I’ve been doing it the wrong way all this time!

No, I’m seriously re-thinking how I’ve been tying my shoes now. This is bound to get extra confusing.

Blame Hector Owen.

With the dropping of a gavel…once again.

I just don’t see this as a terribly big event. The pattern has been nearly perfect, has it not? Gay marriage appears in a court, and it wins…it appears at a ballot box, and it loses. I’m looking for a break in the trend, and there hasn’t been one yet, so the trend is going to be the story until such time as it is disturbed.

And what is the story about this trend? Our courts are defining for us, over our protests, what marriage is.

I do think it’s pretty sad this legal framework, and culture, that we’re setting up. The adoptions that will take place, effectively guaranteeing that the child(ren) will entirely grow up without the benefit of a female mother, or a male father, as the case may be. The specific instances I don’t find quite so tragic — two gay parents, a whole lot better than none at all, right?

The tragedy is the culture. We will be required to pretend, on pain of civil suit, that a motherless or fatherless household is just as good as a two-parent home with a genuine mother and a genuine father.

Which takes us to exactly the same Ground Zero destination point, to which all left-wing ideas inexorably lead…

This particular individual isn’t contributing anything truly irreplaceable and may be discarded at will.

“Kidzmom” and I disagree on just about everything. And I do mean everything. But since we split up, she has always acted like there is no substitute on this entire green planet for my fine self when it comes to fathering that child. And I have reciprocated on the subject of mothering him. The boy had to go under the knife yesterday. Know how many phone calls there were to the next state over? I lost count. Why? Because like all strong wise men, I know my limitations. I can’t mother.

Some human efforts are irreplaceable. This is the idea that our society is gradually losing. And the people are not in favor of it. Generally, we want to matter, and we want to matter as individuals. Not as a herd of livestock that has to be managed and told by our aristocrats what is a marriage & what isn’t a marriage.

It’s a religious concept. Now government is telling us what it is. That means, with enough time, government can define for us all other aspects of our religious “freedom.”

One or two other sensibly-minded gadflies are joining with my fine self on an experiment, to find out what happens to lefties who use their “let me further persuade you to my point of view with my dismissive attitude” technique — when it doesn’t work. The result, so far, is: What started as a left-winger bitching about the bad press Obama was getting over skipping the Boy Scout centennial, has popcorned into a thread just shy of eighty comments about all sorts of stuff.

The persuasive-dismissive-attitude thing is being retried and retried. It’s developed into something of a nervous tic for them.

Socialism isn’t bad at all. It has worked quite well in a number of other places. Why? Well, because when and where it has worked, it has been restrained by the best impulses of Capitalism. The all or nothing meme is getting really worn out.

Here in the United States, I would posit that Capitalism works best. But only when it is restrained by Socialistic impulses. That’s why our Capitalist system worked, more or less, swimmingly from 1945 to the early 1980’s. There were economic ups and downs, but no cataclysm. The only clusterphucks we’ve known economically have come in 1929 and since deregulation in the 1980’s. Why? It’s not because the Gilded Age Presidents or Ronald Reagan were pure evil. Liberals who talk that way presume these men WANTED to destroy America. And that’s just nonsense. They meant well, were sincere and were, clearly, sincerely wrong.

Socialism is no evil, unless it us unbridled. In North Korea and the old Soviet Union, it was unbridled. Capitalism is no evil. In fact, it is pregnant with the potential for great good. When it is bridled. Since Ronald Reagan (and in fairness, I should note that some deregulation was championed by the supposedly liberal Jimmy Carter), we have had nothing but a succession of extreme Capitalists as Presidents. Barack Obama is simply a Capitalist, but not an extremist. If nationalizing Willard “Mitt” Romney’s health care reform plan is Socialism, then Billy Sunday’s tent revivals were Roman Catholic masses.

Socialistic restraints have kept capitalism bridled. Our messy capitalistic-socialist hodgepodge is the best of both worlds, or something.

I guess when I see socialism making these big messes, like the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac situation, and blame them on capitalism…that’s just the wonderfulness oozing out.

So I replied:

Capitalism places the opposite participant in a transaction (seller, if you’re the buyer; buyer, if you’re the seller) in the same position of authority that socialism invests in some centralized dictator who is far less interested in the outcome, knows a whole lot less about the nature of it, and is consistently an asshole.

Capitalism has no need to be bridled. It is self-bridling. It is equally risible to talk about bridled & non-bridled socialism; it is inherently unbridled. Any & all charter documents that seek to place limits on power, socialism labors to undermine. Once the ruling party gets it in their head they want to do something, anything standing in the way is exactly that and nothing more. Just an obstacle to be defeated.

And the socialism-isn’t-bad guy came back with:

Capitalism is self-bridling? OMG. Morgan, that is possibly the most clueless thing I have ever heard any intelligent person say.

Tell that to the people in Anniston, Alabama; Mossville, Louisiana; and Lima, Ohio. Tell that to the families of the miners killed in West Virginia or the workers killed on the BP Oil rig.

Unbridled Capitalism is no different than unbridled Socialism. Both lead to negligent homicide.

This orgy of deregulation must be stopped, just as the orgy of oppression in the old USSR had to be stopped.

Heaven help me, it’s the dreaded OMG retort. It’s been the juggernaut of arguments since the debates that took place in ancient Athens.

What is this guy, twelve?

Yes Jim. Self-bridling. Capitalism has its restraints built in. They may be disappointing to a pipe-dreamer who’s come up with a vision, unenforced by reality, of what the self-restraints ought to be (socialistic governments are absolutely NOT self-bridling). But they’re there.

You sell something, the buyer has to agree to the price and the terms. Otherwise you go out of business. You buy something, the seller must agree or you go home empty handed.

Government does something like, oh…regulate BP? BP writes in the answers to the audit in pencil, the auditor traces over it in pen. The mentally flaccid will say “Aha! See? That’s a failure of capitalism!” But it isn’t. “Regulatory oversight” was put in place, and it was found not to work.

Hey wouldn’t it be sweet to have a job like that? You’re supposed to do something…and when you use the time to stare at porn all day instead of doing your job, it’s the other guy’s fault.

You want unbridled? Look at Obama or any other leftwing dictator asshole. The rules say He can’t do something, and whatever that rule is it’s just a minor irritant, nothing more. That’s what I call unbridled.

Or if you insist on something in the private sector, look to the businesses that employ illegal aliens. There’s your “unbridled.”

Capitalism is self-bridling. Obama makes it a lot more expensive to hire people, and in keeping with the law, the corporations lay people off. And then this is supposed to be the fault of capitalism somehow.

But I never said the bridling had to be comfortable for everyone. Businesses that want to operate out in the light, do what must be done in order to stay legal. And then it’s their fault, even though the leftist government comes up with the policies. Often, in contravention to the Constitution and other laws.

Obama shakes down BP, has the “audacity” to pick up the phone and order them to put billions of dollars in a pot. Hey, is that your idea of self bridling? Just curious.

No reply posted as of yet. There are other dialogues going on in this thing…so I expect to see this particular train of thought Cheesecake-Nazi’d out. Ooh, bright shiny object.

But this theory of mixing together…oh my, how I’d love to set the cross-hairs of a .50 cal. upon it. This is an idea that needs to die. It is toxic. It ranks high on the list of things that have diminished the opportunities of the generations of Americans, now to levels beneath that enjoyed by their parents. It’s killing the country, this “epoxy theory.” Socialism, capitalism. Mix ’em together, shake the bag a few times, and what you get is twice as good as either one by itself.

Over and over again, we see that is not what you get. Whatever the effort is, whatever the industry is, the results are the same: The productive are strapped to a sort of gurney, and the non-productive figure out they can attain a higher lifestyle by being dicks. Then they gather around the bloated succulent victim, bare their fangs and suck like the craven vampires they are. The next generation is taught to be vampires, not bloated succulent gurney-meat; and can you blame them? Real jobs are for losers.

Fellow Right Wing News contributor Melissa Clouthier, not wanting to give the Shirley Sherrod treatment to Pete Stark, put up an embed to the full eighteen-minute video. We shall follow suit.

If I were writing this as a work of fiction, the publisher would beat me over the head about this particular character. Not enough creativity going into the Congressman’s name. Stark. As in, Congress’ contempt for their constituents is laid starkly bare. “There hasn’t been a less subtle, less imaginative name for a character since General Grievous” s/he’d say.

Melissa puts it best:

The condescension and the superiority of this man is what’s so amazing. Our elected officials believe that they’re our rulers.

Aw, that’s okay. These are the people who feel perfectly entitled to tell us what kind of health care we’re going to have.

Wall Street Journal:

Voters in Missouri overwhelmingly opposed requiring people to buy health insurance, in a largely symbolic slap at the Obama administration’s health overhaul.

The referendum was the first chance for voters to express a view on the overhaul, although turnout in the state was low and Republican voters significantly outnumbered Democrats.

With all precincts reporting, 71% of voters supported Proposition C, establishing a state law that says Missouri cannot compel people to pay a penalty or fine if they fail to carry health coverage. Twenty-nine percent voted against the proposition.

The state law runs counter to the federal health law President Barack Obama signed in March, which calls on most Americans to carry coverage or pay a fine.

Boy I’d love to hear some arguments from those twenty-nine percent. The left-wing argument is typically molded and shaped, often cynically, to fit a trope of “freedom” and “choice” but this one would have to be molded and shaped to fit a trope of “Whatever Obama Says Must Be Right.” Freedom & choice have nothing to do with it. It can’t even be perceived that way by the addle-minded. Not unless the counter-propaganda tries to make that happen. Must be some kickass counter-propaganda; even 29% impresses me.

The New York Times opening paragraph is awesomely snort-worthy:

Missouri voters on Tuesday easily approved a measure aimed at nullifying the new federal health care law, becoming the first state in the nation where ordinary people made known their dismay over the issue at the ballot box.

I know, I know, the first thing you’re taught in journalism school is to find a way to fit the “Why Do I Give A Rip” into the first line. And Senators and Congressmen have made known their opposition at the ballot box; “ordinary” people have made known their opposition at the tea party rallies. There’s still a first here, so it must be mentioned.

But the “ordinary people” is just delicious. It reveals exactly how the extraordinary people at the New York Times see things, and most likely without anyone at the NYT being wise to it.

I’ll bet anything that the White House is pissed over it. “First, what do you mean first? There’s going to be more?? This is biased coverage! We can’t get any credit for the wonderful work we do in this shitty economy…that, uh, has resulted from the Failed Policies of the Bush Administration (FaPoBuAd)^TM.”
Back to the Wall Street Journal:

Supporters of the state law said Congress was overreaching by requiring people to buy coverage, and they called the proposition a chance to stand up for states’ rights.

Opponents included the Missouri Hospital Association, which said that if the mandate isn’t enforced some who can afford insurance will get a free ride and pass the costs on to those who are insured. The association spent about $400,000 on direct mail in connection with Proposition C, according to its filings.

A union spent 400 large defending the concept of individual responsibility. Hehe.

You don’t trust what unions have to say about Obama’s plan. You just don’t.

gallup.com, via HotAirPundit:

A majority of Wyoming, Mississippi, and Utah residents identified as conservative rather than moderate or liberal during the first half of 2010, making these the most politically conservative states in the U.S. The District of Columbia had the greatest percentage of liberals, along with four New England states: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, and Massachusetts.

I’m counting eight of the top-ten liberal states on my “have-visited” list, and four of the ten conservative states.

And let me tell you, this is absolutely bowling me over. Because I have another list in my head of “most-friendly” states. And actually, the ones that rank highest are not on either list. I’d put Tennessee up on top, followed by Ohio.

But these liberal states — the people I’ve met there were not by any stretch mean, just generally unhelpful. Kinda grouchy.

Pretty much exactly what liberals say our conservatives are.

Yeah it’s old news by now…their mad ravings are all just psychological projection.

Bristol has split with Levi again. So it’s time for another session of Palin-Go-‘Round. You’ve already been through a bunch of frames so by now you know exactly how the game is played:

1. Sarah Palin does something, or says something, or someone says or does something to her;
2. Liberals come up with some clever catch-phrases about it, eager to show other liberals how nasty they can be;
3. You skim through all the toxic things they have to say as they seek to impress each other;
4. Stop to consider: These are the people who want to manage health care for all of us. Scared yet?

Palin-go-round is always sickening but it’s always rewarding too. Liberals who want to show other liberals how nasty they can be, play to win. They know there are no points awarded for second-worst.

Here are your quotes. And one more time: These people want to make decisions about your health care. They think they have a right to do it because they’re extra-special, extra-intelligent, extra-evolved, extra-civilized and extra-decent people.

“This attention-seeking tramp gets everything she deserves.”

“The wonderful Palin family. Trailer park values we can all follow! A shinning example for all our youth.”

“At least this leaves Levi free to resume attacking Sarah without those mother-in-law concerns.”

“ha ha ha ha ha another loser on Palin’s family, like daughter like mother, a bunch of LOOOOOOSERS!!”

“what a bunch of morons. i don’t know who is stupider, her or her mom.”

“Hopefully , the Alaskan trailer park trash will stay out of Washington DC.”

“she got played because she’s an idiot..her whole family is nothing but trash and dumber than a sack of hair. “

“This Bristol seems to be the silliest dim wit just like her mother the queen of mendacity and vapidness.. The whole family borders on the absurd. They are the laughing stock of any intelligent person.Would that we could house them all in an igloo on an iceberg sent out to sea with the poor polar bears Sarah so hates.”

Now that we’ve concluded another set, let’s think about this:

Liberal plans all seem to have it in common, that something fundamental to human existence is to be centrally managed by demigod central figures who are so wonderful that positive results are assured.

Because those demigod central figures, apart from being so smart…are nice.

But when push comes to shove, liberals don’t put a lot of importance on being nice. They put a lot of importance on being mean and nasty. This is supposed to be why they’re better than conservatives — they’re nice, conservatives are mean.

The only thing missing is the nice-ness. It’s missing from the achievement. And it’s missing from the effort.

Interesting.

With anticipation high and climbing with each image and trailer for the release of Tron Legacy (and it ranked first on our round-up of films to look forward to in the link below), the next best thing to do before the film is out was to have another look at the 1982 film, which was just as exciting on its release 28 years ago.

Since we had the Collector’s Edition on our shelves, we actually made two return trips to a film that pioneered filmmaking techniques because what the filmmakers wanted to accomplish had never been attempted before.

We were quite surprised to learn that most of the effects, which we’d ashamedly assumed were computer-generated accomplishments, were actually painstakingly hand-drawn animations, in a process that, even having heard how it was done, we still don’t quite understand!

What a great excuse to embed the legendary Tron Girl video.

Revolving Door Slammer (n.)

1. Any participant in a cooperative or collaborative process who seeks to assume dictatorial control over that process, by means of faking a withdrawal from it, usually with an effort to maximize the theatrical effect of the withdrawal. Everyone left behind is supposed to feel shamed, and begin a process of introspection that will culminate in getting rid of something in their protocols that is offensive to the person who is supposed to not give a fig one way or the other anymore.
2. More specifically, any of those qualifying for definition 1 who, soon thereafter, re-enter the process they just exited; this is typically because they were left unsatisfied by the results of the theatrical exit. If they’re emotionally disturbed they may do this several times in rapid succession, which causes proxy embarrassment in those watching them. It builds and builds and builds until someone grows a pair and latches the revolving door shut, while they’re still outside.
3. The term could also be applied to those who were never really part of the process in the first place, so long as they falsely represent their membership in order to exert this dictatorial influence over those who are genuinely part of it.
4. Also, to violators of the “Ann Landers Wedding Invitation Rule.” Yes, you’ve heard of it already and you know what this means. “I’m not coming if so-and-so is coming” is to be met by — and no exceptions, no matter what — “That’s too bad, we’ll save you some cake.” Bottom-lining it all: Someone who places so much importance in their own moral code…or something that’s supposed to be a moral code…that they’re willing to sacrifice something that’s important to other people. But they have no respect for anybody else’s moral code. Just their own.

Related: Yes, in case there is any doubt among those who care, I do find Anne Rice to be an utterly contemptible person. Liberal douchebag, homely unappealing nutty goth chick, control freak and drama queen. She’s managed to hit all the low points.

Or as blogger friend Gerard puts it:

Door. Ass. Bang. Dreadful woman.

Let’s just ignore the merits & demerits of this guy’s argument. His comment-posters are already handing him his own ass, and this is a road we’ve been down before many times.

One more phony-baloney Frum-like lamentation:

These days it’s getting increasingly embarrassing to publicly identify oneself as a conservative. It was bad enough when George Bush 43, the K Street Gang, and the neo-cons were running up spending, fighting an unnecessary war of choice in Iraq, incurring massive deficits, expanding entitlements, and all the rest of the nonsense I cataloged over the years in posts like Bush 43 has been a disaster for conservatives.

These days, however, the most prominent so-called conservatives are increasingly fit only to be cast for the next Dumb and Dumber sequel. They’re dumb and crazy.
:
Let’s tick off ten things that make this conservative embarrassed by the modern conservative movement:

1. A poorly educated ex-sportwriter who served half of one term of an minor state governorship is prominently featured as a — if not the — leading prospect for the GOP’s 2012 Presidential nomination.
2. Tom Tancredo calling President Obama “the greatest threat to the United States today” and arguing that he be impeached. Bad public policy is not a high crime nor a misdemeanor, and the casual assertion that pursuing liberal policies–however misguided–is an impeachable offense is just nuts.
3. Similar nonsense from former Ford-Reagan treasury department officials Ernest Christian and Gary Robbins, who IBD column was, as Doug Marconis observed, “a wildly exaggerated attack on President Obama’s record in office.” Actually, it’s more foaming at the mouth.
:

They keep popping up, like zits. These David Weigel wanna-bes; it’s as if they want to be caught in the same scam. Donkeys wading into the elephant party, with their cheap paper-mache elephant masks strapped to their donkey heads, “Huh huh! I wish so many of ‘our people’ weren’t racists, huh huh!”

Who’s the left-wing counterpart? Where’s the recovering liberal suddenly realizing our modern leftists are whacked in the head? There were signs being waved around during “war protests” comparing Bush to Hitler…signs saying “we support the troops when they shoot their commanders,” and such. Smiles, smiles and more smiles at these “vigils” that were supposed to “mark” the thousandth, or two thousandth, or four thousandth troop death in Iraq.

And let’s not even start with the “Bush Knew” conspiracy theories. These “conservatives” are really embarrassed about other conservatives? Really?

Pardon me, but I’m concerned about whether my children & grandchildren will have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. I don’t think that’s nuts or racist. Anyway. I said let’s not explore merits & demerits, and here I am doing it.

His mask is slipping. Because, to me, if you’re in the six-in-ten who think the country is heading in the wrong direction, you don’t have to defend anything about your personality or psychological profile. This is the reaction a rational person has.

You know what’s scary about liberals nowadays? They know how they want to hate, so much better than they know who to hate. Hate, as in…anger that is not provoked by any specific act. Anger directed at people for what they are, rather than for what they do.

They know how they want to hate, well before they know what the target is. In November of 2008, it was anybody who voted for anybody besides Barack Obama, because these were people who tried to obstruct the Glorious Agenda. But it was a muted hate, because that was a minority and thus ineffectual.

Now it’s six in ten. And now it’s a hate that can melt steel. They’ve got all these well-rehearsed speeches defining what exactly the enemy is…but they don’t know who it is, and they don’t care.

These people are the reason we cannot discuss politics in the workplace. Their plans have been given a more than fair shot, the plans have failed, they’re feeling sensitive about it and they’re looking for an outlet for their rage. All ready to marginalize the other side as fringe, knowing full well they are far more deserving of this.

Do conservatives really have hate? I’m sure there is an individual here & there that is hateful…but for the movement overall, “anger” fits so much better. We’ve got our taxes being ratcheted up at the end of the year, as a panacea for an economic malaise that didn’t start until the democrats took over Congress back in ’07. Our President doesn’t know what He’s doing, and He was supposed to know everything. We were obliged to hand all the controls and power tools off to grown-up children, and we see the wreckage that results today.

Now we’re supposed to blame it all on the people who didn’t want to see it happen, and did all they could to prevent it.

A rational, reasonable person gets angry.

But anger is nothing like hate, especially liberal hate.

And a professor should know, this universe runs on facts that are indisputable…two and two are four…arctangent of 1 is 45 degrees…therefore, on principles. If you care about the principles you really don’t care who is representing them — ya phony.

Liberals make lousy paper mache masks.

To the best I can figure out, Neal Boortz’s words are accurate…and I have no time at the moment to massage them further, so I’ll just lift ’em.

In terms of honesty, that ancient question beckons: Do we rank used car salesmen beneath politicians, or the other way ’round? I believe the question has just been answered.

Apologies to used car salesmen.

Now you have to love this bit of nonsense. Once again we’re seeing how valuable our system of government education is to the Democrats. After all, you could never pull this off with an educated electorate.

You know, don’t you, that taxes are going up at the end of the year. At the beginning of the Bush presidency the Republicans simply didn’t have enough votes to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. The Democrats insisted on an expiration date of December 31st, 2010. Now … since those tax cuts will expire and taxes are going up .. The Democrats have decided it might be a good political ploy to start referring to this as a “Republican Tax Increase.

Nope … not kidding: House majority leader Steny Hoyer says that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts is a “Republican tax increase” for “working Americans” and the Democrats have “no intention” of allowing it to go into effect. Hoyer says, “We have no intention of allowing the Republican tax increase — that their policies would lead to — to go into effect for working Americans. Period …. We’re going to act and make sure that the Republican phase out and increase in taxes does not end as they provided for in the laws they passed.”

This is just amazing. Now we have a lot of economists telling the Democrats that if they don’t extend the Bush tax cuts our economic recovery will be damaged. Democrats don’t want to cut the taxes on the top producers. They know that their base constituency loves taxing the rich … but they also don’t want to be seen as increasing taxes during a recovery. After all … what if the experts are right? What if increasing taxes on the very people who we’re depending on for job growth stalls our recovery? Well, that’s easy! We’ll just call them “Republican tax increases” and let them take the heat!

Again .. not to belabor the point … but you can’t get away with this if the voters are truly educated and informed.

Hat tip to Dave in Texas.

Seiko:

Texas Instruments:

“A stopwatch that sweeps like fire, the first stopwatch of its kind in the world.”

The ninety-third award for the Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) goes to commenter lowerleavell who is trying to talk some sense into progressive blog proprietor Ed Darrell. I can’t fault LL for this because I’ve been using up a few minutes here & there in the same futile endeavor.

From out of the stream of paragraphs and words, like Venus emerging from the ocean waves, steps this gem:

The auto industry is a great example of what happens when liberalism succeeds – it just gets bigger and bigger until everything falls apart.

S/he did say “a great example,” not “the best example.” It might be a fun mental exercise to come up with some other great examples. I live in California, so the first thing to put on the list is just a gimme for me. The Golden State, where everything’s getting bigger and bigger until it all falls apart.

And then there’s the health insurance industry. We need to add on to that “Whenever something goes wrong, all the politicians say the problem is not enough liberalism in the situation yet.” Which, come to think of it, applies to the auto industry, and California, just as well.

Teaches’ unions. Socialist countries. Just about any agency in the federal government…and the governments of most of the fifty states.

They’re all like cheap party balloons. Just get bigger and bigger, and you know sooner or later — probably sooner — there’s going to be a loud bang followed by sounds of despair from whoever owned the balloon, mixed in with some plaintive begging for another balloon.