Vox Popoli

Is Ben Shapiro a chickenhawk? YES (I am a civilian) YES (I am a veteran or active-duty military) NO (I am a civilian) NO (I am a veteran or active-duty military) view results Easy online poll builder – free! $5 Web Hosting!

Although I am notoriously skeptical of all things democratic, I am curious to know how public opinion shakes out here. Vote only once, please. It will be interesting to compare this to the military-only vote, which was 66 YES and 45 NO.

I’m sure it will also be interesting to hear Chuck’s latest theory on how the mere asking of this question is tantamount to “wanting to suppress” freedom of speech and “overturning the Bill of Rights”. Perhaps Mr. Shapiro could save him a seat in this semester’s upcoming Constitution 101 class.

GT expresses a veteran’s view:

Thank you! I am a veteran who shares your sentiments regarding Boy Shapiro. I had even considered sending an email. But now I don’t have to since you have done so far more effectively than I could have. Not to mention the fact that the said email would only been seen by Boy Shapiro, while your excellent rebuke is there on WorldNetDaily for all the world to see.

All of your points were excellent, but it was the first one that cut to the heart of the matter. If Boy Shapiro is so in favor of Bush Wars, why doesn’t he join the military? As a college graduate, I’m sure he could find a position replacing the many junior-grade officers who are making an exit.

I suspect one of the reasons that the pro-war commentators have gone so astray on this chickenhawk thing is not only because so many of them feel personally defensive about it, but also because they simply are not acquainted with many individuals serving in the military. In my personal experience, I’ve usually heard the word “chickenhawk” preceded by an adjective that starts with the letter F.

Although the results of Friday’s little poll are completely unscientific, I don’t think they can be easily dismissed. Blackfive’s readership tends to lean fairly heavily pro-war, and while the veterans and active military there were less supportive of my position than the veterans and active military here, a substantial majority still agreed nevertheless.

CH recommends the road less travelled:

I wonder too about defending people who we know will stab us in the back at their first opportunity (Shiites, Afghans). I am not there being wounded and killed along with the other volunteers. I am too old. But did you really have to deliver that very low blow about the San Francisco bathhouse sex? If the guy is a pervert, and you can back it up, then do so. If you can’t then debaters know what you are doing, calling names for lack of an opposing argument. You didn’t win this one, you diminished your credibility. Stick to the high road.

Yes, yes I did, because it was funny and it amused me. In any event, CH didn’t read the first paragraph closely enough as I was merely giving Mr. Shapiro an out, (so to speak), against the charges which otherwise appear to apply so very well indeed. What’s ironic is the way that CH somehow manages to completely miss the substantive arguments which completely demolish Shapiro’s five previous points because she’s so hung up on something that isn’t even an accusation!

Meanwhile, BH is a man who would fight for Ben’s honor. He’ll be the hero Ben’s dreaming of. They’ll live forever, knowing together, that he did it all for the glory of love:

Vox, with all due respect to your ostensibly prodigious intellect: Screw you. No, Ben hasn’t seen combat – just look at him; he’s a baby. I have seen combat, both in Desert Storm and as a civilian police officer, and I’m telling you the ad hominem attacks have got to stop. First you rake Michelle Malkin over the coals for taking a fairly reasonable position on the internment of American citizens of particular ethnicity during WWII, and now you’re going after Ben Shapiro for supporting the substance of the Iraq war. But the problem is you’re full of shit. It doesn’t make a bit of difference as regards the merits of his argument whether or not he has, does, or ever will serve in the US military. I’m no Bush cheerleader, but clearly the invasion of Iraq was eminently justified, and while I don’t support its continued occupation, I don’t agree with your position that to do so is tantamount to empire building.

If you were as intelligent as you think you are, you would understand that, as a student at Harvard Law School, Ben Shapiro is swimming upstream in a sewer, and you would attribute his rhetorical excesses to his youth and perhaps to a conditioned response to the vehement, caustic, knee-jerk liberalism that assaults him on a daily basis. Some of your writing has a positively pugilistic air, and if in the final analysis that’s all you respect, I’ll kick your ass as a service to you – free of charge – that may provide you with a modicum of humility that is becoming to a Christian man and absent in some of your columns.

1. Malkin didn’t dare stand up for herself. Why do you bother?
2. What is ad hominum in responding directly, (and, some would argue, ad infinitum) to the question of military necessity for internment? What is ad hominum about in directly to the five arguments Ben Shapiro raised in his two previous columns?
3. Ben Shapiro is not merely supporting the Iraqi war and he obviously disagrees with BH on the empire-building aspect of the situation.
4. I’ve gotten my ass kicked hundreds of times. In the unlikely event BH was able to deliver, how would that prove whatever point BH is trying to make? And by the way, the last Marine to take me on tapped out in less than 10 seconds. Linsel daidar is a bitch!

If you’re getting bored with playing pin the tail on the chickenhawk, why not check out the newest Voxologisti?

Stop the ACLU
Volume 11
JammedGun

In the meantime, we are all breathlessly awaiting the imminent return of The Virgin Queen from her Summer Court.

A Townhaller opens his eyes:

Thanks to the incredible expansion of federal entitlements, regulations and pork spending sanctioned by the GOP leadership in Congress since 2001, there is virtually no chance that Big Government is going to be shrunk even a little any time soon.

And since there is no sign the folks running Congress are willing to change course, why shouldn’t conservatives dump the GOP?

Mark Tapscott isn’t bold enough to follow through on his logic – he ends up calling for an intervention, as if that will do anything – but I do think it is noteworthy that after five years of abuse at the hands of a Republican president, Congress and Supreme Court, even media Three Monkey Republicans are beginning to realize that their party is not simply blundering into Democratic snares, but is actually the treacherous faction of the bifactional Government Party.

I encourage conservatives to vote Libertarian, Constitution Party or even not to vote at all rather than continue to lend their support to a party that despite its words, is adamantly opposed to almost everything conservatives hold dear.

The White Buffalo gets it rolling:

Attacking the free agent market like a depressed fat girl attacks a tub of chocolate ice cream, [Vox’s team] has executed triple the moves of any other franchise thus far this year.

“We expect to swap out our entire team before the season starts,” a nattily dressed Vox Day reported. “We’re not really very good at drafting. We’re generally emotional, over-reaching, sweaty, bloated, dizzy, frightened, and unsure most draft days. This past one was no exception. We were sold on the idea that drafting players with 26 and 31 letters in their names only this year was going to change our luck. But once we looked at our weak squad after the draft, we knew we had to do something about it. So now we’re adopting the “third stringers are winners” approach and adding players like Kevin Curtis to our lineup. I’m just heartened that [WB’s team] drafted Javon Walker before we could get to him. He’s a starter, so we have had to drop him when all was said and done.”‘

See, now THAT’S how you diss a guy. Take a genuine fact and put your own explanatory twist on it, make accusations of extreme incompetence, ignorance or sexual inadequacy, and do not forget to suggest that your target is a girl. And this is just preseason smack, it’s nothing vicious like the much-feared pre-game victory haiku. Although I don’t see how anything will ever top the time that Esara Tualo unexpectedly came out.

That is to say, barring the all-time classic: “he sold his soul for Laveranues Coles”. It’s four years later and I still can’t see that name without laughing. What a sorry lot of magnificent bastards!

UPDATE: Make that 4x the moves… I just picked up Cedric Benson again now that he resigned. If they can’t throw the ball, the guy is going to get about 400 carries this year even if he doesn’t play in the first two games. Plus, he’s definitely going to get whatever goal line carries the Bears manage. It’s easy to forget that even the really bad NFL teams still usually manage to score 14 points a game.

If you paid your mortgage off, it means you probably did not manage your funds efficiently over the years. It’s as if you had 500,000 dollar bills stuffed in your mattress…. [It’s] very unsophisticated.’
— David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors

I just wanted to note that down somewhere where I could find it later. This strikes me as famous last words.

Or anyone else who is interested. I would really like to get my hands on an Excel (or OpenOffice) spreadsheet listing all of the Dow, S&P 500 and NASDAQ-100 additions and subtractions dating back to 1985. I’m particularly interested in knowing the makeup of the first NASDAQ-100. If anyone has this information or feels like putting it together, I’d very much appreciate it.

Make sure the stock symbols are included. The closing price upon addition and subtraction would be ideal, but more than I expect. If you can set the entire thing to the tune of R. Kelly’s Remix of Ignition, I’ll be even more impressed.

This is the NASDAQ addition
CPKI is the kitchen
INTC rollin that body
Got MSFT here wishin

Vielen dank in avanti!

While it’s certainly true that the use of the word “chickenhawk” is intended to influence the war debate, it’s untrue that it is meant to stifle it altogether. And it is manifestly untrue that its mere use is unfair, unjust, unconstitutional or un-American. This is because the word serves precisely the same purpose as every other derogatory label used in the grand sweep of the ongoing political discussion, from “liberal” to “hard right”, from “fundamentalist” to “neocon”.

Any debate stifling caused by the usage of such terms is inadvertant, as they are primarily intended to present a concise summary that is damaging to the target in a manner capable of influencing casual observers, who outnumber more serious observers but are totally uninterested in the deeper levels of debate. The effectiveness of a label and the accuracy with which it has hit its target can usually be ascertained by the amount of effort expended by those targets in subsequent attempts to escape it.

For example, neoconservative is an accurate political label proudly sported by men such as Irving Kristol, who, unlike many of his less honest intellectual compatriots such as David Frumnobly defends it still. But because so many conservatives are turned off by its embrace of the state, its foreign adventurism and its underlying utopianism, many notable neocons and their defenders have attempted to inoculate themselves from the charge by claiming that neocon is nothing more than a reprehensible anti-semitic attack made by Jew haters.

In fact, I even wrote a column once mocking Joel Mowbray’s feeble attempt to protect his neocon compatriots and the Bush administration from General Anthony Zinni’s harsh criticism by falsely smearing him as a Jew hater back in a January 2004.

One may recall that American liberals, too, run from being labled accurately* as if the hounds of Hell were on their heels. But those who are confident in their position do no such thing. It no more bothers me when Chuck calls me a chickenhawk than when gay activists call me a secret homosexual, when left-wing Jews call me an anti-semite or when feminists call me a woman-hater, not so much because the accusations are absurd, but because they don’t harm my arguments or my ability to make them in the slightest. After all, the notion that a hawk of any kind would favor an end to the twin occupations actually makes the argument more powerful, in the same way the arguments of an anti-semite supporting Israel or a woman-hater calling for zero taxation on women would be empowered.

On the other hand, it is much more effective to dismiss me as a “Bible-thumper” or “pro-druggie libertine” or “straight white male” because anyone who reacts negatively to those labels is likely to be inherently opposed to my genuine positions.

The reason that “chickenhawk”, “neocon” and “liberal” are so upsetting to some people is because they are such effective and generally accurate descriptions which contain the ability to sway the casual observer. Thus we have seen a serious reduction in the neocons’ ability to influence conservatives and the ability of the chickenhawks to call for expanded war is now being destroyed in the same manner. Hillary Clinton is even now positioning herself to avoid the latter label; the success of her presidential campaign largely depends upon her ability to do so.

Inaccurate and unfair name-calling achieves little, whereas accurate labling is demonstrably effective. As I noted in my initial post, the ladies are indeed protesting way too much.

*Liberal is a complete misnomer, of course, but an enduring one that has existed long enough in American politics that it can be appropriately used in its contradictory sense as long as it is being used within an American context. I prefer the term “left-liberal”.

Alan Greenspan tries to cover his wrinkled ass for posterity:

WALL STREET shuddered yesterday after Alan Greenspan, the United States’ central banker, warned American homebuyers that they risk a crash if they continue to drive property prices higher. He said that the US house-price spiral had become an economic imbalance, threatening stability like the country’s trade gap or its budget deficit.

In a pre-retirement speech to fellow central bankers at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Mr Greenspan said that people were investing in houses as if they were a one-way bet, not allowing for the risk of price falls. He said “history had not dealt kindly” with investors who kept ignoring risks.

But… but… but I thought housing prices would go up forever! My real estate agent said real estate is the best investment anyone could possible make ever!

And remember, this is the guy who said detecting a bubble during a bubble is impossible, that it can only be done in hindsight. So, if he’s detected it, what can we logically conclude from that news?