Ben Shapiro on Losing the Debate

We all remember Ben Shapiro as the man that exposed the true nature of Piers Morgan's tactics on national tv.  Many of us might also remember him as the man who, wearing his Harvard baseball cap, interviewed many of the Tinseltown elite on how their political values have influenced the movies and television.

When he says something about winning the debate, I have to admit I'm interested.  He's released a book to Kindle called How To Debate Leftists and Destroy Them.  To let us know what he means by "destroy," he's allowed Amazon to display the following excerpt on how the masters of propaganda destroyed Romney, in terms of what the impressions of the average joe who distills his political knowledge from sound bites:

 

T-Shirt Biz Speaks Truth to Power

Is there a sudden market for conservative t-shirts?  Apparently Bad Idea T-Shirts has upset liberals for responding to the market and trading their anti-conservative and anti-Obama t-shirts.

We're equal opportunity offenders. We've got what you need to reflect your political persuasion no matter what it is. We don't pick sides..our customers do and they love our anti obama shirts. Don't email us telling us that you hate us b/c we don't sell anti republican shirts...and that you were about to buy 6 or 9 but you won't now.....we have sold PRO OBAMA and anti republican designs in the past but they don't sell anymore so we removed them from the site. If you make you choice on politics on who you buy from, I am sure there are 1 or 2 stores out there that would love your money. We can't control you...we can only give you great deals! [excerpted from here; emphasis mine]

Don't brag too loudly about this.  Progressives will try to legislate that t-shirt companies have to sell equal amounts of conservative and liberal T-shirts, like they tried to do when conservative radio was more successful than liberal radio. (They still have NPR, so they can't say their point of view isn't subsidized at all.)

Funny post-script from the political page:

We have shirts like “Back to back World War champs” and “Made in the U.S.A.” that let the world know you’re proud to be American regardless of where you stand on Obama or the debt ceiling. Policy: It’s hard to get rid of an elected official you’re not happy with. But if for some reason you’re not pleased with your order, no problem, just let us know and we’ll set things right. Imagine how fabulous things would be if Washington had a return and exchange policy! [emphasis mine]

Justin Rosario Pits Sex Ed Against Misogyny

When I was growing up, there seemed to be a general attitude about paternity that in retrospect seems to have transcended the usual ideological boundaries.  It seemed to appeal to liberal feminists and social conservatives alike. The way I usually heard it expressed:  "If a man didn't want to take care of a baby, he should've kept it in his pants."  Last year I came across a little skirmish in the culture war, in which a vitriolic blogger named Justin Rosario distinguishes between pro-lifers who differ with him on two counts and those who differ on one.  The former are, in his opinion, vile misogynists, as you will be able to read in the back-and-forth comments in that post.  

Click picture to enlarge.

The exchange in question apparently got I find this meme a little ironic in this context, because progressives want to force the average working parents and the average middle class parents to send their kids to public school.  If this has any negative effects on the unwed birth rate, then more sex education, more Planned Parenthood graft-driven progressive teaching on sexuality, more government intervention into the shaping of our kids.  The progressives and their ineptocrats help create the problem, take away the options for fixing the problem, and then say, "Ah this proves you need even more of our help!"

Which is similar to what the meme is saying about conservatives.  (It conflates pro-lifers with social conservatives with fiscal conservatives, but hey.)  Based on the meme, one would think that Pro-Choice logic would be consistent with allowing parents to kill children who were less than 1 year old (or whatever age the government's wisdom happened to dictate).  It would certainly mean more food and services for the rest of us.  A lot of problems getting solved. (In fact, that has been the "fourth-trimester abortion" idea that was gaining momentum before the Gosnell horrors.)  In fact we could even give a tax break to those who liquidate their "genetic assets."  Then the government would have that much more to spend on the children that people actually want.

While it's a larger topic requiring a lot more time and energy, suffice it to say that progressives/liberals either do not think that sexual mores among youth changed much between the 50s and 60s, or they think that the changes are due to something other the moral chaos of modern liberalism (i.e. progressive libertinism), or they consider it an inscrutable matter for the sociologists to theorize about. The only answer to this at any rate, in the liberal mind it seems, is increased state involvement in sex education, with the government talking over the sex education because the two-working-parent progressive economy (which would send a tingle up Marx' leg, and Hitler's too) is failing to control unwed births.

Rosario supposedly has a little respect for those silly pro-lifers who, misguided as they are about when life begins, agree to the government takeover of shaping the sexuality of our youth.  (Though I'm sure he can find any number other reasons to hate them if they are socially or fiscally conservative in any way--which is what his site is devoted to.)  Parents, you had your chance!  So even parents who are actually would otherwise do a good job of it, have their roles essentially taken over.  (As Ed Asner would say, "It's the only waaaaaay!")

In Rosario's mind, the pro-lifer either accepts progressive sexual education as legitimate "abortion prevention" or he/she is a misogynist who is out to punish women mercilessly for their sins.  I'm not making this up.  It is interesting because Rosario is trying to expose something he perceives to be in the conservative mind, but what he is really showing is a tactic that has become a habit of thought: the tactic is forcing people to choose between accepting progressive education and being labeled mysogynistic; the cognitive habit is reducing a sense of personal responsibility to a sort of punitive Puritanism.

People like demonizer-at-large Rosario think it's inhumane to "punish" a woman with nine months of pregnancy for a little mistake, but that it's okay to punish a man with many years of servitude/debt for a mistake--if the woman decides on her own to keep the child (in essence creating a de facto "marriage" in which the man has responsibilities but the wife as all the monetary benefits).  This arrangement is just fine in the progressive mind, one supposes, because a man can be held accountable for his actions when he should've "kept it in his pants", whereas a woman can only be a helpless victim of her mistakes.  One wonders whether Rosario would be as offended by the phrase "kept it in his pants" as he would be offended by the phrase "she should've kept her legs together."

Try not to take it too seriously though.  Rosario's bile is the just new elevated tone in Washington.  He probably really believes in his cause so much that he can't believe that one can honestly not want babies to be killed willy-nilly and yet disagree with liberal social policies of state-commandeered morality, to also want a sense of personal accountability.  TO these people, we're all just mean-spirited woman-punishers leading the charge in the War on Women™ (brought to you by CNN).  Rosario's style sort of reminds me of those who want to argue with you about your religion, but not to persuade you, only to feel so good about how right they are... except with a lot more venom:

 Rosario's logo

I find Rosario's logo ironic, since this is exactly the basis on which President Obama was peddled to America the second time around. Boil away all the rhetoric and this is the attitude of the Left: oppose us and that means you are selfish.  Yet they did little but appeal to people's selfishness in 2012.  This idea in this logo is a marketing tool turned way of thinking.  I also find it disingenuous in a deeper sense.  All this consolidation of power at higher levels for "the greater good" is supposedly by the will and consent of the people.  And yet, if that were true, there are enough liberals of every income bracket to make their own charities for healthcare, education, what have you. Participation could be voluntary.  The enormous funds that fed Obama's second campaign are enough to show that.

Statism: Ideas so good they must be mandatory.  

Wolf of Wall Street and the Pigs of Tinseltown

Is this their post-Oscar celebration, or a scene from the movie? What difference does it make?

If you can't imagine a more beat-you-over-the-head obvious infomercial for liberalism than the painful healthcare/amnesty vehicle Elysium with Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, then you haven't seen Wolf of Wall Street.  It's amazing: a true Hollywood writer/filmmaker's dream — vile, disgusting scene after scene without worrying about story or character development.  And there were a lot of actors with time on their hands after helping campaign for the incumbent in 2012.  Even Rob "Meathead" Reiner was recruited to channel what he must think of as his inner "Republican" to be as crass and thuggish as possible.  (One imagines Scorsese directing Reiner: "You're a Koch brother, Rob! A Koch brother!")  It's a sheep-in-wolf's-clothing party, everybody!  Everybody pretend to be an evil capitalist and channel your inner sociopath!

Toby Young has written a articulate and telling summary of the film for the Telegraph, taking issue with the forced stereotypes.  But I've got an even more succinct description.  It is liberal porn.  Not just pornographic in the literal sense, which it was, not just pornographic in the analogously creepy sense of ultra-gore horrorfest, though it does have a touch of the horrific and indulgently reprehensible, but also gluttonously indulgent as cheap political fantasy with all the cheap thrills of burning someone in effigy (in this case, the capitalist bogeyman), obsessively and relentlessly vulgar and debauched all in the name of liberal self-righteousness.  And we're not at all surprised at how this movie fared against the emotionally resonant cinematic triumph Saving Mr. Banks at the Oscars, are we?  Not a bit.  Not since the "timely" and uneven Crash won over its betters.  Certainly not while the staged and dubious political ads of Michael Moore win hands down, as the thoughtful and personal 2016: Obama's America is conspicuously ignored.  And certainly not since the fish-out-of-water "Alone Yet Not Alone" was hamstrung by threatened Tinseltowners. (How did you wander into our party, little mainstream America Christian song?)  Because this is what the Oscars have come to represent: a members-only club celebration of unprincipled and incoherent political sectarianism.

Scorsese and Dicaprio have something in common with Jordan Belfort, the eponymous wolf:  They made an obscene amount of money by selling a worthless product to a lot of people.

Clinton Inc. vs. Underfunded Middle Class

The case of Government United Clinton Inc. vs. Underfunded Middle Class, otherwise known as Citizens United vs.  Federal Election Commission is a case that touches upon the same matters at issue with campaign finance reform.  What are campaign finance reform law and Citizens United case really about?

I’ve given more to the overhyped windbag Michael Moore than Citizens United has ever gotten from me. Most people who have repeated the mantra about corporations not being people have never seen the video. Most in fact don’t seem to know what it was about. You would think that the straight-to-video documentary was some multi-billion-dollar effort, which is laughable. It is a very modest production, not nearly as elaborate as Fahrenheit 9/11 for which Miramax shelled out $6 million. Most people had never heard of the anti-Hillary video before the case. Back when HIllary became a senator to keep from standing on the corner of the street to beg for change, the Clintons had enough clout to halt tv companies from giving the facts about how Osama was almost caught before the Bush years.  

Something about this Citizens United video posed a similar threat.  Maybe instead of repeating the mantra, you should be interested in why the pro-regulation faction is so interested in finding out who their opposition is. Maybe you should be interested in why Clinton Inc. was so threatened by a little DVD, and why that led to the Executive Branch trying to intimidate a private company into violating the privacy of citizens.  Then maybe you might be interested in why the lead prosecutor on that case was Obama's first choice for the Supreme Court. Here’s a hint: It has nothing to do with “empathy” for the little guy, and everything to do with a fear of little guys (citizens) uniting their financial resources to criticize the government without fear of retribution from the government and from the "tolerance bullying" of the pro-statist mob.

Left-leaning people were alarmed to no end that the federal government was monitoring their library checkouts but they have no trouble with the government getting especially nosy about who is criticizing them.

1. They don’t care about liberty (or the rule of law, clear principles of legal interpretation, etc.) when they consider the dictator benign, OR
2. They do care but they hold their liberty cheap enough to sell it for wealth distribution and liberal cultural reforms.

If the Hollywood ideology machine was selling conservatism to people as aggressively as they are selling collectivism and progressivism, you can be sure that the ideological Left would be concerned with themselves as political underdogs, just as they cared about the Bill of Rights back in 2006, just as they protected the filibuster back in 2005. If the Citizens United case were in 1974, the Hunter S. Thompsons would be worried about Nixon adding people to his list of enemies. But all fears of growing government intrusion were drowned out in the applause of a new magic man who with his superior intellect and party aligned Congress would fix everything. (Perhaps George Lucas' "thunderous applause" was more prescient than he imagined.) Left-leaning people were newly baptized born again believers in powerful, omniscient, centralized government.

Of course, we live in an era in which you probably remember that Rubio drank a lot of water during his response to the State of the Union in which he clarified a great many things about the existing ideological conflict, but you have no memory of what Rubio actually said that day, and you may not have even wondered for a moment why the news outlets you watch (to objectively inform you about politics) showed Rubio reaching for water more than addressing what he said. Maybe you’ve never suspected once that you were being distracted. But shouldn’t you be curious now what he said?

The Problems of Elysium [movie review]

The movie Elysium had some things going for it.  A visually interesting experience, good special effects, emotionally involving because of some decent acting by Matt Damon.  However, there is something gauzy about it, paper-thinness to the narrative, as though the filmmakers were distracted from good storytelling by expending their energies on other agenda.  In this film Damon plays Max DeCosta, a factory worker whose workman's comp consists of a bottle of pills to hold him over until he dies later that week, where the people that own the company have the technology to heal anything (yes, anything) quickly and easily in a less than a minute.  That technology can only be found on the space station (Elysium) where those with the right political or economic connections live away from the squalor and pollution of Earth.

Conservative and liberal commentators alike have remarked on the obvious and self-conscious symbolism of Elysium.  The whole thing hinges on what Milton Friedman deplored as "building a highway to Fort Knox": give non-citizens access to public benefits for doing us the favor of showing up and they won't stop coming when there are no more jobs to be had; they simply won't stop coming.

Many political buzzwords are shoehorned into the script, and even on my first viewing they stuck out like a sore thumb.  Drew Zahn at WorldNetDaily briefly sums up the many ways the movie telegraphs what social issues you are to have in mind as you watch the film:

For starters, if the human-smuggling ships that try to reach Elysium were called “unauthorized ships” or “unwelcome ships,” it would fit an apolitical story. But when they’re called “undocumented ships” … the allusion to today’s illegal immigration debate is obvious.

I mean, c’mon. In what believable future of computer technology, where paper and filing cabinets had been eliminated 100 years prior, would anything be called “undocumented?” It’s a glaring, dare I say “heavy-handed” (as Damon denied) “message” (as Blomkamp denied).

Furthermore, if the unauthorized people who landed on Elysium were called “invaders” or “intruders,” it could be an apolitical movie. But when they’re called “illegals”? Who do you think they’re talking about?

And when “deportation” ships send the “illegals” who came on “undocumented” vessels home – and when everyone on earth speaks Spanish, while the language is unheard on Elysium – this isn’t coincidence. This is a political statement.

And finally, when Elysium’s military guardian justified her “homeland security” border-enforcement brutality by saying she was just “protecting our liberty,” it made no sense in the context of the film, but was clearly put there as a snide slap at tea-party types, some of the last people in this country who even remember what “liberty” means. The makers of “Elysium” sure don’t.

Neither are they particularly good at economics (but then again, what leftist is?). In the end, it appears the film had been all along a vehicle for hyping universal health care. And in “Elysium,” like in most leftists’ understanding of health care, this panacea is perfectly free and available to all, if only the greedy and selfish would release it to the masses.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/when-a-movie-is-or-isnt-propaganda/#4FPPluChuBXbWzDf.99

For starters, if the human-smuggling ships that try to reach Elysium were called “unauthorized ships” or “unwelcome ships,” it would fit an apolitical story. But when they’re called “undocumented ships” … the allusion to today’s illegal immigration debate is obvious.  . . . Furthermore, if the unauthorized people who landed on Elysium were called “invaders” or “intruders,” it could be an apolitical movie. But when they’re called “illegals”? Who do you think they’re talking about? 

And when “deportation” ships send the “illegals” who came on “undocumented” vessels home – and when everyone on earth speaks Spanish, while the language is unheard on Elysium – this isn’t coincidence. This is a political statement. 

And finally, when Elysium’s military guardian justified her “homeland security” border-enforcement brutality by saying she was jusjust “protecting our liberty,” it made no sense in the context of the film, but was clearly put there as a snide slap at tea-party types [or possibly to capitalize on lingering anti-Bush sentiment], some of the last people in this country who even remember what “liberty” means.

"A Place For Mom" promotes "Heaven" as placement for Mom

A short observation by Wesley J. Smith from National Review:

The assisted living placement service, A Place for Mom, prominently promoted assisted suicide for mom (and dad) in its blog a few days ago. I took suitable umbrage here and here.

The National Right to Life Committee also criticized the business that wants us to entrust our loved elders to them for finding senior services, but thought it wise to promote suicide for the elderly and assisted suicide’s top promoters, Hemlock Society Compassion and Choices.

It was a stupid business decision for an organization so deeply involved with the elderly to post in favor of assisted suicide. And now, a day late and a dollar short, A Place for Mom’s boost for elder suicide has gone into the cyber ether.

Erased. Disappeared. Gone. But it will not be forgotten. 

Assisted suicide is one of those issues for which I feel a little conflicted. The libertarian side of me thinks it's nobody's business if a person wants to end their life. It is their ultimate liberty.

Of course, people that have had a family member attempt or commit suicide might feel differently. Conservatism is built on parents' empowerment a community's empowerment to Leftists prefer it be the arm of social scientists who, unlike our community, have our best interests at heart. This is why the Left typically fight so hard to make educational boards force choices on parents, and for doctors to do so. Now the rest home is getting in on the action. Just think how good it will be for society when a rest home can get reimbursed by Affordable Care for administering some "compassion and choices."  Even some unruly inmates (I mean, "customers") might become more manageable with the proper paperwork.  Why, now there are more resources for everybody, and everybody wins! Another problem solved by the Independent Payment Advisory Board!   As eminent super-liberal Paul Krugman noted, Affordable Care doesn't force any "death panel" right now, just allows them eventually.  Those rotten conservatives wanted you to think that life-or-death rationing by all-powerful boards would be an immediate consequence of Obamacare!

(I know of one person directly affected by the local version of the IPAB already, and it does little good for a doctor to prescribe necessary for a special needs child when the state elects to not have it covered. The local state has created a situation in which a person's life depends on the daily provision of unaffordable care, and then refuses to pay for more and more of it. These are the sort of provisions that Jerry Brown and his ilk hold hostage when we refuse to let our taxes get raised.)

I feel indebted to Wesley J. Smith for leading the charge against the postmodern absurdists on the Left that want to indoctrinate our children into thinking that humans are nothing special on this earth. Unless you've read A Rat Is A Pig Is A Dog Is A Boy, you might have no idea just how nutty it's really gotten in America.  The collectivism shared by Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini depend on at least some people being no better than livestock, just competition for resources that don't belong to individuals but to the People (mystically embodied by the State).