Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
I assume this is aimed at me, and people like me…
The reaction to my column on Monday, “What Can the Right do to Unite?”was visceral and acrimonious.
Among the literally hundreds of responses I received were reproaches such as:
:
“The party PLANNED this. They aren’t going to let a conservative in if they can help it. The RINO’s have been pushing and pushing to get here where NO conservative will have a chance.”
:
“I will not vote for guys who DON’T represent me. That is what they are to do, represent. If I can’t find someone who has a chance, I will NOT do what I did here in California and vote for the “winner.” Arnie is an unmitigated disaster. I WON’T do it again.”Responses such as these made me realize that there is a constituency within the Republican Party and the conservative faction that heretofore was unknown. There exist conservatives and Republicans and feel that they would rather have their ideological and political opponents in office than vote for the candidate who they and their fellow Republicans nominated.
They are the same conservative Republicans who refused to vote for Rick Santorum because they wanted to “punish” Republicans and “punish” Mr. Santorum. This, of course worked out real well for them as a liberal Democrat was elected to replace Mr. Santorum and he wound up getting a good job with a D.C. think tank.
Now Mr. Bush has less chance of getting his judicial nominees confirmed since Democrats now run the Judiciary Committee and the federal courts will be populated by even more liberal Democrat judges who will declare unconstitutional any parental notification laws, capital punishment or life without parole sentences, police procedures, anti-terrorism methods or you-name-it, dozens of other laws that protect the health, welfare, safety, civil rights, and prosperity of Americans.
Way to go, people!
These true-blue, simon-pure conservatives are deserving of a name. They need a label that will identify them as a distinct political bloc. They need an appellation derived from a characteristic.
I think they should be called “Fold the Tent” conservatives. They will be part of the “Whiners Wing” of the Republican Right.
I’ll go ahead and respond, since from reading Mr. Tremogle’s previous contribution, I’m only more convinced that I’m in a position to do so. His bewilderment speaks for many others, as does my disaffection. And my response is this:
Whatever ya gotta tell yourself, Sparky.
Of course, all elections are not necessarily like this one. Four years ago there was a distinct message on which we were being called to vote yea or nay: Is global terrorism something we should address at all? The long-faced donk challenger from New England used twisted logic and tortured speechmaking to imply strongly, but of course never come out and say word-for-word: No. We should stick our heads in the sand and ignore it. His incumbent opponent wanted to hunt the terrorists down like the dogs they were and are.
There was already a lot of mumbling about globular wormening and socialism in our health insurance, but the messages were unmistakable. Bush or Kerry. Go or Stop.
But other people wished some other issues might have gotten some more attention. Some of them didn’t care about terrorism one way or another. Some of them voted Stop, others noted their displeasure with the offering by not voting.
I voted Go. But I didn’t throw a hissy-fit that my “Go Guy” wasn’t picking up the votes of the disaffected, those among the electorate who wanted the election to be about other issues.
Cut to four years later, and it seems the consistent theme througout all of this election is that we can get everything we want if we take all the issues from four years ago, primary & secondary, and just mash them together. Cut our carbon emissions to the bone, let illegal immigrants in to murder our wives and rape our children, and provide single-payer health insurance to everybody — we’ll have Osama bin Laden whining like a little bitch in no time at all. That’s the prevailing sentiment, the only question is how we should lie to ourselves in order to think it’ll work.
I can only speak for myself. But I suspect my words speak for others as well. You decide…
Listen up, Mr. Tremoglie. I’m not a little kid picking up his marbles and going home. The problem is the opposite; the problem is that I’m grown up. I’m tired. Tired of various dialogues, inside the political system and outside of it, in which the parties agree to pretend they’re hashing out disagreements, when they’re really just reciting a lot of stuff.
I’m sick and tired of parallel monologues.
And that is what we have here. Republicans and donks, they both seem to know exactly what they want to do, and they seem to have made up their minds on this before they even heard from anyone. Four years ago, I didn’t demand that my chosen candidate be able to pick up votes from people who didn’t approve of what he was trying to do — you shouldn’t be throwing your little temper tantrum that this sham should pick up participation from people who don’t believe in it.
Other folks are tired of other things. They’re tired of war. They’re tired of thinking about terrorism.
I respect that.
But I don’t respect the belief that it will go away if we simply stop thinking about it.
So go, then. Vote for your one RINO or your two donks who are all committed to nationalizing our health insurance system, eroding our border, and destroying capitalism in the name of the dreaded ManBearPig boogeyman. But you can participate in this process without my help just fine. Like I said, it seems you and the rest of the electorate know exactly what to do without relying on me to help you decide. You don’t seem ready to absorb additional opinions. You don’t seem willing. You don’t seem able.
So don’t seek some kind of landslide mandate for these crazy positions, that they don’t deserve. I come from a place where terrorists stop terrorizing when they’re dead, national borders count for something, socialism sucks, and changing light bulbs is something we do to lower the power bill — not because Al Gore told us to. And running a business that provides jobs for people is a GOOD thing, carbon emissions or no. If you have other ideas, vote on them, but take responsibility for them. Don’t seek out others to help you feel better about those other ideas, when clearly, by yourself, you don’t.
“I volunteer nothing.”
“But the law demands that the defendant’s side be represented on the record.”
“Do you mean that you need my help to make this procedure legal?”
“Well, no … yes … that is, to complete the form.”
“I will not help you.”
The third and youngest judge, who had acted as prosecutor snapped impatiently, “This is ridiculous and unfair! Do you want to let it look as if a man of your prominence had been railroaded without a –” He cut himself off short. Somebody at the back of the courtroom emitted a long whistle.
“I want,” said Rearden gravely, “to let the nature of this procedure appear exactly for what it is. If you need my help to disguise it – I will not help you.”
“But we are giving you a chance to defend yourself – and it is you who are rejecting it.”
“I will not help you to pretend that I have a chance. I will not help you to preserve an appearance of righteousness where rights are not recognised. I will not help you to preserve an appearance of rationality by entering a debate in which a gun is the final argument. I will not help you to pretend that you are administering justice.”
I want to let the nature of this procedure appear exactly for what it is. If you need my help to disguise it – I will not help you. I will not help you pretend that you are administering democracy.
Is that visceral and acrimonious enough for you?
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I understand your protestations. However, you still have the option to write in Fred as futile as it may be. Second, what of the other guys further down the ticket? If you stay home you don’t vote for them either?
- Duffy | 02/07/2008 @ 12:06I left a comment on the paper’s article and I restate it here:
I have another name for those of us that are “folding the tent”, we are called Principled Conservatives.
- tracycoyle | 02/07/2008 @ 12:49In his earlier piece, the columnist is heaping his whatever-ya-callit (chiding…scorn…ridicule) upon Coulter and Limbaugh, who are doing exactly as you suggest as far as I understand them. So I’m taking his criticism as the “umbrella” sort. “Fold The Tent” conservatives can be people staying home to play Monopoly…they can be Romney supporters…Fred-head write-ins, like me…even Ron Paul supporters I would guess.
So I take his message as being one of, if the Republicans nominate McCain, yours-is-not-to-reason-why, yours-but-to-do-or-die.
And if he wants to label my disagreement with that as “visceral,” well, I’d say that might be the on thing he got most right.
- mkfreeberg | 02/07/2008 @ 13:01Is that visceral and acrimonious enough for you?
Close, Morgan, close! 😉
I’ve been where you are now, unfortunately. I voted for…wait for it… Perot in ’92. And I still regret it, to this very day. So, you can blame Billy Jeff on ME, and people like me…in part. The Lion’s Share of the blame for eight years of Billy Jeff probably belongs to Perot, but I bought into his crap. Was my fit of electoral pique worth it? HELL, NO. Do I wish I could take it back? HELL, YES.
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Or however the quote really goes.
You have a lot of time to think this through before November. As for me, I look at the alternatives and understand, viscerally, what the stakes are. There simply aren’t any analogies that capture the gravity of the situation, and the starkness of the choices we apparently have… at this point.
I remain amazed.
- Buck | 02/07/2008 @ 13:42I genuinely like John McCain. I think he’s a solid guy who goes after what he says he is going to. The problem is I don’t want the same things he does. I would say to the writer who called us Fold the Tent Conservatives this: Yes, in the marketplace of ideas McCain sold many voters, well not this one. So he expects me to go along with McCain’s ideas out of party loyalty? So much for ideas counting. A vote for McCain is a vote for his ideas.
I to voted for Perot and got what I wanted. For the first time in decades politicians took deficit spending seriously. I voted for an idea.
- Allen L | 02/07/2008 @ 17:31This is looking like that scene out of Wag The Dog where everybody gets together at Dustin Hoffman’s manor to determine the outcome of the election, and it turns out not a one among them is even registered to vote.
Isn’t there ANYBODY here who voted for someone besides Perot?
- mkfreeberg | 02/07/2008 @ 19:31Isn’t there ANYBODY here who voted for someone besides Perot?
Well, yeah… I have voted for someone other than Perot. Specifically: Nixon in ’68, McGovern in ’72, Carter in ’76, Reagan in ’80 & ’84, Bush pere ’88, Perot ’92, Dole ’96, and Dubya in the last two.
Next question? 😉
- Buck | 02/08/2008 @ 10:08Where did the quote at the end come from?
- Tom The Impaler | 02/08/2008 @ 12:45By the way, I agree completely that the choice of McCain/ Hillary/ Obama is a non choice, and therefore I may well choose not to choose. I don’t want to sound like Homer Simpson “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang_and_Kodos
- Tom The Impaler | 02/08/2008 @ 12:53My vote for Perot in 92 was for a specific purpose. I knew that millions of other voters would be doing it to. With a large enough voting bloc going another way politicians would go after our issue to woo us for our votes.
This is much the same situation as today. If millions don’t vote for McCain, in other words lowest turnout ever, future candidates will remember that and go after our issues.
Witholding a vote also carries a message for candidates.
- Allen L | 02/08/2008 @ 14:00[…] Tom the Impaler wants to know where’d the quote come from? The quote in question is a rather arbitrary length of subselection in the dialog between Henry Rearden and the three-judge panel at his trial in Ayn Rand’s 1957 magnum opus Atlas Shrugged. The story takes place in an alternate-universe near-future at an unspecified date, and describes a downward spiral of America, the last non-collectivist nation on the face of the earth, into the individuality-murdering muck of socialism. Rearden, a brilliant metallurgist and entrepreneur, has invented a wonderful and fictitious metal alloy called “Rearden Metal” that lasts much longer than steel. […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 02/09/2008 @ 11:41Witholding a vote also carries a message for candidates.
There’s a price for everything. I submit the price of withholding a vote in THIS election cycle is both exorbitant and, above all, prohibitive. The nice thing about being my age is I probably won’t live to see this obnoxious flower in full-bloom… like 25 or more years of Leftist decisions handed down by an Obama- or Hillary-appointed Supreme Court.
But my children and grandchildren will. And that scares me. It should scare all y’all, too. But just in case it doesn’t… Let it be known I will come back and haunt your asses. Every single one of you. Every single night.
😉
- Buck | 02/09/2008 @ 15:22Buck,
It does scare the bleep outta me. In fact, I think what you’re talking about is the number one most important issue.
It’s just that Republicans like McCain do little to protect us from it. In fact, the activist judges we’ve gotten on the Supreme Court that were nominated by Republicans, have been so much worse for us than the ones nominated by democrats. I submit this is because the activist judges nominated by Republicans feel they have something for which to apologize, and work harder at doing the apologizing.
You’re therefore comparing the Blacks and Brandeis’ and Frankenfurters against the Earl Warrens and the Sandra O’Conors and the John Paul Stevens’ (it’s a cinch President McCain isn’t going to nominate any John Roberts’ or Samuel Alitos). I’ll take eight years of the Frankenfurters anytime. This leaves us open to risk, but such is life. McCain wouldn’t be doing anything to mitigate that risk.
- mkfreeberg | 02/09/2008 @ 17:04(it’s a cinch President McCain isn’t going to nominate any John Roberts’ or Samuel Alitos)
Ah. I disagree. Didja watch McCain’s CPAC speech? He pretty well put that idea to bed. Now, the question is (from your POV) can you TRUST him to do what he says? I’m sure you’d say “no,” but I think “yes.” McCain’s been pretty open and upfront about his intentions… and his actions… in the past. Which, if I recall, was something you admired in Thompson but refuse to acknowledge about McCain?
Am I missing something? (He said…FULLY expecting a broad-side in reply…) 😉
- Buck | 02/10/2008 @ 18:16Disappoint, I shall not.
What he said was I intend to nominate judges who have proven themselves worthy of our trust that they take as their sole responsibility the enforcement of laws made by the people’s elected representatives, judges of the character and quality of Justices Roberts and Alito, judges who can be relied upon to respect the values of the people whose rights, laws and property they are sworn to defend..
This contradicts the comments he made at a private meeting, corroborated by a number of different sources, that he’d have “drawn a line” on Alito because the most recent appointee “wears his conservatism on his sleeve.”
And now, if you want to support him, Geraldo looks forward to working side by side with you. Know what I thought was most amusing about this recording…Geraldo begins a sentence addressing Mac’s “positions” on the issues — and in the next couple of words lapses into a bunch of empty platitudes about what he “endured” during the war and what a “great man” he is. Geraldo comes from a very simple world — there is any given person’s willingness to agree with The Great Geraldo, there is that given person’s wonderfulness and strength of character and worthiness as a human being…those two are always exactly the same. Rivera’s brain is far too puny to imagine someone could disagree with him, and still justify moment-to-moment the usage of the organs and the burning of the oxygen.
But at the end of the day, I think the real question is, at one point are you just trying to keep The Letter R after the President’s name, whatever that name might be…and you aren’t fighting for anything else at all? Just the eighteenth letter? As I ponder that, this
- mkfreeberg | 02/11/2008 @ 10:04nugget at NRO speaks for me. But since I have a brain bigger than Geraldo’s, I understand you might have a different opinion and still be a decent fellow. 😀
At that NRO link: That way we can get Souter and Miers….oh, wait.
I’m assuming the “oh, wait.” refers to the fact Meirs’ nomination was withdrawn. Otherwise, I agree with the tongue in cheek remarks…but at face-value.
re: “But since I have a brain bigger than Geraldo’s, I understand you might have a different opinion and still be a decent fellow. :D”
Same here. 😀
And this shall be my last, coz this post will be off the main page, soon. Doubtless we’ll have another, fresher post with which to continue the conversation… or we can do so over at my place. Coz I’m damned sure not gonna let this one go. 😉
- Buck | 02/12/2008 @ 00:15