah, Bob, a dude on the internet speaks of ‘the whole Euro/Socialist/Communist chic ideology’ sort’a stuff all the time.”

    Then he asks me “do you mind if I finish my waffle?” in one of those odd questions that requires no answer.

    The Messiah don’t waffle around.

  301. Bob Reed says:

    Well, the world must be coming to an end…

    The French are rejecting an “Obama style” stimulus program in favor of instead stimulating corporate and actual infrastructure investments…

    Prime Minister François Fillon on Monday rejected demands that the French government seek to stimulate consumer spending, rather than follow his plan to stimulate corporate and infrastructure investment, to lift France out of its economic slump.

    “It would be irresponsible to chose another policy, which would increase our country’s indebtedness without having more infrastructure and increased competitiveness in the end,” Fillon said in a speech in Lyon.”

    http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/02/business/frecon.php

    This is the Effin’ French we’re talkin’ about!

  302. Warren Bonesteel says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2ty3b4EBMg

    Finding a way to think outside the box is the problem. That’s why I really enjoy Jeff’s rants and articles. Jeff has been spreading a meme since he began blogging.

    I haven’t been a regular here over the years, but I was visiting and commenting here early on (three computers, four ISPs and ten keyboards ago). He was already doing some important work, here, and I felt no need to contribute much. ‘Sides, at what he does with semiotics, imo, Jeff is the best around. Not suckin’ up. No need to. Just stating the truth of an opinion that I’ve found to be true.

    He’s not hiding in an ivory tower. He’s sharing what he knows with others. Sharing his skills. talents, insights and abilities with others. When you do that, there is no more important work that can be done. At least, he’s made and effort.

    Changing the memes and narratives takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. Many of my own projects took an average of four years to come to anything like fruition. Others are only now starting to pay off. …and all it takes to do that is a good idea…and lots of time, especially when ya have limited resources.

    Thinking outside the box. Looking at things from a different pov. Turn the damn thing inside out, upside down, backwards and sideways, just to make sure that you’re really seeing and hearing what you thought you did.

    Intially, more than eight years ago, I tried the same methods some of you have talked about here. I found that if you didn’t know someone – no influence, power or wealth, wrong school, wrong neighborhood, wrong town, wrong school, etc… – that few would listen or take anything seriously, no matter the wealth of references, resources, information, facts and evidences that were offered.

    So…I had to find another way to make my point. I had to find another path. In the beginning of that effort, I primarily used allegory, metaphor and humor. Meanwhile, I studied infops, propaganda, semiotics, 5th GenWar and memetic engineering, game theory and many related topics. (I prolly shoulda spent more time on my typing skills.)

    At first, I began with just a few emails, phone calls and letters, here and there, tailored for the right person, at the right time, and containing various indicators and signifiers which would later let me know if my efforts had worked or not…for I knew I would see those memes and words and phrases appear in a public venue. They did. The first effort took almost three months to return a ‘hit.’ Today, with a couple of weeks of prep, I can get a return ‘hit’ in a matter of days, a couple of weeks at most. Six Degrees of Separation is a mathematical fact. If I can impact just one person, at just the right time, they will in turn impact others, and those others will impact others, and so on. Eventually, you’ll see an email return to you seven or eight or ten iterations out which will hold a key phrase or paragraph that you initiated. A paragraph in a NYT article. A column in the Atlantic Monthly. Something overheard at the mall… A new blog devoted to the topic… I used and mentored political columnists, politicians, political third parties, social activists, military personnel, PhDs, mothers, laborers, chefs and cultural icons, even a couple of celebrities and businessmen… and not a few bloggers with whom you are familiar. A few of them had no idea they were being ‘used’ or mentored in such a way. Indeed, even many of them with whom I interacted quite openly, well, their own pride prevented them from admitting that I had given them any information or references or resources at all. In fact, most have taken full credit for themselves, later denying that I had any input at all.

    I used humor, emotion, passion, logic, syllogisms, riddles, appeals to vanity, to popularity, to reason, and every other emotional and rhetorical tool you can think of. I’m almost certain I invented a few.

    Remember when the narrative – even from the right – was that Islam was a religion of peace that had been hijacked? Anyone who said differently was considered to be a bigot and an alarmist. How and when did that narrative change and why? Only two other people were speaking out, at the time, and everyone accused them of being whacko conspiracy theory nuts.

    Remember when everyone said that global warming was a man-made affair? How did that narrative change…and why? …an email here, a few references and resources provided over there, a letter to another…each specifically tailored to elicit an certain, very specific, response from a specific individual or a targeted group of people…

    Remember when even the right wing and military Veterans were saying that the Haditha and then Hamdania Marines musta had it coming, because otherwise a court-martial wouldn’t be convened if they were innocent? They didn’t even change their tune after Murtha spoke up, except to claim that he was interfering with a ‘fair’ trial. How did that narrative change…and why? Why did all but one of those Marines walk?

    Issue after issue…day after day…month after month, year after year – sleeping on my keyboard, often enough, running up budget breaking phone bills when I wasn’t – a few words here, a couple of thousand emails there…a hundred phone calls now and then…and the rare letter… each targeted meme contained within a ‘suggestion.’ ‘Sugar makes the medicine go down’ is a useful tool in some cases…

    …like telling a certain illegal immigration activist that he was doing a great job, but to tone down the rhetoric, put on a suit and tie, make it all look very professional, rebuild his website and a lot of people would listen to what he had to say…and when he did, contacting everyone I could think of and telling them about a little project in the American southwest…because until then, even the right wing narrative was that illegal immigrants were only trying to make a living, and they weren’t costing us nothing…nor did they have anything like La Raza on their minds. When people went in the direction I required, I left good enough alone and found better ‘tools.’

    They only became tools at their choice, and at times, with their permission, for many will not do what is right and just and true unless they receive all of the accolades and all of the wealth and celebrity. A bit like Roger…for if you don’t use such a unconscionable man as a tool for good, he will use you as a tool for evil.

    What one man can do when he doesn’t care about who gets the credit or who makes the money or who becomes a celebrity is just astonishing…

    All it takes is a good idea…

    Don’t worry. I use my power for good.

    Tools? all words are tools. Tools don’t care who uses them for what purpose. Humor is a good tool for teaching. Of course, if all you’re here for is the dancing armadillos, you may have entirely missed the point of Jeff’s work.

    NOTE: that I do have a number of credible witnesses to the work I described above, including a lot of independently archived records of that work and of some of the results.

  303. Bob Reed says:

    thor,

    I’m honored to be included in your short story; really it was very creative and amusing…

    But, you know, many a truth is said in jest; so I got that goin’ for me…

    I was typing so fast that I left a few intended sentances out of the third paragraph. I’ll spare everyone and not re-post it though…Maybe…

    So what kind of waffle does Obama prefer..?

  304. thor says:

    You’re making tingles run up my leg, Warren, and they’re not the good kind.

  305. Mossberg500 says:

    I know the moniker says Warren Bonesteel, but I keep hearing Neil(Kneel) Masters.

  306. james wilson says:

    Jeff G.:
    You want a way out. Eisenhower had a point when he claimed plams were useless, but planning indispensable.
    We’ve done the planning; when the shit hits the fan, good men will know it is time to exploit the moment, and understand what to do with it. Even as the citizen has been deiliberately dumbed down, the number of people who have clear understandings has grown.

    The old socialist revolutionaries learned in the New Deal that error and disaster are their friends, and they expect to repeat history. I think they have miscalculated.

  307. thor says:

    He ordered the yes-we-pecan waffle, naturally.

  308. happyfeet says:

    I like reading your comments. You still have work to do on that global warming nonsense though. It causes me no end of consternation even today.

  309. Joe says:

    Andrew Sullivan, quoting Wolcott: “Were there a men’s cologne on the market called Schadenfreude, I’d be judiciously dabbing some on right now, savoring its woody musk.”

    I did not link.

  310. happyfeet says:

    oh. Warren. I like reading your comments, *Warren* is what I should have said. Hey did you know there was a genius on Buffy what was named Warren? He was really smart and he invented Robot Buffy but then he got all his skin ripped off. I had to rewind and watch it again. You don’t see that very often in broadcast network tv.

  311. thor says:

    P’brain prefers oxen musk, and he has super thin skin so it’s gotta sting when he slaps himself down with it.

  312. dicentra says:

    You ungrateful, decadent, soft, sheep fucking whore bait.

    You talkin’ to me? Duud, all I asked was what you’d have us—the PW commentariat—do.

    If your answer is to sign up for the military, then I’m going to have to decline. Not because I don’t believe in serving, but because I’m not fit to serve: I am 45, flat-footed, near-sighted, overweight, and hypometabolic.

    No arm of the forces would take me even to sweep floors.

    I couldn’t read your long missive @ #305. How’s that for irony?

  313. thor says:

    I’m thinking Warren relishes the fray of voices screaming in his head all day.

    He’s satire, right?

  314. Mossberg500 says:

    I couldn’t read your long missive @ #305. How’s that for irony?

    Sounds kinda common sense-y to me. I can’t wait to hear about flag stitching relatives in the DAR.

  315. RTO Trainer says:

    I’m flat-footed, near-sighted, and color-blind.

    Knees are blown out but that happened after I enlisted.

  316. Bob Reed says:

    You make some good points Chris Taylor…
    The institution that most likely is the common denominator of all of those eroded components of the social fabric is the academy and public education in general…
    Bill Ayers, and others who think like him, have slowly gained control of these two institutions. It began in the Academy, under the guise of tolerance of differing ideas, and the cosmopolitan popularity of the secular progressive and Euro/Socialist/Communist chic ideology. It spread to other great institutions across our nation and has been slowly disseminated down to our public schools, through the distribution of like minded Academy graduates throughout the public system. And we as a society have apparently traded, or delegated, the right to inculcate our own family’s individual values to a public school system that instead instills the state’s values into them…
    I saw a few comments in this thread where the obvious was stated; that many people just don’t know enough about our Constitution, the intent behind its wisdom, or the actual history of our great nation. And forget about our national culture. The same forces that have transformed these institutions fundamentally believe in the moral equivalence of all cultures. They equate the liberation of Iraq with terrorist activities, the notion of a high performance benchmark for our public school students with institutional racism, and the enforcement of drug laws merely the latest form of slavery. And in the name of liberty and tolerance have warped those ideals to mean that regardless of how self destructive, or even injurious to society at large, a persons actions are they must be affirmed, accepted, and internalized as a legitimate part of our social fabric…
    These generations of useful idiots don’t realize what they have done; through employing the strategy of divide and conquer they have all but stripped us of any national identity, shared set of basic values and morals, or feeling of national unity with our fellow Americans. They have accomplished for the Marxists their long term goal of destroying our society from within. And in the long arc of prosperous times that we have enjoyed since the end of the WWII, we’ve had the luxury of entertaining their cancerous connivances.
    The irony though is biting. The divisive, vitriolic, and all too often personal political rhetoric and dogma they have employed has actually gotten beyond even their control. To wit: Obama calling for unity and a post-partisan atmosphere; but he himself can’t resist the urge to remind his opposition that he won and to lower himself to criticizing a blowhard radio talk show host, all in a cunning and conniving way to fill the boogey-man void that Boooooooosh! inconveniently, for them, vacated. And let’s not even talk about the behavior of his followers. The smug and graceless commentary and derision is all too evident here, and on threads all across the blogosphere…
    The result is that at a time when we should most be working together to get out of the fiscal mess we’re in, all that can be proffered are partisan, my-way-or-the-highway plans. And no one honorable enough to own up to their own role in bringing this mess upon us…
    The Democrats have stoked this politics of personal destruction since the late ’80s; anyone who remembers the circus that was the Bork or Tower hearings can attest to that. And, they’ve been desperately tearing down anything they could for the last 8 years, no matter how trivial, simply to score cheap political points. For many years Obama and friends have sown these ill political winds ; now they can reap the whirlwind!…

  317. Bob Reed says:

    Drat!
    Sorry for the formatting errors all; but I added some sentances that should reflect the meaning I intended…

  318. Challeron says:

    Warren must be one of the Illuminati….

  319. parsnip says:

    Looks like Obama put a Republican in the cabinet, Bob.

    Now that’s change we can believe in.

    And if it gives the Dems 60 in the Senate, well…

  320. happyfeet says:

    change we can believe in

  321. parsnip says:

    No Lamont today, happy?

    Sockpuppet in the wash?

  322. geoffb says:

    From the link at #324,

    “Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is set to become prime minister under a deal with Mugabe to end a political stalemate that”

    (was caused by Mugabe in the first place)

    “has exacerbated an economic and humanitarian crisis.

    (which was also caused by Mugabe in his quest to remain in power)

    “There was also a fear of the consequences if Mugabe was forced out very fast.
    “If he goes precipitously his supporters may feel threatened and they are the ones with the guns,” he said.”

    The “guys with the guns” will feel threatened? By what, the guys without the guns. Hogwash.

  323. Jeff G. says:

    Sullivan truncated that quote I think. In its entirety it reads, “Were there a men’s cologne on the market called Schadenfreude, I’d be judiciously dabbing some on right now, savoring its woody musk. But since there isn’t, I’ll just do what I normally do this time of evening: remove myself from the restraint of my smoking jacket and knead the fleshy skin surrounding nipples until my plaintive purrs spark a flash of saucy-tongued lust in my ocecat. After that, let no one but a compassionate God judge me.”

    Maybe it’s me, but I think without the full context, it really does lose something.

  324. I weep for those kittehs.

  325. Jeff G. says:

    And well you should, maggie.

    I can has some fancy feast now?

  326. happyfeet says:

    Hey. BRD made a film. That’s out of the box thinking huh Mr. Bonesteel … I’m gonna watch it this weekend. I don’t know hardly anything about Darfur and I doubt I’ll ever go there myself personally.

  327. I can has some fancy feast now?

    there is not enough eyebleach.

  328. Mark Poling says:

    Palin pushes for road to Nome

    http://www.adn.com/news/government/legislature/story/675137.html

    That comes to about $1,000,000 per resident of Nome.

    Sorry to interrupt, but might I ask a question?

    What, besides really long-distance commuters, might a road carry?

    Tanker trucks from? Steel girders, engines, concrete mix, acetylene, etc. to?

    I love leftards. They hear “stimulis” and automatically think of the teat. You’ve been weaned, get over it!

  329. parsnip says:

    Haha, Maggie.

    I think that crap is best sent to Nome by boat.

    If Palin was special, she’d propose something really cool to do with the tax money, like building a Starbuck’s on top of Mt. McKinley.

    That would show her critics!

  330. Jeff G. says:

    There he goes, thinking again.

    His downfall every time…

  331. Warren Bonesteel says:

    Hey! The Illuminati went out of business a long time ago!

    …and I have astro-turf on my deck. Does that count?

    Anyway, someone was looking for a poem…or sumpin’ like that. Anyway, here’s an untitled original, from yers truly…

    —-

    Their testimony’s destroyed,

    by, in, and of themselves.

    One man curses others;

    the other defends gross lies.

    The third has no inkling

    ‘where his loyalty resides.

    They hunt, seeking converts

    ‘midst legions of the damned.

    They would destroy darkness,

    in a world, claimed un-Manned!

    What they do to others,

    in others, they call sin.

    Among the valley’s blind,

    the darkness lies within.

    —–

    We snicker at the story of the three blind men and the elephant, congratulating ourselves that we are not so blind as all that…when, in fact, the three blind men have at least examined something…when we’ve examined nothing at all…not even ourselves.

  332. Challeron says:

    Ah, yes, the three blind men and the elephant….

    And I’m not so sure that all of the Illuminati went out of business: Isn’t that the ancient term for Lightbringer?…

  333. TheGeezer says:

    <Sometimes the only way to change things is to let the ship run aground: people aren’t in the mood to hear that we’re headed in the wrong direction, what with that sweet siren song and all.

    I suggested this earlier up in the thread, though not so elegantly, and was advised that I was in despair, moving towards the acceptance stage, and to simply die.

    A political solution in a democracy cannot suicceed without popular support. If the present population majority wants to engage in economic self-destruction and does not recognize it as such, well, one can write letters to the editor, one may write one’s congresscritter and Senators, one can contribute to what one hopes is a party that represents it, but that is pretty much all one may do.

    Sometimes the ship has to run aground to get everyone’s attention. I only pray that it will still be sound enough to sail again.

  334. N. O'Brain says:

    “Comment by thor on 2/2 @ 11:07 pm #

    P’brain prefers oxen musk, and he has super thin skin so it’s gotta sting when he slaps himself down with it.”

    Did your mother repeatedly drop you on your head as a baby?

    And your insane outbursts on this venue actually, you know, prove who has a thin skin.

    You gormless popinjay.

  335. meya says:

    Who’s got the Warren fake account? Roger Simon? Good show if so. I mean, its good, but not as good as Joe the Plumber in Israel.

  336. How come you never hear about the fourth blind man and the elephant?

  337. B Moe says:

    I think that crap is best sent to Nome by boat.

    A boat from Nome to Fairbanks?

  338. McGehee says:

    Boats work real well for taking stuff to Nome in the winter when the ocean is frozen solid for months at a time.

    Maybe idiot-boy thinks when boats can’t do it they should send supplies by dogsled.

  339. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    A boat from Nome to Fairbanks?

    Or a boat from anywhere to Nome in the winter.

    Winter tends to last for quite some time in those parts, I hear.

  340. MAJ (P) John says:

    B Moe, is it just me, or do I sense another mile high dirt birm or balloon fence coming up soon?

  341. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Whoops, crossed with McGehee, but mine has a pic of Nome’s harbor in the winter.

    Just look at those gentle waves lapping against that soft, sandy beach…bikini babes and cabana boys for every taste…drinks in coconut shell glasses, with little umbrellas in them. Ah…

    This may be the stupidest thing that Nipply has ever said on here (I assume that it was Nipply).

  342. Pablo says:

    B Moe, is it just me, or do I sense another mile high dirt birm or balloon fence coming up soon?

    I’m putting my money on hovercraft of some sort.

  343. B Moe says:

    Boats work real well for taking stuff to Nome in the winter when the ocean is frozen solid for months at a time.

    But see if they keep flying all those supplies in there, all those exhaust emissions will globally warm up the oceans melting the ice and allowing boats to go year round.

    Why does parsnip hate polar bears?

  344. BJTexs says:

    For dicentra, happyfeet and others: C.L.C. stands for Classical Liberal – Conservative.

    Sorry I was back last night working on Mom’s video slide show, which is turning out way cool!

    If I were to add to the list I would channel Bob Reed and throw in Term Limits on Senators and House members. I’m open to suggestions as to the structure of such limits: Maybe 2 terms Senate – 4 terms House? Whatever the form it should be a critical part of the C.L.C. list of principles.

    I’m sorry for the confusion.

  345. McGehee says:

    My preference on term limits for Senators was given in a previous thread: as soon as they’re sworn in, they’re deported and never allowed back in the country.

  346. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    I’d like to see much smaller House districts.

  347. JHoward says:

    Spies, set up a wiki and let’s start sketching this out…

  348. BJTexs says:

    JHoward and Spies: I want in on that. you can E-Mail me info at bjtexs at gmail dot com

  349. happyfeet says:

    Thanks BJ. geoff was right. Also I think California should split into two states. This way when they fail it doesn’t have to be so damn epic all the time. They fail a lot here. Fail fail fail. It’s sort of an eggs and baskets issue.

  350. Sdferr says:

    SBP, your 350 is a truly important sort of change I think. A very big deal if we could bring it about. Simple and small, in a way, but the rippling effects could be huge.

  351. Slartibartfast says:

    I think you Palin supporters are

    I think someone keeps forgetting that Palin is no longer a factor, and can’t be a factor for at least the next couple of weeks, when the 2012 campaigning starts in earnest.

    What are we to think when some folks are obsessively beating on the a former Vice-Presidential candidate? I don’t think we saw folks obsessing over Jack Kemp with quite the verve we’re seeing now. Or, you know, Lloyd Bentsen.

  352. JHoward says:

    Lloyd Bentsen

    The fine Corinthian leather of politicians.

  353. mojo says:

    Spies, JH:

    Why get bogged down in antiquated location-based districts? Surely, in these days of modern times, where somebody lives is pretty much irrelevant. How about profession-based? Or simply population numbers – if you get enough citizens to sign you up as their rep, you’re in. Call it 100,000 verified sigs. Get another 100,000 to sign up, get 2 votes.

  354. Warren Bonesteel says:

    Cool. I knew I could get his in here…even as a non-sequitur…

    The Country of the Blind
    H. G. Wells,
    April 1904
    http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/3/
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Country_of_the_Blind

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