Category: Uncategorized

David Limbaugh writes: The Democrats’ unity and the motivation of their base presents a problem for the GOP, which is exacerbated by the restlessness of its own base, some of which has been appreciably alienated by Bush’s gravitation to the left on education, campaign finance reform, trade, overall domestic spending and immigration, to name a few. I don’t think too many of these disaffected conservatives are irretrievable.

One of these days conservatives will stop falling for the “at least we’re not the Democrats” argument. Perhaps it will be in 2004, perhaps not, but it won’t work forever. The Law of the Sea Treaty is only the latest abomination that George Delano has embraced – of the five most important issues that I see, there is only a slight difference between Bush and Kerry on one of them.

But at least Mr. Limbaugh recognizes the truth of George Delano’s governing philosophy, when he admits: Within no time at all, the Democrats were back to hating George Bush as usual, even though he extended numerous olive branches to them and was implementing much of their domestic agenda.

So, we have a Republican president, Republican House and Republican Senate, and they devote themselves to implementing a Democratic domestic agenda. Interesting.

Daniel Weigel writes in Reason: Dispatches From the Culture Wars fundamentally misunderstands politics, pop culture, and the connections between them. By equating aesthetics with ideology, Goldberg makes a common but serious mistake: He thinks you can tell a person’s politics from the music she listens to.

The fact that a Christian Libertarian would write a song about a basically Japanese notion and title it after a Buddhist concept must confuse the smack out of Mr. Goldberg. I like Mozart and Metallica. I like Duran Duran and Dvorak. It signifies nothing, except that the Baby Boomers still haven’t gotten over themselves. Which is hardly news.

I can’t wait for the coming “Dentures are cool!” phase. I swear, that entire generation is 55 going on 16. No wonder the country is so messed up.

DRUDGE: What I represent, if I see it correctly, is an independent voice who’s willing to take on presidents and networks, and reveal ratings they don’t want you to see.

PAGLIA: It’s so true. The Drudge Report has dramatized the process of censorship that’s going on, the filtering of the news by established news organizations. I used to think, at the beginning of the ’90s, that we had a relatively free press and that people were out to make their reputations in the Woodward-Bernstein model. But I no longer think that. Most of the reporters on the networks and in main northeastern newspapers are company men — shmoozing careerists who are desperately afraid to rock the boat.

This is one of the many reasons I love Camille Paglia. She isn’t afraid to admit that she can be wrong about things, that she changes her mind. This interview is definitely of interest if you appreciate either her or Matt Drudge.

I have to thank both Si and Sarah, who were quite helpful in providing material for next week’s column, entitled The Axis of Liberal. I’d forgotten just how perfectly poisonous dear old Jean-Jacques could be.

From the Miami New Times on Drudge: New York’s downtown milieu left a lasting imprint on most people who passed through it, and while the experience may not have transformed them into flaming revolutionaries, it usually left them comfortably within “Bill Clinton’s America” and injected a healthy fear of the “GWB-ies.” To hear Drudge throw in his ideological lot with the latter tribe simply seems unfathomable, particularly when he glides from effusive praise of borderline reactionary Georgia Rep. Bob Barr to singing the lyrics of the house classic “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” — a veritable gay-nightclub anthem. Drudge says there’s no inherent conflict. “I take this music seriously,” he insists. “In fact I take this music so seriously that I don’t want to see some shirtless freak tweaking. That kind of ruins it for me — club music is the classical music of our age.”

If they can’t wrap their little minds around the fact that Matt Drudge likes club music, I wonder how they’d manage to survive the notion that I wrote three songs that hit the Billboard top 40 dance chart. Because, as we all know, only left-liberals are cool in the city. It’s a degenerate Marxian notion – although in this case, it’s more likely a high school concept – that one is somehow defined by one’s music.

And, of course, the mere existence of the Queer Party Friends would probably make their heads explode.

From the Miami New Times article on Matt Drudge: “And it took just two fingers, a modem, and guts.” He then adds with a snarl: “And not giving a shit!” That sentiment is precisely what alarmed many in the media.

Matt is right. While there certainly are efforts on the part of editors and producers to keep voices of the right and other dangerous notions out of the public eye, it is primarily self-censorship on the part of journalists of all stripes that keeps people from learning about the truth of the world around them.

Lack of fear among the serfs always alarms the masters.

This one is open to everyone since we’re unlikely to have any genuine defenders, but today is not a day for critiques or sarcasm, just serious answers as if you were attempting to defend the subject under discussion.

Why is it unfair to use the history of the Soviet Union to judge communism? In what ways was the Soviet Union not “true” communism? What would make for a better example of true communism in the real world?

Jonnelle asks: On a related tangent, I would like to ask for a recommendation from the firearm enthusiasts floating around here. An incident yesterday has prompted me to look into buying a handgun. My knowledge and experience is.. um.. well.. non-existent. The intial searches I’ve done for information border on overwhelming.

Firearm enthusiasts here? Perish the thought…. I am of the opinion that the .357 is too big for a woman to carry around easily, especially in a small purse. I recommend the S&W .38 featherweight for the utmost in portability. It’s a revolver not much larger than your palm, holds five shots, has a catchless hammer and is designed to be fired at very close quarters – like through your coat at someone who is trying to pile you into their car. The .38 is a weak round, but hollow point helps take care of that. Since the vast majority of incidents don’t actually require shooting anyone, the important thing is that it’s there and that it goes bang.

The best gun in the world is useless if you don’t have it on you. I would go with two guns, something larger, perhaps a .357 with a laser sight for things that go bump in the night at home, and the featherweight for when you’re on the go. The only problem with the featherweight is you can seriously forget you’ve got it on you.

Space Bunny’s got a Glock 9mm with a laser. She likes it and can hit her target with it.

15,500 new carry permits in Minnesota, and a grand total of two revoked for unlawful discharge of a firearm in the first year. Neither of the two permit-holders were actually shooting at anyone. So much for the Red Star’s predicted bloodbath.

BLS writes: Read great economists? What can Dead White Males possibly have to say to a person living in these, the most enlightened times ever? Look, it’s perfectly simple: whatever policy position makes me feel good about myself is right, and since it’s comfortable to me, then anybody who disagrees with me is either too stupid to appreciate my brilliance, or just plain evil. Which are you?

And, of course, should you dare to either identify my brilliant thought as one that has been thought and dismissed before or follow a reasonable train of logic from my assertions to conclusions I don’t like, you will of course be guilty of mischaracterizing my positions. Furthermore, I reserve the right to redefine any concept that has negative connotations, regardless of how easily identifiable and well-understood it might be.

“This time it will be different” is the battle cry of the latter-day socialist. “This is different” is the battle cry of the liberal who is too stupid to realize that he is a latter-day socialist.