Welcome to the Wednesday (EBD) Late Nite Radio.
The success of so-called progressives in the last few decades in positioning themselves as the adjudicators of respect, tolerance, and freedom is surely the great irony of our age. Those who most typically call their opponents fascists, or some variant of the word, are the same people who feel perfectly justified in using mob rule to silence opposing views. This sort of cultural success in flipping the truth on its head even manifests in the most powerful office in the world: the current President has had a long association with a man who participated in the bombing of the Capitol buildings and the Pentagon, and yet high-ranking Democrats serving under him feel perfectly entitled to deign to characterize, with a straight face, regular mom and pop folks who disagree with the Democrats’ policies as being a radical fringe of extremists, while much of the legacy media happily parrots this bald-faced inversion of the truth.
This sorry state of affairs is at least partially the fault of conservatives who have played into the hands of unreasonable opponents by constantly asserting the need to maintain a spirit of cooperation, even as their opponents make volubly clear through their words and actions that they have absolutely no interest in doing the same. This assumption that compromise and bipartisanship is always the reasonable approach is badly mistaken because it not only presupposes, in the face of evidence to the contrary, that one’s opponents are equally well-intentioned and willing to meet halfway, but it also ignores the unpleasant reality that certain freedoms, once bargained away, may never be regained without bloodshed.
Tonight’s jaunty song selection is dedicated here to conservatives who think that cooperating and plea-bargaining with intransigent opponents is a win-win, that there is no such thing as us versus them, and that supineness will invite respect and facilitate compromise on the part of one’s opponent. Here’s Tom Lehrer’s fiercely satirical paean to fair play at any cost, Fight Fiercely Harvard.
You are invited, as always, to provide your Reader Tips in the comments.
Hack Wilson:
“There will now be many siren voices telling American patriots and conservatives: ‘It’s over,’ ‘You win some, you lose some’ and ‘Time to move on.’ That is the one thing they must not do. It is a phenomenon of leftist politics that, in true Leninist style, radicals never give up.
“For example, when Hugo Chavez lost a referendum in Venezuela on extending his term in office, he held another 14 months later and won. When any member state of the European Union gives a ‘wrong’ answer in a referendum it is forced to vote again until it surrenders to the demands of the ruling élite in Brussels.
“However, when a radical measure is passed by the left, the rules are the reverse. The leftward ratchet must never be broken. Conservatives have been trained in a mentality of quasi-Muslim fatalism: to change back to the status quo would be ‘retrograde’. Offering continuing resistance to the leftist juggernaut is termed ‘partisan’. Was there ever a more extravagantly partisan politician on the face of the earth than Barack Obama?
“Americans need to have the resilience to say ‘The hell with that’.”
(h/t Maz)
EBD, you’ve described the entire premise behind the Dirty Harry series of films.
The system (run by liberals) is as lawless and reckless as the criminals they now protect. Screw the average citizen, the victims. But someone, a lonely man from the margin of society, who carries a gun designed for hunting must intervene, bending the law in order to right wrongs and create real justice. And we all love him.
Who is our Dirty Harry? The problem is that if one were to emerge (and they have) the are immediately crucified by the MSM.
Here’s a juxtaposition.
Paul Wells learns a well-known lesson the hard way:
Don’t feed the loonie leftie on the comment board. He’ll bite.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/03/05/an-inkless-irregular-in-the-passion-dale/
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/03/24/eye-of-the-beholder/#IDComment63815521
Michael Coren and guests discuss the cancellation of Ann Coulter’s appearance at the University of Ottawa last night (3 parts).
Like the Quebec separatists: if they lose a referendum, they just say it doesn’t count. But if ever they win with whatever ridiculous percentage and ambiguous question, they say Quebec has the right to separate.
“The results of the CNN/OR survey are out and they point to the most vivid reality of the Obamacare victory – 219 House Democrats were willing to flout the clear majority of Americans on this issue.
· 59% oppose the Democrats’ health care bill, while only 39% favor it.
· 70% say the federal budget deficit will go up under the Democrats’ health care bill; only 12% believe it will go down.
· 56% say the bill creates “too much government involvement in the nation’s health care system,” 28% say about the right amount, while 16% say not enough.
· 62% say they’ll pay more for medical care under the Democrats’ health care bill.
· 47% say they and their families will be worse off under the Democrats’ health care bill; 33% say things will be about the same, and only 19% think they’ll be better off.
· 45% say seniors on Medicare will be worse off; 34% say things will be about the same, and only 20% think they’ll be better off.
That seems to be the rallying call after the last few days: No More Mr. Nice Conservative.
The University of Regina gets in on the left wing love.
http://alphamikefox.blogspot.com/2010/03/sorry-kids.html
can you say “subduction zone” ? maybe on the far side of a delta. check out the 18000 ft of cretaceous sediment off the Mississippi delta. none above water. however, not what they are implying here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8584665.stm
Colby Cosh, addressing the matter of people saying that what happened at the University of Ottawa was exactly what Anne Coulter wanted:
“I would ask them to consider one question that is usually overlooked even by defenders of freedom of speech: what about the students’ right to hear Ann Coulter, or any other obnoxious political performance artist whose views they might like to entertain? Did they win too? Did they get exactly what they wanted? If we rebranded freedom to speech as the freedom to hear, as Robin Hanson has proposed, would the real nature of the harm be clearer?”
Michael Ledeen:
“Instead of embracing the tyranny, the American people unexpectedly rose up against it. To use Tocqueville’s metaphor, Americans acted like a recalcitrant child and refused to behave. At which point the tyrannical wannabes decided to slap us down and make us behave properly. They were forced to carry out a coup, a baldfaced seizure of power. Thus, the Demon Pass. Thus the two most memorable lines from the coup plotters: (Pelosi): ‘we have to pass it to find out what’s in it,’ and (Hastings): ‘there are no rules. This is the U.S. Congress.’
“That was not the way it was supposed to happen. We were supposed to go quietly. Instead we fought back, and the final outcome of this big fight–the one I foresaw more than a year ago–is still in doubt. The would-be tyrants may prevail; after all, they have the awesome power of the state. But we have the numbers and a superior vision.
“Americans can be very tough in this kind of fight. Ask King George.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/5139845/Woman-rubs-chilli-pepper-seeds-in-her-eyes-after-setting-new-world-record.html
Holy smokes.
Excellent post.
Via Mark Steyn (http://www.steynonline.com/content/blogsection/14/128/):
François Houle signs himself as Vice-recteur aux études.
Did he mean Vice-rectum aux études?
Tengskselot.
We don’t need no stinkin’ fans…
Saskatchewan has been described as the Saudi Arabia of uranium and the Saudi Arabia of potash.
Based on yesterday’s provincial budget, it may garner a reputation as the Saudi Arabia of oil.
An overstatement perhaps, but oil will overtake potash as the province’s key commodity in the budget Finance Minister Rod Gantefoer presented yesterday, a document that promises a $20-million surplus next year. Halfway through provincial budget season, that rosy outlook makes Saskatchewan the sole province expecting a black bottom line next year.
COnsidering that on March 24 2010, Ann Coulter could have talked about the recently passed bill.
Instead:
“Welcome to Canada!
The provost of the University of Ottawa, average student IQ: 0, wrote to me — widely disseminating his letter to at least a half-dozen intermediaries before it reached me — in advance of my visit in order to recommend that I familiarize myself with Canada’s criminal laws regarding hate speech.
This marks the first time I’ve ever gotten hate mail for something I might do in the future.”
Brav-f*cking-O
Kathy Shaidle’s husband did some digging: turns out that U of Ottawa’s “Commie Rage Girl“, who – it’s patently obvious from the photograph – well and truly believes in her own right to speech, works for the *Canadian Library Association.*
Mark Steyn, writing about coverage of the U of Ottawa…erm, display:
“Perhaps my single favourite line came from Kate McMillan:
“‘See? You can yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre after all!’
“Indeed. If this doesn’t kill the laziest trope of the brain-dead statist control freak, nothing will.”
They will charge the alarm puller – won’t they?
They aren’t going to charge the chick with the pearly dentition either, who according to Blazing Cat Fur is not even a student at U Zero.
Its evolving that this whole thing was set up by the usual loonie left suspects and carried out by the usual loonie left rent-a-mob. Charging them and/or kicking them off campus would probably violate a variety of collective bargaining agreements, shall we say?
That Liberian, Stephine Bowa has one huge mouth! And her behavior has proved that she is all mouth, no brain.
I doubt it, Ron; I’m sure whoever pulled the alarm was just trying to create a “safe environment” on campus.
From the 11:54 Steyn link:
“The quality of your argument is only important if you want to win by persuasion. But it’s irrelevant if you want to win by intimidation. I’m personally very happy to defend my columns in robust debate, but, if Canada believed in robust debate, we wouldn’t have these ‘human rights’ commissions or university administrators like the wretched M Houle in the first place. The morons who shut down Ann Coulter last night don’t care that they made her point for her, anymore than those Muslim agitators in the streets of London fretted about the internal contradictions of threatening to kill anyone who says they’re violent.”
From his National Post column from five years ago…
“The aim of a large swathe of the left is not to win the debate but to get it cancelled before it starts. You can do that in any number of ways — busting up campus appearances by conservatives, ‘hate crimes’ laws, Canada’s ghastly human-rights commissions, the more ‘enlightened’ court judgments, the EU’s recent decision to criminalize ‘xenophobia,’ or merely, as the Times does, by declaring your side of every issue to be the ‘moderate’ and ‘nonideological’ position…”
Echoing Kate, great post EBD.
I’m reminded of your earlier trenchant observation about those sickening “conservatives” or “right of centre” nancy-boys who feel they must distance their eminences from Ann Coulter’s “controversial” views. And I note that Colby Cosh seems to be one of those a88holes when he refers to her obnoxiousness. Pul-eeeze let us stop apologizing for her (and Kathy’s and Kate’s) obnoxiousness!
I’m getting quite fed up with conservatives who denigrate Coulter as a mere comedian ala Michael Moore. Moore is a Moron. Coulter is a well-educated, screamingly funny and entertaining polemicist BUT at the same time a woman of great intellect and substantive views. Moreoever, I think it’s absolutely wrong to describe her as mean. Bill Maher is MEAN. For balance, I’d like to say, I also don’t find Jon Stewart mean, either. No matter how wicked Ann is there’s always a great helping of humanity in it. And you know what: she makes me feel good, unfailingly. She’s lovely.
To wit, here’s Ann Coulter’s Health Plan.
In my view, she nails the economic problems of government intervention in the health market just as effectively as more “cerebral” conservatives like the great economist Thomas Sowell.
For months now, I’ve been studying the banking system and the Federal Reserve. It has gradually dawned on me that our partisan wars barely scatch the surface and I’m more than ever convinced that even with a big Repub resurgence in November, nothing will change.
This piece, on the other hand, gets to the very root of the problem: Intervention: The Bigger Picture
It seems like an inauspicious place to look, but we must look to the marble palace on Constitution Avenue: the Federal Reserve. Here is the institution that runs the moneymaking machines that guarantee all the debt and that will create the phony money to pay for these insane dreams of universal happiness. Without the Fed, I can promise you, no one in Washington would be in a position to promise such absurdities.
If you think about it, then, the real problem is not that politicians dream impossible dreams. They’ve been doing that for a hundred years, a thousand years, and even back to the ancient world. The real problem is structural and institutional: it is the central bank that leads politicians to imagine that their visions can be achieved. It is the central bank that unhinges them — at our expense.
EBD well said.
Nice song too – one thing about singers from earlier generations is that they always clearly enunciated the words in their songs.
Often one can hardly understand a single word in a song by a modern singer.
EBD, great post. Khrushchev’s comment “two steps forward, one step back” in 1956 comes to mind. This is precisely what is happening and the “progressive” conservatives are aiding and abetting this under the false thinking of compromise. When we have our own Hugo Chavez, the “progressive” conservatives will wonder what happened.
It was the “I’m conservative, but” moderate crowd that was hoodwinked and facilitated Lenin’s and Hitler’s power grabs. They just kept compromising even after it became evident that they were next on the menu.
part 1 (having trouble with the $Pam filter)
I strongly disagree with EBD’s post.
I think it is the DEMS who have made the huge error here.
They allowed the extreme left to take over their party. And every single dem in congress is tarred with that far-left brush because not one of them voted against the nomination of Pelosi or Reid.
All the world now knows what these two and BO are about. They also know that the dem party will stop at nothing in their quest to socialize America. They also have proven that there is no such thing as a Blue Dog or a pro-life democrat.
America wants moderation. It (ultimately) rejects extremism from the right (Goldwater) or the left (Carter and soon Obama). The healthcare bill was passed with precisely zero bipartisan support unlike other entitlements flawed though they may be – socsecur, medicar and Medicai. And becuase of this in November and in 2012 the GOP will have the opportunity to earn not only a mandate to repeal the legislation but more importantly to replace it with sustainable moderate policy changes WITH some bipartisan support if such support is forthcoming.
part 1 (having trouble with the $Pam filter)
I strongly disagree with EBD’s post.
I think it is the DEMS who have made the huge error here.
They allowed the extreme left to take over their party. And every single dem in congress is tarred with that far-left brush because not one of them voted against the nomination of Pelosi or Reid.
All the world now knows what these two and BO are about. They also know that the dem party will stop at nothing in their quest to socialize America. They also have proven that there is no such thing as a Blue Dog or a pro-life democrat.
Part two
America wants moderation. It (ultimately) rejects extremism from the right (Goldwater) or the left (Carter and soon Obama). The healthcar bill was passed with precisely zero bipartisan support unlike other entitlements flawed though they may be – social security, medicar and Medicai. And becuase of this in November and in 2012 the GOP will have the opportunity to earn not only a mandate to repeal the legislation but more importantly to replace it with sustainable moderate policy changes WITH some bipartisan support if such support is forthcoming.
If the GOP plays its cards right it can put the dems into the fringe for a decade or more – done right it may even be able to provide room for other parties – libertarian etc.
What transpired in nov 2008 can to a large degree be blamed on GWB. It was he along with DC and KR who failed to veto even one piece of legislation passed by the GOP controlled Congress. It was that congress that started the earmark feeding frenzy. It was that congress that passed McCainfeingold and almost passed immigration reform.
The GOP does need to be unbending on matters of fiscal
policy. But it also needs to be moderate on social issues, otherwise they will make no inroads in purple states.
The Dems have made fools of themselves in broad daylight. The GOP shouldn’t try to get between them and the bleaching, searing sunlight.
One thing that also needs to change is that conservatives and the GOP have to be and can now be fearless in calling dems what they are socialist, pro-life taxand spend demogogs. And they should do it at every opportunity.
(Canada’s conservatives BTW would make an excellent template. Give the CPC another five to eight years especially with some time with a majority and this country will be much more conservative than it is today and today we are much more conservative than we were four years ago.)
An alternate view from Ace … from …
Hamsters are smarter than people — in one way.
A hamster will always escape his cage. Always.
Because the hamster is “smarter” than you in this one respect: He has absolutely nothing but time on his hands and no thought in his tiny brain except for getting out. So he can spend every waking moment prodding and probing and chewing and gnawing until he makes a little hole for himself.
And you can’t. Because you’re not as singleminded as the hamster — you cannot spend all day inspecting his cage. And you have other things on your mind besides a stupid hamster.
But that hamster — with his tiny pea-sized brain — will essentially defeat you, because he has only one thing in his mind and no limit to the time and energy he can dedicate to that purpose.
…
Until you simply get rid of the useless hamsters.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/298096.php
MND:
For months now, I’ve been studying the banking system and the Federal Reserve
I have appreciated your little summaries on the subject. I thought you might enjoy this little YouTube of Hayek vs Keynes. It is amazing what they were able to fit into 7.5 minutes. I’m not a rapper by any means but even the video tells a story – party … and the next morning.
Keynes: In the long run, we’re all dead.
Hayek : In the long run, my friend, it’s your theory that’s all dead.
rove on what just happened and what the GOP
should do:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703312504575142032773435558.html
VDH surveys what is next from Obama legislatively and what he expects BO to do to get it done.
Sorry forgot the second link:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/25/bare_knuckles_or_bipartisanship.html
Using a war analogy – the question is:
is obamacare the dem’s pearl harbour or is it D-day. I think it is the latter.
November will be the GOP’s midway. And D-day is set for November 2012.
Interestingly (to me at least) the timelines of the battles are very similar to what they are being analogozed to: midway happened seven months after pearl harbour and D-Day two years almost to the day after that. Hmmm.
Phil Boehmke, at American Thinker:
“The sad course of human history is littered with the stories of societies who succumbed to the charisma of tyrants. Today America is on the brink of joining the miserable fraternity of nations who have descended into the hopeless abyss of socialism. We must continue to resist, as Americans we have a heritage of freedom that is the envy of the world.”
From the editorial in today’s National Post:
“It is easy to see what caused the cancellation of a speech by American political pundit Ann Coulter at the University of Ottawa on Tuesday evening: mob rule. It was not Ms. Coulter’s controversial views that forced the cancellation. Nor, in the end, was it any specific action by politically correct university administrators who clearly did not want the controversial commentator on their campus, and had hinted so in advance. Rather, it was the potential for violence from the crowd outside that silenced her, which sets a very dangerous precedent for free speech in this country. Kick up enough of a stink and you can shut up anyone you disagree with…”
On the matter of the varying accounts as to why, exactly, her speech was blocked –
“It matters little who is correct…the true cause is the same either way: angry left-wing students and protesters who cannot bear the idea of people they dislike having a say.”
Verily.
EU socialism collapsing.
What is the end result?
>>> ““In the space of a few weeks we are destroying all our efforts to bring Europe closer together.””
Nationalism: Ein Volk, etc.
…-
“Europe in crisis as debts grow and Germany pursues its own interests, say diplomats
Europe is suffering its worst crisis in a generation because of chronic debts and poor growth combined with a resurgence of national self-interest from Germany, senior figures warned on the eve of the quarterly EU summit today.
Berlin’s insistence that Greece should be bailed out by the International Monetary Fund, rather than the eurozone, and a downgrading of Portugal’s credit rating sent the euro to its lowest level for months yesterday. “The debate in Germany over Greece is polluting the atmosphere and creating anti-European feeling,” said Guy Verhofstadt, the federalist former Prime Minister of Belgium. “In the space of a few weeks we are destroying all our efforts to bring Europe closer together.”
Wary of being dragged into a fresh Greek bailout row, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, was resisting calls last night for an emergency meeting of the 16 countries in the single currency group. She has one eye on elections in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia on May 9, which could result in the loss of her majority in the German Upper House — but, even so, German commentators remarked that it was unprecedented for her to call, as she did last week, for the expulsion of a eurozone nation if it repeatedly broke the rules.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7074878.ece
Saw this signture on the Genesis Coupe (one of which now sits in my driveway) web forum and just had to share it,
“I downshift next to hybrids so they can hear me killing the enviroment”
Think I found myself a new sig for some of the more annoying forums I visit!
Secularism’s Ongoing Debt to Christianity at American Thinker
We secularists should recognize that we owe much to the religionists, that we are not threatened by them, that we should grant to them their world. Why should we be exercised over a Christmas Crèche in front of the county court house? It is appropriately symbolic of Christianity’s benign but essential role as guarantor of our political and legal systems — that is, of a moral force independent of and transcendent to the political. And what harm will come to a child who hears prayer in the schoolroom? I daresay harm is far more likely to come in those places where prayer is not heard.
The fact is, we secularists gain much from living in a world in which excesses are held in check by religion. Religion gives society a secure and orderly environment within which we secularists can safely play out our creativities. Free and creative secularism seems to me to function best when within the stable milieu provided by Christianity.
To the extent that Western elites distance themselves from their Judeo-Christian cultural heritage in favor of secular constructs, and as they give deference to a multicultural acceptance that all beliefs are of equal validity, they lose their will to defend against a determined attack from another culture, such as from militant Islam. For having destroyed the ancient faith of their people, they will have found themselves with nothing to defend. For the culture above which they had fancied themselves to have risen, the culture which had given them their material sustenance, will by then have become but a hollow shell.
…
It is not critical that they themselves believe, only that they should publicly hold in high esteem the institutions of Christianity and Judaism, and to respect those who do believe and to encourage and to give leeway to those who, in truth, will be foremost in the trenches defending us against those who would have us all bow down to a different and unaccommodating faith.
An inexpensive alternative to the Human Rights Commissions: The good old Hurt Feelings report.
http://www.eatliver.com/i.php?n=2026
EBD, great post!
Brent, thanks for the video and remember…
Keynes: In the long run, we’re all dead.
Hayek : In the long run, my friend, it’s your theory that’s all dead.
Apropos of the aforementioned (9:04) NP editorial, C. Edmund Wright spells out the only thing that matters, something that conservatives must never, ever forget:
“Conservatives desire control of one’s own destiny. Liberals seek to control everyone else’s destiny.”
Funny you chose Tom Lehrer’s Fight Fiercely as your song. I’ve been using one of his lines quite a bit recently. In one of his concerts, he used the following as the lead-in for his song about National Brotherhood Week: “There are people out there who do not love their fellow man…and I HATE people like that.”
Nicely sums up contemporary attitudes–don’t you think?
You are welcome, Orlin. 🙂
Brent Weston – very good article. Thanks.
I’m an atheist which doesn’t mean, as some ignorant people suggest, a perspective without morality. My view is that there is a natural morality, which is universal, and is, as noted in the article, ‘independent of and transcendent to the political’.
This means that I can most certainly evaluate belief systems and conclude that some do not share in this universal morality and thus, are harmful to society. That includes Islamism.
I think it’s beneficial to children to hear prayers in school, which is a form of acknowledging a set of rules above and beyond one’s own personal individual desires – and even, above one’s own ethnicity, nationality or religion.
That is a great – and apt, and timely – line, Bob.
Ezra:
“It was not anti-Coulter hate that shut down her speech at U of O. Hate is a human emotion, not an action. Nor was it mere hateful words. Words can be noisy, but they can only hurt feelings. Rather, it was the assessment of police, campus security and Coulter’s own bodyguard that there was too much physical danger to Coulter and the audience to proceed.”
(…)
“The U of O indulges some of most offensive conduct in the country on their campus. Each year, for example, they happily host an anti-Semitic festival called Israel Apartheid Week. Never has Houle seen fit to issue a warning to his campus’s steady stream of Jew-baiters to govern their tongues. In fact, to my knowledge, no left-wing activist has ever received a threat of criminal prosecution. Only Ann Coulter did.”
“This is the sham of political correctness. It’s not about civility. It’s not about protecting groups from hate, or even violence. It’s about politics and power.” (emph. mine)
Learn it. Live it.
A surprisingly even-handed editorial from the Globe and Mail on the Coulter/Ottawa issue. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/a-university-fails-in-its-mission/article1511279/