Pajamas Media

247 Comments

1. David Thomson:

“Obama voters were considerably more ignorant…”

I cynically describe them as Obama’s dummies. The majority of his supporters are probably unable to even read Sports Illustrated. Nonetheless, Clayton E. Cramer’s suggestion is worth pursuing regarding those somewhat confused Americans who merely need to be nudged toward conservative principles. Good luck on his film project.

May 20, 2009 - 1:34 am 2. BPT:

Good idea. Now can you give me five television stations to promote conservatism?

May 20, 2009 - 1:54 am 3. A Reader:

I agree. Leave’em laughing & they will share it with their friends.

May 20, 2009 - 2:48 am 4. Typewriter_King:

I believe FOX’s ‘King of the Hill’ has been brilliant in being subversively conservative. Although ostensibly mocking Hank’s small town values, the show presents Hank and the neighborhood too sympathetically not to be conservative at some level.

May 20, 2009 - 3:15 am 5. Libertyship46:

I totally agree with this. I firmly believe one of the major reasons the Republicans lost the last election was because of the skits on Saturday Night Live on Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin was (and still is) a bright, energetic, and popular sitting governor of a major state. Yet Saturday Night Live, a place where (strangely enough) many young voters get their political news, portrayed the governor as a bimbo and an idiot. And guess what? The reputation stuck. True, some of her subsequent news interviews didn’t help her case, but they certainly didn’t make her out to be an idiot. And she was and is a lot smarter than Joe Biden, that ignorant hack from the mighty state of Delaware (certainly no comparison in size to Alaska). So the left certainly uses comedy programs as a political weapon against the right and with great success. The problem is, with Hollywood so skewed to the left (both in acting and in producing), it will be hard to get funding for anything that seems even remotely conservative. Pity, because there is so much to laugh at on the left. For example, there’s always Joe Biden. Need I say anything more?

May 20, 2009 - 3:51 am 6. JHM dba ''Internet Critic":

The Party of Grant and Limbaugh [1] is now to become even MORE entertainin’?

Isn’t that a bit like Father Zeus resolvin’ to plug the gaps in His omnipotence? [2]

Happy days.

___
[1] Also starrin’ the inimitable

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/19/AR2009051903041.html

Chair of Steele!

[2] It’s commonplace to be stuck at the left end of the Herrnstein-Murray Curve™ wondering what could be less than zero. Much rarer and more fun to try to get ten percent past perfection!

The evil Qommies are the only people I know of with a proverb for the case of the militant extremist GOP, _Balátar az siyáh rangí níst_,

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/news/exhibits/fallah.html

“There is no colour beyond black.”

May 20, 2009 - 5:02 am 7. Craig:

“John Hawkins argues that we need to be prepared to play as dirty as the left to win; my friend Adam Graham argues that we should not, both for ethical reasons and because we will never be as good (or is that as bad?) as the left at dirty politics.”

Gee, I would argue that ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and 25 large urban newspapers need to be bought by a couple of billionaires like Richard Mellon Scaife and Philip Anschutz- but that’s just me.

May 20, 2009 - 5:10 am 8. syn:

I attended the GI Film festival last week and there were plenty of excellent shorts which could easily be made into full-length features unfortunately Hollywood would rather give all the production money to make junk such as “Angels & Demons”; now these film makers whose work I saw are outsiders and it would be terrific if Hollywood insiders would stop hiding in their closets in order to protect their own mortgages then perhaps there would be some good entertainment produced.

This is my suggestion…bankrupt Hollywood now so that better things can be built tomorrow. Stop buying and watching and eventually Hollywood will lose its monopoly and the cowards inside the industry can come out of their closets.

Don’t be suckers for a few hours of lousy entertainment; if you break Hollywood’s bank then they won’t have the financial resources to produce their junk.

Hollywood isn’t going to change for the better, it’s only going to get worse so the consumers must force them to produce viable product.

If you continue showing up to suck on crappy Hollywood entertainment then only you are to blame for the idiocy you have become in consuming the dregs of the entertainment business; you keep buying it and they will continue making it.

So when you are sitting in front of the TV watching SNL ask yourselves if supporting crappy entertainment is really worth the price of losing your Liberty.

May 20, 2009 - 5:17 am 9. Meryl:

“We’re losing the battle because we aren’t persuading the 70% of Americans who do not read.”

I believe that is the single most discouraging sentence I have read in the last who-knows-how-many days.

The premise of the piece and the proposed solution are probably valid, but it all feels like surrendering to seriously lowered expectations: pass out lollipops so you can get the 6th graders to elect you crossing guard.

I really hate giving up on the idea of an informed electorate. It seems that if we do, we are then in a flat out competition for the best bells and whistles (read entitlements and welfare).

Unfortunately, the democrats are worlds ahead of us in that arena. And they are aided by their knowledge that they don’t even have to deliver–they just have to promise the stuff. We would still be the fools who believe that when you promise to do something, you should do it.

May 20, 2009 - 5:54 am 10. SteveB/Colorado:

#8 Syn: “don’t be suckers for a few hours of lousy entertainment.” Which is exactly why I don’t watch, or listen to, the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.

Now, if you want to talk about conservative entertainment that is fun to watch and the commentator almost always knows what he’s talking about, check out Bill O’Reilly on Fox. My gawd! A conservative with a sense of humor; with his pinheads & patriots segments.

May 20, 2009 - 6:17 am 11. Blackwater:

I totally agree. As a recovering liberal I can attest to the fact that the only reason I became a hardcore liberal is because I had no choice. I was bombarded by leftist propaganda ever since I was FIVE. It’s in the small childrens shows, PBS, The Simpsons, Family Guy, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Late Night with Carson Daily, Hollywood movies, MTV, music, art, even clothes, etc. And to top it off I then went to public school and college where I was bombarded and brow beaten by leftist ideologues yet again. And worse yet every time I turned on the news I was bombarded again and again by leftist BS about how global warming is going to drown everyone, pro-lifers are crazy rednecks, Obama is the return of Christ, Chirstians are retarded, and guns are evil machines that killed school children like me. We HAVE to change this leftist dominated playing field or our culture will continue to drift towards European collectivist socialism and blaming ourselves for islamist jihadists beheading our womens rights activists and suicide bombing our train stations. There’s plenty of room in the entertainment business for people that believe in smaller government, personal freedom, lower taxes and who don’t think America is an evil empire.

May 20, 2009 - 6:26 am 12. TMLutas:

One encouraging bit that’s not covered is that production costs are falling and falling pretty fast. The Internet has the potential to beak the leftist dominated distribution stranglehold. Dr. Horrible’s sing along blog was an Internet sensation and then got wider distribution and was done during the writer’s strike as an experiment in trying to make a viable alternate distribution structure. It worked.

But I wouldn’t give up on informing the public either. Business Intelligence, with its ability to make free form ad hoc queries and reports is something that is a great weapon in our arsenal, if we can get government information transparent enough so that people can discover for themselves how bad things are. Assymetric warfare is a game everybody can play. The right has natural arenas too. Accurate information on how lousy government solutions are toxic to socialist solutions.

May 20, 2009 - 6:52 am 13. Sebastian Shaw:

The Right is already entertaining with the Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, & others.

What you’re trying to describe is a mainstream Right entertainer, but the liberal MSM will never promote a Right entertainer the same way they promote Leftist actos.

May 20, 2009 - 6:54 am 14. sheesh:

Where to begin?

“So when you are sitting in front of the TV watching SNL ask yourselves if supporting crappy entertainment is really worth the price of losing your Liberty.”

I could stop with this one – a shining example of humorless disjointed “insight” . . . watching SNL takes away your liberty. Stunning.

“True, some of (Palin’s) subsequent news interviews didn’t help her case, but they certainly didn’t make her out to be an idiot.”

Yeah, they did. Couldn’t name a newspaper she read. Couldn’t name a Supreme Court case she disagreed with. Couldn’t square her support of the Bridge to Nowhere. Couldn’t explain her hillbilly shopping spree. And so on.

“And she was and is a lot smarter than Joe Biden, that ignorant hack from the mighty state of Delaware (certainly no comparison in size to Alaska).”

Right, if a state’s size is a measure of its complexity or impact on the nation, which would make North Dakota twice as important as New York.

“Hollywood isn’t going to change for the better, it’s only going to get worse so the consumers must force them to produce viable product.”

That’s called the free market, I believe, and it has driven Hollywood since Day 1. They don’t care who DOESN’T watch a movie, they only care about who DOES. If you can generate either $300 million with Jeanine Garafalo or $400 million with Neil Boortz, it’s the Boortz movie that’s gonna get made. I can see it now . . . “Flat Tax – The Tea Party Chronicles.”

And from the author of this, whatever it is . . . article:

“The left figured out years ago that in a battle of serious political debate, they are likely to lose — especially as leftist ideas were utterly discredited by the failure of centrally planned economies in the 20th century. Instead, the left has focused not on serious political debate, but on winning the culture war.”

I believe the last election was a pretty serious political debate, and Republicans got their clock cleaned and waxed and packed in a nice cardboard box and put on the shelf in the basement. Why? Because the conservative ideas were utterly discredited by the economic and foreign policy failures over the last eight years. As for culture wars, the right is the only group fighting it . . . The War on Christmas, Christianity Under Attack, “Culture Warrior”by a bold, fresh piece of inanity, Michael Steele’s shimmering brilliance with “Gaymarriage is a threat to small businesses” and, of course, the “Why don’t they make more Kirk Cameron movies?” whining that is so prevalent right here at PJM.

“I believe that if I can scrape together the million dollars or so required to make it, it will be an exciting adventure film”

Ah, the purpose is now plain. “Somebody rich and conservative fund my keen movie, pleeeeaaassseee! It’s really interesting and adventurey!” It’s not about principle, it never is with the right, it’s about money, it always is with the right. (Mr. Hannity, your waterboard is ready!”)

Here’s a thought: You wanna make a movie? Make a movie. Republicans have plenty of money. They got no style or sense of humor or imagination, but they got plenty of money. Go ahead on, makes yourselves some movies. Or is that mean old Jon Stewart stopping you?

May 20, 2009 - 6:57 am 15. AThinkingPerson:

Conservative entertainment? Glenn Beck fits that bill. He has no qualms about stepping into the fray and taking on the elites. His sense of humor is admirable too (anyone else see his Barney Frank imitation?). No fear in the face of the liberal intimidation machine (anyone else see him take on the ACORN mouthpiece?).

When CNN turned him loose for his “views”, I knew he was a winner.

May 20, 2009 - 7:01 am 16. Will:

That’s it just run away from responsibility folks.That’s what the liberals do.

May 20, 2009 - 7:01 am 17. AThinkingPerson:

Sheesh you lost your argument with one simple idiotic statement….”I believe the last election was a pretty serious political debate,…”. LOL! What planet do you live on?

May 20, 2009 - 7:04 am 18. Clayton E. Cramer:

“You wanna make a movie? Make a movie. Republicans have plenty of money.”

I’m easily the richest Republican that I know, and I don’t have the resources to make a movie. Take a look at who funded Obama’s campaign–$57 million just from people who maxed out their contributions at $4600. Obama also easily won the $200,000 income a year and up demographic.

May 20, 2009 - 7:08 am 19. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Gee, I would argue that ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and 25 large urban newspapers need to be bought by a couple of billionaires like Richard Mellon Scaife and Philip Anschutz- but that’s just me.”

My point is that it doesn’t do much good to buy news organizations, since much of the population–and most of it under 30–barely watches any serious news anyway. You want to persuade people: entertain them. And political commentary, such as Limbaugh or Hannity, as entertaining as they can be, really isn’t being heard by the audience we need to get.

“I really hate giving up on the idea of an informed electorate. It seems that if we do, we are then in a flat out competition for the best bells and whistles (read entitlements and welfare).”

No, it means that we have to inform the electorate in the manner in which they wish to be informed. I’m afraid that most Americans get their knowledge of history from watching movies that generally do considerable violence to actual history. It is possible to give our point of view in a form that they will enjoy watching.

May 20, 2009 - 7:19 am 20. sheesh:

Blair Witch Project was made for $40K. Clerks was made for less. I guess you don’t know many Republicans.

May 20, 2009 - 7:22 am 21. Vinny Vidivici:

‘Humoring them’ sounds like the cultural equivalent of offering ‘lite’ versions of Democrat entitlement programs in the hope of shaving off a few ‘moderate’ voters. It’s just more bread and circuses.

Stewart speaks to a generation raised on snark and put-down as a substitute for debate, decades of sit-com episodes ending with the cutting ‘bon mot’ that silences the rest of the cast. Being uncool, adrift behind the trend-surf, or having un-stylish opinions risks being left out. Obama the hip, multi-culti campaigner, mouthing the wisdom of children which adults never see, was the perfect political fashion accessory.

Many of them will learn that adopting a Stewart-esque pose of smug, above-it-all cynicism isn’t an option when facing adult responsibilities, like raising families, building careers or dealing with the world’s more intractable problems. And they might eventually come to appreciate institutions which have accomplished more for humankind in the past 50 years than in the previous 500, instead of dismissing them as unjust, inequitable and in need of “fundamental transformation” (Obama).

But time is short and the damage done is great. Unfortunately, as Mark Steyn points out, we can’t expect people who’ve been indoctrinated at school and who marinate in a culture where soft leftism is reinforced at every turn to wake up on election day thinking of Burke and Bastiat.

May 20, 2009 - 7:32 am 22. Robert Hurley:

You have Rush, Sean and Michael – What more could you ask for in entertainment

May 20, 2009 - 7:34 am 23. imyou:

I think a Comedy Central type show called “I Double Dare You: This week in D.C.” would be excellent. Each episode will feature the double and double double dares of the week. The material generated by the worms in government is endless. To mix it up a bit, included in the actual government proposals, there would be dares from rumor blogs, activist groups or individuals, just about any mind boggling dare that costs lots of money, limits or eliminates freedom and will never generate income qualifies as a dare.

Three of the most outrageous dares would be selected; one of which is the real D.C. dare. The star of this bit must be someone who can convince the audience that each dare is not only real, but the world, as we know it, would never be the same if he doesn’t get what he wants. Of course, the host must have the ability to get past the monitor in order to come across as someone who knows what he’s talking about. At the end of the show the real Obama would be featured taking the double double dare of the week and more of our money.

May 20, 2009 - 7:41 am 24. Dennis Pemberton:

The conservative problem with humor lies in the nature of conservatism. Conservatives by nature hew to core principles and actually believe certain values are sacrosanct- family, security, respect for authority, etc. Much popular humor is based on the concept that nothing is sacrosanct, and that those who hew to core principles are laughably narrow and feeble-minded. Are comedians more likely to be conservatives, or liberals? Obviously, the latter, hence the humor gap. Conservatives are more good-humored than humorous.

The best we can do is let the liberal humorists like Nancy Pelosi flourish. Her “I was not briefed, just informed” skit had them rolling in the aisles. And the President, his head on a clockwork swivel, telling us “the sun is shining because we’re doing good things.” That’s just priceless. As for us humorless fuddy-duddy conservatives, wWe’ll always be the adults saying “Turn the TV off, you’ve got school in the morning!”

May 20, 2009 - 7:47 am 25. Avitar:

I have written on the asymetrical nature of the conflict many times and Cramer is not wrong but does not understand the nature of the technological conflict.
The Liberal/Progressives/Fascists consolidated power in the FDR administration. The technology was giving economies of scale to concentrated media.
The technology nolonger supports central control of the media and many of the organizations like NBC and NYT are dieing but they are being replaced by a million little organizations. Where when the Liberal Media was established they could meet in a resturant and discuss things. The free people of the Internet that are replaceing them can not get into a single sports stadium. It is far easier to give marching orders to 300 magazine and newspaper editors and a dozen Movie producers in the nineteen thirties than it is give the word to a million bloggers today.

May 20, 2009 - 7:47 am 26. Fred Beloit:

Sheets at #14
“I believe the last election was a pretty serious political debate…”
Pretty serious? Why it was amazingly serious! It was so serious not even the most learned and distinguished philosophers, lawyers, and cosmologists could get their teeth into it. Consider these magnificent and most serious propositions:
(1) Hope is audacious, not simply dreamy and lazy as was formerly thought. (2) Change, in and of itself, is most beneficial. (3) We are the ones we have been waiting for.

Never could we hope for a more serious political debate until the coming of the next Greek Kalends.

May 20, 2009 - 7:48 am 27. sheesh:

26 Fred Bellwah . . . You would have said it was serious if you had won, given that it was the very principles of our founding fathers that were under attack . . . socialism versus democracy . . . our national security is at stake!

How much more serious can it get?

May 20, 2009 - 7:52 am 28. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Blair Witch Project was made for $40K. Clerks was made for less. I guess you don’t know many Republicans.”

And it shows! Realistically, the screenplay that I have written could probably be made with a budget of $500,000, but closer to a million is more realistic. Take a look at the actual costs of most indy films–Blair Witch Project was pretty astonishing, mostly that it was successful.

I know lots of Republicans. I also know lots of multimillionaires, and even a billionaire or two, from working in startups in California. There is no overlap. The obscenely rich are overwhelmingly Democrat, with a few Greens thrown in. (I used to work with a guy who worshipped Noam Chomsky–but raced his vintage Ferraris on the weekends.)

May 20, 2009 - 7:59 am 29. rocketeer:

sheesh: Generally well written points. Would disagree with your idea that Hollywood is driven by $$. If that was the case, why would no one pick up Mel Gibson’s “The Passion”, which I believe grossed something like a $600 million? Why do they keep producing loser movies that no one wants to see like “Lions for Lambs” or “Redacted” that trash our military and our country? I think it’s pretty clear that Hollywood has an agenda that it wants to put out there that transcends their own economic interests.

May 20, 2009 - 7:59 am 30. Professor Guvinoff:

Asymmetric response? When your opponent has elevated playing ping-pong with demagogic slogans to olympic levels, the response is both simple and asymmetric, apply authentic logic to real facts!

Not entertaining enough? If winning is not entertaining, what is?

May 20, 2009 - 8:06 am 31. MiamaMan:

One thing conservatives should stop doing is to compare Obama with Jimmy Carter. It is not fair and an insult to the latter.

President James Earl Carter may not have been the best of the bunch, but he was a thoroughbred American from Georgia, whose ancestors we knew, and who was a Navy sailor who served in the Pacific during World War II, later volunteering for nuclear submarine service and becoming an officer in the process.

Compare that to the Current-Community-Organizer-in-Chief.

I don’t know of Carter, before becoming President, attending a so-called Church for 20 years where constant hate is spewed against America. Nor having unrepentant terrorists friends, or a felon “developer” friend and mentor from a foreign country, Syria (Reszko).

No, Jimmy Carter grew up right here, not in Indonesia, nor his father was originally a Muslim, and finally a poor Marxist alcoholic who died DIU.

Barack and Hussein are both Arab Muslim names. Aren’t those the names we often see in those at the center of a Jihad to destroy American? Don’t they fly planes with innocent people into buildings? Or beheaded Pearl, Berg, and other innocent Americans?

May 20, 2009 - 8:08 am 32. Whitey:

Do you want to know what really makes humor work? The truth.

May 20, 2009 - 8:08 am 33. Fred Beloit:

Sheets, “You would have said it was serious if you had won”
You have me confused with someone else. I was not running for office in the last election.

“our national security is at stake!”
Yes, Obama argued we needed to desert Iraq; close Gitmo; stop listening in to international calls from known terrorists overseas; and offer legal dream teams and ensuing complex show trials, a la OJ, to enemy riflemen captured on the battlefield. But I guess he didn’t mean he actually meant to complete any of these goals while he held office.

May 20, 2009 - 8:11 am 34. Clayton E. Cramer:

Anyone that thinks that there was a serious political debate in this last election wasn’t paying much attention. McCain and Candidate Obama differed pretty seriously on national security issues, but not so much on anything else. (President Obama and McCain turned out to be closer on national security issues than many of Obama’s supporters would have ever guessed.)

The only advantage of a McCain Presidency from an economic standpoint is that the national media would have scrutinized his budget as though it was an important matter.

May 20, 2009 - 8:18 am 35. David S:

Apparently some folks here are too close to the comedy to see that the GOP itself has become an incredibly “entertaining” organization. I don’t think this is the big problem that the GOP needs to address – as many other posters noted, there is lots of entertainment being produced with a right-wing perspective.

What is lacking is any principled opposition or constructive alternative to the Democratic agenda. The GOP is not losing in virtually all demographic groups because of a lack of entertainment value. It is losing because it does not speak to the very real concerns of the citizens of the USA.

The closing paragraph of this column encapsulates the GOP confusion:

If conservatives want to win this battle, they need to put more energy into creating entertainment that strikes a responsive chord with the majority of Americans who are “sick of politics” because they don’t see how government and public policy matter to their lives. I believe that a majority of Americans, if they get a chance to see both sides of the argument presented in a way that entertains them, will come over to the conservative side in a decisive way. But conservatives have to make the effort. Right now, the left is winning the battle because they are creating entertainment — and the other side is just boring them.

Americans are “sick of politics”, but not because they don’t see how government and public policy matter – in fact, you have this one exactly backwards. People are sick of politics because they see precious little attention payed to governance and public policy, and far too much energy spent on divisive personal politics. A majority of Americans, when given the opportunity, have already demonstrated no desire to “come over to the conservative side in a decisive way”. It is not because they are bored with the GOP. It is because the GOP has willfully and repeatedly failed to address the very real imperative to govern and manage public policy in keeping with the welfare of our nation.

Jon Stewart is not a news source for the youth of the USA solely because his show is entertaining. His show is also informative and insightful when it comes to the major policy issues of the day. The GOP has no answer to an honest debate on the issues. Focusing on the superficial has been the big problem, and will continue to be the problem, so long as the GOP fails to recognize political reality and address the very real concerns of voters.

Peace.

DS

May 20, 2009 - 8:21 am 36. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Would disagree with your idea that Hollywood is driven by $$.”

Michael Medved’s Hollywood vs. America points out that even though G and PG rated movies are far more financially successful, the industry puts far more energy and interest into movies that it thinks are “artistic,” even though not very profitable.

May 20, 2009 - 8:22 am 37. Sgt. Mom:

“You want to persuade people: entertain them.”
Preach it, brother – people need, no, they want stories! They want stories that also thrill, inspire and do not insult their own values at every turn of the plot. They would like stories that do not paint our ancestors as a bunch of knuckle-dragging racists, and the United States as a wonderful and exhilarating adventure, both actually and politically.
At least my stories are not for the movies, so I did not have to put out a bomb of money to get them out there – I could go to a boutique publisher and a POD print house and get them out there as books. Regionally, they are selling quite nicely, so I can guarantee that there is a hunger for that sort of entertainment, other than that which is slapped down in front of us by the mainstream entertainment complex like so many pounds of rotten fish.
Declare independence, where it counts – use your pocket-book veto, and patronize the indy books and music, and the really indy, original films.

May 20, 2009 - 8:25 am 38. Clayton E. Cramer:

“The GOP is not losing in virtually all demographic groups because of a lack of entertainment value. It is losing because it does not speak to the very real concerns of the citizens of the USA.”

You seem not to have understood my point. Most of the population isn’t paying attention to public policy issues, presented as such. They allow entertainment to set the agenda–and because the left utterly dominates the production of entertainment, they set the agenda.

Imagine if television shows and movies had presented the role of government in forcing lenders to make subprime mortgages–and the role that the large scale defaults played in bringing on this crisis. Would this influence the nature of popular understanding?

May 20, 2009 - 8:27 am 39. Bilgeman:

Mr. Cramer:
“I believe that a majority of Americans, if they get a chance to see both sides of the argument presented in a way that entertains them, will come over to the conservative side in a decisive way.”

The MSM is configured so that the avergage American doesn’t GET to hear both sides, thankfully enough of our people are aware of this, which is why media is dying.

The Left’s methods and it’s aims were doped out at least 60 years ago in the 7 page introduction to “Red Channels”:

http://www.authentichistory.com/1950s/redchannels/redch001.html

Highly recommended, and well worth the short time needed to read it.

“Right now, the left is winning the battle because they are creating entertainment — and the other side is just boring them.”

The Left can only win the battle when the Conservatives get off-track. As much as they bleat otherwise, this is still very largely a conservative nation and culture.

And the Left has a problem in that sooner or later, they have to leave the realm of the fictions they create for their proseletyzing and translate their aims into policy…and that’s when they fumble the ball, because that’s when individual Americans realize at a personal level what “top-down collectivism” REALLY means.

May 20, 2009 - 8:30 am 40. Fred Beloit:

Good lord, does David S actually think that the Repubs deliberately disregard the “very real concerns” of voters? As if the voters were united in their concerns, and as if all the polls questioned only the voters. The fact is that the last Presidential election showed the voters were very divided concerning which party represented their “concerns”, one of which concerns seemed to be Give Us the “free stuff”.

May 20, 2009 - 8:32 am 41. Maggie:

Bravo. In addition to TV/movies, I would like to see conservative magazines be more entertaining. The liberal counterparts give a message in lifestyle articles – interviews, recipes, decorating, gardening. Are you listening National Review and Weekly Standard? Make a more well rounded magazine, compete for ad revenue and get your mags on the grocery check out lane.

May 20, 2009 - 8:39 am 42. Delia:

Hollyweird is so Liberal that you’d be hard pressed to even find a known actor to star in your project no matter how great it may well be.
~

Yes, Sarah Palin is a blithering idiot…

Like when that moron said she’d visited 57 states with ‘1′ left to go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrsBKGpwi58

Or, when she said she saw ‘fallen’ heroes in the audience on Memorial Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh6Gx1KrvTw

-And, don’t forget her slipping up and mentioning her ‘Muslim’ faith er uh ‘Christian’ faith…OOPS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvsQgJ78bC0

Also, Sarah is completely and utterly lost without a teleprompter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omHUsRTYFAU

Then, her outright LIES about earmarks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeJ9gE-FA0Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqiy5xFWym8&NR=1

Sarah’s broken campaign promise was a doozy too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9MDUqwyzxk&NR=1

But, Ms. Palin’s ineloquent ‘uhs’ REALLY make her look like an idiot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThEAO0lt4Dw

Then, you’ve got Sarah’s racist church, racist husband and not wanting to wear the flag pin et al:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThEAO0lt4Dw

Yep! Not only is Sarah a moron but she’s a racist, anti-American, lying cretin who had the audacity to run for President.

Thank goodness for 0bama!

May 20, 2009 - 8:46 am 43. David S:

@38. Clayton E. Cramer:

You seem not to have understood my point. Most of the population isn’t paying attention to public policy issues, presented as such. They allow entertainment to set the agenda–and because the left utterly dominates the production of entertainment, they set the agenda.

Imagine if television shows and movies had presented the role of government in forcing lenders to make subprime mortgages–and the role that the large scale defaults played in bringing on this crisis. Would this influence the nature of popular understanding?

Imagine if television shows and movies had presented the role of government in the rush to war in Iraq, or the role of the Federal Reserve in creating a massive asset bubble in the economy. The problem with your “point” is that the GOP depends on a counterfactual narrative to support policy prescriptions. This is not a sustainable practice. Eventually even the best liars will be called out (e.g. Madoff).

The right fails to win voters because it doesn’t address their concerns. It does not matter how entertaining the presentation is – if the GOP cannot offer real solutions to the problems voters face, the party will continue to flounder. Dressing up the anti-science party in fancy clothes may work in the short term, but in the end, a party focused on ignorance and fear cannot appeal to the people.

Your own attempt to refocus the discussion demonstrates this problem. There was plenty of media coverage of the various government programs that may have contributed to our current economic doldrums – but people are smart enough to see that this problem was much more complex than such a simplistic analysis would allow. Blaming government mortgage policy is just an attempt to deflect blame from Bush, the GOP and Greenspan, who worked hard to build the largest bubble in many decades.

The underlying problem was a desire to make the economy appear more productive without actually addressing rising unemployment, falling compensation, massive manufacturing losses and spiraling health care costs – in other words, a failure to address the public policy concerns of voters.

You can keep telling yourself that better control of the media will provide the GOP an opportunity to better sell their platform, but so long as that platform is at odds with the needs of the nation, the packaging matters very little.

Peace.

DS

May 20, 2009 - 9:19 am 44. shaui-jan:

#42 delia.ouch!that going to leave a mark….
sheesh.”I believe the last election was a pretty serious political debate,” that’s the most humorous thought you have ever typed(still good points,overall).BTW,you just can’t stop thinking about palin….WHAT’S up with that?
want conserative funny?http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/
bookmark it.no one on the left can even touch him.
p.s. i do not know if anyone remembered FNC’s daily show rip off but it succcckkkked.they finally took it out back and out back and…. put it out of it’s misery.

May 20, 2009 - 9:25 am 45. Moot:

Facts and reality shape the world. Did Einstein have to charismatically capture the attention of some majority in order for his equations to achieve some consensus to validate them, or were his equations actually simply verifiably correct, physical laws that only a few could understand and because they were correct they prevailed against all ignorance? The point is, Conservatives can either focus on developing the charisma muscle or developing the true reality muscle.

I would wager that no other formula, mathematical or political, has the staying and prevailig power of true reality. Only the most objective, logical thinkers will eventually assume political leadership roles, perhaps a war or two from now, in several hundred years. Right now, Democrats and Republicans offer idealogical alternatives, not opposites, neither which can be enabled without force. This makes them persishable do to the instability that the use of force imposes. Political, social, and economic objectivism will prevail once forces have consumed themselves and each other.

May 20, 2009 - 9:33 am 46. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Imagine if television shows and movies had presented the role of government in the rush to war in Iraq,”

The rush to war? How many months did this get debated, and then most Democrats agreed that it was necessary? Of course, a real presentation would show the complexities of the problem, the uncertainties associated with gathering intelligence, Hussein’s efforts to create a mystery (not to scare the U.S., but Iran), and the past history of Hussein that caused nearly every intelligence service to err on the side of believing that Iraq had WMDs. But the left has devoted its energy to the simplistic (and false) claim that it was intentional deception.

May 20, 2009 - 9:56 am 47. G Alston:

“We’re losing the battle because we aren’t persuading the 70% of Americans who do not read.”

Conservatives slam the left for being elitist — “they think they’re smart and entitled.” And yet elitism starts with the presumption that most folks are either ignorant or stupid: if only they were exposed to the truth (or a variant thereof.)

I see no difference between your argument and those whom you slam: it’s a matter of who gets to manipulate the sheep. You are just as elitist as the left.

May 20, 2009 - 9:59 am 48. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Only the most objective, logical thinkers will eventually assume political leadership roles, perhaps a war or two from now, in several hundred years.”

Only if those wars exterminate the vast majority of the population–and especially those that are prone to emotional reactions. Democracies seldom pick objective logical thinkers because majorities pick leaders that are just a bit better than they are.

May 20, 2009 - 10:04 am 49. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Bravo. In addition to TV/movies, I would like to see conservative magazines be more entertaining.”

But if they are explicitly conservative magazines, they won’t be very effective at getting non-conservatives.

May 20, 2009 - 10:07 am 50. Clayton E. Cramer:

“And yet elitism starts with the presumption that most folks are either ignorant or stupid: if only they were exposed to the truth (or a variant thereof.)”

I’m not assuming that most people are stupid or ignorant. (I can guarantee that there is about 25% of the population that is both.) Most people, especially those under 30, are simply not interested in public policy. To the extent that they have opinions, they reflect what their entertainment inputs tell them is the right way to think. Liberals have been smarter in pushing their agenda through the institutions that they dominate: entertainment. Conservatives and libertarians have not done so.

May 20, 2009 - 10:10 am 51. bobbcat:

AThinkingPerson: When CNN turned him loose for his “views”, I knew he was a winner.

I was under the impression that it (CNN letting him go) was secondary to taking the Fox News 5 o’clock spot.

G Alston. If the sheep must be manipulated (and whose fault is that?), better it be by the conservatives than by the libbies for many reasons.

May 20, 2009 - 10:12 am 52. Pat J:

The author is right. The Right should be more entertaining. Let’s start by adding a laugh track to Fox News.

May 20, 2009 - 10:23 am 53. AtheistConservative:

The right is entertaining, because anybody can make fun of a stupid idea (and liberals are nothing more than a smug font of stupid ideas). The problem is that there are so few Conservatives in show business. This isn’t natural – it’s due to selective hiring and peer pressure. Kind of like the prevalence of Scientologists.

May 20, 2009 - 10:26 am 54. AThinkingPerson:

#42 Delia: What a great post! The links you provided were awesome and I’m just hoping that the ACORN Headquarters WI-FI cafe allows enough time for our liberal friends here to open up a few.

Funny how obviously lame their Palin arguments are when put into such a context. Awesome Delia!

Re #51 bobbcat: I have heard him refer to his “firing from the other channel” during his show. Of course that could be before or after Fox approached him so you might be right. However he arrived at Fox News, I’m forever grateful. He’s a nice addition to their lineup.

May 20, 2009 - 10:27 am 55. David S:

@46. Clayton E. Cramer:

Of course, a real presentation would show the complexities of the problem, the uncertainties associated with gathering intelligence, Hussein’s efforts to create a mystery (not to scare the U.S., but Iran), and the past history of Hussein that caused nearly every intelligence service to err on the side of believing that Iraq had WMDs. But the left has devoted its energy to the simplistic (and false) claim that it was intentional deception.

Whether the deception was completely intentional or not, the actions that followed have been criminal. Many Bush administration members may well have believed the lies that they were instructed to sell to the public, but anyone who has been paying attention for the last three decades would not. There is no reason to pretend that the war was an honest mistake. Honesty has nothing to do with it.

Maybe you don’t recall that there were someprincipled objections at the time. Not all of Congress wanted to roll over and play dead. Personally, I think an honest assessment of “the complexities of the problem” would show that the rush to war involved numerous lies, deceptions, and legal maneuvers designed to thwart the normal function of our government, and that these practices went largely unquestioned by the mass media.

It is not simplistic, nor is it false, to demonstrate in great detail how and why the nation was intentionally deceived during the rush to war. Even Pat Buchanan understands this. How dense can the GOP faithful be?

Though 40,000 U.S.-British sorties had been flown over Iraq since 1991, he had been unable to shoot down a single plane. There was no evidence he or his regime had any role in 9/11, any connection to the anthrax attack, any tie to al-Qaeda, or committed any act of terror against us.

Why, then, was it necessary to go to war?

Whatever the sins of the WHIG in savaging critics, however, at least most of them believed in this war. But what is to be said for those who transmitted to a trusting public what they had to know or at least suspect were propaganda fabrications to dupe the people into sending their sons and daughters to fight and die in an unnecessary war? This is the greater scandal. This is the real scandal.

The GOP and her defenders are part of this scandal so long as they refuse to acknowledge it. A necessary war does not require the fabrication of evidence.

Peace.

DS

May 20, 2009 - 10:32 am 56. Just passing Through:

The problem with David S and his slant on reality is that according to polls (which David just loves except when they show up his talking points as nonsense), independents are increasingly identifying with republicans rather than democrats. This is a reversal of the results of similar polls taken late last year. Along with the trend for the approval rating of Obama over the last few months, David’s hero and his party is sinking, not rising.

Look it up David. Quick search is all it takes.

May 20, 2009 - 10:40 am 57. billslayer:

I just watched Hannity debate Jesse Ventura. While Jesse Ventura did go into some conspiracy stuff with Bush and Bin Ladin, Ive got to say he was far more honest and objective than Hannity.
I think that Fox News and Hannity in particular have got to go if there is ever going to be a comeback of any ideology to the right of Noam Chomsky for any period of time.
The first reason for this is that they are just tacky. Like it or not morality sans aesthetics is shit.
Am I saying that patriotism can be made hip? No, I’m not. Responsibility and duty cannot be made hip. But when people begin to see concrete consequences to irresponsibility and negligence, they can become quite realistic.
The second reason is that its undeniable at this point that we have two medias in this country, one serving the left, one serving the right. When your side is in power you need an absolutely honest and objective media on your side. All Fox etc did while Bush was in power was parrot the White House position and forward what I refer to as the “drag show” notion of patriotism. Which is that there is a caricatured idea of a thing (such as femininity in the idea of the drag queen) and then there is that actual thing. They are not the same thing.

In case you didn’t know this, perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a person is to have someone blow sunshine up their ass.

Unfortunately for Barack Obama, he has much the same problem. Just from the other side of the media spectrum, and from a much larger portion of the media spectrum.

May 20, 2009 - 10:44 am 58. billslayer:

Also its important to remember–The Daily Show etc will turn on the Democrats as soon as the amount of blood in the water becomes a deep scarlet. Yes, the majority of the media is biased in favor of liberalism-BUT they are first and foremost sensationalist. What are the best sources of sensational comedic fodder? What sins are the most delicious? Sex of course, but most gratifying is hypocrisy. When the democratic equivalent of a Republican Sheep Ranching Senator cruising the toilets for unsanitary man love appears…there will be blood.

May 20, 2009 - 10:51 am 59. David S:

@56. Just passing Through:

The problem with David S and his slant on reality is that according to polls (which David just loves except when they show up his talking points as nonsense), independents are increasingly identifying with republicans rather than democrats.

But the latest polls actually show increasing identification with the Democratic party among independents. So there is no problem at all. Perhaps you forgot to cite something I missed?

“… the GOP’s loss in leaned support over this time is evident among nearly every subgroup.”

This is a reversal of the results of similar polls taken late last year. Along with the trend for the approval rating of Obama over the last few months, David’s hero and his party is sinking, not rising.

Look it up David. Quick search is all it takes.

Obama’s approval is holding steady in the 60% range since his inauguration, and the “right track” numbers which had dipped to historic lows under Bush have begun to recover despite a sagging economy. The most prominent spokesman for the GOP is the ex-VP who boasts an approval rating below 20%, and somehow I’m supposed to believe that Obama is in trouble?

Reality check, please? Or at least a cite?

Peace.

DS

May 20, 2009 - 11:17 am 60. G Alston:

#50 Cramer — Most people, especially those under 30, are simply not interested in public policy.

Which fits into the “ignorant” column. Ignorance means you don’t know something, not that you’re too stupid.

#56 — The problem with David S and his slant on reality…

The problem is that in this case he’s largely correct. There were a number of us anti-marxist (republican) voters who also perceived the Iraq war as little more than pouring blood and treasure into the sand.

Yes it was evident via intel services that Saddam was in fact wanting to make or purchase WMD’s. On the other hand it was just as evident that he wasn’t successful.

One needn’t be an insane marxist wannabe to be against that particular misadventure.

May 20, 2009 - 11:17 am 61. Blackwell:

“We’re losing the battle because we aren’t persuading the 70% of Americans who do not read.”

Are you kidding? Mr. Hand would ask you the obvious: (”What are you people? On dope?”). we forfeited the battle by alienating every conceivable segment of the voting population: first the gays and women who live and die by the abortion issue. Then we added the newly unemployed victims of the popped Bush/Cheney/GOP bubble, people who have a funny belief that a recession and a panicked treasury Secretary howling for “billions” mean its time to switch parties. Then we lost thoughtful people that think the popped bubble was due in large part to an FDIC and SEC run by cronies as sharp as the “heck of a job” guy from FEEMA. To prove how in tune we were, we offered up big boring John and his vaporless campaign of nothing. You think we lost them becasue they don’t read?

Yes, yes, the democrats were at fault too–seriously at fault–but they weren’t in control when it all broke; they weren’t saddled with Dennis hastert’s legacy of buffoonery and incompetence; they weren’t on TV gasping for “$700 billion now!”

You can’t sell incompetence, corruption and arrogance. Really, your lament makes you sound like the LA Times today–accusing the voters of stupidity for rejecting another series of idiotic “raise taxes” measures.

WADRespect, we lost because we lost our way. Because big fat Dennis Hastert allowed congress to become a cesspool of greed and incompetence. And anyone thinking that the voters will turn on a dime and reject Obama is not in tune with the way Americans act: he’ll get a fair chance, especially since the GOP has shown in the past 12 years that they cannot be trusted to run anything. Any five sober people on this blog–Alston, Blackwater, Bilgeman-even Sheesh–would be a better group to run for office than today’s GOP.

May 20, 2009 - 11:57 am 62. Fred Beloit:

#61 Blackwell: “WADRespect, we lost because we lost our way. Because big fat Dennis Hastert allowed congress to become a cesspool of greed and incompetence. And anyone thinking that the voters will turn on a dime and reject Obama is not in tune with the way Americans act: he’ll get a fair chance, especially since the GOP has shown in the past 12 years that they cannot be trusted to run anything.”

Sorry, I must call BS on that, my good friend. For about the last three years Hastert has been replaced by the worst speaker in House history, one Nancy Pelosi, proudly from Frisco. The Dems have been the majority at the House too. How do you like them so far?

May 20, 2009 - 12:22 pm 63. Pastor of Muppets:

The fatal mistake of the Right was its decision to pit itself against intellectuals, youth, minorities, liberals and Hollywood, as these are the groups that tend to have great influence on the shape of popular culture. By doing so, the Right has essentially ceded the entertainment industry to the Left, and has disingenuously complained at its being subsequently locked out of an industry it has constantly attacked.

This cession has resulted in “brain drain.”

When a group of people decides that it does not value intellectuals, creativity, controversy, minority views, debate, or critical thought, it sends a message to those who do hold those values that “you are not welcome here”. So, most of them take the hint, and go elsewhere where they are accepted.

When the Right begins to crack down on civil liberties and the ability of free-thinkers to create uncensored art/literature/film/comedy/music in an environment free of intimidation, as they did during the Hollywood Blacklisting in the 1950s, then the free-thinkers who previously might have identified as right-wing leave, and when they leave they take with them a lot of skills and knowledge.

So who are the people who are leaving?

Writers, actors, directors, producers, musicians, artists, poets, scientists, activists, and a great many others who have come to realize, one way or another, that the Right considers them to be un-American for their views. These are the people who are the most dedicated to their profession, who have spent years perfecting it, and are the best in their field. And you’re telling them that even though they may be the best as what they do, they are not wanted because of their social or political beliefs.

So then, there go the potential writers of your anti-Daily Show. There go the potential musicians who would compose your anti-Animals. There go the right-wing directors who would make a film better than An American Carol.

The end result is our current entertainment landscape. The left wing continues to produce popular, award winning writers, musicians, poets, and filmmakers, because it celebrates and nurtures them, while the right wing is stuck primarily with over-the-hill entertainers like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh – beloved by white men over 60, but met with either indifference or revulsion by pretty much everyone else. It is fitting, then, that Rush would be working in radio – a dying medium with an average listener age of over 70.

The only solution for this is for the Right to change its view on the arts. As long as it continues to view the arts and artists as suspect and anti-American, most people who value the arts and have a career as artists, will stay away from the GOP, and you will continue to have a shortage of good writers, actors, directors, musicians, and will continue to have a plethora of “1/2 Hour News Hour”, “Expelled” and “An American Carol”.

But considering that the GOP is essentially run By Rush Limbaugh, I don’t see any change in this situation. The Left will continue to dominate the arts, and consequently popular culture, and the Right will continue be limited to those outlets that appeal to over 60 white men – AM radio and evening cable television.

And the Right will continue to cry “no fair” as it continues to devalue the arts, smear artists as anti-American, and attack artistic institutions as communist.

May 20, 2009 - 12:43 pm 64. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Let’s start by adding a laugh track to Fox News.”

You didn’t get my point. Much of the population doesn’t watch news programs of any sort. And Fox News is only “conservative” by comparison to NBC and CNN.

May 20, 2009 - 12:53 pm 65. G Alston:

#62 — For about the last three years Hastert has been replaced by the worst speaker in House history, one Nancy Pelosi, proudly from Frisco.

You misread. Republican leadership can’t be trusted; they have proved to be incompetent. It doesn’t follow that Pelosi et al are to be trusted — or even viewed as sane, for that matter.

In fact, he implies that the answer is to replace the incompetent republicans with competent ones. This isn’t an endorsement of the left; it’s a call for putting in candidates who can stomp them.

May 20, 2009 - 12:55 pm 66. stuggo:

The problem in a nutshell is that for forty years we have allowed the so called mainstream (liberal) media to decide what is considered mainstream in America. There is little left that has not been mainstreamed by the media. As far as I am concerned, mainstream has become just another word for liberal or progressive.

I am not the least bit religious, and not very political, but it is so obvious to me what is going on in this country. A secular progressive agenda is being shoved down our throat from the time we get up until we go to bed.

Until we put up a fight, they will be relentless.

May 20, 2009 - 12:56 pm 67. Clayton E. Cramer:

“we forfeited the battle by alienating every conceivable segment of the voting population: first the gays and women who live and die by the abortion issue.”

Let’s see, even if we lost all the gays (which I know isn’t the case), that’s what, all of 3% of the population? And a majority of which were already voting Democrat? Even on the abortion issue, this is far less of a loss than you think. Single women do tend to vote for Democrats because of abortion rights–but married women aren’t much different from men in their opposition to abortion. Remember that 51% of Americans now describe themselves as “pro-life” and a staggering 75% of Americans support restrictions on abortion.

Yes, Hastaert and many other Congressional Republicans started acting like Democrats, and this played a major part in our failure. John McCain was sort of a Democrat Lite, and this hurt.

The major players in the economic disaster, however, were Democrats, who started the subprime mortgage lending disaster, and vigorously resisted half-hearted Republican attempts to rein it in during 2003 and 2005.

May 20, 2009 - 12:59 pm 68. Clayton E. Cramer:

“As long as it continues to view the arts and artists as suspect and anti-American,”

I’m not sure which Right you are talking about. It isn’t one that I recognize. There are certainly particular “artists” who are suspect, anti-American, or both, but there’s no general animosity to art or entertainment by conservatives.

May 20, 2009 - 1:02 pm 69. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Republican leadership can’t be trusted; they have proved to be incompetent.”

Sad to say, your statement is only slightly exaggerated. Way too many national Republican leaders were “compassionate conservatives” like Bush, trying to make friends with the Democrats, by supporting Teddy Kennedy’s No Child Left Behind (instead of pointing out the reason that some children were being left behind is a cultural problem), and this absurd prescription drug program.

May 20, 2009 - 1:04 pm 70. Ms. Attitude:

Pastor of Muppets:

I normally don’t agree with you on anything but wait, sit down, I kinda agree with you on this.

You do realize that there are those of us on the right that don’t agree with any religion being sanctioned by the government.

There’s more to conservatism than christianity. You do realize that.

May 20, 2009 - 1:08 pm 71. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Yes, yes, the democrats were at fault too–seriously at fault–but they weren’t in control when it all broke;”

Sorry to disappoint you, but the Democrats were in control of BOTH houses of Congress when it broke. I’m not going to say that the collapse happened for that reason. But it appears that you are as knowledgeable as the 54% of Obama voters who didn’t know that the Democrats controlled both houses in 2008.

May 20, 2009 - 1:09 pm 72. G Alston:

#69 — (instead of pointing out the reason that some children were being left behind is a cultural problem)

I too view it as absurd but because it’s a mathematics problem: by definition, half of us are below average. Fixing education will require the very un-PC step of admitting that many kids are better off in trade school rather than college.

#67 — Let’s see, even if we lost all the gays (which I know isn’t the case), that’s what, all of 3% of the population?

And as long as we’re slogging math… the problem isn’t the gay votes, but the loss of votes due to image. The republicans are largely viewed as anti-science and letting religious views impede progress. This is but one facet. You as much as said this in your screed regarding media. Now, do you think you can fix the media problem you wrote about by handing your opponent the ammo, the gun, and pointing it at your own feet? Or is the better strategy one that denies the ammunition? You decide.

May 20, 2009 - 1:21 pm 73. Clayton E. Cramer:

“And as long as we’re slogging math… the problem isn’t the gay votes, but the loss of votes due to image. The republicans are largely viewed as anti-science and letting religious views impede progress.”

Oddly enough, Republicans aren’t anti-science. Democrats chose to call them that. But that doesn’t make it true.

Of course, Democrats wave the Christianity banner to justify the welfare state. They are correct; and even most Republicans agree that because this is a Christian commonwealth, there is an obligation to help those in need who are unable to help themselves.

Most of the argument between conservatives and liberals isn’t about whether the government should help the poor: it is an argument about which strategies work. The welfare reform of 1995 was driven by a recognition that the well intentioned Great Society was creating a culture of dependency that was destructive.

May 20, 2009 - 1:29 pm 74. Anonymous:

“73. Clayton E. Cramer:

Most of the argument between conservatives and liberals isn’t about whether the government should help the poor: it is an argument about which strategies work.”

Tell that to Glenn Beck. I seem to recall in one of his latest books Glenn Beck explicitly argues that poor people lazy. (It’s even in the marketing materials.)

May 20, 2009 - 1:47 pm 75. G Alston:

#73 — Oddly enough, Republicans aren’t anti-science. Democrats chose to call them that. But that doesn’t make it true.

Well… duh. In fact it’s the republicans who are keeping NASA alive and ultimately responsible for most of the technological wonders that have defined our age. We are in violent agreement.

And yet, the image persists. The point is that the left is able to paint republicans as anti-science almost exclusively via imagery derived from social issues: it’s not leftists who petition schools for overturning evolution. It’s not the left who claims being gay is a “lifestyle choice” in the face of evidence that choice isn’t a part of it. It’s not leftists who refuse to allow 13 years olds to get cancer treatments. It’s not the leftists who are trying to stymie stem cell research. I could continue — the list doesn’t seem to end — but I think that by now you get the point: the left uses these things as their anti-science portrayal.

My position is, has been, and continues to be that the GOP at the national level ought to drop social issues. By doing this the left has no ammunition. The worst they can do at that point is paint republicans as pro-business. Win win.

May 20, 2009 - 1:49 pm 76. ding:

No, No, No! It’s true. Conservatives aren’t winning because they’re not entertaining. It has nothing to do with being off message or that they’ve lost their way. Conservatives can’t make the funny, they get made fun of, that much is true, but they are incapable of putting on a show. Well, Reagan could but he was the exception. And he knew the business!

Nope. If you think that the U.S. population is anything other than a mob crying out for bread and the circus, you are sadly mistaken. You give the American people too much credit.

There once was a time when this was not true but alas, no more. Look, in order for the right to win, it must put on a show that rivals the one the left produces. Which means it’ll have to be mean-spirited, irreverent, heavy on the sex and drugs, violent, salacious; so on and so forth. You know, the stuff folks have grown accustomed to. The stuff we let our kids watch.

And it’s not just restricted to the liberal entertainment industry, lefty poles are entertaining in and of themselves. Look at VP Bunker/Joe fer instance. You can’t tell me that he was picked for VP for anything other than his entertainment value. “There goes Joe again, ha-ha.” What a moron, but hey, it works.

Look, publishers don’t look for books that slowly develop into masterpieces anymore. Get to the action right away or you don’t get published. It’s called The Coarsening of the American Arts people! And the left glories in it. So sit back, eat your free cheese (remember free cheese?) and enjoy the show. But don’t expect anything from the right. It would be so Lawrence Welk. Even Reagan couldn’t draw a crowd nowadays.

May 20, 2009 - 1:51 pm 77. Pastor of Muppets:

70. Ms. Attitude: “I normally don’t agree with you on anything but wait, sit down, I kinda agree with you on this.

You do realize that there are those of us on the right that don’t agree with any religion being sanctioned by the government.

There’s more to conservatism than christianity. You do realize that.”

I sincerely appreciate your willingness to consider my viewpoint.

And I do understand that there is much more to conservatism that just religion. In fact, I think it is the conservative ideals of freedom, personal repsonsiblity and hard work – the Reagan values – are winning values, and will always be the values that the GOP will ride to victory on. And I think that those ideals are totally in line with the ideals of the artists, intellectuals and creative entrepreneur types, so there really is no reason why the GOP shouldn’t be making gains in the culture war. But the hard-line religious stuff is why it is losing, and until the GOP realizes this, and goes back to being the inclusive “big tent” party that it used to be, its going to keep losing out.

May 20, 2009 - 1:55 pm 78. shaui-jan:

POM.”and the Right will continue to cry “no fair” as it continues to devalue the arts, smear artists as anti-American, and attack artistic institutions as communist”

you had me up until that point.they are attacked as communists because they spout communist views and admire other infamous murdering,tyranical anti-american communists openly….what are we supposd to do…….take it as one big joke?it would hilarious if it was one.

g alston.”I too view it as absurd but because it’s a mathematics problem: by definition, half of us are below average. Fixing education will require the very un-PC step of admitting that many kids are better off in trade school rather than college.”

you should be ashamed of yourself……….

May 20, 2009 - 1:57 pm 79. Whitey:

“My position is, has been, and continues to be that the GOP at the national level ought to drop social issues. By doing this the left has no ammunition. The worst they can do at that point is paint republicans as pro-business. Win win.”

The country was lead by a pro-business republicans for the previous 8 years and look at where our economy is now. Lose-lose I say.

May 20, 2009 - 2:00 pm 80. ding:

Oh and I just gotta add . . . #74. If you’re going to quote Beck, quote him. Don’t “seem to recall” ok? I’d like to see it. And in the correct context of course.

May 20, 2009 - 2:00 pm 81. Oscar Wao:

I think you’re all missing the point. The reason its so easy to make fun of conservatives is because they spend most of their time catering to the laziest, stupidest Americans. These are the people it is easiest to lure with circular axioms and appeals to gut rage–see teabagging. Certainly Democrats are also fun to mock; but they are unfortunately not as big a target for reasonably intelligent people as Republicans.

The problem is that the base for Democrats tends to be more tolerant and urban based–they have a much wider experience and viewpoint. Fart jokes aren’t likely to work on them unless those jokes are presented in a new way. To a cloistered member of the Republican base, even a dog pooing on a rose bush is a cause for hilarity.

Don’t blame me, I didn’t pick your base. Republicans got stuck with the dumbest people on earth when they made the choice in the seventies to actively court the most racist and hate-filled Americans. What was once a life-line of populism for a discredited pro-business party is an anchor straight to the bottom of the marginalized reactionary sea.

May 20, 2009 - 2:13 pm 82. Clayton E. Cramer:

“I seem to recall in one of his latest books Glenn Beck explicitly argues that poor people lazy.”

Harsh truth: many poor people are poor for exactly that reason. That’s part of why I said “in need.” There are a lot of poor people that are in need. And there are plenty who need to go hungry for a few days to get over their laziness (or more commonly, their substance abuse problem).

“it’s not leftists who petition schools for overturning evolution.”

Must have missed that one. If you seriously think that the suit in Dover, Delaware schools was about that, you better work on your reading skills.

“It’s not the left who claims being gay is a “lifestyle choice” in the face of evidence that choice isn’t a part of it.”

Must have missed that one also. It’s quite clear to me that homosexuality isn’t a choice, so much as a symptom. There’s a strong correlation between childhood sexual abuse and adult homosexuality. But the MSM is a bit too tied into false analogies to report that.

“It’s not leftists who refuse to allow 13 years olds to get cancer treatments.”

I definitely missed that one. Where?

“It’s not the leftists who are trying to stymie stem cell research.”

Again, you aren’t doing much reading. The opposition was to federal funding of embryonic stem cell research (which has turned out, so far, to be actually inferior in results to adult stem cell research outcomes).

May 20, 2009 - 2:15 pm 83. Clayton E. Cramer:

“The reason its so easy to make fun of conservatives is because they spend most of their time catering to the laziest, stupidest Americans.”

How is it that “laziest, stupidest Americans” are the ones that you cater to by cutting marginal income tax rates?

May 20, 2009 - 2:20 pm 84. Clayton E. Cramer:

“The problem is that the base for Democrats tends to be more tolerant and urban based–they have a much wider experience and viewpoint.”

Yes, we saw that tolerance when Prop. 8 passed in California.

Sorry, but I lived for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area. They aren’t any more tolerant; they’re just intolerant of different things.

May 20, 2009 - 2:22 pm 85. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Republicans got stuck with the dumbest people on earth when they made the choice in the seventies to actively court the most racist and hate-filled Americans.”

If you mean the social conservatives, they weren’t actively courted by Republicans. They were basically driven out of their traditional home: the Democratic Party.

And when it comes to racism and hate, I’m not seeing much difference between parties. There’s little overt racism left (except against white people).

May 20, 2009 - 2:26 pm 86. ding:

Aw #81!

You hit the nail on the head with that mock, mean-spirited attack on the right. Let’s see; you have your sex reference with the teabagging thing, funny. You work in fart jokes; very coarse, sir! Well done! And dog poop, wow. That’s lefty humor all right.

And the way you lump tens of millions of people into one narrow confine so that they may better receive that rapier-like wit. Dude, awesome display of the “ridicule your enemy till he bleeds” technique. Well done, sir!

May 20, 2009 - 2:34 pm 87. shaui-jan:

74.anon.”Tell that to Glenn Beck. I seem to recall in one of his latest books Glenn Beck explicitly argues that poor people lazy. (It’s even in the marketing materials.”

alot of people who are poor are lazy…and drug addicted.i have spent years helping them,poverty isn’t something you catch from a toilet seat.
i try and assist the ones now who are the mentally and physically disabled.my resources are very finite,i refuse to expend them on people who are unwilling to help themselves.

May 20, 2009 - 2:34 pm 88. SteveB/Colorado:

#70 Ms. Attitude “there’s more to conservatism than christianity.”

#75 G. Alston “my position is, has been, and continues to be that the GOP at the national level ought to drop social issues.”

I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately, our party got hijacked years ago by the “bedroom police” of the religious right. The mantra of Dobson, the Falwell family, Robertson, Bauer, etc. is that gay marriage & abortion are the most important issues of our time. Remember how Jerry Falwell assessed the blame for 9/11? Even if the economy goes down the gutter, we’ll still be safe from the “homosexual agenda.” What a load of crap.

May 20, 2009 - 2:36 pm 89. Blackwell:

#62: Fred: Of course I know that, and I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. Sorry for being careless. But its a fact-many voters now carry an indelible impression that the GOP had to be forcibly evicted in 2006, to restore some semblance of adult government. The memory lingers, as the new poll showing only 21% see themselves as repubs shows.

The GOP also controlled the white house in 2007 and were most visibly “in control” when new york banks were laying people off in droves, while paying their execs bonuses and Hank Paulsen was breathing into a paper bag and insisting that he needed $700 billion just to keep banks from going under tomorrow. When it broke in 2007, the GOP was in charge. And nothing the congress could have done would have stopped the meltdown: true it’s traceable back for decades, but like a hangover, it’s the last 12 drinks that are really hurting now. Eevryone knows it.

The GOP also “looks like” the responsible party. As the party in control for 12 years or so, they were the last ones holding that potato. They can’t tenably inist that 2007’s meltdown is “Carter’s fault.” They can’t show off one GOP man that tried consistently to do somehting about it. The GOP had no one –no one–who can stand up and say “I opposed this all along.” (No, McCain’s episodic comments on the issue in 2005 don’t get there–esp since he has that 1987 Lincoln Savings problem around his neck). That’s where the GOP really fell down. They had no one that had resisted out of control spending and corruption as Churchill had pushed for rearmament. They had gleefully scooped up credit for Freddie and Fannie too.

So, like the Dad that used to be a sober if boring and responsible man, the GOP got drunk, went to Vegas, blew the mortgage money on tarts, tatoos and more booze, skipped school meetings, partied with lobbyists, did inside deals, and swaggered back for the election, swigging from a Cristal bottle while we are evicted fro the hosue, and sneering that voters had no where else to go. Now Dad tells me its all someone else’s fault: Someone that bought the first drink or suggested the vegas trip?

Clayton (#71) I cannot see the benefit in fecklessly dismissing gay voters, women worried over abortion and countless others alienated or scared away by an image that scares and repels beyond those immediately effected. And for what did we sacrifice those votes? Remember how close 2000 was?

The GOP needs to get out of D.C., into the “hinterlands” where real people live. It ahs to shed the idea that wisdom and benefit come from Washington. There are lots of issues it could exploit if it understood them and believed in its role. How about proposing that the US Congress shed its health benefit plan and join the unwashed in the US health system? That colleges have citizen oversight boards with 25% elected representatives with veto power over new departmnts and tenure? That tenure be restricted to those hitting the 20 year mark? State employees have no cost of living increases in deficit years and it cannot be made up later? That police departments be held accountable for no knock raids that are objectively unreasonable? What about allowing generic drug purchasing abroad for health plans?

The GOP could meld a victory by being for things that reasonable people of all stripes are for.
The GOP has to be for something again. Because much as I detest Pelosi, I am not convinced that the GOP has anyone better. And coming from me, that’s sad.

May 20, 2009 - 2:40 pm 90. shaui-jan:

81.oscar.are you being ironic…..or are just trying extra hard to be ignorant?

both parties have some real pieces’ of work to be sure…but that is a given.

May 20, 2009 - 2:44 pm 91. Oscar Wao:

“And the way you lump tens of millions of people into one narrow confine so that they may better receive that rapier-like wit. Dude, awesome display of the “ridicule your enemy till he bleeds” technique. Well done, sir!”

10 responses to my post in 15 minutes? You’re absolutely right. I wouldn’t complain too loudly, people like me are probably the best thing that could happen to this never-was shite site.

My apologies to those in the Republican party who don’t consider themselves out and out idiotic racists–at a certain point, you let your party be taken over by complete douche bags.

May 20, 2009 - 2:51 pm 92. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Unfortunately, our party got hijacked years ago by the “bedroom police” of the religious right. The mantra of Dobson, the Falwell family, Robertson, Bauer, etc. is that gay marriage & abortion are the most important issues of our time.”

Huh? You are greatly mistaken. The Religious Right didn’t push for anything except maintaining the status quo. There was a group that hijacked a political party over those issues, but it wasn’t the Religious Right, and it wasn’t the Republican Party.

If you can find anyone on the Religious Right who called “gay marriage” the most important issue of our time, I would be startled. It isn’t. What does matter is that the courts have an obligation to not just make stuff up, as they did in the Goodridge decision.

Now, abortion doesn’t make me riproaring upset like some. But remember that 75% of Americans support restrictions on abortion. How is that a game changer for us to take the minority position?

May 20, 2009 - 2:52 pm 93. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Clayton (#71) I cannot see the benefit in fecklessly dismissing gay voters, women worried over abortion and countless others alienated or scared away by an image that scares and repels beyond those immediately effected. And for what did we sacrifice those votes? Remember how close 2000 was?”

Even if every gay voter voted Democrat because Republicans generally oppose gay marriage, how much of a difference would that make? Remember that:

1. Homosexuals and bisexuals make up about 3% of the population.

2. A fair number of those aren’t particularly interested in gay marriage, or even consider it all that important.

3. Homosexuals are heavily concentrated in urban areas where Republicans don’t generally elect people, anyway. (NOPR survey a few years back found that homosexuals and bisexuals drop below 1% outside of urban centers.)

Even on the abortion issue, only 23% of Americans support unlimited abortion rights. And again, how many of those are going to vote Republican? There isn’t even a majority of single women that support the Democratic Party’s position of unlimited abortion rights, and many of those who do aren’t going to vote Republican anyway.

What we could be doing a better job of is selling our cause to a population that is strongly pro-life and anti-gay marriage: blacks.

May 20, 2009 - 2:58 pm 94. Oscar Wao:

“I totally agree with this. I firmly believe one of the major reasons the Republicans lost the last election was because of the skits on Saturday Night Live on Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin was (and still is) a bright, energetic, and popular sitting governor of a major state. Yet Saturday Night Live, a place where (strangely enough) many young voters get their political news, portrayed the governor as a bimbo and an idiot. And guess what? The reputation stuck. True, some of her subsequent news interviews didn’t help her case, but they certainly didn’t make her out to be an idiot. And she was and is a lot smarter than Joe Biden, that ignorant hack from the mighty state of Delaware (certainly no comparison in size to Alaska). So the left certainly uses comedy programs as a political weapon against the right and with great success. The problem is, with Hollywood so skewed to the left (both in acting and in producing), it will be hard to get funding for anything that seems even remotely conservative. Pity, because there is so much to laugh at on the left. For example, there’s always Joe Biden. Need I say anything more?”

Thanks. Who said the right wing doesn’t have a sense of humor? In any case, I don’t doubt that Palin is as at least as smart, or smarter than Biden or any other name you care to throw in her direction. The problem for her image is that she had to appeal to the Republican base–a whole mob of idiot, racists, anti-feminist idiots! Trying to morph her image into somethng that didn’t threaten the hillbilly base, while still looking capable of running the US—of course she looked like a risible clown. As recent history shows, that’s too big a hill for anyone to climb.

Just imagine, this smart, capable woman has to share a stage with a troglodyte like Joe the Plumber and pretend that there was even an isthmus of intellectual aggreement or capacity between them, or the base. Ha. It still makes me laugh. Thanks.

May 20, 2009 - 2:58 pm 95. Clayton E. Cramer:

“My apologies to those in the Republican party who don’t consider themselves out and out idiotic racists–at a certain point, you let your party be taken over by complete douche bags.”

Can you give some examples of racists in prominent positions in the Republican Party? I’m sure that you can find one or two. How many former Grand Dragons of the KKK does the Republican Party have? (The Democrats have one.)

May 20, 2009 - 3:02 pm 96. G Alston:

#82 — Again, you aren’t doing much reading.

But wasn’t this the point of the article?

[He shoots. He scores. The crowd goes wild.]

May 20, 2009 - 3:05 pm 97. Clayton E. Cramer:

“There are lots of issues it could exploit if it understood them and believed in its role.”

I completely agree. Enforcing immigration laws (including against employers who knowingly hire illegals) is one of them. But the national leadership is simply too committed to being Democrat Lites to pursue a policy that enjoys widespread support, not just from Republicans, but ordinary Democrats as well.

May 20, 2009 - 3:05 pm 98. stuggo:

Michael Steele’s job is easy. The Democrat party has become so anti-christian, anti-traditionalist and anti-white that all he needs to do is get the message out to whites, and also minority groups (Be divisive like the Dems, if necessary, because it apparantly has worked for the Dems with class warfare and race pimping) regarding religion and traditional values. Most blacks and hispanics are more religious than whites, and are probably unaware of the anti-religion stance from the Democrats hard-left base. The Daily kos/moveon.org/George Soros wing of the Democrat party are a pack of socialist/communist/atheist, and would have little support among most Americans.You can sense the hostility towards religion from the left-wing posters on this blog daily, as a good example of their intolerance of religion.. I would not have said this about the Democrats 5 years ago, but the party has changed so dramatically in such a short period of time, it is hardly recognizable. JFK or Truman would not be welcome in todays Democrat party.

May 20, 2009 - 3:13 pm 99. Chauncey Gardiner:

How about a movie about the Democrats and their deeply rooted racist past, their radical socialist agenda and their hypocrisy and make it a musical comedy for the dumb-dumbs who need to be entertained in order to actually learn a valuable message.

\”Spring time for Obama and Hillary.\”
Short version edited by Reality and Parody.

Opening scene would be Black and Hispanic welfare recipient rappers singing \”swing low\” as they walk through their impoverished, drug infested slums while Niggardly Nancy throws crumbs from her limousine window as if it is confetti sent straight from heaven.

Bill Clinton walks in exhaling some pot smoke and then proceeds play \”what the meaning of is is\” on his sax as Monica Lewinsky accompanies Slick Willie singing their other big hit, \”The stained blue dress blues\” while some horny Iranians run in stroking their nukes while screaming their \”ha-la-la-la\” bloodcurdling Jihadi style wolf calls.

Enter, center stage, the Obama Administration tax dodging tap dancers doing their own version of \”stomp\” on the Constitution as the curry reeking, halitosis mouthed Saudi King enters from the left and Obama automatically steps into the \”Big Bow Boogie\” and then proceeds to give the King a pedicure with his tongue.

A bus of voter fraud ACORN devotees show up on the scene playing \”hope-n-change\” in combat boots and brown uniforms.

Suddenly John edwards skates in on thin ice wearing a pink tutu while holding his new baby mama in his arms as Elizabeth Edwards chases after him with a rolling pin and her latest book in hardback.

Finally, Hillary waltzes in like she owns the place in one of her dowdy pant-suits screaming at Bill in one of her hot flash rages \”to leave that woman, Monica Lewinsky alone!\” as her face contorts into such a face of rage that Bill tucks tail and runs from the stage.

But, it is Osama Bin Laden who steals the last scene when he enters with his unbathed body and long, scraggly beard, followed by a loyal harmem of Burkha Beauties fanning him which causes the Iranians to become so overcome with awe and excitement that one of them accidentally launches one of their nukes.

Kaboom!

End scene

May 20, 2009 - 3:36 pm 100. Oscar Wao:

“How many former Grand Dragons of the KKK does the Republican Party have? ”

If this is your standard for racism, you’ll find that you’re in the clear. Good thinking on behalf of your party to not do that kind of thing. And also to elect an African American chair just as the first African American man makes it to the oval office. Just a coincidence I bet. Talk about affirmative action. Sheesh

May 20, 2009 - 3:40 pm 101. Bilgeman:

#91 Oscar Wao:
“My apologies to those in the Republican party who don’t consider themselves out and out idiotic racists–at a certain point, you let your party be taken over by complete douche bags.”

No apologies needed, chum.

It’s rather obvious that you really have no more cogent an argument than to call people who don’t shout YOUR approved Party Slogans as dumb, lazy and stupid racist douchebags.

I’ve heard all this before…it’s the way losers like you used to yammer about the NRA’s “radical agenda” back in the early and mid 1990’s.

And yet today, much of the NRA’s agenda from that period has been realized and become law…right on up to the Supreme Court, while Clinton’s “Gun Control” legacy consists of…nothing.

And I see absolutely no reason why future history won’t likewise repeat itself.
All you “right-thinking people” ALWAYS over-reach.

“I wouldn’t complain too loudly, people like me are probably the best thing that could happen to this never-was shite site.”

Yes, I suspect you’re quite right…the other collectivist liberal turds floating around in this bowl were getting a little stale and watery.

Talk smack while you can, little man, because one day sooner than you think, your words will turn to ashes in your mouth.

Oh…look at the clock! It’s QUESTION TIME!

1) What is Obama’s policy on Gay Marriage?

2) Will or will Congress NOT pass the bill authorizing licensed concealed weapons carry in national parks? (Hint: It’s amended to the Credit Card Reform Bill…).

3) Will Obama sign the bill when they pass it?

4) PATRIOT Act…repealed yet? (that’s a “Yes” or “No” question).

5) Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility….still open?

6) Conflict in Iraq…American troops still deployed there?

May 20, 2009 - 3:43 pm 102. Oscar Wao:

Chauncey:

Most Democrats know that the Democrats of the past were the party of Southern racists. What most Republicans don’t know is that they inherited all those Southern Democrat racists in the seventies.

And are you really stupid enough to try to draw attention to that by using this loaded racist imagery?

“Enter, center stage, the Obama Administration tax dodging tap dancers doing their own version of \”stomp\” on the Constitution as the curry reeking, halitosis mouthed Saudi King enters from the left and Obama automatically steps into the \”Big Bow Boogie\” and then proceeds to give the King a pedicure with his tongue.”

You are an aptly named poster.

May 20, 2009 - 3:48 pm 103. Clayton E. Cramer:

“I would not have said this about the Democrats 5 years ago, but the party has changed so dramatically in such a short period of time, it is hardly recognizable. JFK or Truman would not be welcome in todays Democrat party.”

That’s not just the Democrats. In 1970, if you had suggested that Republicans would be arguing about whether to support men marrying men, and women marrying women, even the most liberal Democrats would have said, “What?” Even in 1980 that would have been considered so strange as to be satire.

May 20, 2009 - 3:51 pm 104. ding:

Oscar. . . you’ve lost me, son. I will not descend into donkey comedyland with you. But really, why the utter disdain for people you must live and work with?

Your scatological references and your dismissive attitude are sophomoric to say the least; but that’s the way with the majority of American humor isn’t it? I don’t blame you. You’re just a product of your environment, don’t you see? But it’s this kind of stuff that keeps your mind shut. The fact that you’re here, however, in the belly of the beast as it were, indicates that there may yet be hope for you.

So, all the replies you get? Well that’s what BLOGS are for, right? In my case, I just want to better understand, you know, engage in dialogue, maybe even learn something. You would restore some of the faith I’ve lost in mankind if you would acknowledge your own desire to learn as well. Or do you just want to spank the monkey?

May 20, 2009 - 3:54 pm 105. Oscar Wao:

Bilgeman

You assume I am not anti-gun. On the contrary, stupid Republicans like you are always accidentally killing each other because guns they can’t handle are placed in their hands without any consideration on the effects to society. Generally, you end up killing your children which is doing a great job of diminishing the number of stupid people in America. I say, the more the merrier. Keep killing each other, works for me.

May 20, 2009 - 3:55 pm 106. Clayton E. Cramer:

“If this is your standard for racism, you’ll find that you’re in the clear.”

So you don’t actually have any examples to point to, I take it?

May 20, 2009 - 3:59 pm 107. Bilgeman:

#102 Oscar Wao:
“Most Democrats know that the Democrats of the past were the party of Southern racists.”

Ahhh. there’s that nuanced, in-depth thinking the Left is rightly so famous for.

If you say the word: “racist” to them, they think the word: “Southern”.

If you say the word: “Southern”, they think the word “racist”.

Wonderful programming these little progressive monkeys have, eh?

Now if we could just re-wire them to stop their thinking that they’re so much smarter than everyone else and to stop flinging poo-poo when they get shown that they’re not all that and a bag of chips…

May 20, 2009 - 4:11 pm 108. David S:

@103. Clayton E. Cramer:

In 1970, if you had suggested that Republicans would be arguing about whether to support men marrying men, and women marrying women, even the most liberal Democrats would have said, “What?” Even in 1980 that would have been considered so strange as to be satire.

There is little doubt that folks in 2050 will be likewise astounded that marriage was so recently restricted to heterosexuals. The generation under 40 years of age has a much different perspective on the world from the 60+ crowd that fills the GOP ranks. Social issues are a big fat loser for the GOP.

There is no way to consistently win elections when you denigrate the rights of large portions of the citizenry. Women are voters, and gays are voters, and more to the point – everyone knows someone who fits at least one of those descriptions. The days of the bigot are numbered.

Peace.

DS

May 20, 2009 - 4:16 pm 109. Chauncey Gardiner:

Oscar W

Racist? The halitosis or Obama giving that Saudi scum a foot bath? What? No credit for leaving out the gays and the abortionists?

Liberal racists did not move en masse into the Conservatives. You still have plenty of your own racists including Obama, Michelle, Ayers and plenty of anti-semites too. How many black schools, black magazines, black channels, black scholarships black affirmative action programs vs. white? If you do not believe there is racism as well as reverse racism still very much alive in the left, then you, sir, are wildly delusional.

What has welfare done for black men and women and black families? Kept them down? Yes.

Well, I really should have included the gays though since so many of them do love musicals.

May 20, 2009 - 4:18 pm 110. Meryl:

81.Wao

Re Democrats: “Fart jokes aren’t likely to work on them unless those jokes are presented in a new way. To a cloistered member of the Republican base, even a dog pooing on a rose bush is a cause for hilarity.”

Obviously, you lost track of what you were saying.

1. It was obama who gave his female opponent the finger, publicly, in the democrat primaries (counting on his audience to “get it”).
2. It was obama who did the crude “shoulder brush off” rap thing to discredit his opponents’ arguments (assuming his audience understood him).
3. It obama who perfected the left-leg-dragging swagger walk (understood by those in the ghetto) but supposedly obscure to typical whites in his audience.
4.It was democrat cheerleaders who recently introduced us to some of the crude practices of homosexuals, as they applied their comments to those who attended the tax protest rallies on April 15.

Fart jokes and dogs pooing on bushes are home base for the democrats.

By “cloistered member of the Republican base” I presume you are referring to those who do not routinely use profanity, bathroom/bodily function/sexual innuendo and crude/rude body language to communicate in public; therefore, they do not instinctively see the applications when those who have no shame use such things publicly and repeatedly…and think they are funny and clever in so doing.

May 20, 2009 - 4:24 pm 111. stuggo:

Laughable….The mainsteam( left-wing ) media has written off the GOP as dead, and a newly released Gallop poll reveals just the opposite. Respondents calling themselve republican has risen 6 points, whereas those calling themselve Dems has fallen 4 points. Independents are now at a equal split between pubs and dems, which is a substantial change from last months poll.

Obama is popular, whereas his policies remain unpopular.

Sorry leftist,but things are not as rosey as you, and the lapdogs in the so called mainstream media picture them to be for the future collectivist state that you both so much desire.

May 20, 2009 - 4:27 pm 112. BC:

“Obama voters were considerably more ignorant…”?!?

Gawd…I live by Cambridge. A good many of 20somethings in this area who voted for Obama probably know more about US & World politics and issues than a stadium full of Republicans. Idiotic statements about Obama voters being somehow ignorant only makes the conservatives and Republicans making them look like whiny and stupid sore losers.

Also being “conservative” by definition pretty much implies at the least a certain lack of creativity and critical thinking skills, which is kinda what you need to be a entertaining and insightful social commentator/comedian like a Stewart. On the conservative/libertarian side, there is Dennis Miller and Drew Care, but….you know? (Also — as a general rule, using Photoshop to make dumb, childish pictures and animations of people to make fun of them is a sorry exercise at humor — it doesn’t exactly work so please — you know who you are — stop.)

May 20, 2009 - 4:51 pm 113. Bilgeman:

#105 Oscar Wao:
“Generally, you end up killing your children which is doing a great job of diminishing the number of stupid people in America. I say, the more the merrier. Keep killing each other, works for me.”

What a good little monkey you are! Look at how well you puke back up the discredited old public flatulence from the mid-90’s Brady Campaign/Handgun Control Inc. indoctrination.

We use to call these the “Big Bag o’ Bogus Facts With Which To Impress Your Fellow Lefty Idiots With At Cocktail Parties”.

Apparently all you had to do was memorize them and them repeat them with the proper air of world-weary insouicance, and then all the other monkeys would start chattering about how “together” you had it.

Problem is…it’s bullsh!t. Hasn’t happened. Not even close.

You want to try answering my simple six-question quiz above, monkey-boy, or is it too long for you?

May 20, 2009 - 5:18 pm 114. ding:

#108

I share your hope; I have friends as you say, but not your convictions and predictions. Acceptance of gays is strongest among the white population which is dwindling. Immigration will increase from more conservative societies over the next forty years. What happens in this stew is anybody’s guess.

We also have American Religious History to contend with. A quick study shows an ebb and flow in religiosity. The flows are mostly during hard times I’m guessing. You simply cannot ignore the power of religion in America.

Forty years is a long time but people of faiths you don’t buy into will still be with us. Call ‘em bigots, call ‘em whatever. Anyway, the world ends in 2012, so kick it while the sun’s still shining I say.

May 20, 2009 - 5:33 pm 115. Dr. Frank Lippenheimer:

The Right already IS more entertaining. Mark Levine is hilarious, and FAR more entertaining than Jon Stewart, whom, let’s face it, is yesterday. The same goes for Laura Ingraham, who is far more of a joy to listen to than Keith Olberman. And then there is Hugh Hewitt. Now tell me, would you rather listen to Hugh’s banter, or Chris Matthews? I mean seriously. Now it is true that there is no conservative equivalent to SNL, but that is largely because the “ABC” networks would rather lose audience share than allow an alternative politically comedic voice on the air.

In short, the presumption here is empty.

May 20, 2009 - 5:47 pm 116. Dr. Frank Lippenheimer:

As for the header:

“Conservatives need to target the majority of Americans who are sick of politics and want to escape”

This is a Liberal attempt to divert. Most conservatives whom I know are hopping mad about the direction our nation is being taken. They do not want to escape. They want to win. But UNFORTUNATELY the MSM and the Republican Establishment gave us John McCain to take on the Boy Wonder.

This is no laughing matter. We want CHANGE. Change that the Obamabots have NO CLUE about.

May 20, 2009 - 5:51 pm 117. Chauncey Gardiner:

Oscar W regarding post number 105.

Shall we play?

Generally, you lefties end up killing your children with abortions, aids from the druggies and gays and doing a great job of diminishing the number of stupid, lazy, perverted people in America sucking off her teat. I say, the more the merrier. Keep killing each other, works for me too. Too bad Conservatives are not racist enough to support abortion which would really be in our best interest and save on the tax burden by having to support more leeches.

May 20, 2009 - 5:52 pm 118. AThinkingPerson:

Finally someone pointed out the interesting news about the rising GOP numbers (#111 stuggo)!!

Thank you, thank you for bringing up that fact as we watch our liberal friends try and tell us why we should give a damn about what Hollywood thinks. Hollywood and the MSM brought us TeleBama. ‘nough said.

May 20, 2009 - 6:00 pm 119. Blackwell:

“What we could be doing a better job of is selling our cause to a population that is strongly pro-life and anti-gay marriage: blacks.”

Well, yeah. Or we could dump religious efforts to abridge the lives of others, and stop letting those issues define the GOP. Retire the bed-room police with a big pension. Avoid divisive social issues premised on religious beliefs (like abortion and gay marriage), and take(gasp) principled positions on crucial issues that congress ought to be handling.

The GOP has to decide if abridging rights in the name of religion is going to define its contribution to the united states going forward.

May 20, 2009 - 6:12 pm 120. Just passing Through:

david S.
“But the latest polls actually show increasing identification with the Democratic party among independents. So there is no problem at all. Perhaps you forgot to cite something I missed?”

Um, here’s the assignment again. You get an F for the first attempt. I’ll give you a chance to correct it and pass it in late. Look at polls that compare current numbers with those from late last year (as my post said clearly). Citing polls comparing 2001 and 2009 is either disingenuous, obtuse, stupid, or evidence of denial.

And no, I won’t cite. You search it. You have a belittled reputation for making absurd statements based on cherry picking polls, completely misunderstanding their import based on the type and format of the questions, or out right lying about them. Perhaps it’s time you overcame that reputation by defending your nonsense as personal spin rather than supported by evidence.

May 20, 2009 - 6:14 pm 121. Bilgeman:

#108 David S.:
“There is little doubt that folks in 2050 will be likewise astounded that marriage was so recently restricted to heterosexuals.”

Dave old sport, are you ready to have your “i Have A Dream”-type thing smacked down in two words?

Ready?

Here it comes…

“Allah Akbar!”

Sorry, Dave.
The pod bay door is staying locked.

May 20, 2009 - 6:16 pm 122. LennyB:

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a liberal concede a point in my entire life. It’s like searching for Atlantis or something. But I do want to respond to a few random comments on this thread, if you’ll all permit me.

@ 14 Sheesh: “Republicans have plenty of money. They got no style or sense of humor or imagination, but they got plenty of money.”

Like you I also don’t know where to begin, but I know where to end: “They got”, do they? Your contrived deployment of incorrect grammar does not confer upon you any self-aggrandizing liberal cool nor make you belong to a social class that is not yours to choose. Membership in a social class is never a choice, that’s what makes it a class and that’s what confers the “cool”. As to your point, I’m a Republican, I’m not wealthy, but I do, in my own humble opinion, have style, humor, and imagination. You, however, appear to buy into and perpetuate stereotypes, not sure your chosen interest groups appreciate stereotypes generally speaking. But you’re doing Alinsky proud buddy! Keep on keeping on.

@ 55 David S: I don’t always disagree with your comments. But I’ve read many and I just have to ask: “A necessary war does not require the fabrication of evidence.” Name me one war that you would have made a decision to engage in. Just one. I’ve always read you as a collectivist/environmentalist/socialist/pacifist. Here the pacifist is relevant, because if you are, it’s disingenuous to discuss the concept of a “necessary war”. Maybe I’ve got you all wrong!

Alston: My man. “I too view it as absurd but because it’s a mathematics problem: by definition, half of us are below average.” I have seen you cop an attitude about data and math and presume you believe you reside comfortably on one side of the proverbial Bell curve. But since you brought up math, I must correct that you mean (pun intended) the median, rather than the arithmetic mean that most laymen associate with the term “average”. And still, you may even mean one less than “half of us”, depending of course on whether there is an even number of people and who if anyone might exactly be “average”. I bring this up because I don’t believe many of us should pontificate on the academic qualifications of others, specifically, or en masse. After all, someone smarter than you who has your own apparent narcissistic intellectual bias might actually think that your incorrect use of “average” and “half of us” means you yourself should go to trade school, but don’t worry — the condescending way in which you distinguished “college” and “trade school” is unfounded, and there are many many people at trade school that are a fair amount smarter than many many people at college. Please tell me you have not had the same experience, if you have actually known anyone who went to trade school (where numbers and precision of language are often just as important, sometimes more so, than college).

But I’m nit-picking really, because I frequently agree with your points on this blog. Except, I have to disagree with you on this one. I think it’s a bit naive to pronounce that social dogma should be abandoned by Repubs in order to achieve victory and influence and appeal. I share your disdain for it, don’t get me wrong — but the fact is, the Repubs need social conservatives or they don’t win, this bloc is simply not going anywhere and conservatives are simply not going to splinter enough moderates from that single-issue knee-jerk consortium that is the democrat voting public. If Repubs punt social conservatives, they lose, and that is the sad irony that provokes a guy like me more often than not to support candidates like Huckabee et al. I much prefer Newt truth be told, but what can I say, I’ve matured. Anyway, sorry to ramble, but I think instead you should be prescribing a course of action designed to successfully turn out the religious right in a way that is least offensive to independents. If people are anti-religion or pro-environment, anti-baby, whatever their single issue is, they simply will never vote republican. They are not tolerant of other people’s views. But I hear you on all points, I’ve long thought that the party needs to tone down the religious dogma. And tone it down is what they need to do, not abandon it. And I secretly hope that when W picked a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage as a religious right issue, he knew full well that was never going to happen, but he advocated it to get the critical amount of base out. Shrewd, and the right course of action I think.

May 20, 2009 - 6:21 pm 123. ding:

#112

Wow. You live in Cambridge. Cool. Do you ever get out? Have you been overseas? Been to the Middle East? What do you think of that drool English sense of humor? Or Middle Eastern humor? (I’d like to know about Middle Eastern humor myself) But there it is again, this disparaging of half the U.S. population.

Do you even try to understand the American right? As much as you would, say an Asian living in an even more conservative society? Would you treat a conservative Asian or Muslim with respect to his face and then turn on him after you’ve achieved anonymity? As you must do in your daily life in this divided country. Or would you use what I’m guessing is a fine Cambridge Point Of View and delve deeper?

May 20, 2009 - 6:32 pm 124. ding:

#117

You’re just playing, right?

May 20, 2009 - 6:35 pm 125. shaui-jan:

oscar#105. “Generally, you end up killing your children which is doing a great job of diminishing the number of stupid people in America. I say, the more the merrier. Keep killing each other, works for me.”

it took you quite awhile to work your self from up from being just a mild annoyance….to true scumbaggery.you still haven’t added anthing of value to the conversation….which makes you at the moment less than worthless.
i sure you were well aware..of your worthlessness before you typed that statement.you just felt the need to spread some of your self loathing around.take it somewhere elese….it’s not our fault you turned out the way you did.

May 20, 2009 - 7:27 pm 126. BC:

To Ding: I live *by* Cambridge — about 5 Frisbie throws away, or about .05 gallons of gas if driving a Prius, or about 16 Republicans if their IQ’s were added together and converted to feet.

As far as traveling goes, though, between me and a few friends, we have England, France, Brazil, Russia, Italy, and Bulgaria covered in just the past year, with Israel, Vietnam and Mississippi (which is foreign enough to be considered another country) to be covered in the next month.

Where have you and your friends been lately?

May 20, 2009 - 7:58 pm 127. cackcon:

On the plus side, conservatives have always had a better sense of humor than their uptight Lefty counterparts, who take themselves and their causes far too seriously. And your point is well taken in this column.

The down side of most “reform conservatism” espoused by the likes of Ramesh Ponnuru, et al., is that the more we’re willing to do as Lefties do, the more we become what Lefties are. (If Star Wars taught us anything, it’s that good loses when it defeats evil with evil.)

Now can some Republicans or other right-leaning subgroups capitalize on tweaking things a bit or “modernizing” their views? Yes, but to be conservative is to be comfortable changing nothing even if the world around you crumbles, for it is often when we shortcut the process to reach our goals that we discover we soon have no ground upon which to stand. “You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.”

May 20, 2009 - 8:53 pm 128. Oscar Wao:

Thanks all. You’re all just so funny. The worse things get for your party the more funny it is and how you try to blame everything on liberals and Democrats. As if I said I was either, you idiots! Keep it up though. Its not really enough that your failing, I want to see you all blame everyone else for it as you go down. That’s like extra fudge on my sundae.

May 20, 2009 - 9:15 pm 129. Chauncey Gardiner:

ding, post 124

Am I playing? But, of course, made or sir!

I do find irony in the Lefty arguments about racism when the majority of abortions involve the Blacks, Hispanics and Lower Classes for which they supposedly stand. As repugnant as I find abortion no matter what race is involved, I do find it odd that when Conservatives are anti abortion they are considered religious nuts and racists even though it is the Left who are more than happy to administer abortions to their own constituency. You would think the left would be more than glad to be anti abortion so that they are guaranteed more perpetual people sucking off the government tit and voting Democrat. Odd? Enslaving impoverished people of all colors by keeping them on the welfare chain gang to nowhere is another Liberal, racist scam.

Maybe my facetious slap-back at Oscar W was a bit too trite but I enjoyed it immensely regardless.

Irony and truth are a double edged sword.

May 20, 2009 - 9:44 pm 130. Edward A:

Please don’t say Republicans have no sense of humor. “We’re losing the battle because we aren’t persuading the 70% of Americans who do not read.” The GOP selected a candidate who claims she doesn’t read the newspaper either and answers to intelligent questions were hilarious. Come on, she can wink…isn’t that enough?? Listen to some conservatives today and you will hear the Republican party is one big joke.

May 20, 2009 - 9:57 pm 131. G Alston:

#122 — But since you brought up math, I must correct that you mean (pun intended) the median, rather than the arithmetic mean that most laymen associate with the term “average”.

In a real bell curve average and median are identical.

…the condescending way in which you distinguished “college” and “trade school” is unfounded…

Anything un-PC like this will strike some that way. College is intended to teach you how to learn what you don’t know, to be able to innovate and so on. Not everyone can do this, no matter what you want to believe. Trade school is intended to teach a skill. These are not the same things, yet each is an equally necessary and valuable part of society. Part of the problem is that we are taught to view stockbrokers in suits as more valuable than plumbers. This is wrong. Certainly the events of the past few months have demonstrated clearly that is anything the reverse is true.

I think it’s a bit naive to pronounce that social dogma should be abandoned by Repubs in order to achieve victory and influence and appeal.

Social issues are divisive and THE big hammer the left wields (effectively) to the GOP’s detriment. Social issues ought to be remanded to the states. Everyone’s favourite example is of course prop 8. Here we have a state where you can barely get a republican elected as dogcatcher yet has a population that seems to share the social viewpoint. Having the GOP drop social planks would not dilute what social conservatives desire at all; it would have the opposite effect. ALL voters would be able to have their say in a social issue regardless of their opinion of economics or national security.

Don’t think of my solution as a loss of voters, but as a gain of 50 million erstwhile democrat votes. As we have it now, we give people the dumb choice. I don’t want to have to buy XM radio and the sunroof and power windows package to get air conditioning. Neither does anyone else. The US car companies couldn’t figure this out either, and look where they are.

May 20, 2009 - 10:39 pm 132. TheMightyMonarch:

LennyB:

Sheesh’s brush is about as broad as Dolly Parton’s bust. As massive as Obama’s budgets. As wide as Rosie O’Donnell’s ass. And the amount of paint it spreads in a single stroke would cover the entire Pacific Fleet in a thick coat of commie red.

May 20, 2009 - 10:46 pm 133. Nunya:

True conservative principles don’t need to be dumbed down for an American Idol electorate.

All they need is a more attractive package, and once “Present Hussein” and his Democratic Government trifecta finishes destroying everything this country was founded on, gets done them

May 21, 2009 - 12:54 am 134. JL:

This article is nonsense. Like in war, you win by allowing yourself to do so.

You embrace methods that help you.
You abolish methods that doesn’t.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. It depends on the situation and you adapt to the conditions.

McCain lost, because he had principles that was more dear to him than winning. He was up against an opponent, who didn’t have that inhibition.

There really are no moral considerations in a campaign.

When in power, principles and integrity are the most important things to consider. Because, what you do, affects real people.

During a campaign, all bets are of. You win by any means available. It’s all words and posturing anyway. You destroy your opponent completely and leave nothing but the smouldering ashes.

It’s more about the attitude than the techniques themselves.

May 21, 2009 - 2:08 am 135. Jack Marino:

Clayton,

I have been screaming what you wrote here, way back in the 1980s when I was making films in that gladiatorial arena called the American Film Market. That is where I made my bones as they say in the world of independent filmmakers, who would cut your throat for a 50k deal to make a piece of crap film that would go out there and make 500k. That is after 4 to 5 distributors stole what they could. Some of these filmmakers never saw a dime and I ran with hundreds of these filmmakers in a ten year period. i am one of a handful that survived those years. Most of the guys, i knew were all conservatives.

I knew a lot of people that were Libs and liberals have NO TALENT, the make crap. The problem is they OWN the system. Just like the mafia in New York. Go there and try to set up a construction company and see who your silent partners are. Hollywood is no different.

I made a film back in 1988, it took me two years to complete. I raise all my own funding in the private sector. i refuse to live in the Hollywood bubble and deal with the mob that turns you into a leftist in order for you to work and eat. They have no talent, they wouldn’t know how to make a great entertaining film if it hit them in the head. They can’t even make remakes from classic films. Isn’t that a huge RED FLAG for everyone to see out there. The problem is everyone including conservatives all go to the well of Hollywood to drink the life force that puts food on their table. Liberals are like zombies the mainline the juice that Hollywood is selling. The conservatives that work in this mob run town, don’t resist, they can’t they have no other place to go to so they take the abuse and eventually no matter how much conservatives try to get along with the no talent mad dogs, they end up getting blackballed or they lose more opportunities on major A films. So the take it….. and take it year in and year out.

Then there is my story, I made film called FORGOTTEN HEROES. It is the only film on Vietnam, since John Wayne’s Green Beret in 1969 to Mel’s We Were Soldiers Once in 2002. That is 32 years of Hollywood spitting on every Vietnam vet in film, along with those wonderful tolerant hippie maggot broads spitting on our troops from 68 to 73 in airports, bus terminals and on the street. This was the typical class act that liberal mad dogs exhibit in their natural state. As a filmmaker, I went against this 32 years of hard work by the leftist in Hollywood and I dared to show our Vietnam vets as real heros. Who ever knew, the weren’t heroes but only baby killers and rapist! FORGOTTEN HEROES is the only Vietnam Film besides the Duke’s Green Berets without any F-BOMBS which is the main ingredient if one wants to be a true method actor.

So here I am a first time director, i was 35 with lots of ideas to make films that people want to see, be entertained and make money so I can make more films. The fact that I got all the studios, mini-majors and all independents to screen my 35 mm print not once but over 350 screening in two and a half years. All the major studios saw the film between 5 to 10 times. How many unknown independent filmmakers can get a major studio to pay for screenings up to ten times. I delivered a final composite answer print, no interlock for this guy.

Guess what happen, I discovered that I lived in the Land of the Intolerant, and work in the Valley of Rejection. They loved my work, I was wine, dine, meeting up the ying yang, but in the end they treated me as if I was a North Korean. That didn’t stop me at all. I made promos, trailers, art work, I even flooded Warners with a flyer that I photoshop my poster on their walls of the studio and sent over 300 to everyone that works on the lot. The legal department was all over me and I had fun with them. My name was all over this town, i knew they wouldn’t pay me for my film, so why kiss their asses.

I even wrote my own contact and would give it to all these big time suits and tell them, if you don’t pay advances for my film, then you work for me and you sign my deal. I was told by one attorney from Orion, that the only one who had the balls to submit his contract was Sinatra, I told him, ‘Frank and I are both Sicilian’ I ended up walking out of that deal, which ended up being a ponzi scam, the ripped of a friend of mine’’s film for millions, he sued, put them out of business and I got the blame. They told him they ‘were going to take my film and run me out of the business” , sorry fellas, I’m still here and I have my film. I have had three distributors try to steal my negative. If my film was so bad, and I couldn’t sell it, why would they go through the trouble of getting me to sign a deal only to steal the negative. Why do I deserve this generosity?

I made an entertaining and powerful film. I ended up suing a distributor ,I did sign with in 93 and he tied me up for three years. I won and put the bum out of business. That was in 1996 for the next ten years, I was chasing money to distribute my own film directly to the public. By 2006, after President Bush got in and he lowered taxes and guess what? BINGO, there was all this money out there for me to raise and promote my ‘too old film’ that is what i got from both the liberals and the conservatives. Too old for who? The moment you see it, it’s new and fresh, hell its a period piece.

Hollywood people are clueless, they expect to see my little film, that cost what Speilberg spends on craft services to look like Joe Levine’s A Bridge Too Far. Now, if I or anyone had the talent to pull that off, and I haven’t seen any Oscar winner do that yet, I would to the the Bank of America and open a line of credit, who the hell would deal with Hollywood if I made that kind of film.

So, now I am distributing my own film FORGOTTEN HEROES, I am doing what Mel Gibson did with the Passion but on a teeny weeny level and I am making money. You want to know why? I said this in 1988 when I made the film, if I can get this film in front of the average American, who knows more about films then the idiots we give Oscars too, then I have the potential to break free of this legalize gangsterism that Hollywood distribution has become.

My website is http://www.forgottenheroesthemovie.com you can go there and buy the DVD. I am donating 25% of all Gross income to the American Disabled for Life Memorial Fund. This is one of Mr. Gary Sinise’s charities and this Memorial is long over due. I am selling this myself, I am the filmmaker/distributor. I have come full circle from the AFM days and I don’t have to pay those rocket scientist a tribute either. Since March of 08 and all through this nutty election I have survived, this is all I do. I am a warriorfilmmaker that delivers films under the worst conditions. I do want to point, out that FORGOTTEN HEROES is my third film I have produced and my first I directed. My first two films are in profit. My first film returned 180% to my investors and the second film had one investor and he got 200% return. I always make money for my investors and I will protect them to the end.

Since Jan 09, I have done over 55 radio shows all over the country. My sales are up, the people who are buying my film, are all conservatives, pro veterans, pro troop, people that love America and want to see a small little indie film that doesn’t insult them but honors them and all of our vietnam vets. You give the public what it wants and they will buy it. My film is proof that this it true. Every DVD I sell is a victory for the conservative side. I intend to work my way up to Rush Limbaugh’s show, Sean Hannity’s show every conservative talk radio and I intend to be a bone in the throat to Hollywood.

When the 8.3 million Vietnam era Veterans hear of FORGOTTEN HEROES my film will take off like a California brush fire in Oct. Then the fun will begin for me. You see, as a filmmaker with conservative values and a love for the old films that set the standard, I intend to make a producing/distributing company that makes films for Americans and the world to fall in love with America. I will make films for Nixon’s Silent Majority, for Rush Limbaugh’s audience. I will create films bigger and better then FORGOTTEN HEROES and I will preach to the choir out there. I will do for films what Rush has done for radio. I can do this, because I did it at the AFM on a small scale. I have collected people with conservative ideals, I have access to equipment, vendors that need a steady source of rentals.

Now, I need BIG funding and I have raise funding in the past, why not in the future? All I have to do is hit a nerve out there and my name and film are considered a hit and I then can set up an IPO to raise millions to make films. You see if those wonderful intolerant folks in Hollywood won’t allow us conservatives to play in their sandbox, well then we make our own sandbox and the company rule is NO LIBERAL NEED APPY. You see I have the right to say this because I am half Irish from Boston, we had to deal with those signs then too.

We conservatives are very talented and we have a huge audience that will embrace us and reward our hard earned efforts as long as we entertain them and don’t piss on them as the liberal malcontents have done in film for 35 years. We are all fed up and we’re going to change the rules of this tired old game.

You have a photo of John Stewart who isn’t funny at all. I know a couple of Irish kids I went to college with that would blow his ass out of TV forever, There is a guy out here in Hollywood that needs to be on TV and he would KILL these unfunny bitter, pissed off liberal so called comedians. He is our own conservative EVAN SAYET, I have seen Evan and he can tuck any of these bums you know where. You think these leftist bums have the guts to give Evans a show like John Stewart so he can go off on Obama? What are these leftist afraid of? They can dish out all the vile attacks at conservatives and President Bush, they can’t put out a little nothing of a war film like Forgotten Heroes? They won’t give a veteran comedian like Evan a shot at a prime time slot, are we that much of a threat? There are a lot of conservatives out there with more talent then all the lib losers combine. We just don’t have access to the resources that the malcontents do. The times are changing because just from all the radio shows I do, the reviews and testimonials i received this is the left’s last hurrah. I am going to be part of this push and every DVD I sell, Von Ryan, ‘its a victory’

One more thing, I got my FORGOTTEN HEROES DVD into the Oval Office in July of 08 and President Bush saw my film and sent me a letter about my film and my son, who was in Iraq at the time. Its up on my site.

JACK MARINO
Warriorfilmmaker

http://www.forgottenheroesthemovie.com
http://www.myspace.com/forgottenheroesthemovie
http://www.warriorfilmmakers.com/marinofilm
Mr.EPluribus’ interview with Jack Marino
http://74.53.202.114/mr_e/mr_e_report_10_640_550_24.wmv

May 21, 2009 - 4:21 am 136. ding:

#126

I’ve been around the world twice and once over top for democracy. My last overseas trip was a language refresher in Nerja, Spain on the Costa del Sol.

The lack of an honest reply to my question was sadly, to be expected, thanks.

May 21, 2009 - 6:10 am 137. sheesh:

122 LennyB . . . That was the most boring, overwrought and ponderous post I’ve read here since . . . yesterday. Style? Humor? Imagination? Point to it, my man.

May 21, 2009 - 6:43 am 138. Fred Beloit:

#119 Blackwell
Most, if not all of your comments, my dear friend, indicate that you have a frog in your underware, e.g.: “Well, yeah. Or we could dump religious efforts to abridge the lives of others, and stop letting those issues define the GOP.”

What’s that? By “we” you mean we Republicans? Oh pull the other one, my distinguished friend. You are no more a Republican than, Arianna Muffington or Kostas Menolikus. Every single one of the points you make are Muffpost talking points.

May 21, 2009 - 7:55 am 139. Fred Beloit:

Sheets, you still here? I have just one word for you to consider…truancy.

From thefreedictionary.com
“hook·y (hk)
n. Informal
Absence without leave; truancy: play hooky from school.”

May 21, 2009 - 7:59 am 140. Meryl:

BC: “Idiotic statements about Obama voters being somehow ignorant only makes the conservatives and Republicans making them look like whiny and stupid sore losers”

and then…in your next post, this: “As far as traveling goes….Israel, Vietnam and Mississippi (which is foreign enough to be considered another country) to be covered in the next month.”

Sounds you’re an arrogant and stupid sore winner.

Since you think that Mississippi is “foreign enough to be considered another country”, I have a couple of suggestions for you: 1) Please don’t ever come to Minnesota to visit. 2) Please consider sparing Mississippi the burden of your presence.

All of your travel hasn’t done much for your character.

May 21, 2009 - 7:59 am 141. Oscar Wao:

You’re all still going on about this stupid shit? Are you guys the ones writing the party platform these days? No ideas, let’s just figure out how to slam the other side in a way that doesn’t make us look like idiots. Well, sorry, you’re not getting anywhere on that front either.

May 21, 2009 - 8:10 am 142. Middleman:

Some of the best comedy out there is completely anti-PC and some of the most liberal people I know are the biggest sticks-in-the-mud when it comes to humour and happiness.
However, when I bring the words ‘entertainment’ and ‘conservative’ together I immediately think of Branson Missouri, Jeff Foxworthy, and Larry the Cable Guy. Quite frankly, I’d rather be waterboarded.

May 21, 2009 - 9:04 am 143. Clayton E. Cramer:

“There is no way to consistently win elections when you denigrate the rights of large portions of the citizenry. Women are voters, and gays are voters, and more to the point – everyone knows someone who fits at least one of those descriptions.”

1. Which rights are you talking about? Rights that do not appear in the Constitution, and which have to be made up as we go along?

2. Oddly enough, large numbers of women oppose abortion on demand–a majority, even.

3. Let’s see, there’s 3% of the population that is gay, of which a significant fraction vote Republican anyway, suggesting that gay marriage isn’t that big an issue to every homosexual. And there is at least 25% of the population that regards homosexuality as a bad thing–and certainly not something that the government should recognize through SSM. So how is behaving like Democrats going to help us win elections? We MIGHT get another 1% of the population to vote for us because they are gay, and are now prepared to vote Republican. And have another 5-10% of the population who will say, “Why bother working to elect Republicans that don’t share my values?”

Are the social issues the most important problems we’re confronting right now? No, of course not. But pretending that embracing homosexuality and abortion is to going to be a winning ticket for the Republican Party is delusional.

May 21, 2009 - 9:08 am 144. G Alston:

#141 Oscar — No ideas, let’s just figure out how to slam the other side in a way that doesn’t make us look like idiots.

This isn’t limited to the right. The left is still trying to remake western society as per the first earth day promises nearly 40 years back. The enviro-scare messages are more strident these days only because they’ve managed to glom onto valid science as their weapon of choice.

I wonder about the people pushing battery (green) cars. To do electric cars that real people can afford, you need motors, and to do motors you need good permanent magnets. The only ones that work well enough and are affordable are neodynium and cobalt.

So the left is screaming about peak oil, having a war for oil, and sending money overseas to regimes that don’t like us because it proves the meddlesome US is interfering in world affairs. Bad old US. Raping the planet for resources. Typical of the other side — the republicans — whom we all know are anti-scientific, amoral morons.

Well… to make electric cars in sufficient quantity to have any effect, we need magnet materials. We don’t have them. Most cobalt is in Bolivia (don’t like us) or Africa (genocidal maniacs who don’t like anyone) and 95% of the world neodynium supply is in China. i.e. “regimes that don’t like us very much.” (The more things change, why…)

Whoops. Back to square one.

This is but a minor example of the left’s well considered “new” ideas.

Do you *really* think you have what it takes to try me? Go for broke. Bring it.

May 21, 2009 - 9:13 am 145. G Alston:

#143 — Are the social issues the most important problems we’re confronting right now? No, of course not.

You’re dissembling. Nobody has made that claim. However, you have been told repeatedly that the APPEARANCE of being backwards or otherwise overly concentrated on social issues gives the impression that the GOP is poorly focused.

When the nightly news shows 3 mins of the Obama campaign talking about jobs and then (in perfect equal time) 3 mins of anti-gay marriage protests by nutbars solemnly identified as “conservative republicans” what do you presume the overall impression of the viewer is going to be?

Can you PLEASE think this through and quit yammering about your perception of what *is* vs the general perceptions being painted? Geez, you started off strongly re media but you need to work on your follow-through.

May 21, 2009 - 9:21 am 146. Blackwell:

138: “What’s that? By “we” you mean we Republicans? Oh pull the other one, my distinguished friend. You are no more a Republican than, Arianna Muffington or Kostas Menolikus. Every single one of the points you make are Muffpost talking points.”

That’s true if the GOP is defined as social issues over those more crucial to the country as a whole. I appreciate, by the way, your very decently toned post that does not accuse me of having a Che or Ayres photo on my wall. I can’t leave the GOP entirely, even if their conventions are more fun, since I don’t agree with the Kos or Ms. Huffington. So move over,because I am not leaving (although I might if Senator Craig from Utah nudges my foot).

Idolizing losing GOP candidates that block stem cell research while victorious opponents preside over an out of control budget, schools infested with unionized “you pretend to pay me so I pretend to work,” teachers and Pelosiites wanting to release abuse photos for “transparency” -while refusing to audit ACORN-seems stubbornly self-defeating.
Surely you can’t want the free spenders, high taxers, etc to win just to avoid voting for someone like me? I’d leave those social issues out of politics and focus on secular issues–like that budget. If the catholic church had listened to erasmus, they might have prevented the big fracture, but noooooo, they had to fight over nonsense while the big picture was lost. We should be doing that.

And you need people like me for the GOP: Conservative mores tend to come from an economically stable society, which requires conservative office-holders, not adventuresome “what stupid old policy will we change today?” legislators.

When the economy is stable people save, invest, build, plan for the future. When the economy is controlled by social spenders (since their stodgy religious opponents scared everyone and lost), the dollar erodes, saving is penalized and people go nuts. They spend. They focus only on today to the exclusion of the future. People start speculating in commodities instead of building a business. Rather than elect the stodgy religious nut, people opt for the one that seems to have the best grasp on what matters to them. Ask anyone who lived through the mid 60’s.

Let’s be the party of good government principles and freedom, not polls, policy wonks born yesterday or religious mores that divide people that ought to agree.

May 21, 2009 - 9:22 am 147. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Social issues are divisive and THE big hammer the left wields (effectively) to the GOP’s detriment. Social issues ought to be remanded to the states. Everyone’s favourite example is of course prop 8. Here we have a state where you can barely get a republican elected as dogcatcher yet has a population that seems to share the social viewpoint.”

So, because EVEN IN CALIFORNIA the population is largely in alignment with the social conservatives, we need to abandon them? That makes LOTS of sense.

What might make more sense is to emphasize those social conservative values that are broadly shared. There is widespread opposition to abortion on demand; emphasizing that abortion needs to be rare (which many Democrats claim is what they want), and that we can discourage it being done as backup birth control, while still allowing it for many of the tragic cases that cause a majority to oppose complete bans, is a winning strategy.

Emphasizing that what people do in private is none of the government’s business–but also, that doesn’t mean that the government has to condone what you do in private–is also a winning strategy.

May 21, 2009 - 9:26 am 148. Glenn:

I’m taking a screenwriting course at UCLA. It’s lead by an old-school producer, and the left-wing bias comes through in about 80-percent of whatever he says. Each student is developing a premise for a feature film. My premise is a dark comedy involving the FBI, the CIA, and a rogue Al Qaeda cell. It takes place mainly in the USA. I was describing a scene where an Islamic Jihadist tortures my protagonist, an American civilian. The instructor said, “No, you can’t do that, the audience will lose all sympathy for your protagonist.” I was baffled until I figured out that he believed I was writing a scene where the AMERICAN tortured the Jihadist. That was the ONLY way it would fit his “template.” It seemed like he could not imagine anything else. He also assumed that the Al Qaeda plot HAD TO turn out to be a CIA trick, and the so-called terrorists HAD TO turn out to be innocent. Again, he literally could not imagine anything else. He was trying to squeeze my story into his PC multiculti mold of “the enemy is us.” In the end, he told me that the idea of my opposition character (the bad guy) actually wanting to KILL the protagonist “would never happen.” He said it was completely implausible, no one would ever believe it, and it ruined the story. In short, I COULD NOT ever, ever write about a swarthy Al Qaeda dude trying to kill a Caucasian American, because such things not only did not happen in real life, but they were so absurd that people would walk out of the theater in disgust. He also said it was “boring.” I asked him to imagine this story: You’re in Mississippi. An outspoken black journalist becomes engaged to a white woman. The local Klan leaders contract with a couple of skinheads to murder the black journalist, which they do – painfully. The writing instructor found NOTHING incredulous with that idea. He found it quite believable and interesting. “Why don’t you develop that premise instead?” he asked.
By the way, another student pitched the following premise: An Iraq war veteran suffering from Post Truamatic Stress Disorder goes on a rampage when he learns that the government will not treat him for free. He gets a gun and takes over a hospital, threatening to kill his innocent hostages unless the government establishes universal health care for all. The instructor loved that idea, and the only problem he could see was the resemblance to “John Q” – but besides that, he thought it was a terrific concept.

May 21, 2009 - 9:43 am 149. G Alston:

#147 — So, because EVEN IN CALIFORNIA the population is largely in alignment with the social conservatives, we need to abandon them? That makes LOTS of sense.

Who says anyone is abandoning anything?

Let’s review a thing or two. Conservatism is a movement. Its purpose is to teach and persuade. The GOP is a political party. Its job is to get elected. The strategy for each differs because the goals differ.

By remanding culture war issues to the states, the movement strategy is to teach/persuade and let the voting population have their say directly. There is no political party affiliation to consider. That’s not abandonment by any stretch. That’s maximising potential by acknowledging that movements and parties are different things.

Of course, you could continue to conflate these things and watch the GOP do nationally what it’s done in the northeast and on the west coast. My preference is to instead have a viable political party. I don’t know what yours is.

May 21, 2009 - 9:53 am 150. Blackwell:

147:

Mr. Cramer: Its very civil of you to chat with us.

On California: the GOP got control of the legislature in 1994, and true to the heart of many, made a bill banning gay marriage its first order of business. It’s not been in control of the legislature since. So much for that issue.

Blacks may have voted against gay marriage on a proposition (and aided by the smugness of SF’s mayor Newsome and fears of having gay teachers indocrinate school kids), but they vote democratic, even though everyone knows that the dems favor gay marriage.

The issue is a loser for the GOP which ought to drop it. More to the point, parading gay marriage as an “issue” is irresponsible: the GOP ought to act responsibly and focus on critical issues–not whether two consenting adults living together in west Hollywood or SF are going to get a marriage license and leave property to each other. I’d vote for all gay legislators tomorrow if they’d balance the budget and lay off some state employees. The state would be better for it too.

May 21, 2009 - 9:58 am 151. Fred Beloit:

#146
“So move over,because I am not leaving (although I might if Senator Craig from Utah nudges my foot).”

Now you see right there, my most honorable friend, no Republican would write that. A Republican would be more likely to write, “I might not do X if Congressperson Barny Frank’s houseboy phones me up to see if I want a date with a male prostitute.”

May 21, 2009 - 10:01 am 152. Fred Beloit:

#149 “Let’s review a thing or two. Conservatism is a movement. Its purpose is to teach and persuade. The GOP is a political party. Its job is to get elected. The strategy for each differs because the goals differ.”

Let’s REreview, shall we? Conservatism is a movement. Its purpose is to teach, persuade, and get conservative Republicans elected. There now, isn’t that closer to the truth? Isn’t what this blog, comments, and discussion are all about?

May 21, 2009 - 10:07 am 153. Pastor of Muppets:

shaui-jan: “alot of people who are poor are lazy…and drug addicted.i have spent years helping them,poverty isn’t something you catch from a toilet seat.
i try and assist the ones now who are the mentally and physically disabled.my resources are very finite,i refuse to expend them on people who are unwilling to help themselves.”

1. Glenn Beck is a self-admitted media rodeo clown. Anyone who actually takes someone like that seriously does so at his/her own peril. I admire Beck’s ability to be successful at what he does, but frankly, to get up everyday and pick a new smear for the president does not take a whole lot of skill. To use Beck as a credible sourse for anything is a huge mistake.

2. Yes, there are poor people who are lazy, but:
A)Get a long-term, life threatening disease, or watch a loved one get one, watch your insurance company deny your claims, and then see how long it takes before you suddenly become poor. Perhaps I should assume that your laziness got yourself and your family into this predicament?
B) Unfortunately for you, poor people vote, make up a very large constituency, and do not take kindly to being branded “lazy” by an entire political movement.

It is precisely this attitude that works to the detriment of the conservative movement. In your argument to convince people that working hard and being self-sufficient are admirable values, there is absolutely no need to paint everyone else as lazy losers. That’s exactly how you lose everyone else.

May 21, 2009 - 10:09 am 154. Bilgeman:

#148 Glenn:
“I’m taking a screenwriting course at UCLA. It’s lead by an old-school producer, and the left-wing bias comes through in about 80-percent of whatever he says.”

You don’t say…

BTW, did you check out the link at my #39?

Print those out and use them as a story theme, except make it from the other direction…the Right.

See if he likes it, and then show him the “Red Channels” material.

I betcha he’ll crap all over himself.

May 21, 2009 - 10:21 am 155. Fred Beloit:

#153 “Get a long-term, life threatening disease, or watch a loved one get one, watch your insurance company deny your claims, and then see how long it takes before you suddenly become poor.”

Oh joy. I am elated by the thought. When we finally have socialized medicine, we will no longer have poor people among us. But wait a second. We will still have denied claims, but it will be the government, at the behest of powerful lobbies, doing the denying.

May 21, 2009 - 10:26 am 156. G Alston:

#152 — There now, isn’t that closer to the truth?

What part of “two different things” did you miss?

May 21, 2009 - 10:28 am 157. Blackwell:

143 Clayton Cramer:
“Which rights are you talking about? Rights that do not appear in the Constitution, and which have to be made up as we go along?” No: “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. And equal protection. Those.

#151: That one too: let me add also, “if Perez Hilton sits down anywhere in a restaraunt I’m in.” Happy?

#152: Conservatives are pro-liberty based on history (and some religion), not dark-era advocates of using religion to control the lives of others. After all, isn’t the goal of religion –western ones anyway-to convert by preaching and good works, not to control the unwilling?

May 21, 2009 - 10:31 am 158. G Alston:

#150 — Mr. Cramer: Its very civil of you to chat with us.

Seconded.

Huzzah!

May 21, 2009 - 10:31 am 159. Glenn:

Thanks for the link, Bilgeman! Great stuff. The screenwriting instructor is a good guy, but my point is that he has been marinated in the leftist universe for so long he does not even notice it. I’m finding this is typical of many writers and other creative types here in LA. I’m a 49 conservative who moved into the belly of the Beast to infiltrate and become a screenwriter. I have seen MANY encouraging signs. I engage 20-somethings in political debate and after they are trashed, they admit good-naturedly that they have been exposed to only left-wing viewpoints and they really should broaden their perspective. And several of my fellow writing students have tld me that they like my ideas. A couple of them have come to my defense in class. The instructor (who is about 60) actually tried to tell us that there are already “too many” movies where Islamic Jihadists are “the bad guys!” We corrected him. I told him that millions of Americans were SICK of the “we are the real enemy” plot lines. He was unconvinced – but some of my fellow writing students understood the point very well. The entertainment industry is CRUCIAL if we are to take back our culture from the statists. Yes, there is reason to hope.

May 21, 2009 - 10:58 am 160. StevenSFV:

The Right also needs more smooth spokesmen.
I love Sean Hannity and Rush; I get my piece of raw meat from them daily!

But they are no use in converting “recovering” liberals. My wife is an attorney; she became a liberal in the seventies because of traditionalists trying to push her “back into the kitchen.”

Rush and Sean trigger bad memories, and she can’t get past the raw meat bombast to the content. Thomas Jefferson, they ain’t.

May 21, 2009 - 11:17 am 161. Anon Ymous:

Entertainment is part of the deal, absolutely, yes.

But conservatives have to duplicate the left’s “march through the institutions.” We must become teachers, professors, reporters, judges, etc.

It will be a long, long slog, and our enemies won’t be standing still while we do it, either.

May 21, 2009 - 11:17 am 162. Bilgeman:

#159 Glenn:
“The instructor (who is about 60) actually tried to tell us that there are already “too many” movies where Islamic Jihadists are “the bad guys!” We corrected him.”

Well, he MAY have a point there, if he’s talking about the Golan-Globus / Cannon Group films of the 1980’s…they were pretty nauseatingly bad.

And needless to say, poorly written.

But even a stopped clock can be right twice a day.

May 21, 2009 - 11:30 am 163. Middleman:

I actually found most of the Golan-Globus films to be pretty entertaining despite usually have really bad acting and plots.

Shows like South Park have shown you don’t have to be some PC far-lefty in order to provide good entertainment, however conservatives would have to do a complete re-think and dismantling of how they present themselves to the public in order to find broader appeal in the entertainment industry. Otherwise you’ll be outed and written off as charlatans right out of the gate.
Vincent Gallo’s a Republican, but most of his films would probably be written off as their satanic, appauling, or Eurocommie trash by your average Republican. However he’d probably do a lot better in winning hearts and minds than some stuffy codger or folksy good ole boy.

May 21, 2009 - 11:57 am 164. shaui-jan:

POM.”2. Yes, there are poor people who are lazy, but:
A)Get a long-term, life threatening disease, or watch a loved one get one, watch your insurance company deny your claims, and then see how long it takes before you suddenly become poor. Perhaps I should assume that your laziness got yourself and your family into this predicament?

perhaps you didn’t seem to understand me when i said”i try and assist the ones now who are the mentally and physically disabled.my resources are very finite”so let me clear it up for you a “long term life threatening disease” is a”PHYSICAL DISABILITY”.when i stated “finite resources”i was refering to MY money and time…..after working and paying taxes.

…again MOP.”Unfortunately for you, poor people vote, make up a very large constituency, and do not take kindly to being branded “lazy” by an entire political movement.”

why is “unfortunate” for me …i did no such thing.

you are disappointing me MOP…..your straw arguments are being knocked over by the slightest of breezes today.
FWIW…i don’t watch beck…i am a neil calvouto fan…way more my style.

May 21, 2009 - 12:06 pm 165. DUDICAL:

Well I believe that Mike Judge does a good job at advancing subtle conservative ideals through comedy. I mean King of the Hill is basically the greatest marketing campaign against the myth of the ignorant Texan and shows middle class average Americans as what they are people with real problems and emotions. I am boycotting Family Guy because it is such stupid entertainment with such a leftist agenda. As for Judge KOTH got canceled but his new show is called the GOODE FAMILY and it is about an uber-liberal family who can’t help but get into a mess by being so “good”. Check it out on ABC. Also Red Eye on FOX is should advertise to the “daily show” demo because it is perfect for them. It is so much wittier than colbert or the daily show and the other day they had Buzz from the Melvins a hardcore punk band. Brilliant.
My Diagnosis to Liberal suckage: Red Eye and more Mike Judge and some South Park for the Right Leaning Libertarians out there that can handle the vulgarity.

May 21, 2009 - 12:11 pm 166. shaui-jan:

POM.p.s how did you ever get the idea i was quoting glen beck….i was refering to my experiences in MY OWN community.it was crystal clear….i thought….”i have spent years helping them”….how is that statement in the least bit confusing?

May 21, 2009 - 12:28 pm 167. Oscar Wao:

“But even a stopped clock can be right twice a day.”

Looks like the clock beats you, two nil.

May 21, 2009 - 12:30 pm 168. DUDICAL:

Conservative ideals espoused by Reagan are actually closer to what 18 to twenty’s really believe in if they actually thought about it. Limited government, freedom of speech and the press, anti-political correctness, Gun rights, entrepreneurship. I am 19 and work in the art district of a metropolitan city and when I express my views without the label of conservative, people agree with me. We all hate paying taxs, we think that racism sucks and BET and anti-semitic islam is included in that, we dont like the government, we love free expression, we all deep down inside know that we would be safer with guns. But at the same time conservatism should not dumb it self down to appeal to the cool crowd I mean we all feel that when Christianity tries to be cool it is very contrived and would rather go to Latin Mass than listen to people rocking for Jesus. And as a Jew I think matisyahu sucks worse than the Bronx four.

May 21, 2009 - 12:32 pm 169. Oscar Wao:

“Most cobalt is in Bolivia (don’t like us) or Africa (genocidal maniacs who don’t like anyone) and 95% of the world neodynium supply is in China. i.e. “regimes that don’t like us very much.” (The more things change, why…)

Whoops. Back to square one.”

Well, you are anyway, you dolt. Are you aware that we get a significant amount of oil from Africa and Bolivia already?

Nope. I suppose it wouldn’t look right for a Republican to ever know what they’re talking about. Might make you seem uppity to your toothless hillbilly base!

Square one? You’ve probably been there your whole life. And I assume you like it just fine.

May 21, 2009 - 12:34 pm 170. Bilgeman:

Oh look!

Oscar the Red-Assed Monkey-boy is back!

Hiya Oscar!

What recycled thoughts and worn out Leftist slogans have you got to shout at us with today?

C’mon…we’ll give you a banana.

May 21, 2009 - 1:11 pm 171. Fred Beloit:

Wow, Mr. Wao is certainly a fine representative of the intelligence, sensitivity, and civility of the Left. Tell me, Mr. Wao, does ACORN pay you by the word or the insult?

May 21, 2009 - 1:16 pm 172. G Alston:

#169 — Well, you are anyway, you dolt. Are you aware that we get a significant amount of oil from Africa and Bolivia already?

I challenge you to bring it, and you respond by calling names. You lose.

I was hoping for something intelligent on your part. You failed. In that case I’ll simply pontificate in the form of a smaller essay for the edification of others.

***

Strategic foreign entanglements is the left’s criticsm of the current situation. e.g. The left claims the USA was wrong to be involved with Iran and that the ayatollahs etc were the direct result of the US being where it didn’t belong. The US is bad because of (right wing) business interests.

And so on.

The left’s green mantra results in precisely the same foreign entanglement situation as Iran, except that this time the raw resource to be exploited and countries to be raped would have different names.

Even you may grow to understand the irony here.

(Oh, and we buy oil from Nigerian coastal fields. Different culture than the corrupt genocidal rathole cobalt is found in. You can look up where.)

May 21, 2009 - 1:19 pm 173. G Alston:

#172 — ME

Oh, bugger! Got in a hurry and dropped a paragraph.

***

Compounding the irony is Obama & co. pitching their green nonsense as a homegrown effort. Energy independence is the big pitch. Anyone here care to explain how homegrown energy that relies on critical materials from foreign lands remains homegrown?

May 21, 2009 - 1:49 pm 174. shaui-jan:

171.fred beloit.” Tell me, Mr. Wao, does ACORN pay you by the word or the insult?”

this loser is too stupid to be employed in that manner.it is just some masochist,self hating troll.it even falls short by those standards.oscar you’re pathetic…you know it and we know it….so who are you trying to fool…the voices inside your head?go back to lurking,we’re used to a higher caliber of a@shole around here.

May 21, 2009 - 1:59 pm 175. Oscar Wao:

A particularly dumb response from a part of the curve known particularly for being dumb. Why are you asking me when the comment right above yours is from me? Are you illiterate? Beyond writing the stuff down, there’s not a lot else I can do for you.

May 21, 2009 - 2:40 pm 176. Clayton E. Cramer:

“By remanding culture war issues to the states, the movement strategy is to teach/persuade and let the voting population have their say directly.”

Oddly enough, that’s what conservatives say should be done: let the state legislatures and the voters decide these issues. Liberals insist that they shouldn’t be allowed to do so.

May 21, 2009 - 2:41 pm 177. Oscar Wao:

Please. Its common knowledge you people go home and cry yourselves to sleep at night. Oh, the liberals, they are so insulting to our morality dearest…At least in the past, you all pretended to be tough. I mean, everyone knew you were draft dodging sissies at heart. BUT AT LEAST YOU PRETENDED.

Your almost too pathetic to watch now. Oh, who am I kidding. I’ll be right back with popcorn.

May 21, 2009 - 2:42 pm 178. Oscar Wao:

(Oh, and we buy oil from Nigerian coastal fields. Different culture than the corrupt genocidal rathole cobalt is found in. You can look up where.)

You said Africa. And you said Africans. If you had wanted to exclude Nigeria, you should have done it to begin with. You may have some kind of racist hillbilly telepathy with the rest of your low-level cadre, but its not for me to parse your idiocy. Next time GOOGLE the shit before you right about it. You’ll look slightly less stupid.

May 21, 2009 - 2:45 pm 179. Clayton E. Cramer:

“On California: the GOP got control of the legislature in 1994, and true to the heart of many, made a bill banning gay marriage its first order of business. It’s not been in control of the legislature since. So much for that issue.”

So you are saying that introducing such a bill (which the voters passed first by statutory initiative, then through constitutional initiative with Prop. caused them to lose the next election? Care to explain how that works?

Look, what consenting adults do in private I don’t consider the government’s proper business. But insisting that the government recognize a “marriage” when most of the population disapproves of homosexuality isn’t properly the government’s business, either.

May 21, 2009 - 2:46 pm 180. Bilgeman:

#176 Clayton Cramer:
“Liberals insist that they shouldn’t be allowed to do so.”

Unless it’s a state supreme court or legislature that’s expanding the definition of marriage to encompass homosexuals, or granting “sanctuary” to illegal alien lawbreakers.

In that case, they’re all FOR it.

May 21, 2009 - 2:49 pm 181. Clayton E. Cramer:

““Which rights are you talking about? Rights that do not appear in the Constitution, and which have to be made up as we go along?” No: “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. And equal protection. Those.”

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, while fine goals, aren’t the same as SSM. And the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment was not intended to protect same sex marriage–especially since homosexual sex was a FELONY everywhere in America when the states ratified the 14th Amendment.

May 21, 2009 - 2:51 pm 182. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Conservatives are pro-liberty based on history (and some religion), not dark-era advocates of using religion to control the lives of others. After all, isn’t the goal of religion –western ones anyway-to convert by preaching and good works, not to control the unwilling?”

All of our laws impose moral codes. All of them. Now, I would agree that some laws may be hard to enforce, and I don’t support laws that tell consenting adults what they can do in private, because they are very hard to enforce, and don’t accomplish very much. But when you insist that the government must actively recognize a behavior that much of the population still finds somewhere between abhorrent and mildly improper, you are imposing your minority moral code on the rest of us.

With the single exception of tax status, there is nothing that same-sex marriage provides that can’t be handled by private contract. Homosexuals are intent on same-sex marriage as a way of getting the society to say, “You’re okay, there’s nothing wrong with what you are doing.” It’s not because it is so dreadfully necessary.

May 21, 2009 - 2:56 pm 183. Clayton E. Cramer:

“A)Get a long-term, life threatening disease, or watch a loved one get one, watch your insurance company deny your claims, and then see how long it takes before you suddenly become poor. Perhaps I should assume that your laziness got yourself and your family into this predicament?”

The Harvard study that you have doubtless been told about that purports to show that medical bankruptcy is very common–shows something rather different. My analysis is here.

There are certainly people who have been impoverished by being uninsured, and some who lost coverage because they lost their job, and stopped paying for health insurance. There are some who went through the maximum payment of their plan (usually one million dollars in a lifetime). But these are not necessarily common. I don’t know anyone who has become impoverished because of medical bills–while I know a lot of people who have worked their way into poverty through regular applications of alcohol, marijuana, or meth.

May 21, 2009 - 3:07 pm 184. Clayton E. Cramer:

“We will still have denied claims, but it will be the government, at the behest of powerful lobbies, doing the denying.”

Smokers? Too bad, you did that to yourselves.

Obesity? Lack of self-control–why should we help you?

AIDS? You’re a victim, let’s pour $15,000 a year into drugs to keep you alive–and there’s no need for you to stop picking up strangers in the men’s room.

The fact is that government health care will have to control costs–and I rather suspect that some costs will be controlled more effectively than others.

May 21, 2009 - 3:13 pm 185. Blackwell:

179:
“So you are saying that introducing such a bill (which the voters passed first by statutory initiative, then through constitutional initiative with Prop. caused them to lose the next election? Care to explain how that works?”

Take a hard look at what opposition to gay marriage has done for the GOP. Keep looking. (”Beuller? Beuller?”)Nothing. Hostility to gay marriage did nothing to cement the GOP’s hold on the California legislature in 1994, when the issue was less accepted than it is now. The issue made and makes the GOP appear like some western style taliban, the sour-breathed, uptight people accurately mocked in many movies; the Harper Valley PTA of politics. Out of touch and interested in imposing religious views. I support a stong military, a balanced budget, locking up violent criminals forever, 8 cylinder V8’s P. J O’Rourke and Ms. California: but i cannot abide the eagerness of some to deny to gays a simple marriage license.

It hardly seems to be “hard-headed and practical” either. It hasn’t cemented the GOP with blacks. Obama says marriage is between a man and a woman, but everyone knows its lip service. So in the hope of endearing the GOP to blacks who vote 90% democratic since 1960, despite the democrat’s gay friendly positions, we’ll alienate other voters who WOULD vote GOP but who are not opposed to gay marriage: care to explain how that works?

“But insisting that the government recognize a “marriage” when most of the population disapproves of homosexuality isn’t properly the government’s business, either”.

Yes it is: Not that long ago, one could have substituted “inter-racial marriage,” “joint-parental custody” or “Las Vegas divorce,” and been as accurate. But you don’t vote on the truth: what- aside from majority distatse is the principled basis for denying a bunch of gays the same right hetros have but use less and less?

Isn’t it time for the GOP to stop using an unprincipled wedge issue that does it no good, is used by the democrats to flay the GOP, and denies those gays their right to “pursuit of happiness” anyway? We’re the happy country!

(You really are a sport for putting up with all of this.)

Remember Bob Dole asking in 1996 whether people would let their kids stay overnight with him or the Clintons? The overwhleming result: the Clintons. why do you think the Democrats continue to beat the GOP over the head with it?

The failure of Prop 8 was contributed to by epople who regularly vote against the GOP despite its well-known oppsoition to gay marriage.

May 21, 2009 - 3:32 pm 186. Blackwell:

“All of our laws impose moral codes. All of them. ….But when you insist that the government must actively recognize a behavior that much of the population still finds somewhere between abhorrent and mildly improper, you are imposing your minority moral code on the rest of us.”

Such was the argument against inter-racial marriage; against the CRA of 1964 (eliminating the right of home sellers to refuse to sell to anyone but caucasians); jewish admissions to private clubs, birth control and pre-marital sex. But personal distate is not a legal or pricipled basis to disallow to some what others are allowed to do. One could use it now claim that stupid poor people with no teeth in backward areas have no right to keep and raise their kids.
Is this where the GOP wants to stand?

“With the single exception of tax status, there is nothing that same-sex marriage provides that can’t be handled by private contract. Homosexuals are intent on same-sex marriage as a way of getting the society to say, “You’re okay, there’s nothing wrong with what you are doing.” It’s not because it is so dreadfully necessary”.

Agree its not necessary: but telling some gay that he can get the same result without marriage is no diff than insisting tthat a black man can find another nice neighborhood. Equal protection it sounds like.

May 21, 2009 - 3:47 pm 187. G Alston:

#176 — Oddly enough, that’s what conservatives say should be done: let the state legislatures and the voters decide these issues. Liberals insist that they shouldn’t be allowed to do so.

Not entirely accurate, but that’s because I think you misunderstood the context I was working with. Conservatives advocate overturn of SCOTUS ruling e.g. Roe v Wade and then handing this to state legislatures. What I’m saying is that social issues ought to be state level ballot initiatives: let the voters have a direct and immediate say.

And to be blunt here I am quite guilty of misdirection: my guess is that by ridding the GOP of social issue baggage and handling this as above, the GOP is free to concentrate on ACTUAL issues and never again be artifically restrained by the sillier stuff. In the meanwhile, state level courts will invariably throw out many of the social issues as unconstitutional and repressive (which in almost every case, they are.) These would be appealed to the SCOTUS who again will find in favour just as they have in the past.

Meanwhile, Roe v Wade is little more than a distraction. The argument was lost when cheap commercial jet travel became commonplace in the 60’s. It costs under $500 per round trip to go somewhere out of the country and take a cheap pill or get an inexpensive procedure. Outlawing abortion outright wouldn’t accomplish **anything** except needlessly pissing people off. It certainly would have no impact on abortions except for a temporary lull; at that point orgs would pop up where we can all make tax free donations that buy … plane flights … for those too poor to afford them.

Even if you win, you lose.

Does the term “practical” have meaning to you? There is no winning scenario for the GOP in continuing to flog social issues. Social conservatives, meet your Kobyashi Maru scenario. The only thing is, you can’t cheat on this one. Seems to me that guaranteed loss ought to trigger some sort of thought process — “hey, maybe we ought to drop the social issue stuff.” I find the entire exercise most baffling.

May 21, 2009 - 4:26 pm 188. G Alston:

#182 — Homosexuals are intent on same-sex marriage as a way of getting the society to say, “You’re okay, there’s nothing wrong with what you are doing.”

Correct, and that’s because there *isn’t* anything wrong with homosexuals. They fall in love with someone and want to marry them. Fairly normal human behviour. We should be happy. Instead we pass value judgements based almost entirely on religious beliefs and Victorian era hand-me-down prejudices. This too is another issue that will eventually wind up in the hands of the courts and the courts will rightfully decide in favour of the gays.

As Blackwell points out, this is almost a replay of civil rights arguments against interracial marriages. Religious misinterpretations coupled with Victorian prejudices. (Lethal combo, don’t you agree?)

It’s pointless to flog social issues; you can’t possibly win.

May 21, 2009 - 4:38 pm 189. shaui-jan:

g alston.”Meanwhile, Roe v Wade is little more than a distraction. The argument was lost when cheap commercial jet travel became commonplace in the 60’s. It costs under $500 per round trip to go somewhere out of the country and take a cheap pill or get an inexpensive procedure. Outlawing abortion outright wouldn’t accomplish **anything** except needlessly pissing people off. It certainly would have no impact on abortions except for a temporary lull; at that point orgs would pop up where we can all make tax free donations that buy … plane flights … for those too poor to afford them.”

very true…..but forcing people who recognize life begins at conception,pay for abortions through taxation…kinda “pisses us off” too.some kind of middle ground perhaps?
we stop having to finance abortion mills….no more “partial birth abortions” on demand.
we leave roe v wade alone?

May 21, 2009 - 4:46 pm 190. Bilgeman:

#187 G. Alston:
“Social conservatives, meet your Kobyashi Maru scenario. The only thing is, you can’t cheat on this one. Seems to me that guaranteed loss ought to trigger some sort of thought process — “hey, maybe we ought to drop the social issue stuff.” I find the entire exercise most baffling.”

You find adherence to principles baffling, Alston?

“Give me Liberty or give me Death!”?

That’s what principles ARE.

They’re the ideals that you cling to at the cost of your wealth, your reputation, your freedom and even your life.

On a side-note, I see that my favorite Thursday night moderator, who censors me with quite a heavy and capricious hand, is on duty, so I’ll probably have to continue this when my own personal Chekist is no longer on duty.

May 21, 2009 - 4:46 pm 191. G Alston:

#189 — very true…..but forcing people who recognize life begins at conception,pay for abortions through taxation…kinda “pisses us off” too.some kind of middle ground perhaps??

Agreed. There should be no taxpayer supports of this, ever.

#190 — You find adherence to principles baffling, Alston?

Needlessly inflammatory rhetoric much?

I reckon that we don’t tell women what decisions to make. That’s my principle. You don’t agree, fine, but suggesting I have none merely because mine aren’t yours isn’t an argument with any merit. Try again.

…so I’ll probably have to continue this when my own personal Chekist is no longer on duty.

Are you known for personal attacks? I’ve not seen this. What you do is the inflammatory rhetoric schtick. I’m fine with that (if this helps your case any.)

May 21, 2009 - 6:02 pm 192. G Alston:

#189 — we stop having to finance abortion mills….no more “partial birth abortions” on demand.
we leave roe v wade alone?

I suppose my question would regard the frequency and/or prevalence of this. In fact, I don’t think I really know what “partial birth abortion” even really means, at least on the technical level. From the term alone it sounds like very late term (6 to 7 months?) Is there a medical reason?

Is this really a real and common issue or more theoretical scaremongering than not?

You mentioned it, so I figure it’s proper to ask you since you bring it up… in that case, spill. Tell me what you know.

May 21, 2009 - 6:12 pm 193. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Outlawing abortion outright wouldn’t accomplish **anything** except needlessly pissing people off. It certainly would have no impact on abortions except for a temporary lull; at that point orgs would pop up where we can all make tax free donations that buy … plane flights … for those too poor to afford them.”

1. Making anything more difficult is going to discourage the unmotivated, or cause those who are wavering to think, and perhaps choose differently. If laws REALLY don’t change things, you wouldn’t object to them. Practically no one was charged under Texas’s law banning homosexual sex–so who cares whether it gets repealed or not?

2. If pro-choice groups want to fund bus and airline tickets, fine. That’s certainly more useful than having them fund political campaigns. If anyone is having abortions so frequently that it’s a hassle to go to another state, maybe they should learn about birth control.

3. Only a tiny minority (23%) of Americans support abortion on demand. A whopping 75% want abortion either outlawed, or restricted. So why is Republican support for repeal of Roe v. Wade a win for an election time? Being on the side of 23% of the population is going to help us get elected?

May 21, 2009 - 6:23 pm 194. Oscar Wao:

“the GOP is free to concentrate on ACTUAL issues”

How absurd. The one thing the GOP is incapable of addressing are actual issues. If they did that, they’d have to make sure that all the hillbillies that support them make a decent living so that they don’t have to go to Iraq to pay for their kids’ fillings. Now just how would that work?

Really, I was quite surprised when I visited this place yesterday for the first time, that you guys actually talk about this stuff as if it was something other than propaganda bs. You might as well be talking about unicorns.

May 21, 2009 - 6:26 pm 195. Clayton E. Cramer:

“some kind of middle ground perhaps?
we stop having to finance abortion mills….no more “partial birth abortions” on demand.
we leave roe v wade alone?”

You can’t leave Roe v. Wade alone and get rid of partial birth abortion on demand.

You can strike down Roe v. Wade, and return abortion to the states, either the legislators, or the people directly, to decide. Remember that abortion, even before Roe v. Wade, was legal in five states, and even the other 45 were doing a lot of winking. Oregon, for example, in 1970, had 199 abortions per 1000 live births–even though it was only legal to perform an abortion to save the life or health of the mother.

May 21, 2009 - 6:28 pm 196. Clayton E. Cramer:

“The failure of Prop 8 was contributed to by epople who regularly vote against the GOP despite its well-known oppsoition to gay marriage.”

I’m not saying that opposition to gay marriage is going to make the GOP win elections. But it’s hard to see how being on the losing side is going to help them win elections. It will, however, cause a lot of conservatives to ask, “Why should I bother contributing to a party that is actively opposed to my beliefs?” And to get what? A few wavering gay Democrats?

May 21, 2009 - 6:34 pm 197. shaui-jan:

g alston. “in that case,spill.tell me what you know.”[translated to english]“i already know….do you?”
well,in case you don’t…here’s the poster boy for it.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tiller
i used wikipedia because all other search results were from “pro-life” groups and their source material could not be back tracked to my satisfaction…..but go ahead if you like.http://www.abortionessay.com/files/Tiller.html
he is not the only one…..just the most prolific.

May 21, 2009 - 9:42 pm 198. shaui-jan:

more conservative funny…steven crowder..ah…good times.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr56_qxmejQ

May 22, 2009 - 5:09 am 199. Fred Beloit:

#177 “I mean, everyone knew you were draft dodging sissies at heart.”

Little Oscar, Jr: What did you do in the military, diddy.

Oscar: Why I was way too brave for the military, son. I was a blog commenter and community organizer in Greenwich, CT.

May 22, 2009 - 7:25 am 200. G Alston:

#197 — well,in case you don’t…here’s the poster boy for it.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tiller

Thanks. It appears as I suspected, that ‘partial birth’ means ‘late term’ and is a genuine medical procedure. It would also appear that this is uncommon enough to be classified as a rarity. It is certainly not the standard abortion case.

This looks to be a classic wedge issue attempt — take a rare procedure and cast it as the standard MO and campaign enough to get the lie into the news. Later, polls quoted by Cramer will reflect the general revulsion most people will have re this procedure as “proof” that Americans favour restrictions, therefore (mis)concluding that Americans are against abortion.

This of course is nonsense. A classic case of red state flyover America (heart of GOP country) having their say took place in SD in 2004 and 2008 elections. Ballot measures restricting abortions were *stomped* in both elections, and by a mostly white churchgoing majority. And I do mean churchgoing. The entire state practically shuts down on Sunday mornings.

As I have written, I maintain that this issue is a loser for the GOP. Even if polls show Americans in general are revolted by the rare ‘partial birth’ cases, Americans are still voting in favour of the rights of females to make their own choice. The heart of this issue isn’t babies, but whether women have the right to decide. Women are either full partners or they are chattel. They are adults or they are incubators. America will *never* revert to the official position that women are mere incubators, and it won’t matter how flowery the invocation of the constitution sounds.

So let’s sum up. Mr. Cramer advocates a position that spins the GOP as being anti-scientific and takes the overall stance that women are either children or property and ultimately too stupid to make their own decisions. This is against the wishes of most Americans. Despite claims to the contary, most Americans find this offensive. It is also a position that in no way has a chance of being enforced.

While I can understand that a “conservative” movement might operate at the state level and try to spin “you are nothing but an incubator” as the word of the founders via the constitution, what I can’t fathom is how rational adults reckon that this ought to be the position of a national political party.

May 22, 2009 - 9:59 am 201. Bilgeman:

#177 Monkey-Boy:
“I mean, everyone knew you were draft dodging sissies at heart.”

Yeah, Cheetah, I dodged the draft by enlisting in the Marines…pretty clever, huh?

And there wasn’t even a draft when I did it.

Mainly I got to play with this:

http://www.combatindex.com/hardware/images/mis/dragon/dragon_01.jpg

…among many other fun and loud taxpayer-funded gewgaws and gimcracks.

May 22, 2009 - 10:30 am 202. Bilgeman:

Say, Alston, I notice that you tend to “favour” the British spelling of words.

Are you an American?

May 22, 2009 - 10:32 am 203. G Alston:

#202 Bilgeman — Are you an American?

Yes. I’ve got family and do business in two countries. Force of habit. Sorry for any confusion.

May 22, 2009 - 11:11 am 204. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Thanks. It appears as I suspected, that ‘partial birth’ means ‘late term’ and is a genuine medical procedure. It would also appear that this is uncommon enough to be classified as a rarity. It is certainly not the standard abortion case.

This looks to be a classic wedge issue attempt — take a rare procedure and cast it as the standard MO and campaign enough to get the lie into the news. Later, polls quoted by Cramer will reflect the general revulsion most people will have re this procedure as “proof” that Americans favour restrictions, therefore (mis)concluding that Americans are against abortion.”

By the same reasoning, why is it so important to protect a rare procedure that even its advocates later admitted was impossible to medically justify?

Americans have lots of different notions of reasonable restriction. Even many pro-choice Democrats drew the line at partial birth abortion. (But not my idiot Congresscritter, Lynne Woolsey, who was one of only 12 Democrats in the House to vote for it.)

A lot of Americans support parental notification for abortion–you know, like if they were getting dental work done, or wanted an aspirin at school.

Lots of Americans are willing to allow abortion in the case of rape or incest–but not for birth control. There’s no great logical consistency on that–but they do.

Why is it so important that Republicans be on the side of 23% of the population?

I agree that the South Dakota measures didn’t pass because they were extreme–written by the 22% that wants a complete ban on abortion. Something a bit less extreme would easily have won.

May 22, 2009 - 11:56 am 205. shaui-jan:

g alston.that was a beauty,i do not even know what part to quote….here’s a good spot.”It appears as I suspected, that ‘partial birth’ means ‘late term’ and is a genuine medical procedure. It would also appear that this is uncommon enough to be classified as a rarity. It is certainly not the standard abortion case.”

particial birth is exactly what it is.http://www.abortionfacts.com/partial_birth/state_laws.asp

…..even better spin from.http://feministing.com/archives/007508.html

“Requiring written approval of any late-term abortion procedure from two independent physicians is not only requiring the abortion provider to seek permission to practice medicine, it’s also essentially requiring that the woman get permission to successfully request medical care. Her choice, along with the medical advice of her doctor, is not enough. Late-term abortions, contrary to what anti-abortion activists constantly profess, are not undertaken lightly. The women who receive medical care at Dr. Tiller’s facility come from all over the country; Dr. Tiller is hardly going to be their first medical consultation. They seek their abortions either due to health risks to themselves or severe fetal deformity. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who likes late-term abortion, and that includes the women who need them.”

that information took me five minutes to find…not a subject i like to dwell on,already knew the scam so did you…basicly,if a woman and dr.tiller decide there is a problem…to bad for whomever that was going to be…..if your cool with this……fine.

May 22, 2009 - 12:04 pm 206. Clayton E. Cramer:

“So let’s sum up. Mr. Cramer advocates a position that spins the GOP as being anti-scientific and takes the overall stance that women are either children or property and ultimately too stupid to make their own decisions.”

You mean that Democrats can falsely claim is anti-scientific. Why are you letting the Democrats tell you how to think?

And the notion that restrictions on abortion mean that women are “either children or property” is absurd. We don’t allow parents to beat their children to death after birth. Does that mean that we regard parents as “either children or property” because we don’t trust them to make the right decision?

Now, when it comes to “children or property” there is an analogy worth considering. In California (and a number of other states), the law makes the killing of a fetus equal to the killing of a human being. I know of a case where two Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies were sent to prison for such a case. They called in a false 911 report of a domestic disturbance so that they would have an excuse to kick in the door of a house where they just knew that drugs were being sold. Having kicked in the door, they shot a pregnant woman in the belly with a shotgun. She lived; her fetus did not. And they were sent away for murder.

The statute in question specifically exempts an abortion performed at the request of the mother. Why is it murder if she doesn’t want her fetus killed, but perfectly okay if she does? Did the fetus cease to be a human being? It’s because the mother owns the fetus–and it is therefore hers to kill. The analogy to slavery is quite worrisome–but even slave codes still recognized that a slave was a human being, and made it unlawful for a master to kill a slave. (In practice, masters got away with it a lot because blacks weren’t allowed to testify against whites in court, but it was technically illegal, and whites were sometimes convicted.)

May 22, 2009 - 12:06 pm 207. Clayton E. Cramer:

“While I can understand that a “conservative” movement might operate at the state level and try to spin “you are nothing but an incubator” as the word of the founders via the constitution, what I can’t fathom is how rational adults reckon that this ought to be the position of a national political party.”

You know, if the vast majority of the pregnancies leading to abortion were the result of rape, I could sympathize with the “you are nothing but an incubator” remark. And that may be the reason that most of the population wants abortion restricted, but is prepared to make an exception for rape. But it’s not like birth control isn’t readily available, everywhere in America.

If there were no serious moral questions involved in pulling a chunk of flesh out that has its own heartbeat, brain, ability to feel pain, and all the other aspects of human life, I doubt that anyone would care in the least about abortion. But we are talking about something that is alive, and within a few months, will be breathing on its own. Does that cause you any qualms or concerns at all?

May 22, 2009 - 12:13 pm 208. Clayton E. Cramer:

“The one thing the GOP is incapable of addressing are actual issues. If they did that, they’d have to make sure that all the hillbillies that support them make a decent living so that they don’t have to go to Iraq to pay for their kids’ fillings.”

And those hillbillies are in such high tax brackets that the GOP keeps pandering to them by cutting the higher marginal tax brackets?

Look, I know that there are a lot of well paid Democrats out there. But as this data http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071020081551AAu0Izm from the 2006 elections points out, the distribution of voters shows that “no high school” is overwhelming Democratic voters, and postgrad is not quite as overwhelming Democrat. When it comes to completion of a bachelor’s degree, Republicans and Democrats are neck and neck.

May 22, 2009 - 12:22 pm 209. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Even if polls show Americans in general are revolted by the rare ‘partial birth’ cases, Americans are still voting in favour of the rights of females to make their own choice. The heart of this issue isn’t babies, but whether women have the right to decide.”

Uh, no. You gave one example of a very extreme abortion ban that failed–and ignore that many states have attempted to restrict abortion with widespread support–such as Nebraska’s attempt at banning partial-birth abortion. You are engaging in the sort of reductionistic thinking that marks a political hack: a majority doesn’t support a complete ban on abortion, therefore, a majority supports unrestricted abortion. The survey data shows that a majority doesn’t want a complete ban, but also doesn’t want unrestricted abortion.

The heart of the matter, you say, isn’t about babies, but about the right of women to decide You left something out: it’s about the right of women to decide to kill an unborn baby. If this were a choice about getting your appendix out, or a nose piercing, there wouldn’t be any issue at all.

May 22, 2009 - 12:29 pm 210. Delia:

206. Clayton E. Cramer:

THAT was FREAKIN’ AWESOME and AMEN!

If someone shot me in my pregnant belly and my baby died, you can bet I’d be devastated and I’d sue for murder and yet another woman who was as ‘with child’ as me who wanted to murder her child in the same gestational age is legally allowed to do so with absolute impunity.

-And, your analogy about women wanting the child or not being the difference between a ‘murder’ and an ‘abortion’ as being wholly absurd in the illogical hypocrisy is exactly how I’ve felt and emoted too.

When an actual baby is fully formed and is no longer just a few cells, that baby is NOT a part of the woman’s body and is a separate entity, therefore it is not just about a singular choice about how a woman’s body any longer.

That being said, when I tried to get pregnant at age 21, it took me 3 months of trying and I knew the moment I became pregnant. It was one of the most spiritual experiences I’ve ever had and it solidified my feelings about abortion and that had nothing to do with ‘religion’.

May 22, 2009 - 2:03 pm 211. realitycheq:

To: Just Passing Through (JPT) and David S

You (JPT) engaged in precisely this same argument with David S two months ago in response to a different article on this site. You (JPT) said the polls indicated a ‘trend’ in increased disapproval (and/or decreased approval) ratings for Obama then (late March 2009). You (JPT) predicted that this ‘trend’ would continue (i.e. Obama’s approval ratings would go down).

I tried very hard to explain to you in simple English that when using polling data to model ‘trends’ in approval (or disapproval) ratings, one models the data as a straight line. The mathematical formula for a straight line is y = mx + b, where m (the numerical value for the slope of the line) is used to discern the ‘trend’. I also pointed out that the formula for a straight line is taught in junior high school math. Here is the link to the older article and posts:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obama-and-the-media-the-end-of-the-affair/

You clearly did NOT get it (or refused to believe it) since you (JPT) are now claiming – once again – that Obama’s approval ratings have gone down, but you refuse to cite any data. This is almost certainly because the data that does exist does not support your hypothesis. Indeed, the existing data contradicts your hypothesis! Since you (JPT) refuse to provide any data to support your statement, I will now provide links to data that refutes your hypothesis.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx

Obama’s approval rating then (in late March 2009) was ~61%. Obama’s approval rating now (May 22) is ~61%. The slope of the line (m) is ONE, which means THERE HAS BEEN NO SIGNIFICANT INCREASE OR DECREASE IN OBAMA’S APPROVAL RATING BETWEEN MARCH AND MAY 2009!

You (JPT) go on to claim that Obama is losing support among Independents, but again refuse to cite any data supporting your statement. I will now provide links to data addressing this topic as well (this data also clearly refutes your hypothesis).

http://www.gallup.com/poll/118306/Obama-Approval-Picks-Up-May.aspx

and

http://www.gallup.com/poll/116845/Obama-Approval-Equal-Better-Bush-Clinton.aspx

The data indicates that not only has Obama’s approval rating among Independents NOT decreased – it has INCREASED (59% approval among Independents in March 2009 vs. 66% approval in May 2009). INDEED, OBAMA’S APPROVAL RATING ALSO INCREASED AMONG SELF-IDENTIFIED REPUBLICANS DURING THIS SAME TIME FRAME (26% approval among Republicans in March 2009 vs. 30% approval in May 2009).

JPT – Like it or not – believe it or not – you are flat out WRONG and David S is absolutely RIGHT!!!
1) A SIGNIFICANT MAJORITY OF AMERICANS APPROVE OF OBAMA’S PERFORMANCE NOW
2) HIS APPROVAL RATINGS HAVE NOT CHANGED SIGNIFCANTLY SINCE MARCH 2009.
3) MORE INDEPENDENTS APPROVE OF HIM NOW VS. THEN
4) MORE REPUBLICANS APPROVE OF HIM NOW VS. THEN

Go back to junior high and learn basic math, stop spewing false and unsubstantiated claims, come to grips with the reality that elections have consequences and your candidate did not win and accept the fact that – unlike you – the majority of Americans are NOT at this time unhappy with our elected President.

May 22, 2009 - 2:11 pm 212. Bilgeman:

#191 G.Alston:
continuing our discussion from last night…

“Needlessly inflammatory rhetoric much?

I reckon that we don’t tell women what decisions to make. That’s my principle. You don’t agree, fine, but suggesting I have none merely because mine aren’t yours isn’t an argument with any merit.”

I suggested nothing of the kind, Alston. How do you come to infer that I implied this?

You seem a bit oversensitive on the point, frankly.

You expressed bafflement about a characteristic of a large part of the political Right, and I was simply trying to elucidate for you that it was their very intransigence on the matter that made it indicative of a deeply-held belief.

Funny thing is, you apparently hold a position pretty close to my own and Brother shaui-jan’s, although you certainly seem more disposed to look askance at the more hard-line RTL’ers than I do.

FWIW, i think we’ve discussed before that if you accept a poitical argument in the framing of the side that advances it, you’ve already lost the game.

That’s how we end up “aborting” fetuses that were delivered alive via prematurely induced labor,

and how we have “doctors” that “assist” in a “suicide”.

I think a lot whatever beef you may think you have with the conservative movement is in actuality based on your having fallen into their linguistic “mind-trap”.

Do you think I’m off base here? Do you deny that the whole point of “PC” is to control thought via language?

And is this not PRECISELY what Orwell warned us about in “Nineteen Eighty-Four” with his “11th Edition” of the “Newspeak Dictionary”?

May 22, 2009 - 2:43 pm 213. Schwarzkopf's ghost:

More entertaining? Are you kidding? They’re a laugh riot. Don’t ever change you dumb loveable idiots.

May 22, 2009 - 3:14 pm 214. Clayton E. Cramer:

“206. Clayton E. Cramer:

THAT was FREAKIN’ AWESOME and AMEN!”

Thank you. I went from reluctantly pro-choice to reluctantly pro-life largely because of my research into antebellum slavery apologetics, and the abolitionist battle. The parallels between defenders of slavery and defenders of unlimited abortion were startling–right down to:

1. It’s a Constitutional right. (And in both cases, the word never appears there–although it is clear that “bound to labor” was intended by the Framers to cover slavery, along with apprentices.)

2. The Supreme Court not only upheld the right, but did so in a way that dramatically expanded it from some states to all states. (Dred Scott.)

3. The decision was immediately controversial, and provoked a firestorm of protest.

4. The Democrats were the party of slavery, and Republicans were the party in opposition.

5. Proslavery advocates engaged in the most interesting circumlocutions to avoid admitting what they were discussing. They didn’t admit that a master owned a slave–just owned his labor.

6. Proslavery advocates argued that slavery wasn’t just in the best interests of the master, but even in the best interests of the slave. (”Every child a wanted child.”) Fitzhugh’s Cannibals All! went so far as to define slavery as a traditional form of socialism, and how slavery was so good for slaves that poor whites should sell themselves into slavery to get the benefits of being enslaved. (And yes, the parallels to Marx’s writings are so strong that slavery historians have looked for evidence that Marx might have read Fitzhugh’s work.)

7. Proslavery judges referred to abolitionists as “semi-religious fanatics” and argued that “real” Christians would never oppose holding slaves.

8. Like FACES, the Fugitive Slave Act federalized what had formerly been a state crime, because the state laws were not vigorously enforced, and juries in many rural areas of the North were beginning to have large numbers of abolitionist leaning jurors. By comparison, trial under the Fugitive Slave Act was in big cities where Democrats were dominant, and were unsympathetic to abolitionism. In addition, just like FACES, the Fugitive Slave Act relied on enormous fines ($1000, equivalent to perhaps $20,000 or $30,000 today) to break the financial back of the abolition movement–just like FACES with its $20,000 fines was designed to break the back of the modern abortion clinic blockade movement.

May 22, 2009 - 3:28 pm 215. G Alston:

#290 C. Cramer — You are engaging in the sort of reductionistic thinking that marks a political hack: a majority doesn’t support a complete ban on abortion, therefore, a majority supports unrestricted abortion.

Not even close. I’ve said that the majority supports the right of women to decide for themselves. Whether there ought to be reasonable restrictions is another subject. Certainly the right of free speech doesn’t include the right to scream FIRE! in a crowded theatre, so imagining that other rights may have reasonable restrictions is *not* a stretch.

The survey data shows that a majority doesn’t want a complete ban, but also doesn’t want unrestricted abortion.

Agreed. And in keeping everything framed in context to your article, you have to admit that everything gets lost in the noise. Even “reasonable” restrictions have a way of doing little more than ratcheting rhetoric. It divides. that’s all it does.

The poster “Bilgeman” illustrates this well — take the opposing side of the debate, and he suggests that those on that side have no principles. Does this sound like something that easily resolved? No, of course not. It’s extremism. Proponents of abortion bans are unwilling to meet in the middle or to acknowledge that their opponents are not satanic inspired marxists nor morally bankrupt atheists. All or nothing.

Yet In THEORY there ought to be a place to meet. In actual practice, no. As such I see zero benefit to the GOP for taking a side in this. There isn’t a winning scenario.

What DOES make sense for the GOP to stand for is energy independence, cheap access to space, nuclear power, strong defense, and otherwise championing technology. Kind of tough to take the pro-science stance when the GOP is painted as anti-science because of the social issues stuff.

Don’t deny this. It’s real. Social issues do this. Why? Because it’s the same bible thumping anti-evolution crowd who are the most vocal where it concerns social issues. Show me a strongly worded, emotional argument regarding the “conservative” take on a social issue, and 9 of 10 times I’ll show you an evangelical. That’s simply the reality.

You have accused me of letting the left frame the (minor) debate we’ve been having. Multiply this times 150 million voters. You may not like the fact that the left has framed it. I certainly don’t like it, but then again I’m not one of the social issue types who LET them do this.

Does this mean I’m suggesting the right can’t win? No. The right may well win in 2012 if the economy goes south, and it won’t be because of any “conservative” position so much as it’s not the party that fouled things up. On the other hand, on an even playing field, by including the social baggage the right is essentially playing in a body cast. That’s how I see it, and of course I fully understand that reasonable people may disagree.

Thanks for the discussion!

May 22, 2009 - 3:34 pm 216. G Alston:

#212 Bilgeman — You expressed bafflement about a characteristic of a large part of the political Right, and I was simply trying to elucidate for you that it was their very intransigence on the matter that made it indicative of a deeply-held belief.

Indeed; I mentioned this above, although I shorthanded this to claim that *you* were guilty of this as a point of illustration. I apologise.

FWIW, i think we’ve discussed before that if you accept a poitical argument in the framing of the side that advances it, you’ve already lost the game.

This statement of yours is the best to respond to since this illustrates my argument. I think that the culture warrior stance of the right does the framing; the left merely (a)buses this to their benefit. It’s almost like a martial arts problem; throw your weight *here* and the enemy can use this to his advantage because you’re off balance.

So in short, you’re correct: letting the enemy define the battle means you’ve lost it. However, I say it’s not the enemy who’s doing it: the right defines it’s own losing condition. What’s the winning condition? Winning the culture war. Can’t be done.

This is why I’d like to see culture war stuff separated from the GOP (the political party, not the movement.) What we need is to have a position letting us define a condition that can’t be lost.

The republican party is capable of wondrous things, and things that affect all of us. Culture war stuff is at best a silly distraction; at worst, the way the left kills us. As a way of illustration of positives, here’s my reply to someone on another PJM topic —

#NNN — My solution would have been tax cuts and a reduction in all government spending. That would have restored confidence and stimulated the economy.

“I’d have taken $500 billion and directed that the USA build 750-1000 GW worth of nuclear power plants — yesterday.

We have an energy problem. Energy = prosperity. Solve the energy problem and you solve most things.

You don’t get to prosperity merely by cutting taxes any more than you get there by taxing your way there. Investment also creates jobs, ones that don’t export.

Once the plants are built and operating, THEN cut taxes and let it rip. Or rather than cut taxes, direct that energy is delivered pretty much at cost + maintenance. $50 for your electric bill vs $200 has the same effect as a tax cut.

I reckon that I’d also stop all subsidies to wind and solar power and use that to jolt NASA; they would be directed to solve how to get cheap access to space. Why? Solve that and you get spaceborne solar as energy supply. That’s a lot of jobs. Good paying US jobs. Not stuff that gets sent to Thailand.

I’d probably also invest another big chunk into DOE and direct them to build smaller reactor systems suitable for civilian shipping. We know how to do this. The Navy doesn’t seem to have problems. More jobs.

The great republican tradition is **not** reduced spending. Never has been. Everything from interstates to the computers you’re using to whine about government was SMART spending or even a bit of an increase.”

May 22, 2009 - 4:05 pm 217. Bilgeman:

#215 G Alston:
“The poster “Bilgeman” illustrates this well”

Why thank you, Alston.

“…take the opposing side of the debate, and he suggests that those on that side have no principles.”

Touchy-touchy! And once again, can you show me where I implied that you had no principles?

“…you have to admit that everything gets lost in the noise.”

But somehow, it seems that you blame only certain folks for what you term “noise”.

“Even “reasonable” restrictions have a way of doing little more than ratcheting rhetoric. It divides. that’s all it does.”

It divides because the opposition characterizes ANY restriction as an attempt to ban the procedure for all females all the time with no exception.
We’ve gone over this point before,Alston.

Their aim is to have abortions allowed at any point in the pregnancy,(and even beyond it), for any reason whatsoever, with no parental notification,(in the case of minors), and to have the entire procedure paid for from the public purse.

And as I’ve posited before also, this would be no differnt than handing out a loaded derringer handgun to any nine-year-old, free of charge, without anyone’s consent or supervision, any time said nine-year-old expressed a desire to have one.

The results, the taking of a human life, would be the same.

Do yourself a favor, Alston, ad go haunt a Pro-Choice blog awhile and try to advocate the restrictions that you personally deem to be reasonable…see what you get.

“You may not like the fact that the left has framed it. I certainly don’t like it, but then again I’m not one of the social issue types who LET them do this.”

We LET the Left frame the debate by doing what, Alston?

Perhaps we should have an agenda totally devoid of any issues whatsoever, is that it?

Here’s a tip…it wouldn’t matter. They’d make sh!t up and ascribe it to us anyway.

Bottom line response to your protests about the conservative Right, Alston, is that if you don’t like the “noise”, then you’d best stay out of politics altogether.

The front end of this giant scam is all about the noise, and always has been.

May 22, 2009 - 4:22 pm 218. Bilgeman:

#216 G Alston:
We’re crossposting at the moment.

“Indeed; I mentioned this above, although I shorthanded this to claim that *you* were guilty of this as a point of illustration. I apologise.”

Okay.

“The republican party is capable of wondrous things, and things that affect all of us. Culture war stuff is at best a silly distraction; at worst, the way the left kills us.”

I see your point, but I can’t concede to it for a very simple fact that’s pretty universally human nature.

Our reach FAR exceeds our grasp.

Humans are, when it comes right down to the biology, a particularly vicious breed of chimpanzee that are entirely too clever for their own good.

And I suspect that in many ways a conservative outlook on life, as it pertains to social issues, is a way of trying to limit the damage that we can, and will, inflict upon ourselves.

Look, just because a thing CAN be done doesn’t automatically mean that it SHOULD be done, and conservatism, at least for me, is a way of saying:

“Hold on a minute! just what in the Hell are you people trying to stampede us into? Have you thought this thing through at all?”

You assert:

“I say it’s not the enemy who’s doing it: the right defines it’s own losing condition. What’s the winning condition? Winning the culture war. Can’t be done.”

It depends what you mean by “winning”, Alston.

Social conservatives will never “win”, because progress will always erode the position, but how and where that progress is channelled into…that’s where OUR victory lies.

No…no-one can “turn back the clock” and undiscover the abortion procedure, anymore than atomic weapons can be uninvented, but if we can perhaps hold the line while we promote and promulgate a new regard for the sanctity of innocent life, we can perhaps ameliorate some of the more harmful future effects that an uncritical embrace might otherwise do.

A few of those I outlined in my post above.

When you come right down to it, social conservatism is more about the “salvage” of what is good and worthwhile about society as it exists, as opposed to the chase after tomorrow’s utopian mirages.

May 22, 2009 - 5:48 pm 219. G Alston:

#217 — It divides because the opposition characterizes ANY restriction as an attempt to ban the procedure for all females all the time with no exception.

Imagine if the anti-abortion crowd were to STFU.

“In today’s news, abortion supporters were proactively marching in the streets to maintain the status quo that has existed for longer than the majority of women of childbearing age have been alive.”

That doesn’t happen. It’s not the *supporters* causing a problem. They stay home and go about their business and to them there is no problem. Supporters of the status quo doesn’t march to keep the status quo, do they? Of course not. Issues and arguments occur only when someone is trying to change the status quo. No changes? No issues.

It’s the far right who invents the problem by attempting to subvert the status quo and making it an issue. Without them doing this, nobody would pay any attention to this. It’s not an issue except that the far right makes it one.

You choose to not see this. So does Cramer I think. I find the argument that abortion supporters are the root cause of this stuff being an issue to be sad and hilarious at the same time.

***

May 22, 2009 - 5:49 pm 220. Delia:

219. G Alston:

“That doesn’t happen. It’s not the *supporters* causing a problem. They stay home and go about their business and to them there is no problem. Supporters of the status quo doesn’t march to keep the status quo, do they? Of course not. Issues and arguments occur only when someone is trying to change the status quo. No changes? No issues.”
~
HUH?

Abortion of a viable fetus [a baby who could survive outside the womb with medical attention] *is* an issue because it is murder. Just some skanks want to use it as birth control doesn’t make it any less so.

Women should be able to choose the sex too as a reason whether to abort or not to abort. Why not eh? Had too many boys and want a girl? Abort until you get the girl you want and visa versa! YAYYYYYYYY!

It’s pretty depressing when ‘innocent’ life is argued as to not be a ‘hot button’ issue and yet ‘gay marriage’ is, ‘waterboarding’ is and a woman’s right to kill her offspring is.

Why not shoot for the moon and just let women kill their children at ANY age because, hey, that kid was once in her belly!

May 22, 2009 - 6:36 pm 221. G Alston:

#220 — And I suspect that in many ways a conservative outlook on life, as it pertains to social issues, is a way of trying to limit the damage that we can, and will, inflict upon ourselves.

And in the abstract we agree. There are a great many issues that the social conservatives are correct about (or at least correct enough.) One such would be the FCC’s enforcement of a minimum of decorum for daytime TV. The right to free speech isn’t abridged by this.

Laws getting children to behave in school and wear appropriate clothing doesn’t abridge free speech either. These are but two fast off the cuff examples. There’s a great deal to like about the conservative position.

There’s also a great deal to dislike: where the social conservatives overstep is in issues where there is no victim. If the neighbour girl gets pregnant in HS and gets an abortion, it doesn’t hurt me or you. If the house down the street is owned by Adam and Steve, a couple of married gays, this too doesn’t hurt me or you.

As a rule what there is to dislike is almost entirely the relgious arguments. The FCC, schools, stuff like that? We either agree or find plenty of manouevering room. These are not things in the “religious only” club.

Gays? Please. That’s a religious argument from the ground up. And it’s easy to prove; try to poll agnostics and atheists about gay marriage and see if anyone cares enough to even answer. The overstepping is simply the conservative way of enforcing their religious beliefs.

The difference between legalising and enforcing the social conservative religious viewpoint and Sharia law is culture. This is and has been known by the judiciary for a long time, and they have been slowly removing enforcement of religious view from the public sphere for a while. There is no longer prayer in schools, you don’t put the 10 commandments in the courthouse, and so on.

In short, this is pretty simple: if it’s a religious only viewpoint, it’s going to get killed, and there’s nothing you can do about it. This is a plus. It makes social conservatism open to all because it’s driven by reason and common interest. Note that the examples I gave of social conservatism getting it right were things that were arrived at via reason, not religion.

OK, hit me.

May 22, 2009 - 6:59 pm 222. shaui-jan:

g alston”That doesn’t happen. It’s not the *supporters* causing a problem. They stay home and go about their business and to them there is no problem. Supporters of the status quo doesn’t march to keep the status quo, do they? Of course not. Issues and arguments occur only when someone is trying to change the status quo. No changes? No issues”

me.”already knew the scam so did you…basicly,if a woman and dr.tiller decide there is a problem…to bad for whomever that was going to be…..if your cool with this……”.isn’t this part of the status quo?if it is……that is a problem for me.i want this changed…..so i guess im part of the people”making it an issue”?

May 22, 2009 - 7:47 pm 223. Delia:

221. G Alston:

“OK, hit me.”
~

Wow. What is it with you libtards and your masochistic tendencies?

You don’t fool anyone, G.A.

Your a Lib. Give up the facade.

May 22, 2009 - 10:26 pm 224. G Alston:

@222 — if it is……that is a problem for me.i want this changed…..so i guess im part of the people”making it an issue”?

You don’t see women marching for the right to vote, do you? If they were, would you see that as activism or would you deduce that the status quo is being challenged? Some posters here try to claim that it is the pro-choicers who are activists which is why this idiotic issue won’t go away. I have countered with the observation that pro-choice is the status quo. The reason the issue won’t die is because the social conservatives are continually challenging the status quo — not the other way around.

Summary: It’s an issue because social conservatives choose for it to be so.

#220 — Just some skanks want to use it as birth control doesn’t make it any less so. [murder]

Yes, I get that you are against it. How does this impact getting elected? Are you a proponent of sticking to what you perceive as core principles even at the expense of never getting elected? Or are you convinced that most Americans are in your court?

May 22, 2009 - 10:30 pm 225. Delia:

224. G Alston,

“Yes, I get that you are against it. How does this impact getting elected? Are you a proponent of sticking to what you perceive as core principles even at the expense of never getting elected? Or are you convinced that most Americans are in your court?”
~

Most Americans have spoken:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5grr6vHXCd1Ec3TYMe3z3rD8I84hg

They no likey abortion. what to do?

The small percentage of the gays on the otherhand…weird to say the least but they are definitely loud in voice and vibrant feather boas.

May 22, 2009 - 10:50 pm 226. Delia:

224. G Alston,

Did you even click on the link I shared within the word “HUH”?

Did you?

May 22, 2009 - 11:55 pm 227. Just passing through:

211. realitycheq:

You again?

You made a fool of yourself with the initial claims you made a couple of months back about your mastery over math. Nice of you to provide the link.

You shuffled about trying to disown your initial stupefyingly ignorant statement about trends, and the evidence of your self touted math skills went down from there as you backed and filled and or ignored your mistakes until you were incoherently off topic. You tossed out cites that kept supporting the exact opposite of what you claimed. The cites you put up had the same problem that david s cites usually do. Shallow reading, poor reading comprehension, or just outright stupidity.

The disagreement then, despite your nonsense in commentt 211, was whether at that time a trend was present or not. It was. Again, you couldn’t dispute that coherently. The disagreement then had nothing whatsoever to do with predicting future trends. It was about data at hand. David S. was claiming that polls indicated increasing support. They indicated the opposite. He was wrong then. You jumped in. You were wrong then too. The fact that the approval index trend has gone differently in the last two months doesn’t make either of you right in what you claimed then. It actually makes you appear more the fool grasping at straws to claim it does.

Back to the david s. post in this thread.

david was challenged in my comment #56 to look up some recent data that might surprise him. Data concerning changes in identification with each major party since late last year. He came back with a poll comparing 2001 and 2009. He did not address it in light of the term ‘late last year’, he just scanned the first poll google presented to his poorly constructed search term without actually reading it, or he found the information I told him to look up and decided the obfuscatory approach best served him.

I did not cite. That was the point. It was a challenge to david to go dig up information that did not fit his narrative. What he would have found it that since December 2008, the percentage of voters identifying with the major two parties is decreasing and that democrats are losing voter identification to independents faster than republicans. I’ll be more specific:

Voters now identifying themselves as independents have increased by 9% since December 2008. 6% of voters identifying themselves as democrats in December 2008 now identify as independents, while only 3% of voters identifying themselves as republicans in December 2008 now identify as independents.

david is smarter than you. He dropped it when called him on it in my comment #120. Your reading comprehension was poorer than his a few months ago and poorer now. At least david understood the challenge. Which was the movement in major party identification. Again see comments #56 and #120. Have someone read and explain the difference between the wording and this statement of yours in #211:

‘You (JPT) go on to claim that Obama is losing support among Independents…’

I did not say this. I said democrats. You may feel differently, but the voters see the democrat party as more than Obama (see Pelosi, Reid, etc)

Also, have someone patiently explain to you that your statement:

’since you (JPT) are now claiming – once again – that Obama’s approval ratings have gone down…’

might be inflammatory as my position is supported by polling. His approval ratings have gone down. I think the issue here is that just really frosts you and david. You thought Obama would be different. But it really didn’t relate to the challenge question. Which, again, was the movement in major party identification.

But let’s take a look at your links anyway:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx

Then you link Lydia Saad’s explanation, since you can’t consider the first link on it’s own merits.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/118306/Obama-Approval-Picks-Up-May.aspx

Something missing in Saad’s graph? Something missing from her patient instructions to those who are a bit challenged in understanding the first graph? that’s ok. Wouldn’t do to confuse the sheep.

Moving on.

I know it was a real blow when your definition of what makes a trend was knocked down a while back, but please, this is rich:

‘Go back to junior high and learn basic math’

This from you? After your nonsense a couple of months back? This is taken from my last comment in that thread back in March:

Said by you, ‘You might find this brief glossary of terms commonly used in statistical analysis of data useful: Trend is a long-term movement in a time series’

Said in response by me, ‘You, who believed/believes that a trend can be discerned from as little as 2 points, now presume to start to lecture me on statistics. This given the whole point of my original post trying to force David s into an understanding of how little standalone approval polls mean vs trends.’

I said this because you finally found in a glossary of terms the following, ‘Trend is a long-term movement in a time series’, and somehow decided that instead of it being my position all along, it was your position all along.

I’d stopped reading you closely before that anyway.

Moving on.

‘…stop spewing false and unsubstantiated claims….’

Back to what I said a few paragraphs ago. When every reader can look at the only two comments I made in this thread and see either that no such thing was said in one case, or that I am right in the other by the links you yourself provide, this makes you the one spewing false and unsubstantiated claims doesn’t it?

From #211 in this thread, ‘come to grips with the reality that elections have consequences and your candidate did not win and accept the fact that – unlike you – the majority of Americans are NOT at this time unhappy with our elected President’

The majority of people answering the pollsters still approve of the president, about 60% is the average of the recent polls, but we’ll let that pass. You might check a polling clearinghouse like Real Clear Politics and ponder the disparity in the poll numbers though. Why is Rasmussen disapproval so different from Gallup? Likely voters versus anyone who will answer the phone? All of that is of course predicated on increased reading comprehension on your part, so it is problematical.

I do not, as you so astutely and uncharacteristically deduce, approve of our elected president. And I’m an independent.

Your problem, back in March and still, is that you see anyone who recognizes that the worm is turning for Obama and the democrats as being in denial. This is projection.

May 23, 2009 - 12:07 am 228. Bilgeman:

#226 Delia:
“Did you even click on the link I shared within the word “HUH”?”

I did. And thanks for it, because they gave their game away in this paragraph, which is buried down in the body of the text:

“Although focused on defending a woman’s right to choose from any further restrictions, demonstrators were also rallying around other issues: justice and equality for women in all socio-economic strata around the world; access for all women to the full range of contraceptive services and family planning options; the need for better health services for women of all races, incomes and ages; and the effect of the federal government’s foreign and policies on women worldwide.”

It doesn’t take a Champollion and a Rosetta Stone to dope out exactly what they REALLY mean by “equality for all women…all socio-economic strata…access to full range of family planning options”, huh?

But to G Alston, mired as he is in that mind-trap he’s fallen into, any objection to this attempted state-sponsored mugging of the public, is just a “religious argument”.

And the really peculiar thing, is that Alston asserts that he doesn’t want tax dollars paying for “birth control” abortion procedures being performed on adults…
I wonder what “religious argument” HIS objection is based on…

Thanks for the link, Delia.

May 23, 2009 - 12:46 am 229. Clayton E. Cramer:

” I’ve said that the majority supports the right of women to decide for themselves.”

No, they don’t! If that were the case, then you wouldn’t have 75% of Americans saying that there should be some restrictions on abortion.

“Whether there ought to be reasonable restrictions is another subject. Certainly the right of free speech doesn’t include the right to scream FIRE! in a crowded theatre, so imagining that other rights may have reasonable restrictions is *not* a stretch.”

Look, if you agree that there are “reasonable restrictions,” welcome the 75% of Americans. But if you agree that the are “reasonable restrictions” on abortion, then you do NOT believe that every woman has a right to decide whether or not to have an abortion. You are exactly what you claim is destroying the Republican Party.

“What DOES make sense for the GOP to stand for is energy independence, cheap access to space, nuclear power, strong defense, and otherwise championing technology. Kind of tough to take the pro-science stance when the GOP is painted as anti-science because of the social issues stuff.”

And guess what? That does define the GOP–and even the evangelicals that you claim to oppose. It defined the Bush Administration–and guess what? It didn’t help. The left still falsely claimed that the right was “anti-science.”

“Don’t deny this. It’s real. Social issues do this. Why? Because it’s the same bible thumping anti-evolution crowd who are the most vocal where it concerns social issues. Show me a strongly worded, emotional argument regarding the “conservative” take on a social issue, and 9 of 10 times I’ll show you an evangelical. That’s simply the reality.”

As opposed to the strongly worded, emotional arguments for unlimited abortion and same-sex marriage from the left?

Look, it sounds like you more object to the fact that a majority of Americans are Christians, than to the specific policies. You agree with evangelical Christians that abortion should have some restrictions on it. But it sounds like you would be happier if it was promoted by people who were atheists.

May 23, 2009 - 7:16 am 230. Clayton E. Cramer:

“Or are you convinced that most Americans are in your court?”

When it comes to abortion, most Americans are definitely on the side of more restrictions on abortion. That means that they aren’t in the Democrats’ court. Now, I would agree that the “no abortion ever” crowd is a turnoff to a majority, who want some restrictions (and have no philosophically consistent method of determining what those restrictions are).

I think that the GOP can work more effectively to emphasize that the vast majority of Americans agree that abortion is troubling, and should be generally discouraged–and contrast that with the Democratic Party’s claim that it believes abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare,” but in practice, can’t identify any restriction except partial birth abortion that it is willing to stop.

May 23, 2009 - 7:41 am 231. shaui-jan:

g alston.”Are you a proponent of sticking to what you perceive as core principles even at the expense of never getting elected?”
if it means having to approve of dr.tiller and what others of his ilk are doing to perfectly healthy babies about to be born….then yes…. just go ahead and label legalized murdering of the soon to be alive a”wedge issue.”

you obviously have made your decision that it is a gruesome”rarity”there for acceptable.

May 23, 2009 - 7:45 am 232. Clayton E. Cramer:

“if it means having to approve of dr.tiller and what others of his ilk are doing to perfectly healthy babies about to be born….then yes…. just go ahead and label legalized murdering of the soon to be alive a”wedge issue.””

And yet, even DEMOCRATS generally agree that partial birth abortion is murder. Only a few far left members of Congress were prepared to vote in favor of partial-birth abortion. If this is a wedge issue, it’s an extraordinarily bizarre form of wedge, because it brings together 75% of the population.

May 23, 2009 - 9:28 am 233. sheesh:

BM3K . . . “It divides because the opposition characterizes ANY restriction as an attempt to ban the procedure for all females all the time with no exception.”

For a minute I thought you were talking about assault rifles.

May 23, 2009 - 9:50 am 234. Delia:

214. Clayton E. Cramer,

You really did your homework! The dehumanization of black slaves juxtaposed with the dehumanization of unborn babies was right on the moula.
~

228. Bilgeman,

Great points and you’re welcome for the link (thank you for reading it).

What really infuriates me is when the Lefties act all ‘concerned’ for known terrorists’ getting waterboarded, embracing a small percentage of deviants known as ‘gays’ and standing behind a woman’s right to KILL her defenseless child and yet, if *I* get upset over the latter I’m labeled a religious nutter.

I was an Athiest for a good 25 years of my life and I still believed abortion was MURDER.

What is wrong with our freaking society that we would uphold terrorists and pity their plights and make it a HUGE issue and yet the issue of abortion is ‘hush-hush’ even though so many people are indeed AGAINST the willy-nilly use of it?

Confusing to one’s heart and soul.

May 23, 2009 - 9:59 am 235. shaui-jan:

wow,sheesh…..you really can find something funny anywhere,huh?

May 23, 2009 - 12:45 pm 236. realitycheq:

JPT

Your statistics were all over the map then and are all over the map now. Why do you insist on comparing polling data now vs. data from November or the end of last year? Obama was not President until January of THIS year. YOU ARE MIXING APPLES WITH ORANGES (then and now). It is statistical nonsense. Most don’t catch you or simply don’t care. But when you are caught (now as you were then) you engage in personal attacks while at the same time accusing others of personally attacking you. This is hypocrisy. You continue to argue your incorrect point with such vehemence and animosity, you sound like Dick Cheney. This may be why David S stopped responding to you. But just because someone stopped arguing with you does not mean you are correct. It simply means that we think you are a little bit loopy, near the breaking point and best ignored.

Who cares if the rate of change from registered democrat to independent is greater than the rate of change from registered republican to independent? What matters is how voters voted. Your candidate lost in November because the majority of voters voted for Obama. Despite your numerous assertions to the contrary and your predictions that his approval ratings were falling precipitously (then and now), Obama’s approval rating (as determined by a number of different polls) has not changed significantly in months. Pick any two (or more) points you want (now vs. then) and the result will be the same. THE TREND LINE IS FLAT! If you are wondering why Obama’s approval ratings are different in a poll that relies on ‘likely voters’ as opposed to ‘registered voters’ (or anyone who happens to answer the telephone) it is this – a ‘likely voter’ designation is conferred upon those who voted regularly in past several elections. Your candidate lost in November because many UNLIKELY (and previously unregistered) voters decided it was finally worth the trouble of registering to vote and actually voting. This is what really irks you isn’t it? The country is changing and you can’t stand it (or stop it).

May 23, 2009 - 3:04 pm 237. G Alston:

#229 — No, they don’t! If that were the case, then you wouldn’t have 75% of Americans saying that there should be some restrictions on abortion.

You are reading this with rose coloured glasses. 23% say that abortion ought to be banned. 77% say no. What you like to point to as the grey area concerns reasonable restrictions. Look at the SD data again. In SD the abortion ban was rejected, and SD is the bellwether for red state behaviours/patterns in this era. Not a poll. This is actual real data. The ban specifically exempted ‘life of the mother’ and rape. This wasn’t accepted. Clearly the majority was OK with abortion in general.

So what is the grey area? What are ‘reasonable restrictions’? Here is where reasonable people might disagree. Certainly in SD abortion is OK as a choice.

Another poster mentions late term abortions. This is what the social conservatives think is reasonable restriction. The problem of course is that even if this were to pass, the social conservatives would not stop. No. Goal posts would be moved. The next “reasonable” restriction would be more restrictive yet. It’s Pure Animal Farm marxist approach, and ironically, Bilgeman quotes Orwell’s “1984″ attempting to apply this to the opposing side. Hilarious, really.

Yes, abortion is certainly a winning issue for the GOP. Even if you were to take that poll at what you assert to be face value, it’s a plurality. A divisive issue, just as I said it was. There is no gain for the GOP in flogging this.

#229 You agree with evangelical Christians that abortion should have some restrictions on it.

That would be spin. Any right has a reasonable limit by definition, which is why I gave an example of it. It doesn’t require Abraham’s god to conclude this. So far I’ve not seen anything widespread that isn’t for the most part a self-regulating system governed by medical ethics. In other words, abortion already has what I’d term as reasonable restrictions. If and when I see doctors parading en masse regarding this, I’ll pay closer attention. Until then, it’s decidedly a non-issue.

What the evangelicals are saying is that medical ethics are not enough. This is an entirely different thing.

#226 — Did you even click on the link I shared within the word “HUH”?

You seem to have an astonishing reading comprehension issue. This article proves my premise. There are no marches supporting the status quo unless there is a threatened change to the status quo. Keeping abortion as an “issue” is precisely that. Of course there will be efforts to keep the status quo when the status quo is being attacked. This is what I said. If you want to prove me wrong, find recent marches for the women’s right to vote or some other status quo area that isn’t being threatened.

At the least, try to make an attempt to address the actual premise, assuming you can discern what it might be.

#228 — And the really peculiar thing, is that Alston asserts that he doesn’t want tax dollars paying for “birth control” abortion procedures being performed on adults…
I wonder what “religious argument” HIS objection is based on…

What does a fiscal position have to do with religious arguments? Nothing. Nor has anyone implied such. Nice strawman you have there.

#228 It doesn’t take a Champollion and a Rosetta Stone to dope out exactly what they REALLY mean…[snip]

Maybe it does. Enlighten me. Tell me what it secretly says to you that I’m too dim to grasp.

May 23, 2009 - 3:34 pm 238. Bilgeman:

#219 G Alston:
” Issues and arguments occur only when someone is trying to change the status quo. No changes? No issues.”

Certainly…but then who is it causing the “noise” about homosexual marriage?

You can’t have it both ways, Alston. You can’t very well tell religious conservatives to “STFU” about “social issues”, changing the status quo about abortion with their reasonable restrictions, but then turn around and hotly defend the morality,(sic), of homosexuals seeking to change the status quo by having the State affirm their living arrangements as a “marriage”.
…not without coming off like someone who has a big fat penis growing out of the middle of his forehead and hanging down beside his nostril.

“That’s a religious argument from the ground up.”

Alston, Alston, Alston…it appears that that’s another of those thought-mechanism word traps that you’ve fallen into,

I mean seriously…if some partisan of the Left labels the opposition as being based on a “religious argument”, are those the “magic words” that induce the “Jedi Mind Trick” upon you?

Let’s be clear upon a few things first, shall we? When you say it’s a “religious argument” in the American cultural context, you’re REALLY saying it’s a “Christian argument”.
You got a problem with Christianity? Take it up with Christ.

And to break you out of that mind-trap you’re ensnared in, no, objection to gays being married is NOT solely a “religious argument”.

Y’see Alston, there’s such a thing called “defining deviancy downward”…the term was first coined, as I’m sure you know, by Pat Moynihanm who went on to become a Demicrat senator from New York, (Hillary Clinton took his seat when he retired).
A certain subset of the homosexual minority in this country want the State’s affirmation of what may be nothing more than their lifestyle choice because once they are armed with Caesar’s imprimatur, they can openly enter the school systems and proselytize to the youth.

Gays recruit, Alston…there may be such a thing as a hereditary homosexual, but if there is, I think that that would bem genetically speaking, a rather rare breed of cat.

The majority therefore, MUST recruit new converts to their deviant lifestyle, (and NO segment of sexual society worships “youth” like the homos do).

What better place for them to “hunt” than in a high school, among adolescents who are having a hard enough time of it as it is? Turn them loose among vulnerable adolescents with a State-sanctioned message that “It’s Okay to be Gay”,(or some such government rot), and they will have an endless supply of young future bedmates to pervert and exploit.

That’s what the REAL objection is, Alston. That is what’s REALLY going on with THAT issue.

Didn’t you ever have a queer make a pass at you when you were a teen?

It happened to rather more of us than you might expect, and I, at least, did not forget about it.

Now if Adam and Steve want to shack up long term and name each other as beneficiaries and go about their business quietly and in private, I could care less, I don’t approve of it, but as long as they keep their business THEIR business, then it’s none of mine.

May 23, 2009 - 9:12 pm 239. Bilgeman:

#237 G Alston:
“What does a fiscal position have to do with religious arguments? Nothing. Nor has anyone implied such. Nice strawman you have there.”

I’m glad you like it, I modeleld it after you.

Sorry, Alston, but you don’t get a pass from having YOUR opposition to unrestricted abortion smeared with the same brush they use against anyone else who opposes their agenda.

Maybe you think you will, but then maybe you are also irretrievably stoopid.

Do like I challeneged you to, go float your “fiscal position” on their blogs and see what it gets you…care to wager that you won’t be tarred and feathered as a ChristoFascist Dominionist…just like the rest of us?

And Alston…really! Are you claiming here that your ONLY objection to abortion is from a fiscal standpoint?
You have no moral or ethical qualms about the procedure at all?

Perhaps so, and then in addition to possibly being stupid, you seem, after all is said and done,to have no principles after all.

At least no principles worth the name.

May 23, 2009 - 9:29 pm 240. Bilgeman:

Ah-yup.

My post at #238 was twice submitted on Friday night, and was twice “moderated” into the “byte-bucket”.

As I suspected, when it comes to issues about homosexuals, some moderators here have an agenda of their own.

Thanks for letting it through, Saturday night’s mod.

May 24, 2009 - 4:56 am 241. G Alston:

#240 — Let’s be clear upon a few things first, shall we? When you say it’s a “religious argument” in the American cultural context, you’re REALLY saying it’s a “Christian argument”

The US courts have been ruling against purely religious argument since the Scopes Monkey Trial. Realistically there are no valid arguments against the teaching of evolution; there are only religious ones. These are being pruned. This is the trend, and the trend continues. Observing this and illustrating this isn’t an attack on christians, and I find it sadly amusing that any number of christians invariably presume this. Ye of little faith.

Interestingly when I speak of cultural WMD (blue jeans, rock music, ipods, coca cola, etc.) doing a number on Iranian youth and loosening the grip of the ayatollahs, *nobody* accuses me of attacking the religion of islam. This tells me that few of you have the capacity to step outside your preconceptions and view the religion/state issue from afar. The issue, of course, is the amount of influence of purely religious argument on state policy. Certainly in the case of the muslims the christians find comfort in the idea that muslim countries ought to be more secular. But not their own?

By all means, though, continue to consider me an atheist with a hatred of all things religious if that is what you require to make sense of my words.

The majority therefore, MUST recruit new converts to their deviant lifestyle… [snip]

Do yo actually know any gays? I do. Tons. I work with them all the time in theatre (probably a third of the group at any given time is gay.) My kids were raised knowing them. Your position seems based on ignorance, and you are repeating an argument that was debunked decades ago. Having some gay friends might do you some good.

Perhaps so, and then in addition to possibly being stupid, you seem, after all is said and done,to have no principles after all.

My principles aren’t yours, therefore I have none? So you *are* doing the inflammatory rhetoric thing. That’s OK by me; it makes you feel better and tells any casual reader that doesn’t share your agenda that you’re wrong. I’m not trying to influence YOU. The more you flame, the weaker your position.

And… you lurking casual readers know who you are. Hi guys.

May 24, 2009 - 9:56 am 242. Bilgeman:

$241 G Alston:

I must say, Alston, I enjoy immensely pinning you down and then watching you respond by criticizing the water-stains on the ceiling or how the curtains have faded.
It’s very entertaining, you know.

You certainly display a talent for arguing past the points that is head and shoulders above the pygmy trolls that infest this site.

As I recall, I asked:
“And Alston…really! Are you claiming here that your ONLY objection to abortion is from a fiscal standpoint?”

and you reply with the Scopes Monkey Trial and the Mullahs of Iran, whih naturally and inexorably leads you to this statement:
“By all means, though, continue to consider me an atheist with a hatred of all things religious if that is what you require to make sense of my words”

That’s a misattribution, Alston, I didn’t say that you were an atheist or that you hated all things religious, I simply asked you if the ONLY qualm you had against abortion was that you might have to pay for one whose pregnancy you hadn’t caused.

But thanks for the world historical tour from Tennessee to Tehran.

You go on to ask me:
“Do yo actually know any gays? I do. Tons. I work with them all the time in theatre”

I reply,(and kindly take notice, Alston that I am directly addressing the point you raise), that I probably do, at least I suspect that some of them may be a bit “light in the loafers”.
Thing is, since my friendships, except with my wife, don’t extend to sexual congress, whether they are homosexual or not is of little interest to me. In fact, if I meet someone and the first thing out of the mouths is that they ARE gay, then I will probably avoid that person as someone who has a rather obvious chip on their shoulder.
(See, Alston, I answered your question directly without diverting into the sad state of modern British stage musical comedy or the dearth of Nordic street-mimes in colonial Quito,Ecuador.).

But here’s a flat bit of lying you did that I cannot let slide:

“Your position seems based on ignorance, and you are repeating an argument that was debunked decades ago. Having some gay friends might do you some good.”

No, Alston, it’s a position based on experience. I am rather a good-looking chap, and I’ve been subjected to advances from dirty male deviant pedophiles since my early teens.
Ever work in a gas station back when there were such things as Full Service islands, Alston?
No?
You’d be amazed how many calls from horny perverts a good-looking 15 year old can get.

Furthermore, Alston, the vast majority of the pedophilia cases that have rocked the Catholic church have been same-sex ones…that’s homosexual pedophilia.

Far from being debunked decades ago, it was happening as recently as last year, chum.

Does this make ALL gays a pack of leering short-eyed deviants?

Certainly not.

But there ARE enough of that number among them, and as they are to the extent protected and defended by that community, that has a cost TO the Gay community.

Denial of state sanction for their living arrangement is one of those costs.

When a school principal uses school funds for children to see their lesbian teacher getting “married”, the majority of us know EXACTLY what lesson it is that someone is trying to teach, and to whom, and to what purpose.
Teach your OWN kids whatever you wish, but you will NOT teach mine what I morally object to.

Some people better get that through their heads, Alston, because when it comes to protecting children, especially my own, I can be very…unpleasant.

Monstrously so.

May 24, 2009 - 11:24 am 243. Just passing through:

236. realitycheq:

Look, you moron. You didn’t understand what a trend was, how to read a graph and recognize one, or how to read a comment and understand what was being discussed. You touted your math skills and were embarrassed. Instead of saying, ‘Oh, misunderstood, sorry’, you wouldn’t let it go and made an utter fool of yourself dodging, weaving, redefining the matter under discussion, and finally tossing back the original definition given you as your own and declaring victory.

Now it’s we can’t look back at the start of Obama’s approval ratings, we must only consider the time span you choose that shows a level rating. You still want two points for a trend, the two you choose, so you can claim no movement in approval. Despite your desperate attempts to make that so, you yourself linked to the graphs that make a fool out of your claims.

And this had nothing at all to do with this thread, where you again jumped in without understanding the subject of my comment so you could assuage your sense of outrage at being shown to be a fool last time, and proceeded to do it again.

It’s you that needs to get over the election and understand that your hero has fallen off his pedestal and been revealed as just another politician. Not a very good one as a legislator, and way out of his depth as an executive. Despite your astonishment, that electorate is looking at your hero and his accomplishments since his election and inauguration and increasingly finding him wanting. And he’s subject to the approval of that electorate on any matter he addresses that concerns them. Just like any other president has been. That electorate includes not just the people how voted for him, but also the people who voted against him, and the people who didn’t vote at all. It includes not just democrats, but republicans and most importantly the voters who decide every presidential election, the independents. And if those independents are moving away from identifying with your hero’s party, you need to accept that as a fact and drop the foolish whistling past the graveyard notion, that the media is now having trouble with defending, that support for him is not dropping.

Go back to the warm cocoon full of all the people who you just know are all the people with all the opinions that matter. Where you came from and where everybody just KNOWS Obama has the approval of everyone that matters, because after all, they ALL approve of him.

May 24, 2009 - 5:44 pm 244. G Alston:

#242 — But here’s a flat bit of lying you did that I cannot let slide:

Non sequitor. False claims and observations about the basis of an argument are fundamentally different things.

“And Alston…really! Are you claiming here that your ONLY objection to abortion is from a fiscal standpoint?”

Are there objections one ought to have?

May 24, 2009 - 11:59 pm 245. Bilgeman:

#244 Alston:
“Are there objections one ought to have?”

If you need ‘em ’splained to you, Alston, then I doubt very much that they would find any fertile ground to grow in.

May 25, 2009 - 10:27 am 246. realitycheq:

JPT

Not off topic at all. You are a perfect example of why someone like me finds the right so entertaining.

Your interpretation of publicly available and cited polling data is flat out wrong. Rather than admit your mistake or cite some data to support your thesis, you keep on ranting, name calling, engaging in personal attacks and accusing others of being incapable of reading comprehension and basic math. Good lord, even this site’s hero, Chuck Pelto, agreed my mathematical analysis was correct (in March).

Since inauguration, some individual polls have given Obama approval ratings as high as ~75% – some as low as ~50%. Some of the polls rely on likely voters. Some rely on registered voters. When averaged out, Obama’s approval ratings have remained ~60% over this 4 month time span. It takes at least two points to define a line. The mathematical equation for a line is y = mx +b. The trend is discerned from the slope of the line, m. The trend line is flat. The slope of the line (m) is one. There has been no significant increase or decrease in Obama’s approval ratings since he was inaugurated. Extrapolating this data is meaningless.

So hang in there JPT. Sooner or later there may be a significant decrease in Obama’s approval ratings over a long period of time. Then you can claim you were right all along.

May 26, 2009 - 12:50 pm 247. David S:

@120. Just passing Through:

You have been quite rude and insulting on this thread. If you had something intelligent to add, it got lost in the personal attacks. Just for the sake of posterity, let the record show that you have made unfounded assertions about the topic at hand, while refusing to cite any poll to support your position, or refute the polling that has been offered to demonstrate the fact of the matter.

Look at polls that compare current numbers with those from late last year (as my post said clearly).

Gladly. Here’s a sampling:

Obama at 63% in December

Obama at 63% in February

“According to weekly aggregates of Gallup Poll Daily tracking interviews, Obama has lost no support from Democrats and independents since taking office, but his approval rating from Republicans has dropped steadily week by week, from 41% at the start of his term to just 30% today.”

Obama at 63% in April

“Obama’s 63% first-quarter average matches the historical average of 63% for elected presidents’ first quarters since 1953. However, it is the fourth highest for a newly elected president since that time, and the highest since Jimmy Carter’s 69% in 1977.”

Tell me again where you got your evidence for a decrease in approval? I’m afraid I’m not seeing a really clear trend here.

And no, I won’t cite. You search it. You have a belittled reputation for making absurd statements based on cherry picking polls, completely misunderstanding their import based on the type and format of the questions, or out right lying about them. Perhaps it’s time you overcame that reputation by defending your nonsense as personal spin rather than supported by evidence.

All I can say is that when I pick a poll to cite, I cite it. If you can’t even be bothered to cherry pick the polls, and prefer to spout nonsense based solely on your own ignorance, more power to you. But please don’t accuse me of lying when you have no basis to do so. I’m always happy to defend my position, or to abandon it when proven wrong. Until then, stop pretending that your prejudice has anything to do with my reputation, thanks. You belittle the reader more than you know.

Peace.

DS

May 26, 2009 - 3:41 pm

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