Secession Can Keep Us Together

Mark Noonan23 Comments

Victor Davis Hanson writes another brilliant piece and it goes along with a thought I’ve had for a while – first, a quote:

…As those who run the nation state become ever more estranged, we yearn for the safety and security of our own neighbors, who seem to think, speak, and live more as we do. In other words, we are unhappy residents of Hellenistic Greece who dream of the romance of the lost face-to-face city state, or the bread-and-circuses turba of fourth-century Rome, who feel that their fellow citizens in Gaul, Numidia, and Pontus seem hardly Roman. These days the problem is not just that an Italian wants to leave the EU, but that a Florentine or Venetian would prefer to leave Italy itself. A Texan not only wants us out of the U.N., but may feel he is already out of the U.S. Britain may want no part of the EU, but Scotland wants no part of Britain…

Hanson speaks of a return of medievalism – not in the sense of living in castles but in the sense of extreme localism.  That, at bottom, is what feudalism was:  local control of most of the power while the central authority had least power.  This developed in the post-Roman world because the Roman government could not carry out its self-appointed, imperial tasks.  The Roman government, that is, decayed – it became bloated, inefficient, corrupt (sound familiar?) and while trying to micro-manage affairs of the Empire eventually lost the ability to even defend the Empire.  People were forced back on their own resources and the feudal lords were really, in origin, no more than whomever could effectively organize local people for self defense.

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Anti-Mormonism Rises on the Left

Mark Noonan22 Comments

Legal Insurrection has an excellent run-down on the rank bigotry developing on the left against the Mormon religion.  Its all rather nauseating but very typical of the left these days – they probably don’t know much about it but they know (a) that it is socially conservative and (b) a man representing it is going to beat their guy.  So, all bets are off and there is no bottom to the gutter.

To me, Romney’s religion is a non-issue – just as much as Obama’s personal religious beliefs are a non-issue.  Living in a pluralist republic, there is simply no other way to go about it.  Unless I want to say that I’ll only vote for a Catholic of the most orthodox stripe, I must allow that people I vote for will have various differences with me.  What matters to me is whether or not, on balance, the candidate is more favorable to my views than the other candidate.  In this, Romney has pledged himself to a set of policy proposals largely in tune with my view – but not in all cases.  I just kind of have to lump it on the areas where I disagree with Romney while working elsewhere to advance those views of mine which Romney refuses.

Its not like that on the left – it doesn’t, for instance, matter that Mormons are tremendously generous with their time and money and that Mormon-majority communities tend to be clean, safe and law-abiding.  All that is thrown over the side because Mormons dare to have the slightest disagreement with some aspects of leftist ideology.  For the left it is all or nothing – you are either 100% with them or they will be 100% against you.  Romney has sinned against liberal orthodoxy and must be destroyed, and his entire religion along with him.  I hope Mormons have tough skins – Catholics and Evangelicals have been dealing with this for a long time (and Catholics for longer than anyone else in the United States).

At the end of the day, however, these are the actions of desperate, losing people.  Their cause is foundering and their man Obama seems set to lead them off the electoral cliff.  As things get worse for the left, we can expect the howls of bigotry to grow louder.  Get ready for it and learn to endure it – there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

 

An Open Letter to NBC

Leo Pusateri35 Comments

I wrote this to NBC news earlier today, but it could be easily applied to any of the fellow-traveler networks:

Dear NBC News:

You no doubt have now heard the news that the Obama administration’s Situation Room had received word of the terrorist nature of the Benghazi attack no later than two hours after it began. They did NOTHING to protect the lives of those in the Embassy compound. President Obama went to sleep, then jetted off to Las Vegas to raise campaign cash, meanwhile, relying on a manufactured cover story of some locals being riled up over a YouTube video that wasn’t seen.

There wasn’t any report in the cables or emails about a protest preceding the attack. The attack lasted over 7 hours before the final two occupants of the compound were murdered. And the Obama administration did NOTHING to help. Instead, they continued their COVER-UP of the video story, for WEEKS afterward and they even got to the point where they buy youtube views to make the video popular.

I listened to the NBC news top of the hour radio broadcast. Not ONE WORD of the above. Just Obama giving his “Romnesia” line, and something about his jetting 5000 or so miles today campaigning.

What– somehow you don’t think that these developments in Benghazi are NEWSWORTHY? That the administration not only knew of the attack, but refused to take action to protect the embassy occupants? And then, COVERED IT UP, LYING about the nature of the attack, and making his underlings spread his propaganda, FOR WEEKS, until the cover story collapsed under the weight of contrary evidence?

Not to mention that there remains an INNOCENT man still sitting in jail! Los Angeles Bail Bond offices voiced their opinions over this injustice in a collective voice that had almost no ear from the government. (Don’t tell me it had nothing to do with Obama’s cover story!!))

WHERE ARE WOODWARD AND BERNSTEIN????

Are you SO enamored, so infatuated with this president, that you, the press, are willing to be derelict to your Constitutional First Amendment duty and to cover up for his abject malfeasance? They did that with State-Controlled media in Soviet Russia. They do that in China. They have no choice. YOU HAVE A CHOICE!!

Are you that devoid of conscience???

DO YOUR JOURNALISTIC DUTY

******UPDATE******

It took long enough, but ABC News is finally beginning to grow a pair:

NBC still doesn’t have word one about this story on their website.

abcnews.go.com

Congressional Republicans ask why Obama described attacks as response to film.

Memo to Pro-Life Republicans

Mark Noonan37 Comments

If you believe there should not be a  rape exception for abortion and you get asked the question, “do you believe there should be a rape exception for abortion?” then your answer is as follows:

I believe all of us desire that we should be just and merciful in our actions and I just can’t see how justice or mercy are served by executing a child because her father is a rapist.

Thank you for your time and attention to this message.

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Obama Lied Again

Cluster36 Comments

Late last night it was revealed that emails detailing the attacks in Benghazi were sent from Tripoli to the State Dept. in Washington and the EOP (executive office of the President). The emails were sent while the attack was on going, and stated that Ansar al Sharia had claimed responsibility. No where in the emails did it refer to the you tube video, or that the attacks were spontaneous in nature. The emails were received by several officials at the State Dept., the FBI, and at least two officials in the White House. For two weeks following the attack, the administration lied to the American people and to this very day, our President still has not told the truth. What’s even more egregious is the fact that Obama blamed America for the attack, arrested the producer of the video, and characterized the deaths of our four Americans as “bumps in the road”.

This inexcusable action on behalf of the Obama administration rises to the level of impeachment, and if he somehow wins reelection, I for one will not stop until impeachment proceedings begin.

Our Opponents

Mark Noonan20 Comments

Sarah Hoyt over at Instapundit went trolling trough Democratic Underground and came up with this gem:

…Let’s say that you have the ability to print your currency using your computer printer, and every merchant accepted your printouts as a valid exchange for goods and services. You need to pick up your dry cleaning? You printout a $20 bill and your cleaners hand over your garments without question. Same would be true for your mortgage, groceries, car note, etc. Your creditors even accept your printouts as payment on your debts.

Given this, how can you ever be broke? Answer, you cannot be broke. The U.S. government is not in debt simply because it can create currency to pay off the debt, and our creditors gladly accept our currency as payment on our debts. You see, the world needs our dollars because the world needs oil, and in order to buy oil, you need dollars, which means that the world needs to stockpile dollars, and that means that the U.S. can print all of the money that it wants without incurring massive hikes in interest rates to attract lenders…

This is beyond weapons-grade stupid – so stupid that  you are actually at a loss about how to answer it.  Last night after the debate I got in to a Facebook argument with a liberal who was flabbergasted that I believe sea power to be important.  She demanded proof that we need a powerful Navy!  She persisted in this view even after I noted that 90% of global commerce goes by sea and if there isn’t a benevolent power to keep the sea lanes open, that might be a problem.  A couple months ago I heard a couple people debating about the election and one of them was going to vote for Obama because “I’m worried that Romney is going to take away women’s rights”.  During the 2nd Presidential debate we had the questioner who wondered what Romney is going to do about “women making 72% of what men make”.  The point I’m making here is that we’re dealing with people – some of whom are actually intelligent and well meaning – who are so ignorant of the basic facts that they don’t even know what the issues confronting us are.

I’m a convinced democrat for the simple reason that anything worth doing is worth doing badly – meaning that the most important and crucial decisions of life (whom to marry, where to work, who gets to make the laws, etc) should be done by those least prepared by education and training to rule on the matter.  This is because if it is left in the hands of “experts” you’re either going to get boneheaded “experts” who make a hash of things or you’re going to get really effective “experts” who will create an inhuman tyranny.  Among the broad mass of the people, on average, you are going to get common sense most of the time.  You will, though, also get nonsense every now and again (and thus Obama is President).  But, on the whole, I trust that if my fellow fools of the world get to make the decisions then I’m going to be safer and happier.  But, my goodness, how did it happen that the quotient of people who are the big winners in the ignorant fool sweepstakes wind up so heavily concentrated in the Democrat party?

You’d expect that each party would have about an equal share of people who don’t really know what is going on – but we here on the GOP side, a few kooks aside, tend to know at least what the argument is about.  Our Democrats seem to be increasingly living in a fantasy world.  A place divorced from reality where the Navy is unimportant, access to birth control is a key issue and the government can never go broke because we can always just print up more money!

Something must happen on the Democrat side – a break must come.  Some how or another reality must eventually make an entrance over there.

An Insult To Intelligence (Presidential Debate – Open Thread)

Cluster47 Comments

The Obama regime, his surrogates, and the current progressive movement are an affront to intelligent people everywhere. Just this morning, two of the more offensively stupid surrogates of the Obama campaign, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Stephanie Cutter, were on the equally offensive MSNBC network spouting simplistic childish garbage that they evidently seem to think are relevant issues in this campaign. First there was DWS who was contradicting herself trying to hurt Romney in terms of foreign policy first by claiming that Romney was a warmonger and wanted to take us back to the “cowboy” policies of Bush, but then just minutes later stated that there was little daylight between Romney and Obama on foreign policy. To his credit, Chuck Todd called her on that mind numbingly stupid assertion to which DWS responded by saying that that was the problem – no one knows what Romneys positions are. And this woman is the head of the DNC.

Up next was Stephanie Cutter, the co chair for the Obama campaign and one of the emptiest heads I have ever seen. Her contention was that the binder comment by Romney was a big issue, and indicative of how out of touch he is with women’s issues like contraception and equal pay. Let’s just put aside the fact that younger, professional women are already out earning their male counter parts, the Democrats treat women, and every other group for that matter, as some monolithic voting block who only care about special interest issues that only affect them. It’s offensive. Women on the whole are vastly more intelligent than Cutter, and care much more deeply about a whole range of issues other than contraception, which is widely available and affordable. Let’s look at Cutter’s other assertion which was Romney’s big bird comment of which she characterized as Romney’s only plan to balance the budget – which is to cut NPR. Well anyone with a 5th grade comprehension level knows that that is not the case, but that doesn’t stop her from making the claim on national TV, which again is highly offensive to thinking people everywhere.

Of course when you don’t have a successful record to run on, then you have to deflect and I think Obama said it best – “if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters.”

The third and final debate is tonight and Obama will do his best trying to scare voters, and I can’t think of anything more terrifying than a second term for Obama. Feel free to discuss what’s on your mind and please keep it civil.

Update:

My apologies to Ed Schultz for not including him in the band of mindless Obama followers. He is after all, the King of mindless Obama followers insulting people everywhere especially last Friday when he said:

“I’m getting more burned up the more I think about this! All right, now this is the locker room today. If this is too much for you, don’t listen to the radio show, I’m warning you. Women! Are you awake?! Do you know what this radical outfit wants to do to your rights in the workplace?!  Do you want them managing your vagina? Do you want them rolling back women’s rights 50 years? I don’t know! I’m just asking the question!There’s so many questions that we have to ask today!”

The Hunt for an October Surprise

Mark Noonan41 Comments

We’ve got two – count ’em, two! – potential October Surprises in the rumor mill:

1.  Obama inks a deal with Iran to give up the nuclear program.

2.  Bottom-feeding attorney Gloria Allred has some scandal to uncork on Romney (or Ryan) in the closing days of the campaign.

A deal with Iran is possible but highly unlikely – at best it would be some sort of nebulous agreement by Iran to say that they will consider the possibility of reviewing the option of negotiating a nuke deal with us at some future date.  Still, if anything is done then the MSM will go ape over it making it out as the most important foreign policy achievement since World War Two.  I don’t think, though, that it would affect the election – most people are not too concerned about Iran and, at any rate, those who are set to vote for Romney long ago tuned Obama and his Administration out – such a deal, if struck, would make a lot of MSM noise but essentially drop in to a bottomless pit of public indifference.

Something from Allred is also very much possible – remember, it was Allred who torpedoed Cain earlier this year, ruined Whitman’s campaign in California in 2010 and nearly destroyed Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial bid in 2002.  She does this by coming up with someone who claims to have been horribly treated by the Republican target and then counts on the compliant MSM to carry the ball.

Given the background we have on Romney and Ryan it does seem implausible that there is any sort of a sexual scandal – to be sure, either Ryan or Romney might have had indiscretions in the past (all of us are, after all, fallen human beings and prey to weakness and sin), but it seems unlikely.  It certainly seems to be highly unlikely that there is any such story of recent vintage to be told about the men.  I believe it would more likely be some woman who claimed discrimination by Romney in employment or, possibly, a story that at some point Romney (or Ryan) employed an illegal immigrant for some sort of domestic service.   Remember, there doesn’t have to be a shred of evidence in the accusation – all there has to be is some sort of connection with the accuser to Romney or Ryan.  As it will be set off late in the campaign, there will be extremely limited time (and absolutely no inclination on the part of the MSM) to check the veracity of the story.  Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit, in light of the Allred rumor, is advising that Romney inform the MSM outfits that – win or lose – any false accusation will result in a libel suit with all sorts of lengthy and embarrassing discovery launched against the MSMers who report a lie.  That is good advice – but while it might give some MSMers pause, it won’t actually defuse the hand grenade.

As the wheels are coming off the Obama cart, we must expect something to happen (as an aside, the fact that we’re getting these rumors indicates that people deep inside Team Obama know that doom impends – if they were really confident of victory, none of this sort of thing would be going on).  This will become even more true if polling by Wednesday doesn’t show any post-3rd-debate improvement for Obama (and it is highly unlikely that it will).  Obama is heading for a defeat and doesn’t want to be defeated – and his team is chock full of knee-to-groin Chicago political operatives.  Political operatives who not only want to win but are also likely worried about how a Romney Justice Department might view some of the actions taken since January 20th, 2009.

Will a scandal bomb work?  Would, say, the revelation that Romney employed an illegal or discriminated against women in employment throw the race to Obama?  Would, that is, such a late-in-the-game bit of scandal-mongering convince people that Romney is such a lousy person that its better to stick with Obama for four more years?  Highly unlikely.  It might shave a point off of Romney’s total, but as I expect he’ll get at least 53% of the vote, that won’t be enough.  But, on the other hand, it could work.  Time will tell if it is tried, if it is effective and whether or not Romney has prepared for this as he’s turned out prepared for every last thing which has come his way in 2012 – and my bet is that they do have a prepared response for anything Team Obama might throw at them.  But, we shall see – just get ready for anything to happen over the next 16 days.