I Can Do Whatever I Like: Freedom of Expression Guaranteed

I've decided that all government coercion is wrong.  Government has no right to tell me what to do with my body.  Self-expression is a fundamental right.  And nudity is completely natural.  I have a total right to be naked in public.  Anywhere in public.  It's just your personal hang-up if you are bothered by it.  There's nothing inappropriate about it.  Keep your laws off my junk.

You don't want your kids seeing something like that?  Well, keep them indoors.  My nudity isn't going to cause them problems; your uptight attitude will, though.  Let those kids out in public and I have a right to dance nude in front of them if I want to.  This conspiracy to force me to be clothed in public when that is not my natural state--well, it just won't stand.  In the next 25 years, the Supreme Court will realize that these anti-nudity laws are straight-up discrimination, and worse, they are old traditional morés based on religion.  Keep your religion off my junk.

If you don't want your kids to be exhibitionists or nudists, then don't raise them to be.  It's not like they're going to catch "the naked" from me.  Come to think of it, I have a natural right to touch any part of my body in public. I don't understand this country's fetish with restraining natural urges.  If it bothers you, don't look.  People are prurient these days because they're taught to inhibit themselves. You can be inhibited if you want, but don't make me be that way.

Of course, I don't actually think this way.  But I bet many "left-libertarians" and progressives do.  I bet many teachers and college professors do.  Like that college professor who had a sexual act exhibited in a university classroom for his students and later explained that at the time he couldn't think of a good reason not to do it.  "I did not wish, and I do not wish, to surrender to sex negativity and fear."  Wow, that professor is just a beacon of freedom, isn't he?  Setting minds free with parent-funded and public-funded live pornography.

Broken City: Modern Noir in Liberal Sepia Tones

As a movie, for all its flaws, I liked the drama of Broken City.  But many things about the script seemed to cross the line into propaganda.

Some of the things I noticed directly about Broken City:  Pro-law-and-order incumbent NY mayor is facing an idealistic challenger.  The challenger seems honest and passionate; he's against the corporations and for the little guy. The mayor is corrupt and is all about wealth and cronyism and being in the big corporations' pockets.  And he doesn't like the NY Times but rather the Post.  Seeing any patterns yet?

Here and here the corrupt mayor who is favored for having cleaned up the town is described as "Giuliani-esque."  And here the challenger is described as the "rich, liberal, and inexplicably honest councilman."  Almost as inexplicably honest as our rich, liberal Chicago politician-turned-President.

We knew the Man from Illinois was the one honest politician from the totally corrupt Blagovichian Chicago scene even if he did win his state senatorial bid by having his opponent disqualified. Why, just look at that honest little punim. And a man who "oozes sincerity" (think "Slick Willie") such that he can sell a ketchup popsicle to an Eskimo in white gloves is much preferred to anyone that actually tells us what we don't want to hear: e.g., that there's no way that the party can go on simply by sending the bill to "all those rich folks."

But I digress.  This review is even more enlightening about the film's narrative.  It describes the mayoral debate as "a baseball-bat-to-the-head invocation of current political schisms."  The challenger Valliant (Valliant? what is this, an allegory? seriously?) is described as "the idealistic liberal." But here is <<spoiler alert>> the crux of the story:  

What’s interesting is the way Broken City plays as a parable of American conservatism reckoning with its own sins. Taggart is a conservative everyman – uncomfortable around the cultural upper class, wedded to traditional gender norms, rough-hewn, and simple. He’s loyal to Hostetler, at least initially, and his trial calls up shades of white resentment against minorities who question the needs of law and order. Hostetler’s glittering wife, presumably unfaithful, stumps for gay rights causes, and the liberal Valliant is an oily ivy-league alien. In short, the movie begins rooted in right-wing sympathies and assumptions. 

By the conclusion, they have all been inverted. In Broken City’s most quietly moving scene, Taggart sits in a car with a gay man who recounts his feelings for the lover he’s just lost. You can sense the gears turning in Taggart’s head, as the demands of common human decency brook no respect for his cultural comfort zones. The final scene suggests the “liberal elite” is at least trying to do the right thing, which is more than can be said for the other side, and that whatever its intentions were, it’s time for conservatism to own up to the damage it’s caused.

Dang, it is an allegory.  "[C]ommon human decency" versus "cultural comfort zones."  There's the strawman! I missed you most of all, Scarecrow.   

John Stossel's Awkward Bedfellows

I like a lot of what John Stossel has to say, and even if I am not always convinced by what he seems to be touting, it's thought-provoking.  And yet, he seems to use Ann Coulter as an excuse to criticize social conservatism.  Coulter is practically a shock jock--she gets attention by not caring who she offends--and she's better at pointing out what is silly about liberalism than she is at articulating conservatism; that's better left to heavyweights like Sowell.

My reply to John Stossel's 'Libertarians' Awkward Bedfellows':

I think that that libertarians and paleo-conservatives are working at cross purposes.  If libertarians want to do something constructive and not just appear as some kind of hip, socially acceptable conservative in order  to gain political advantage, they could provide some leadership for (a) school vouchers and (b) relegating these culture war issues to the states and get them out of D.C. politics.  A federal government big enough to guarantee the right to abortions and to wear a shirt profaning another's religious beliefs is a government big enough to decide that all rights need to be revised.  By siding with progressives in certain ways, libertarians unwittingly(?) support a federal government that won't leave societies free to govern themselves; using tyranny in the large to "protect" us against the bugbear of tyranny in the small.  Without a solid stand on the 10th Amendment, libertarians end up selling themselves as "in touch" conservatives or fiscally responsible progressives, and it DOES come across as pandering.  Worse, it looks like they're trying to out-"sell out" the neocons.  Give Middle America real control over who is teaching their kids and what they're being taught.  Give us academic choice.  Give us a real remedy against judicial activism.  Expose the indoctrination.  Help give us our culture back.  Otherwise, libertarians are just "all the coerced social change without the free stuff."  

You want the conservatives to give up the Culture War?  Put teeth back in our Tenth Amendment.  Make it so that liberal educators aren't teaching our kids their values instead of our values.  Make it so that our kids aren't forced to go to homosexuality normalization training (i.e. re-education) to cure their intolerance.

True conservatives tend to truly believe that it takes a village.  Progressives believe that it takes a national government (e.g., Obama's "something we can only do together, with . . . the help of a nation").  If libertarians can't work with paleos to bring power back to the village, then maybe Ann Coulter is right about them.

Fun Size: Liberal Adventures in Babysitting

Fun Size reminded me a little superficially of Adventures in Babysitting.  Both were essentially teen movies that targeted a pre-teen audience (an ugly trend) partly by using a pre-teen character.  The Elizabeth Shue vehicle had its share of vulgarity and wasn't really all that appropriate, but the vulgarity is much more incidental in AiB than in Fun Size.  But hey, a lot happens in 25 years.

But making a movie for pre-teens that is overly sexualized, glamorizes teen sex, and has a giant rooster humping a car isn't the main point of this post.

I wanted to point out the little political advertisements to be seeded in the minds of young people. Please let me know if there is a similar movie that is as conservative-friendly as this is liberal-friendly.

1) Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  One of the smart kids is so smart and sophisticated she thinks of dressing up for Halloween as Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg, as she is a "feminist icon."

2) E. O. Wilson.  One of the smart, sophisticated kids thinks of being E.O. Wilson  for Halloween.  I don't think they explain other than that he's a famous sociobiologist.  E.O. Wilson promotes evolutionary biology as the foundational understanding of our humanity and nature.  He has an outlook that aside from its religious overtones and its sweeping grandeur, is much more aligned with liberalism.  Is that what gets smart kids all excited about Wilson or is it his handy "butterfly net."

3)  Katie Couric.  One of the few times the frat boys aren't saying something vulgar, it's to compliment a woman by comparing her to Katie Couric.  Katie Couric.  Couric is pretty, but that's the journalist that comes ot mind for this frat boy?   Katie Couric.  'Nuff said. (Any odds on a non-vulgar beauty nod to Megyn Kelly, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, S.E. Cupp, etc...)

4) "My moms."  The smart, sophisticated boy is raised by a stereotypically liberal same-sex couple.  He mentions his "moms" all the time.  He's very close to his momzzz.  He'd never lie to his moms.  He always listens to his moms.  He talks to his moms.  He loves his moms.  Moms. Moms. Moms.  (Meanwhile, I hear that the "Glee" show has decided to change its name to "My Two Dads" since most of the original viewership has moved on anyway.)

5) Obama.  Okay, we meet the "moms."  In case we have any doubts where these ancient Greek-spouting green-conscious sophisticants are about, you'll see them handcrafting a big oversized jolly portrait of good-natured Obama.  Gosh, liberals are so smart and sophisticated.  

6) Raise your hand.  Just to throw it out there, a boy asks a room full of girls if anyone wants to kiss him.  One boy quickly raises his hand and quickly lowers it before he is noticed.

Is it desperation or overweening pride or both that have filmmakers so out of the liberal closet with their early proselytizing?

Now this all wouldn't be so bad if there was that other kind of movie.  The fun movie for kids in which the following things occur.  A smart kid wants to be Clarence Thomas or Thomas Sowell (Oh, that's right; there's that "scandal"--and why didn't the NAACP defend him?) because they are black intellectual icons or conservative icons or black conservative icons, and why wouldn't smart kids want to acknowledge them?  How 'bout some obviously conservative parents who are also obviously smart and compassionate.  (Oops, Hollywood folk know that there are no such people, because the liberal icons tell them so.)  Maybe some conservative kids that rally around and protect bullied kids.  Hey, Hollywood has also been about showing the way the world should be rather than the way it is, so the industry's total inability to perceive these things shouldn't hinder their ability to imagine.  And Hollywood'll be finally showing 55% of Americans that they don't hate everything about them and can actually think outside their narrow narrative.

Like that'll happen.

Lincoln Movie -- Cynicism of the Lincoln Narrative

". . . that . . . normally automatic insinuation that any critic of Lincoln must secretly wish that slavery had never ended."*

Thomas J. DiLorenzo has echoed my previously stated qualms about the celebration of graft, fraud, and manipulation of the people's representatives with political subterfuge that is Spielberg's Lincoln.

But the Spielberg Lincoln movie gets its history completely upside down. The main story line is how Lincoln supposedly utilized every bit of his political sleaziness to help get the Thirteenth Amendment through Congress. This is a fiction. It never happened according to the preeminent Lincoln scholar of our time, Harvard University’s David Donald (See page 554 of his Pulitzer prize-winning biography of Lincoln). In fact, the opposite was true: The genuine abolitionists in Congress had to use their political powers to get Lincoln to voice his support for the Thirteenth Amendment. Spielberg’s movie, based on the book Team of Rivals by the confessed plagiarist Doris Kearns-Goodwin, is an extraordinarily misleading work of fiction. (See my LRC review of Goodwin’s book entitled "A Plagiarist’s Contribution to Lincoln Idolatry").

DiLorenzo is no fan of Mr. Lincoln; he has elsewhere pointed out the less than forthright means of getting his way--Lincoln just had bigger fish to fry, mainly the vanquishing of any resistance to Henry Clay's dream of a nationalized republic (as opposed to what James Madison called our "confederated republic").

But if Lincoln's "statesmanship" was not to blame passing the 13th Amendment by hook or by crook, what is the point of Spielberg's Lincoln other than a mere celebration of social change through political fraud, through a travesty of representative democracy?

Jo Ann Skousen has written in her blog a similar reaction to my own:

In addition to buying votes for his amendment, Lincoln also resorts to outright lying. . . . [H]e sends a letter denying any knowledge of the peace delegation from Richmond, even though this is clearly a lie. He sends this note with a flourish and a chuckle — and the audience in my theater cheered. I was disheartened that they didn't feel the same shame I felt when I saw a president of the United States deliberately lie to get his way. But I wasn't surprised. It's what we expect today.

Indeed, it's a celebration of cynicism, a middle finger to a false and failed sense of self-government. It's the very spirit of judicial activism.

This cynical view pervades the "one party democracy" complaints of Thomas Friedman and the chuck-the-Constitution bleating of Louis Michael Seidman.  Look at one of Seidman's arguments for removing the limitations from the federal Beast; he cites the illogic of ratification that underlay the 13th Amendment:

Moreover, when the law finally caught up with the facts on the ground through passage of the 13th Amendment, ratification was achieved in a manner at odds with constitutional requirements. (The Southern states were denied representation in Congress on the theory that they had left the Union, yet their reconstructed legislatures later provided the crucial votes to ratify the amendment.)

Let's hear that again: "their reconstructed legislatures later provided the crucial votes to ratify the amendment."  Let's get this straight. The South had just been subjected to scorched earth acts of terror, psychological warfare of rape and pillage and arson.  They had fought and lost; and we are told this had everything to do with slavery.  Then their legislatures, their state representatives, ratify the Amendment that the Southern Congressmen would have certainly voted against, because, hey, Lincoln won and no hard feelings, right?  Anyone smell a rotten egg?  DiLorenzo has said that more historians are coming out of the closet and 'fessing up to Lincoln's misdeeds.  Seidman is one of them. Something is just not kosher about the ratification of the 13th. (Who says it's not an unlucky number?)

For Seidman, achieving the desired result through breaking the rules just shows how silly it was to have those rules in the first place.

Like I said before, this seems to be the essential lesson of Spielberg's movie.

Making Janeane Garofalo Happy

“It’s about hating a black man in the White House. That is racism straight up. This is nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks.  . . . The functionally retarded adults, the racists—with their cries of, ‘I want my country back.’—what they’re really saying is, ‘I want my white guy back.’”
  — Janeane Garofalo*

I've got the solution to this whole thing.

If Garofalo will agree to help us get Herman Cain elected, we'll somehow get over our "conservative bigotry"  and present a united front with our liberal friends.  She would no doubt completely back Bill Clinton, so a few spurious claims of sexual harassment should be no big deal.  Cain has nothing on Slick Willie for sex scandal.

We could have 16 consecutive years of black leadership, but it would also be a kind of diversity.  Conservatives could then share the fun by calling any liberal criticism of Cain a sinister expression of racism.  I don't see why progressives should have all the fun with that.  And when they dismiss Cain as some kind of misogynist, we can have the fun of saying, "C'mon, everybody does it," like our progressive friends admonished us back in the 90s for the silly prudishness of that sick crowd that thinks it's inappropriate for CEOs to fondle their employees.  Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, ... But hey! Groupies?!  Who hasn't grabbed a little at some point, eh?  What's the big deal?

Some of us have been a little suspicious of the claims against Cain — the timing is a little too reminiscent of Clarence Thomas.  But hey, let's say that Cain is a bit like Clinton (or like fictional liberal candidates Mike Morris and Jack Stanton); that can't be such a bad thing to a liberal. And I think that black Democrats and conservatives of every ethnicity can agree on giving Herman Cain a shot at running the nation.  

Then again, I hear that Garofalo would just think that our support for Herman Cain (or Clarence Thomas or Condoleeza Rice or Thomas Sowell or Ben Carson or whomever) is just a cover for our inherent racism. But let's turn that around.  Maybe Garofalo's support for Obama is just a cover for her liberal racism.  Maybe the ugly comments she and other liberals make about Clarence Thomas and other blacks that dare to mutiny from the liberal fold reflect their core feelings which they hide when it comes to the puppets that do their bidding.  That's what liberals have been saying about Condoleeza Rice's career so why can't we generalize about the Democratic party?

Top Ten Liberal Moments in Film/Television

Well, I've wanted to revise this list--if for no other reason than that All in the Family is not included.  But these were the top moments that occurred to me at some point based on my own viewing experience, so here it is mostly unabridged.

(10) 3rd Rock from the Sun: A tv episode has the squinty alien channeling various radio stations after getting hit in the head with a frying pan. After a speech about it being dangerous to repeatedly bash the poor guy's brains in, he starts channeling in a Texarkana accent: "Liberals want you to think that big government is the answer to all your problems..." The high commander shuts him down with another potentially fatal blow because "I couldn't listen to THAT." Even an extraterrestrial knows nonsense when he hears it.

(9) Midnight in Paris: There's a couple that seem so rich and boorish that I instantly think "Ah, this is Woody's idea of Republicans." And Woody follows up with a Tea Party reference in case you missed his point. They are uncultured, they care about expensive things without any real sense of taste or beauty. Like all conservatives.

(8) Glee: We finally meet the pregnant cheerleader's parents. Again, an instant sense of vain, rich, pretentious people that are the one-dimensional Hollywood picture of conservatives. I see this instantly, although it is seconds later that they are making Glenn Beck references and, if I recall, religious references. You need this as the viewer to make sense of the fact that they are about to throw her out of the house when they find out she's pregnant. This show got a little preachy for me early on to keep watching it for the great music.

(7) With Honors: Joe Pesci plays a worldly wise bum, who's wisdom dramatically affects the lives of the young people that fall under his influence. In a very climactic scene with a professor (played by Gore Vidal), the Harvard bum waxes eloquent on the "genius of the Constitution." Some of the things he says almost border on conservatism. But he says nothing about checks and balances (which are pretty nifty), but has his main point that the Constitution can change. The most amazing thing about the Constitution is that we aren't stuck with it. Hmm. What borders on conservatism is that he says that the Framers trusted the wisdom of the people. That's ironic because most of the changes to our Constitutional government have come about not through the Framer's process of amendment but judicial reinterpretation. The genius of the Constitution was that, contrary to the arguments of the Federalist Papers, it was vulnerable to an oligarchy that played with the meanings of words. Gore Vidal has utter contempt for our vagrant friend, and insults him after an initial attempt at political correctness. Is he supposed to be one of the rare few conservative poli-sci professors in the Ivy League? Only The Shadow knows.

(6) Primary Colors: John Travolta plays an over-sexed governor whose entourage is a menagerie of misfits, but who has a heart of gold and only wants to help the people. Flawed but pure of heart. Certainly not an apologetic for any real-life character.

(5) Game Change: Progressives were so terrified at American women's interest in Sarah Palin that the momentum of their smear campaigns continues. I admit I haven't seen it and am not sure I could stomach it. One thing for sure: I'm not going to pay to watch what sounds like a poorly disguised hatchet job. Read Why Game Change Producer Tom Hanks Must Destroy Sarah Palin.

I hear Tom Hanks is taking a break from producing anti-conservative propaganda to narrate a "documentary" promoting Obama.

(4) W (or as I think of it, 'Dubya'): Josh Brolin, a truly talented actor who has come a long way since 'Goonies', does an interesting job with Dubya's mannerisms, but he's a method actor, you see, getting DEEP into the role, so he goes beyond the kind of naive, happy-go-lucky, childish yokel persona of Bush and brings out the subtext: a mentally retarded zealot. It's not all Brolin's fault. Oliver Stone must bear most of the blame here.

(3) Bulworth: Warren Beatty of 'Reds' plays a "donkey on the edge"--a Democratic Congressman who finds he can finally speak his mind now that he doesn't expect to live through the week. He starts to reformulate his policy based on the rants of minority drug pushers, and has some glorious moments when he can admit that his criticisms of Farakhan are insincere, he can mock "Jewish paranoia" (kind of like Hillary when she could admit as Secretary of State that she really DIDN'T think of Jerusalem as the "eternal, indivisable" capital as she told her NY electorate), and could freely admit that his economic policy is indeed "SOCIALISM!" Gosh, it just feels so good to be able to SAY it! YES!

(2) Ides of March: Once again, the savior of the free world is less than perfect. If only those rotten GOP guys ("the f***ing elephants!") weren't infecting the DNC with their dirty politics. (They used to be a party of integrity before.) George Clooney explains the progressive opinion on several issues (including a plan to require EVERYBODY to be drafted into service). The camera cuts away as somebody starts to raise an interesting challenge to his thoughts. This poor man that can't stop cornering interns simply has too much integrity to do what needs to be done to save America. Oh, and he knows EXACTLY how to save America.

(1) An American President: Annette Benning (also from 'Reds') plays a lobbyist who sees no conflict of interest in sleeping with the main guy (The President) with whom she's representing her clients. Michael Douglas plays the grieving widower President who is absolutely bonkers for the Constitution (I don't think he explains what its particular genius is). He loves it, loves it, loves it. Did I mention that he loves the Constitution? This movie sets a record for political strawman arguments, and stars Richard Dreyfuss as The Evil Republican (a role he subtly modified for Oliver Stone's 'W'). At the end, our all-American President declares "Yes, I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU--why aren't you?" After all, there's no ideological bent to the ACLU, so why isn't everyone? Well, some people (I won't say who) just don't like liberty. Mmm-hmm.

Wag the Dog should get some honorable mention, since it was based on a book in which George H.W. Bush was the President that has the scandalous interaction with a Girl Scout. Another year and Hollywood wouldn't have released the film. As Wikipedia puts it: "An ironic twist was the release of the film just prior to President Clinton's sex scandal and the subsequent bombing of terrorists strongholds in Africa." Now, has anything happened in the last three years in which a military action has been used to try to distract from problems at home? Hmmm?

Cognitive Dissonance Perhaps?

An interesting exchange on a blog:

• • Arlo J. Pignotti On October 10, 2011 at 10:25 am       
    

    Permalink

    I know several people who will never work until the welfare is taken away. I was able to convince two people to get off welfare to work for me, but it took great effort, and as the “employer” (they’re really contractors) there’s no way I would have put that much into convincing them if I hadn’t known them personally. I even know a couple of people who go so far as to move state to state to qualify for one program while another program runs out. Sometimes I think when people say they don’t know anyone who would choose welfare over work, they’re just not being honest with themselves and looking the other way when they see it. This is very common and will get more common as we increase these so-called benefits.
  • Kim Cooper On October 10, 2011 at 9:27 pm     
    

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    Arlo — You know, unless those people you describe are teenagers, I just flat out don’t believe you.

Let's paraphrase this.

Arlo:  I personally know several people who avoid work as long as another way is available, and some of them move from state to state to keep avoiding work. I think people who don't recognize that these situations exist are in denial. 

Kim:  Arlo, these are teenagers or it just can't be true.  

Wow.

Big Corporations Are Dangerous, Big Government Is Not

"Corporation: A company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity."

"Government is the only thing we all belong to." --2012 DNC Convention

Someone re-posted this recently.  The implication seems to be that corporations will be competing for the right to abuse the consumers that pay them money for the products and services that they make possible, and that the only thing to keep this from happening is to make government so big that it can boss around any collective of individual wealth.

How big does government have to be to simply ensure fair competition?  How much competition is squelched by big government cronyism?  How much worse does it get as government is made arbitrarily larger in order to keep us free from the evil corporations?

At what point does the consolidating of so much power in one Big Corporation, Uncle Sam, (and do we all really hold the same number of shares in this corporation?) result in less crooked behavior than in the big corporations that have much less power by comparison?  

Pro-Liberty = Pro-Black: The National Republicans Rediscovered the Founders' Republicanism

Quick post.  I was thinking about this lately, and then the recent article "White Liberals Tell Black Lies" brought it again to the forefront of my mind.

Even acknowledging that Lincoln did much to set the stage for the welfare/warfare state of the Progressives, Sobran acknowledges commendable things about Abraham Lincoln, and seems to see him as a flawed but complex man.  Many of his publicly expressed sentiments were commendable, even if his actions and methods did not always live up to them.

I think it is interesting that, in the wake of a time that Big Government progressivism was making side-by-side inroads into both parties (Teddy Roosevelt on the one hand, Woodrow Wilson on the other), it was the decidedly more pro-black party (the GOP) that the anti-New Deal modern conservatism movement found its home.  At it's inception, National Republican were nearly as national as National Socialism would be.

The Christian Apocalypse as Sophisticated Dystopian Mythos

Click Image to Enlarge

I don't have a lot of enduring interest in the Book of Revelation (a.k.a  the Revelation to John on the Isle of Patmos) for a couple of reasons.  One is that people who spend their time talking about it seem to be interested in scaring people into being spiritual, which I think is self-defeating for anything much other than getting people to show up and give money; and another is that people who spend their time thinking about it seem to stop paying attention to life other than to read "signs" into current events.

This preface is necessary because any attempt to relate an old prophecy to modern politics is going to sound like some nutty appeal to the Religious Right.  (Random Kanye interjection: I just want to say that Bill Maher is a clown; and not a good kind of clown.  Kind of like a mime, but without the wonderful silence.)

Let's re-frame the significance of this book:  If there were a political situation that offended cultural sensibilities of Muslims embodied in their eschatological mythos, many on the Left (those not rabidly against all non-secular religions) would cry out that we need to be more sensitive, especially since there must be something rich and deep and beautiful in such a cultural treasure.  Too often these thoughts, when they are more than vague sentiments are not applied to Christianity, since that is the root of American traditionalism that must be rooted out by progressivism--the competitor in America for the rapidly supplanting progressive value system.

So... Suppose that the Book of Revelation is another eschatological myth.  Perhaps it stands out because it came about around a time when the Roman Empire didn't like competing religious visions.  Most traditions would place the writing of the John's apocalyptic vision after the upside-down crucifixion of St. Peter (i.e. Cephas, the apostle from Galilee).  So maybe it lends itself to modern times because it is written for an age of empires.

Is it a bad thing to fear the consolidation of power into a world government?  Progressives would tend to say "No," by their policies if not by their words.  While many libertarians and conservatives have more practical reasons for disliking the idea, the Revelation gives many Christians reason to fear that a terrifying abuse of power will follow from a consolidation of world power.

Social scientists like Jonathan Haidt who found himself unable to see outside of his intellectual bubble of social science liberalism until his postmodern exercise of living with Hindus in India forced him to try to understand the world on their terms -- social "scientists" like Haidt will probably have trouble seeing any sort of rich cultural heritage in the Vision of Patmos, and not simply because of their Western intellectual antipathy toward Christianity (though that would be reason enough).

Consider the potential meaning of The Revelation:

The Creature that rises from the sea will be a political leader rising to power with promises of peace and plenty.  He will obtain power by playing to people's appetites.  Babylon the great prostitute/idolatress will ride the Beast until it is time for her to be destroyed.  (Eventually the Big Party will be over; the people will find out that they sold their liberties away for libertinism.)  People won't see him--the Creature or Beast as he described-- for what he really is, because they will instead see a walking, talking image of him -- someone else will decide what the people see, and they will become enamored with an idol.  He will cause people to act against their religion and their conscience by having absolute control of the world economy.  People won't be able to make transactions unless they are down with the Central Power's program.

Buying and selling will be done through exclusive codes, and everyone will be marked with a code that enscribes them with the number of man--expressed numerologically as a triune expression of man as the source of man's worth, man's values, man's rights.  As George Orwell outlined in 1984, totalitarianism becomes possible through collectivism, that is some form of fascism/socialism that promises a Utopia in exchange for the centralization of Power.  Collectivism has been thus sold as Maoism, National Socialism (Nazism), Stalinism, the Cultural Revolution, etc.  The Harlot and the Beast will be "drunk on the blood of the saints."  The greatest persecutions of the Christians in the last century have been the collectivist utopians, seeking the path of Humanism and devolving into the inhumane.

This grand world experiment will end badly.  The infrastructure on which the entire world will have come to depend will fall apart.  Possibly set off by a series of disasters, famine will ensue, pestilence and epidemics, and ultimately, wars as society collapses.  Mass uprisings and slaughters.  The Rape of Nanking will seem like a practice run for the big global event -- if this happens.

Oh, and the Creature of the Revelation of St. John will also persecute the nation of Israel in addition to persecuting the Church.  Many think that this will involve the Antichrist fulfilling the prophecy of the Abomination of Desolation-- that on Israel's holiest site, the World Government will enact something perverse as an affront to the God of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.  Things are expected ultimately end in the bloodiest battle of history in the Valley of Megiddo.

A rather sophisticated eschatological myth, I think.  Seems almost like some sort of libertarian dreamt it.  In modern terms, the Harlot could be Hollywood (if one takes the commerce aspect of Babylon very metaphorically); the soothsaying False Prophet could be the media moguls that manipulate the perception of current events.  It's subjective interpretation, sure--there are many and have been many interpretations applied.  But long before there was 1984, We, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, there was the Book of Revelation.  Dystopia.  Before there was Big Brother, there was The Beast.  Only a certain kind of elitist would expect 1984 to have a claim to my circumspective powers and inherent skepticism but not the Book of Revelation to hold a similar claim.

Anyway, pleasant dreams.

What Argo and Zero Dark Thirty have in common

What do Argo and Zero Dark Thirty have in common, other than that Kyle Chandler plays essentially the same character in both?

They both involve intelligence operations in the Middle East with Democrat Presidents in office.

They both involve operations that deal with dangerous Muslim radicals.

They both present fragile operations that are made more difficult by the federal administration's policies and almost fail due to bureaucratic politics.

They both present operations whose success is almost entirely due to the intelligence, determination, and courage of an individual in the field.

Whether or not the presentations as such are accurate is, of course, another matter.  The White House surely does not like the implications of Zero Dark Thirty in spite of being involved in the making of it.  Republicans and conservatives were mostly wrong about the significance of the Obama administration divulging sensitive information to the makers of ZD30.  After Hollywood released their big anti-Bush ad Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004, the appearance of a movie presenting "Obama's big success" in 2012 seemed a little too coincidental. 

However, a predominantly liberal Hollywood crowd produced the film The Path to 9/11, and before Bill Clinton forced them to censor out the parts that showed his administration failed to pull the trigger on bin Laden in the '90s, they had made a fairly apolitical piece.  Before his interest in nailing the lid on Sarah Palin's political coffin, Tom Hanks tried to show the good side of American military and aerospace (the settings of which are also typically in Democrat administrations). Now, we have ZD30 which doesn't blanch at showing the ugliness of enhanced interrogation, making the case that vital clues were thus gleaned which led to bin Laden.  In fact, according to the film, the operatives' missions are hindered by the elimination of enhanced interrogation and the detention centers. 

No doubt, if Obama had thought that playing up the bin Laden kill wouldn't make his administration look good, he wouldn't have put national security at risk to help make a movie about it.   This was the same man that had his administration encourage aerospace companies in Virginia to ignore the law to influence election results, who announced details of the  bin Laden triumph immediately even though it decreased the chances of further gains.  This movie would not have helped Obama, even accidentally.  Who woulda thunk it?

At the end of Argo, there is a voiceover of Jimmy Carter telling how the details of the success of the Argo operation had to remain secret and his administration couldn't take credit for it.  Let's hope that he wouldn't have taken as much credit for it as Obama took for Operation ZD30.   If Carter avoided doing so to protect sensitive operations, he will have risen far above Barack Obama's stature.  But we see the Carter administration greenlighting at the last minute to avoid a huge embarassing fiasco, all the gutsiness on the part of people much lower down in the chain of command.  With regard to bin Laden, even if Obama had been ignorant of what was censored out of The Path to 9/11, Secretary Hillary Clinton surely wasn't, and she would know it would risk political suicide to repeat her husband's failure.  And Barack desperately needed a trophy to stick on his wall.

Another thing undercuts Carter's alleged magnanimity in keeping the nature of Operation Argo.  Only a handful of diplomats made it out due to Carter greenlighting some airplane tickets.  The unlucky others were taken hostage and weren't returned until shortly after Reagan took over, leading to all sorts of dark allegations about Reagan's secret pre-1980 power in the Middle East.  Could it be simply that they feared that Reagan would not tolerate such nonsense? 

To the right is a 2012 political ad for Obama's bold choice for (as bold as his use of drones?).  Let's get one thing straight: Unlike Carter, Obama has no problem having people killed and is much closer to Janet Reno in that regard.  If the ZD30 movie is to be believed though, the "let's get bin Laden" game was not one he played very well.    


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD75KOoNR9k&feature=player_embedded

The Paradoxes of Abortion: When Is Politics Exposed?

Newsweek [12/6/96] reported that FBI statistics indicated 207 children younger than a week were murdered in 1994. That is a 92 percent increase since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973.* 

Cassidy Goodson and Juana Valencia are just one of an epidemic of neonaticidal mothers who have recently faced conviction for murder.  Teresa Maldonado apparently killed her baby through trauma to the head. Veronica Via beat her infant to death because she "would be better off dead than growing up poor and fatherless."  (That's an awful familiar argument.) Rozlynn Rodgers performed her own 5th trimester abortion for reasons that Mary Elizabeth Williams understands all too well.  There's Jessica Blackham, Katie McCoy, Amy Grossberg, Melissa Drexler, etc.

And yet, when asked whether he is for abortions into the 9th month, Barack Obama flatly affirms, "I support abortion."  In spite of the opinions of many Democrats and Republicans alike, liberals have backed partial birth abortions as a civil liberty.  Here is one summary of the paradox:

In any case, this riddle—the different fortunes of the ninth month abortion and the baby drowned in the toilet (or abandoned in the dumpster)—might lead you believe that abortion politics aren’t entirely about civil liberties. One fetus-destroyer is a liberated woman; the other, a murderer.

But this is but one paradox in abortion politics.  Previously cited Mary Elizabeth Williams is in the vanguard of progressives abandoning the safe liberal position that "something magical happens at the moment a baby passes through the birth canal."*  A fetus is quite obviously a human life according to Williams, but the value of that life lies precisely in whether that life is wanted.  "I’m a mom who loved the lives she incubated from the moment she peed on those sticks, and is also now well over 40 and in an experimental drug trial. If by some random fluke I learned today I was pregnant, you bet your ass I’d have an abortion. I’d have the World’s Greatest Abortion."*  Let's rephrase that summary: 

In any case, this riddle—the different fortunes of the loved embryo and the unwanted preemie—might lead you believe that abortion politics aren’t entirely about principle but about convenience. In one instance the fetus-carrier is a sanctified mother; the other, a liberated woman.  In one instance the fetus is a baby to be cherished; the other, an unacceptable change of plans.

Barack Obama, who says we should do everything we can to save lives once they are born, opposed regulations for insuring protections and care for preemies who are born following an unsuccessful abortion.  One of the many reasons he cited for this was that he thought doing so set a bad precedent for the God-given liberty to destroy one's own fetus.  This might seem especially odd given the care we take and the expense that is afforded for a non-person that enters personhood prematurely:

In any case, this riddle—the different fortunes of the preemie and the potential abortion survivor—might lead you believe that abortion politics aren’t entirely about civil liberties. One fetus is a life to be saved; the other, an obstacle to civil liberty.

And now for something (almost) completely different.  Here is some very similar language applied to the seeming disparity between opposition to stem cell research and "morning after" pills and the lack of picketing at IVF clinics.  To Pamela Haag, this paradox is easily explained by guessing that the pro-life movement is fueled by "anger about other women’s lives and choices":

In any case, this riddle—the different fortunes of the abortion clinic and the IVF clinic—might lead you [to] believe that abortion politics aren’t entirely about embryos. One embryo-destroyer is a sanctified mother; the other, a murderer. *

In case it isn't obvious by now, this was the original quote I've been riffing on.  And here we are in an era in which the New Morality are arguing for 4th trimester abortions (infanticide), while educated (and not-so-educated) liberals are laughing at the Great Unwashed for thinking that tolerating some gray leads to tolerating the dark.  For Pamela Haag, inconsistency says a lot to her about the motivations of others.  Then what do the other inconsistencies about this issue tell us?

The Emotional Argument Against Todd Akin: Is There Another Kind?

Even today I hear even conservatives, in concession to the inability of people to do more than react to sensitive issues and in a desperate move to distance themselves from the "War on Women" duckspeak, repeat the liberal trope of that Todd Akin claimed that woman can't get pregnant from rape.  It is at least understandable from rape victims, who understandably are broken and hurt and thus are inclined to mistake their feelings for reason.

I've talked elsewhere about the substance of Todd Akin's more questionable claims, but it's important to question his actual claims, not fictional claims.  He said that it wasn't impossible what rare.  He claims there are mechanisms that act against a pregnancy under those circumstances and these mechanisms can break down.  In the wake of the Todd Akin media pile-on, studies were trotted out supporting the idea that rape helps impregnation (essentially arguing for rape as a natural, evolved method of procreation).

It is all in support of the progressive abortion line:  It is wrong to not let a mother kill her child when that child results from a truly traumatic rape that causes PTSD symptoms and is often re-lived (as opposed to a night of drunken debauchery that is later regretted).  If that's wrong then it's wrong for cases in all cases where consent wasn't complete, including cases where the woman gets plastered at a party and ends up in some guy's bed. Since it is too difficult to draw the line between the traumatic cases for which society has a hard time not granting an exception for killing and those cases where the exception is abused for convenience, there must be no exceptions at all.  Nobody must be left out, and the question of exactly what we are killing becomes secondary.

So for the liberal mind, distinctions are apparently bad, unless you are Whoopi Goldberg and distinguishing Roman Polanski rape from "rape rape."  All the high and mighty posts about rape having the same definition the world over (before or after the U.S. recently changed its definition?) have no effect on Goldberg's reputation or her popularity.

Here is the crux of the emotional argument, eloquently stated by a rape survivor:

You used the expression "legitimate" rape as if to imply there were such a thing as "illegitimate" rape. Let me try to explain to you what that does to the minds, hearts and souls of the millions of women on this planet who experience rape. It is a form of re-rape. The underlying assumption of your statement is that women and their experiences are not to be trusted. That their understanding of rape must be qualified by some higher, wiser authority. It delegitimizes and undermines and belittles the horror, invasion, desecration they experienced. It makes them feel as alone and powerless as they did at the moment of rape.

So, by stating his opinion that rape pregnancies are relatively rare compared to consensual act pregnancies along with his opinion that not all events classified as rape or claimed to be rape are the same sort of thing that the rape exception was meant to address he has committed, in Eve Ensler's mind, a kind of rape.  Using the word "legitimate" to convey these ideas is a "form of re-rape."

Ensler's understandable trauma (not to be made light of) is compunded with that particular liberal state of fear that presents her with a "terrifying . . . window into the psyche of the GOP."  As a progressive, Ensler knows that Akin and the GOP are not trying to make some reasonable limitations on the killing of unborn infants, but are "legislating the experience of women who have been raped."

Remember now that we are talking about legalities.  If it all it takes to demonstrate that rape has occurred is that a woman is upset, or doesn't like the sex act in retrospect, where does this leave men who are accused of a crime?   And why should a an unborn child be deprived of life without any due process?  Because no matter what stage of development it is, it is only the breathing of oxygen that turns that parasitic mass of tissue into a person?

Ensler admonishes Akin and all pro-lifers to “spend your energy going after those perpetrators who so easily destroy women.”  This reprimand is remarkably similar to Akin's reviled soundbite: “. . . I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.” Now why is everything else that Todd Akin said more important than the issue of whether or not the creature being punished for the rapist's crime is in fact a child? Because if there is a real public "discussion" about that, it won't be as difficult to demonize pro-life voices.

This is apparent in the political attack gone viral at Urban Dictionary defining "legitimate rape" as:

Rape between one man and one woman who are not married or even acquainted; the only rape sanctioned by the Republican Party.

Here's the sort of the ideas peddled in the wake of the hyped Akin outrage, that provable or forcible rape can't be between acquaintances or spouses.  The liberal climate of fear is here summarized:

If people like Todd Akin have his way, the definition of “legitimate rape” might become a serious legal concern. How raped will you have to be to get a “legitimate” shot at an abortion under a Republican administration? *

Implicitly, while it may or may not be important for there to be proof of rape to deprive an accused man of life, it must be that there be no evidence of trauma required to deprive an unborn baby of his or her life.

VIP Deluxe Abortion Package: Some Herbal Tea with Your Blended Fetus

Why not provide a soothing after-abortion massage by a young male model in a sarong?  Now there's a VIP package.  Maybe a mani-pedi thrown in, as well.  Is this what is meant by the "World's Greatest Abortion"?

How to Make All Democrats Pro-Life

In light of Obama's State of the Union speech, I've had an epiphany.

Pro-lifers have been going about this all wrong.

If they would come out in support of a massive government program to prepare future students for college while they are yet in the womb by mandating classical music and good nutrition and other expensive correctives, progressives will see the light.  Do you have any idea how much of other people's money they could justify taking to spend on that?  It's astounding.  They would simply have to recognize the rights of fetuses.

Sarah Palin Must Die

And in this era where the intellectual and media elites are all establishment liberal-conservatives, all in a deep sense one variety or another of social democrat, all bitterly hostile to a genuine right, we need a dynamic, charismatic leader who has the ability to short-circuit the media elites, and to reach and rouse the masses directly.  ~ Rothbard

Marry, sir, they have committed false report;
moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily,
they are slander[er]s; sixth and lastly, they have
belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust
things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.  ~ Shakespeare

In this day and age a combination of image and personality can make all the difference in inspiring people to rally.  In 2008 the image of Obama had an appeal to masses.  They certainly felt that they were seeing something that hadn't seen before.

Gotham City, always brings a smile to Jon Stewart's face.

I can't be the only one thinkin' this.  That look like he's messed his pants and can't wait for some adult to notice.  

Floyd Corkins, Chris Dorner, and the Liberal Climate of Hate

Gay activist Shane Windemeyer has recently "come out" as a friend of Dan Cathy, the reviled president and COO of Chik-fil-A.  Windemeyer is obviously greatly surprised to find that Dan Cathy was not a hate-filled gay-bashing bigot, and who wouldn't be surprised with the sort of press the Left has given this issue, and given Chik-fil-A in particular?  Could Windemeyer's prejudicial suspicion of Dan Cathy be part of a pervasive liberal climate of hate?

Sig Sauer Semi-Automatics

Before there was Chris Dorner there was Floyd Corkins.  Corkins was inspired by the militancy, hate speech, and brownshirt tactics of the gay activism scene, so in the name of tolerance he packed his Sig Sauer semi-automatic that he had bought for the occasion and headed to Family Research Council with his pistol and backpack full of sandwiches.  Yes, sandwiches.

Like Soledad O'Brien, Corkins wanted to show these ignorant bigoted wretches just how far on the wrong side of history they were.  He loaded his backpack with Chik-fil-A sandwiches to smear against his victims in a final act of statement-making humiliation before shooting them.

The Pedophile Elephant in the Gay Troop Leader's Closet

Why would a gay man be attracted to boys, Soledad O'Brien?

A woman who is obviously on the right
 side of history, the side of tolerance.

Soledad O'Brien wants desperately to know if Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is "worried" that he's "on the wrong side of history."  Well, you know that goes.  If he's worried then it shows he's really not sure he's doing a good thing; and you should be sure you doing  good thing if you're going to discriminate against people.

You know what, Soledad?  I think first you should consider how many males are excluded from being troop leaders for the girl scouts, simply because they are male.  This heterosexism must stop.  I think we should address that first.  This is a much more fundamental and far-reaching discriminatory practice.

Now, don't tell me just because these men are heterosexual that they pose any threat to these innocent young girls.  You're not saying that, are you?  Good.  Then there's no reason to worry that any hanky-panky is going on.

Maybe instead of trying to embarrass Perkins in the way that Maddow tried to embarrass Rand Paul,  O'Brien should engage Michael L. Brown publicly about what he means by the "pedophile elephant in the gay activist closet."  She and the television audience could learn about how various icons celebrated for LGBT pride month (e.g Allen Ginsberg, Walt Whitman, Harvey Milk, Larry Kramer, Oscar Wilde, etc.) engaged in relationships with underage boys and/or were supporters of NAMBLA.  And it's a good thing to hear all sides of an issues, isn't it, Soledad O'Brien?  I mean, surely that's the only reason you had Mr. Perkins on your show--to get his side out there while making sure that he wasn't worried he was on the wrong side of history, right?

Chris Christie Fetid in Hollywood

Read this article: Chris Christie Feted in Hollywood.

The photo op of 2012.
Look how elated Obama is as
 he's smiling for the camera.

If the Hollywood crowd is singing your praises, politically speaking, you're probably doing something wrong.

I was impressed a while back at Chris Christie's no-nonsense but personable persona and his ability to state conservative themes in down-to-earth language.

In the wake of delighting liberals everywhere by giving CNN their much desired visual of Obama playing Savior with a splash conservative approval (look! he's bipartisan after all! forget the past four years!), Christie is pandering to them by saying that we need to consider letting the federal government decide how well armed its subjects should be.

Mr. Christie, do you even know why the 2nd Amendment was written?   Ban the guns in New Jersey if your people want it, but stop trying to nationalize the issue.

Something is fetid in Hollywood, all right.  It's Chris Christie.

Liberal Consumerism

A brief musing ...

A system that not only depends on thoughtless consumption in order to artificially "stimulate" the economy and artificially keep it afloat by buying lots of things we might otherwise do without.  But saving is bad, consuming good.  Saving is hoarding.  Hoarding money that allows banks to apply investment capital to new business is what ugly rich people do.

When the American people are exhorted to believe in the recovery and demonstrate that faith by consuming more, or certain communities are exhorted to quit whining, has the Obama presidency changed from a silver bullet for "fundamental transformation" (stopping the apocalyptic rise of the seas) to a sort of voodoo fetish which needs to be believed in strongly enough in order to do its magic?

Liberal Rampage Killer Chris Dorner

Now, it may well be true that rampage killer Dorner was ousted for ratting on his fellow officers wrongdoing. It could have been a cover-up of police brutality or unnecessary roughness.  But who is the first targets of this aggrievement?  Lots of cops' names on Dorner's list but he kills his nemesis' daughter instead, along with her fiancé.  (Long live the People's Revolution)  All this tactical training he brags he's going to use on cops, and he uses the element of surprise on the most defenseless targets he could find.  Perhaps he got tired of waiting for an officer to wander into a gun-free zone.

Liberal rampage killer Chris Dorner

Rampage killer Chris Dorner praises several liberal talk show hosts in his "manifesto" and advocates gun control in the same.  He also explains that he is taking up arms against what he believes is a racist and corrupt system.

I seem to recall a major news outlet jumping to link the Tea Party to a shooting.  I seem to recall liberals immediately blaming the Giffords shooting on conservative hate speech.  

Hannity said right away that if Dorner had read any books by conservatives like himself or Ann Coulter, “this would be big news” and people would claim Dorner was inspired by conservative pundits. Bozell made it clear that the liberal media figures name-checked by Dorner are not in any way responsible for the horrific things he did, but said the same should have applied to deranged individuals the media tried to link to right-wing causes and pundits. *

Too true. Too true.

This all reminds me of the old Mother Goose rhyme:

Little Chris Dorner
Sat in his liberal corner
Thinking of ways for cops to die.

He found the captain's daughter
And promptly shot her
And said "Oh, what a good boy am I!"  

It appears that Dorner's preoccupation with injustice created its own "climate of hate." Who knows what other innocents he will take out in order to call attention to the injustices he's suffered.  As with Luke ("Life has wronged me") Woodham, life has wronged Dorner, and if some innocents have to die for it, so be it.  Hopefully, when he strikes again, someone like Principal Myrick will be there to stop him.

The Land of Opportunity During Civil War

Here is a speech that would never go over with the labor union now.  Even Lincoln could at times speak the language of laissez faire.

The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, should be one uniting all working people, of all nations, and tongues, and kindreds. Nor should this lead to a war upon property, or the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor -- property is desirable -- is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.  ~ Lincoln, 1864