The Other McCain

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland
Congratulations to all the winners of 2014 Blog Bash awards, particularly Blogger of the Year, William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection. Many thanks to my fellow bloggers who voted to award me the “Best Activism Post” at Thursday’s Blog Bash. The winning entry, “Aggravating Circumstances: Against the #FreeKate Campaign for Sexual Anarchy,” was to some degree motivated by my general disgust with politics. Readers may recall that the 2012 election caused me to announce that we are “Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption,” and nothing that the Republican Party has done in the past 17 months has inspired any greater confidence that politics can accomplish much. It is possible to summarize our problem in two words: Cultural Decadence.

Simply put, a majority of the American people have become degenerates, and have been swept up in the general decline in virtue, a dangerous trend that our cultural elite have actively encouraged. A wise people never would have elected Barack Obama president, and a moral people never would have re-elected him.

We cannot ignore this. Living under a democratic form of government means that the morality of the people is implicated in their political choices. If we have a corrupt government, this is only possible because the people themselves have become corrupted.

So when supporters of Kaitlyn Hunt proposed that perverts have a right to molest your children, when the “Free Kate” movement argued that age-of-consent laws are “homophobic” if applied to lesbians, it became necessary to raise the alarm:

People who care about America’s future should be angry about this case and, personally, I’m so angry I’m starting to get angry at other people for not being angry about it.
If we can’t draw the line here, folks, there is no hope at all.
Supporters of Kaitlyn Ashley Hunt are making flawed and dangerous arguments which, if we don’t argue back against them, could subvert the rule of law and bring about a culture of sexual anarchy, where school children are violated and corrupted “consensually” and parents have no legal recourse to prevent such outrageous behavior.

Kaitlyn Hunt eventually went to jail and, in the months since then, I have spent more time paying attention to these issues, because the danger has not receded and the organized forces of corruption and perversion are more active than ever. When an 18-year-old girl declares that it is “empowering” to hire herself out as a porn performer, and no one at her elite university is capable of expressing a cogent counter-argument, we are so close to the gates of Hell you can feel the heat, smell the brimstone, and hear the Devil call your name.

Thanks to all the readers whose contributions have made it possible for me to continue doing this work.

The Five Most Important Words in the English Language? #BlogBash pic.twitter.com/jT09LcHE0T

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) March 7, 2014

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland
Ted Cruz was on stage in the Potomac Ballroom when I turned to Dave Weigel and said, “He can really preach it, eh?” Weigel said, “Well, that’s what his father did.” Indeed, the Texas senator’s father, Rafael Cruz, is an evangelical pastor, and the son’s sermon was the straight-up Tea Party gospel for the CPAC flock.

“Our country is at a crisis point. . . . Liberty is under assault,” Cruz told the opening session, with the ballroom at about 80 percent capacity. Despite the dire outlook, the Texan’s speech included lots of good humor: “I’m going to suggest a radical agenda: Hope and Change.”

.@SenTedCruz tells #CPAC2014: ‘Stand on principle’ http://t.co/EpngXWQ5bQ | Photo by @smahaskey pic.twitter.com/fPS4tJTjMo

— POLITICO (@politico) March 6, 2014

Cruz discussed the impact of the Democrat administration’s economic policy on young people. “Under President Obama, we’ve had five years of the Great Stagnation,” he said, and included both parties in his indictment of the capital’s political class.

“We need to tell the truth,” Cruz said. “The truth is, Washington is corrupt.”

* * * * *

CPAC NOTEBOOK:

• Media Blues — Several reporters were locked out of the Potomac Ballroom during Cruz’s speech, because of the long line at the media registration booth. Jon Ward of Huffington Post and Robert Costa of the Washington Post were among the journalists who stood helplessly at the entrance, the way barred by a college-age volunteer staffer who was under orders to admit no one without credentials. “Trust me — these are good guys,” I said to the gangly young volunteer. But he had his orders, my two friends were S.O.L., and they weren’t alone. As I exited the ballroom after Cruz’s speech, I noticed Byron York of the Washington Examiner was also stuck on the wrong side of the barricade, Fox News celebrity status notwithstanding.
• The Conspiracy Continues — Walking through the hotel lobby on my way out to have a smoke, I encountered Red State’s Erick Erickson, one of my co-defendant in perjuring bomber Brett Kimberlin’s federal RICO suit. We greeted each other cordially, and I remarked how silly it was for Kimberlin to have claimed that I was part of a “conspiracy” with Erickson, considering how I had been at odds with Erick during the 2012 GOP primary campaign. Erickson was cheered by the federal judge’s orders Wednesday which gave Kimberlin 14 days to show cause why several defendants (including the lead defendant, the National Bloggers Club) should not be dropped from the lawsuit.
• Alumni News — At Wednesday night’s “RINO Con,” I met Amanda Read in person for the first time. Read, one of nine children from an Alabama homeschooling family, is here working for Tea Party News Network. She’s a recent graduate of my alma mater, Jacksonville (Ala.) State University, so I feel a special duty to encourage and promote her career.

#CPAC2014 @LaurenC_Lux and @DLoesch Yeah, you want to click this. pic.twitter.com/1HDq8CQjSi

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) March 6, 2014

THIS guy … #RINOcon @rsmccain pic.twitter.com/ZP855sdSBp

— Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) March 6, 2014

Every year, the question is, “How can this CPAC possibly better than last year’s?” I’m not sure, but every year they try:

As soon as attendees at the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) check into their hotel rooms, they will see evidence that the 2016 presidential campaign has already begun. Room keys at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center are emblazoned with the face of Dr. Ben Carson and the slogan, “Run Ben Run!” This promotion is provided by the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee, which has already raised nearly $3 million to encourage the famed heart surgeon to pursue the Republican Party presidential nomination.
By the time CPAC ends Saturday afternoon with a speech by 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, attendees will have heard from nearly every politician mentioned as a potential 2016 GOP presidential contender, beginning with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s speech Thursday morning. Cruz will be followed to the CPAC rostrum Thursday by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who was Mitt Romney’s 2012 running mate, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and business mogul Donald Trump. Friday’s lineup includes Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks Saturday, in addition to the speeches by Carson and Palin. Among the names commonly discussed as Republican presidential candidates in 2016, only Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are missing from the CPAC schedule. . . .

Please read the whole thing at The American Spectator.