Here.
Meaning, they can’t be defended. Meaning, the conclusions he draws from the studies, etc., he cites — that is, from the evidence he uses to build his case — can’t legitimately be drawn from the studies, etc., he cites. Meaning, one cannot use probabilities as a predictor of probability, particulary if the probability predicted isn’t a priori approved as “defensible”. Meaning, math itself is now “indefensible” if that math can reasonably be said to reach unwanted or — as it were — indefensible conclusions.
And yet, for all we’re now told just how “indefensible” is such an argument as the one Derbyshire actually made — which, as I’ve argued, is defensible precisely because the conclusions Derbyshire himself draws are, in fact, immaterial to the argument — many people have defended it.
But they are largely ignored on the right by a loud, repetitive chorus, most of whom, by dint of having ignored those who defended the article, can continue to claim the argument can’t be defended. And so mark those who have defended the article as among the vile extremists they’d prefer not to associate openly with their Big Tent Party.
I wrote earlier today about manufacturing consent in a post-Enlightenment society built on a linguistic foundation that promotes and institutionalizes anti-foundationalism.
And I’ll remind you now as I showed everyone in the episodes that had me banished from polite “conservative” society: it isn’t just the left who relies on these subterfuges.
But they are largely ignored. By a loud, repetitive chorus on the right, all of whom continue to claim the argument can’t be defended.
All of whom have no intention of arguing the case. It’s a taint on Brand GOP, in election year. That’s all you need to know. Now stop being so unhelpful.
When you’ve lost Gabriel Malor….
Malor is to reason like a fish needs a bicycle.
…although 140 characters suits him.
“Just no” Lee Stranahan explained.
I suppose he took time away from his usual occupation of pushing ghey marriage like a white-hot poker in the eye over at Ace’s.
“Indefensible” is such a breathtakingly lazy assertion. I have a hard time not noticing that the personages at NRO seem to be more offended by that fact that Derb isn’t a Jesus freak than anything else. It isn’t the core of his article which seems to upset them so much as his “un-Christian” reluctance help a black person who is in distress. It’s license to let loose with both barrels for Derb’s long resented atheism it seems. As to Malor, cock clouds his judgement quite frequently.
Wikipedia, indefensible!!
Halting-speeched Dana Perino is ascendant, moving forward in staggers. Her virtue? She hasn’t got a cock. Turvy the world, Topsy. Vision is nil.
Wikipedia, indefensible!!
tweetable too
Jeff, you passed Eric S. Raymond’s Derbyshire test:
An intelligence test.
Do you know of Eric?
Yours,
Tom
“Derb’s article is indefensible” is just an amulet against the Evil Eye.
A string of garlic against vampires.
And whatever you use to ward off werewolves.
I have a hard time not noticing that the personages at NRO seem to be more offended by that fact that Derb isn’t a Jesus freak than anything else.
So, if the Left won’t rain white-hot loathing on Derb for being a mean-spirited atheist but they will for being a raaaaacist, and the NRO folks are more upset by his God-hating rhetoric, then it makes sense to use the racism as a wholly “defensible” excuse to ditch him, because ditching him for hating Jesus would be intolerant.
Kinda like the Pharisees knew the Romans wouldn’t execute Jesus for blasphemy against the law of Moses but they would for insurrection, so they emphasized that angle.
Got it.
So we’ve established that “indefensible” really means “difficult and inconvenient to debate,” then? Where the difficulty and inconvenience is largely controlled by the Left, since they’re the ones who’ve taken the initiative to make certain things difficult and inconvenient, having been allowed that power by our soi-disant champions?
It would be one thing if the spineless squishes at NRO (and their myriad contemporaries) came out and said,
In that scenario, at least they would acknowledge that there’s an argument (however uncomfortable) to be had, we’d be recognized and valued as allies willing to get our hands dirty doing the heavy rhetorical lifting, and perhaps others might be recruited to fight the good fight. As it is, we’re just lumped in with the dirty heathens, as though we were part of the problem and unworthy of belonging to the club. Which, if that’s the case, mushroom bruises all around, I say!
That Derbyshire test is pretty provocative.
I’m guessing Steyn scores higher on it that Goldberg.
Unfortunately. I was going to buy Jonah’s next, but now why bother?
Cancelled my Amazon pre-order yesterday.
“Indefensible” is such a breathtakingly lazy assertion.
Which interferes not at all with its perfect utility as a benchmark for progressive bona fides. QED.
Playing second fiddle to Ace is not a mark of high intelligence.
Malor received his marching orders and hopped to it.
Hi, Tom.
It’s been a while, but yes, I believe Eric and I have had important agreements before.
Heh, Malor’s been fairly quit since Jeff took a stroll over to his neighborhood and slapped the hell out of him at Ace’s not long ago.
Guess he took a peek out of the rabbit hole and spied some safe turf to frolic on.
Pugnacious, hyper-intelligent provocateurs with a penchant for physical and rhetorical jiu-jitsu? I’m still not convinced that ESR and JG are different people…
Abe – I caught your question in the other thread late. Yes I’ve been in the Bob, east side, on foot, but have never floated the south fork (fished and hunted around Hungry Horse reservoir quite a bit.
It is spectacular country and I would not let concern for bears keep you away. The Bob is quite different from Glacier – people hunt in the Bob and all the critters are substantially more skittish about humans. Also on such a trip you would be with a group. Add in the fact that even within the park there has never been a bear fatality involving a group of four or more people and you’ll see that your chances of having a bear problem are very low on the list of things that can go wrong.
FYI
Number one cause of visitor fatalities in GNP – auto accident.
Number two – drowning.
Yeah, it really does seem that this is problematic for some because much of it is indeed defensible. In fact, some of it might be quite hard to refute. Which makes people cocoon both psychologically (who wants a decidedly flawed world?) and professionally (who wants a target on their back?).
There’s a solution for such problems though which Squid spelled out above pretty well, in my estimation.
The hand-waving dismissal is perhaps the lowest of the available options.
From the talk page on geoffb’s link to IQ distribution by race
I also don’t know why we would include this – as we were discussing – data is relevant for the conclusions scholars are drawing from it. We shouldn’t encourage laypeople to draw conclusions based on data that they are not qualified to interpret.·Maunus·?· 22:53, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
The Mind Shaper’s Lament
Heh. I failed to flunk ESR’s intelligence test the first time I read a reaction to Derb’s piece and found I couldn’t get to the actual text to see for myself.
OUTLAW!
“Indefensible. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” — Inigo Montoya
link
Just saw this at Insty’s:
thanks, newrouter, I just saw that good kimball piece at PJ and posted it in another thread
It should be read twice to be properly enjoyed.
i was wrong: they aren’t proggtards. they are proggslims who issue fatwas from time to time.
and our side are like the meek christians vis a vis terry jones.
Dear oh dear. Malor is doing little to combat the perception that lawyers are pricks. As opposed to liking prick. NTTAWWT.
or the newspaper editors with the moetoons
Consider the hysteria over one little article by Derbyshire, who is not a part of NR staff and merely a freelancer on occasion (see Gawker interview), an article not even posted at NR. Is this breathless haste to Burn The Witch possibly motivated by a desperate desire to appear uncontroversial and moderate during a Presidential election cycle? Or is it truly a sign of the surrender of the Right to speech codes and the acceptance of the Left’s terms of debate?
Oh well, I can pretend, I guess.
and both the muslims and the proggslims seek to dehumanize their enemies. sorry barry rubin’s piece got me thinking which a ctrl-alt-del will rectify.
indefensible, inevitable…
Our political future seems to be based on “in-words”.
I wish I was insouciant about it. Instead I feel intimidated.
Indubitably so.
Remember when indivisible was the in thing? Me neither. Before my time.
That Kimball piece is really excellent. Just today I was thinking of the comparison Roger made to Jesse Jackson’s notorious remark “There is nothing more painful to me … than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
Did blacks drum Jackson out of polite society? Did black publications refuse to carry his pieces thereafter? Would Rich Lowry grant Jackson space to write a special editorial if Jackson so requested? Does Lowry find Jackson’s observation racist? Or merely unpleasant? Is there truth to Jackson’s observation? Does it matter if there is?
Well I’ve managed to annoy the heck out of Malor and some of the folks here, so I consider that a pretty good indication I’m doing something right.
I haven’t been following this too closely the last couple days, but is it now understood that Derbyshire’s column was in response to a column previously written from the perspective of a black man having the talk with his own child?
Doesn’t that sorta change the context? In other words, if Derbyshire was not just pulling this out of his own animus (or whatever you want to call it), that would be as different as me walking up to you and punching you in the nose, versus me responding to your punch in the nose by decking you with a right cross to the jaw. Which, certainly wouldn’t cause me to have any problem with his column.
incoherent
Our political future seems to be based on “in-words”.
Sounds like indoctrination.
, that would be as different as me walking up to you and punching you in the nose, versus me responding to your punch in the nose by decking you with a right cross to the jaw.
welcome to george zimmerman’s world
I do not believe the data Derbyshire concludes proves conclusively Blacks are less intelligent than Whites or whites are less intelligent than Asians. But the testing absolutely shows significant differences between those racial groups.
But the reason this freaks people out is to debate Derbyshire on these points requires an acknowledgement that the possibility exists he might be right. My point is draw your conclusion, but debate the facts and let the evidence lead you where it leads you. Isn’t that the way of the scientific method?
Inhuman.
is it now understood that Derbyshire’s column was in response to a column previously written from the perspective of a black man having the talk with his own child?
That is a glaring point of omission in many discussions. Why? The Article Which Shall Not Be Read is titled: “The Talk: Nonblack Version.” Salty Jeebus on a Snickers, the article is a form of parody in part. Intention, people. Original intention.
I wonder if Derbyshire and Larry Summers might have a few things to discuss.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2005/1/14/summers-comments-on-women-and-science/
As a guy with a joyful gregarious chipper voice, in a Tim and Eric sketch, once said, “I’m a demon.”
Inane.
INXS – Devil inside
Incompatible is the word that best describes my regard for the arbiters of civil discourse.
I think if the conservatives don’t grow some balls and stick together it will eventually be insulted, incriminated, interred, inhumed, incinerated…
Revolutions require such. Especially the fraudulent utopian ones.
Infected.
Twitterered. Maybe he’ll block me now.
Ing[R]own.
?” @gabrielmalor-
@rsmccain And we had no obligation to defend Derb’s indefensible column just because he had conservatarian views. ”
Yeah no obligation, no desire, no reason, nor did you have the courage, the talent, the wisdom…
Also you naively thought you might get a morsel of credibility enhancement for each stone cast. For the left is generous after every victory, no? And so the world gains more little Charles Johnsons who don’t realize what they’ve become or what isolation they will face when their own turn on the pillory comes.
EBL says April 10, 2012 at 5:27 pm
I do not believe the data Derbyshire concludes proves conclusively Blacks are less intelligent than Whites or whites are less intelligent than Asians. But the testing absolutely shows significant differences between those racial groups.
But the reason this freaks people out is to debate Derbyshire on these points requires an acknowledgement that the possibility exists he might be right. My point is draw your conclusion, but debate the facts and let the evidence lead you where it leads you. Isn’t that the way of the scientific method?
The reason this freaks people out is that acknowledging these differences as cultural, and subsequently elective, rather than racial or of the guiltless ‘lottery of birth” would put the onus internally as well as big chinks in the identity-grievance-necessitating-nannyism machinery.
It’s just too bad we had to start Holder’s national conversation on race with “Blacks are sure dumb, and dangerous in packs too…Look!, I can prove it!”
I think it would go better if we talked about behavior and culture with a goal of unification in mind, and leave the “who’s your daddy?” shtick to the race pimps.
The reason this freaks people out is that acknowledging these differences as cultural, and subsequently elective,
see prison culture and rap music and the “knock out” game
Hey, we’re talking Gabe Malor here.
A person who would deny the oven is a hazard as the gas ignites.
Personally, I have heard Chris Rock saying similar things as Derbyshire wrote but he was paid a LOT more for the opinion.
what would make Mr. Derbyderb’s views defensible would be if they allied up wif the bagger 288 I think
check and mate, malor
” It’s just too bad we had to start Holder’s national conversation on race with “Blacks are sure dumb, and dangerous in packs too…Look!, I can prove it!” ”
Holder’s national conversation on race started with his decision to unilaterally stop all prosecution on the NBPP standing around in front of polling places with night-sticks.
It’s just too bad we had to start Holder’s national conversation on race with “Blacks are sure dumb, and dangerous in packs too…Look!, I can prove it!”
why can’t one talk about the anti social/tribal tendencies of black youts? especially in the last 2 years. its on display for all to see if willing.
No, we started the conversation with “Whitey will just shoot your black ass down in the street for wearing a hoodie!”
Just beware of industrial mishappery Mr Derbyshire.
hey gabe good luck with the proggslims
“I want to hear him talk about this,” said [Prof. Marc Lamont] Hill. “I won’t be disingenuous about it. I’m not going to pretend that I believe Mitt Romney is a closet racist… but he needs to contextualize this for us.”…
For the Obama campaign, trying to turn Mitt’s Mormonism against him would be something of a high-wire act, threatening to injure the incumbent should the strategy go awry. But as Democrats seek to galvanize an underwhelmed liberal base, associating racism with Romney — a bland moderate who often comes off as more hapless than villainous — could help boost election-day turnout…
“I think if he were a child when anti-black policies were in place, that would be different,” said Reid. “But he was an adult, active in the ministry of his church, and it’s fair to ask, if the media cares to — and they should — what he thought of those policies at the time. The question is very much legitimate.”
link
said Reid. “But he was an adult, active in the ministry ofhis church,
ain’t yours? what a pos.
that’s very a lot awe-inspiring Mr. sdferr
that’s some damn good american made equipment
And we had no obligation to defend Derb’s indefensible column just because he had conservatarian views.
Obligation to defend?
How about analyze? Discuss? Tease apart? Digest? Fisk?
Or are we to the point where anything short of the whitest-hot condemnation makes you a partaker in Derb’s sin?
independent ________
you didn’t get the fatwa
We should talk about it. I just think we’d be better off approaching the subject from cultural lines, not hereditary lines.
If passing near West Mineral, Kansas (s.e. corner near onto Missouri) it’s good to make a visit to Big Brutus.
That would be a great place to start, and I wouldn’t mind at all talking about the cultural issues that lead US to this place. BUT IT’S ALL INDEFENSIBLE SO SHUT UP, RACIST!!!
Genetic issues, whatever they may or may not be, are not actionable. There’s plenty of things that are. Derb mentioned quite a few of them, IIRC.
If derby hadda talked of literacy rates(behavior) instead of IQ points(tied to heredity), I bet much of this angst could have been avoided.
BuddyPC, I agree. The reason these differences exist is cultural. And to acknowledge it totters the whole victimization theory of the Democrats and the Left and suggests that personal responsibility, accountability, and self discipline matters.
Talking about crazy ideas that that could mess everything up!
Good thing Jeremiah Wright has crawled back from under his rock. We can compare Mormon sermons from Romney’s church with Reverend Wright’s tirades.
Compare and contrast!
Of course, Mitt and the GOP establishment doesn’t look to have that kind of confrontational politics (vs. Obama, I mean; because they don’t want to be labeled racists) in them. So what it comes down to is this: policy wise, Romney and Obama share many of the same positions. But Romney’s a creepy cultist and Wall Street vulture who also happens to be a pasty white racist and something of a nerd. While Obama — the One, the LightBringer — he hangs with Jay-Z and Kal Penn and Jon Bon Jovi and radical chic erstwhile domestic terrorists / provocative “academics” and “thinkers”.
Oh. And voting for him magically makes the racism and the “unfairness” go away!
It’s like somebody drew up the precise candidate who’d have to go up against Obama to get him re-elected in this economy, and the GOP went out and made sure they found that guy, then forced him on us.
There is an aspect of the racial argument that has traditionally been accepted by the left, and it goes something like this: “blacks hold no power in this country, so when they (we) speak out against white oppression, using the harshest terms possible, it can’t be labeled racism because racism on occurs when it’s backed by power.”
Obviously, there are holes in that argument. Not the least of which is that when the President of the United States and the Attorney General identify themselves with the oppressed class, it’s hard to pretend there is no power behind them.
So how do you convince the average black man on the street that the ground rules have changed? Or that the original position was flawed from the start?
Why, it’s almost as if the article Derbyshire was responding to can be magically removed from the context, and something the resultant text can be explained just the same!
I think Derb should be able to write about whatever he thinks is pertinent. I also think that those who disagree with his views are free not to read them.
Just as Lowry felt compelled to fire Derb, I don’t feel compelled to read his
BushMitt league fanzine.literacy rates(behavior) instead of IQ points(tied to heredity)
when does “ghetto” go from behavior to heredity
BurtTC, it’s pretty crazy that the POTUS and the Attorney General are still being held back by The Man, no?
: “blacks hold no power in this country,
detroit, newark, birmingham
leigh says April 10, 2012 at 7:28 pm
“BurtTC, it’s pretty crazy that the POTUS and the Attorney General are still being held back by The Man, no?”
Worse still perhaps, are those people who seem to be using the fact that THEY now hold positions of power to even scores, finally.
I don’t know, maybe ask zombie Moynihan.
newrouter says April 10, 2012 at 7:33 pm
…
Like I said, there are holes in the argument.
Well I think I’ve spewed my spleen for the night. Or HAVE I? Either way I need a nap.
In Africa there have been tremendous problems with rogue juvenile male elephants who have formed themselves into maruading packs trampling through elephant calves, injuring female elephants and generally behaving like douchebags. Studies were made of these elephants and it seems that the lack of a mature male elephant in the herd was deemed to be the problem.
Mature male elephants who were playing second fiddle to the lead elephant in their herds (and generally not getting any females) were redistributed to these herds (one each) to kick ass and get these youngblood elephants to act like folks. He would establish himself as the new Big Kahuna and the juvenile elephants didn’t try to pull any more crap least they get a whooping.
It worked. The herds stabalized and any recalcitrant juveniles were run off from the herd: elephant non grata.
So, it would seem that ole Daniel Patrick Moynehan was on to something when he spoke out against the Great Society. No dad = young punks with no respect for others.
Is literacy divorced from IQ? I think not, and also think it’s not terribly important in terms of racial relations.
This. And melanin has nothing to do with it. Fatherlessness is the root of many social evils, including more fatherlessness.
Explain the definitions of “racism” and “discrimination”. Use flash cards if necessary.
I think that the right-o-sphere has demonstrated amply this weekend that race and discrimination are never ever never to be spoken about. Except, maybe, in hushed tones, with a lot of modifiers and caveats. But not very often. Maybe on 29 February.
Maybe.
With all the banishment going on it’s looking more like a wiffle ball than a sphere.
I think that the right-o-sphere has demonstrated amply this weekend that race and discrimination are never ever never to be spoken about.
proggslam fatwa
I think Republischism is apt.
Outlaw!
We can compare Mormon sermons from Romney’s church with Reverend Wright’s tirades.
And the Mormons will be thrown deftly under the bus before you can say “Joseph Smith ordained three black men to the priesthood.”
Which he did. But it won’t matter. Neither will the fact that the KKK attacked Mormons along with the Jews and Catholics or that Mormons never tried to start a race war—or any other kind of war—with anybody, ever.
Won’t matter. We’re too damn white. (There are more Mormons outside the U.S. than inside, and the most widely spoken language in the church is Spanish, not English.)
But it won’t matter.
this is the trope the left says the right believes about that graph I linked at 3:27 pm.
As if things weren’t bad enough, the season finale of Justified is on.
It is the left however that professes that all cultures are equally good. We/I believe that this difference is a culturally based one.
Neither will the fact that the KKK attacked Mormons
yea well ax baracky about the 1924 “klan bake” convention? the harvard edumacted ahole has no clue.
Dragging the Klan out of the linen closet has no utility in this discussion.
Pablo, I am cheered that MadMen is back and took a macabre turn last Sunday.
The thing that keeps bugging me about this topic is that I can’t get over the suspicion that it’s crazily racist to be less annoyed with black criminal culture than I would be if it was some amorphous evil white European bad guy like they put in the movies.
This wasn’t a hate crime apparently. Really? Really? We heard the same thing in Milwaukee when hundreds of black kids attacked dozens of white victims.
There are people openly putting out fucking bounties on American citizens without any consequence.
Why don’t these things matter?
Why do we bend over backwards to pretend that an old British dude’s statements mean something important about today’s state of affairs but open racial violence doesn’t?
Enough with the bullshit already. Derbyshire didn’t start the national conversation on race.
Because the racial bullies have us pegged. We are a nation of cowards.
Consequently, we don’t deserve that lunch money. They do.
Yeah, they do have us pegged.
You’re exactly right, bh. There’s a presumed element of man bites dog to white on black crime that somehow makes it more loathsome in certain quarters. It makes sense that it be so from the race hustler point of view, but how gleefully the mainstream left plays along can only be due to their racism. There really isn’t anything soft about the bigotry of low expectations.
It’s Thrasymachus’ argument all over again. He too demanded the lunch money.
If they don’t consider some of these recent events to be meaningful, what else can it possibly be?
Where did the white self-loathing come from is what I wonder. Me and mine have never had a thing to do with slavery or segregation or anything else to be ashamed of. The most racial thing in my lineage is my Daddy teaching lots of black kids to read. Remedially. Who owes who what, now?
Your Daddy taught the white man’s logic?
Oppressor debbil.
You’d have to ask Shelby Steele, Pablo.
Self-righteousness and faux piety are the new cultural currency. It’s simple, it’s easy to fake, and it puts you squarely in the camp of the Good Men.
We used to call it sanctimony. And it absolutely sickens me personally. These last couple weeks have been truly eye opening. I have no political party that represents my interests. And there exists none I don’t absolutely abhor. And that goes for their opinion shapers, as well.
I have this image of Ann Coulter shooting ping pong balls with Romney’s face painted on them out of her cooter in the VIP room of an NRO cruise. Somehow, it seems almost like a perfect objective correlative.
Why am I reminded of Dr Evil’s “shh” bit from the first Austin Powers movie?
“Shh! Even before you start. That was a preemptive ‘shh!’. Just know I have a whole bag of ‘shh!’ with your name on it.”
Jeff G that image is indefensible.
Of course if you don’t intend to defend it then EVERYTHING is indefensible. Everything. But at least that which is indefensible is can be abandoned, ceded, or surrendered for a taste of of good ol’ sanctimony.
Chamberlain’s folly is alive and well.
We must abandon the indefensible and surrender to the inevitable or we can go fuck ourselves. Unless the big ten falls down. Of course if it does, it will somehow be my fault, but I’ll have a chance to redeem myself via the usual unctuous donation letters.
I only regret that my racism drove Michael Steele out of the party. I remember him being kind of a screw up who complained about his own party more than the other one but that’s probably my inner fuhrer talking.
All I wanted was a smaller government. I fought for it. I protested for it. I donated for it.
Now I can go to hell for it too.
After I vote for Romney of course.
she should sing a nice Gershwin tune too for Mr. Steyn while she’s doing the table tennis thing
he’d get a kick out of that I bet
ten=tent
Ann spends most of her her free time in Chris Christie’s jacket pocket juggling tic-tacs.
Those aren’t tic-tacs. Those are Bill Maher’s very very clean-shaven white balls.
Self-righteousness and faux piety are the new cultural currency.
They always have been and always will be.
It’s piety about what that shifts, and who gets the vapours that changes.
“Race is merely cosmetic” used to bring on the fainting, as did Sidney Poitier coming over for dinner.
Though come to think of it, someone with as much class and dignity as Poitier wouldn’t last long in some black neighborhoods, either.
Annie-Rose Strasser baldly asserted, Derbyshire provided data and research studies.
They had better get ready as the deadly assertations will mount higher in the coming months. The Rino-right has plenty of room under its bus too.
No, it goes out of style for long periods, replaced by self-effacement or ironic detachment or some such.
In…hale.
” The Rino-right has plenty of room under its bus too.”
I’m not all that sure it does. I think the sad truth is that they are in a death spiral. They’ve branded themselves as the touchy, self hating, gun shy, slower-boat progressives who are afraid of looking old fashioned, stubborn, or recalcitrant.
Who actually wants or needs what they offer? Even if they win they don’t really win because they will act as a force multiplier for the dems and pass 2/3’s of their agenda in three pieces instead of all of it in one piece.
I think they have a lot more room in their bus than under it. They literally just threw away a hard won victory, fucked over their own new allies, and went back to the “be vague and don’t offend anybody and hope the democrats lose somehow” 2008 mode. And they did it against the weakest possible opponent who they had already partially defeated to boot. They want to be liked before they are exiled. They think they can sweet talk the mob into kicking us. They have thrown away tremendous momentum wondering if anyone on the other side would like them if they bowed their head a little and dropped most of their own big issues and slapped those who helped them win in 2010. They are timid poll watchers. But what have the accomplished? What have they built? What have they gained? The press doesn’t care who they try to put under their bus. Why should they? Their bus is almost empty less than two years after it was full and revving up.
They need to get the hell out of the way because they sure are doing anything like leading. They are useless and detrimental to the goals of their base. Or maybe there is no base anymore and they’ve all drowned in a sea of shock, dulled pity, disgust, and ennui.
On NRO: ” Millennials Turn Rightward?
Faced with a terrible economy, are the young forsaking Obama?
By Nathaniel Botwinick”
Why should Millenials turn rightward? Maybe they are just standing still and you’re drifting leftward.
I hate babies. Babies poop themselves. They’re clingy. “Gimme Gimme”.
I feel, without fear of refutation, that babies are of inferior intelligence. They do really stupid things. They put anything in their mouths. That’s not smart.
But aside from babies’ complete sense of entitlement, their total dependence, and their obvious lack of any common sense, the thing I hate most about babies is that they are completely protected.
You can’t say you hate babies.
Of course, most babies grow up.
But there are some instances where the body grows to maturity and the mind stays suspended in infancy. Scary hormones. Boners with nowhere to go. Scary.
What if you tried domesticate these “adult-babies”? Strong of body but completely ignorant. You’d have to have some kick-ass oversight.
It’s been done, you say? OK, let’s add a wrinkle. Domesticate them, keep them on the plantation, AND protect them like babies.
If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard “I wish I was still a baby.” I hate babies.
Oh, and Vijay Singh is still the first black man to win a major.
Anybody know if Malor and Strasser and the other little deciders deciding decidedly have consigned Roger Kimball to the outer darkness yet?
I mean, if it’s indefensible, then defending the indefensible is itself indefensible, isn’t it?
Time to add INDEFENSIBLE to the repertoire, alongside of FUNDAMENTAL UNSERIOUSNESS and GOOD MAN.
Is This indefensible?
Of course Bill has done a complete 180 now.
The implosion of the right side of the blogosphere seems to have accelerated and for me has been as unexpected as it is sudden. In this vacuum I find myself both liberated and concerned. But stuff like Derbygate has been outing the poseurs quite nicely, as stuff tends to do.
I’d like to think it means new opportunity. Been hanging at pw for years now and there is no reduction in either the vinegary tang or the pertinence of the now-very-essential message.
Tells one it’s time to not give up.
I’m even considering Mitt’s ascendency as a means to an end anyway, where the little tool finds himself on the loud side of two hundred million figurative musket barrels bristling out of polls all the way down to the level of state rep and thus he bends over and with both hands locates marching orders that actually mean something somewhat important to classical liberalism and that constrain tools in high places such as he.
Just a hunch. But what a shitty way to accomplish something as iffy as, at best, postponing the inevitable.
Mitt endorsement.
It was Romney’s turn.
My quiet hope is that with Santorum out of the race, the multitudes with no love for Romney nor the establishment, big-government GOP can turn their focus away from promoting Santorum, and toward promoting a clear vision of where we want to go. I honestly believe that vision would be embraced by the majority of our countrymen, and it matters not a whit whether the vision is adopted by the Dems, the GOP, or a new party to be named.
The 2010 landslide was no fluke. There is a real sense among the public that something is very wrong, and it’s up to us to clarify what this wrongness is, where it springs from, and how to reverse it. Let the babblers babble for the next six months about magic underwear and the War on Women and all the rest, while we concentrate on convincing our friends and families and neighbors that they have an alternative to the usual suspects.
Of course, I’ll keep my bug-out bag handy, just in case.
File that away to shove up Malor’s ass in 4 or 8 years when it’s Santorum’s.
In other news, I hear that Glenn Beck’s right shoe is running.
It hasn’t lost its sole.
It has a good platform.
Won’t get tongue-tied.
Though there is a smidge of controversy over its country of manufacture. It might be Italy, but anyone who says so is a manufacturer-er.
Probably a monk-strap. Godbotherer.
Malor’s a lawyer? What part of doubling down on transparent rhetoric did he learn at law school?
Nearly four years back I thought the same thing, that we could sell classical liberalism across the ideological spectrum and draw support from both parties for a more basic and effective politics. I went with OUTLAW. The TEA Party came along from a similar feeling that drastic and sudden reform was needed.
Now, we have National TEA Party organizations hosting blog conferences for the GOP cheerleading blogs and bloggers. We have TEA Party “leaders” endorsing Mitt Romney. We have a right-wing blogosphere increasingly broken up into a network of interlinking blogs and bloggers using a Journolist-type messaging apparatus and a stipend system to gather regularly at conferences — witness “INDEFENSIBLE!” or “IT’S TIME TO SOLIDIFY BEHIND ROMNEY!” — while studiously ignoring and marginalizing outlying blogs, even formerly influential ones, and their competing messages.
I agree with you that 2010 was no fluke. But many people are clearly going to be dispirited and doubt that they can do anything to overcome the Party apparatus and the fact that it can buy off people like Coulter and lord knows how many blogs and blogging outfits with jobs or perks or advertising or salaried positions. And that doesn’t even begin to touch on the traditional “conservative” messaging outfits like, eg., National Review or the Weekly Standard, which look like nothing so much as lead house organs for the GOP establishment. FOX News? Please.
I admit, I feel like I’ve argued for over a decade with no effect. If anything, I’ve become a much smaller voice. And after a while, it becomes nothing more than insanity to keep doing the same things, offering the same messages, only to find yourself ignored for the trouble by people whose backs you’ve had.
There are people out there who haven’t heard the message yet.
Californians self-identify 47% very conservative or conservative, 24% liberal or very liberal. But this 5% of the electoral college is not in play. Move along.
Right now it would take 3% of the May primary vote to be the candidate that runs against Diane Feinstein in the fall.
What’s actually indefensible?
Passing an unconstitutional law — loudly condemned as such before passage — which institutes tremendous amounts of spending of the public treasury to no useful effect, wasting those public dollars altogether, once that unconstitutional law is cast down with finality by the Supreme Court. This arrogant waste of the public capital is indefensible in fact.
Hearing anything of it, are we? Not so much.
Who’s Gabriel Malor?
Jeff, an Outlaw voice in the wilderness is still a voice. After that, well, Capt. Malcolm Reynolds had a few appropriate words: “I aim to misbehave.” No linky, you all know where it’s from.
” What’s actually indefensible?
Passing an unconstitutional law”
Yeah well, McCain-Feingold comes to mind…why take the political heat of vetoing it? The courts will catch it. Oh wait, the courts refused to intervene because the president let it go through. Bummer.
We have multiple precedents for enduring unconstitutional nonsense laws for the sake of the so called common good.
Someone with my name should not make fun, but what an awesome name. All I can think of is this:
Señoras y distinguidos señores, nos hacemos la pregunta, ella es o no es verdad? Su respuesta, a partir de Monterry hermoso, el de las piernas, Gabrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriel Malooooooooooor!
Gabriel Malor sounds like the misguided evil knight serving an evil Baroness who acts like a foil to the young Cornwall pig herder who wants to find King Arthur’s lost sword and save Briton from the ghosts of Danish raiders. Y’know, in a bad cartoon movie.
No hay pesos en el escenario, sólo dólares. Tiros libres con estudiante o identificación militar!
On the other hand, Marco Rubio sounds like a great boxer’s name:
“And in this corner! Wearing red, white and blue trunks: MarCO RuBIO!!
I don’t trust Rubio. I just don’t. That puts me in the very very very small minority, I realize. But he’s a politician first. And that troubles me.
I think if I were being honest it would be because the best thing I can say about him is he’s useful. But he knows that, too.
I don’t trust him either, Jeff. So, I guess that puts us in a party of two or three who look at Rubio with slitted eyes because he is a fine politician and that’s a dangerous thing. Everytime I hear him speak I am impressed because he is so much more eloquent than most of his fellows in the Senate, but that doesn’t mean much since he’s a freshman and doesn’t have a record yet.
I only mentioned him because I hear an announcer’s voice in my head everytime I hear Rubio’s name.
Marcuse still lives.
Evil fucker.
I’m not sure if it’s relevant to this specific topic but this is Commentary Magazine on Derb’s firing: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/04/09/john-derbyshire-and-national-review-why-it-had-to-happen/. This is a James Q. Wilson review of Freakonomics that touches on some of the same issues: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/freakonomics-by-steven-d-levitt-and-stephen-j-dubner/.