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It’s another of those rare occasions wherein I completely agree with Andrew Sullivan:

And, yes, thank God for Ron Paul.

No one else, except McCain, copped to the GOP’s rank betrayal of fiscal conservatism, limited government, prudent foreign policy and civil liberties. When he was asked to disown the 9/11 Truthers, he gave a revealing answer, and one that reflects on the newsletters issue. It just isn’t in his nature to adopt other people’s views, or to tell anyone else what to believe or what to say. He doesn’t just believe in libertarianism; he lives it. This means that he doesn’t have the instinct to police anyone else’s views or actions within the law or the Constitution.

John Derbyshire, too, hasn’t backed down one iota from his support of Ron Paul. Neither have I. The very fact that a portion of the supposedly conservative commentariat seriously believes that one individual is responsible for another individual’s words, let alone thinks that anyone who values human freedom or the U.S. Constitution might abandon his support for the only candidate supporting both in the race, only goes to demonstrate how far what now passess for conservatism has fallen from the real thing.

Since when do real conservatives believe words speak louder than actions anyhow? (And since when do real conservatives think Martin Luther King is a sacred icon, for that matter? Given all the drama-queening reactions, you would have thought Paul was accused of insulting Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.) First the liars of the Left stole “liberal”, now we are witnessing the theft of “conservative” before our very eyes.

People often try to blame me for comments that are made here. This is an intellectually shabby tactic, as there are literally hundreds of thousands of my own words from which to choose, and yet they still have to try to put words in my mouth in order to attack me. But like Ron Paul, I am a practicing libertarian; a failure to respond to a comment is as likely to mean that I think it is completely insane as it is to indicate that I agree with it. (Most likely, it means I think it’s obvious, idiotic or irrelevant, but then, I AM a superintelligence.) As Derb says of Paul, if you’re crazy, I’m fine with it.

Today’s “conservatives”, being every bit as PC and prone to playing thought police as their “liberal” ideological kin, simply can’t seem to understand that your thoughts are not my responsibility.

Alex Koppelman of Salon does an excellent job questioning Jonah Goldberg about Liberal Fascism. It was interesting to see the difference between my interview with Jonah and this one, in which the interviewer is obviously more familiar with the outmoded ideological interpretation of Fascism. Even the title of the piece demonstrates that Koppelman at least understood the book, even if he didn’t entirely agree with it. I thought his question about the seeming dichotomy between progressive passivism and fascist militarism was very good, as was Goldberg’s explanation:

What appealed to the Progressives about militarism was what William James calls this moral equivalent of war. It was that war brought out the best in society, as James put it, that it was the best tool then known for mobilization … That is what is fascistic about militarism, its utility as a mechanism for galvanizing society to join together, to drop their partisan differences, to move beyond ideology and get with the program. And liberalism today is, strictly speaking, pretty pacifistic. They’re not the ones who want to go to war all that much. But they’re still deeply enamored with this concept of the moral equivalent of war, that we should unite around common purposes.

Goldberg also does a brilliant job of slamming his more intransigent critics, who not only haven’t read the book – and probably aren’t capable of understanding it even if they tried to – but are seriously attempting to ignore the entire text on the basis of the cover image.

“I’m perfectly glad to concede that people who do judge books by their covers or think it’s more important to read a title rather than read a book will be confused and jump to conclusions. But these are people that I don’t generally respect…. And if you can’t get past the cover and the title, then you’re not a serious book reader and you’re not really a serious person.”

This exchange of comments at Rod Dreher’s blog nicely illustrates one aspect of the dark future facing Republicans:

It is staggering that anyone who calls himself pro-life could even remotely consider voting for Obama.
Posted by: RC

True, since the GOP has been so staggeringly successful at getting abortion banned.
Posted by: Derek Copold

When you achieve near-complete political power, as the Republican Party did with its sweep of the White House, the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court and you so completely fail to deliver on any of your promises, why on Earth should pro-lifers continue to throw their votes away on you? Given a choice between one party that wants to fund doctors killing children and another party that isn’t interested in preventing doctors from killing children, why should pro-lifers bother taking a party’s position on child-killing into consideration, or for the more single-minded, even bother voting at all?

UPDATE – This exchange was equally illuminating, in this case, of the feminist approach to logic:

I could no more vote for someone who believes that the unborn human has no rights at all and is the completely disposable property of her mother

In that logic, your position in turn imples that the woman is, then, property of the fetus. She can do nothing, yet the fetus is permitted to treat her as disposable, to kill her under some circumstances (e.g. ectopic pregnancy).

Logic is hard!

This isn’t exactly news to anyone who has been paying attention since the dawn of human history.

When Prince & Associates, an American wealth-research firm, asked a sample group of thirtysomething women if they would marry for money, a resounding 75 per cent said yes.

I think my most blatant experience of this basic reality was when I met an extraordinarily attractive model, and after we were introduced, the very first thing she did was check the lapel label of my suit.

Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with knowing what you prefer in a prospective mate. I’m not exactly secretive about my preference for slender blondes with nicely defined cheekbones who live in the gym. The first problem lies with those who are dishonest with both themselves and others about what they are seeking, the subsequent one is thinking that merely finding someone who meets those preferences is going to be enough to satisfy you over time in a relationship.

There’s a saying that no woman is so hot that there isn’t a man somewhere who is thoroughly sick of her. And there’s no man so wealthy that there isn’t a woman somewhere who can’t stand to be around him – although in the latter case, the divorce settlement may have somewhat ameliorated the loathing.

I did find it amusing that the woman in the article who was interested in applying for the millionaires dating club appeared to be genuinely surprised to discover that these monetary targets of opportunity were inclined her various interests as secondary. But the basic truth is pretty simple and all the fairy tale fantasies in the world won’t ever change the fundamental reality or importance of the propagation equation. Women trade looks and sex for status and security. This is not a bad thing, in fact, this is how the race – species if you prefer – survives.

Give women status and security, they stop breeding. Give men hot women without making them take responsibility for those women, they stop breeding. This is not rocket science, and it is also why any society that bases itself on a principle of sexual equality will fail within in less than five generations.

When they’re votes for Ron Paul:

TOWN OF SUTTON CONFIRMS RON PAUL TOTALS WERE 31, NOT ZERO.

I just got off the phone with Jennifer Call, Town Clerk for Sutton. She confirmed that the Ron Paul totals in Sutton were actually 31, and said that they were “left off the tally sheet” and it was human error.

This needs to be further investigated. I wonder how much more of that accidental-on-purpose human error took place around the state, and in whose –Hillary– favor?

Not only does the responsible Cornerite continue her fascinating and important consideration of the romantic lives of French politicians, but she manages to demonstrate incredible intellectual acumen as well:

According to my 12 year old, a Rabbi who had lost the attention of the class, just last week raised his voice and all but shouted, “people, this happened because Potiphar wanted to have sex with Joseph!”

Yes, the famous Biblical story about that raging queen Potiphar trying to seduce Joseph… he must have found that technicolor dreamcoat irresistible. This reminds me of my favorite game with female writers. From the time their first column appears, count the number of columns they write before mentioning their children, (if they have one), their husband/boyfriend, (if they have one), or their cat (if they lack the aforementioned accoutrements, they’ll DEFINITELY have one).

The Over/Under is usually around four. A woman who can resist referencing her personal life for more than ten columns will often turn to be very good, while you know it’s going to be a short and ugly run when she’s working in references to her “life-partner” with whom she shares Moggsy and Mr. Tiddles, in the very first one.

I always marveled at how some of the Austrian economists had the foresight to depart Austria and Germany so long before the evil of the Nazi regime became apparent to the world at large. Now, I’m wondering how so many Americans can be so blind as to fail to recognize the mutation of their nation into a police terror state:

The mother of an 11-year-old boy abducted by SWAT team members and taken to a hospital after he was bruised while horsing around is warning members of her community of the “Nazi” tactics she endured, including a statement from the officers that her “rights” were “only in the movies.”

The case involves Jon Shiflet, who injured himself while trying to grab the handle of a door on a car his sister was driving. He slipped and fell to the pavement, hitting his head. His parents treated him for the injury and rejected paramedics’ demands that they be allowed to take him to a hospital. “One (officer) grabbed my daughter Beth (18 years), who also had a gun to her face, slammed her down and kneed her in the back and held her in that position… My sons Adam (14) and Noah (only 7) lay down willingly, yet they were still forced to put their hands behind their backs and were yelled at to keep their heads down….

“I asked if I could make a phone call and was told, ‘no.’ My daughter asked if that wasn’t one of our rights. The reply was made, ‘That’s only in the movies,'” she told WND.

This sort of thing is more common than you think and it’s definitely not going to stop, it’s only going get worse as the definition of “terrorist” is expanded and the economy heads south. Politics won’t stop it, as both major parties strongly favor the expansion of central state power. Home invasions like these simply don’t happen often in most other civilized nations; America may have once been the most free country in the world but that just isn’t the case any longer.

The sheriff says he felt he had no choice: “I was given a court order, and I really don’t feel I have any choice but to comply with that court order.”

Good thing the court didn’t tell him to round up a few Jews instead of kidnapping a little boy from his home. The moral of this tale of two stories: always surreptitiously record the cops.

It looks like I’m not the only one who has noticed Hillary Clinton’s praetorian guard of grim lesbian blackskirts:

Hillary’s willingness to tolerate Bill’s compulsive philandering is a function of her general contempt for men. She distrusts them and feels morally superior to them. Following the pattern of her long-suffering mother, she thinks it is her mission to endure every insult and personal degradation for a higher cause — which, unlike her self-sacrificing mother, she identifies with her near-messianic personal ambition.

It’s no coincidence that Hillary’s staff has always consisted mostly of adoring women, with nerdy or geeky guys forming an adjunct brain trust….

Hillary’s disdain for masculinity fits right into the classic feminazi package, which is why Hillary acts on Gloria Steinem like catnip.

I have to admit, I find myself almost anticipating Hillary’s Reign of Grrl Terror. Of course it will be beyond imagining, but I have this little bet with myself that as awful as all of the conventional Republican Clinton-haters think it’s going to be, it will actually be much worse, albeit in ways that no one outside of the Lizard Queen’s twisted reptilian mind can realistically anticipate.

The NYT’s Gail Collins explains the Lizard Queen’s victory in New Hampshire:

My own favorite theory is that this week, Hillary was a stand-in for every woman who’s overdosed on multitasking. They grabbed at the opportunity to have kids/go back to school/start a business/become a lawyer. But there are days when they can’t meet everybody’s needs and the men in their lives — loved ones and otherwise — make them feel like failures or towers of self-involvement. And the deal is that they can either suck it up or look like a baby.

The women whose heart went out to Hillary knew that it wasn’t rational. She asked for this race, and if she was exhausted, the other candidates were, too. (John McCain is 71 and tired and nobody felt sorry for him.) The front-runner always gets ganged up on in debates. If her campaign was in shambles, it was her job to fix it or take the consequences. But for one moment, women knew just how Hillary felt, and they gave her a sympathy vote

As the OC often points out, fiction can’t keep up with reality and not even my deep cynicism about female voting can manage to run with the self-parody. Have you ever noticed that those who defend women’s suffrage never see fit to mention the importance of things like the sympathy vote? Defenses of women’s suffrage, in the rare case that anyone even attempts to make one rather than simply throwing a hissy fit, are always a vague theoretical defense. This is mostly because there is ABSOLUTELY no evidence, not one iota, to support the idea that universal suffrage – or in the case of the USA, wide but non-universal suffrage – is either synonymous with human liberty or fosters freedom in any significant way.

Moreover, the modern suffrage position makes no sense. If the will of the people is paramount, then what is the grounds for banning direct democracy? And if limits on democracy are justifiable, then what is the rational basis for limiting it in one way but erupting in hysterical fury at the mere suggestion of limiting it in another? There is nothing inherently moral about democracy; more importantly, there is nothing intellectually coherent about the moral case for limited democracy.

As far as the New Hampshire primary goes, I’ve already stated my belief that the ballots were adjusted in favor of the Lizard Queen. This demonstration of the difference between verifiable hand ballots and unverifiable machine ones shows how the chicanery may have been accomplished. As both the ballot data and the media coverage tend to indicate, the Republican elites are far more worried about Huckabee than Paul.

But at the end of the day, the incomparable Aussie may have summed it up best: “A black man tried to take something from a white woman, so they all clutched their purses tighter and voted against this vote rapist.”

A commenter at the Evangelical Outpost corrects the impression that Rudy is only losing because he isn’t trying:

Rudy got 9% of the vote after 126 campaign events in New Hampshire to Huck’s 93. And spent $2.5 million on TV to Huck’s $100K.

Someone had better get that whip cracking on those Diebold programmers! I’m not so sure that the elite is convinced that they really need Rudy to play the fall guy anymore, though. Thanks to his undeniable political skills, Mike Huckabee appears to be the only one besides Ron Paul that might be able to make the Lizard Queen sweat in any way, although one has to assume that there’s no shortage of Arkansas dirt available to be either dug up or manufactured by Team Clinton.

Meanwhile, NRO’s Patrick Basham offers with a pro-Giuliani take on events:

Rudy’s decision to ignore both the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries guaranteed poor showings in these still-important first-in-the-nation contests….

Now, I don’t know if the appearance count and money spent is accurate for Giuliani, so perhaps someone can set me straight if the EO commenter is incorrect. But if he’s got the numbers right, then someone really needs to correct Rudy’s Republican propagandists.