The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Truth and Its Enemies

Posted on | December 27, 2012 | 16 Comments

Last Friday, Pope Benedict gave a Christmas address, in which he raised serious issues about the role of marriage in society:

So it became clear that the question of the family is not just about a particular social construct, but about man himself — about what he is and what it takes to be authentically human. The challenges involved are manifold. First of all there is the question of the human capacity to make a commitment or to avoid commitment. Can one bind oneself for a lifetime? Does this correspond to man’s nature? Does it not contradict his freedom and the scope of his self-realization? Does man become himself by living for himself alone and only entering into relationships with others when he can break them off again at any time? Is lifelong commitment antithetical to freedom? Is commitment also worth suffering for? Man’s refusal to make any commitment — which is becoming increasingly widespread as a result of a false understanding of freedom and self-realization as well as the desire to escape suffering — means that man remains closed in on himself and keeps his “I” ultimately for himself, without really rising above it. Yet only in self-giving does man find himself, and only by opening himself to the other, to others, to children, to the family, only by letting himself be changed through suffering, does he discover the breadth of his humanity. When such commitment is repudiated, the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child — essential elements of the experience of being human are lost. . . .

You can read the rest for yourself, but consider more importantly how this message was greeted by American liberals:

Does anyone in the media ever attempt to read and understand the speeches of  Pope Benedict? The New York Daily News account of his December 21 speech to the curia (the “Vatican  bureaucracy”) is being mangled by the Daily Kos into “Pope gives special holiday hate speech against gays  because it’s Christmas.” The Mediaite  headline (off London’s Daily Mail) is “Merry Christmas? Pope Benedict XVI Denounces Gay Marriage As  A ‘Manipulation Of Nature’.”

How is it possible to discuss anything seriously with such fanatics?

“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.”
— II Thessalonians 2:11 (KJV)

 

Category: Catholics, Family, Gays, Marriage

The Winners Write the History Books

Posted on | December 27, 2012 | 14 Comments

“People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.”
— Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.”
– William F. Buckley Jr., Up From Liberalism (1959)

America spent four decades locked in an eyeball-to-eyeball nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union and, when the Berlin Wall came down, most of us thought that we had “won” the Cold War.

Alas, little noticed by most Americans, intellectual subversives sympathetic to the Soviets had ensconced themselves in academia, making the “long march through the institutions” so that our nation’s children are now indoctrinated with a Marxist worldview. This fact — the Sovietization of American history — is now belatedly apparent to John Hinderaker in Minnesota’s public-school social studies standards:

As you read them, you imagine a senile old man, shuffling around in his pajamas and muttering, “Race, class, gender…race, class, gender.” Everything is about demographic interest groups.

Hinderaker notes the anti-heroic concept of the social studies standards, which slight the great deeds of great men, among them the gallant soldiers of the First Minnesota Infantry Regiment.

Well . . . there are still five A’s in RAAAAACISM, after all. Lessons celebrating the heroism of the First Minnesota would, according to the contemporary view, fail to represent non-white, non-male contributions to society. Why should the daughters of Hmong immigrants, for example, be taught to revere these dead Anglo-Saxon men?

History — excuse me, social studies — is now no longer about the facts of the past, but is rather a form of political propaganda, carefully airbrushed in much the same way that Stalinists removed Leon Trotsky from historic photos of the Russian Revolution.

Those facts which do not fit the political purposes of the indoctrinators are omitted or suppressed, and the lessons are reformulated in keeping with Marxist doctrines of historical materialism, class struggle, imperialism, exploitation, “false consciousness” and so forth.

So . . . why aren’t you home-schooling your children?

 

Category: Culture, Education, History

The Problem With Piers Morgan Is That Americans Don’t Hate Him Enough

Posted on | December 27, 2012 | 27 Comments

If you haven’t yet signed the petition to deport Piers Morgan, what are you waiting for? Both the Constitution and the Bible are so “inherently flawed,” the CNN host says, that they must be amended to take away the right to keep and bear arms, and to legitimize homosexuality:

“Both the bible and the Constitution were well intentioned, but they are basically, inherently flawed. Hence, the need to amend it. . . . My point to you about gay rights, for example, it’s time for an amendment to the Bible.”

No, Piers Morgan is inherently flawed. Time to deport him, I say.

(Via Memeorandum; video via Hot Air.)

 

Category: CNN

Sociopathic Monsters: ‘Heroic Hatred’

Posted on | December 27, 2012 | 32 Comments

In September, Ladd Ehlinger Jr. published “A Breathtaking Lack of Empathy,” an attempt to explain Neal Rauhauser’s sociopathic tendencies:

He thinks of people as playthings to be toyed with. By categorizing them as “trolls” he can do to them whatever he wishes, and creates all sorts of elaborate games to entrap them. His revelry in their misery is quite apparent, justified by dehumanizing those he manipulates.

This dehumanization of his targets — viewing them as objects — is characteristic of the sociopath, and Rauhauser’s delight in playing “conflict cupid” (inciting others to attack his targets) displays the sadistic aspect of his warped personality. Ehlinger noted Rauhauser’s aptitude for recruiting similarly deviant characters to assist him in his malicious projects. Among Neal’s most persistent henchpeople is “Occupy Rebellion,” who recently decided to share this in the comments at a pro-Kimberlin site (which I won’t link, for obvious reasons):

We have every single right to mock Andrew Breitbart and any other Breitbart trash who dies. Since THEY are the ones who mock people’s deaths every single day. . . . Andrew Breitbart was a career criminal who made it his mission to destroy people & their families. . . .
NO ONE linked to Breitbart has the right to ever claim their “victims” of anything. NO ONE linked to Breitbart has the right to ever “grieve” for anyone they know who died. NO ONE CARES. We should only “grieve” if it’s Breitbart trash who dies but not for anyone else??

Here you have someone utterly dehumanizing not only the late Andrew Breitbart, but also anyone who ever associated with him.

This is how damaged people become monsters: They externalize their inner feelings of worthlessness as hatred of demonized scapegoats, whom they construct in their own minds as symbols of wrong, so that doing evil to the scapegoat is (in their twisted thinking) an act of righteousness. In the perverted mind of the obsessive sociopath, hatred of the scapegoat is thereby endowed with a heroic quality.

The peculiar “heroic hatred” directed at Andrew Breitbart by these monsters is not merely the product of politics, but rather an obverse reflection of their own damaged egos: Breitbart was famous and successful; they are obscure failures; his fame and success must therefore be re-imagined by them as unjust and symbolically evil.

What is striking — and, in a weird ironic way, a tribute to Breitbart’s greatness — is how this obsessive hatred has persisted even after Breitbart’s death, so that now Rauhauser, “Occupy Rebellion” and others (most of them involved with the “Weiner Truther” cult) have transferred their “heroic hatred” to Breitbart’s associates.

Trapped inside their own self-justifying delusions, and huddling online among those who share their strange obsessions, these monsters are incapable of understanding how drastically abnormal their hateful attitudes and actions really are.

Category: Andrew Breitbart

Scofflaw David Gregory Busted by Bloggers, MIA From ‘Meet the Press’

Posted on | December 26, 2012 | 19 Comments

Professor William “Just a Blogger” Jacobson is available to accept your high-fives after he helped lead the citizen-journalist posse that exposed David Gregory’s violation of D.C.’s stringent gun laws. Dylan Byers of Politico has the latest network spin:

NBC’s David Gregory, the subject of a now-popular police investigation, is on vacation and will not host this Sunday’s edition of “Meet The Press.” . . .
Gregory’s vacation was scheduled prior to last week’s show, according to NBC. He is scheduled to host the Jan. 5 edition of “Meet the Press.”
NBC News has declined to comment on the investigation.

“According to NBC” — yeah, the gold standard for veracity there, eh? Professor Jacobson has at last verified the Dec. 24 police e-mail:

NBC contacted MPD inquiring if they could utilize a high capacity magazine for their segment. NBC was informed that possession of a high capacity magazines is not permissible and their request was denied. This matter is currently being investigated.

So, in full knowledge that possession of a 30-round magazine is illegal in D.C. — where Meet the Press is recorded — David Gregory and NBC willfully violated the law just so Gregory could dramatize his anti-Second Amendment lecture to the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre.

Now . . . the rest of the story: Politico‘s Katie Glueck confirmed that D.C. police denied NBC permission to display the illegal magazine, but TMZ reports that a Meet the Press staffer conspired to circumvent D.C. law by appealing to the feds:

Well-placed law enforcement sources tell TMZ … a staffer from “Meet the Press”  called ATF before the show aired to inquire about the legality of David holding  the empty magazine during a segment on gun control. We’re told the ATF person contacted the D.C. police to find out if the District of Columbia — the  place where the show is broadcast — had a law prohibiting such a display.
Our sources say the D.C. police official informed ATF David could legally show the magazine, provided it was empty. An ATF official then  called the staffer from “Meet the Press” to inform them they could use the magazine.

What? The ATF abetting violation of gun laws?

I’m just shocked by this allegation that the federal agency which helped arm Mexican drug gangs would approve such a clearly illegal scheme.

Is David Gregory really on vacation? Or is he a fugitive from justice?

UPDATE: Evil Blogger Lady has a round-up on this scandal.

UPDATE II: Ed Driscoll rips it up real good.

UPDATE III: More blog commentary from Twitchy, NewsBusters, Hot Air, The Lonely Conservative, Clayton Cramer and I Own the World.

PREVIOUSLY: NBC: Nothing But Criminals

 


Category: Crime, Legal Insurrection, NBC

Islamists Target African Christians

Posted on | December 26, 2012 | 8 Comments

Pamela Geller today highlights the atrocities against Christians in Nigeria attributed to the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.

Boko Haram “has killed hundreds in its campaign to impose Sharia law” since 2010, the BBC reports, describing the latest attacks:

The violence comes on the same day that the Pope — as part of his Christmas Day address — prayed for harmony in Nigeria, lamenting what he called “savage acts of terrorism” that frequently target Christians.
The head of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Yobe, Idi Garba, told AFP that many worshippers at [Evangelical Church of West Africa] “are still missing”.
“I have been informed that six bodies have been recovered,” Mr Garba said.

CNN reports:

At least 12 people died in northern Nigeria when attackers raided two churches during Christmas Eve services, police said.
One assault occurred at the Church of Christ in Nations in Postikum, in Yobe province. Gunmen attacked worshipers during prayer, killing six people, including the pastor, and setting the building on fire.
Worshipers also were attacked at the First Baptist Church in Maiduguri, in Borno state. A deacon and five church members were killed.
They were the latest strikes against Christians in the region. More than 30 people died in a wave of Christmas Day attacks in the north last year, blamed on Boko Haram, a militant group that has targeted Christians and Muslims it considered insufficiently Islamist.

When America is weak, evil is strong. Evil worldwide has been emboldened by the weakness of the Obama administration’s policies.

 

Category: Atlas Shrugs, Islam, Nigeria, Terrorism

Greedy Corporate Swine at Starbucks Cleverly Market Altruistic Image

Posted on | December 26, 2012 | 46 Comments

Perhaps you’re not old enough to remember the 1999 “Battle in Seattle,” when mostly peaceful demonstrators dangerous anarchists exercised their First Amendment rights went on a violent rampage in downtown Seattle during a meeting of the World Trade Organization.

What the rioters were allegedly protesting was “globalization,” which at the time was the trendy new left-wing code word for capitalism, in much the same way that Obama now talks about the “middle class,” instead of proletariat. (They update the language, but the ideology never changes.) Anyway, amid the senseless destruction wreaked by the rampaging anarchists, they smashed the windows at a Starbucks.

This was ironic symbolism, considering that Starbucks is a Seattle-based company which supports progressive political causes and has always cleverly marketed itself as concerned with environmentalism and other lefty “issues.” But this signifying jive didn’t fool the Black Bloc radicals, who despise all capitalist greedheads, no matter how much trendy progressive camouflage their marketing departments may deploy.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz made more than $65 million last year peddling his company’s left-wing brand and — displaying his shrewd marketing savvy — endorsed Obama, because nothing says Hope and Change quite like $4-a-cup Arabica. So now, Howard Schultz is hustling bipartisan cooperation on the “fiscal cliff”:

There are moments in our lives when we have an opportunity to ignite tremendous positive change—not just in the lives of the customers and communities we serve every day, but in our country. This was evident in the outpouring of support in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary that claimed 26 innocent lives, including one of our partners (employees), Lauren Rousseau.
This spirit of connectedness and humanity is powerful; so powerful that if we unleash it, we can make a difference on a much grander scale. . . .
As many of you know, our elected officials in Washington D.C. have been unable to come together and compromise to solve the tremendously important, time-sensitive issue to fix the national debt. . . .
Rather than be bystanders, we have an opportunity—and I believe a responsibility — to use our company’s scale for good by sending a respectful and optimistic message to our elected officials to come together and reach common ground on this important issue. This week through December 28, partners in our Washington D.C. area stores are writing “Come Together” on customers’ cups.
It’s a small gesture, but the power of small gestures is what Starbucks is about! Imagine the power of our partners and hundreds of thousands of customers each sharing such a simple message, one cup at a time.

Screw you, Howard Schultz. Screw you and your phony “progressivism,” your bogus idealism-for-profit image-mongering, while you cash in on the National Public Radio-listening MSNBC-watching fools who buy your product because they think it’s a way to “make a difference.”

Next time there’s a riot, I hope the Black Bloc trashes all your stores.

(Via Memeorandum.)

 

 


Category: Barack Obama, Budget, Progressivism, Taxes

The Bloody Mess at FreedomWorks

Posted on | December 26, 2012 | 33 Comments

Memeorandum today features two stories on the ugliness:

FreedomWorks Feud: War Inside
Tea Party Group Gets Nastier
— David Corn, Mother Jones

FreedomWorks tea party group nearly falls
apart in fight between old and new guard
— Amy Gardner, Washington Post

The latter article tells this story:

The day after Labor Day, just as campaign season was entering its final frenzy, FreedomWorks, the Washington-based tea party organization, went into free fall.
Richard K. Armey, the group’s chairman and a former House majority leader, walked into the group’s Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel Armey’s enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted FreedomWorks’ top two employees off the premises, while Armey suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.
The coup lasted all of six days. By Sept. 10, Armey was gone — with a promise of $8 million — and the five ousted employees were back. The force behind their return was Richard J. Stephenson, a reclusive Illinois millionaire who has exerted increasing control over one of Washington’s most influential conservative grass-roots organizations. . . .

The Mother Jones story quotes a memo that FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe wrote earlier this month, accusing Armey and Armey’s allies of having abandoned the Tea Party grassroots in favor of Republican Establishment insiders:

As it turns out, the fight for lower taxes, less government and more freedom is all well and good until it is Republicans — “old friends” — that are the ones needing to be held to account.

What’s the real deal here? I dunno, but this “reclusive millionaire” angle intrigues me. How does one get introduced to a reclusive millionaire?

Do reclusive millionaires read blogs? Because I’m thinking I could provide a lot of online content for $8 million.

Other than that, I guess it’s a lesson in how quickly the Young Turks become the Old Guard, and how dangerous it is to turn your back in D.C.

UPDATE: The shortage of reclusive millionaires among our blog readers reminds me of a fundamental problem I identified last year and explained in the form of a Venn diagram:

There is no intersection between Set A and Set B. Whatever is going on with the Important People Who Really Matter — and certainly reclusive millionaires fit that description — they’re definitely not reading this blog, because I sure as heck haven’t seen $8 million in the tip jar.




 

UPDATE II: Matt Welch at Reason remarks:

I know Dick Armey, am friends with Matt Kibbe, and have zero insight into the conflict, other than knowing through experience that the way these things look from the outside are often deceiving, particularly when viewed through the lens of a mainstream media instinctively allergic to billionaire non-Democratic political donors.

Meanwhile, I continue exploring the most important question raised by this controversy: “What’s in it for me?”

 

Category: Freedom Works, Tea Party
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