Hard to Tell the Fascists Without a Scorecard
(Via RedState)
The Only Chart You Need to See Why the US is Screwed ( Courtesy of Business Daily via Maggie's Farm)
February 27, 2011
From the Pictures Worth a Thousand Words Department
UPDATE: Whats in a Wave?
It looks like the folks in Libya didn't hear President Obama's Cairo speech; lumping our own dear leader in with despots like King Abdullah, Hansi Mubarak, and Colonel Q-daffy. But wait... who's that turbaned fellow back row center with the big shit eatin grin? Why, its none other than the stalwart of Lebonese democracy, Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah fame. What the heck is he doing there?
Hard to Tell the Fascists Without a Scorecard
(Via RedState)
The Only Chart You Need to See Why the US is Screwed ( Courtesy of Business Daily via Maggie's Farm)
Hard to Tell the Fascists Without a Scorecard
(Via RedState)
The Only Chart You Need to See Why the US is Screwed ( Courtesy of Business Daily via Maggie's Farm)
February 26, 2011
Iditarod Fever
I got the fever, Iditarod fever that is. Its time to shake off those winter blues and gear up for the start of Iditarod 2011. One week from today 62 mushers including 13 rookies and 15 women will leave Anchorage for the adventure of a lifetime.
Lance Mackey of Fairbanks is back with hopes of making it five unbelievable wins in a row, and tying the record of Rick Swenson of Two Rivers.
Race coverage will begin next Saturday but in the meantime here is a Iditarod Preview courtesy the Iditarod Trail Committee
Lance Mackey of Fairbanks is back with hopes of making it five unbelievable wins in a row, and tying the record of Rick Swenson of Two Rivers.
Race coverage will begin next Saturday but in the meantime here is a Iditarod Preview courtesy the Iditarod Trail Committee
February 25, 2011
Koch in a Can
According to the women that lets me live with her, I am the funniest guy I know, so I replied to him...
Randi Weingarten and Richard Trumbka run into each other in Madison and Randi says to Richard, "Hey Rich, Is that a Democrat Politician in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
Now thats funny!
The Roots of Democracy
The other day I stole a quote from CK Chestertonin in a piece about the Egyptian brouhaha. CK once wrote “You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy, you must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.” Today Jerry Brower at Forbes expands this idea in a piece titled, Democracy: The God that Failed.
Yet, the whole project went off the rails because of one simple miscalculation. Instead of the triad of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (or property) they opted for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Now two of these things belongs with the other, but one of these things just doesn't belong. Liberty and equality can co-exist harmoniously as long as equality doesn't morph into equity. Fraternity on the other hand is problematic; and people have been loosing their heads (figuratively and literally) over being communal ever since.
But this little foo pah should have come as no surprise. Unlike America who had the English political experience and 150 years of benign neglect to build the democratic institutions necessary to sustain a republic the French had no such experience. They were drawing on their own experiences, their own ideals, and certainly the philosophy of that other great French thinker JJ Rousseau who wrote:
One of the tenets of classical political theory is that people get the government they want, which means they ultimately get the government they deserve. This does not just apply to democracies that are based on an explicit commitment to the “consent of the governed,” but it applies to other types of regimes as wellPity the poor disparaged French. They had all the ingredients of a successful liberal revolution right at their fingertips; they had Thomas Paine who brought along his experience in Americas revolution, they had the works of Montesquieu the philosophical backbone of the American experiment, and they had a motivated populace longing to free themselves from the tyranny of the Monarch and his snotty cake eating wife.
A monarchy, or even a dictatorship, still depends on the consent of the governed. The people can, and often have, refused to submit to an autocrat who strays too far from the zone of the people’s consent. Coups, civil wars, mass exoduses, disintegration's, and anarchies are just some of the tools that the people have used to withdraw consent from regimes to which they no longer can offer loyalty. Democracy doesn’t create a situation in which consent can be withdrawn–it simply institutionalizes the transition, creating a situation in which consent can be withdrawn without the bloodshed associated with regime change in non-democratic orders. In other words, the ballot is cheaper than the bullet.
This is why revolutions so seldom make things any better; they change governments but don’t change people. A revolution exchanges one group of rulers for another, without exchanging one group of rules for another. History is strewn with the corpses of stillborn liberal democracies starting with France in 1789, which attempted to imitate the United States experiment in self-government without supplying the spiritual, cultural and legal foundation that ensured its success.
Yet, the whole project went off the rails because of one simple miscalculation. Instead of the triad of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (or property) they opted for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Now two of these things belongs with the other, but one of these things just doesn't belong. Liberty and equality can co-exist harmoniously as long as equality doesn't morph into equity. Fraternity on the other hand is problematic; and people have been loosing their heads (figuratively and literally) over being communal ever since.
But this little foo pah should have come as no surprise. Unlike America who had the English political experience and 150 years of benign neglect to build the democratic institutions necessary to sustain a republic the French had no such experience. They were drawing on their own experiences, their own ideals, and certainly the philosophy of that other great French thinker JJ Rousseau who wrote:
The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.I have no doubt that the people of the Mideast have that innate human desire to be free from tyranny but what are the experiences, ideals, and philosophies that will underpin the end result. Perhaps they will surprise us all but if the French couldn't pull it off who can?
February 18, 2011
News from Madistan
We have relatives in Madison and rumor has it that the Democratic Senators have slipped across the border into Iowa. My guess is they are hiding out at one of the casinos in Dubuque, probably playing with someone elses money.
I was wondering how long the teachers would be allowed to disrupt the little cheeseheads schooling before Governor Walker could terminate them for an illegal strike. I could use a job.
There will be a rally in support of the Governor Walker Sunday at the Capital.
I STAND WITH SCOTT WALKER RALLY
I was wondering how long the teachers would be allowed to disrupt the little cheeseheads schooling before Governor Walker could terminate them for an illegal strike. I could use a job.
There will be a rally in support of the Governor Walker Sunday at the Capital.
I STAND WITH SCOTT WALKER RALLY
And the Nobel Prize for Hackery goes to.....
A good but annoying friend of mine who regales me with his liberal Shinola on a regular basis just to pull my chain forwarded this Paul Krugman piece recently that just proves that if there were a Nobel prize for being a HACK, Krugman would get the lifetime achievement award.
He begins, "There was a time when Republicans used to refer to themselves, proudly, as “the party of Lincoln.” But you don’t hear that line much these days. Why?"
That's one dandy Straw Man if I ever heard one, and what death defying feat of mental dexterity is Krugman going to use to knock it down? Drum roll please.......
It seems that the only ones interested in racist hate are those that benefit from keeping a portion of the constituency in a state of racial hatred. They would like the useful idiots to believe that the Republicans are merely a rag tag bunch of backward southern Klansman despite the fact that evidence proves otherwise.
With the upcoiming Civil War Sesquicentennial rest assured that Krugmen et. al. will be draping Republicans in the Stars and Bars on a regular basis.
Update: Juan Williams is sickened by the leftist racism too.
He begins, "There was a time when Republicans used to refer to themselves, proudly, as “the party of Lincoln.” But you don’t hear that line much these days. Why?"
That's one dandy Straw Man if I ever heard one, and what death defying feat of mental dexterity is Krugman going to use to knock it down? Drum roll please.......
"The main answer, presumably, lies in the G.O.P.’s decision, long ago, to seek votes from Southerners angered by the end of legal segregation."Ta-daaaa, the Republicans all became racists in 1968. Who didn't see that one coming?
It seems that the only ones interested in racist hate are those that benefit from keeping a portion of the constituency in a state of racial hatred. They would like the useful idiots to believe that the Republicans are merely a rag tag bunch of backward southern Klansman despite the fact that evidence proves otherwise.
Governors - Republican 29-20-1There is obviously widespread Republican support outside the 13 States of the Confederacy. Hell, even Wisconsin has seen the light and rejected the politics of Robert LaFollette.
State Upper House Majority- Republican 27-21-1-1
State Lower House Majority- Republican 30-18-1
U.S. Senate- Democratic 51-47-2
U.S. House of Representatives Republican 242-193
With the upcoiming Civil War Sesquicentennial rest assured that Krugmen et. al. will be draping Republicans in the Stars and Bars on a regular basis.
Update: Juan Williams is sickened by the leftist racism too.
February 16, 2011
Thoughts on Egypt and Revolution.
I realize I haven’t written anything substantial for quite some time but this has been rattling around in the old melon since the start of the Egyptian kerfuffle.
When this thing so unexpected began catching everyone flatfooted I remembered a piece by GK Chesterton where he compared revolutions to the wind blowing through the trees. A child might mistakenly think that it is the tree that makes the wind but we (or most of us) know that it is the wind that causes the tree to move.
Like the tree on a windy day what we saw on the streets of Cairo was not the revolution, but merely the outward expression of the revolution. The revolution had already taken place before anyone, except maybe Mubarak knew it was coming. Chesterton writes, “Mobs pouring through the palaces, blood pouring down the gutters, the guillotine lifted higher than the throne, a prison in ruins, a people in arms—these things are not a revolution, but the results of the revolution.”
The Obama administration which never seems to be able to judge which way the wind is blowing was left twisting. The right, ever the realists, was sure that this could only end with a different flavor of despotism. The left media placed their bets on democracy even though an Pharaonic Thomas Jefferson was nowhere to be found. As Chesterton notes, “You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy, you must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.” There is little glimmer of that in the Arab world.
So despite everyones best guess, it wasn’t the supposedly reformed Brotherhood or the Egyptian huddled masses longing to be free; it was the military that saw the reign of an 82 year old dictator coming to the end and was not willing to pass the torch to the next generation of el Mubarak.
Mubarak, who has spent his life gauging and sometimes standing headstrong against these Arab winds recognized what was driving them this time and he tried to face it down once more. We will probably never know if the old despot really had a stroke or succumbed to lead poisoning but the militaries revolution looks like it has succeeded. Egypt went thought what looked like a hell of a blow but if history is any indication it is probably safe to say that the status quo came through it intact. Move along folks there is nothing more see here.
When this thing so unexpected began catching everyone flatfooted I remembered a piece by GK Chesterton where he compared revolutions to the wind blowing through the trees. A child might mistakenly think that it is the tree that makes the wind but we (or most of us) know that it is the wind that causes the tree to move.
Like the tree on a windy day what we saw on the streets of Cairo was not the revolution, but merely the outward expression of the revolution. The revolution had already taken place before anyone, except maybe Mubarak knew it was coming. Chesterton writes, “Mobs pouring through the palaces, blood pouring down the gutters, the guillotine lifted higher than the throne, a prison in ruins, a people in arms—these things are not a revolution, but the results of the revolution.”
The Obama administration which never seems to be able to judge which way the wind is blowing was left twisting. The right, ever the realists, was sure that this could only end with a different flavor of despotism. The left media placed their bets on democracy even though an Pharaonic Thomas Jefferson was nowhere to be found. As Chesterton notes, “You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy, you must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.” There is little glimmer of that in the Arab world.
So despite everyones best guess, it wasn’t the supposedly reformed Brotherhood or the Egyptian huddled masses longing to be free; it was the military that saw the reign of an 82 year old dictator coming to the end and was not willing to pass the torch to the next generation of el Mubarak.
Mubarak, who has spent his life gauging and sometimes standing headstrong against these Arab winds recognized what was driving them this time and he tried to face it down once more. We will probably never know if the old despot really had a stroke or succumbed to lead poisoning but the militaries revolution looks like it has succeeded. Egypt went thought what looked like a hell of a blow but if history is any indication it is probably safe to say that the status quo came through it intact. Move along folks there is nothing more see here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
_edited-1.jpg)
