I know. Ramesh Ponnuru — who has such great hopes for Romney conservatism (he’s The One! The new GOP lightbringer!) — will be devastated. But it is what it is — and fortunately for us, people other than the Romney “electability” brigade are paying attention, and find no great comfort in a nominating philosophy that promises not to consider political leanings.
Listen: I understand the rhetorical appeal of pretending that your criteria for judicial nominations aren’t tied to a partisan impulse — that the concern is justice, not advancing a particular political agenda. In fact, I can hardly think of anything more banal — which is precisely why it is being passed off as high-mindedness by a finger-in-the-wind technocrat like Romney. It’s seemingly safe.
But the fact of the matter is — and this is an ideological fact, however uncomfortable it may be for some to hear — you cannot nominate someone to the judiciary who is not in fact conservative / classically liberal and claim that nomination to be apolitical: the very essence of contemporary “liberalism” (that is, statism) is to pressure and deconstruct Constitutional limits on the powers granted the federal government, and everything from the “Living Constitution”-view of what comes to count as legitimate legal “interpretation” to the idea that it is the role of the courts to promote “social justice” (rather than to to interpret and apply the law, or decide on the legitimacy of legislation under constraints laid out in the Constitution or, sadly, through precedent — which, if the precedent is itself based on bad law and bad judicial reasoning, allows for the institutionalization of a kind of disease that runs through the body politic; this being precisely the reason I’ve been an advocate of libertarian justices, who seem more willing to buck bad precedent than do conservative justices, who are over-accommodating to the supposed wisdom of their predecessors, and rely on stare decisis to avoid re-consideration of “settled” legal questions) is anathema to the Constitution’s original intent to limit the power and scope of the federal government and to enshrine protections for a set of unalienable rights for the individual.
Statism is in the very strictest sense anti-Constitutional. Or, if you wish to be kind, extra-Constitutional, which really amounts to the same thing.
The first step toward fixing a politicized judiciary is NOT to bracket political leanings when choosing justices. And that’s because such a conceit plays into the hands of the left, whose adepts and acolytes are happy to promote an equivalency between statist and conservative legal reasoning — with the former, when deployed “equally” on the courts, providing steady pressure against the Constitution itself, leaving the latter little margin for error should we hope to keep the courts from expanding the power of government. There is a reason, after all, that our country has moved steadily left, and why the left will use the courts to move the country leftward whenever they can.
No, the first step toward fixing a politicized judiciary is to reaffirm the scope and function of the courts, and to state without equivocation the appropriate methodology for what comes to count as “intepretation” in a legal context.
And if this sounds familiar to regular readers, well, it’s because language — and what we think we’re doing when we use it — matters. Creating a false equivalency between those who believe a valid (and linguistically coherent) “interpretation” can be based on their own cleverness with recontextualizing and then “rewriting” signifiers (having first decided that they are signifiers, and not signs, which demand recognition as having been previously intended by some agency outside that of the interpreter), and those who recognize that originalism and intentionalism are the only valid forms of interpretation as such, gives equal legal weight to what is an entirely incoherent set of linguistic assertions meant specifically to neuter individual autonomy and to promote consensus and collectivism.
Merely by allowing it in the game, we have already agreed to our own surrender.
The rest becomes about how long we can ride it out.
You just know the usual suspects are going to read the above and think, “See? Those OUTLAWS demand right-wing zealots like Thomas and try to sell it as normal and rational and apolitical! These are simply not the sort of reasonable people we can ally ourselves with!”
I think we are all suppossed to keep up the charade of Justice being blind while pretending that the judges themselves are not informed by their personal biases.
I got called juvenile by a handful of Romney fags at NRO the other day for referring to him as Mittens. It’s sad enough that there are people on the right who are supporting this midget, but it absolutely blows my mind that there are people who both back him and are so pathetically unsophisticated that they think the nickname is a second grade wordplay taunt rather than the most perfect snarky nickname ever. Country club Republicans suck.
It’s stunning that this even needs saying, JG. Which it does, 24/7.
Hell, we can’t even agree there’s a problem for fear of being kicked off the nice bus. Pethoukoukis in the previous post‘s linked piece surmises that maybe Barky is coming around, you know, just in time for a second term.
Because surely The Lie is a simple mistake of comprehension. Because voters are all about feeling sorry for the thief and liar and then handing him the keys all over again.
Isn’t it all like this? The originalist stance is always the mean old right’s assault on all that is well and proper. Cain wasn’t good enough cause he got the smear all over him. Bachmann’s a looney cover girl. Palin a snowhootchie. Even Newt and his personal inelegance needs to be dismissed so as to protect the GOP from the phantoms in its collective mind the left installed there.
And maybe Barry will finally gaze upward, the scales will fall, and he’ll gird his loins and dismantle what he’s built. You know, apologies all around and second chances and like that. Because of our political civility; our superior example.
We have already agreed to our own surrender in a few ways at the least.
Apparently, my frantic insistence that Glenn Beck’s sarcastic race card was in fact sarcastic—on account of it being sarcastic—regardless of the listener’s read on it, smacks of desperation.
Which, it does, but not for the reasons they think.
Ass of Spades, dicentra. They wear the label “moron” with pride, because it’s the highest most of them could ever aspire to.
Maybe you should try insistence —at gunpoint if neceessary— instead of desperation. That seems to be the way to go.
I’d label that Pragmatism! myself. But solely because I haven’t had all my youthful idealism about the conservative movement beaten out of me yet.
[…] the Massachusetts Judiciary and it ain’t pretty. From her introduction [tip of the fedora to Jeff Goldstein]: Summary: Mitt Romney’s record as Governor does not indicate a commitment to a conservative […]
Listen, dicentra: if lots of people with an agenda pretend to believe you meant something you didn’t, the answer is to surrender to them, apologize, ask for their forgiveness, and try not to fuck up in the future by running afoul of them.
This morning, Glenn didn’t apologize: he said “bring it on,” referring mostly to the GOP establishment (Seg 1 Hr 2). He reiterated that he doesn’t really think the Tea Party is racist, duh, and that Newt is so bad that he’d take a third-party Ron Paul over Newt.
Which has sent Ace and the rest into another tizzy. “He must want Obama to win because that will make him more money!”
[…] Jeff Goldstein hits Mitt Romney on an oft-ignored weakness: judicial moderation. Statism is in the very strictest sense anti-Constitutional. Or, if you wish to be kind, extra-Constitutional, which really amounts to the same thing. […]
I really need to get off Twitter. Fighting two more “stalwarts” who can’t see how far they’ve bought into the Left’s rules of discourse.
I don’t have the patience for Twitter. I have to hand it to you, di. Spending more than a few minutes over at Ace’s makes me feel like I’ve wondered into detention hall.
I almost never comment at Ace’s. That thread was the first time in years, and I did it to defend intentionalism.
Which, people figured I was defending Beck himself, which I wasn’t, because if people were deliberately misapprehending something Obama said I’d have defended it just as vigorously.
Once again, my misanthropy is justified.
It amazes me that anyone wastes time on Twit-er. It’s the ultimate in Short Attention Span Theater, and the only positive things that have come out of it are the results of people stepping on (or photographing) their cranks.
Disliking the AoS morons isn’t “misanthropy”, as I’m not convinced there’s an “anthropy” to dislike.
Twitter is great for wit aggregation and one-liners, and you can get some nice real-time observations for events.
Misanthropy is always justified. I handed my lamp back to Diogenes years ago.
It’s not just the AoS morons: it’s people all over the ‘sphere: Twitter, Legal Insurrection, RightScoop, Breitbart.tv, Instapundit.
People who should know better. Only a few people in each comment section got what Beck meant: the rest just reacted viscerally, exactly as the Left has them trained.
We deserve to collapse.
Speaking of one-liners, I read a great one about the Iowa voters: Children of the Corn Subsidies.
The Paki with the “I just heard helicopters in central Abottabad” was interesting, ex-post-facto anyhow.
It’s easier to nurture and galvanize around mass outrage than it is to fight for truth.
My experience has been that most of them want to buy into those rules, because they want to be able to use them when it benefits them.
A lot of people on our side are just engaging in team sports. We need to divide them off and gather in the rote Democrats who support the TEA Party. They are our naturally allies. Not establishment GOPers. Or textualist lawyers.
People are lazy. It’s easier to take something said at face value and/or out context than it is to actually read for content and context. Selective quoting has been used against us all. Take a sentence, add an elipses or two et viola! You’re a LIAR! The burden of proof is now on you.
Sheesh.
if we manage not to nominate Romney we’ll all deserve cake I think
Well, Outrageous Outrage IS the Intartubez stock in trade. That’s part of the problem: the medium. But not all of it.
They can disagree about whether Newt is bad enough to deserve that measure of hyperbole, but people are writing Beck off completely, unsubscribing from GBTV, and acting like he’s just betrayed us all.
I’ve been posting links to the Hot Air piece and the Bennett thing, but I doubt it will get through to anyone. Some people have been looking for an excuse to not be embarrassed by Crazy-Man Beck anymore, and here it is.
Staunch to the end, is what they are.
And ice cream.
Ur digs & “arguments” grow tiresome. I don’t feel like engaging in this futile convo anymore. Have a good day.
Yup, that’s me. Digging into people by telling them to fight for the truth over optics.
but still I didn’t think the race thing was the important part of what Beck said… it was that he’d rather have four more years of Obama than to have a President Newt
that’s just a goddamn stupid thing to say out loud I think
Told you. Arguing is hard. Just jump in with the outraged masses and do the outraged thing. Everybody’s doing it. And if everybody’s doing it, that’s a lot of people doing it.
I have tried my best to lend my expertise to a description of the right’s losing — even when they “win” — problem. They aren’t interested, for the most part, in understanding why they keep losing. They just enjoy too much complaining that they do.
No, he’d rather have someone else than Obama OR Newt.
He’s operating under the assumption that the primaries haven’t taken place and that Newt isn’t the GOP candidate.
“They’re herding you right into the chutes again,” he said this morning. Because the GOP wants a progg in the White House, though they’d probably prefer Romney, who’d be less stubborn than Newt.
Other people just went ahead and accused Glenn of “wanting Obama” or of secretly supporting Romney (by touting Bachmann) because they’re both Mormon.
Glenn isn’t too far into his sobriety. Many times people who are new to their recovery and to faith have a tendency to blurt out TMI.
I rather like the way Rush has gone about his recovery: e.g.; I screwed up. I straightened up. It’s private.
Told you. Arguing is hard.
Not that I didn’t know already. Remember that late-night livechat with Patterico and his folks?
People don’t like being told that they’re playing by the Left’s playbook, because then “you’re insulting their intelligence.”
Well, yes, I suppose I am. Do I have cause to?
well he’s being awful picky given the crappy menu I think
the troof is that if we manage not to nominate Romney we’ll all deserve cake
except for Glenn Beck
Bill Kristol said that about people who didn’t want the Boehner compromise on the debt ceiling. We’re all essentially pro-Obama Republicans, because our staunchiness is so icky it will ensure his re-election.
It was a stupid, bullying, shaming, leftist argument then, and it’s the same thing now.
I’ve been warning you all that most of our conservative opinion leaders are not conservative or classically liberal at all. They are Team R rooters, and this is their sport.
Glenn isn’t too far into his sobriety.
Since 1997. That’s longer than Rush has been off painkillers, IIRC.
Yes, he does do the TMI thing, because he lied so badly to himself when drunk that he’s gone WAY the other way. All cards on the table, all the time.
For just like 10 fucking minutes, stop being such a goddam griefer. Everytime you post here it’s a constant reminder to me that my attempt at changing the way we think has failed — that optics and marketing and relative truths and bowing to the social pressures of whatever ascendant group is carrying the narrative at the time is the way to live, and that championing ideals is a fool’s game.
No reason to rub it in just because you have that part of your personality that just simply must pile on.
Except that I haven’t been arguing with any opinion leaders. I’ve been taking on the rank and file. People I’ve never really heard of. Many of whom aren’t even mobys.
Tiring, tiring, tiring. I need to go clean things.
well he’s being awful picky given the crappy menu I think
That’s kinda what they tell single women who make it around 30 without being married. “You’re too picky!”
Because it’s better to be married to that guy living in his parents’ basement, surfing porn, than to be a shriveled-up old maid.
He’s been sober longer than I had thought. Generally, people get over that over-sharing in less time.
It’s easier to nurture and galvanize around mass outrage than it is to fight for truth.
That’s not only a lie, but a goddamned lie! How dare you sir! OUTRAGEOUS!
Rabble!
Who’s with me?
Rabble! Rabble! Rabble!
the vast majority of the votes Team R will get next November will be from people who just want the rape to stop
the number of people voting for whichever third-stringer R gets nominated is going to be vanishingly small I think
So use it for that. It’s not a medium for discussion, so don’t use it for that.
It’s easier to flow with the mob than to stand against it.
Jeff, ignore the malignant twerp — he won’t get your message because he’s here to throw you off track, not to understand.
You’ve given a lot of people the grounding to discuss what’s happening, and we’re grateful for that.
It’s not a medium for discussion, so don’t use it for that.
Sometimes, it’s the only way people will get exposed to a message. I know I won’t persuade those people, but maybe I can plant a seed.
Or not.
Don’t hide your light under a bushel, di.
Hot Air, The Corner, and Ricochet haven’t touched the topic of the “race card,” so there’s that.
Don’t hide your light under a bushel, di.
There ya go. “We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender”
Mr Crawford the problemest problem in America is the spendings I think, if you have to pick
… and that was the proposition the teadoodles brought to the table
and well done I say
and it so happens that Mr. Newt was presiding over the house where the spending bills come from at just the exact same time this failshit little country has ever had anything close to balanced budget in our lifetimes
So that’s the silver lining of the gingrich ascension I think.
The spendings are a symptom and vehicle, feets. The problem lies in another domain entirely.
well yeah I agree but getting a handle on the spendings is a sine qua non of this failshit little country having the opportunity to fix the underlying gangrenous rot
Not possible. Plus: Gangrenous rot doesn’t heal.
there’s all sorts of salve in the cabinet you just have to wash and abraid thoroughly (ouch!) and be very disciplined about hygiene
fyi wiki
If you’re not talking about the cuttings, you’re just not serious.
About either gangrene or the spendings.
yes debride is what I meant
but yes Mr. Ernst I’m a big fan of the cuttings… cut cut cut like a banshee I say
shouldn’t maggot therapy be given a chance.
Banshee’s don’t cut, they wail.
On the bright side, people who subsist on pop culture aren’t going to last long when the power goes out.
not if they watched all seven seasons of Buffy
shouldn’t maggot therapy be given a chance.
I would demand maggots if I needed debriding.
So I’m sitting there getting my hair dyed at the mall and over the loudspeakers they say my car has its lights on.
But I can’t go do anything about it for an hour. Turned out there was so much acid stuff around the terminals that I couldn’t even see the metal contacts. This is where a long-handled snow remover with a brush comes in handy, but it still took awhile to get the contacts clean enough to work.
that reminds me I think I let my AAA lapse
a can of coke works better on corroded terminals.
Coke? I thought you had to dissolve acid stuff with base?
dad used coke and a pocketknife
what it’s dissolving is what’s left *after* some sort of acid reaction, no?
link
link
So battery-terminal corrosion isn’t acid per se but an alkaline?
Also, it turns out people don’t like being told they’re falling for a con. You’d think they’d be grateful.
Too much investment, I guess.
besides the stuff on the terminals isn’t what’s in the battery. water may be just as good but the fizz factor is fun with coke.
on topic: mittens in ma was a scoamf
Doesn’t basestoff turn acidstoff into neutralstoff?
asked in a Blue Prussian accent
basestoff just turns acidstoff into neutralstoff.
That’s all the h.s. chemistry I can remember.
Hmm. I guess with dial-up you can rewrite and repost your comment before your disappeared first version loads into the que.
I don’t think it’s an acid/base reaction. The crud is a product of oxidization and Coke seems to love oxidization. It’s got phosphoric acid, just like Naval Jelly.
H(+) + Fe2O3————->H2O + Fe(3+)
Fe2O3 is alkali
This is why I’m not a chemist.
via levin the politburo speaks
link
oh and mittens was a scoamf in ma
Also, I seem to pick up a couple-three Twitter followers when I make trenchant statements that get me in arguments. Some of the followers aren’t spambots.
Not sure how to read that.
Or is the fact that acid eats stuff also and acid/base reaction? Probably, huh?
Disclaimer: I don’t know squat about chemistry.
“Corrosion of the external metal parts of the lead–acid battery results from a chemical reaction of the battery terminals, lugs and connectors.
Corrosion on the positive terminal is caused by electrolysis, due a mismatch of metal alloys used in the manufacture of the battery terminal and cable connector. White corrosion is usually lead or zinc sulfate crystals. Aluminum connectors corrode to aluminum sulfate” via wiki
i used to work with pbo(*). we dissolve it with acetic acid.
I think it’s the same deal with attaching zinc blocks to the hulls of steel ships intended to ride in the salt.
And why it’s a bad idea to have un-isolated steel fittings betwixt two copper pipes. And other mismatched stuff like that.
i think it is the h+ radicals associated with the coke brothers what attack the 99% on the battery terminal occupiers. i studied at the con academy.
“This is why I’m not a chemist.”
think this maybe: a ph of 6.9 is more basic than 6.1.
I really need to learn me some metallurgy.
White corrosion is usually lead or zinc sulfate crystals
And here I was being careful not to touch it lest it bore a hundred tiny pinholes in my hand.
I also had aqua-colored stuff. Wonder what that was.
Breitbart.tv has a piece up about Glenn Beck and racism, di. Cross another one off the list.
Breitbart and Beck had a nasty falling-out awhile back, so you can’t trust what one says about the other.
And I already went into the Breitbart.tv comment section last Saturday and dropped what comments I was going to drop, and chastened AB on Twitter for not recognizing the sarcasm.
But AB is so mad at Glenn (and I’m not saying he doesn’t have reason) he’s willing to toss him under the bus.
mr. beck made a very good presentation tonight on why it might not be a good idea to have teddy proggvelt as your dude. smells like mclame and newt.
mr. ab threw the gleeproud folks under the bus
I’m guessing the aqua colored stuff was copper, but that’s a wild wild guess, so don’t go betting $10,000, or the house, on it.
He did that a few days ago. Good for him, I say.
Breitbart is on the Beck warpath. It started with the Sherrod thing, and I think hiring Scott Baker away put Andrew in permanent jihad mode.
Beck, for his part, hasn’t so much as mentioned Breitbart in ages, AFAIK.
The heart of his reason? Beck won’t have him on anymore, after the Sherrod thing.
Andrew’s gone off the deep end on this.
they’re both coming out of this looking like fringey weirdos I think
The Sherrod thing cheesed Breitbart off because on Glenn’s radio show, they played the edited Sherrod video and came to the conclusion that NAACP-er Sherrod was expressing racism. Which was pretty much why Breitbart posted the video in the first place: to show the NAACP’s hypocrisy in calling the Tea Party racist.
Then later that same day, on Beck’s TV show, Beck chided Breitbart for posting a video that someone else edited, because it hid the context of Sherrod’s remarks, something that was evident after the uncut vid was released.
Breitbart was incensed because Beck sounded awfully sanctimonious to him, given that Beck and crew had played the edited video themselves. I looked again at the original Breitbart article with the embedded video and it looks like Breitbart hedged his language enough to cover for any possible bias in the editing (and pointed out that Sherrod seemed to be telling a “come to Jesus” story). But I don’t know how much ex post facto editing went into that article.
Breitbart felt totally dissed by Beck and personally asked him to apologize on the air for “throwing him under the bus” but Beck did not. We don’t know Glenn’s version of this story, don’t know why he didn’t do what Andrew asked.
But that plus the Scott Baker hiring and who knows what else has turned Andrew into Captain Ahab and Glenn the white whale. I’m not sure I fully support Glenn’s side in the Sherrod thing, but Andrew can stop with the attacks, even if he never mentions Glenn’s name again.
“fringey weirdos”
i wonder if there any mao decorations this year on the white house tree?
I suppose that’s the case if President Gingrich looks like a good idea to you.
i wonder if there any mao decorations this year on the white house tree?
TreeS.
Thirty-seven trees.
In the White House.
This year.
SACRIFICE!
Breitbart at the time framed the edited video as Shirley confessing to things that happened while she was in the current administration. That’s why the story blew up so big and fast.
It was very skeevy and mirrors really the mostest puerile antics of the obamawhore media.
But he’s probably right about Beck, more or less.
Hey, the Ones went to church in their Easter clothes yesterday.. They held hands and everything.
President Gingrich only looks like a good idea as opposed to Presidents Romney or Obama.
Gingrich, as you well know, is a tacky whore with a tacky slut wife. But he’s probably the best we’re likely to do.
It’s a very pathetic situation Team R finds itself in.
37 trees.
Sweet.
I am sad that one of my senators, Mr. Inhofe has said that while Governor Perry is the most electable and his BFF, he probably won’t get the nomination.
“But he’s probably right about Beck, more or less.”
so can we discuss teddy proggvelt vis a vis mclame and newt now?
Mr. Inhofe also dumped on Gingrich in a very hidey ho friends and neighbors let’s bibble babble witlessly about the campaign and stuff way.
I don’t remember him being such a dishy little chatterbox before.
I don’t know if that’s true in any sense stronger than the stopped clock being right twice a day sense, not bothering to read Douthat myself, but Taranto used it effectively to riff on intellectualism’s tribal allegiances.
Mr. Inhofe has been rather a douche this past year. My congresscritter, Mr. Dan Boren (D) voted against extending the payroll tax cut today. He was the only D to do so. In your face, Obama.
I’m starting to think the R’s are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, Ernst.
Inhofe rocks Durban.
not bothering to read Douthat myself
I read it when the paywall mistakenly let me in. It wasn’t a bad argument: people are just trying to balance the fake intellectual with a real one, just as the Dems tried to match Bush’s “war president” thing with Kerry’s service.
Sorry, “service.”
And Douthat points out that Gingrich will let us down and let us down hard.
Mr. Dan Boren (D) voted against extending the payroll tax cut today.
good for him … I think people are past tired of this gimmicky stopgap shit
we should mock the oxymoron term: “Left-liberal intellectuals”. they are idiots.
It’s not Stockholm syndrome leigh, it’s a bad case of the Fredo Corleones. Fortunately it’s only contageous if you spend too much time inside the D.C. media-political axis.
“Newt Talk Express”
Ha ha! That’s funny, right?
Yeah, they are idiots. But it’s the kind of idiocy that you have to reason yourself into, so in a sense it’s very intellectual.
That’s funny, Ernst. I was just thinking yesterday that we need a Michael Corleone on our team.
Okay, let’s pretend here: Who is Obama’s Tessio?
Wow. One person has backed down from their condemnation of Beck’s “race card” after I explained it was a parody of the race card: Juliette Ochieng (Baldilocks).
She always did have a good head on her shoulders.
good allan. i want to torch “higher education education”. for the marshmellows.
Actually what’s needed is a little more faith in the Amerigo Bonaserra’s, and for them to have the faith in the country’s institutions to reject both the Dons the Pezzo Novantes*.
*.90 caliber big-shots. Not sure if I got the spelling right, and I’m not digging for my Puzzo.
we need a holiday sale on squid™ stuff.
That’s Puzo.
Actually, maggot therapy works very well if you have the time to let it work because the little suckers have a good targeting system: they only eat dead flesh.
Problem comes in when you don’t have time for them to work because there’s too much; at that point cutting becomes necessary.
That’s where we’re at.
Obama doesn’t have a Tessio because nobody’s smarter than Obama.
That’s Puzo.
Well, I’da had to dig for it to know that, right? [grin]
Obama’s a bad Don. We need to go to the mattresses.
*
Obama’s a pimp who can’t outfight anybody. The real enemies are
Ernst:
What arrant nonsense! Everyone knows that the enemy is anyone who plays a sarcastic race card.
THANK GOD!
After 50 minutes, I was starting to think I was the only
loserregular who didn’t havea lifeanything better to do tonight.Only Approved Victims™ can play the race card, Di. Glen should have known that*
*yes I know he didn’t play the race card.
Disappointed with the Beck bashing today, re the “I’d support Ron Paul in a 3rd party bid over Newt” thing.
King Moron over at AoS and his peeps run with the “OMG, that drunk Mormon crazy man is dead to me! He must really like Obama in office; it’s good for his business,” angle. Not surprising, but disappointing.
RSM had this to say: “Glenn Beck says he would vote for Ron Paul on a third-party ticket as an alternative to Newt. Is this a publicity stunt? No. Beck’s psychotic.”
—
So that’s the state of things in Conservosphere these days. If you say “I’m going to vote for the guy who best matches what I’d do in his place, some sort of ‘representative’, and if that leads to the Greater of Two Evils getting re-elected, so be it,” you’re not only “wrong”, you’re psychotic.
Which sort of closes the door on the possibility of any subsequent reasoned discourse on the topic.
Is Ron Paul a great choice? Not my first, or even my third choice, but those have already been denied. If, as ‘feets frequently re-iterates, “it’s all about the spendings” — well there’s no one I’d trust more to take an axe (*) to the Fed. Govt. So why the hell not? I’m sure we can survive a couple of years of isolationism. It’s the “the spendings” that are going to destroy us long before the Jihadis or the Chinese.
—
(*) In the exceedingly unlikely event of “Pres. Ron Paul”, I suspect he’d be utterly ineffectual, giving both ‘halves’ of the Ruling Class something to agree upon. We’re doomed either way. Might as well go out with “a really futile and stupid gesture.”
Apropos of nothing, since I’m pretty much talking to myself here,* but The Godfather is the exception that proves the rule about the book being better than the movie.
*Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Seriously. It’s when you start answering yourself that people look askance.
Everyone is going off The Right Scoop’s evaluation of what Beck said, even RSM.
I’m going to bed and never getting up.
yes let’s go all beck. mean while back at newt/romney….
I’m sure we can survive a couple of years of isolationism
For my part, I’m not, But I understand the skepticism. It sure seems like all the GOP is offering is a condom and plenty of lube to go along with the rapings.
I could probably vote for Gingrich, but only because it would piss off all the right people. Which, when you come to think on it, isn’t all that much of a reason to support somebody.
Maybe I’ll just write in Bolton/Cheney.
yes right scoop for the cheap shot
the prob is a baracky who don’t give a sh)T about congress. that be dicktator with michelle sucking hard.
Don’t let the bastard grind you down di. I remember hearing something about the struggle being the glory. Somewhere.
As I remember it, the problem is a Baracky who was eager to let the (Pelosi/Reid) Congress do whatever the hell it wanted because if it was popular, he’d get the credit, and if it wasn’t, they’d take the blame. That in itself was illuminating.
I remember hearing something about the struggle being the glory.
Glory?
SLC is in the middle of a thermal inversion that looks to be settled in past Christmas. Wretched thing drives us all to abject despair, as if we were a dark-matter version of Northern Exposure. A thick layer of haze and smog hovers just over the valley floor, blocking out the sun, the sky, the mountains. Not even God himself can penetrate the foul vapors.
If they find me in the bathtub with a severed carotid, please tell my story: it was the inversion, not the race card what did me in.
Di, I mean this with complete, heartfelt sincerity, I hope I get to meet you in the real world someday.
I’ve driven through Salt Lake City twice. Once in ’98 on my to CA, and what I thought was going to be the begining of a career in academia. And once in ’05 on my way back to the upper midwest with my tail between my legs. Both times, I remember thinking, Coalville might not be a bad place to live.
Oh, and Di, if your gonna go all Seneca on us, cut the radial, please.
President Ronald Reagan – Liberty State Park
I’m not trying to pick a fight here newrouter, as that was one of the many fine speeches Reagan gave,
but don’t you ever get tired of posting the same shit over and over again?
All the rightwingers who now want to tell me I’m the psycho for not just joining the team and climbing aboard for the Big Win, can get stuffed.
I’m not voting for someone who I think represents the interests of a governing class, R in front of his name or no, even if he might be better than the representative of the governing class who might win as a result.
Time for those who keep telling me my default vote will be for Obama to take some of the blame for not giving the base someone we can vote for who represents conservatism. It is they who are re-electing Obama. Me, I’m just not voting for Romney.
But Jeff, you OWE them your vote! If you’re not going to vote for the paler version of Obama they roll out, you hate America!
No. More. Progressives. Though I might could write Palin in, what with her being a white girl and all.
Hey, you know who the best President of the 20th Century was? FDR!
If a staunch conservative historian says so, it must be true.
Yeah, it’s looking pretty grim out there.
I watched the Beck tape the morning after, and it is and was my impression that he meant exactly what it sounded like he said; that any TEA party types who oppose Obama but support Gingrich must be doing so on the basis of race. There were no winks, nods or other indicators to the contrary. Beck is an expert at what he does and a simple knowing glance at the camera would have been an irony alert. Nor was there any substantial follow-up if he meant it only as a rhetorical hook, He didn’t do any of that – in my mind, at the time he spoke he meant it, any protestations to the contrary being pure spin. Quite simply, he lost me on that one. The only way he gets my interest again is an apology.
I’m an already decided not Romney. That means I would probably vote for anybody over him. It might mean that, if it is him, I don’t vote. Even if that means Obama returns.
I’d vote for Ron Paul. Remember how everyone said those daily briefings would change Obama’s approach to foreign policy? And they did. Paul may be an adamant type of character, but he’s not actually crazy. Yes he change things, but he’d also change quite a bit himself.
I’d vote for Gingrich, Santorum, Bachman, hell I might even vote for Huntsman (because what I don’t know can’t really hurt me, right?…)
But strangely enough, even though I’d sit it out over Romney and chance getting Obama again the one thing I will not do is go third party (this time.) Because there is no actual ‘third party’ all it is is one person’s vanity and an intentional splitting of the right.
My vote will either be a choice between two sufficiently dissimilars, or non-choice due to excessive similarities.
How is Newt more dissimilar to Obama than Romney?
I would vote for Romney even … that’s how bad it is, what Obama is doing on our pitiful little country
How is Newt more dissimilar to Obama than Romney?
He isn’t Pablo. I’ve never been a fan of Newt’s and the more I see of him, the more I remember why. He would be a disaster. If possible, I believe he is more of a narcissist than Obama.
Smartest guy in the room? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
That’s where he could be worse than Obama, leigh. Obama’s a Marxist, to be sure, but at least he’s incompetent. Newt is not incompetent.
#153 – Other than being despised by a large swath of Washington Establishment Team R?
Perhaps not much. But it is undeniable, and it is at least something.
In practice, with a Republican House and Senate, it is the establishment types that would feel the most heat. Not so with Romney as POTUS.
What is it? The establishment has already picked their guy, and it ain’t Newt, so he’s upsetting their applecart. So what? What does that get us?
in my mind, at the time he spoke he meant it, any protestations to the contrary being pure spin. Quite simply, he lost me on that one. The only way he gets my interest again is an apology.
That delivery on the Napolitano show was very much deadpan and straightforward, but most people don’t know that on his radio show, before the Napolitano appearance, he “played the race card” and also added the caveats about “of course the Tea Party isn’t racist.”
That was the first time he said “it must be race, what else?” and so the protestations to the contrary aren’t ex post facto spin: the caveats were present when he first came up with the phrase.
Ergo, he couldn’t have meant it when he said it for the second time on Napolitano but not when he said it the first time.
I’d link to The Blaze article where the radio show is embedded, but for some reason, theblaze.com redirects to my ISP’s search page. DNS problem, looks like.
Time for those who keep telling me my default vote will be for Obama
In the primaries? Hardly. People who make that accusation at this point are making assumptions that are not necessarily true, about who can beat Obama and who can’t.
At this point, a generic Republican is beating Obama in the polls, so a Republican ham sammich would be a pretty valid vote at this time.
The primaries are where we get to vote with our hearts. The general is where have to vote with our minds.
That can mean different things to different voters. If you can’t live with yourself because you’ll have to vote for Mitt, by all means, write in your preference. If you live in a winner take all state, your protest vote means squat anyway.
*”Mitt” should be Mitt, Newt, et al.
The link dicentra refers to is here.
Ergo, he couldn’t have meant it when he said it for the second time on Napolitano but not when he said it the first time.
But when on Napolitano’s show he did not even reference prior statements. Your supposition does not necessarily follow, so no ergo.
Beyond that, Beck can talk all he wants and ask more people to tune in to his shows where he can further clarify why he thinks people failed to understand him. As if.
So what? What does that get us?
It gets us one step removed from the current ruling class. This election is not a destination, it is a long journey, one that will prove very ugly.
…
Anyone care to make the definitive case that Gingrich truly is no different than Obama?
Beck says it, others have too. If Gringrich’s polling success is based upon misdirection and lies let it be known.
‘…it is a long journey,’ should read ‘…we are on a long journey,’
Sorry
Looks like that particular page doesn’t have the part where Glenn uses the “must be race” thing for the first time. Instead, he replays segments from previous shows where he says the following, beginning around 1:50:
Glenn has mocked and criticized the “racist” critique against the Tea Party from day one, such that it’s kind of silly to think that all of the sudden he’s going to start using it himself, in earnest.
Someone was posting the segment of his radio show where he played the phony “race card” for the first time but I can’t remember where it was. I just skimmed through the Right Scoop comment section again, looking for it, and my hatred of what the Left has done to language has again increased.
Anyone care to make the definitive case that Gingrich truly is no different than Obama?
not me
Absolutely no different? Of course not. Not fundamentally different? Sure.
so no ergo.
Yes, ERGO. Are you saying he was sarcastic the first time, then serious the second? Really? Why would that be the case? Why would Glenn suddenly decide to call the Tea Party racist after repeatedly excoriating the Left for doing so, especially after spending months and months and months trying to expose progressives who have an R after their name?
He was dead tired by the Napolitano interview. It was Friday night, after producing 25 hours of his own live content and who knows how many other interviews and things. His vocal inflection did not communicate sarcasm, but his whole record of utterances prior to that moment gives a pretty good indication of what his INTENT actually was.
I was able to suss out the intent because I’ve been listening to Glenn for ages. I know how he thinks. I know how he speaks. I also know what he doesn’t think and speak, and gratuitously tossing around the race card isn’t something he does.
The utterance was supposed to operate on two levels: 1) Repeat the Left’s absurd argument about opposing Obama only because of race 2) Emphasize that yes Newt IS such a progressive that if you’re going to go for a progg, why not go for Obama? <facetious>Oh, it must be racism, right?</facetious>
Remember, one may poorly communicate one’s intent at any given moment, but that doesn’t negate the intent, nor does it mean that the speaker’s words are suddenly at the mercy of the listener, and that the speaker is now guilty of what the listener HEARD.
Thomas, surely you’ve been misunderstood before: do you want people to hold that one utterance against you, even after you’ve explained yourself? If not, why are you doing it to Glenn?
I really marveling at the “He’s dead to me” construction that seems so prevalent. HOW DARE HE SAY SOMETHING I DON’T LIKE!!!???
Where have I seen that sort of thing happen before? Oh, yeah. Here.
I MISUNDERSTOOD YOUR POORLY SIGNALED INTENT THEREFORE YOU SUCK.
This is one of those topics where I don’t feel like doing the required homework so I haven’t really commented.
But… my simple shortcut was just that he hasn’t said stuff like that before. Pretty much the opposite.
So that would be the implicit satirical cue.
Could he have radically changed his mind? Sure. Could have a brain lesion as well. But, my initial thought was simply that he must have been kidding and/or fumbled the delivery.
Really? Why would that be the case?
Ergo would be the only case, something not remotely established. Human motivation -in and of itself- being a rather complex and often contradictory thing.
If you want to know why he said it go ask him for a direct answer. If he wants to argue that he was misconstrued let him do so. It is simply not possible to believe him when you are the one making the argument for him.
bh, that is a fair assessment. Having listened to a lot of Beck on the radio (I’m in the car a couple hours a day during his local slot), I’d be inclined to accept that assessment not having viewed the Napolitano segment.
But I have watched the segment, and he said it with a completely straight face, and in a manner consistent with other statements I have seen him make that I also considered to be sincere.
HOW DARE HE SAY SOMETHING I DON’T LIKE!!!???
WTF?
We cannot disagree with someone who says something we find disagreeable?
Of course we can. And we can do it without the dramatic, terminal flourish I’m referring to having seen so much of.
If he wants to argue that he was misconstrued let him do so.
What, like he did here?
If that’s not good enough for you to consider that you misunderstood him—albeit an honest misunderstanding—then I don’t know what to say anymore.
This business of tossing people under the bus for one statement taken in isolation really has to stop. I don’t point to Obama’s occasional conservative-sounding utterances and use those as an index of what he believes: I consider his actions and the entirety of his oeuvre.
It’s only fair.
What, you don’t want people to clearly signal their intent?
;-)
178 was for 176
What, like he did here?
I see deflection, misdirection, and dismissal, followed by an advertisement for his 5 pm show…
But no explanation of why his statement on Napolitano’s show was open to being misunderstood.
The statement still stands as issued at the time issued. I’m under no obligation to follow him into any rabbit holes.
OK, here we go: Second video, starting at 2:20. He’s interviewing Michelle Bachmann and they establish that Newt is totally a progressive. Then he plays what he said on the radio, prior to the Napolitano interview, around 2:45.
To be clear, I’m not tossing Beck under the bus. I agree with much of what Beck has said. I also have been decidedly unimpressed with other things he’s said or done.
In this specific case I’m tossing his argument against Gingrich under the bus. It fails miserably.
What, you don’t want people to clearly signal their intent?
<po-mo prof>No, I prefer utter obfuscation so that I can be High Priestess of What Things Mean.</po-mo prof>
Which part of Beck’s argument, because there are two things one can object to: (1) The alleged “race card” and (2) Newt is so progressive you might as well vote Obama.
Both are examples of hyperbole, to be sure.
Which, that’s so UNLIKE Beck to say something intemperate or to exaggerate.
Which, that’s so UNLIKE Beck to say something intemperate or to exaggerate.
Sure, all well and good. But it is on the speaker to clearly signal the hyperbole, lest he fail to accurately communicate his intent. No one has to issue clarification upon being misconstrued, but it is probably a reasonable thing to do. Especially if your statement is so public and so incendiary. Yet Glenn certainly hasn’t.
In the clip you linked Glenn denied calling the TEA parties racist. Which is all well and good. But only tangentially related to what he actually argued on Napolitano. Which was an accusation leveled against Gingrich supporters, who may be TEA party members (Beck’s formulation) “If you’re against him (meaning Obama) but you’re for this guy (Gingrich), it must be about race. I mean, what else is it? It’s the policies that matter.”
Presumably meaning that there is no daylight between the two’s policies. Therefore, since opposition cannot be on the basis of policy, opposition must be racially motivated. So, not just racist, but fair weather Constitutionalists as well.
The latter is much, much closer to the mark. If that’s where the Tea Party is headed then they might as well drop the Gadsden flags and raise the elephant banner.
lest he fail to accurately communicate his intent.
I already conceded in my 169 that he poorly and inaccurately communicated his intent on the Napolitano show. I also reminded you that poorly signaled intent doesn’t mean he intended what you heard, and therefore is not guilty of playing the race card, just because you heard it.
Are you NEW here?
Yet Glenn certainly hasn’t [clarified].
WTF? I linked it for you in my 181, told you where he plays himself saying something similar to what he said on Napolitano complete with caveats and clarifications—prior to the Napolitano interview—and that’s not good enough for you?
You want a personal e-mail? A phone call? What?
Tap out, dude. Intentionalism wins.
<facetious>I mean, what else is it?</facetious> <serious>It’s the policies that matter</serious>.
There’s a conceptual break between those two phrases, a break that Glenn has hammered on over and over and over and over again. He produces 25 hours of content a week. He’s been pretty damn clear what he thinks of “conservative” progressives and what he thinks of the Left’s “racism” canard.
If I were he, I wouldn’t apologize either. His delivery was flat because he was exhausted. I think we can give him a Mulligan on that.
if I had to pick between Gingrich and bumblefuck I would pick Gingrich I think
if Glenn “25 hours of content a week” Beck had to pick between Gingrich and bumblefuck he would choose… fringe candidate with racist past Ron Paul
what’s the bizness yeah indeed
He said he would consider looking at Ron Paul the third-party candidate, but he hopes like crazy it doesn’t come down to that.
Most important, he’s not of the opinion that Newt’s current surge in the polls means jack, especially not for Iowa. This morning, Stu read off the polls prior to the Iowa caucuses in the two previous presidential elections, and the person at the top didn’t even become the nominee.
Neither did the winner of the Iowa caucuses.
The fat lady isn’t even in her dressing room yet: she’s at the grocery store and has to go to the cleaners and the bank before showing up at the theater.
newty newt’s numbers only get better after new hampshire, which has an inexplicable hardon for Wall Street Romney
You’d think “the (state) government requires you to purchase health insurance as the price of being alive” would conflict fairly strongly with “live free or die”.
But I suppose the mark of a truly agile mind (or an exceptionally pragmatic republican) is the ability to simultaneously believe any number of contradictory ideas.
newty newt’s numbers only get better after new hampshire, which has an inexplicable hardon for Wall Street Romney
They lurve Romney because he was on their teevees a lot when he was Governor of neighboring Massachusetts and because he has one of his many homes there. At least that’s what one of the talking heads said yesterday. Of course, it may have been Greta and what does she know?