Problems for the GOP

Patrick Ruffini offers some perspective on the Republican Party on the eve of the Conservative Political Action Committee meeting, which starts today. Ruffini has particular issues with the elevation of Joe the Plumber as spokesman for the rebuidling conservative movement:

If you want to get a sense of how unserious and ungrounded most Americans think the Republican Party is, look no further than how conservatives elevate Joe the Plumber as a spokesman. The movement has become so gimmick-driven that Wurzelbacher will be a conservative hero long after people have forgotten what his legitimate policy beef with Obama was.

Ruffini notes that the GOP has created a defensive dedoubt in a "politics of identity" that needs cultural heroes like Joe Wurzelbacher in an absurd flinching-crouch against left-wing institutional hegemony:

This is so different than the psychology of the left. The left assumes that it is culturally superior and the natural party of government and fights aggressively to frame any conservative incursion on that turf as somehow alien and unnatural. (The "Oh God..." whisper being the perfect illustration.) They dominate Hollywood not by actively branding liberalism in their movies, but by cooly associating liberal policy ideas with sentiments everyone feels, like love (gay marriage) or fairness (the little guy vs. some evil corporate stiff). Though I think Andrew Breitbart is spot on in raising a red flag on the threat we face in Hollywood, I fear that the conservative movement of today would only produce a response as agitprop and sarcastic as the Joe the Plumber phenomenon. In other words, some amusing slapstick comedies but not sweeping cultural epics that will be remembered 50 years from now. When you assume liberals are dominant culturally, you tend toward sarcasm or one-off gimmicks to knock the majority of its game - but never an all encompassing argument for conservative cultural and political relevance - something we have lacked for a long time, since Buckley was in his prime.

Conservatives should not need Joe the Plumber to prove their middle class bona fides. We are naturally the party of the middle, and we don't need gimmicks to prove it. Demographically, Democrats rely on being the party of the upper sixth and the lower third, while Republicans tend to do better with everyone in between. When we start losing the middle class and the suburbs, we lose big like we did in 2008.

All of this is true, and the rest of the essay is worth a read. Ruffini makes the case for a new Republican Party of ideas. According to this meme, folks on the right can't just go around resurrecting the legacy of Ronald Reagan and hoisting Joe the Plumbers up as confirmation of the "great silent majority." Conseratives need ideas.

I would add that there is a pendulum to politics, and the pendulum has swung toward the Democrats right now, in a time of crisis and repudiation of government incompetence. I don't think Americans have abandoned traditional classically liberal foundations. People are currently willing to support activist government until things get back on track. In normal times, most middle class Americans need very little from government beyond public order and the sense of a secure retirement safety-net. Republicans now need to restore the idea that they are the party of pragmatic clarity and effective administrative stewardship. Anti-corruption and targeted intervention are keywords. Pork-busting campaigns against stimulus boondoggles should be front and center. A new movement toward deregulation in energy and technology has to be at the forefront of GOP leadership on American international independence from oil-producing regimes in the Middle East. Robust ideas about reforming schools and restoring families as vehicles for a new middle class prosperity have to motivate the domestic agenda. An explicit campaign against the popularization of leftist anti-religion and nihilism must be advanced, but with a compelling rationale that doesn't frighten moderates and secularists with church-state sponsorship. Overall, conservatives have to be willing to talk basic culture and values to Americans as the key to the preservation of the American dream

Unfortunately, a lot of these ideas won't gain traction until the economy returns to economic growth and stablity. In the meantime, the Democrats are enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to consolidate their big-government ideology through fear-mongering and stealth. And this is the key problem, not Joe the Plumber. The Democrats are inherently corrupt and ideologically devious, and as Ruffini notes, the media and educational establishments enable a politics-of-postmodernism as the reigning regime of social values, when in truth elite priorities have little in commom with the averge man on the street. The left ridicules regular people - folks who really do like religion and guns - as "survivalist," while the schools tell us that religion in the public sphere, or the celebration of traditional rituals like childrens' Thanksgiving parades, are "racist discourses of patriarchical dominance."

It's going to be a combination of things that get conservatives back on track. But if the right concedes the socio-cultural realm to the left - and ignores demands for government accountability and competence - all this talk about targeting a few congressional seats here and there in competitive districts while searching for a new Ronald Reagan as the party's standard-bearer in 2012 or 2016 will be worthless and ultimately for naught.

Conservative need to fight on our issues of strength, which are the high ground of moral good and the proven efficacy of free people and free markets. Republicans lost that battle long ago. It's certainly understandable why some people like Joe the Plumber as a spokesman for the conservative case. Maybe not too many Republicans in power have that much credibility with real people on the ground, people who are hurting amid real problems that demand real answers pitched at a level comprehensible to folks on Main Street.

Amanda Marcotte: "The Actual Values of the Country"

Well, since Pam Spaulding lied about American Power, I've gotten more than my fair share of hits from Pandagon. So, checking my Sitemeter right now turns up this nugget from Amanda Marcotte on "wingnut psychology":

Conservatives have a major issue. The reason they feel under attack is that the dominant values of the country are officially liberal - it’s bad to be racist, sexist, or homophobic, it’s bad to suggest poor people are subhuman, etc. Couple that with the perception, often correct, that the actual dominant values of the country are sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-poor, etc. (Though less so all the time.) People don’t like to be thought of as sexist or racist, but they want to hang onto their beliefs, and Republicans need to communicate with those people.

Yeah, right.

There's a lot here, but I'll just make a few points: Yes, the dominant values in America are liberal, but classically liberal in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (more on this stuff, here). The classical liberal perspective wants limits on governmental power and respect for the rights of the minority within a constitutional regime of delegated powers. Classical liberals prefer markets to states, and they have faith in the capacity of human reason and reverence for the God-given natural rights of humankind.

Flowing from classical liberalism is a belief that the individual should be left alone by the state, and that the distribution of society's opportunities and resources should be determined by ability and merit. When government intervenes to "level the playing field" negative externalities result. If taxes are raised beyond a bare minimum required for adequate public goods provision, people will not work and invest for fear of confiscatory power and minimal returns to entrepreneurial activity. Society's overall product will reach a less optimal level as the state "disincentivizes" individual dynamism.

All advanced democratic states have passed through a developmental process of modernization of the regime, where elitist, racist, and sexist hierarchies were challenged and then overturned through extended democratization. In the United States, the process was long and violent, but throughout the twentieth-century the expansion of rights - through the suffrage and workplace democracy - has been extended to the point of widely acknowledged equality of opportunity across the land. The 2008 Democratic primaries marked the legitimation of the norm of political equality, when a black man and a white women - two members of a "previously disadvantaged group" - vied for the mantle of the Democratic presidential nomination, and thus the practically-assumed accession to the presidency.

For women and minorities today, a classically liberal ideological orientation predicts increasing integration and upward mobility into the great institutions of economic and political power in American life. Most women today feel themselves restrained only by their own aspirations and choices, not prejudicial structural barriers to entry into educational, economic, and leadership occupations.

So Ms. Marcotte's not really talking about "liberal" ideology, but secular progressive "rights" and radical "feminist" ontological constructions of "androcentric" patriarchical sex/submissive regimes of dominations. In this frame, American society is irreparably racist and sexist, and right activists are motivated by a Marxian-progressivism of activist "praxis." Under that model, reigning patterns of natural and meritocratic differences are inherently "hegemonic," and "unequal power structures" systematically subordinate gender and racial "minorities" to disparate treatment in law, politics, society, and the home.

Thus, we can see the problem for Ms. Marcotte: It can't logically be the situation that society is both "officially liberal" while the "actual" patterns of social interaction in "the country are sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-poor."

Hence, we have an inherent contradiction in Ms. Marcotte's meme of societal bigotry and hegemonism. And that brings us to what we're really seeing here: Rank demonization of traditional sectors of society as part of a perpetual campaign of victimology and grievance-mongering shakedown. If conservatives criticize "big government," with its unending entitlements and welfare handouts to the truly idle and brain-addled poor, they must be "sexist or racist." And since the left has reprogrammed the institutions of education and communications, it's "politically incorrect" to even make an off-color joke or to mention homosexuality and murder in the same breath: That's "hate speech," and demands censure by the thought mandarins of the progressive media-police.

All the while, people like Ms. Marcotte claim "the high moral ground," which is of course a little hard to do when people like this have been fired from a major Democratic presidential campaigns for anti-Catholic bigotry. Of course, leftists are so dumb, that their discourse swirls the drain of extreme secular inanity, and if it weren't for the lowest-common denominator media-culture of "up-is-down" socialistic relativism, conservatives in turn wouldn't be batting an eye one way of the other.

The problem is our dumbed-down anything goes culture - which makes celebrities out of terrorists like Che Guevara and William Ayers. We see a prevailing order whereby anyone gets a pass by the left's nihilist hordes in the name of "tolerance" and "enlightened" thought. Princeton economic socialists who are technically experts in international trade are reborn as Nobel-winning progressive rockstars, and snarky HBO cable-comedy airheads can call God silly on national and international awards shows with nary an outcry - indeed, all of this is considered profound and forward-looking.

In any case, that's the world we live into today, not one of "racist, homophobic, anti-poor" hierarchies, which are in fact manufactured crises in the minds of the dishonest Democrati-leftists who working feverishly to undermine this great nation from within.

Obama Echoes Reagan in '81: Came the Revolution?

William Kristol takes President Barack Obama's political ambitions seriously, in "Republicans' Day of Reckoning":

After Tuesday night, no one should doubt Barack Obama's ambition. His silent dismissal of the efforts of his immediate predecessors -- he mentioned none of them -- is only one indication of the extent to which he intends to be a new president breaking new ground in a new era.

George W. Bush defined his presidency by his response to the terror attacks. Obama didn't discuss Sept. 11. And by relegating foreign policy to the status of a virtual afterthought, Obama indicated that he doesn't think his presidency will rise or fall by the success or failure of his diplomatic or military endeavors. Bill Clinton told Congress in 1996 that the era of big government was over. Obama withdrew that concession to conservatives and conservatism. George H.W. Bush worried in 1989 that we have more will than wallet. Obama has no such worries.

Obama's speech reminds of Ronald Reagan's in 1981 in its intention to reshape the American political landscape. But of course Obama wishes to undo the Reagan agenda. "For decades," he claimed, we haven't addressed the challenges of energy, health care and education. We have lived through "an era where too often short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity." Difficult decisions were put off. But now "that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here." The phrase "day of reckoning" may seem a little ominous coming from a candidate of hope and change. But it's appropriate, because it's certainly a day of reckoning for conservatives and Republicans.

For Obama's aim is not merely to "revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity." Obama outlined much of this new foundation in the most unabashedly liberal and big-government speech a president has delivered to Congress since Lyndon Baines Johnson. Obama intends to use his big three issues, energy, health care and education, to transform the role of the U.S. federal government as fundamentally as did the New Deal and the Great Society.

Conservatives and Republicans will disapprove of this effort. They will oppose it. Can they do so effectively?

Well, Republicans will need a plan, which may incude hammering the Democratic agenda mercilessly, offering extreme policy skepticism as shrewd political hardball.

I have to note, though, that when Kristol compares Obama to Reagan, I'm reminded of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's discussion of the Reagan adminstration's "revolution" of the early 1980s:

Drawing gleefully on the confessions of David Stockman, a former Federal budget director and guru of supply-side economics, Mr. Moynihan advances the case that the Administration intentionally created an enormous budget deficit as a way of forcing big reductions of social programs.

That is, starve the beast and kill big government. It worked, for a time.

With President Obama, it's the opposite: Not just the restoration of big government, but the starvation of free markets. And hence, the GOP cannot simply bank on the administration's policies failing to revive the economy, for hopes of a short-term pick-up of congressional seats in 2010 (as nice as that would be). Republicans have to develop an alternative altogether. The Obama administration's ideological agenda - now justified as "stabilizing markets" - is intentially vague on the (stealth) doctrines seeking to drive the U.S. toward the European social-welfare state model.

As Kristol notes, Republicans "need fresh thinking in a host of areas of domestic policy, thinking that builds on previous conservative achievements but that deals with the new economic and social realities.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

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Related: "Rush: If You Think Jindal Reeked Last Night, I Don’t Want to Hear From You Again."

The End of the Dream? "A Rendezvous with Scarcity"

Via Robert Stacy McCain, check out Ed Driscoll's Silicon Graffiti segment, "Rendezvous With Scarcity":

Ronald Reagan began his political career as an FDR supporter. Beginning in the 1960s, he took to using FDR’s iconic “Rendezvous with Destiny” phrase in many of his most important speeches. But these days, it’s looking like the next few years—maybe even a big chunk of the next decade—could very well be a rendezvous with scarcity.

Ideological Truth on Obama

Here's this from the comments at Jennifer Rubin's essay this morning, "Obama Removes the Mask" (via Memeorandum):

I never had an ounce of doubt about Obama’s true ideology. He is so far to the left that he has passed liberalism and is speeding toward totalitarianism. He tried posturing centrist during his campaign, but to me it never rang true.

And lo, how he proved it immediately upon taking office. Every word he utters is disengenous. He spouts double meaning and opposing statements that end up nullifying each other. In the end, everything he says is meaningless.

I can’t help shaking my head in puzzlement at the faithful followers who can’t or won’t hear this man’s true persona.

When Michelle Obama said that she was finally proud of her country (upon Obama’s nomination), I knew something wicked this way was coming.

Unlike the hapless residents of Hogwarts, I am more than happy to name the Evil One: Obama. I can only hope the opposing party snaps out of their shock in time to undo the mess he is making.

And just think: The lefties still don't think Obama's gone far enough: "How To Make Ideological Shifts Happen."

Wow!

I have to confess I'm actually astounded at what's happening to this country. This is more "change" than foretold by even the most dire warnings of conservatives last year.

More later ...

Tea Party

Check this out, from Attaturk at Firedoglake:

Now that Rick Santelli has become the darling of the right wing, he has, with the help of the usual cast of Malkins, organized "The Chicago Tea Party". Where the conservative swells can gather and proclaim that those "losers" who are in foreclosure can suck it. Because next to de-winging flies and de-legging daddy longlegs what do they enjoy more than laughing and mocking the unfortunate?

Attaturk missed Rasmussen's poll, "55% Say Government Mortgage Help Rewards Bad Behavior." Especially this part: "Seventy-six percent (76%) of Americans are not willing to pay higher taxes to help people who cannot afford to make their mortgage payments."

See also, "No Tears for These 'Foreclosure Victims'" and "Why It’s Time For A Second Boston Tea Party."

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Cartoon Credit: From the comments, from the folks calling for bipartisanship.

Jindal Torpedoes Presidential Aspirations

Commenting on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's GOP rebuttal to the President Obama's State of the Union Address last night, Greg Veis offers some grist for the "epic fail" meme: "Americans are scared enough these days to prefer policy solutions to partisan sniping. But, holy crap, did Jindal blow it."

Here's the video, via Hot Air, "Jindal’s “Awful” Rebuttal:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The full text is here.

I haven't paid that much attention to Jindal, mainly because I don't see him as an attractive presidential candidate. He's got a fabulous resume, but some of his separation-of-church-and-state issues are way more aggressive than the GOP should go - and I'm saying that as a fairly hardline social conservative.

Randy Barnett offered a early warning yesterday at Volokh Conspiracy, "Defining 'Creationism' Down":

If your favorite candidate is on record favoring creationism as science to be taught in government schools, he or she has sunk already himself on the national political scene whether you like it or not. Better find another candidate.

Mortgage Interest Deductions and the American Dream

I've been reading Ezra Klein's recent essays on health reform and Social Security. He's got press credentials to the White House (or something), and it looks like he's getting e-mails or policy memos from West Wing staffers. I'll have more on Klein's stuff in a later post on entitlement reform (note for now that the left wants to increase benefits and raise taxes to "reform" the system).

In any case, Edward Glaeser, at the New York Times, is making the case for the elimination of the mortgage interest deduction for homeowners. This deduction has been a staple of homeownership in the United States for nearly a hundred years. Owning one's home is generally considered the single most important means for the average family to accrue wealth. It's part of the American dream and a crucial element of the American political culture of individualism (think of the 19th century rugged individualism of the American Frontier). The tax benefits of owning a home encourage and sustain personal liberty. Perhaps for these very reasons we're seeing Ezra Klein (who is joined by Duncan Black) literally jumping for joy at the serious discussion and mere possibility of the mortgage interest deduction. (You can check the link to Klein's post, but for an uproarious diversion, see this one on the outing of Duncan Black as a homosexual, with funny pictures!)

So, more later on this, but the meantime, here's Neptunus Lex with more on the political culture of homeownership:

I’m one of those hundreds of millions of Americans who bought a house, continues to pay my mortgage on time - in an exceptionally high cost area - and has no intention of walking away from an obligation I made in good faith. Knowing, as my parents’ generation taught us, that home ownership was the principal path towards middle class wealth generation. That home is - generally - the best investment the average schmoe can make. It’s a chance to have a slice of the American dream, take a little out to send your kids to college, and maybe leave a bit behind when you walk into the clearing at the end of the path. When you’ve paid it off free and clear it’s your very own. No landlords to pay wrack rates to. No permanent ruling class ....

If there’s no tax advantage to participating in the dream, many more folks might choose to rent rather than own. In an economy that is suffering because housing values are worth less than the debt obligated, many millions more would choose to walk away. The financial crisis generated by trillions of un-anchored debt will multiply manifold times. Wealth will aggregate in the pockets of those who are already wealthy, and the rest of us will leave nothing much behind us when we leave than cost of cleaning the flat they find our corpses in.

Which will leave our children as perfect wards of an all-powerful, beneficent state. A state that knows what’s best for you. A state that makes your choices for you. A state that will take from those, according to their ability, in order to provide to those, according to their need.

Obama's State of the Union

Okay, so President Obama has delivered his first Presidential Address (or is that a State of the Union Adress?). The full text is here.

I didn't catch the whole thing, although I checked a few blogs for live-blogging updates.

At Ann Althouse's here's a great introductory comment from Palladian:

I'm guessing a bunch of depressing, doom-mongering comments about the economy, an over-polished sound bite that was written by another committee and shoe-horned into the "Not State of The Union" address, and a hell of a lot of ums and errs if he dares to speak extemporaneously.

Neo-Neocon live-blogged as well, and wasn't impressed at all:

Just how does this speech differ from a State of the Union message? I thought it was supposed to be about the economy. It’s all over the place, and loaded with cliches. I wonder why that surprises me.

Vodkapundit "drunk-blogged" it, naturally:

7:05PM Hottest first lady ever? Barring Millard Fillmore in drag, I’d have to say yes ....

8:07PM “We are not quitters.” Speak for yourself, Mr President. I gave up on this thing five minutes in.

Gateway Pundit reports on Lousiana Governor Bobby Jindal's GOP response:

Governor Bobby Jindal was fantastic tonight. He delivered the Republican rebuttal to the Democrat's irresponsible spending plan.Too bad, the governor's website is down from all the traffic.

More later, dear readers ...

Pam Spaulding: A Black Lesbian Who is Wickedly Dishonest

Check out this post at Pam Spaulding's: "Conservative Claims Ignorance, Says the Bestiality Argument Hasn't Been Used Against Gays."

That "conservative" would be me, and of course, the allegation - while provocative - is not true. As I said at the post, " I can't recall the word ever being used by conservatives, or anything close to it."

Of course, since leftists can't actually defend themselves in an actual debate, they simply lie and scurry for cover. Note, for example, Ms. Spaulding's snarky query:

Someone please show conservative Donald Douglas how to use "the Google"?

Funny that she throws that out like that. I found Spaulding's piece while googling information on today's Washington Post piece, "Gay Bloggers' Voices Rise in Chorus of Growing Political Influence:"

Only the blogosphere, perhaps, has room for Pam Spaulding - a black lesbian who lives in North Carolina, the only state in the South that has not banned same-sex marriage ....

Pam's House Blend is an influential voice in the gay political blogosphere, must-reads that include the Bilerico Project, Towleroad and AMERICAblog, each attracting a few hundred to a few thousand hits a day. Just as the liberal Net-roots and the conservative "rightroots" movements have affected traditional party structures, the still relatively small gay political presence online is rebooting the gay rights movement in a decentralized, spontaneous, bottom-up way.

Now, note something else. Ms. Spaulding did not initially link to American Power. A bit cowardly, no (which is perhaps why she's linking now)? She did, naturally, decide to throw a link to Repsac3's post, "Donald Douglas & Conservative Bestiality," from where I've been getting traffic all day.

So let's be clear about all of this. I'm not being "schooled" on anything here. This is a cheap smear, with added allegations of "conservative bestiality" (I mean really, is it now the conservatives who are allegedly "bestial"?).

As I noted above, I've been blogging on these issues for months, and I've yet to see conservative attacks on gay activists in such terms. Repsac3, provides no examples of such attacks in the CURRENT DEBATE post-Proposition 8, none. There is, though, the obligatory link to some obscure Jerry Falwell, Jr., audiotape that no one's ever seen, and I'm sure he'll be back trolling the comments (as usual) after doing another exhaustive round of googling.

I've hammered Pam Spaulding repeatedly on the left's neo-Stalinist "No on H8" demonizations, and we've seen not one word in response until today. Wow, now that's some "influential voice"! Smear, slur, but never defend yourself.

Frankly, folks like this can't win the debate on the merits. Rather, we see attacks on "the fundievangelical movement" as an "evil, Bible-beating, anti-gay organization." Or these idiots resort to the same ugly slurs on conservatives that they themselves purportedly decry:

Repsac, it's not that wingnuts don't enjoy rogering the occasional sheep, mule, etc.; it's just that the illicit quality of the relationship leads to a heightened state of arousal. If you make bestiality legal, then the thrill is gone. Surely you've heard that in wingnut circles, the men are men and the sheep are nervous.

Isn't all of this interesting. Not only are leftists completely bankrupt in argumentation, they've got double standards as well! Who knew?

Honestly, I don't not think Pam Spaulding enjoys "rogering the occasional sheep, mule, etc...," and I have never said so much about any homosexual gay-marriage backer. I have identified them in terms of postmodern nihilism, which is used as ideological nomenclature, not personal attacks. No doubt the truth hurts, in any case.

As always, I'm open to debating all of this on the issues. But as we've seen so many times already, leftists will not only lie but they'll berate, besmirch, and bully their way to the redefinition of marriage if it's the last thing they do.

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UPDATE: Check this out Repsac3's comment at Pandagon:

American Power is an addictive, guilty pleasure. It’s just too easy...

Too easy to make a hypocritical idiot of himself, one can only assume.

Bizarre Denialism on Aasiya Hassan Honor Killing

Here's Daniel Pipes discussing the honor killing of Aasiya Hassan at the Jerusalem Post:

A GREAT BATTLE looms ahead on how to interpret this crime, whether as domestic violence or honor killing. Supna Zaidi of Islamist Watch defines the latter as "the murder of a girl or woman who has allegedly committed an act that has shamed and embarrassed her family." Deeply alien to Westerners, this motive has paramount importance in traditional Muslim life.

Brigitte Gabriel, who appeared on last weekend's Real Time with Bill Maher, has no doubts on the correct interpretation, "here's a guy who did it in the name of honor" (at about 3 minutes):

But as Pipes notes, the forces of political correctness are "bearing down" to deny "an Islamic dimension to the murder" (here and here, for example).

With that in mind, I have to admit considerable surprise at Andrew Sullivan's comments on the left's denialism surrounding Mrs. Hassan's beheading:

Attempts to deny any connection between this kind of behavior and the brutal misogyny of much Islamic culture seem bizarre to me. Obviously, the abuse of women is no community's or religion's exclusive sin ... But the cultural and religious norms that facilitate brutal and often violent patriarchy in Islam make it easier for men to abuse and harder for women to resist.

Of course, Sullivan's opinions are subject to revision at anytime, but the fact the left's most important contemporary blogger (and Sullivan's now a confirmed leftist) is making no bones about the inherent Islamic roots of this beheading will no doubt cause fits to nihilist denialists everywhere.

See also, "Moderate Beheading, " at FrontPage Magazine, where Abul Kasem notes:

According to Islam, if a woman disobeys her husband she is disgraced. Therefore, when Aasiya Zubair, the wife of Hassan, resorted to the Western justice system to seek protection from her menacing husband, she had certainly broken the Islamic tenet of complete surrender to the wishes of her husband. Thus, she had dishonoured her husband, his reputation and, most importantly, the Islamic code of conduct for an obedient wife. Therefore, it is not surprising that the killer had to end her life Islamically, to restore his pride, honor and religious conviction.

Kasem cites Koranic scripture, but no doubt crazed lefties will dig down deeper to the wallow of moral confusion.

Supreme Court to Rule on Mojave Cross Case

The Supreme Court will rule on the constitutionality of an eight-foot-tall cross in the Mojave National Preserve, which was erected as a spiritual monument to honor our fallen soldiers. The Los Angeles Times reports:

In a case that could reshape the doctrine of separation of church and state, the Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether a cross to honor fallen soldiers can stand in a national preserve in California.

The case will give the Roberts court its first chance to rule directly on the 1st Amendment's ban on "an establishment of religion."

In the last two decades, the justices have been closely divided on whether religious symbols, such as the Ten Commandments or a depiction of Christ's birth, can be displayed on public property.

Four years ago, then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor cast a fifth and deciding vote against the display of the Ten Commandments in a Kentucky courthouse. She said such a public display of a religious message violated the 1st Amendment because it amounted to a government endorsement of religion.

In dissent, the court's conservatives said religious displays on public land generally do not violate the 1st Amendment, since no one is forced to listen to a religious message or participate in a religious event.

A year later, O'Connor retired and was replaced by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's second appointee, who could form a new majority on religion.

At issue is an eight-foot-tall cross in the Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County. A smaller wooden cross was first erected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1934 and was originally maintained as a war memorial by the National Park Service.

The American Civil Liberties Union objected to the cross and filed a suit on behalf of Frank Buono, a Catholic and former Park Service employee. The suit noted that the government had denied a request to have a Buddhist shrine erected near the cross.

Two years ago, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the ACLU and declared the cross an "impermissible governmental endorsement of religion."

Congress had intervened to save the cross. It ordered the Interior Department to transfer to the VFW one acre of land where the cross stood. The 9th Circuit judges were unswayed, however.

Bush administration lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court last fall and said the "seriously misguided decision" would require the government "to tear down a cross that has stood without incident for 70 years as a memorial to fallen service members."

The government also questioned Buono's standing to challenge the cross, since he lives in Oregon and suffers no obvious harm because of the Mojave cross.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, the VFW, American Legion and other veterans groups said the 9th Circuit's ruling, if allowed to stand, could trigger legal challenges to the display of crosses at Arlington National Cemetery and elsewhere.

The court said it had voted to hear the case, now relabeled Salazar vs. Buono. Arguments will be heard in October, and Obama administration lawyers will be in charge of defending the presence of the cross.

Geert Wilders: Pride in Our Christian Identity

Geert Wilders appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show last night, and gave a great interview. He seems like a really nice man, thoughtful and articulate.

So, on that note, check out Phyllis Chesler's article,"A Dutch Hero Comes to Warn Us, Seek Our Support. The Incomparable Geert Wilders, MP, in New York City."

Chesler gives us this quote from Wilders:

You cannot escape the dangers of ideologies that are out to destroy you. America might be the last man standing. And you might lose Europe as an ally … European leaders are giving in, giving up, selling out our values. We need your support.

Read the whole thing, here.

The Rule of Law in a Republic

I just watched this phenomenal video, " The American Form of Government," via Next Right. Do yourself a favor and spend ten minutes watching and enjoying this marvel of clarity in elementary political theory:

During the video's discussion of the founding of our nation, the narrator says, "the Founders chose to give us the rule of a republic, not the rule of the majority in a democracy."

The reason is obvious, of course, as pure democracy is synonymous with mob rule, and in the absence of legal and institutional checks on majority power, tyranny results - and as the video indicates, mob rule devolves into rule by oligarchy in the name of the "people," the result itself of popular demands for the collectivization of society's product and redistribution of society's wealth; this then creates mass impoverishment, followed in turn by anarchy in the streets and then a popular outcry to "restore order." The popular democratic government metastasizes into an oligarchic dictatorship, and individual liberty and personal security become a thing of the past.

Watch the whole video, and read the whole post, "From Rick Santelli to Limited Government, Fiscal Responsibility and Free Markets."

What an afternoon delight!

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And seriously, think about this as the current ACORN civil disobedience mob takes over homes in Baltimore, with impicit encouragement via the Barack Obama administration's mortgage entitlement program. It's not all abstract theory, folks.

On Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs

You know, I've been thinking about Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs.

When I go over there nowadays I get confused. Last year LGF was doing some of the best pushback-blogging against leftist crazies like Markos Moulitsas. But now it seems Johnson's done an about face against conservatives, especially people of faith. I'm not a "creationist," but I've noted that Stephen Jay Gould's "doctrine of nonoverlapping magisteria" suggests a compatibility between Christian beliefs and scientific evolutionary theory.

Well, it turns out that yesterday Johnson basically joined the likes of Glenn Greenwald in attacking Glenn Beck for SIMPLY HYPOTHESIZING the possibility of an American anarchy:

There's not going to be any mass anarchy, and there's not going to be any sedition. Glenn Beck isn't going to bring about the End Times, or a financial crash.

But what he IS doing is encouraging and inciting the real nutjobs out there to do violence. One on one violence, stoked by paranoid fantasies.

It's crazy, and it's wrong, and it's irresponsible.

It's crazy? I'm sure many said the same thing about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, despite the warnings of the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center.

I have no personal quarrel with Johnson, although I'd just note here his tremendous inconsistency. On the one hand he attacks radical Islamists for practices such as child killing, and then on the other he attacks people like Geert Wilders for attacking, well, the exact same thing.

For some related matters, see Dr. Pat Santy's comments on the controversies Johnson's had with folks on questions of Islam and terror (see, "My Response to Blackmail Threats").

But also check out Stogie's post at Saberpoint for more on what folks are noticing about LGF:

I rarely read the blog "Little Green Footballs" any more. I have discovered that, as time goes by, I have less and less in common with its owner, Charles Johnson. Frankly, he acts like someone who is developing a brain chemistry imbalance. If so, he should consider a psychotropic medication like Prozac or Paxil. Personally I prefer Zoloft. Since I started taking it, I notice the ax murders are fewer and further between. Yes, we don't see that much of Mr. Hyde anymore.

Charley's latest gambit is to trash Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch and to oppose Geert Wilders. Seems Charley is very adamant about the right of individuals to freedom of religion, apparently any religion, regardless of their practices, e.g. honor killings, genital mutilation, wife beating, polygamy, jihad, insistence on Sharia rather than democracy. No doubt Aztecs performing human sacrifices of virgins would be just fine with him. You can't oppose "freedom of religion" after all. Charley is so open-minded and tolerant that he would probably accept an invitation to dinner by a tribe of cannibals, and never notice when they shove an apple in his mouth and push him into a big pot of boiling water.

Another of Charley's annoying habits is that he has become a fanatical supporter of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. That's fine if that's your bag, but every other post is an ideological screed in support of this pseudo-science. Who cares?

Evolution, says Charley is absolutely true and beyond criticism. Today he was running an article entitled "Transitional Fossils Do Exist."

Charley should know. He's one of them.

My main interest here is as it relates to the broader internal debates I've been discussing on the freaky left-libertarian alliance of "liberaltarianism," as well as the continued and self-evident power of neoconservative clarity in combating the creeping totalitarianism of Islamic radicalization.

At lot of folks are focusing on electoral schisms within the GOP, but some of the more overarching issues of foreign affairs and moral authority are going to be increasingly important to the emergence of the next right-wing governing coalition.

More later ...

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UPDATE: Critical Thinker add this, from the comments:

Methinks ole Charlie might need to go back to playin' Jazz and leave the world of bloggin'. Seems he is turning into a control freak and might be the one going off of the deep end.

Worst of the Oscars 2009

The Los Angeles Times has all the photos and hot talk about last night's Academy Awards, "Best & Worst: Oscars 2009."

I noted to a friend of mine last night, who said she wasn't even watching the broadcast, that the Oscars is the one awards show I watch all year, and since I'm something of a movie buff, I try to get fired up about it. I started discounting the wild left-wing politics of some of Hollywood's greatest actors long ago - like Sean Penn, for example, who has given some powerful perfomances in recent years, in flicks like Mystic River.

Andrew Breitbart's analysis of the political stakes at Hollywood's big annual event:

On Sunday night at the Kodak Theater, where Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama debated each other in front of the same prideful crowd a year earlier, the political left convened to celebrate its progressive political agenda. The Oscars communicate post-modern, post-American liberal values more effectively than elected Democratic officials themselves. The liberal establishment understands this and uses the glamorous Hollywood elite and its incessant stream of left-leaning product and promotional vehicles as its proxy messenger.

This year's cause celebre was not the ailing American work force or the heroic and underappreciated U.S. military, but an attack on California's just passed traditional marriage amendment - as represented by the white ribbon worn by pliant celebrity throngs. Dissenters in the midst dare not wear their contrarian ribbons for fear of more punitive Proposition 8 backlash.

This year Gus Van Sant and his gay marriage public service announcement "Milk," garnered eight nominations while Clint Eastwood and his objectively conservative box office titan "Gran Torino" got completely shut out. Except for the expected (and deserved) posthumous Heath Ledger best supporting actor nomination, the good-vs.-evil international sensation "The Dark Knight," also was passed over by the Academy.

Last year, 31 million American voters watched. Perhaps a few million less will tune in this off-year in cinema ....
In Charlton Heston´s last years, the Academy paid tribute not to his legendary cinematic achievements but to a Michael Moore documentary that portrayed the screen legend as a doddering fool. Alzheimer's is known to have that effect.
Have you no sense of decency, Oscar? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

God, isn't that just awful.

As I was watching last night, I kept thinking, "where're the nominations for Defiance, which should have been Best Picture, at least out of the movies I saw last year (and no offense to Slum Dog Millionaire, as I've yet to see it).

Anyway, Breitbart's comparing last night's leftist enclave of the Hollywood elite to this week's CPAC conference in Washington. He notes that the right needs to shift gears in the culture wars, and engage the left's entertainment-establishment in the arena:

My biggest fear is that later this week I will be among the legions at CPAC rearranging the furniture. Instead, the conservative movement needs to think in revolutionary terms.

And the revolution must begin in Hollywood.

More later, dear readers ...

Glenn Greenwald's Hysterical Hypocrisy

Dan Riehl points his readers toward Glenn Greenwald, whose essay on the Glenn Beck survivalist episodes is the perfect primer on the contrast between the smug homosexual-progressive antiwar mandarins of the leftist elite and the silent majority of everyday Americans who truly grasp the cultural and political trainwreck of the new Democratic era. Here's Greenwald:

There is nothing inherently wrong or illegitimate with citizens expressing extreme anger towards the Government and the ruling political class ....

But this Rush-Limbaugh/Fox-News/nationalistic movement isn't driven by anything noble or principled or even really anything political. If it were, they would have been extra angry and threatening and rebellious during the Bush years instead of complicit and meek and supportive to the point of cult-like adoration. Instead, they're just basically Republican dead-enders (at least what remains of the regional/extremist GOP), grounded in tribal allegiances that are fueled by their cultural, ethnic and religious identities and by perceived threats to past prerogatives -- now spiced with legitimate economic anxiety and an African-American President who, they were continuously warned for the last two years, is a Marxist, Terrorist-sympathizing black nationalist radical who wants to re-distribute their hard-earned money to welfare queens and illegal immigrants (and is now doing exactly that) ....

In one sense, all of this drooling rage is nothing more than the familiar face of extreme right-wing paranoia, as Richard Hofstadter famously described 45 years ago:

The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date fort the apocalypse. (“Time is running out,” said Welch in 1951. “Evidence is piling up on many sides and from many sources that October 1952 is the fatal month when Stalin will attack.”)

But it's now inflamed by declining imperial power, genuine economic crises, an exotic Other occupying the White House, and potent technology harnessed by right-wing corporations such as Fox News to broadcast and disseminate it widely and continuously. At the very least, it's worth taking note of.

Well, I'll tell you what, having written two posts on this, one in which I noted how my buddy was thinking about buying a cabin somewhere up in Montana, I can guarantee you that people who are concerned about complete social breakdown are not apocalytic conspiracists.

But note especially Greenwald's reference reference to Richard Hofstadter's, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Interestingly, Hofstadter himself backed away from his earlier theories, during his own intellectual evolution, and in fact flirted with neoconservative advocacy in the 1960s.

In "Ethnicity, Progressive Historiography and the Making of Richard Hofstadter," David Brown notes that Hofstadter, in his later work:

... promoted a "vital kind of moral consensus" that encouraged scholars to compete meritoriously in the market-place of ideas. The New Left's rejection of its historical fathers struck Hofstadter as a denial of the open contestation of interpretive techniques necessary for sustaining historical debate.

Or, as Hofstader's Wikipedia entry notes, "His friend David Herbert Donald recalled, 'he was appalled by the growing radical, even revolutionary sentiment that he sensed among his colleagues and his students. He could never share their simplistic, moralistic approach.'"

A "simplistic, moralistic approach."

Sounds like Professor Donald's describing Glenn Greenwald himself. As many readers may recall, Greenwald is prone to his own hysterical ramblings about the rise of fascism in the United States under the "evil" BushCo Halliburton corporatist state. Indeed, as Dr. Pat Santy has noted about Greenwald:

Glenn Greenwald claims that "fear of terrorism" has been "inflamed and exploited" by the Bush Administration for the purpose of gaining power:

Bush opponents must finally overcome the one weapon which has protected George Bush again and again: fear. Fear of terrorism is what the Administration has successfully inflamed and exploited for four years in order to justify its most extreme and even illegal actions undertaken in the name of fighting terrorism.

Let's discuss this from a psychiatric and psychological perspective since these are the terms used in the quote above.

This blogger is essentially arguing that-- instead of using a healthy and appropriate psychological defense called anticipation against terrorism and the Islamofascists (who most certainly want to kill us and destroy our society) - we should instead switch to a psychotic one, denial; and maintain that the only thing we have to fear is ... President Bush. The latter is a defense mechanism called displacement that I have already discussed in an earlier post.

In fact, there is a strong element of paranoia here too. And a noticeable touch of hysteria - though he thinks he can use it to describe normal people justifiably afraid of irrational fanatics not amenable to reason. The implication is that the only purpose such "fears" (judged "inappropriate" by Greenwald's) are being manipulated must be to "justify illegal actions."

The basic tenor of his fear is easy to deduce: while we are fighting this illusory enemy, Bushitler has been amassing power and will soon set himself up as a dictator and destroy our freedom. I will let you decide who we have to fear more - the President of the United States or the religious fanatics of Islam who want to obtain a nuclear weapon? Who do we have to fear more: those who are trying to prevent another 9/11 or those who would like nothing better than to do something even worse in our country?

Dr. Santy shows Greenwald to be deeply afflicted by Bush Derangement Syndrome, a term that's loosely thrown around in politcal debates, but was in fact first offered as a kind of clinical diagnosis in psychiatric medicine.

In other words, either Glenn Greenwald is sick.

In any case stay tuned ...

Penelope Cruz for Best Supporting Actress - UPDATE! CRUZ WINS!

Okay, I'm getting ready for the Academy Awards, and keeping with my pledge to feature more feminine lovelies around here (and with R.S. McCain's "Rule #5"), I give you Penelope Cruz:

Ms. Cruz is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

I've long admired Penelope Cruz (see her in Volver, for starters), and she's much more attractive, IMHO, than Salma Hayek, who's the top-hottie of political scientist Daniel Drezner.

The complete list of Oscar nominations is at Big Hollywood, where they'll be live-blogging (no word yet on Althouse's live-blogging, however).

See also, "Penelope Cruz is 'Always Surprised' to Win Awards."

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UPDATE: Robert Stacy McCain's got an Academy Awards post up, where he notes that Kate Winslet, who's nominated for Best Actress, has "appeared nude in 10 films," which means "on average, Kate's gotten nakies for the camera every 18 months since she turned 18."

Also, Dan Collins gets hip to McCain's "Rule #5" (or, check out three beautiful lovies you don't want to miss).

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UPDATE II: Penelope Cruz wins Best Supporter Actress honors!

The Los Angeles Times is live-blogging:

Wow, what an acceptance speech from Penelope Cruz. That was her mother she kissed. She used her extra tickets to bring her brother, sister, and her childhood friend. Her dad went with her to the Golden Globes and Baftas. She told us ahead of time she was not going to prepare a speech. She opened with such a nice moment - "Has anyone ever fainted up here? I might be the first" and then ending with a salute to the unity of the Oscars and wrapping up in Spanish.

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UPDATE III: Ann Althouse is live-blogging after all:

7:43: Best Supporting Actress ... a stripper need never take off her dignity with her clothes... blah blah... bullshit. Ugh! this is boring. So so stilted. But yay! Penélope Cruz, won. I love her.

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UPDATE IV: It's quite a different-styled production, and while I think Hugh Jackman's doing well overall, I was curious as to the five-actor teams of previous Oscar winners who announced the nominees for Best Supporting roles. Check out this, from Niki Finke's Deadline:

The producers ... have dissed last year's actor winners by deciding that France's Marion Cotillard (Best Actress for La Vie En Rose) and Spain's Javier Bardem (Best Supporting Actor for No Country For Old Men), Scotland's Tilda Swinton (Best Supporting Actress for Michael Clayton) and even England's Daniel Day-Lewis (Best Actor for There Will Be Blood) weren't big enough names to carry on the time-honored tradition of announcing this year's winners by themselves. So, I've learned, the unusual step will be taken to bring onstage from a riser 5-person groups of other Best Actor or Best Supporting Actress winners from past eras in order to add more glitz and glamor to the presentations.

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UPDATE V: Check again at the Los Angeles Times' entertainment page for all the news and glamour on tonight's awards show. The New York Times has a big wrap up, "A ‘Slumdog’ Kind of Night at the Oscar Ceremony ."

I felt badly at the end of the broadcast, when Sean Penn won Best Actor for Milk, for all the other nominees would did not win. I'll never forget in 1997, Juliette Binoche won Best Actress for her role in The English Patient. She beat out Lauren Bacall, the grand dame of film noir of the 1940s, who had been nominated her very first time for The Mirror Has Two Faces. Bacall was visibly shaken at not winning the award, and there have been other times where the cameras flash across the faces, only to register the pain of loss.

I didn't get a look at Mickey Rourke tonight, but I'm sure it may well have been heartbreaking for him to come so far on his comeback and lose out at the end. That's some brutal competition.

It's a strange thing, all of it.

Reconciliation on Gay Marriage?

David Blankenhorn and Jonathan Rauch have an essential essay today at the New York Times, "A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage":

It would work like this: Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will. The federal government would also enact religious-conscience protections of its own. All of these changes would be enacted in the same bill ....

Linking federal civil unions to guarantees of religious freedom seems a natural way to give the two sides something they would greatly value while heading off a long-term, take-no-prisoners conflict. That should appeal to cooler heads on both sides, and it also ought to appeal to President Obama, who opposes same-sex marriage but has endorsed federal civil unions ....

In all sharp moral disagreements, maximalism is the constant temptation. People dig in, positions harden and we tend to convince ourselves that our opponents are not only wrong-headed but also malicious and acting in bad faith. In such conflicts, it can seem not only difficult, but also wrong, to compromise on a core belief.

But clinging to extremes can also be quite dangerous. In the case of gay marriage, a scorched-earth debate, pitting what some regard as nonnegotiable religious freedom against what others regard as a nonnegotiable human right, would do great harm to our civil society. When a reasonable accommodation on a tough issue seems possible, both sides should have the courage to explore it.

Read the whole thing, here (via Memeorandum).

I doubt we'll find a better case for gay marriage compromise than this. As Dale Carpenter notes:

Rauch and Blankenhorn are among the ablest defenders of their respective positions, pro and con gay marriage, in the country. Both have written excellent books on the subject. What they say will be noticed by all sides, especially because they say it together. There will be strong objections on both sides: from SSM opponents who oppose recognition in principle and not just for instrumental reasons, and from SSM supporters who will worry about the practical consequences and who will wonder why such marriages alone will be qualified by morals exemptions ....

The devil is in the details ... but the op-ed starts a conversation about federal legislation that might be politically achievable in the near future.

Here's Rob Vischer's response, at PrawfBlawg:

For someone (like me) who believes that the legal treatment of same-sex relationships should remain a state-level responsibility, who believes that the law will (and should) do more to support long-term, committed relationships among gays and lesbians, and who is concerned that the rhetoric of "marriage equality" has shown a tendency to minimize the importance of religious liberty (especially institutional religious liberty), what's not to like about this proposal?

Not too much, in my opinion, but here's a taste of the "strong objections" that Carpenter envisions, from Pam Spaulding:

I have a problem with this already, though I see where they are trying to accomplish - getting same-sex couples access to the rights and benefits of civil marriage and cede the word marriage to those who cannot decouple it from religious marriage in their heads ... but Blankenhorn and Rauch's solution, by accommodating the "misunderstanding" about the word marriage -- rather than redefining it (something that has occurred countless times in the past), chooses to draw an institutionalized line of discrimination. Many of the same excuses for bans on interracial marriage revolved around religious objections to it, with scripture cited about the morality of race mixing ....

Sorry to say, our opponents are acting in bad faith. They attempt to sway positions with outright lies, such as conflating homosexuality with bestiality, thus leading to, say, man-goat nuptials, something that has nothing to do with any sane religious conviction, btw. That's extremism and intellectually bankrupt fear-mongering. The problem with the religious right is that they don't want any compromise, because the ultimate goal is to have government intervention and control on all matters of sex and reproductive freedom -- those are issues that extend way beyond civil marriage or social security benefits for same-sex spouses.

If anything, the marriage equality movement has been the faction constantly forced into compromise in the form of separate and unequal domestic partnerships and civil unions. These are incremental gains that have had a positive impact on same-sex couples, but it has also created this patchwork faux equality that is causing the legal machinations we are seeing.

The flawed premise of this op-ed is that both sides of the issue have equal power; that's illogical. The side on the status quo in this case holds the power and doesn't want to cede any of it, obviously, because it sees that granting the power of civil equality is threat to its vision of the country and the existence of marriage as they understand it. The side of social change always has the uphill battle, and the law leads, not follows the people when it is a contentious issue. And even when the law extends civil rights, that doesn't mean the public is ready to or willing to accept that change. We're clearly still fighting race-based civil rights issues, and that reflects a society that has not fully matured on the matter. It will be no different as LGBTs win civil rights, one by one.

Actually, Pam Spaulding imputes things to the traditionalist side that are virtually unheard of outside of the radical left's fever swamps? Bestiality? I've been blogging about this issue for months, and I can't recall the word ever being used by conservatives, or anything close to it. Not only that, where Blankenhorn and Rauch eschew taking sides, Spaulding adopts the stance of victimology. But Indeed, those "misunderstandings" on definition of marriage are found among gay rights advocates on the left, not of traditionalists, so her point's evasive, if not dishonest.

No doubt the left will smear advocates of even a fair-minded and reasonable proposal as bigots and religious fanatics. That said, I appreciate Blankenhorn and Rauch's serious effort to point the way ahead. We'll be seeing a lot more controversy over the issue, and real soon, considering the pending California ruling on Proposition 8.

So, stay tuned ...