I wrote this:
[…] today’s liberal-Democrats are nothing but opportunistic and increasingly reprehensible tin-plated Macchiavellians; to many of these people, rhetoric trumps truth; spin is paramount, and power is all.
Never before in my lifetime did I find it even remotely possible that our country could fight another civil war. But I’m beginning to think that a (non-violent) civil war is coming—and that, frankly, it needs to happen. How it transpires, I have no idea—though I suspect migration patterns and a strong move to re-affirm federalist principles could provide the groundwork.
Philosophically, we have lost our way. And we’d better find our way back to our founding principles, or—as powerful as we are—we are doomed to slip into nannystate socialism, while a feckless foreign policy permits radical Islam to spread across the globe like the cancer it is.
The post — and its follow up — created a lot of discussion back when it first appeared. Sadly, these days outrage after the fact sells so much better than trying to find trends and hold honest strategic and tactical debates in advance of calamity.
So, you decide. Prescient? Or the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that might cause David Brooks to clutch his pearls, and “pragmatic” conservatives to ban me from polite company?
Discuss!
Okay, I’m confused. How did you write something clearly motivated by racial animus against Obama before he was even on the national scene?
doomed is the key word I think… I’m very disappointed in our little country.
I vote “prescient”.
Sadly, we have jumped the shark as a society and are on an express track to America resembling
the Euro-model socialism that has stagnated economies across the continent, generated long-term double-digit unemployment and destroyed business & capital creation.
American Exceptionalism is no longer in ascendency, and by the time my children reach adulthood, this country will look nothing like it did in my youth. Opportunity, upward economic mobility and, perhaps most importantly, the optimism that has been the hallmark of this country will be collateral damage in the Progressives war on our culture and history.
The “shining city on a hill” has significantly dimmed in the last few days…….
Is power persuasive? And if power is persuasive, how does that persuasion work? If force is seen to subtend all or nearly all (and the distinction is important to discover, I think) political exercises of power, and they who are to be persuaded refuse, what then? Just thinking aloud, is all.
come on brooksey found the founding crease for allah’s sakes
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
“How did you write something clearly motivated by racial animus against Obama before he was even on the national scene?”
Now THAT’s prescient!
A la “pragmatic” conservatives-if they had carried the message earlier and more consistently, we wouldn’t need to be shouting about it now. They missed their chance for collegiality by mewling endlessly about the means, and now we’re stuck with the ends, and people are excoriated for protesting about having it stuck in them and broke off.
Brooks was actually ahead of the curve with his Bobos oeuvre, only it was clear from the outset that his impulse is to fellate them rather than observe them as a cultish oddity. As anyone ensconced in elitist leftlandia knows, these people are deeply into the process of creating an entirely separate culture for themselves where every last consumer and lifestyle choice is rooted in politics in one way or another. You’re either one of them, a brown pet, or you’re the enemy. They live in a bubble and without upping the ante on the civil war talk, there’s no doubt in my mind that their bubble needs bursting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/opinion/23brooks1.html
once a statist always a statist
Both
But Brooks’has kept his pearls clutched since preschool.
Abe left me with a disturbing visual of what it looks like today.
No longer spiritually attached yet is all in favor of more taxes to support more government.
Ever notice how the “nuance” crowd leaps to ridiculous literalism when it suits their purposes or pumps their outrage glands? For instance, today, with the “black rape fantasy cartoon,” which is black “rape” only incidentally, given that the person doing the “raping” happens to be black — and is “rape” only in a metaphorical sense.
mcgruder is right. I got the same reaction when I had Shannon Elizabeth bumping uglies with the Sugar Hill Gang — and that was just as ridiculous a reaction.
Here, the “civil war” description suddenly meant that I was expecting everyone to put on blue or grey hats and command barricades.
No one who pretended to believe that actually did believe it; instead, it just helped them pretend outrage.
Here’s what I wrote at the time in response:
I haven’t changed.
The GOP, in the interim, grew soft and feckless, led by soft and feckless spokespeople who formed a self-sustaining cocoon of networked linkages in order to consolidate their influence.
Some of those same people are today OUTRAGED by what has transpired — though they did nothing to stop it and in fact worked hard to diminish the influence of those who were willing to describe things bluntly.
They’ve suffered nothing for their self-interest and fecklessness. Any wonder we’ve been so fucked?
well said
soft and feckless and remarkably effete … Meghan’s daddy was very nearly our first woman president I think
And here come Brooks and Frum to provide the “enlightened” “conservative” coda.
Makes me gag.
bh asks a heck of a question in #1. If only Caric and his ilk had the intellectual honesty to see that. Such ilk being half the pop right, it seems.
well said.
happy, McCain was sadly the best of that bunch. Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee? They would have lost too.
Have we heard from not-closeted-well-enough “Christo” Buckley on what pah-pah would think of this Health Care business? Or is he too busy recalling the Hasty Pudding days when he had a somewhat plausible excuse for the pretty dresses?
The Tocquevillean notion of Soft Tyranny is being bruited about as a serious question here and there these days. It is a worthy conjecture I think, though it certainly isn’t a settled issue. On the one hand, having the idea may help to alert us to the possibility and thus to measures to prevent it. On the other hand, we have yet to answer what measures and how to apply them to the vastness that is the United States.
Prescient, of course. According to Dr. Sanity it’s called “anticipation”, psychologically – where you see a threat or disaster occurring and so you make a plan or at least factor in what the outcome appears to be, instead of decomposing on the spot and running around like a Faux Liberal – and is obviously otherwise known as a form of rational analysis involving prediction, even “calling a spade a spade”. Any of which make you a “racist” according to the true racists, because they fear it. They fear your power. Thus it should be jammed down their throats mercilessly.
Today I heard a Black Woman on Limbaugh’s show do just this, taking apart Obama directly. Among other things, she called him a “Golden Boy” who was still benefitting from Affirmative Action. As to Healthcare she said, ~”If you want to add a room, you don’t tear down the whole house. All you’re going to get is a smaller, more expensive house.”
Romney was better than McCain I think.
God how sad is that?
McCain and Huckleberry made one heck of a tagteam though, didn’t they hf?
I would feel better if even one socialist country had managed to disassemble it’s bloated welfare state. I just cannot think of one. I can think of plenty that have collapsed in a bloody heap, but none that have quietly returned to self-reliance.
So see you on the barricades, comrades! I am looking forward to showing those Che loving anarchists what a little of the old ‘Ultra-Violence’ really looks like.
From Twitter: “Watching Hannity, he is reporting that McCain says no more cooperation…McCain just called Washington the city of Satan.”
Well well well, Senator McCain. A little late to the realization, ain’t it? Too bad you couldn’t recognize an enemy unless he’s pulling your arms out of your sockets.
How’s that collegiality working for you now?
McCain never was much of one for the brain department.
but none that have quietly returned to self-reliance.
None of them started there.
Not. One. They were all monarchies and stuff.
That, self-reliance, was what Ledeen — to his surprise he said — expressed as the thing he supposed to be standing behind the fact that we have not already succumbed dicentra. Some hidden reservoir of restless insistence that we do things for ourselves and want to have liberty to ourselves in order to do things for ourselves: this made people stand up.
Huzzahs for the new tough talking McCain. And his brethren in the “conservative” blogosphere.
Ggah.
Incidentally, is Darleen a racist misogynist? I can’t say for certain.
READER POLL!
Caric needs an intellect first, then we can work on the honesty part.
Baby steps.
Justified is on … Brb
i think the 10th amendment is a good start
I just vented 4 pages on this not 15 minutes ago.
To those saying ‘we are fucked’, and also if you please as to the nature of 1/3rd of our country feigning outrage at everything and another 1/3rd (Brooks, et al) gasping at everything, I laid out about all I can say on the subject in 2 comments.
http://minx.cc/?blog=86&post=299759#c9210957
http://minx.cc/?blog=86&post=299759#c9211784
The jist being screw electoral politics if we can’t weaponize the GOP. This is not about majorities. I don’t know how it got such a way, but do not confuse modern memes about democracy (and social democracies) with the rational for liberty.
And don’t worry about giving David Brooks the vapors.
They go with the winning horse. Pacifists always side with aggressors. The left understands this. Hence the faux outrage.
lindsey g. has a problem
Sorry. I used to be a Republican, then after you and others bracketed the Islam threat, I lost faith and became a Democrat. Then, when it was recently apparent that Democrats couldn’t shit in a coffee can, I became an Independant. My only regret is not being able to undermine the primaries by voting for the worst repub.
come on a real one like ha /sarc off
someone needs to work on their elevator pitch
the religion of islam doesn’t want to rule the world? news to me.
i saw you and huck in wva taking on romney
I wonder what Dick Cheney is planning right about now.
The problem is that you must define (adjusted for inflation) our founding principals. You also need to define what a liberal democrat is, other than someone you demonize.
Really cynn? That’s all you’ve got?
I guess those Islamists shooting at me and trying to destroy the girl’s school I had caused to be built at Aibat Khil were actually moderates, trying to disagree with American foreign policy in a highly nuanced way…?
Try not to mix up the brake fluid and the boxed wine, cynn.
Yeah, cynn. Not like I’ve ever written anything substantial on the subject. I just call names.
You’ve got my number.
Islamists are the worst
They’re bad alright hf but at least they don’t try to gum you to death, getting drool all over your ankles and such.
Not sure how much rest I’ll get tonight.
The only thing is, in truth, if it ends well for us, I do not think it ends without violence.
People look at the civil war, so geographically isolated, and say they do not see how a civil war could work with the sides so blended. I use to say that.
Look at the Revolutionary War.
Or if it ends poor for us… well then it may end without violence.
Why, prescient, of course.
Watching the news vids on my watch-box, I’m struck by how smarmily self-congradulatory the Dems are right now. They truly think they have every angle figured out, and they truly believe they know better than us what we want and need. Socialism hasn’t been a successful model before, but they’re sure they’ve nailed it here!
Blerk. Such gob-smacking arrogance.
no adjustments for being an idiot
violence!
petition the gov’t
I’ve read you for a couple of years at least. You are smart and worth notice. You’re substantial, no doubt. I object to your offhand remark that
“feckless foreign policy permits radical Islam to spread across the globe like the cancer it is.”
Because it is calling names. Unless I missed middle school. That’s where you lost me.
Well that prescience come true sure as hell pushed David Frum over the edge.
Could’a been living in Canada that did it. Liberal group thought is like on set “Girls Gone Wild” up there.
Plus, all that snow, subjugation, and jazz music.
Or maybe the gay porn. That’s just an assumption David, and, it’s cool, I don’t judge like that.
Whatever.
But…What the fuck are you writing?
You’ve been emailing Andrew Sullivan again haven’t you?
At best, and I’m optimistic about this outcome, we’re going to hit the wall first. This financial joyride cannot continue. The reckoning is coming, soon. Now, that could get bloody in places what with the survival instinct kicking in and all. (Which, we really should legislate the right to food and wipe that problem right out…) But hopefully we’ll turn to the adults, especially the ones that can do math, before any butchers get set loose.
Needless to say, I could be wrong.
evil cunt pelosi
says “expert” on islam
Kashmir: “We are ready for jihad, we are ready for jihad!”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/03/kashmir-we-are-ready-for-jihad-we-are-ready-for-jihad.html
Absolutely correct, Jeff, then as now. I have never been more fearful for our Union as I am today.
America is staring into the abyss. Meanwhile, the abyss is blinking and wiping the sleep out of its eye.
And Cynn, those are principles, not principals.
You really can’t have this conversation without recalling the logical backflips that accompanied the progressive/media freakout when Sean Delonas had a little fun mixing local and national news.
cynn —
I’m sure there were links that fleshed all that stuff out in more detail. Problem is, we’ve switched platforms, so finding the new urls for the older links can be tricky.
Pablo, let me guess: your splatterporn ends with all the poor and silent insignificants on the wall.
You practically beg people to mock you when you say stuff like that, cynn. Don’t you get that?
Newsrouter, I object to your calling pelosi an evil cunt. It’s an insult to feminine naughty bits everywhere.
we’ve got guns too
Nah, poor people will probably fare pretty well, comparatively. They already know how to do it.
from the womb of pelosi springs obamacare
so schip and medicaid are demorat frauds?
They are lamenting how they fought the good fight. Frum on the other hand has fully accepted his fate of being prison bitch.
Sad. McCain would have sold us out on immigration. Romney on health care. Huckabee would have put a Christian spin on it and sold us out on both.
Why am I so bad, bh? How can I fit in?
stop being an idiot
fit in here asshole progg
This neurooter needs to be blasted from space. Rly!!
from the womb of pelosi springs obamacare
Thanks for the image. Now I need to go pour bleach in my eyes for a while.
Welcoming the fight:
At any rate Jeff: I suppose you were prescient. Unfortunately, you were not proactive. And knowing and doing are separate acts.
Conformity and group think, Cynn. Classical liberals are more prone to the disease than most. see also: confirmation bias.
We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.
Heh. Now that’s funny.
Adobe Walls
People are seeing the wisdom of what you have been saying.
Not sure what you’re going on about, M. Bonesteel. I was making half a joke.
Pro-active in what way? I mean, it ain’t like I kept it to myself.
Warren —
The only group think here is the consensus that you are nuttier than a squirrel dump.
“feckless foreign policy permits radical Islam to spread across the globe like the cancer it is.”
Because it is calling names
I think the Marques of Queensbury rules were finally put aside on 9/11, cynn.
“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
It is calling it names. And once you open it up, it’s on. Own it, as you say.
I think the Marques of Queensbury rules were finally put aside on 9/11, cynn.
No, that would have been too sane.
It would be regarded as a ‘disproportionate response’ because then our enemies would have no chance to win. Or certainly not any better then a fair chance (in the case of domestic politics).
Totally unacceptable. We must maintain decorum.
Bonesteel, what ideas are you bringing to the table outside your idiotic repetitive self-vaunting? Anything? I only ask because there is nothing to see.
Please note that I have never offered a gross insult to you or others, here, Jeff. Nor, as you have just done, have I responded with immature emotional response, which you claim to hate in your ideological opponents.
I have – quite rationally – questioned your assumptions and cognitive biases, as well as your epistemology.
“The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control their emotions by the application of reason”
…the age of reason…or the age of neoteny? Social authoritarianism or liberty? From the outside looking in, you represent more of the former than of the latter.
“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
No idea. You got me.
My turn.
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little to no influence on society.”
“Just because you have two hands doesn’t make you a clock.”
…Wait, so I can rearrange my prejudices? Done!!
A stitch in time can probably be profitably exploited by Sarah Palin.
Where?
And yeah, I represent social authoritarianism.
And as my first act as tyrant, I’ll be showing you the door. It used to be I could spare the time to dick around with self-important blowhards like you. Now? Not so much.
Go. Plan your next insurrection. Just don’t put me down as a reference.
That’s not clover, and no, you shouldn’t have put it in your shorts.
There.
I feel like I’ve contributed.
I don’t have an opinion on civil war. Firstly, I see collapse, followed by a moderately lengthy period where the folks who voted Obama and his ilk to power based on the desire to own a biodiesel minibus to commute to their public sector job, and the rest of the country who makes things, builds things, PAYS for things sort out our priorities.
I’d say more, but Tuesday night the long guns get punched. Toodles.
“Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.”
– Yogi Berra
WB, you’ve not made a lick of sense. Your ‘arguments’ aren’t cogently put together, except maybe in your own mind, and you fail to translate them to anything resembling straightforward reasoning.
Socrates won’t be drinking the hemlock tonight on your account.
cynn
this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you but radical Islamists don’t give a flying fig what you think or has “respectful” you are to them. You are kafur. You have 3 choices – convert, submit (and pay jizya) or die.
That political ideology IS a cancer in the body of Western Civilization.
Social authoritarianism or liberty? From the outside looking in, you represent more of the former than of the latter.
don’t pay attention much, do you?
Well, you get your bad self over to fight them, DarDar.
Cynn, why should anyone fight for you? What do you bring to America’s table that’s worth any warrior’s sacrifice? Do tell, we’ll wait.
Progressivism is the cancer; after all, it comes from within.
Clever folks who groove on being just that much more clever… and then reaching for utopia.
With a hammer in their hand…
Islam?
A parasite. Not a pathogen.
I’m curious where my “social authoritarianism” manifests itself. Anyone? I’m willing to be introspective.
That’s when you clean up the shit people leave on your lawn, racist.
Could it be that repressive 2 + 2 = 4 business?
THE TYRANNY OF MATH MUST BE ERADICATED!!!!!
Well, you get your bad self over to fight them, DarDar.
chickenhawk much, cynn? How last century.
you ate the last m&m, you jerk. lol
C’mon, everyone knows it’s social authoritarian to laugh at Warren Bonesteel.
Fag.
(I kid, I kid.)
That might be the dumbest comment I’ve ever read on Al Gore’s golden internet.
I do not think it ends without violence.
This is an ideological war and a political war: ergo, it should be fought with ideas and politics. We don’t NEED to use violence. Here’s why:
If we’re unarmed and merely engaging in civil disobedience, there is no way that the National Guard or any other military or police force will harm us, because they’re on our side. We are they.
It’s one thing to send cops against hippies throwing rocks and overturning cars—cops were glad to beat the tar out of those insolent long-haired freaks—and it’s quite another to send cops against a bevy of soccer moms and grandma in her velour sweatsuit.
However, if we take to the streets with weapons in our hands, that would give Obama the excuse to declare martial law. Although the soldier class has the honor to not follow an illegal or immoral order, they will not disobey orders lightly. If it looks like the wingnuts have finally snapped, they’d reluctantly have to do what it took to stop us.
We’ve still got a LONG way to go before other methods are exhausted, if no other reason than we totally outnumber the SOBs. We might be behind the curve as far as playing hardball, but we can catch up fast enough to beat them.
We did it with the Nazis and the Japanese in WWII: we can do it this time. We have the numbers and the determination.
We will prevail.
“feckless foreign policy permits radical Islam to spread across the globe like the cancer it is.”
Because it is calling names.
NO, it’s an analogy. It’s also “calling a spade a spade” and “identifying evil before it fully metastasizes” (see what I did!) and “realizing that euphemisms for THE ENEMY don’t soften the enemy’s resolve to see us dead.”
If we wanted to call names, we’d use “towelhead” and “camel jockey” and other gratuitous insults.
You go, ragers.
You first, ostrich.
Dicentra, I admire your pluck.
But you need to take away a few things from your scenario of the future. Jobs, reliable communication, functioning economy.
Stuff like that. Then imagine your future.
*exits whistling*
(offstage whisper) wolverines…
(That’s for cynn.)
I’ve been sad, scared, nervous and disgusted over the last bit of time. But rage? Nope. Calm, clear, and focused.
Can’t wait to see what the sun brings, cynn. Every day is a gift.
Unfortunately, you were not proactive.
TRANSLATION [a little trick I learned from Charles]: You didn’t climb to the 6th floor of the book repository and finish off the SOB when he drove by in the convertible with his fashionable wife.
But you need to take away a few things from your scenario of the future. Jobs, reliable communication, functioning economy.
Yes, I know. It’s all a matter of the timeline. We might repeal this monstrosity before the economy collapses, or the economy could bottom out first, making procedural issues moot.
But then, we can just hunker down where we are and not worry about the federal gubmint, because it won’t so much exist.
At least, not in a form we would be compelled to recognize. Maybe that Russian guy was right a few years back: maybe the U.S. will split into parts.
As long as I can live in one of the good parts, what do I care?
As long as I can live in one of the good parts, what do I care?
And Texas is already like a whole other country.
Violence over domestic political disputes is unlikely simply because we haven’t the psychology for it, (though if forced to rediscover that psychology in a serious pinch, we no doubt can, if we’ve time and aren’t eliminated first). But as things stand, generally speaking, the mind set just isn’t there.
Most people are ready to assert that there is too much violence in our society, seeking still less of it(!), little realizing that we already live in the least violent society in the history of mankind.
Which is why the disjunct between the militarily experienced among us (who have seen the older world now long left behind) and those of us lacking any such experience.
No sweat.
Now. What value is there in being polite to radical Islam? What’s to be gained?
Unless there’s a substantive answer to that, I think I’ll continue to prefer honesty.
“Aryan racist” isn’t a gross insult?
I’ll slink away now.
I watched V, and it must be a parody of the Obamaphiles. Is it just me?
“Sadly, these days outrage after the fact sells so much better than trying to find trends and hold honest strategic and tactical debates in advance of calamity.
So, you decide. Prescient? Or the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that might cause David Brooks to clutch his pearls, and “pragmatic” conservatives to ban me from polite company?”
It’s not “these days”, rather, that is the course of human history. It has never taken vast majorities to turn tides (some estimates tell us that roughly 1/3 of the colonists actually supported Revolution)… it is also difficult to give posterity much thought whilst in the midst of action.
The key is, I think, that “the people” tend to rally ’round the flag – that is, once the movement has coalesced, complete with hierarchy, people will come (said in the voice of Terrance Mann). We’re seeing some form of this today in the “Tea Party” movement.
This leaves the “David Brookses” issue which, IMNSHO, is a level of comfort, nothing more. The “conservative pragmatist’s” world view is upset when the ragged masses begin to shake the timbers, rattling the cocktail glasses & trampling the grass around the fairway. I pity the “compassionate conservatives” in a fashion – it must be difficult to navigate such a narrow path between the occasional victory to placate the masses yet not to be bold enough to enrage the Left’s power structure.
I don’t pity them that much, though. Guess I’m banned from polite company (and Crawford).
You’ve been emailing Andrew Sullivan again haven’t you?
54.Comment by Pablo on 3/23 @ 8:30 pm #
The only thing is, in truth, if it ends well for us, I do not think it ends without violence.
At best, and I’m optimistic about this outcome, we’re going to hit the wall first. This financial joyride cannot continue. The reckoning is coming, soon. Now, that could get bloody in places what with the survival instinct kicking in and all. (Which, we really should legislate the right to food and wipe that problem right out…) But hopefully we’ll turn to the adults, especially the ones that can do math, before any butchers get set loose.
Needless to say, I could be wrong.
Depends on how many people feel backed to the wall. That’s gonna depend on what congress does between now and November.Nothing left to lose and all that.
Me? I’m gonna dump a bunch of tea bags on the door step of Bill Fosters office.
Name calling… just when I think I have heard it all… I guess all those assholes in AQ and the JAM who were killing innocents, shaking people down for money, raping, torturing might get offended should we point out their ostensible ideology or motivations to do such. And the Talib and HIG who burned schools, killed people who were guilty of shopping in the bazaar or some other heinous crime… well, we wouldn’t want to question the theology that justified that… might be accused of middle school name calling.
25 years of protecting and serving people that think like that can wear a body down.
Rusty – I wish you could have read the e-mail I sent to good man Foster…. Let me know when you’ll be there – St. Charles office?
Hey – has the civil war already begun? treasury bonds may be the most potent weapons in the arsenal, and international foes may use them most effectively against us. But I guess that is no longer a civil war, eh?
Prescient? Hardly. Go back and read just about everything you wrote about the Iraq war. What’s the opposite of prescient?
As far as the civil war goes, I say bring it on. Let’s just divide America into Right and Left like they did with India and Pakistan. We’ll take the cities and the coasts and the Red Staters can have those. Nice knowing ya and have a nice trip. I’m already home, thanks very much. Just about every decent place to live in America is about 80%.
Kyle successfuly maintains his 100% douchenozzle 100% of the time status. Yay, Kyle!
Go back and read just about everything you wrote about the Iraq war.
You mean the part where we were going to win?
We did win, Kyle. Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?
I think you’ve got your choice of Berkley, San Francisco, Madison, and Detroit. In which do you reside, Mr. Kyle?
We won? Really? ÇThat’s an outrageously generous use of the verb “to win.” I’d hate to see what you call losing.
“douchenozzle”
How long did it take the roomful of monkeys banging on keyboards to coin that word or did you do it all by yourself? Where are your parents? You shouldn’t be on the internet without supervision.
What’s your metric, Kyle? Compared to say – WWII?
Yes, Kyle. Yes, we did. It’s a big fucking deal. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it.
The problem is that morons like Pablo don’t know the difference between opinion and news. This is an opinion piece in a conservative newspaper.
It does get confusing, what with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, the Post, et al. making the same error.
Shorter Kyle:
Reality is what I say it is, dammit!
This is an ideological war and a political war: ergo, it should be fought with ideas and politics. We don’t NEED to use violence. Here’s why:
I think that’s pretty rosy. I do worry that we indeed do not have the psychology of violence. Not just physical, but even mental, which is needed.
If you go the civil disobediance route, you still have to accept violence as not so horrible – violencee being done to you.
I do not see the soccer moms of this country saving us from the police. Sure, there’s plenty of good guys in the military and guard… that don’t mean nothin. Many a good man has done many an atrocious thing under orders. Most of those guys are 19. And as for police? Well, there’s plenty of not-so-good guys in the police too.
I am, in horrible truth, not terrifically worried about violence. I am worried that it’s inconcievable. That it’s ‘never, ever necessary’ psychologically. That we’ve not even the capacity for it.
Without or without such a thing breaking out, any attempt to avoid it strikes me as being like trying to negotiate with Iran once the military option is ‘off the table’. It’s a farce. Or negotiating with hostage-takers without any SWAT.
Diplomacy without the backing of said force is like a piece of paper currency from some defunct and deposed government. It’s worthless.
So soccer moms camp on the mall? So what. Let them camp. In a year or two, or 5, they’ll go home. And until then they are no threat to anyone. Just annoying traffic congestion.
And that is assuming the soccer mom contigent doesn’t just up and leave when police ask. The national guard doesn’t have the balls to wack a soccer mom with a billy club? I don’t think the soccer moms have the balls to take a billy club to the head. If the guard will back down sooner then that, the moms will back down sooner still.
I think the demonstration of capacity, at least, shall be necessary because they do not believe we have it. Look at Pelosi cackle. We are seen as a paper tiger.
I am not sure they’re even wrong.
Is it a fact or opinion when ABC describes Frum as a “prominent conservative”?
What were the other names that “Kyle” has posted under? Because we have seen this performance art before. These community based reality idgits sure are full of themselves.
I’m inclined to agree with Entropy.
They’d have no problem using violence against you, and the Media would lie about you having Nazi memorabilia or a stash of kiddie pron and an “arsenal” consisting of a pump shotgun, O/U, hunting rifle, and two handguns in order to whitewash what they did to you.
You don’t like Joe Biden quotes if they’re in the WSJ, Kyle? Is that your argument? You’ll note, right there in the first paragraph, that they hat tip CNN as the source of the Joe Biden quote. Perhaps the first two lines of the piece wore you out and you didn’t make it to the second paragraph. Steel yourself, Kyle. Try again. You can do it.
He may be a moron, but he’s their moron, and they’ll use him how they please. He’s there to get the white blue collar Scranton vote, not for any substantive purpose.
Sure looked like winning to me, in Iraq – but then again, I was only with the IA 14th DIV as they finished off the JAM, timely help from the 1st IA QRF… You want to see a loss? Try finding the Ba’ath Party Headquarters, and go ask for the current Hussein who is ruling the country. I do believe that Saddam, Uday and Quasy are unavailable to assist you.
Oh, and if anyone thinks the National Guard would hit soccer moms must be thinking of a different nation’s National Guard. Any of my soldiers even thought of that, I’d disarm them and send them somewhere else. It is 2010 folks, not 1968.
Pablo – until MediaMatterz tells Kyle that we won, Kyle will maintain that the illegal war of choice for oil was lost by Bush.
If you applied their metrics to any previous war considered a “win,” they would be considered losses as well. This, with our ROE having been much more severely restrctive, and having spared many more civilian lives than in those previous wins as well.
Anyone know where I can find an M2 Browning .50 cal?
There’s three armed groups in every Democratic stronghold. The National Guard, as John notes, is not going to turn on the masses. Some cops will, but there’s still an awful lot of good guys in blue. No, when the Chicago Boys need muscle to use against the soccer moms, they need only tell their friends on the street that the soccer moms are disrespecting them.
I mean really, have none of you guys ever seen Robocop?
Thanks again, LTC John. :)
But who’s a guy gonna believe, you and Omar Fadhil and Joey Hairplugs, or Kyle?/i>
I’m sure you can imagine how confusing that could be.
He says if one of the men did that, he’d send them somewhere else, but that’s not so. If some shmuck did it now, sure.
But if the government ordered the guard to disperse a crowd that resisted it would be different. If he would not comply he’d be removed from command and sent somewhere else, and another appointed to do it.
And when the 19 year old kid marches in to peacefully remove the mob under orders, and suddenly discovers the mob shall not be peacefully removed (again – if the mob does not accept violence it’s moot. If they’re convinced they can avoid it, the threat of it will remove them, convincing them that remaining wasn’t necessary and could be avoided), when he’s suddenly discovered he’s in the middle of an angry looking mob shouting at him and waving placards?
All of which is besides the point. It would not be the national guard.
It would be DC police. Of them, I have no doubts.
Maybe it is because I live in Chicago. But for this reason I know not all cops are good cops.
You can say that it is one thing for cops to beat hippies, and another to beat soccer moms.
You know when the Tea Party went to DC, I read several interviews with cops remarking how astonished they were? That when they saw a protest happening, they had prepared themselves for the usual protest? They were outright shocked the place was actually quite polite and orderly and clean?
Are we so sure the cops even know the difference between a soccer mom and a hippie anarchist? Especially if the soccer moms start getting less polite and orderly?
The National Guard would not be necessary unless the crowd had already turned to violence themselves, which we are stipulating we may avoid.
And if we are to avoid violence… they do not need so many. 50 or 100 cops can unleash a great deal of violence on a 50 thousand people if there is no fear of the 50 thousand fighting back.
Which again, is our stipulation. That we can refrain from violence or even run from it.
So even just a hundred cops, once they break out the rubber bullets and tear gas. If the crowd just stands there, they’ll take quite a bit of violence upon themselves. If they disperse then they disperse. They are dispersed.
To be at all remotely serious, our hypothetical protesters must commit to violence. Either to do it, or to endure it, or both, but not neither.
Else in enough hours, 1 damn man (who strikes repeatedly with impunity) can drive the whole lot off.
So I do not see how it is avoidable.
If they dispatch a crowd of gang bangers or la raza to deal with a crowd, they may not be able to aim, but does a crowd much larger then a barn, that does not accept the necessity of violence, sit and get shot at for 3 hours?
I am not calling for anyone to go out and do violence upon anyone.
But what can be done if we do not accept that violence shall necessarily be done?
It’s a war of ideas and politics but it’s a material world. The same way the left can win the ideological and political debate on an issue, but that does not mean the sky rains skittles and unicorns.
The only way to possibly avoid violence is to work through the system. Then your weapon is not a crowd of protesting soccer moms but John Cornyn and Lindsay Graham. Good luck with that.
You do not need 60% of the country with you to win liberty. But you do need at least 60% of the country with you to win liberty with those 2 shmucks. What shall we do if we find we don’t have 60%? Maybe I’m just a pessimist but I don’t think you do. I do not know if people need more time to realize this or what… but “What then?” strikes me as a very important question.
Convince me I am wrong if you can and I’ll be much happier.
Entropy, I agree that in Chicago, you’re well and truly fucked. You can console yourself knowing that your example will be an inspiration for the rest of us.
In St. Paul, we have plenty of bad cops, but not so many that they’ll be able to terrorize the citizenry. There are just too many decent guys with badges, and I have to believe that even the biggest asshole would have some hesitation before unleashing violence on his friends and neighbors. I imagine the same to be true in most cities that haven’t long since been taken over and debased by the Democrats.
Maybe it would be best if our friends in Chicago, Detroit, Philly, and the like just laid low until the rest of us can get in there to mount a rescue operation.
I don’t understand why you fuss about meaning and intentionalism all the time and then say something stupid like “tinplated machiavellis.”
that perception of Niccolo is a corrupt meaning.
Niccolo was a genius about human nature and a pragmatist who was actually tortured for his beliefs.
You are just pissy because the interwebs and the Age of Information have rendered conservative ideology obsolete and shown us the the true face of raw Kylonist populism.
This is Obama.
and this….
Are you ashamed yet Jeff?
Ashamed of our one great country, nishit. Ashamed on behalf of you, as you have shown no capacity to feel that emotion. Fuck you and your ashamed bullshit. A return to first principles? The Founders would spit in your face.
Maybe it would be best if our friends in Chicago, Detroit, Philly, and the like just laid low until the rest of us can get in there to mount a rescue operation.
heh.
What “new things”, you nitwit?
We can see Europe quite well from over here. Some of our ancestors went to a bit of effort to get away from there.
First, that’s a common usage for “Machiavellian.” Me, I happen to believe The Prince is a parodic work, and I wrote a paper on it that a major Renaissance scholar wanted me to publish in Renaissance Quarterly (I never bothered); but that doesn’t change the common usage, and it is the common usage of the term that I referenced here. Your bringing up intentionalism in this instance shows me you haven’t a fucking clue what I’m speaking of; your failure to understand how contextual uses for a term can vary depending on intent reinforces that fact.
Second, your griefer act is beyond stale. We get it. Conservatives are evil obsolete racists, and progressives are the future.
You have now evolved past this website. Good bye.
…shown us the the true face of raw Kylonist populism.
This is pretty good, for Nishi. Not only does she work in some solid Battlestar Galactic cred (most people spell the guy’s name “Cylon”), but she also delivers an ultimatum, given that Cylon’s followers were killed after having been promised a fair hearing.
Trust us, Nish — we’re not submitting peacefully to your tribunal, no matter how earnestly you promise fair treatment.
I am referring to Kylon of Croton, the populist that burned down Pythagoras’ School for Leaders and raised a mob of farmers to chop up the teachers with scythes.
Jeff, you are talking about guns and OUTLAW while some WEC hag on the texas schoolboard is writing Thomas Jefferson out of the history books.
The Founders would have spit on the teabaggers and their succession talks and oppression of citizens.
You win.
There is nothing left of the Jeff Goldstein I admired so much.
It must be fun to playact as though Obama stands as some great innovator of a new political order deserving of enactment in the stead of the political order our founders intended. Were Obama such a man, one might think he would possess actual powers of persuasion, a capacity to lay out an argument and sway masses, rather than, as we have manifestly seen, drive people away from his plans the more, the longer he drones on.
This playacting fun must be intense indeed to power such an illusion, a dangerous illusion based on a obsolete and discredited leftist worldview.
I haven’t changed, you miserable cumstain.
You have just tried to turn me into something I’m not so you can play griefer on my site. If some “WEC hag on the texas schoolboard is writing Thomas Jefferson out of the history books,” I’d be against said hag — just as I’ve been against progressives who’ve tried to bowdlerize literature and history to fit their politically correct view of the world.
I’m a real person, not your cartoon. I am not defined by you. If you want to pretend I’m now some social conservative or what not, fine. Just don’t do it here.
And its “secession,” you fucking moron.
Just because happyfeet sucks your dick doesn’t mean I will.
I don’t do that and I don’t hardly ever agree with her she just doesn’t seem like a miserable cumstain to me though at all.
Perhaps something not from a Balloon Juice rant. My bold.
That debate is over. You lost. And Jefferson remains in Texas’ history curriculum. Because of the evolution. lulz.
You’ve got interesting lenses, ‘feets. How about attention whore? Does she seem like that to you?
And as far as the civil war goes, I’d like to hear of a conservative city that doesn’t suck. Sorry, life is too short to live in a shithole like Dallas or…what else you got? Alabama? North Dakota? Call me crazy but I like things like bike paths, public transit, and libraries.
So the measure of living today is the measure of a city, and not a life lived? No damned wonder you and your political comperes are so pathetic.
So soccer moms camp on the mall?
Standing around on the mall doesn’t fit my definition of civil disobedience. Better to occupy office and buildings. Or to persuade all the truckers to go on strike until they repeal the Obamination.
Truckers are on our side, mostly. We could grind this country to a standstill if we wanted.
IF being the operative word, of course.
They’d have no problem using violence against you, and the Media would lie about you having Nazi memorabilia or a stash of kiddie pron and an “arsenal” consisting of a pump shotgun, O/U, hunting rifle, and two handguns in order to whitewash what they did to you.
True dat. They’re already portraying us as a dangerous mob that must be stopped. I guess we’ll have to make sure we provide actual danger, then.
“So the measure of living today is the measure of a city, and not a life lived? No damned wonder you and your political comperes are so pathetic.”
I don’t even know what the hell you are talking about (not that this is unusual). A good part of your “life lived” has to do with the man-made landscape that surrounds you (unless you live in a mud hut like the unabomber–probably your fucking role model).
bike paths, public transit and libraries … all tools of the indigent and/or unemployed.
ehh I prefer full employment.
I don’t even know what the hell you are talking about (not that this is unusual). A good part of your “life lived” has to do with the man-made landscape that surrounds you
No it doesn’t, unless bus drivers, librarians and bike path repairmen occupy the first 2 pews at your funeral
There’s three armed groups in every Democratic stronghold. The National Guard, … cops … their friends on the street.
Actually, it’ll be the purple horde of SEIU union thugs. They’ve done it before; they’ll do it again.
It’s a war of ideas and politics but it’s a material world.
We don’t need to use methods that involve large crowds in public places. That’s how the LEFT does things, and we’re just not crafy and underhanded enough to think of other ways to do it. So we imitate THEM.
It will be up to us to figure out a way to put the screws to the Social Democrats and their Leftist overlords such that there’s no crowd for the National Guard to disperse.
That you don’t know what I’m talking about probably ought to surprise me, but doesn’t. That you would proceed to assert your superior understanding of what you don’t understand in spite of your lack of understanding doesn’t surprise in the least. That you would not bother to attempt to understand, even less.
And as far as the civil war goes, I’d like to hear of a conservative city that doesn’t suck. Sorry, life is too short to live in a shithole like Dallas or…what else you got? Alabama? North Dakota? Call me crazy but I like things like bike paths, public transit, and libraries.
What conservative cities?
But, you know what, I’ll grant you one thing. Liberals are good for getting all those benefits into a city. But, they need to be balanced out by conservatives to keep things under control. Detroit was a MODEL liberal city. It got federal dollars for “central” planning. It’s been going to the shitter ever since.
Kyle can have Detroit, Baltimore, Philly and other garden spots of the world. I’ll stick with my little patch of Illinois (NOT Cook or Madison Counties)
Call me crazy but I like things like bike paths, public transit, and libraries.
I never use public transit. I ride a motorcycle, not a bicycle. When hiking, I never stick to the path.
Now libraries… libraries I love.
Hell, I have one of my own. The only problem is I’ve ran out of shelving and book cases…
I like bike paths as much as the next person.
But I also like a fiscally responsible government that doesn’t decide they need to reward the slacker lifestyle with benefits for life and thus swell the ranks of unproductive citizens.
I like a government that rewards business folk who hire people and bring opportunity and growth.
Wanna know why Detroit’s suburbs got such a boon in the 80’s and early 90’s? Businesses FLED the city and it’s taxes. 3% income tax on residents, 1.5% income tax on anyone who worked in the city.
So, people fled. Way to kill a city. Liberal greed for all those bike paths. Which, now no one uses. Or, in Detroit’s case – the People Mover.
These idiot democrats want to use tax refunds as leverage for compliance.
Ummm – don’t overpay on your taxes people. Then when the return is done and you owe a couple dollars, say come and get it.
Tax revenues plummet. “Check with me in 6 months.” Says Obama. Good one.
How come I get the distinct impression that Kyle is a teenager?
As a Dallas resident, Kyle can kiss my ass. Oh and BOOOOSH! is here. Terrible thing that, nitwit.
Tocqueville on Kyle’s government and aims:
Does this mean that some village in WoW they just got their virtual idiot/griefer back?
wOOt for the lulz!
And as a Lubbock resident and former San Antonio resident, Kyle can kiss my ass, too. I doubt that limp-dick has ever set foot anywhere in the state of Texas, given his ignorant comment.
Dallas isn’t even a real city. It’s just a bunch of strip malls linked together by highways. The downtown is a joke and hardly anyone lives there. Rural Texas isn’t bad. Austin is about the only place in Texas where I would choose to live (a very liberal city).
Dallas is nice I used to live there and also Houston is nice and Austin and the little towns also and El Paso is nice and San Antonio is a fun place and I like Corpus.
Bwhahahahaha, yeah Kyle, sure. Thanks for the laugh.
Kyle you ignorant slut. Hardly anyone lives in any downtown anywhere. Even in Manhattan.
even Corey didn’t live downtown he lived with his mom
Except that you’re not liberal, Kyle. That’s what you don’t understand, Kyle.
I was talking with my friend last night, and I pointed out if the conservative types left the cities and went to the farms it would be quite easy for the city people to suddenly not have enough food. How many farmers do you think are progressives? I doubt that many of them qualify.
Small towns can survive just fine without cities, but cities cannot survive without the efforts of country folk.
Farming is hard work, but I would do it if the alternative was to be a slave to the state which is where we’re headed if the progressives have their way.
We will soon learn whether the Congress is answerable to us or we are answerable to them. That is the question pending on the next election. They have chosen. Now it is our turn to choose.
So Kyle is a bookworm who rides his bike to the library every day. He can’t actually read above the 8th-grade level, because he attended a Democratic-controlled school district. Nor can he get a job, because the Bike Path Tax (and associated other taxes, fees and assessments) driven out all the employers. Not that he’d be qualified for a job in the first place, given his education (see above).
So now, Kyle rides a bike (bought by his parents) on a poorly maintained bike path (built before the businesses left) to get to the public library (supported by State funds gathered from areas outside Kyle’s wonderful city). There he sits, surrounded by books he can’t read, filled with ideas he’ll never be able to understand.
So instead, he sits at the public terminals, trolling Protein Wisdom when he’s not busy whacking off to Kos and Anime.
Racists. Clearly the measure of any great city is bike paths and buses.
The measure of any great city is whether the buses are allowed on the bike paths.
There are no great cities.
“…absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild.”
Heh.
In Miklagaard you could ride a chariot around right atop somebody’s cap or in his left pocket and they were none the wiser.
Currently, we are answerable to Congress, and they have absolutely no shame. They know their majority will be gone in November, and they will pass every piece of shit legislation they can.
The fellow from Americans for Prosperity who visited the B-Cast yesterday cranky-d lays out a picture assuming (more or less) that very little legislation will be moving through Congress to the President for the time being. The President, he says, has schemes prepared to detour around the Congress. See his chart for details.
The man himself, speaking.
Damn. Glenn makes an excellent point on his show today: the radicals of the past are now THE MAN, and now they’re casting US as the bomb-throwing radicals.
Because America doesn’t side with bomb-throwers. So they’re egging us on, passing all the radical legislation they can to piss us off but good.
Do not do anything but get on your knees. As we turn to Him, He will turn to us. This is His land. Let it play out His way. Do not pick up anything… except your soul. They need you to become radical.
Fuck that. Get off your knees, and pick up some Squid™ brand torches and pitchforks today!
I dunno, sometimes I think I may always have been radical and there’s just no helping it. On account of the rootedness.
Do not do anything but get on your knees. As we turn to Him, He will turn to us. This is His land. Let it play out His way. Do not pick up anything… except your soul. They need you to become radical.
Hmm. I’m kinda glad that some people on the Eastern seaboard in the mid-to-late 1700’s picked a few things up and caused a little ruckus. Not that the people in charge today care, but still…
Glenn is wrong. If we roll over and take it like the progressives are dishing it out, they will keep hammering away until they achieve their Utopian goal.
We have to resist. I does not have to be violent resistance, but it has to BE resistance. Ultimately, though, if non-violent resistance fails, violence will be a last resort, because the progressives will fight in whatever ways they can, short of violence, and they hold most of the cards right now as they control the narrative.
I don’t believe G-d will interfere in what government we have, as free will is in play. We created this mess, we have to fix it. If I have to go “radical” then I guess I will, but that will probably be years down the road if it happens, after all other options have been tried.
I’ve spent the last week telling Nishi the same thing.
Nothing “hipper” than being the Man.
God’s kinda busy right now, anyway. He’s got people counting on Him to make (or miss) free throws.
Having said that, I disagree with Beck. You do what you have to do to regain your freedom before it’s a memory, and the newest entitlements become entrenched.
Glenn has a contact at the White House. A mole. He’s not speaking idly.
We ARE being set up. Notice how they’re painting us as dangerous radicals, foaming-at-the-mouth racists, bomb-throwing kooks. That’s what the Nazis did at first: THEY vandalized and assaulted, then accused the Jews of doing those very things.
Yesterday, the Ann Coulter speech in Ottawa had to be cancelled. They had warned HER about her incendiary speech, but 2000 students with sticks and rocks surrounded the building.
The Oministration will use any excuse to declare martial law or otherwise crack down.
He’s even asked us to stop claiming to be a fan of his, because he recognizes that he’s been made out to be the Most Dangerous Man in America and he doesn’t want us to get hurt when they take him down.
He’s not saying all of what he knows. Glenn has been batting about .875 on his predictions, but it’s not because he’s extra smart or clairvoyant—it’s because he has informers. People tell him stuff. People on the inside of everything.
I’m listening to his second hour: “We will be saved by what we do not do; we will be destroyed by what we will do.”
Glenn is no pantywaist when it comes to fighting this ideological battle. He’s as willing to Tell the Truth regardless of the cost as anyone. Maybe more, because he’s not an obscure commenter on a blog, he’s recognized all over.
I don’t believe G-d will interfere in what government we have, as free will is in play. We created this mess, we have to fix it.
And He’s always promised that if we turn to Him, He’ll help us out of our mess. Not painlessly, of course, and we’ll have to repent of our foolishness and arrogance (and it may take some really harsh conditions to purge us of our stupidity), but that has always been the deal. We return to Him, He’s got our back. Ultimately.
God’s kinda busy right now, anyway. He’s got people counting on Him to make (or miss) free throws.
I stand corrected.
Ladies and gentlement, we’re on our own.
um, as a Rowlett resident I would say that Dallas ain’t conservative. Don Hill could not be reached for comment.
What I don’t understand is why all the leftards aren’t clutching their pearls and losing sleep worried about what they must be doing to make all of us so angry.
Having said that, I disagree with Beck. You do what you have to do to regain your freedom before it’s a memory, and the newest entitlements become entrenched.
He’s not asking us to sit back and take it; he’s saying that we have to avoid actual violence. We have to NOT become the bomb-throwing hippies, because the bomb-throwing hippies always lose. And they do. Terrorists and radicals always lose in the end. The current occupants need to remember that.
Part of what we have to do is prepare ourselves for the whole ship to sink, and rapidly. Get our houses in order, stock up on necessities, sink our soon-to-be-worthless currency into Useful Goods (precious metals, mortgage pay-down, food, clothes).
His big thing is education: relearning the history that was whitewashed out of the textbooks, especially the history of progressivism. Relearning the Founding values that are being “put under erasure.”
We CAN fight back, but there’s no reason we have to use the FAILED techinques that the hippies used: mass protests, riots, bombings, etc. We have other means at our disposal.
I’m just frustrated because, again, I don’t have a scheming mind.
But resistance is NOT futile, and I WILL resist.
What I don’t understand is why all the leftards aren’t clutching their pearls and losing sleep worried about what they must be doing to make all of us so angry.
Maybe a few choruses of “Allahu Ackbar” would do the trick?
Hubris B Moe, they are the playthings of Hubris, who owns them entire. Let us be the other thing coming.
sdferr:
Wow. Well said. “Let us be the next thing coming.”
Great slogan. Spread it around.
@ThadMcCotter The most dangerous special interest is Big Government and President Obama is its lobbyist.
When the levee breaks, a devout man climbs up onto his roof and prays for deliverance. His next-door neighbor is climbing into his fishing boat. “Come with me,” he says, “I have room in my boat.”
“You go on,” says the believer. “I have faith in God, and He will grant me deliverance.”
Hours pass, and the water climbs up to the man’s waist. A sheriff’s deputy floats by in a patrol boat, and throws the man a line. “Hold on, and I’ll pull you into my boat!”
“You go on,” says the believer. “I have faith in God, and He will grant me deliverance.”
More hours pass, and the water is up to the man’s neck. A Coast Guard helicopter approaches and hovers overhead. They lower a basket for the man to climb into.
The believer waves them off, and thinks to himself, “I have faith in God, and He will grant me deliverance.”
The waters climb still higher, and sweep the devout man to his death. Arriving at the gates of Heaven, the man finds his faith broken, and confesses to St. Peter that he feels betrayed at God’s indifference.
Saint Peter, looking exasperated, replies, “Well, after the helicopter, we kinda ran out of ideas.”
I don’t know, dicentra. I think we’re dealing with cowards assuming the role of bullies. A punch in the face might remind them individually that they are indeed cowards — and that what was holding us back is nothing more than our civility.
See, eg, “Coward of the County.”
ThadMcCotter is the kind of congressman they should all aspire to be.
I think we’re dealing with cowards assuming the role of bullies.
No, we’re dealing with cold-blooded sociopaths who now have the power structure of the United States at their disposal. The simpering bloggers, journalists, academics, and most congresscritters who support the sociopaths are cowards assuming the role of bullies.
But you really think Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod and George Soros and Valerie Jarrett and yes, Barack Obama are going to be set back on their heels by our rage and indignation? What “punch” can we deliver that will teach a lesson to those who absolutely will not learn?
The most brutal always rise to the top among the socialists; there’s no reason to believe it’s any different today.
Again, we DO need to fight back, but it’s got to be in a way that does them more damage than it does us, and by us I mean the populace AND the Republic.
I agree with Jeff. The progressives are bullies. We all notice how much the Tea Party people upset the progressives. Just the fact that some of us will no longer take the crap they’ve been handing out and be civil about it scares them.
They count on us not paying attention, and not putting out an argument against them. We have been shown where that leads us.
dicentra, let’s say you’re right and G-d will eventually save us. How many generations will have to suffer first? I would rather fix things sooner rather than later, so at least my brother’s kid’s kids might have a future.
I don’t have that kind of patience any more. You may very well be right, and I have thought that perhaps what we need to do is hunker down and take care of our own and let the nation collapse. I haven’t had any inspiration yet on what to do, so I am trying to figure it out. Right now, I’m on the side of resistance.
He’s not asking us to sit back and take it; he’s saying that we have to avoid actual violence. We have to NOT become the bomb-throwing hippies, because the bomb-throwing hippies always lose.
We can march as peacefully as lambs. The Chicago Boys will put some SEIU goons or unreformed ACORN drones among us, to break windows and rush the cops. Then they’ll declare that we’re too violent to be allowed to march any more. Or to give speeches on university campuses. Or to host talk radio shows.
Then what?
As has often been pointed out about Gandhi, pacifism only works if your aggressor has morals and a conscience.
“Comment by Warren Bonesteel on 3/23 @ 9:12 pm #
Conformity and group think, Cynn. Classical liberals are more prone to the disease than most. see also: confirmation bias.”
Says the moronic conformo-radical.
I can’t argue with hicks who think Applebee’s is a restaurant. Lots of people live downtown, like in every city in Europe. Seattle, San Fran, New York, Chicago, blahblahblah.
And I can’t argue with faux-sophisticates who think their local avant-garde theater troupe is somehow more valuable than the community theater in Olathe. Or who piss on family restaurants but can’t dice an onion to save their lives.
Fuck off back to Chelsea, punk.
Squid – the assumption these assbandits bring with them have no basis in reality. None. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zifr. It never ceases to amaze. Fuck you and your pompous,
arrogant, and fucking wrong assumptions, as well as your delusions of superiority. Take your bigoted ass back ‘neath the rock you crawled out from under.
Oops, that was at you Kyle, you fucking prick.
Friendly fire!
It’s fun being condescended to by people like Kyle. Thanks for the laugh.
Bh – you would have to explain the menu to him at Naha.
“Or who piss on family restaurants but can’t dice an onion to save their lives.”
It’s ignorant turds like you who think that a corporate shithole like Applebee’s is a “family restaurant.” You have let corporate America destroy your shitty little towns and replace everything local with a national chain and you thank them for it. Just what small-town America needs: another Arby’s.
Kyle thinks fusion is eating McDonalds fries with a Whopper. He also thinks that King in the BK ads is cool.
Well, when he moves up from clearing tables maybe they’ll teach it to him, JD.
People like Kyle mistake cultural markers for intellectual capacity or professional success. Because people like Kyle aren’t very bright.
I can’t argue with hicks who think Applebee’s is a restaurant. Lots of people live downtown, like in every city in Europe. Seattle, San Fran, New York, Chicago, blahblahblah.
Yeah, because big cities aren’t chock full of chain restaurants, Fuckface. What’s the number one restaurant in France by the way?
If I paged through my phone book right now I would be willing to bet I couldn’t find a finish carpenter or electrician who wasn’t smarter or better paid than Kyle.
That’s why the cultural markers are so important to him. It’s something to grasp onto.
Ya gotta give ’em credit for ingenuity though: dragging a conversation about disagreement over the political principles of the nation potentially leading the polity towards a soft civil war into a diversionary discussion of the merits and demerits of Applebee’s or its like, that’s kind of clever where it isn’t plain stupid. It keeps everyone from dealing with the serious issues at hand and bonus, it allows Kyle to think about what he’s having for dinner, which may be the best part of Kyle’s day.
I’m guessing Micky D’s but do you know why? Because chain restaurants aren’t a force in France like they are in America. I have been to many cities in the States where you have no choice but to go to TGI Friday’s or whatever. Do you really want your city to be a patch-work of strip malls and fast food joints? Where I live I have a choice at least.
It’s ignorant turds like you who think that a corporate shithole like Applebee’s is a “family restaurant.”
It’s ignorant turds like you who think that they can redefine words away from their common meaning, at this site of all sites. Do a little reading, junior. This is the last place you should try to pull that stunt.
Now, tell me again where disposable income comes from. You know, the stuff that makes it possible for places like MOMA and NOBU to survive. Let me give you a hint: they don’t make their fortunes from paving bike paths.
Kylie your weird obsession with chain restaurants aside, no one except a couple of hipster douchebags call downtown home in any major metropolis. San Fran has neighbourhoods that are seperate from downtown. Take a walk in the financial district of Manhattan after 8pm, its a ghost town. People live in the upper east/west, midtown, village, bowery, Hells Kitchen, SOHO, etc. These are residential parts of the city, and thats why they are not called downtown.
Same with Chicago. Walk around the loop at night. Theres nothing and no one. Heck even the Micky D’s closes at 9pm.
Fucking ignorant tit.
I have been to many cities in the States where you have no choice but to go to TGI Friday’s or whatever.
Name three.
I hate eating at J.T. McPickleshitter’s, so I don’t. I’ve never had a problem finding a local joint to feed me. Name me three cities where you’ve been forced to drink a Flaming Moe, and I’ll name you a decent local eatery in each of ’em.
I suspect you’re as lazy at picking restaurants as you are at debate.
This one should be studied, as it is a wonder it makes it through a day without walking out into oncoming traffic, or forgetting to breathe.
You could learn how the fuck to cook Kyle. That’s what people do elsewhere. Restaurants do not have the same cultural significance, or purpose even, in a lot of places that they do in some urban areas. As a New Yorker who eats in more high end restaurants in a month than a fuckwit like yourself could afford in ten years, I find your insularity rather pathetic.
And no one here gives a fuck about your culinary choices.
Douchebag.
Kylie is reduced to his bad breath as defence against the machine that is PW regulars
I’m still waiting for one of you hillbillies to tell me a conservative city that’s even remotely livable.
Squid took me to a local burger joint that remains one of the best burgers I have ever had. I travel all the time, and call absolute bullshit on kyle’s asspull.
**face palm** go fuck yourself and your cities Kylie.
Some people think cities are to be lived in. Some people think cities are there to visit, take what you want from them and then get the fuck out. You’re obviously of the former, Kyle. And a clueless child to boot.
t’s ignorant turds like you who think that a corporate shithole like Applebee’s is a “family restaurant.” You have let corporate America destroy your shitty little towns and replace everything local with a national chain and you thank them for it. Just what small-town America needs: another Arby’s.
Yea, like you fucking KNOW what exists in small towns. You can take a flying fuck at the moon. Elitest asshole douchbag.
Just the sort of response I would expect from idiots.
Juicy Lucy type burger? That’s the first step to painting your face purple, or so I’ve been told.
For a city, Indianapolis is pretty conservative, the metro area even moreso. Not that it matters, because cities are measured by bicycle paths and buses to this idiot, who cannot make it through a day without being lured in by the siren song of a chain restaurant.
Carin is probably the brains of this bunch. As if not wanting to spend my every dime in some corporate dump like Applebee’s makes me an elitist.
Got it in one, bh. Throw in a pitcher of Summit, and JD was admitting that it wouldn’t be so bad if he had to return to the Cities sometime.
If you want better responses then say something intelligent Kyle. Anything. You don’t even understand what a lightweight cliche-repeating buffoon you are.
Sounds like good times, Squid.
Kyle – Detroit. Detroit is the future of your liberal cities. They’ll all get there eventually if they stay true. Pure, unadulterated liberalism. Come on over. I’ll take you on a tour.
Of course, your “elite” cities do have dirty little secrets. They ways of keeping the undesirables out. I believe San Fran Nan knows something about how that is done.
Carin is probably the brains of this bunch. As if not wanting to spend my every dime in some corporate dump like Applebee’s makes me an elitist.
No. You’re not an elitist. You’re a moron parroting elitist sentiments.
Kyle, please stop, your rapier-like wit has cut us to the quick. Please, have mercy.
what means livable? like detroit?
As if not wanting to spend my every dime in some corporate dump like Applebee’s makes me an elitist.
Wrong asshole. Looking down at peps who eat at Applebees makes you an elitest. Own it.
dicentra, let’s say you’re right and G-d will eventually save us. How many generations will have to suffer first? I would rather fix things sooner rather than later, so at least my brother’s kid’s kids might have a future.
Did I say that G-d would save us or that He’d help us? Help can include opening doors for us to walk through. And you’re assuming that we can fix things sooner rather than later, without G-d’s help.
The Poseidon Adventure features two groups of people: the frightened masses who cowered in the ballroom, praying with a priest for God to save them, and the intrepid atheist who led a small group to safety.
That’s an effing lie, by the way. A real G-d (as opposed to a Hollywood one) would have inspired people to get off their butts and climb to the bottom/top of the boat. The analogy was hackneyed and boring.
I don’t have that kind of patience any more. You may very well be right, and I have thought that perhaps what we need to do is hunker down and take care of our own and let the nation collapse.
LET the nation collapse? What makes you think we have the ability to stop it? Even if Obamacare is repealed, the financial mess we’re in — along with the EU and England and Japan — is bigger than our Congress or even Obama.
We should go down fighting, but the WAY we fight could very well determine the character of the country post-collapse.
Indianapolis voted for Obama 63% (Marion county).
Abe, you have never, ever said an even slightly intelligent thing on this forum. Ever.
I’m still waiting for one of you hillbillies to tell me a conservative city that’s even remotely livable.
Kyle? The entire Mountain Time and Central Time zones are utterly unlivable. STAY OUT IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU! DON’T EVEN COME NEAR OR YOU’LL BE INFECTED WITH MORE GAUCHE THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT!
As if not wanting to spend my every dime in some corporate dump like Applebee’s makes me an elitist.
No, it makes you just like me. Except that I’ve never been forced to eat there, like you say you have.
I refuse to play the “Name That City” game with you, because you’ll insist that any city I name is either Not Livable or Not Conservative, according to definitions that you will treat like Calvinball rules. I could say Cedar Rapids, IA or Lenexa, KS or Turtle Lake, WI, but it wouldn’t get us anywhere.
Instead, I’ll return to first principles, and explain why you’re going to lose. You see, Kyle, you’re a hothouse orchid, carefully cultivated to believe that you are, indeed, cultivated. We, on the other hand, are the gardeners who work hard every day to provide you with the environment you require to flourish. Guess what, Kyle? We’re sick and tired of watering your sorry ass every day, just so that you can go on at length about how much better you are because you’re so pretty and our hands are so dirty and rough.
You need us a hell of a lot more than we need you.
People do live in Detroit! It’s wonderful, Kyle. Honestly, come over. I take you some real, non-chain joints I’m sure you’ll find interesting. Of course, chains don’t really come to Detroit – we don’t have a single major grocery store chain w/in the city limits. Inventory control issues.
I don’t really feel the need to explain this to Kyle, ’cause he seems kinda dense. Conservatives largely DON’T LIVE IN LARGE CITIES IF THEY CAN HELP IT.
when did this start?
that is very nice
If you say so Kyle. The funny part is that I’ve been dead center in witnessing the formulation and evolution of all the posturing which you’re now throwing out as your own thoughts. You’re small time and brain dead, it stinks on you like cheap cologne.
I agree with Jeff. The progressives are bullies.
Not sociopaths?
You’re going to tell me that Rahm Emmanuel and Andy Stern and all of Obama’s favorites have a working conscience? You don’t think they’d resort to horrible things if they thought they could get away with it?
We all notice how much the Tea Party people upset the progressives. Just the fact that some of us will no longer take the crap they’ve been handing out and be civil about it scares them.
It scares the rank and file. It doesn’t scare the schemers at the top.
I’m not exaggerating when I use the term “sociopath.” They have no compunction about casting us as dangerous and then using that as an excuse to crack down.
The biggest mistake we could make is to underestimate the ruthlessness of our enemies. Kos is a bully. Nancy Pelosi is a sociopath. They’ll do it, and they’re daring us to.
Glenn isn’t guessing: he’s been TOLD by his White House mole.
People who live in cities are generally liberal. People who live in cities are generally well-educated. I have news for you, foul-mouthed Carin (not that I mind a foul mouth, I’m ex-military and swearing is part of my DNA), Detroit voted for Obama.
What is it about Kyle’s cities that makes them so livable? Is it the crime? The unemployment? The failed schools? The desperate families struggling to get by only on what they can beg from the government?
Or is it the gentrified pockets of politically-connected big shots and the oh-so-sophisticated remoras who live on the crumbs they drop?
New York City has a 38% high school graduation rate in spite of spending more per student than your community college degree cost you, Kyle.
I’ll put my city (Seattle) up against whatever craphole you call home.
People who live in cities are generally liberal. People who live in cities are generally well-educated. I have news for you, foul-mouthed Carin (not that I mind a foul mouth, I’m ex-military and swearing is part of my DNA), Detroit voted for Obama.
duh.
People who live in cities are generally liberal, because conservatives get the hell out of dodge. People who live in Cities like Detroit are remarkably UNeducated. I mean, remarkably. Incredibly. And it went overwhelmingly for Obama.
I did not know that voting patterns in one election were your criteria, Kyle. What other criteria are you using?
Bh – First guess. Well done.
Kyle – do you not understand the difference between not eating somewhere, and sneering at those that choose to do so? Never mind. You are an idiot.
No, Kyle. You can’t play that game. I can name a remarkable number of totally UNLIVABLE liberal cities. You can name a handful of nice ones.
I live out in the country now, so you can keep your city. I’ve got bike paths and trails through the woods. I have a community center and a library.
And, I live among conservatives. Finally, my favorite restaurant isn’t a chain, and I have yet to go to a corporate chain in my town. I think I did go to the drive through McDonalds once for a coffee and some fries, so I’ll own up to that.
I’ll put my city (Seattle) up against whatever craphole you call home.
As a New Yorker … LOL.
“I’ve got bike paths and trails through the woods. I have a community center and a library. ”
And where did these things come from, you anti-govenment moron? Did the private sector provide them?
Parsnip? Shoulda known.
“As a New Yorker … LOL.”
I seriously doubt anyone as stupid and xenophobic as Abe hails from NYC. I’m guessing he lives at least 30 miles from Times Square.
By the way, is this the Pacific Northwest’s notoriously, hilariously stupid alphie/parsnip/snowcone who we laugh about for months during his hiatuses? Or a different retard?
Kyle is now playing my town is better than your town neener neener.
Abe is so incredibly delusional that he thinks he is witty.
Kyle — You know what’s great about chain restaurants? JOBS you moron. We need those.
#277 needs to be saved and mounted. It’s close to the balloon fence.
I seriously doubt anyone as stupid and xenophobic as Abe hails from NYC. I’m guessing he lives at least 30 miles from Times Square.
Yeah. It’s alphie. By the way, wrong as usual. Are you ever going to tell us what college you went to and what you do for a living?
Good allah. Someone throw that crap out into the Sound.
From what I understand, Forbes named, or is about to name my town/county the most affordable and best to raise a family in the country.
Those trolls just cannot stay away.
As a matter of fact, yes. Unless Seattle has been printing its own money, the private sector paid for every fucking bit of it.
I will give that information as soon as you make an even remotely intelligent comment. I’ll wait.
As far as comment #277, just do a bit of searching. I’m not going to bother to do it but I am confident that the facts will support me on this. Educated people generally tend to gravitate to urban centers. No big mysery here.
Think the Sonics are going to have a good year, Kyle?
“No big mysery here.”
Lots of misery though. It’s a “D” specialty.
I mean even a liberal shithole like Milwaukee has a basketball team. Sheesh.
I will give that information as soon as you make an even remotely intelligent comment. I’ll wait.
Amazing. I’ve gone my entire life being characterized as the opposite of stupid, and one day a palpably dumb guy shows up here and sees what nobody else does. Do you see dead people too almighty one?
Interrupting the Michelin Guide.
The lesson the radical left took away from the last time they had power, 1993-1995, was that they had wimped out. The Obama administration and Congress will be those two years, only faster and harder. No wimping out this time.
Expect to have agent provocateurs coming to all meeting and showing up at blogs. Trying to stir up shit that can be blamed on Conservatives et al. Or perhaps a Gleiwitz type incident to have an excuse.
Can you even get a degree in lazy sneering? Do tell, Kyle.
I’ll put my city (Seattle) up against whatever craphole you call home.
So much hateful rhetoric, aren’t all cities supposed to be declared “equal” and “fair” now, under Obama? Why do you hate other cities Kyle?
Also no big mystery why “educated” doesn’t mean what it once did.
For instance, you probably have some college. Which has made you just literate enough to actively demonstrate, in complete sentences, how fucking shallow your thinking is.
There are people who comment here regularly who could cough, and the vaporized sputem forced willy nilly into the air would be more trenchant and interesting than anything you’ve written here today. I mean, strip malls and suburban sprawl? The blight of Applebee’s?
Christ. You do know that Cobain shot himself, right? Take off the flannel, buddy. The last time Seattle was the way you make out, the drummer from the Spin Doctors was fucking a 90210 cast member.
I love the irony of someone talking up Seattle while decrying corporate chains. Get a cup of coffee and sober up, Kyle.
Oh yeah… Go Oklahoma City Thunder!
I always like to sum up urban sophistication by how much easier it was to get laid in NYC when Sex and the City gave girls permission.
Think of New Orleans, underwater. What will Seattle get to deal with? Lahar and ash. But hey, meantime mild climate and bike paths. Yippee!
Kyle probably thinks the airplane builders came to Seattle because of the bike paths. Not real good with cause and effect, this one.
Three cities without an alternative to J.T. McPickleshitters, Kyle. I’m still waiting.
“Oh yeah… Go Oklahoma City Thunder!”
Heh, Well placed volley bh!
Wish I had time to review all the action but it’s getting late and the internet
has been down at work. Save a little snark for Sunday cause thats my day off.
G’night all
Kyle probably thinks the airplane builders came to Seattle because of the bike paths. Not real good with cause and effect, this one.
That’s a common affliction with lefties. Not unlike when artists and assorted hipsters drive brown people out of a cheap neighborhood and then go full blown apopleptic with fucked over by THE MAN ™ rage when they’re priced out themselves because instead of dedicating themselves to their poverty doodles they turned the neighborhood into a hipster Dorko-Disneyland and real estate developers are wise to their mindless pattern.
Heh, come for the gentrification, stay for the Starbucks.
Damn you Seattle!
Educated people generally tend to gravitate to urban centers.
Any idea why this might be Kyle?
[…] *A little over 4 years ago…by Jeff G. […]
Detroit voted for Obama.
Detroit is being reclaimed by Virginia Creeper and eastern hardwood forests. It used to be the most prosperous place in the country.
What happened, do you suppose?
Expect to have agent provocateurs coming to all meeting and showing up at blogs. Trying to stir up shit that can be blamed on Conservatives et al. Or perhaps a Gleiwitz type incident to have an excuse.
ALWAYS. BRING. VIDEO CAMERAS.
Any idea why this might be Kyle?
Too easy, Makewi.
They’re HIPSTERS! And HIPSTERS must be seen being HIP by other HIPSTERS or their lives have no meaning.
The rest of us tire quickly of being sneered at by the terminally shallow.
They’re HIPSTERS! And HIPSTERS must be seen being HIP by other HIPSTERS or their lives have no meaning.
Not all of us. Most hipsters are having their first experience with being considered cool. It’s a high school do-over for losers made possible only by the reinforcement of other losers living the same lie. Hence the peer pressure. I rather like it because my friends and I can show up late to indie rock shows and still make it close to the stage by throwing weepy hipster douchebags out of our way without spilling any beer on our Polo shirts.
Remember the ’96 NBA Finals? Good times. I was in Chicago at the time, Kyle. Undercover in the big liberal city.
Look around Seattle sometime. Pay attention to the people dressed like adults. They might be undercover as well.
Oklahoma City was a more prosperous market. But … BIKE PATHS !!!
I heard Oklahoma City was one of the most unscathed by that recession thinger.
here’s the article
Yep, Oklahoma City > Seattle. Not even close. Unless you’re really into being homeless or shooting heroin or… BIKE PATHS!
Btw, you crack me up, Abe.
here’s a write-up about what the little president man wants to steal… by “greenwire”
greenwire is fags
oh. wrong thread.
252.Comment by Kyle on 3/24 @ 3:33 pm #
I’m still waiting for one of you hillbillies to tell me a conservative city that’s even remotely livable.
tisn’t the city lad, it’s what you bring to it that makes it livable. You’re young. You’ll learn. or not.
I am glad Kyle does not live in my city. He would sully it.
Who is this Kyle I’ve heard so much of? I like the cut of his jib-he obviously is quite the gourmand. You know, he can’t live the button-down life like you. He wants it all: the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles. Sure, he might offend a few of the bluenoses with his cocky stride and musky odors – oh,he’ll never be the darling of the so-called city fathers, who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about what’s to be done with this Kyle?!
he might offend a few of the bluenoses with his cocky stride and musky odors
He should wash that thing, then. Funky is one thing, stanking is quite another.
Good Allah, it’s a frakkin’ IKEA catalogue!
[…] Though as I anticipated, it is (as of now) a soft and bloodless […]
[…] I wrote many years ago […]