The Other McCain : Page 1974 : "One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up."

You Say ‘Ignoring’, I Say ‘Fomenting’

Posted on January 8, 2012January 8, 2012Comments

by Smitty

This was the reply of the evening:

Part of the awakening that must continue in the U.S. is the realization that anti-Christian bigotry is exceeded only by anti-Semitic bigotry (my opinion).

You can find a distinction, in that anti-Christian bigotry denigrates a religion, whereas anti-Semitic bigotry is more ethnic in nature. Whatever. My point is that the plurality of the country that lays some claim to Christianity needs to follow Newt’s example and calmly rebuke this idiocy wherever followers of the Progressive Faith put it forward.

Many of us still understand what the symbol ‘marriage’ means. We reject every aspect of the Postmodern, reprobate mind that seeks to make ‘marriage’ as perverse as they are. May God have mercy on the Progressives, and introduce them to wisdom.

via Legal Insurrection

Bitter Fruits of a Bitter Seed: Envy, Feminism, Maureen and Meghan

Posted on January 8, 2012January 8, 2012Comments

HOLLIS, N.H.
Time constraints have improved my ability to ignore Maureen Dowd. Many months now often elapse between my ever bothering to notice anything she’s written. Today, however, Pete Da Tech Guy called my attention to Ms. Dowd’s unseemly assault on Rick Santorum’s family. And then Pete sat down and wrote a rather stunning contrast of the parallel lives of Ms. Dowd and Mrs. Santorum, for the benefit of Meghan McCain.

The feminists will never forgive Pete for this, of course.

It is my experience that feminists, when angry, revert to predictable arguments about the ignorance and prejudice of their critics. Yet when I recommend to them books written by women critical of the feminist belief system, these supposedly knowledgeable and open-minded women can never be bothered to read the books I recommend.

No feminist can ever concede that any critic could have a valid argument. Thus the starting point of the debate is that there can be no debate: The anti-feminist critic is simply presumed wrong, and all that needs be explained is why the critic is wrong. The Soviet “show trials” of the 1930s were less predictable than the arguments of feminists.

If ever feminists permitted doubt to penetrate their ironclad worldview, the whole ridiculous egalitarian house of cards would instantly collapse, and they would be left without an ideology to justify their folly. They should therefore be hated less than they are pitied.

UPDATE: It is unfortunate that some of my conservative friends, including Dan Collins (in the comments below) and Sissy Willis on Twitter, insist on attempting to rescue the term “feminism” from its deserved opprobrium. Here we return to Little Miss Attila’s frantic efforts to define a conservative feminism — an oxymoron — and above all I regret that, having wasted part of my day taking notice of Maureen Dowd, I must now briefly reiterate an argument that all honest and intelligent people would concede I had already decisively won.

The originators and leading advocates of feminism have always seen themselves, and properly so, as part of the Progressive Left. Feminists have therefore contested any and all attempts by conservatives to co-opt and redefine the term “feminism” as something compatible with conservatism. Yet there are many soi-disant conservatives who, desirous of seeming fashionably modern and perhaps insufficiently knowledgeable of feminism’s leftist origins, persist in claiming that conservatives who reject feminism — as all actual conservative do — are guilty of throwing out the good feminist baby with the bad feminist bathwater. (Of course, true feminists would insist that the baby must be aborted, lest womyn be compelled to submit to the institution of partiarchal oppression known as “motherhood.”)

Conservatives who defend feminism are not merely wasting their own time, but wasting the time of those of us who are required to leave aside useful work in order to refute their misguided arguments. It’s as if free-market economists should be compelled to waste their time arguing with conservatives who claim that Keynesianism is not entirely bad. And I am weary of trying to talk sense to these peddlers of “conservative feminism” nonsense. My first extended iteration of this argument was in a November 2008 column about the hateful fury of gay-rights activists that accompanied the Proposition 8 controversy in California:

The gay rage in California can be traced directly to the Supreme Court’s 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision, which voided a Texas sodomy law because, as Justice Anthony Kennedy declared, “our laws and traditions in the past half century…show an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex.”
The Lawrence ruling was the culmination of what Justice Antonin Scalia called “a 17-year crusade” to overturn the 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision (which had upheld Georgia’s sodomy statute) and, as Scalia noted in his dissent, the Court’s “emerging awareness” argument was a disingenuous way to avoid actually declaring a “fundamental right” to sodomy. The legal effect was the same, however, and Lawrence was repeatedly cited in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision five months later mandating the legalization of gay marriage in that state.
If homosexuality is a right, and denying legal recognition to same-sex marriage is a violation of that right, then the rage of gay activists against their opponents is entirely justified. Proposition 8 does not deny tolerance, safety and freedom to gays and lesbians, whose right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is as secure in California as anywhere in the world.
Tolerance, safety and freedom are not the same as equality, however, and equality is the freight that liberals seek to smuggle into arguments via “rights talk.” Gay activists do not construe their “rights” in terms of liberty, but in terms of radical and absolute equality. They insist that same-sex relationships are identical to — entirely analogous to and fungible with — traditional marriage.
Common sense resists this assertion, perceiving something fundamentally false in the gay marriage argument. Yet it seems common-sense resistance can only be justified by resort to religious faith, through the understanding that men are “endowed by their Creator” with rights. Eliminate the Creator from discussion, and it becomes impossible to refute the activists’ indignant demand for equality.

This is what the self-declared “conservative feminists” refuse to acknowledge: Feminism has no meaning outside the context
of rights and equality. Once you begin defining the roles and relations of men and women in such terms, you have taken an irretrievable step down the slippery slope toward radical egalitarianism. The very fact that people who call themselves conservatives are incapable of recognizing what should be self-evident — that the radical conclusion of the egalitarian argument is implicit in its premises — should profoundly trouble those concerned about the future prospects of conservatism in America. In January 2009, I expanded my argument in controversy with Conor Friedersdorf:

Are men and women equal in the fullest sense of the word? If so, then equality implies fungibility — the two things are interchangeable and one may be substituted for the other in any circumstance whatsoever. (La mort à la différence!) Therefore, it is of no consequence whether I marry a woman or a man.

Americans have been so rigorously indoctrinated about the sacredness of equality as a political, legal and social principle that one fears they’ve actually begun to believe that this kind of equality is possible or desirable, which is lunacy.

Men and women are different, and the differences are so obvious, intrinsic and profound that to prohibit “discrimination” between the sexes is to require people to pretend to believe in a transparent falsehood. No sane person could actually believe that men and women are equal — that is to say, fungible — in this way, and therefore the entirety of the feminist worldview is premised on a susceptibility to insanity.

These Two Scots Are In An Elevator, Trying To See If This One Goes To 11. . .

Posted on January 8, 2012January 8, 2012Comments

by Smitty

You make the call if the building represents the GOP, and the two Scots symbolize Tea Partiers trying to figure out the lack of motion, for all the talk.

Sunday Morning Coming Down in New Hampshire ‘Meet the Depressed’ Debate

Posted on January 8, 2012January 8, 2012Comments

HOLLIS, N.H.
After my late night ~~guzzling beer~~ consulting with key sources at the Radisson Hotel bar last night, I slept in this morning at the home of Mike Rogers of Granite Grok, missing the “Meet the Press” debate. Mike’s got it TiVo’d for my later examination, but initial accounts indicate it was far more feisty than the ABC debate. Aaron Goldstein of The American Spectator:

Finally!!! Rick Santorum puts it point blank to Romney. If your record in Massachusetts was so great why didn’t you run for re-election? Why did you bail out? Santorum went to say that while Romney bailed, he was running on conservative principles and running in a state bluer than Massachusetts.

Goldstein also notes that Romney and Santorum were equally competent in handling the (evidently obligatory) gay “gotcha” question on NBC this morning. What explains the media’s obsession with gays? And why, to repeat a persistent question, are Republicans letting the Left moderate their debates? Does anyone remember the 2008 Democratic debate moderated by Michelle Malkin, Byron York and Michael Barone?

Amy Walter of ABC News offers explanations of why Saturday night’s debate lacked “fireworks,” but none of her explanations mention the incompetence or bias of the moderators.

UPDATE: In celebrating the Sunday-morning Romney-bashing, Philip Klein expresses a gloomy view of the race:

Had this all happened in September, we [might] be looking at a race where Perry had just won Iowa and was well ahead in South Carolina, while Huntsman was nipping at Romney in New Hampshire. But this isn’t September.
Instead, over the past several months, rivals hardly laid a glove on Romney. Perry had one disastrous debate performance after another and dropped like a rock in the polls. After a succession of candidates rose and fell, eventually Rick Santorum emerged as the leading conservative alternative to Romney. And Huntsman, boring and obnoxious in debates, never took off in New Hampshire. So what we’re left with is a situation in which Romney is so far ahead in his quest for the GOP nomination, that barring a major catastrophe, he’s unlikely to lose. In football terms, he’s in the prevent defense — able to surrender lots of yardage to his opponents in the middle of the field and still win as long as he doesn’t turnover the ball.

Being optimistic about the GOP requires enormous effort, but I will make the effort to disagree with Klein’s assessment.

It wouldn’t necessarily take a “major catastrophe” to derail Romney. If he gets less than 40% here in New Hampshire, that would reinforce doubts about The Man From Bain. This would be especially true if, despite the conventional wisdom about the Granite State’s putative hostility to social conservatives, Santorum overperforms to finish third or better Tuesday.

The rosy scenario would be that both of these things happen: If we’re sitting here Tuesday night looking at Mitt around 38%, while it’s “too close to call” for second place between Ron Paul and Rick Santorum in the vicinity of 18%, that could engender an important shift in perceptions. Romney would look weak going into South Carolina, and Santorum would continue to signal his momentum as the emerging “Not Mitt” conservative choice.

Oh, and bye-bye, Jon Huntsman, who I doubt will finish better than fifth in New Hampshire, the basket that holds all his eggs.

Santorum made a day-trip to South Carolina to campaign today. A pro-Santorum “super-PAC” is already advertising there.

UPDATE II: Jazz Shaw didn’t enjoy the NBC debate:

The Sunday morning event, hosted by NBC and Facebook, started off as nothing short of a disaster. The lead moderator, David Gregory, spent the opening segment doing nothing but firing off political talking points and trying to get the candidates to snipe at each other. Those of us following on Twitter noted that it was literally fifteen minutes into the debate before the first question on policy was asked, and even then it was only after Ron Paul chided Gregory over the unsubstantial nature of the topics.

When we were walking into the Radisson in Manchester last night, Gregory was leaving and — while I admit this may be my own prejudice talking — the dude seems to exude arrogance. Out on the campaign trail, most Big Name TV News Personalities try very hard not to act like they’re better than the rest of us. For example, Carl Cameron of Fox is very approachable and gregarious, and likewise Michael Barone is always happy to talk politics with anyone. But I can’t seem to remember ever seeing David Gregory just “hanging out” in the press gaggle.

POST-DEBATE SPIN ROOM

Posted on January 7, 2012January 7, 2012Comments

MANCHESTER, N.H.
The Triumphant Victory of Rick Santorum™ was not acknowledged here at RINOCon — as I’ve dubbed the National Review Romney GroupHugFest — and that’s OK. We don’t expect these elite snobs to recognize such things.

Think about this: Santorum is the hot new “Not Romney” candidate and yet he was not attacked during the debate, except by Ron Paul. I expected Rick Perry to attack Santorum, and he didn’t. So I think not losing was a victory. But here at RINOCon — where the NR guys have gone totally squish — the failure to win was counted as a defeat.

Hey, I’ve seen the surge. Exactly how far that surge can go, I don’t know. But for the NR guys to declare pre-emptively that it is futile, and that we must therefore all cheerfully roll over for Romney, strikes me as the opposite of wisdom and the opposite of courage.

But that’s just me, and I’m feeling kind of cranky tonight. What the hell was this, the Big Gay Debate starring “Phil from Virginia”? Why are we letting George and Diane moderate a Republican debate? How drunk was Diane Sawyer tonight, huh?

Anyway, Donald Douglas at American Power has video and links. More at Fire Andrea Mitchell. Go ahead and add your opinion in the comments.

ABC NEW HAMPSHIRE DEBATE

Posted on January 7, 2012January 7, 2012Comments

22:40 EST Perry: if not here, I’d be at a shooting range.
Newt, Rick, Mitt: watching football.
Paul: I’d put the family to bed and study an economic textbook.
Huntsman: talking to my two sons in the Navy.
Thus far:
The two Texans are not looking strong. Huntsman looks comfortable, but Mitt, Newt, and Santorum are doing well. I think Mitt has worked the hardest to combat perceptions about his candidacy.
22:35 EST Huntsman: oh sure, Mitt, start a trade war. Brilliant!
22:33 EST Mitt: oh Huntsman, dear, you were BHO’s little messenger boy for a couple years. I fear I shall have to offer to introduce you to my boom stick.
22:31 EST Huntsman: I know how to make trade work.
22:30 EST Mitt: I am not a DC insider. If you make that accusation again, I will use my boom stick.
22:28 EST Santorum: I declare war on class warfare. My arithmetic operator is multiplication, not division. I will appeal to blue collar workers, but don’t call that classifying them.
22:26 EST Newt: I’m sure that BHO is a sincere Commie. But the WSJ called Mitt’s plans ‘timid’.
22:25 EST Mitt: I’m a soul man. Dada duh da dadada. . .
22:24 EST Huntsman: I did something really weird and talked to an actual taxpayer. Frickin’ mindblowing. He wanted to manufacture something.
22:22 EST Perry: develop energy.
22:20 EST Paul: I am here to restore principles such as freedom. These people don’t understand economics. Cut spending. Do not be Japan. Understand the business cycle.
22:19 EST Mitt: I, too, have a flood of details.
22:17 EST Santorum: cut taxes.
22:16 EST Huntsman: to pay for infrastructure, reform the tax code. Simpson-Bowles would be accepted.
22:15 EST Newt: infrastructure should be shiny and new. Work on energy to pay down our debt and rebuild infrastructure.
22:13 EST Mitt: capitalism, not stimulus, is what we need to rebuild our infrastructure.
The story so far:
Perry and Huntsman are being ignored, Ron Paul hasn’t looked great, Mitt has stayed above the fray, attacking Stephanopoulis, Newt and Santorum have been solid.
Bonus points for Newt for the anti-Christian bigotry charge against the media. God have mercy upon the souls of these media ghouls. These Postmodern anti-Christs hate anyone who posits a Truth, unless Muslim.
22:04 EST Santorum: Paul, your policies would preclude having a Navy to rescue Iranian fishermen from pirates.
22:03 EST Paul: I think that actually declaring war would be a refreshing change.
22:02 EST Sawyer: can you prophesy exactly when you will deploy troops?
Newt: I don’t practice Santeria, I ain’t got no crystal ball.
22:01 EST Perry: I think we consult with the Iraq and consider re-deployment, before Iran moves back into Iraq not at a double time, not at the speed of sound, but Light Speed, gentlemen.
21:58 EST Santorum: as a result of Obama, we’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name. The commander-in-chief has got to step up to the plate.
21:57 EST Newt: let’s nuke the question, and look at the theater-wide problem from Libya to Pakistan. Let me pull a brand-Newt strategy from an undisclosed location.
21:56 EST Huntsman: dunno, the ‘Stan could end up a civil war.
21:56 EST Mitt: watch me gymnastically assume all positions on this issue.
21:54 EST Huntsman: the 90k troops left in the ‘Stan; sure, let’s draw down and leave some snake eaters.
21:53 EST Perry: I must now pile on the gay marriage issue. Fear my facts.
21:51 EST Ron Paul, are you going to be a third party spoiler?
Paul: I’m going to keep on twisting the knife, to drive my issues. You know, the overspending.
21:43 EST Diane Sawyer’s brain cell is overwhelmed to consider the Constitution. Can’t we think about gay marriage instead of that ancient, unintelligible document? Twice-divorced Newt, what say you?
Newt: I’ve got 5,000 words in my head.
Huntsman: civil unions are fair, but protect marriage.
Santorum, can you support gay adoption?
Santorum: marriage is a federal level issue.
Mitt, if you had a couple of homosexuals in your living room, would you kick them?
Mitt: I’m still protecting the symbol ‘marriage’.
Newt: hey, the bigotry is bi-directional, and the anti-Christian bigotry goes unreported. BRAVO!
21:42 EST Mitt wrecked Stephanopoulis on the birth control question. Paul makes the 4th Amendment case and hammers the Patriot Act.
21:40 EST Mitt: I must play the Newt card and accuse the banning of contraception to be a stupid question. I am not a Constitutionalist, but I stand next to one on stage (looks to Ron).
Summary thus far:

Ron Paul is going after Newt and Santorum, and mostly adding to his kook rating.
Santorum has acquitted himself well, as has Newt. Santorum’s riff on Paul’s microphone is the line of the night.
Perry played the outsider card.
Huntsman sounds polished.
Mitt is most interesting, trying to walk back the notion that the fix is in.

It’s fairly scrappy.

21:30 EST Paul: the real raaaaacism is in the judicial system, and drug laws, as well as military service.
21:27 EST Would Ron Paul double down on calling Newt a chickenhawk? Paul: sure, any of these non-serving chickenhawks are a pack of hawkish chickens. And the Constitution is being sadly ignored.
21:26 EST Chickenhawk Newt: I am not a chickenhawk. I am an Army brat, and I know what the military is about.
21:25 EST Perry: yeah, having served gives me an edge. ASIDE: Governors make precisely 0 decisions about federalized and deployed troops.
21:23 EST Romney: I must halt the knife fight and return the focus to #OccupyResoluteDesk. See me rise above the fray! ‘I will endorse our nominee’–Mitt admits he may not be it? Wow.
21:21 EST Huntsman: I got more vision than Lens Crafters, muffers. I will bring the CINC, the President, and the trust. Gimme.
21:20 EST Mitt Romney thought bubble: the Paul/Santorum sandwich is possibly the most uncomfortable position of my life.
21:18 EST Perry: that was 18 minutes of the problem, which you just heard: INSIDERS. With the exception of Huntsman, I’m the outsider here.
21:16 EST Paul: yeah, I voted for appropriations, but not not the spending.
21:16 EST Santorum: I stayed involved in causes like health care and coal that I care about.
21:15 EST Ron, you’ve got a vicious attack ad against Santorum. Can you defend it?
Ron: not with this microphone.
Santorum: well, it detects lying. But the Soros-funded CREW sues conservatives like Stacy McCain and DaTechGuy wear fedoras.
21:11 EST Would Governor Huntsman defend Mitt’s record at Bain? Is it a fair topic? Jon: yeah, we put Utah at #1 on the Billboard charts, so Rick and Mitt can bite my big 10′ record of a band that plays the blues.
21:09 EST Mitt: this is free enterprise. Oh, and don’t forget the Olympics.
21:08 EST Mitt: yeah, we had to get out the pliers and the blowtorch. But Zed’s dead, baby: Zed’s dead.
21:07 EST Newt, will you defend the NYT attack piece on Bain? Newt, nah, let Mitt do that.
21:06 EST Newt, your attack dogs brought the pain to Bain. Do you know these dogs?
21:05 EST Romney responds that people who have spent time in Washington don’t know the economy. Like that Santorum dude to my left.
21:04 EST Rick Santorum, do we need CEO Romney? Why, no: we need leadership. Was I attacking Mitt with the managerial riff? Why yes: yes, I was.
21:03 EST Mitt takes question #1 on jobs. Can he ooze some optimism? Yes, but he can use ‘tepid’ to describe the effects of Obamanomics. Roosters did not cause the sunrise.
21:02 EST Diane Sawyer reads the candidates the riot act, plus a color lesson. We am smart.
21:00 EST Introductory reel. They have successfully lowered our politics to the level of the WWF.
20:58 EST This obstacle course on Wipeout is great. I’m afraid I don’t recognize the candidate, but Newt is in trouble when it’s his turn.
PREVIOUSLY. . .

MANCHESTER, N.H.
Once again, it’s time for the Republican candidates to debate. Alas, Michele Bachmann is gone, and Jon Huntsman is here. To his lovely daughters, I say: I’m glad your Dad is going to lose, but it was a pleasure to meet you.

Some pre-debate headlines:

Rick Santorum to get
Gary Bauer endorsement Sunday
— Washington Post

NBC/Marist Poll: Romney has 20-point lead
in N.H.; Santorum gets Iowa bounce
— MSNBC

I’m going to be watching the debate here at the Radisson Hotel at a National Review event, where everyone seems to feel obligated to buy me beers. Expect increasingly incoherent updates.

UPDATE: My loyal sidekick Smitty has agreed to handle liveblogging duties, which will enable to collect all these free beers.

Got To Curb This Recognition, Lest One Acquire Delusions Of Social Acceptability

Posted on January 7, 2012Comments

by Smitty

Thanks to Zilla, for graciously acknowledging this blog’s efforts at universal conquest. Nevertheless, it’s a big universe, and so we’ve got to work hard to maintain our counter-cultural affectations and keep the focus on the output.

Stay righteous, Zilla!