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Friday, May 21, 2010
Speakers of Truth
People
who speak the truth in this regime are regarded as rats.
H/T NRO. What better proof can you have of gangster politics -- more kindly, the "Chicago Machine" -- than the fact that its minions are so terrified of pissing off the don that they're prepared to make utter fools of themselves in public by denying even the most obvious of truths?
But
who keeps scurrying for the corners like a trapped rodent?
That's why I want to give full marks to Doctor Zero for identifying the real bottom-line cause of the Tea Partiers:
The American people tired of
being lied to. We’re
tired of being defrauded. We’ve had it with fabulously expensive
programs that do nothing but enhance the power of those who administer
them. We reject the tired excuse that government only fails when it’s
not big enough. We know the romance
of the State is a lie. The evidence of its failure is piling up
around us, at a rapidly accelerating pace.
He's right. That's the part of the Tea Party phenomenon that is Obama-centric, though it has nothing whatever to do with race. The man is 100 percent committed to lying. Not just the convenient political lies and evasions we were able to correct for with Bill Clinton, but massive, soul-deep lies about his intentions, his relation to the country he leads, and to the world beyond our borders that simultaneously loves, hates, fears, and (historically) depends upon the United States. Sure, he tells low political lies, every damn day, but what has people in the streets are the vastly bigger whoppers that he is the president of all of us, that he loves America, that he's a capitalist in good standing, and that he is committed to defending both the Constitution and American citizens from all threats foreign and domestic. His stock in trade is the BIG LIE, taken to a scale that trivializes even the standard liberal Big Lies Democrats have used to demonize Republicans since the 1960s.
More than we've ever needed them before, we need speakers of truth who aren't frightened into silence by the spreading shadow of Obamordor.
When he maunders on about social justice, redistributing wealth, and taxing the rich "who got us into this mess," we need blunt counterweights like Chris Christie, who this week threw down a heavy gauntlet of truth.
Do not mess with the Fat Man, you silly
Democrats. In what may be the fastest veto in recorded history, it took
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie a reported two minutes to veto a new
tax grab by an incoherent Democrat State Senate that clearly hasn't
realized their rubber-stamp puppet Jonny the Beard is no longer in
office.
It took about two minutes from the time
Senate President Steve Sweeney certified the passage of the
millionaires tax package for Gov. Chris Christie to veto the bills at
his desk.
"While I have little doubt that the sponsors and supporters of this bill sincerely believe that the state can tax its way out of this financial crisis, I believe that this bill does nothing more than repeat the failed, irresponsible and unsustainable fiscal policies of the past," wrote Christie in his veto statement. "Now is not the time for more of the same. Ultimately, another tax increase will punish the state’s struggling small businesses and set our economy further back from recovery."
"While I have little doubt that the sponsors and supporters of this bill sincerely believe that the state can tax its way out of this financial crisis, I believe that this bill does nothing more than repeat the failed, irresponsible and unsustainable fiscal policies of the past," wrote Christie in his veto statement. "Now is not the time for more of the same. Ultimately, another tax increase will punish the state’s struggling small businesses and set our economy further back from recovery."
Of course cutting taxes would help stimulate our economy but Democrats have never been known to pay attention to reality.
After the state Senate passed the bill,
which had already passed the Assembly, Sweeney walked the bills down
the hallways of the Statehouse, from the state Senate chambers to the
governor's office. Once inside, he handed the bills to Christie, who
was waiting.
"What took you so long ?" asked Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak.
Christie sat at a wooden desk emblazoned with the seal of the state of New Jersey and swiftly signed vetoes.
"We'll be back, governor," said Sweeney.
"All right. We'll see," said Christie.
"What took you so long ?" asked Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak.
Christie sat at a wooden desk emblazoned with the seal of the state of New Jersey and swiftly signed vetoes.
"We'll be back, governor," said Sweeney.
"All right. We'll see," said Christie.
I love JammieWearingFool's locution, "The Fat Man." It's surreptitiously Shakespearean, recalling the line from Julius Caesar, "Yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look." As Obama most definitely does. I can see the bumper stickers now: I'M FOR THE FAT MAN IN 2012. Something about prosperity and gruff candor, as opposed to plots and weaseling grudges.
When Obama bows and scrapes to our enemies and brushes off our friends and ignores the slaps and sleights and outrages committed daily against the country he's sworn to protect, we need unblinking truthtellers like Charles Krauthammer. You have to read the whole thing if you don't take any other link here. It's that important. I'm not bottom-lining it here. Can't be done. I'm just showing him off:
The real news is that already notorious
photo: the president of Brazil, our largest ally in Latin America, and
the prime minister of Turkey, for more than half a century the Muslim
anchor of NATO, raising hands together with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the
most virulently anti-American leader in the world.
That picture -- a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam -- is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there's no cost in lining up with America's enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement.
They've watched President Obama's humiliating attempts to appease Iran, as every rejected overture is met with abjectly renewed U.S. negotiating offers. American acquiescence reached such a point that the president was late, hesitant and flaccid in expressing even rhetorical support for democracy demonstrators who were being brutally suppressed and whose call for regime change offered the potential for the most significant U.S. strategic advance in the region in 30 years.
That picture -- a defiant, triumphant take-that-Uncle-Sam -- is a crushing verdict on the Obama foreign policy. It demonstrates how rising powers, traditional American allies, having watched this administration in action, have decided that there's no cost in lining up with America's enemies and no profit in lining up with a U.S. president given to apologies and appeasement.
They've watched President Obama's humiliating attempts to appease Iran, as every rejected overture is met with abjectly renewed U.S. negotiating offers. American acquiescence reached such a point that the president was late, hesitant and flaccid in expressing even rhetorical support for democracy demonstrators who were being brutally suppressed and whose call for regime change offered the potential for the most significant U.S. strategic advance in the region in 30 years.
As with the Fat Man we can also join The Hammer to our legion of plain-speaking superheroes.
But we need more than superheroes. We need people in all walks of life to be proof against 'well-intentioned' (i.e., pusillanimous) compromise.
When powerful men like Eric Holder go around Robin's Hood barn to defend the indefensible, we also need less powerful men of good conscience to stand up against absurdity (and atrocity) whenever and wherever it appears. Here's one important example:
In recent days, some of us have been
ranting about the American Academy
of Pediatrics, and its softening on FGM, or female genital mutilation —
more modern and “sensitive” types call it FGC, for “female genital
cutting.” The AAP has a rival, apparently: the ACP, or American College
of Pediatricians. The latter group has just come out with a strong,
unequivocal statement against FGM, FGC, whatever — a nasty practice,
which Americans should think twice before tolerating. For the ACP’s
press release, go here.
Three cheers for the ACP. And three cheers withdrawn for the whole "Draw Muhammed Day" debacle. Check your courage before you throw your hat into the ring of fire. That's another important lesson. AllahPundit got snotty with me when I pointed out that I'd notified him of this post well before he linked to the "Draw Muhammed Day" exercise in sheep warfare (whose original proposer has since retreated in an ebb tide of apology and fear). Of course, what happened on May 20 was what I figured would happen. People had enough time to think about it, get scared, and toss up a cloud of posturing bullshit demonstrating the rank, stinking cowardice of journalists and bloggers in the west. (Hi, Allah!) Here's Reason Magazine's courageous protest drawing:
Note, too, that Hotair -- which also didn't participate, brave souls they -- called this, "…clever. A bit of a cop out, but clever."
Yeah. When extortion with the threat of deadly violence is on the table, the best possible response is, uh, "clever."
The InstaPunk image the fearless bloggers of Hotair assured me they never saw and so couldn't link:
Muhammed
Here's what I'm asking of you. Find the brave ones. The speakers of truth wherever they are. Not the ranters or bomb-throwers. The ones who, as Howard Cosell used to say, tell it like it is. You find me the heroes, and I'll give the readers here the links.
P.S. Something else that doesn't pass muster in the 'courage' or 'truth' department. Linking people who truly don't give a shit about Islamic extortion while you continue to hide behind wry platitudes. Hotair just linked this from Iowahawk. Like they get to borrow his brazen while they hide inside their newfound "journalistic objectivity." Kewl. Sick-making. If Hotair runs that one Muhammed cartoon its author has already paid for one more time as proof of their publishing fearlessness, I promise you I'm going to invent a way to throw up through the intertubes on a website of my choosing.
Is anybody else getting sick of the NEW mainstream media? Podcasts and contracts and cable news gigs and seeing both sides and patriotic moderation and pure C-O-W-A-R-D-I-C-E when there's really something important on the line. Like, say, the First Amendment. Which is when "clever" is enough. Really, Ed? Really, Allah? So 'clever' of you.
ADDENDUM. I like the way libs are thinking they've trounced the Tea Partiers because Rand Paul won his primary. But their only power is misdirection. They don't understand the problem they're facing. They think they've found an emblematic victim. All they've found is an outlier who may yet win. It can't turn back the tide, which is pitilessly against them:
Yes, the Pauls seem clothed in mithril. (We suspect they have curly feet to go with their curly toupees.) And they're fucking crazy. But they've served admirably as the distractions we need to storm the supreme Obama soviet.The more they make the Pauls the face of the Tea Partiers, the more time we have to make the real argument: No traitor should be president of the United States. We don't need a Sauron.
Not now. Not ever.
UPDATE. Got a response from Doc Zero, but there's no sign he was aware of the slam at his host website (or my PS or Addendum). He's not responsible for my piling on. I am. So he shouldn't be punished at Hotair for saying this on my email:
Nicely done! Nothing baffles me
more about the average, middle-of-the-road Democrat voter than their
perpetual surprise at being lied to... which often manifests as a
frenzied hatred of anyone who exposes the lies of their
leadership. I've seen decent, generally affable people reduced to
shivering rage while trying to process the latest Obama scam.
Both politicians and private citizens may see advantages from committing fraud, but the politician is far more likely to get away with it. How many private entities are still going concerns after decades of being caught repeatedly lying to the public, on a massive scale... let alone larger and more powerful than ever?
This whole rotten system of political hacks dodging responsibility for disasters they never saw coming will fall apart on the day we either refuse to be hoodwinked, or no longer have anything worth stealing.
Both politicians and private citizens may see advantages from committing fraud, but the politician is far more likely to get away with it. How many private entities are still going concerns after decades of being caught repeatedly lying to the public, on a massive scale... let alone larger and more powerful than ever?
This whole rotten system of political hacks dodging responsibility for disasters they never saw coming will fall apart on the day we either refuse to be hoodwinked, or no longer have anything worth stealing.
Though I suspect he will be punished. Let's hope not. I apologize if I've compromised his New Media credentials. Everybody: pretend you didn't see the Doc Zero part. The best outcome will be that we never hear from him again. He'll learn that InstaPunk is persona non grata in the mainstream blog revolt against the mainstream media. With any luck, we'll see him soon on Fox & Friends. Unless he's who we think he really is, namely, an honest man.
UPDATE 2. AllahPundit is angry. I sent him a link to this post, and he sent me this:
I'm not going to harrumph at you about
anything. Here are the facts: You've been endlessly and
needlessly antagonistic towards me for months. You ripped me to
shreds in one post and I was enough of a good sport about it to
actually link it in Headlines. Then you sent me a tip about a
post which I never saw and you instantly presumed bad faith about
that. Now you're calling me a coward for not participating in
Everybody Draw Mohammed Day even though Ed and I both repeatedly use
thumbnails of the super-incendiary Mohammed cartoons to illustrate our
posts about it. And then you claim that both Ed and I have gotten
"carried away" with our careers, which means ... I'm not even sure
what. That I'm a phony and you're real. Or rather, "REAL."
You have some sort of chip on your shoulder about me, which is perfectly fine -- there are others who do too -- but you're the only one who seems to feel compelled to e-mail me to tell me just how little you think of me. I get it, okay? You're REAL and Ed and I aren't. Loud and clear. And incidentally, since you're ripping on Ed, don't you think he should be cc'd on these harangues?
You have some sort of chip on your shoulder about me, which is perfectly fine -- there are others who do too -- but you're the only one who seems to feel compelled to e-mail me to tell me just how little you think of me. I get it, okay? You're REAL and Ed and I aren't. Loud and clear. And incidentally, since you're ripping on Ed, don't you think he should be cc'd on these harangues?
So I replied thus.
Glad to hear from you. You and Ed are
in business. I have no problem with that. I'm a curmudgeon. I don't
think you should have a problem with that. I tend to assume, perhaps
wrongly, that when I send you something you find volatile, Ed will hear
about it. And vice versa. I'm thinking I do a much better job of
letting people I criticize know that I've criticized them than others
do, but perhaps you can enlighten me about that.
That you chose this moment to blast me tells me you might be feeling guilty. You posted the Draw Muhammed Day post and ignored my post. Maybe it was a mistake. Fine.
I don't think the sun rises and sets on what I do. But I know that I consistently write better stuff than what you post in your Green Room. If I'm crabby, you're arrogant. I volunteered to debate you about your constant, deadeningly dull atheist pose, which I'd do fairly and rationally, but you choose to ignore me. I've complimented you every bit as much as I've criticized you, and I hat-tip you both all the time, but you and Ed both have an "I'm a star now" complex which I understand but feel free to call out. I'm part of your audience, the part that sends you readers regularly, a cut above your typical commenters, who don't spell, think, or write well.
Here's the deal. I don't need your approval. I'm a writer in my own right. I have no desire to have podcasts, book contracts, or FNS interviews. I was on the Internet before you, writing a blog before there was even a name for it:
http://glovesoff.blogspot.com/1999_06_01_archive.html
I'd actually like to be your friend. But you've been pretty much of a jerk to me. As has Ed.
I'd be happy to start over. The only thing I want is the occasional link when I write a good post, which I do at least as often as those you favor.
The Muhammed deal was especially galling to me. You have used the same cartoon for months as if it were bravery, but it isn't. And you know it isn't. You're hedging your bets. I understand that. Nobody wants to die. At first I thought Allah is trying to protect me: it's suicide to depict Muhammed as, of all things, a Jew, let alone Groucho Marx. Your email disabused me of that.
I'm not here to become famous. I'm here to fight for my country. AND to fight for the Jews, so there won't be a second holocaust. Do a search at Instapunk for the terms Jews, holocaust, genocide, israel. Hell, do a search at instapunk for any and every great issue of the day. I think you'll find I've written more diligently and thoughtfully on any issue you could name than you or Ed have.
I'm NOT your enemy. But I'm weary of the celebrity game. Which you ARE playing, whether you admit it or or not. Ace of Spades is a lot nastier and more profane than I am. He just doesn't criticize prominent right-wing blogs. I do. Who's edgier in that respect?
So. Here I am. Humbling myself. I ask only that you give me the even break of reading my stuff in the way that MacLeod and Doc Zero do. In return I promise to stop criticizing your writing, Ed's writing, though not your logic or lack of it. All I I'm asking for is a voice in the fight. And I DO have something to bring to that fight.
That you chose this moment to blast me tells me you might be feeling guilty. You posted the Draw Muhammed Day post and ignored my post. Maybe it was a mistake. Fine.
I don't think the sun rises and sets on what I do. But I know that I consistently write better stuff than what you post in your Green Room. If I'm crabby, you're arrogant. I volunteered to debate you about your constant, deadeningly dull atheist pose, which I'd do fairly and rationally, but you choose to ignore me. I've complimented you every bit as much as I've criticized you, and I hat-tip you both all the time, but you and Ed both have an "I'm a star now" complex which I understand but feel free to call out. I'm part of your audience, the part that sends you readers regularly, a cut above your typical commenters, who don't spell, think, or write well.
Here's the deal. I don't need your approval. I'm a writer in my own right. I have no desire to have podcasts, book contracts, or FNS interviews. I was on the Internet before you, writing a blog before there was even a name for it:
http://glovesoff.blogspot.com/1999_06_01_archive.html
I'd actually like to be your friend. But you've been pretty much of a jerk to me. As has Ed.
I'd be happy to start over. The only thing I want is the occasional link when I write a good post, which I do at least as often as those you favor.
The Muhammed deal was especially galling to me. You have used the same cartoon for months as if it were bravery, but it isn't. And you know it isn't. You're hedging your bets. I understand that. Nobody wants to die. At first I thought Allah is trying to protect me: it's suicide to depict Muhammed as, of all things, a Jew, let alone Groucho Marx. Your email disabused me of that.
I'm not here to become famous. I'm here to fight for my country. AND to fight for the Jews, so there won't be a second holocaust. Do a search at Instapunk for the terms Jews, holocaust, genocide, israel. Hell, do a search at instapunk for any and every great issue of the day. I think you'll find I've written more diligently and thoughtfully on any issue you could name than you or Ed have.
I'm NOT your enemy. But I'm weary of the celebrity game. Which you ARE playing, whether you admit it or or not. Ace of Spades is a lot nastier and more profane than I am. He just doesn't criticize prominent right-wing blogs. I do. Who's edgier in that respect?
So. Here I am. Humbling myself. I ask only that you give me the even break of reading my stuff in the way that MacLeod and Doc Zero do. In return I promise to stop criticizing your writing, Ed's writing, though not your logic or lack of it. All I I'm asking for is a voice in the fight. And I DO have something to bring to that fight.
And so it goes.
UPDATE 3. So now Allah is really really pissed:
"I can't decide if you don't realize
how insulting you are, if you do realize it and simply enjoy being
insulting, or if you think that being insulting is proof somehow that
you're a "straight shooter" who won't kiss the ass of a self-styled
"celebrity" like me. But since we're not getting anywhere with
these back and forths, this will be my last response to you." [It goes
on like this for a while.]
And here's my response:
Fine. You're right. I'm insulting.
Sorry. I was fighting this fight long before you got your first
keyboard. I knew the war we're fighting now was coming 40 years ago.
What pisses me off is how weak our side is. Why do the libs laugh at us
and demean us? Because our side can't write a goddam sentence without
making some dumb basic error. I'm older than you, I've spent a lifetime
writing, and it all matters to me. You can dance all you want around
the "celebrity" label, but you're making a living doing this. I'm not.
I'm doing it because I can't not
do it with so much at stake.
I apologize for noticing that I can't read a single post by you or Ed without wanting to rewrite it. Do you know what that's like? No. Of course not. I chastised Jonah Goldberg for a consistent error he was making, and he apologized within the hour. I'm not saying you don't have good ideas and decent insights. But you're an embarrassment. And poses you assume, like your atheism and beta male identity, are worse than embarrassing. They're just dumb.
If you ever bothered to read InstaPunk, you'd see that it's the most thoughtful and LIVING conservative blog on the Internet. We talk about everything from hummingbirds to movies to family travails to physics to sports, before we even approach politics, which we do in a way no one else does.
But you never have bothered to read InstaPunk. Which is how I know who you are. If someone "insulted" me, I can assure you I'd read everything they wrote to find out why and from where they dared to do so.
I'm sorriest about the fact that you're exactly who I feared you were. I don't need Hotair. But you need an elder who doesn't tolerate your fakery and posturing. I'm 56 years old. I'd bet a bunch you don't don't know anything more about me than that. Which is your loss. Big time. If you wanted to learn to write, I could teach you. But I'm thinking you don't. That's too bad. Not a tragedy or my secret revenge. Just too bad. Because our country needs people like you to know how to write.
I apologize for noticing that I can't read a single post by you or Ed without wanting to rewrite it. Do you know what that's like? No. Of course not. I chastised Jonah Goldberg for a consistent error he was making, and he apologized within the hour. I'm not saying you don't have good ideas and decent insights. But you're an embarrassment. And poses you assume, like your atheism and beta male identity, are worse than embarrassing. They're just dumb.
If you ever bothered to read InstaPunk, you'd see that it's the most thoughtful and LIVING conservative blog on the Internet. We talk about everything from hummingbirds to movies to family travails to physics to sports, before we even approach politics, which we do in a way no one else does.
But you never have bothered to read InstaPunk. Which is how I know who you are. If someone "insulted" me, I can assure you I'd read everything they wrote to find out why and from where they dared to do so.
I'm sorriest about the fact that you're exactly who I feared you were. I don't need Hotair. But you need an elder who doesn't tolerate your fakery and posturing. I'm 56 years old. I'd bet a bunch you don't don't know anything more about me than that. Which is your loss. Big time. If you wanted to learn to write, I could teach you. But I'm thinking you don't. That's too bad. Not a tragedy or my secret revenge. Just too bad. Because our country needs people like you to know how to write.
QED.
