The Other McCain

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

For Some Strange Reason, I Was Reminded of Lawrence v. Texas

Posted on | December 19, 2011 | 26 Comments

Or more precisely, a certain dissenting opinion:

“The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are ‘immoral and unacceptable’ . . . the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity. Bowers held that this was a legitimate state interest. The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion. The Texas statute, it says, ‘furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual’ . . . The Court embraces instead Justice Stevens’ declaration in his Bowers dissent, that ‘the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice’ . . . This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review.”

One of the problems with slippery-slope arguments is that, when confronted with a demand for radical change, you can never know in advance exactly what the results of some hypothetical “reform” will be. You may have an educated guess that bad things will happen, but the Law of Unintended Consquences always has a way of surprising us, so trying to predict specific outcomes is difficult. And I’m pretty sure that even the most prescient observer did not predict, in June 2003, that we’d so soon see simulated incest as pep-rally entertainment:

[A] recent winter sports pep rally at Rosemount (Minn.) High featured a comedy skit which took advantage of unknowing captains of the various winter varsity squads. After the team captains walked into the gym blindfolded, they were told that they were going to be kissed by a special someone, and then were asked to guess who it was that kissed them. . . .
It turns out that the person who kissed the athletes — in every circumstance — was their own opposite sex parent. While no one has questioned the comedic intentions of the prank, the stunt itself has still drawn plenty of criticism not for the student athletes, but for what the parents did in executing the practical joke. . . . [S]ome of the parents took their roles as “special someones” to a level that left many onlookers feeling uncomfortable and even queasy.

The story says there is video, which I don’t want to see and you probably don’t want to see, either. The normal reaction is:

What the hell is wrong with people? What the hell were these parents thinking? What was the school thinking? Is self-respect a concept utterly lost to this country?

So says the Anchoress, who was linked by Da Tech Guy, citing lots of other things going on nowadays which make normal people wonder the same thing: What the hell is wrong with people?

This rampant insanity — which is, er, waxing rather than waning — Da Tech Guy calls “the logical result of 50 years of secularism,” and I am not disposed to argue much against that conclusion. But why secularism?

What force or forces have led to increased secularism? I would contend that the problem can be summed up in a single word: Equality.

Once you adopt the egalitarian mindset, you view all established order — all traditional hierarchies — as unjust and illegitimate.

Basic categorical distinctions like husband and wife, parent and child, student and teacher, and indeed even man and woman, are delegitimized by the egalitarian worldview. Why, after all, do we find the liberal media so sympathetic with Occupy Wall Street protests against the wealth of the rich? Because it is supposedly “unfair” for one man to have a million dollars while others are deeply in debt.

The traditions of private property and free enterprise are, to the egalitarian mind, as illegitimate as the tradition that marriage is the union of exactly one man and one woman. The pursuit of “social justice” requires that these allegedly arbitrary distinctions be swept away as obsolete and oppressive legacies of the benighted past, so as to usher in an age of Progress and Enlightenment.

Among the elements of the established order which the egalitarians were most determined to destroy was the distinction between God and Man, thus to remove from consideration any deference to Divine Authority. Religion was mocked as unscientific superstition, the Bible subjected to scornful literary criticism, and the clergy exposed as hypocritical.

All of these anti-religious forces have been gathering momentum for far more than the 50 years Da Tech Guy ascribes to the secularist trend. Wasn’t this a basic complaint of Bill Buckley in God and Man at Yale, published in 1951? If eminent authorities at Yale were part of an observable trend six decades ago, certainly that trend had already been developing for many decades even then.

Buckley did not predict — for how could he have possibly imagined? — where that trend would lead, but by the time he sounded the alarm 60 years ago, America was already sliding down the slippery slope. And no sooner had I written that sentence than Smitty sent me this news:

Group sex is the latest trend for
teenagers, says disturbing new report

Average age of first group sex experience
among study participants is just 15.6 years old

A new study has found that one in 13 girls aged 14 to 20 have engaged in ‘multi-person sex’ (MPS).
A total of 328 girls who had visited health clinics in Boston, U.S, took part in the study and 7.3 per cent of them said they had had group sex.
Worryingly, among the girls in that group, 45 per cent said at least one male participant had not used a condom.
[R]esearchers at the Boston University School of Public Health said that the majority of the girls ‘reported being pressured, threatened, coerced, or forced to participate in MPS at least once.’
Although some of those participating in the study were adults, the average age of their first group-sex experience was just 15.6 years old.
A total of 54 per cent of those studied had multi-person sex for the first time when they were younger than 16.

Wonderful: The teenage orgy becomes a common rite of passage. Girls are having group sex even before they reach the legal age of consent. How long before the “emerging awareness” cited by the Supreme Court majority in Lawrence v. Texas emerges far enough to encompass this?

At this point, the safest prediction would be that America’s slide into degeneracy will continue, and we should not be too surprised by what strange things await us as we approach the bottom of that slippery slope, nearing that fabled destination of a road paved with good intention.

 

Category: Culture, Da Tech Guy, The Anchoress

Your Monthly Sarah Palin Wink

Posted on | December 19, 2011 | 34 Comments

by Smitty

Time says:

Palin: “It’s not too late for folks to jump in. Who knows what will happen in the future.”
Interview airs Monday at 10 pm ET.

This is via Ace, who posits:

As far as I know FoxNews hasn’t had this talk with Palin, or, if they did, she clarified her intention as wishing to continue as an analyst.
Although things could always change, I’m not sure where this idea springs from that Palin is actually interested in a run for President. It is odd that someone with a desire to be president would quit — um, resign from office for perfectly understandable, even noble, self-sacrificing reasons, I should say– the office which confers upon her the quality of presidential plausibility.

I’m dubious. Herman Cain’s abortive campaign is instructive. He had not done the homework, and tried to play in the champagne league with a kool-aid staff. Opposing campaigns and the media just lobbed allegation grenades at him until he was done.

In the case of Sarah, admirer though I am, the questions are:

  • Where is the staff?
  • Have you really done the homework?

The lady has the personal charisma of the rest of the GOP field combined. What I hope is that she is called, and answers up, as VP for whoever wins the GOP primary. Such a move capitalizes on her charisma, and is a good investment for eight years out, with the executive credentials to shut up everyone with the exception of Andrew ‘the Unsilenceable’ Sullivan about the Alaska governorship.

Update: linked at The POH Diaries.

Category: Ace of Spades, Sarah Palin

Rule 5 Monday

Posted on | December 19, 2011 | 7 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Bring The Heat, Bring The Stupid kicks off this week’s roundup with Salma Hayek. Postaldog returns with Eve Ellis, some aspiring models, and Jessica James Clement. The POH Diaries can’t get enough Kate Upton (or Christina Hendricks), while Fishersville Mike is all about the Christmas Spirit. The Rio Norte Line featured Anna Torv, Missy Peregrym, Pooja Misrra, and a first in bra advertising. The Daily Bayonet debuts with Amanda Righetti, and The Pegu Blog returns this week with this generation’s hostess with the mostest. Randy’s Roundtable’s midweek break babe is Diana Morales, followed by Kelly Brook. Eye of Polyphemus lights on Bar Rafaeli, while Laughing Conservative went with Emily Ratajkowski. Reaganite Republican has a revue of the best legs in the GOP, while Jake Finnegan’s Burkalesque Babe was the appropriately (un)wrapped Irina Shayk.


A View From The Beach last week featured Hilary Duff, a sudden appreciation of inertia, Surfin’ Safari, and Plan B, featuring an appropriate (sic) motivational poster.


Proof Positive served up Estella Warren, vintage babe Joan Collins, some sex in advertising, and the obligatory 49ers cheerleader.


Soylent Green went with Milla for his Monday Motivationer, followed by Jaclyn Swedberg, Melanie Meijer, a corset pic buried under some AGW shenanigans, tits & tats, a decade of Dalene, and a PSA for senior snoochers.


This past week at The Camp of the Saints, it was Randi Ingerman, the Rule 5 News, and Rossella Brescia. Dustbury has three lovelies this week: Anna Chlumsky, Chiquinquira Delgado, and Jennifer O’Neill. Maggie’s Notebook offers Daniela Pestova, while the Jerseynut returns with a link to some Santa Babes. Pirate’s Cove links with the Sunday Pin-up and a Gorbal Warmening PSA.


Last but not least, the DaleyGator’s DaleyBabes, who included random babes, lap dances for the needy, Bianca Beauchamp, Lisa Matthews, a Rule 5 Roundup, Anggun, and K.D. Aubert


Thanks to everyone for their links! Deadline for next week’s Boxing Day Rule 5 is Saturday, December 24.

Category: Uncategorized

This ‘Draft Hillary’ Thing Had Me Going Until The Third Paragraph

Posted on | December 19, 2011 | 17 Comments

by Smitty

Politico:

We argued in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece that President Barack Obama should stand down and let Secretary of State Hillary Clinton run as the Democratic presidential nominee in 2012.
We are now calling on Democratic voters nationally — particularly in New Hampshire — to organize a write-in campaign for Clinton. This is something that New Hampshire voters have a long history of doing.
We advocate this Draft Hillary movement not because of the desire to make political mischief — but to put the country on the right course.

Sure: I hope it works, though I can’t imagine #OccupyResoluteDesk actually letting Hillary gain any traction.

The amusement is that anybody would think Hillary would be any better as POTUS. She’d probably play less golf, and take cheaper vacations, granted. Substantially, she seems to deliver from the same crypto-Marxist deck as BHO.

More at Hot Air, and also Memorandum.

via No Quarter

Category: Hillary Clinton, Uncategorized

Workin’ Hard, Tryin’ To Figure Out Them There Women

Posted on | December 19, 2011 | 1 Comment

by Smitty

Yahoo News reports Men Often Misread Women’s Sexual Cues: Study
You can’t help but go here:

Back to The Fine Article:

The researchers found that:

  • Men who wanted a short-term sexual encounter were more likely to overestimate a woman’s desire for them.
  • Men who believed they were “hot” also thought the women were hot for them, but men who were actually considered attractive by women did not think this way.
  • The more attractive a woman was to a man, the more likely he was to overestimate her interest.
  • Women tended to underestimate men’s desire.

Women are just not as unambiguous as Rebecca Larue, who marks out the opposite extreme (nearly NSFW):

Overall, the Smitty advice on women is to worry about them like Senator Harry Reid worries about the federal budget. That is, not at all. I’m not recommending everyone take 35 years like I did to settle down, but the point about not being in a screaming rush cannot be emphasized enough.

When you see a woman as in-your-face as the Rebecca Larue character, you know it’s a RED FLAG:

From that notorious hotbed of social conservativism, Ace of Spades HQ:

Poverty is more a behavioral problem than it is a lack of skills or economic opportunities. There is an almost-guaranteed path to not being poor for most people: graduate high school, get (and stay) married, and don’t have kids until after you’ve gotten married. (Though this advice is a “necessary but not sufficient” recipe, of course.) The degradation of marriage in the post Great Society era is one of the great evils of the age, and it can be laid almost entirely at the feet of Democrats. It’s striking to see how two former linchpins of civilized society — marriage and religious faith — have become rituals observed mainly by the well-off in the modern age.

via Digg

Category: Culture, humor, Rule 5, Video

Fear of a Ron Paul Planet

Posted on | December 19, 2011 | 59 Comments

“Newt Gingrich’s lead in the race for the GOP presidential nomination has evaporated, according to a new national survey.”
— Paul Steinhauser, CNN

“The model gives [Ron Paul] a 44 percent chance of winning Iowa based on the current standing of the candidates and the historic uncertainty of polling-based forecasts. Mr. Romney has a 32 percent chance of winning, while Mr. Gingrich’s chances have crashed to 15 percent.”
— Nate Silver, New York Times

“If Iowa picks Ron Paul as its caucus winner, two things will result. First, Mitt Romney will probably run the table as Republicans everywhere else but Iowa recoil in horror. Second, Iowa will likely end up losing whatever cachet it has managed to build over the last three decades as a first-in-the-nation proving ground for presidential candidates, and the drumbeat to unseat both Iowa and New Hampshire from the front end of the primary system will prove irresistible.”
— Ed Morrissey, Hot Air

“[T]he GOP establishment has so invested itself in Romney’s candidacy that it has increased the likelihood of the one thing that would hand Barack Obama the election, a Ron Paul third party candidacy.”
— William Jacobson, Legal Insurrection

Everybody chill, OK? It’s merely a poll. And despite the impressive increase in Ron Paul’s Iowa poll numbers, he’s still Ron Paul — a candidate with a “high floor, low ceiling,” as they say.

Furthermore, the panic over the evident “collapse” of Newt Gingrich’s support reminds me very much of the panic over Rick Perry’s collapse in September. Like Perry before him, Gingrich was cloaked with the mantle of “The Only Viable Alternative to Romney” and, when things went wrong, the argument was (and is being) made that those who fail to rally to the designated Not Mitt are objectively pro-Romney.

This argument was absurd when I was hearing it from Perry’s people three months ago, and is equally absurd — indeed, more absurd — when it is made on behalf of Newt Gingrich. His serial disloyalties to the conservative grassroots make Newt a strange choice as the Last Hope of the conservative moment. He joined Nancy Pelosi to endorse global warming theory. He supported RINO Dede Scozzafava in the crucial NY-23 special election. He collected big bucks from Freddie Mac. And yet Gingrich, of all the candidates in the GOP field, is to be the final repository of conservative hope in the 2012 race?

Are you people on drugs? Read more

Category: Election 2012, Hot Air, Iowa, Legal Insurrection, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul

I Don’t Know If I Agree With Surber

Posted on | December 19, 2011 | 8 Comments

by Smitty

Don Surber posts The Top 10 Things Obama Got Wrong. Those observations are mostly predicated upon the assertion that #OccupyResoluteDesk was a sincere candidate, genuinely intending to do the best possible job for the country, and stuff just went awry.

As with the birth certificate issue, or his religious faith, I’ll offer a 50.1% probability that BHO swore his oath in earnest. You sort of have to take these things at face value. A presumption of innocence, like back in the old days when favoring our Constitution did not equal raaaaacism. In any case, the alternatives are moot, and not worth arguing at any length.

But that does not exactly dispel the 49.9% probability that BHO is an anti-American ideologue who hates American Exceptionalism and sees his mission as doing maximal economic and political damage to the country, in order to trigger a crisis of sufficient magnitude to usher in some flavor of Marxist paradise. The good news is that there are under 400 days left until the next inauguration. The bad news (maybe) is that too much of the benefit of the doubt is extended to this joker.

via Insty

Category: Barack Obama, Uncategorized

Author Brad Thor Endorses Santorum: ‘The Right Man, at the Right Time’

Posted on | December 19, 2011 | 2 Comments

Press release from the Santorum campaign:

BEST SELLING AUTHOR BRAD THOR
ENDORSES SANTORUM FOR PRESIDENT
Urbandale, IA — New York Times Best Selling Author Brad Thor announced his support for Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum.
Brad Thor said: “There is one presidential candidate who understands and can swiftly address the threats facing our nation — and that candidate is Rick Santorum. Rick Santorum has stood strong against radical dictators in Syria and Iran, the gravest threat to our national security. Rick knows that the world would be forever changed by Iran getting a nuclear weapon, and he has sworn to keep this from happening. I am excited to add my endorsement to the growing list of prominent supporters who understand thatRick Santorum is the right man, at the right time to lead our nation.”
Rick Santorum said: “I am thrilled to receive Brad’s support today. Brad has stood out as an author who didn’t just sit in his office and write about the threats facing America, but dove into the issue and learned first-hand that the threats are real and need to be addressed. We need a president who understands these issues, and I am committed to standing tall for America, our values, and our security.”
Brad Thor is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Full Black, Foreign Influence (one of Suspense Magazine’s best political thrillers of 2010), The Apostle, The Last Patriot (nominated best thriller of the year by the International Thriller Writers Association and banned in Saudi Arabia), The First Commandment, Takedown, Blowback (recognized as one of the “Top 100 Killer Thrillers of All Time” by NPR), State of the Union, Path of the Assassin, The Lions of Lucerne, and his New York Times bestselling spin-off series The Athena Project.
Brad is a member of GBTV, and has appeared on FOX News Channel, CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS programs to discuss terrorism, as well as how closely his novels of international intrigue parallel the real threats facing the world today.
Brad has served as a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Analytic Red Cell Unit, and is a fellow of the Alexandrian Defense Group. He has lectured to law enforcement organizations on over-the-horizon/future threats and has been a keynote speaker for the National Tactical Officers Association annual conference, and the Ronald Reagan 100 celebration. A strong supporter of The Heritage Foundation, Brad has spoken at their national headquarters on the need for robust missile defense. He alsosits on The International Free Press Society’s Board of Advisors, and has served as a judge for the Sam Adams Alliance Annual Awards.

Alexander Burns of Politico confirms that Brad Thor is planning to travel to Iowa to campaign for Santorum.

 

RECENTLY:

Category: Election 2012, Rick Santorum
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin