Paul Begala is having a grand time celebrating the infidelities of Nevada Senator John Ensign and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. Both Republicans resigned party posts after their extra-marital affairs were exposed, and both know their futures within the party are greatly diminished or nonexistent.
Fortunately for Democrats, cheating entails no comparable sanctions on their side of the aisle. Consider Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In 2007 his relationship with a Telemundo reporter coincided with the breakup of his twenty-year marriage. This breach of fidelity was apparently one of many—the most egregious being a shades-of-John Edwards affair that occurred in 1994 while his wife was receiving treatment for thyroid cancer. That dubious fidelity resume, however, didn’t prevent “his honor” from being easily re-elected earlier this year. Further north, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s affair with his campaign manager’s wife in 2007 stunningly combined adultery and personal betrayal—all without losing his job, foiling a same-year re-election bid (73%), or derailing gubernatorial ambitions for 2010.
Returning to the Republican side, in 2006 the overtures of Mark Foley toward a 16-year-old male page not only prompted the Congressman’s resignation but also became a cause celebre for institutional change. By contrast, an actual “tryst” in 1973 between Congressman Gerry Studds (D-Mass.) and a 17-year-old male page resulted, ten years later, in a motion of censure that was scorned not only by Studds but also his New England constituents—who proudly returned the page-bopper to Congress for another fourteen years.
One can continue with these contrasts ad nauseam. GOP Speaker-to-be Bob Livingston resigned from Congress because of extra-marital affairs, whereas Barney Frank’s cozy domestic, ticket-fixing relationship with a male prostitute was flushed down the media’s memory hole. Former Senator Larry Craig’s feet-shuffling antics in an airport stall transformed him into an ongoing late-night joke and political pariah, but Ted Kennedy’s deadly dalliance at Chappaquiddick served only to postpone his race for the White House till 1980 and didn’t prevent the morally-challenged legatee from attaining his “Lion of the Senate” moniker.
Most famously, Bill Clinton was sexually serviced in the White House by a young intern-turned-employee and lied about it under oath. Yet he’s revered in MSM circles. “On the other hand” (a la Obama’s absurd Cairo comparison), the honest and articulate Bill Bennett was widely vilified for engaging in the perfectly legal activity of gambling, an arguable vice never explicitly discussed in the former Education Secretary’s popular Book of Virtues.
The justification for this selective indignation, as Begala asserts in his largely partisan rant, is that Republicans claim to have “cornered the market on morality.” Consequently, they show themselves to be hypocrites when moral imperfections are exposed. Here are Begala’s exact words:
“For decades Republicans have sanctimoniously lectured the rest of us—that they’re better husbands, better Christians, better fathers, better wives, better patriots.”
The rhetorical sleight of hand in this apologia for vice is equating the promotion of high moral standards with personal preening. Begala assumes, in other words, that “lecturing” about morality amounts to patting oneself on the back for moral superiority. Accordingly, anyone who embraces the ideal of chastity is simultaneously saying, “Look at me. I’m always chaste and faithful to my spouse.”
The other side of this semantic equation is left blank—for obvious reasons. After all, if defending virtue is the same as saying, “I am virtuous,” then silence on the topic should be a tacit admission of corruption. Not surprisingly, Begala doesn’t follow this train of thought. Instead, he suggests that his party’s reticence to “lecture” about personal morality should be interpreted as a badge of humility. (In times past such reticence would be seen as a mark of cowardice or indifference.)
The practical effect of these new ground rules is that individuals who proclaim substantive moral ideals transform themselves into targets for public abuse—for being “hypocrites.” Meanwhile, individuals who forswear “lectures” are given moral indulgences and are praised for humility. This logic—promoted vigorously by media folk who profit from peddling decadence—explains why advocates for personal responsibility (like Dr. Laura) regularly receive more public grief than the likes of Howard Stern.
For those who adopt this way of thinking, the only personal moral duty a society must promote is the minimalist obligation to do no harm. (In the not-so-original words of Sam Donaldson, “My right to swing my fist ends at your nose.”) In place of “lectures” about chastity, modesty, caring for one’s family, and marrying the mother of one’s children, Begalians substitute insufferably arrogant and theoretically dubious sermons about global warming and gay marriage. Simultaneously they vilify as “hypocritical” any non-perfect promoter of traditional virtues.
The redefinition of the word “hypocrite” has been critical to this new approach to moral discourse. Linguistically, the term refers to persons who “pretend” to be better than they really are. It doesn’t apply to individuals who admit their faults. Today, however, the term no longer denotes deception or “wearing a mask.” Instead, it’s employed whenever someone doesn’t live up to standards he or she publicly endorses.
By this linguistic legerdemain all morally serious persons—those whose ideals exceed their grasp—are happily condemned as “hypocrites” by Sex and the City aficionados who don’t fancy living in a world where high standards of personal propriety are constantly reiterated. On the other side of this newly minted rhetorical coin, even moral zeroes can be called “honest” or “true to themselves” or (in Begala-la-la-land) “humble”—just as long as they keep their mouths shut.
These rules are obviously slanted in favor of creeps who would like social standards for personal behavior to be set as low as possible. Put succinctly, in Begala’s world the higher the moral standards endorsed, the greater the hypocrisy--the less any personal standards are promoted, the greater the humility. It’s an adolescent’s dream world where non-judgmentalism and silence are prized uber alles and where the old aphorism, “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice gives to virtue,” has become a subversive thought.
That long-forgotten cliché was employed in a society where a reputation for virtue was actually an advantage—even for rogues. In our post-modern world where scandal is often the ticket to wealth and fame, what is “valued” most highly is congruence between one’s stated values and one’s actions—especially if one’s values are of the “flexible” variety. This construct (for which we can thank the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, d. 1980) was the intellectual justification for transforming hypocrisy from a “tribute to virtue” to the one and only deadly sin of an otherwise morality-free philosophy. Only in a world without objective moral standards could someone who consistently fails to clear a moral bar set at 7 feet be considered a “hypocrite” and inferior to a lout who places the moral bar flat on the ground and then steps triumphantly over it.
The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said, “Moral education is impossible without the habitual vision of greatness.” This “vision of greatness” clearly includes “lectures” about virtues that need to be exemplified as widely as possible throughout an always imperfect society. Even Mr. Begala can relate to this principle—provided it’s linked to cases that resonate in the “left hemisphere” of his brain. It is important, for example, for individuals to exhibit and promote unprejudiced speech and deportment, regardless of latent ethnic or racial stereotypes. Similarly, an addict who’s struggling to overcome dependence on drugs isn’t a “hypocrite” for warning teenagers about the torments he’s undergoing. The same principle applies, extraordinarily enough, for people who tout personal virtues like fidelity and temperance. It’s important to trumpet these virtues precisely because all of us are imperfect and need to have an exalted moral vision habitually placed before us—by persons from both sides of the political aisles.
I suspect that Mr. Begala is as oblivious to these philosophical and linguistic points as he is to the demoralizing consequences of a “shut your mouth” approach to moral discourse. I continue to hope, however, that somewhere in the recesses of his soul, a small, barely perceptible but persistent voice will whisper this revised aphorism: “Crying hypocrisy—that’s the tribute faux virtue gives to vice.”
Monday, July 06, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
CANADIAN HEALTH CARE: A DEADLY MODEL
Here is an IBD article by a Canadian on that nation's much-ballyhooed and little-publicized socialized health care system--a deadly model of rationed and delayed care that even seeks to control the number of babies delivered by hospital!
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=331427651488835
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=331427651488835
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
BUDGET THOUGHTS GO POSTAL
Three anecdotes come to mind when I consider the hysteria that greets any cost-cutting proposal for California’s 20-billion-plus budget deficit.
The first is a classroom comment made decades ago by a naïve seminary student who’d obviously never paid a water bill in his life. The young man opined that various public services should be provided at no cost—just like water is.
The second was an observation made by a putative adult who declared that people should not have to pay for health care. Rather, she said, the government should pay.
Anecdote number three concerns a recent trip to the United States post office adjacent Ocean’s Eleven Casino in Oceanside. I was seventh in line upon entering the queue. Three employees stood behind the counter. Fifteen minutes later I was addressing the only one who’d been slowly serving a line that was now twice as long and stretched into the next room.
For a minute or two astonished patrons stood opposite three “next window please” signs, with no active server at all—perhaps victims of an ingenious Candid Camera ruse where employees busy themselves in position, raise hopes, then walk away.
These incidents dovetail nicely with California’s budget debacle. A substantial portion of the state’s population have been trained to expect services for which no one has to foot the bill—or for which “big oil” serves as the goose that can simultaneously be cooked and periodically utilized for golden egg production.
The result of such magical thinking (as a trip to California’s DMV makes clear) is a situation where results and revenues can’t possibly match expectations. This is especially true when one throws into the mix the clout of public employee unions whose pensions have done for state and local budgets what UAW contracts did for GM.
This something-for-nothing mania has fed the regular expectation that Washington or corporate villains or Sacramento will pay for things that cost “us” nothing—as if government “for the people” isn’t also a government that’s paid for “by the people.”
Indicative of the sad state of the state is an ingenious proposal to pay parents to look after their own kids—an idea that theoretically saves money on CalWorks recipients who receive education assistance and also get their child care expenses subsidized.
When government is in the business of paying parents to look after their own kids, something has gone desperately wrong. How far off course things are can be gauged by the strange sound of this Grover Cleveland quotation: “It is the responsibility of the citizens to support their government. It is not the responsibility of the government to support its citizens.”
Today, by contrast, it’s “cash for clunkers” and bailouts for bad mortgages. Locals take from Sacramento. The state returns the favor.
Under this system “free medical care” will doubtless operate like Oceanside’s I-5 post office—with Sacramento and Washington balance sheets.
The first is a classroom comment made decades ago by a naïve seminary student who’d obviously never paid a water bill in his life. The young man opined that various public services should be provided at no cost—just like water is.
The second was an observation made by a putative adult who declared that people should not have to pay for health care. Rather, she said, the government should pay.
Anecdote number three concerns a recent trip to the United States post office adjacent Ocean’s Eleven Casino in Oceanside. I was seventh in line upon entering the queue. Three employees stood behind the counter. Fifteen minutes later I was addressing the only one who’d been slowly serving a line that was now twice as long and stretched into the next room.
For a minute or two astonished patrons stood opposite three “next window please” signs, with no active server at all—perhaps victims of an ingenious Candid Camera ruse where employees busy themselves in position, raise hopes, then walk away.
These incidents dovetail nicely with California’s budget debacle. A substantial portion of the state’s population have been trained to expect services for which no one has to foot the bill—or for which “big oil” serves as the goose that can simultaneously be cooked and periodically utilized for golden egg production.
The result of such magical thinking (as a trip to California’s DMV makes clear) is a situation where results and revenues can’t possibly match expectations. This is especially true when one throws into the mix the clout of public employee unions whose pensions have done for state and local budgets what UAW contracts did for GM.
This something-for-nothing mania has fed the regular expectation that Washington or corporate villains or Sacramento will pay for things that cost “us” nothing—as if government “for the people” isn’t also a government that’s paid for “by the people.”
Indicative of the sad state of the state is an ingenious proposal to pay parents to look after their own kids—an idea that theoretically saves money on CalWorks recipients who receive education assistance and also get their child care expenses subsidized.
When government is in the business of paying parents to look after their own kids, something has gone desperately wrong. How far off course things are can be gauged by the strange sound of this Grover Cleveland quotation: “It is the responsibility of the citizens to support their government. It is not the responsibility of the government to support its citizens.”
Today, by contrast, it’s “cash for clunkers” and bailouts for bad mortgages. Locals take from Sacramento. The state returns the favor.
Under this system “free medical care” will doubtless operate like Oceanside’s I-5 post office—with Sacramento and Washington balance sheets.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
DON'T TOUCH MY DIAL: RESISTING OBAMA'S ATTEMPT TO MUZZLE TALK RADIO
A letter writer to the North County Times recently complained because I noted in a column that “Obama’s minions” are intent on undoing conservative talk radio. The objector, who claimed that no facts supported my assertion, is doubtless dependent on the MSM for his view of things and oblivious to the fact that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as well as Senators Charles Schumer, Dick Durbin, and Dianne Feinstein have all expressed support for the absurdly labeled “Fairness Doctrine.” And that’s only the short list.
Of course the anti-democratic elites who now govern America are clever enough to disguise their latest assault on free speech in the language of “diversity” and “localism.” The document that serves as the intellectual pretext for this new dose of liberal fascism was written in June, 2007, by a gaggle of “Progressives” at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress. Its title: “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.”
The problem, it seems, is not that listeners simply prefer Rush and Hannity to Al Franken, Air America, and NPR. Nor is it that Americans get their fill of leftist rhetoric from Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and “Law and Order” reruns. No, the problem “is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly …the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.”
“Structural problems” is bureaucratese for “the way things are now,” while “public interest requirements” and “local participation” refer to government controls and oversight powers given to leftist activists. (Think ACORN and El Grupo.)
If “Obama’s minions” get their way, the composition of newly envisioned “local diversity boards” will doubtless resemble the makeup of a recently appointed FCC “Federal Advisory Committee on Diversity in the Digital Age”—a group chaired by a liberal activist and filled with MSM types, politically active minority groups, and representatives of leftist organizations.
Skeptics should note that then Senator Barack Obama signed on to this covert speech-muzzling strategy in September, 2007, when he endorsed “new rules promoting coverage of local issues” as well as “greater FCC scrutiny” and more frequent public input “to ensure that broadcasters are complying with their public interest obligations.”
No wonder dozens of talk radio hosts met in Washington in late April to discuss this impending assault on free speech. San Diego’s Roger Hedgecock was elected chairman of a new foundation whose slogan is “Don’t touch my dial.”
Perhaps as a preemptive move to head off this backdoor censorship, Salem affiliate KCBQ recently reinstated a hometown broadcaster to its morning lineup—Mark Larson. That strategy might be effective if the ideologues currently crying “localism” really meant what they say. (Consider, however, candidate Obama’s broken pledge to use public financing.) The real problem is that leftists loathe popular dissent and will do whatever they can to stifle it—as they already have in education, popular entertainment, and the “global warming” news media.
Of course the anti-democratic elites who now govern America are clever enough to disguise their latest assault on free speech in the language of “diversity” and “localism.” The document that serves as the intellectual pretext for this new dose of liberal fascism was written in June, 2007, by a gaggle of “Progressives” at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress. Its title: “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.”
The problem, it seems, is not that listeners simply prefer Rush and Hannity to Al Franken, Air America, and NPR. Nor is it that Americans get their fill of leftist rhetoric from Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and “Law and Order” reruns. No, the problem “is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly …the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.”
“Structural problems” is bureaucratese for “the way things are now,” while “public interest requirements” and “local participation” refer to government controls and oversight powers given to leftist activists. (Think ACORN and El Grupo.)
If “Obama’s minions” get their way, the composition of newly envisioned “local diversity boards” will doubtless resemble the makeup of a recently appointed FCC “Federal Advisory Committee on Diversity in the Digital Age”—a group chaired by a liberal activist and filled with MSM types, politically active minority groups, and representatives of leftist organizations.
Skeptics should note that then Senator Barack Obama signed on to this covert speech-muzzling strategy in September, 2007, when he endorsed “new rules promoting coverage of local issues” as well as “greater FCC scrutiny” and more frequent public input “to ensure that broadcasters are complying with their public interest obligations.”
No wonder dozens of talk radio hosts met in Washington in late April to discuss this impending assault on free speech. San Diego’s Roger Hedgecock was elected chairman of a new foundation whose slogan is “Don’t touch my dial.”
Perhaps as a preemptive move to head off this backdoor censorship, Salem affiliate KCBQ recently reinstated a hometown broadcaster to its morning lineup—Mark Larson. That strategy might be effective if the ideologues currently crying “localism” really meant what they say. (Consider, however, candidate Obama’s broken pledge to use public financing.) The real problem is that leftists loathe popular dissent and will do whatever they can to stifle it—as they already have in education, popular entertainment, and the “global warming” news media.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
MARRIAGE: SWEDES VS INDIANS
The sociologist Peter Berger once famously observed that if India is the most religious country in the world and Sweden the least religious, then America is a nation of Indians governed by Swedes.
The November vote on Proposition 8 that reaffirmed the definition of marriage as the legal union of a man and a woman illustrated that even in Euro-leaning California, a gap between ruling class and people remains intact—at least for the time being.
Last year, despite the wishes of voters as overwhelmingly expressed by Prop 22, a bare 4-3 State Supreme Court majority imposed its enlightened mores on those ignorant masses who audaciously imagined in the year 2000 that they could stop the transmogrification of an institution that’s functioned for millennia as a civilizing institution for children.
Even candidate Obama gave lip service to these exotic “Indian” sentiments by publicly asserting his “personal belief” that marriage should be male-female. This wink-and-a-nod concession to popular mores was understood as exactly the political ruse it was by opponents of Prop 8—who didn’t hammer Obama for hypocrisy the way they recently savaged Miss California for being gushingly polite and honest about her beliefs.
Last week the California Supreme Court, by a 6-1 majority, allowed the state’s obstreperous “Indians” to have their way--for the most part. The justices did let stand several thousand same-sex marriages that were only made possible by the slick legal machinations that black-robed “Swedes” typically employ to deconstruct the laws of “their” state.
Outside of the law, the most effective means for imposing “Swedish” values on reluctant “Indians” is the mainstream media. Anyone with a modest capacity for honesty will acknowledge that the sympathies of those golden throats who selectively frame the news for viewers lie overwhelmingly with the pro-same-sex position.
Indeed, given the overwhelming barrage of dramatic and educational propaganda in favor of same-sex relationships (from “Day of Silence” school indoctrination to nightly TV portraits of traditionalists as dimwitted hatemongers) it’s surprising that an electoral majority could still be mustered in California in favor of the “bigoted” idea that male-female is a salient marital distinction.
Governor Schwarzenegger recently opined that the cultural tide in California lies with those on the anti-8 side of the issue. However, when advocates for that position point to Iowa as an impressive case in point, they’re engaging in a rhetorical shell game. It was the court in Iowa, not Midwestern voters, that legislated this radical change from the bench. The same is true of Massachusetts, where “Swedish” legislators went to extraordinary lengths to avoid letting New England’s “Indians” have their say.
Avoiding the public isn’t so easy in California, much to the chagrin of our Nordic nabobs. Still, absent a profound popular epiphany about the immense power concentrated in the hands of elites who still admire Fidel Castro, the “Swedes” residing in Sacramento, Hollywood, New York, and Washington will soon be setting the rules for marriage—and everything else.
The November vote on Proposition 8 that reaffirmed the definition of marriage as the legal union of a man and a woman illustrated that even in Euro-leaning California, a gap between ruling class and people remains intact—at least for the time being.
Last year, despite the wishes of voters as overwhelmingly expressed by Prop 22, a bare 4-3 State Supreme Court majority imposed its enlightened mores on those ignorant masses who audaciously imagined in the year 2000 that they could stop the transmogrification of an institution that’s functioned for millennia as a civilizing institution for children.
Even candidate Obama gave lip service to these exotic “Indian” sentiments by publicly asserting his “personal belief” that marriage should be male-female. This wink-and-a-nod concession to popular mores was understood as exactly the political ruse it was by opponents of Prop 8—who didn’t hammer Obama for hypocrisy the way they recently savaged Miss California for being gushingly polite and honest about her beliefs.
Last week the California Supreme Court, by a 6-1 majority, allowed the state’s obstreperous “Indians” to have their way--for the most part. The justices did let stand several thousand same-sex marriages that were only made possible by the slick legal machinations that black-robed “Swedes” typically employ to deconstruct the laws of “their” state.
Outside of the law, the most effective means for imposing “Swedish” values on reluctant “Indians” is the mainstream media. Anyone with a modest capacity for honesty will acknowledge that the sympathies of those golden throats who selectively frame the news for viewers lie overwhelmingly with the pro-same-sex position.
Indeed, given the overwhelming barrage of dramatic and educational propaganda in favor of same-sex relationships (from “Day of Silence” school indoctrination to nightly TV portraits of traditionalists as dimwitted hatemongers) it’s surprising that an electoral majority could still be mustered in California in favor of the “bigoted” idea that male-female is a salient marital distinction.
Governor Schwarzenegger recently opined that the cultural tide in California lies with those on the anti-8 side of the issue. However, when advocates for that position point to Iowa as an impressive case in point, they’re engaging in a rhetorical shell game. It was the court in Iowa, not Midwestern voters, that legislated this radical change from the bench. The same is true of Massachusetts, where “Swedish” legislators went to extraordinary lengths to avoid letting New England’s “Indians” have their say.
Avoiding the public isn’t so easy in California, much to the chagrin of our Nordic nabobs. Still, absent a profound popular epiphany about the immense power concentrated in the hands of elites who still admire Fidel Castro, the “Swedes” residing in Sacramento, Hollywood, New York, and Washington will soon be setting the rules for marriage—and everything else.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
John Rosemond: Flannery O'Connor on Educating Children
Here is family psychologist John Rosemond's take on the proper education of children--a position that draws on the insight of writer Flannery O'Connor:
In her 1963 essay, "Total Effect and the Eighth Grade," Flannery O'Connor's purpose was to argue for requiring children to read the classics that defined Western Civilization. In the course of making her case, she said something that every parent should be required to read and regurgitate on a regular basis: The whims and preferences of children should always, always be sublimated to the sense and judgment of their elders (paraphrase by Caitlin Flanagan, "The High Cost of Coddling," Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2009, page W11).
For the rest of the article see:
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/life/x1875270021/Proper-discipline-essential-for-kids
In her 1963 essay, "Total Effect and the Eighth Grade," Flannery O'Connor's purpose was to argue for requiring children to read the classics that defined Western Civilization. In the course of making her case, she said something that every parent should be required to read and regurgitate on a regular basis: The whims and preferences of children should always, always be sublimated to the sense and judgment of their elders (paraphrase by Caitlin Flanagan, "The High Cost of Coddling," Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2009, page W11).
For the rest of the article see:
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/life/x1875270021/Proper-discipline-essential-for-kids
Thursday, May 14, 2009
HARVEY MILK DAY--OR ELSE!
The Donald has declared that Carrie Prejean can keep her Miss California title. Trump’s “you’re not fired” decision ended a chapter in the media frenzy swirling around the Vista High School graduate--but it didn’t close the book.
Following Trump’s announcement, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s prime-time hatemonger, launched a six-minute tirade against Prejean that showed the leftist network’s verbal inquisition against Miss California wasn’t quite over.
Ten days earlier Olbermann had chuckled through a hate-fest with the Village Voice’s Michael Musto. Olbermann began by observing that Miss California “has fully endorsed…marriage between a man and a woman who’s partially made out of plastic.”
Musto was more blunt. “She’s dumb and twisted…a human Klaus Barbie doll… This is the kind of girl who sits on the TV and watches the sofa.” Olbermann added that Prejean is “not just a boob, but a fake boob.”
The interview goes on in the spirit of the vile, vicious, and morally vacuous Perez Hilton—the talentless judge whose question about same-sex marriage assured one of two possible outcomes: either Prejean would toe the gay-marriage line or she would be vilified, ridiculed, and destroyed by press lackeys like Access Hollywood, Musto, and Olbermann.
Locally, our TV hairdos couldn’t get enough of the “nude” photos that weren’t really nude, weren’t taken for publication, and were about as risqué as the bikinis worn at the Miss USA competition.
The bottom line of this brouhaha isn’t so much the courage and conviction of Prejean. As I noted in a prior column, Miss California’s response to the same-sex marriage question (“That’s how I was raised.”) was apologetic and shallow. The answer was, however, on an intellectual level appropriate for a pageant judged by the likes of Perez Hilton.
The real bottom line is the power and willingness of the mainstream media to slime and destroy anyone who gets in the way of its cultural agenda—a power that was nakedly displayed last fall to transform a popular and effective pro-life governor of Alaska into a Saturday Night Live caricature.
These media advocates regularly turn reality on its head. An apologetic utterance in defense of traditional marriage is labeled “divisive” and “controversial.” Meanwhile, Hilton, Olbermann, and crew viciously trash a decent person with impunity. The “1984” Ministry of Truth moment occurred when the supremely intolerant and self-infatuated Olbermann accused Prejean of “holier than thou…know it allism.”
Make no mistake, the left and the mainstream media will not tolerate dissent—especially on their “entertainment” turf. And now Obama’s minions are out to muzzle talk radio.
The same intolerance was on full display when opponents were targeted for financial reprisals during and following the Proposition 8 election—and when a member of the arts community had to resign for voting the wrong way.
If anyone wants to see the future of California, it isn’t “Carrie Prejean Day,” as Vista school board trustee Jim Gibson would have it. Rather, it’s “Harvey Milk Day”—or else!
Following Trump’s announcement, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s prime-time hatemonger, launched a six-minute tirade against Prejean that showed the leftist network’s verbal inquisition against Miss California wasn’t quite over.
Ten days earlier Olbermann had chuckled through a hate-fest with the Village Voice’s Michael Musto. Olbermann began by observing that Miss California “has fully endorsed…marriage between a man and a woman who’s partially made out of plastic.”
Musto was more blunt. “She’s dumb and twisted…a human Klaus Barbie doll… This is the kind of girl who sits on the TV and watches the sofa.” Olbermann added that Prejean is “not just a boob, but a fake boob.”
The interview goes on in the spirit of the vile, vicious, and morally vacuous Perez Hilton—the talentless judge whose question about same-sex marriage assured one of two possible outcomes: either Prejean would toe the gay-marriage line or she would be vilified, ridiculed, and destroyed by press lackeys like Access Hollywood, Musto, and Olbermann.
Locally, our TV hairdos couldn’t get enough of the “nude” photos that weren’t really nude, weren’t taken for publication, and were about as risqué as the bikinis worn at the Miss USA competition.
The bottom line of this brouhaha isn’t so much the courage and conviction of Prejean. As I noted in a prior column, Miss California’s response to the same-sex marriage question (“That’s how I was raised.”) was apologetic and shallow. The answer was, however, on an intellectual level appropriate for a pageant judged by the likes of Perez Hilton.
The real bottom line is the power and willingness of the mainstream media to slime and destroy anyone who gets in the way of its cultural agenda—a power that was nakedly displayed last fall to transform a popular and effective pro-life governor of Alaska into a Saturday Night Live caricature.
These media advocates regularly turn reality on its head. An apologetic utterance in defense of traditional marriage is labeled “divisive” and “controversial.” Meanwhile, Hilton, Olbermann, and crew viciously trash a decent person with impunity. The “1984” Ministry of Truth moment occurred when the supremely intolerant and self-infatuated Olbermann accused Prejean of “holier than thou…know it allism.”
Make no mistake, the left and the mainstream media will not tolerate dissent—especially on their “entertainment” turf. And now Obama’s minions are out to muzzle talk radio.
The same intolerance was on full display when opponents were targeted for financial reprisals during and following the Proposition 8 election—and when a member of the arts community had to resign for voting the wrong way.
If anyone wants to see the future of California, it isn’t “Carrie Prejean Day,” as Vista school board trustee Jim Gibson would have it. Rather, it’s “Harvey Milk Day”—or else!
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
THE MISS CALIFORNIA MESSAGE: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU OPPOSE GAY MARRIAGE
Miss California, Carrie Prejean, 2005 Vista High graduate and student body president, is asked a politically charged question about gay marriage by a gay activist and blogger who calls himself Perez Hilton. She provides an almost apologetic response at the conclusion of which she expresses her belief that marriage should continue to be—as it has been throughout history—between a man and a woman. “No offense to anybody… but that’s how I was raised.”
As a result, for perhaps the first time in Miss USA history, a contestant is booed for her answer—though there are also cheers and applause. Another result is that “judge” Perez Hilton, and probably his nearly-as-undistinguished colleagues on the pageant panel, ding Prejean’s scores—almost certainly costing her the Miss USA title.
The aftermath of this incident illustrates the depths of mendacity that surrounds the word “tolerance” in post-modern, deconstructed America.
Hilton, a talentless boor tagged “the queen of mean” by no less an authority than Rolling Stone Magazine, proceeds to publicly insult Prejean on his profitable and unprintably crude trash-blog. Hilton later apologizes for calling Miss California the “b” word. The very next day, however, Hilton retracts his apology while being more-than-respectfully interviewed by MSNBC’s Nora O’Donnell. O’Donnell doesn’t flinch when Hilton says he was actually thinking of the “c” word.
Later Hilton adds to his verbal insult a vile blog depiction of Prejean that can’t be euphemistically described in a newspaper destined for the eyes of decent citizens. All the while it is Prejean who is interrogated by the Fairness doctrine media about whether her answer was divisive!
Can anyone imagine the furor that would have ensued had an oddball judge zeroed out a contestant for giving a pro-gay marriage answer and then proceeded to insult her in terms that are increasingly punishable as hate-speech?
Can anyone imagine San Diego public relations representative Roger Neal urging a pro-gay Miss USA “to heal some wounds” with the traditional marriage crowd—a crowd that presumably, if disingenuously, includes the President of the United States?
Neal, a putative “advisor” to Prejean, went on to accuse Miss California of lying when she said recently at a North County church that she was told by pageant officials to apologize to the gay community and to avoid mentioning religion in her TV interviews.
It doesn’t take a lawyer to know that the word “lie” in this case is a pejorative way of parsing the legal difference between “solemnly encouraged” and “told.” Those who think Prejean wasn’t pressured by the same people who selected Perez Hilton as a pageant official probably also believe that Fidel Castro is Santa Claus.
So tolerance in America now means this: No gay marriage, no Miss USA. It means that one is free to insult and degrade a young woman for timidly supporting traditional moral views. It means that Hollywood sleazebags like Perez Hilton now define cultural mores and that decent individuals like Carrie Prejean will be trashed if they dare open their mouths.
As a result, for perhaps the first time in Miss USA history, a contestant is booed for her answer—though there are also cheers and applause. Another result is that “judge” Perez Hilton, and probably his nearly-as-undistinguished colleagues on the pageant panel, ding Prejean’s scores—almost certainly costing her the Miss USA title.
The aftermath of this incident illustrates the depths of mendacity that surrounds the word “tolerance” in post-modern, deconstructed America.
Hilton, a talentless boor tagged “the queen of mean” by no less an authority than Rolling Stone Magazine, proceeds to publicly insult Prejean on his profitable and unprintably crude trash-blog. Hilton later apologizes for calling Miss California the “b” word. The very next day, however, Hilton retracts his apology while being more-than-respectfully interviewed by MSNBC’s Nora O’Donnell. O’Donnell doesn’t flinch when Hilton says he was actually thinking of the “c” word.
Later Hilton adds to his verbal insult a vile blog depiction of Prejean that can’t be euphemistically described in a newspaper destined for the eyes of decent citizens. All the while it is Prejean who is interrogated by the Fairness doctrine media about whether her answer was divisive!
Can anyone imagine the furor that would have ensued had an oddball judge zeroed out a contestant for giving a pro-gay marriage answer and then proceeded to insult her in terms that are increasingly punishable as hate-speech?
Can anyone imagine San Diego public relations representative Roger Neal urging a pro-gay Miss USA “to heal some wounds” with the traditional marriage crowd—a crowd that presumably, if disingenuously, includes the President of the United States?
Neal, a putative “advisor” to Prejean, went on to accuse Miss California of lying when she said recently at a North County church that she was told by pageant officials to apologize to the gay community and to avoid mentioning religion in her TV interviews.
It doesn’t take a lawyer to know that the word “lie” in this case is a pejorative way of parsing the legal difference between “solemnly encouraged” and “told.” Those who think Prejean wasn’t pressured by the same people who selected Perez Hilton as a pageant official probably also believe that Fidel Castro is Santa Claus.
So tolerance in America now means this: No gay marriage, no Miss USA. It means that one is free to insult and degrade a young woman for timidly supporting traditional moral views. It means that Hollywood sleazebags like Perez Hilton now define cultural mores and that decent individuals like Carrie Prejean will be trashed if they dare open their mouths.
Friday, April 17, 2009
TEA PARTY TERROR WATCH?
On April 15th dangerous homegrown terrorist types in hundreds of cities around the country gathered to peacefully protest what they see as an unprecedented expansion of government authority and spending that promises to triple the national debt in eight years.
In Oceanside, scores of these Timothy McVeigh wannabes were cleverly disguised as mothers with kids or mature ladies tastefully garbed in informal attire. Elderly, middle-aged, and young males were also present for this “hate-group” demonstration. Somehow these ticking time-bombs managed to conceal their “cling(ing) to guns and religion” rage while displaying signs that denounced high taxes, generational theft, and government bailouts.
If the previous paragraphs seem oxymoronic, readers should seek clarification from Janet Napolitano’s Homeland Security Department—the bureaucracy that recently composed an intelligence report warning of right-wing extremists who might exploit the current economic and political climate for nefarious, anti-government ends.
Here’s a sample of the drivel (based on “no specific information” of planned violence) that now passes for “intelligence” at DHS:
“Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented…and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”
By this expansive definition, Texas Governor Rick Perry got himself placed on an extremist watch-list for recently declaring that America’s federal system is being shredded by an overreaching national government that’s aggressively inserting itself into matters that were formerly the Tenth Amendment preserve of states.
The anti-tax multitude gathered in Oceanside was clearly teeming with terrorist types since the DHS assessment also included “disgruntled military veterans” in their potential extremist list—alongside groups worried about firearm confiscation. (Listen up, El Cajon gun shop.)
Following this DHS logic, one Obamaland blogger issued the following alert: “These Tea Parties bear watching. It could be the birth not of a nation but (of) a dangerous terrorist network.”
Unfortunately for Napolitano and this internet nutcase, the closest thing to an “incident” at Oceanside’s massive tea party involved a surly-looking bearded guy who at least twice shouted insults at demonstrators, then grabbed his black sports-bag and stalked away. Amazingly, none of the protestors returned his insults or pulled out AK-47s to blow him away.
From what I saw, the tea party “terrorists” at Pier View Way and Coast Highway were overwhelmingly focused on lower taxes, limited government, and a projected national debt of eleven trillion dollars. A few banners were explicitly anti-Obama or anti-Schwarzenegger, but none were as incendiary as comments routinely directed toward the prior Commander-in-Chief.
The sign that best summarized collective sentiment was this one: “Give Me Liberty, Not Debt”—not exactly the rhetoric of extremists. Instead, it sounds like an epigram for citizens who are deeply concerned about governments that no longer recognize reasonable limits—in spending, competence, or terrorist threat assessments.
In Oceanside, scores of these Timothy McVeigh wannabes were cleverly disguised as mothers with kids or mature ladies tastefully garbed in informal attire. Elderly, middle-aged, and young males were also present for this “hate-group” demonstration. Somehow these ticking time-bombs managed to conceal their “cling(ing) to guns and religion” rage while displaying signs that denounced high taxes, generational theft, and government bailouts.
If the previous paragraphs seem oxymoronic, readers should seek clarification from Janet Napolitano’s Homeland Security Department—the bureaucracy that recently composed an intelligence report warning of right-wing extremists who might exploit the current economic and political climate for nefarious, anti-government ends.
Here’s a sample of the drivel (based on “no specific information” of planned violence) that now passes for “intelligence” at DHS:
“Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented…and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”
By this expansive definition, Texas Governor Rick Perry got himself placed on an extremist watch-list for recently declaring that America’s federal system is being shredded by an overreaching national government that’s aggressively inserting itself into matters that were formerly the Tenth Amendment preserve of states.
The anti-tax multitude gathered in Oceanside was clearly teeming with terrorist types since the DHS assessment also included “disgruntled military veterans” in their potential extremist list—alongside groups worried about firearm confiscation. (Listen up, El Cajon gun shop.)
Following this DHS logic, one Obamaland blogger issued the following alert: “These Tea Parties bear watching. It could be the birth not of a nation but (of) a dangerous terrorist network.”
Unfortunately for Napolitano and this internet nutcase, the closest thing to an “incident” at Oceanside’s massive tea party involved a surly-looking bearded guy who at least twice shouted insults at demonstrators, then grabbed his black sports-bag and stalked away. Amazingly, none of the protestors returned his insults or pulled out AK-47s to blow him away.
From what I saw, the tea party “terrorists” at Pier View Way and Coast Highway were overwhelmingly focused on lower taxes, limited government, and a projected national debt of eleven trillion dollars. A few banners were explicitly anti-Obama or anti-Schwarzenegger, but none were as incendiary as comments routinely directed toward the prior Commander-in-Chief.
The sign that best summarized collective sentiment was this one: “Give Me Liberty, Not Debt”—not exactly the rhetoric of extremists. Instead, it sounds like an epigram for citizens who are deeply concerned about governments that no longer recognize reasonable limits—in spending, competence, or terrorist threat assessments.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
ABORTION CHAIN OWNER DIES IN PLANE CRASH AT CATHOLIC CEMETERY WITH "TOMB OF THE UNBORN" MEMORIAL
The irony of this incident tempts even the skeptical to wonder whether some "invisible hand" was at work in this "accident" that ended the life of the owner of the nation's largest for-profit abortion chain at a Catholic Cemetery where a memorial is dedicated to the unborn victims of abortion.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
"WATERMELONS" AND "RED HOT" CLIMATE LIES
Watermelons: “green” on the outside, “red” on the inside. That popular definition of environmental statists is what Czech President Vaclav Klaus had in mind when he denounced global warming zealots for promoting “a new religion” that “threatens to undermine freedom and the world’s economic and social order.”
Klaus would not have been welcome a week ago Saturday when lights were dimmed in San Diego and other local communities to celebrate “Earth Hour”—a global PR event sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund to tout the profound dangers of manmade climate change.
As is typically the case, our local television hairdos enthusiastically aired the proceedings without providing (as an honest “Fairness Doctrine” would require) comment from team-Klaus or team-Richard Lindzen (MIT Professor of Meteorology) or team-Freeman Dyson (Princeton physicist emeritus) or team-Bjorn Lomborg (Danish author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist”).
That’s only a short list of dissenters who possess credentials at least as impressive as those held by members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Indeed, “climate criminal” Christopher Horner notes in his book, “Red Hot Lies,” that the IPCC is chock full of government-picked “scientists” with degrees in sociology, economics, and even “transport management.” That unimpressive list includes IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, who as an economist and industrial engineer felt sufficiently qualified in atmospheric dynamics and psychohistory to compare critic Bjorn Lomborg with Adolf Hitler.
Horner supplements his analysis of the IPCC’s general scientific expertise with two lengthy chapters that document IPCC malfeasance—exemplified in the practice of hyping summaries for policymakers months before completion of the work purportedly being summarized. New Zealand climate scientist Dr. Vincent Gray provides his own succinct institutional summary: “The IPCC is fundamentally corrupt.”
Horner, Klaus, and others have explained why today’s global warming propagandists are knee-deep in statistical manipulation, character assassination, intimidation, and censorship.
First, financial incentives for jumping on the global warming gravy train are enormous—dwarfing the alleged “buying” of scientists by Exxon-Mobil. Billions are now headed toward alarmists like Al Gore who stand to gain billions more from their ties to favored green industries. Ironically, this idea of “monotizing” environmental groups was made famous by Enron’s Ken Lay.
Secondly, climate hysteria creates an opportunity for top-down statist policies—the preferred governmental arrangement of “Watermelons” whose political dreams revolve around the redistribution of wealth and ever-expanding social controls.
A prime example of the hugely successful indoctrination tactics employed by alarmists is the shameless targeting of intellectually defenseless children. One prominent proselytizer recently spoke at a San Marcos high school and was described in a North County Times headline as a “Nobel Prize winner” and “expert in global climate change.” Paragraph thirteen noted that the “author” (actually one of many authors) of an IPCC climate change report teaches “conservation biology.”
Nowhere was it mentioned that Antarctica’s ice-mass is actually increasing or that polar bears are flourishing. Least of all, I’d wager, did the feted butterfly specialist divulge any such inconvenient truths to her captive audience.
Klaus would not have been welcome a week ago Saturday when lights were dimmed in San Diego and other local communities to celebrate “Earth Hour”—a global PR event sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund to tout the profound dangers of manmade climate change.
As is typically the case, our local television hairdos enthusiastically aired the proceedings without providing (as an honest “Fairness Doctrine” would require) comment from team-Klaus or team-Richard Lindzen (MIT Professor of Meteorology) or team-Freeman Dyson (Princeton physicist emeritus) or team-Bjorn Lomborg (Danish author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist”).
That’s only a short list of dissenters who possess credentials at least as impressive as those held by members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Indeed, “climate criminal” Christopher Horner notes in his book, “Red Hot Lies,” that the IPCC is chock full of government-picked “scientists” with degrees in sociology, economics, and even “transport management.” That unimpressive list includes IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, who as an economist and industrial engineer felt sufficiently qualified in atmospheric dynamics and psychohistory to compare critic Bjorn Lomborg with Adolf Hitler.
Horner supplements his analysis of the IPCC’s general scientific expertise with two lengthy chapters that document IPCC malfeasance—exemplified in the practice of hyping summaries for policymakers months before completion of the work purportedly being summarized. New Zealand climate scientist Dr. Vincent Gray provides his own succinct institutional summary: “The IPCC is fundamentally corrupt.”
Horner, Klaus, and others have explained why today’s global warming propagandists are knee-deep in statistical manipulation, character assassination, intimidation, and censorship.
First, financial incentives for jumping on the global warming gravy train are enormous—dwarfing the alleged “buying” of scientists by Exxon-Mobil. Billions are now headed toward alarmists like Al Gore who stand to gain billions more from their ties to favored green industries. Ironically, this idea of “monotizing” environmental groups was made famous by Enron’s Ken Lay.
Secondly, climate hysteria creates an opportunity for top-down statist policies—the preferred governmental arrangement of “Watermelons” whose political dreams revolve around the redistribution of wealth and ever-expanding social controls.
A prime example of the hugely successful indoctrination tactics employed by alarmists is the shameless targeting of intellectually defenseless children. One prominent proselytizer recently spoke at a San Marcos high school and was described in a North County Times headline as a “Nobel Prize winner” and “expert in global climate change.” Paragraph thirteen noted that the “author” (actually one of many authors) of an IPCC climate change report teaches “conservation biology.”
Nowhere was it mentioned that Antarctica’s ice-mass is actually increasing or that polar bears are flourishing. Least of all, I’d wager, did the feted butterfly specialist divulge any such inconvenient truths to her captive audience.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
THE "UNFAIRNESS" DOCTRINE
Customers who peruse the Current Affairs section at a prominent Oceanside bookstore may be getting a preview of what access to contrary opinions will be like if the Obama Administration reinstitutes governmental regulation of radio broadcasts.
Whether a left-wing patron or some Obama-worshipping employee is responsible, I don’t know. What I do know is how frequently I find conservative books concealed behind leftist volumes or scattered about the shelves in alphabetical disarray.
My most recent visit to this establishment provided an egregious example of ideological rearrangement—with Bill O’Reilly’s mug obliterated by some “pinhead’s” oeuvre, Ann Coulter’s books given a minimum of semi-orderly exposure, and works by Bernard Goldberg, Dick Morris, and Newt Gingrich distributed across the a-to-z spectrum.
By contrast, a veritable shrine was devoted to publications by and about Barack Obama. (Mind you, this is the Current Affairs section, not the coffee table memorabilia shelf.)
Not surprisingly, the store didn’t have the book I was looking for—or perhaps it was in stock (as their computer indicated) but had been moved to an undisclosed location for politically incorrect titles.
The good news is that a same-brand store in Encinitas seemed to have a handle on things—with almost all Current Affairs material displayed in proper alphabetical order. There was a nice “Obama” section, but not one that dominated the racks. Furthermore, face-front displays seemed evenly divided between left and right opinion. Finally, the Encinitas store had the un-PC book that had apparently gone missing in Oceanside.
My “where’s Waldo” browsing experience foreshadows the difficulty most Americans will have gaining access to dissenting opinions if Obama’s leftist allies succeed in reimposing, either through the front or back door, the Orwellian-titled “Fairness Doctrine.”
It’s staggering to think that Democrat Senators like Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have expressed support for this Constitution-trampling relic of a world where electronic media outlets could be counted on one hand. But then leftist politicians tend toward a totalitarian mentality where opposition to their own thinking is denounced as “divisive” but a 24/7 attack machine on their side (replete with character, and real, assassination scenarios) is taken for granted.
Not content with the overwhelming left-wing bias of CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, Hollywood, Letterman, Leno, “Law and Order” and most of the nation’s major newspapers, Schumer and friends want to stifle opposition voices in the one medium where conservatives, by dint of commercial success, have achieved a modicum of balance in the total media universe.
While President Obama has said he opposes reinstituting the “Fairness Doctrine” (more honestly called The Anti-Limbaugh Democrat Enabling Act), FCC commissioner Robert McDowell warns that the policy will probably be rebranded and promoted in the name of localism and diversity—a likelihood reinforced by Attorney General Eric Holder’s evasive “Fairness Doctrine” responses to a Senate committee.
Under McDowell’s worst-case scenario, community advisory boards, filled with book-squelching ACORN activists, would determine whether Rick Roberts or Roger Hedgecock are serving what they conceive to be “the public interest.” For leftists, that’s “fairness.”
Whether a left-wing patron or some Obama-worshipping employee is responsible, I don’t know. What I do know is how frequently I find conservative books concealed behind leftist volumes or scattered about the shelves in alphabetical disarray.
My most recent visit to this establishment provided an egregious example of ideological rearrangement—with Bill O’Reilly’s mug obliterated by some “pinhead’s” oeuvre, Ann Coulter’s books given a minimum of semi-orderly exposure, and works by Bernard Goldberg, Dick Morris, and Newt Gingrich distributed across the a-to-z spectrum.
By contrast, a veritable shrine was devoted to publications by and about Barack Obama. (Mind you, this is the Current Affairs section, not the coffee table memorabilia shelf.)
Not surprisingly, the store didn’t have the book I was looking for—or perhaps it was in stock (as their computer indicated) but had been moved to an undisclosed location for politically incorrect titles.
The good news is that a same-brand store in Encinitas seemed to have a handle on things—with almost all Current Affairs material displayed in proper alphabetical order. There was a nice “Obama” section, but not one that dominated the racks. Furthermore, face-front displays seemed evenly divided between left and right opinion. Finally, the Encinitas store had the un-PC book that had apparently gone missing in Oceanside.
My “where’s Waldo” browsing experience foreshadows the difficulty most Americans will have gaining access to dissenting opinions if Obama’s leftist allies succeed in reimposing, either through the front or back door, the Orwellian-titled “Fairness Doctrine.”
It’s staggering to think that Democrat Senators like Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have expressed support for this Constitution-trampling relic of a world where electronic media outlets could be counted on one hand. But then leftist politicians tend toward a totalitarian mentality where opposition to their own thinking is denounced as “divisive” but a 24/7 attack machine on their side (replete with character, and real, assassination scenarios) is taken for granted.
Not content with the overwhelming left-wing bias of CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, Hollywood, Letterman, Leno, “Law and Order” and most of the nation’s major newspapers, Schumer and friends want to stifle opposition voices in the one medium where conservatives, by dint of commercial success, have achieved a modicum of balance in the total media universe.
While President Obama has said he opposes reinstituting the “Fairness Doctrine” (more honestly called The Anti-Limbaugh Democrat Enabling Act), FCC commissioner Robert McDowell warns that the policy will probably be rebranded and promoted in the name of localism and diversity—a likelihood reinforced by Attorney General Eric Holder’s evasive “Fairness Doctrine” responses to a Senate committee.
Under McDowell’s worst-case scenario, community advisory boards, filled with book-squelching ACORN activists, would determine whether Rick Roberts or Roger Hedgecock are serving what they conceive to be “the public interest.” For leftists, that’s “fairness.”
Friday, March 06, 2009
PROP 8: THE CRITICAL ISSUES JUDGES MAY IGNORE
The March 1 Perspective pages of the North County Times contained a spirited two-on-two reprise of arguments for and against Proposition 8.
I say “two-on-two,” but supporters of the November measure doubtless noted that one of the arguments against overturning Prop. 8 was authored by an editorialist who opposed the law but hopes to preserve the integrity of the amendment process. Thus, only one of the four pieces agreed with Proposition 8 on the merits—a law approved by about 60% of North County voters.
On the positive side, at least there were two substantive reasons given for upholding the will of the people when it comes to maintaining as normative the male-female definition of an institution as it exists in all but a handful of “progressive” bastions in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe.
Still, little was said that countered the hyperbolic rhetoric in the anti-8 piece that claimed citizens throughout California were in grave danger of losing their rights unless an institution that’s existed for millennia is redefined to post-modern specifications. Ignored in this argument were the two central questions at issue: Are there persuasive reasons for defining marriage as male-female? Are there persuasive reasons for defining homosexuality in the same class as race?
The answer to the first question is clear. The reason marriage is male-female is because only male-female unions produce children, and without children a compelling rationale for marriage as a state-sanctioned institution disappears.
The fact that some men and women get married and don’t have children doesn’t alter the basic link between marriage and raising children. Laws are general, and the essential component of reproduction is male plus female.
On the other hand, changing the definition of marriage to include unions that by their nature exclude procreation sends a quite different message—that marriage is not about children but rather about “feelings of affection.”
Beyond the biological facts of life, sociological evidence demonstrates that children are best raised in families with a mother and a father. Thus, laws promoting this ideal are warranted and can’t be logically equated with segregation codes rooted in notions of racial superiority.
One race isn’t superior to another, but male-female households are better (in general, and thus in law) than households where one sex does all the child-raising or (presumptively) where only one sex is represented in the parental mix. Similarly, Western societies have long presumed the superiority of monogamous over polygamous households.
Concerning parallels drawn between homosexuality and race, there is no compelling evidence, after decades of partisan research, that sexual inclinations are in the same genetic class as skin color. What’s obvious, however (from Greek antiquity to the present) is that social mores greatly impact sexual behavior, whatever the hormonal or genetic givens.
Unfortunately, I suspect that four of California’s Supreme Court jurists have already made up their minds and that same-sex marriage will soon become a “right” like abortion—conjured out of emanations from “progressive” penumbra. Judges rule—history, nature, and democracy be damned.
I say “two-on-two,” but supporters of the November measure doubtless noted that one of the arguments against overturning Prop. 8 was authored by an editorialist who opposed the law but hopes to preserve the integrity of the amendment process. Thus, only one of the four pieces agreed with Proposition 8 on the merits—a law approved by about 60% of North County voters.
On the positive side, at least there were two substantive reasons given for upholding the will of the people when it comes to maintaining as normative the male-female definition of an institution as it exists in all but a handful of “progressive” bastions in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe.
Still, little was said that countered the hyperbolic rhetoric in the anti-8 piece that claimed citizens throughout California were in grave danger of losing their rights unless an institution that’s existed for millennia is redefined to post-modern specifications. Ignored in this argument were the two central questions at issue: Are there persuasive reasons for defining marriage as male-female? Are there persuasive reasons for defining homosexuality in the same class as race?
The answer to the first question is clear. The reason marriage is male-female is because only male-female unions produce children, and without children a compelling rationale for marriage as a state-sanctioned institution disappears.
The fact that some men and women get married and don’t have children doesn’t alter the basic link between marriage and raising children. Laws are general, and the essential component of reproduction is male plus female.
On the other hand, changing the definition of marriage to include unions that by their nature exclude procreation sends a quite different message—that marriage is not about children but rather about “feelings of affection.”
Beyond the biological facts of life, sociological evidence demonstrates that children are best raised in families with a mother and a father. Thus, laws promoting this ideal are warranted and can’t be logically equated with segregation codes rooted in notions of racial superiority.
One race isn’t superior to another, but male-female households are better (in general, and thus in law) than households where one sex does all the child-raising or (presumptively) where only one sex is represented in the parental mix. Similarly, Western societies have long presumed the superiority of monogamous over polygamous households.
Concerning parallels drawn between homosexuality and race, there is no compelling evidence, after decades of partisan research, that sexual inclinations are in the same genetic class as skin color. What’s obvious, however (from Greek antiquity to the present) is that social mores greatly impact sexual behavior, whatever the hormonal or genetic givens.
Unfortunately, I suspect that four of California’s Supreme Court jurists have already made up their minds and that same-sex marriage will soon become a “right” like abortion—conjured out of emanations from “progressive” penumbra. Judges rule—history, nature, and democracy be damned.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
LIES, DAMN LIES, AND OBAMA RHETORIC
Here's an AP story, for goodness sake, that exposes the "emptiness" (i.e. deceptions, lies) in the Obama-Messiah's Congressional Address last night.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090225/D96IFSC80.html
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090225/D96IFSC80.html
FIREFIGHTER HARASSMENT MINIMIZED IN GAY PRIDE PARADE TRIAL
Last week a jury determined that four San Diego firefighters who were ordered to participate in a 2007 Gay Pride parade had been sexually harassed.
The four were awarded a total of $34,300 in damages—a figure that clearly suggests a “separate and unequal” calculus when it comes to harassment of straight employees by a sexually demonstrative crowd. One can hardly imagine any jury coming up with figures of this diminutive size if the roles were reversed—if, for example, four gay firefighters had been subjected, because of department orders, to demeaning taunts from an unsympathetic crowd.
Still, a positive verdict for the plaintiffs is better than no verdict at all—as was the case last October when another jury fell one vote short of the required nine votes to sustain a harassment verdict.
Plaintiff’s attorney Charles LiMandri also noted that a judicial ruling in the earlier trial had found that the firefighters’ freedom of speech hadn’t been violated—“even though the courts have consistently held that participation in a gay pride parade is a form of constitutionally protected expressive conduct, and the right to speak on a controversial public issue includes the right not to be compelled to speak.”
According to plaintiff John Ghiotto, the firefighters (who had all objected to their last-minute assignment to this public relations “duty”) were subjected to verbal abuse and sexual gestures throughout the parade route—the most explicit of which exceeded even crotch-grabbing and requests for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Elsewhere in California’s culture wars, a student at Los Angeles City College, Jonathan Lopez, is suing a professor, John Matteson, for allegedly calling him a “fascist bastard” in class and not allowing him to finish a speech in favor of Proposition 8.
The incident took place in a public speaking class shortly after the November vote in favor of the constitutional amendment that defined marriage in California as between a man and a woman. According to Lopez, the speech professor also informed him that he should “ask God what your grade is.”
Lopez is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that, alongside the Thomas More Law Center, represented the San Diego firefighters. In a letter to ADF a school dean observed that two students were “deeply offended” by Lopez’s speech and that one of them said, “this student should have to pay some price for preaching hate in the classroom.”
Lopez is reportedly asking for a jury trial—a good idea in view of the emerging gap between public sentiment and the views of our black-robed betters when it comes to matters like marriage, freedom of speech, and sexual harassment.
For many of California’s judicial legislators freedom of speech and sexual harassment are one-way streets. Maximum latitude is allowed to groups with “victim” status, whereas individuals without this prestigious moniker must carefully observe the “do not offend” signs erected by “victims.”
All awards, of course, (even those for only $34,300) are subject to judicial review.
The four were awarded a total of $34,300 in damages—a figure that clearly suggests a “separate and unequal” calculus when it comes to harassment of straight employees by a sexually demonstrative crowd. One can hardly imagine any jury coming up with figures of this diminutive size if the roles were reversed—if, for example, four gay firefighters had been subjected, because of department orders, to demeaning taunts from an unsympathetic crowd.
Still, a positive verdict for the plaintiffs is better than no verdict at all—as was the case last October when another jury fell one vote short of the required nine votes to sustain a harassment verdict.
Plaintiff’s attorney Charles LiMandri also noted that a judicial ruling in the earlier trial had found that the firefighters’ freedom of speech hadn’t been violated—“even though the courts have consistently held that participation in a gay pride parade is a form of constitutionally protected expressive conduct, and the right to speak on a controversial public issue includes the right not to be compelled to speak.”
According to plaintiff John Ghiotto, the firefighters (who had all objected to their last-minute assignment to this public relations “duty”) were subjected to verbal abuse and sexual gestures throughout the parade route—the most explicit of which exceeded even crotch-grabbing and requests for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Elsewhere in California’s culture wars, a student at Los Angeles City College, Jonathan Lopez, is suing a professor, John Matteson, for allegedly calling him a “fascist bastard” in class and not allowing him to finish a speech in favor of Proposition 8.
The incident took place in a public speaking class shortly after the November vote in favor of the constitutional amendment that defined marriage in California as between a man and a woman. According to Lopez, the speech professor also informed him that he should “ask God what your grade is.”
Lopez is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that, alongside the Thomas More Law Center, represented the San Diego firefighters. In a letter to ADF a school dean observed that two students were “deeply offended” by Lopez’s speech and that one of them said, “this student should have to pay some price for preaching hate in the classroom.”
Lopez is reportedly asking for a jury trial—a good idea in view of the emerging gap between public sentiment and the views of our black-robed betters when it comes to matters like marriage, freedom of speech, and sexual harassment.
For many of California’s judicial legislators freedom of speech and sexual harassment are one-way streets. Maximum latitude is allowed to groups with “victim” status, whereas individuals without this prestigious moniker must carefully observe the “do not offend” signs erected by “victims.”
All awards, of course, (even those for only $34,300) are subject to judicial review.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
SAVING TREES VS. SAVING BABIES
Cutting down large trees is a mortal sin according to the green mores of many Californians—an offense that prompts significant television and newspaper coverage when someone decides, as recently happened in Encinitas, to take a stand (or a seat) in the branches of an endangered leafy organism.
Even health concerns engendered by bird poop right outside an Oceanside restaurant don’t mitigate the righteous indignation of some environmentalists who viscerally feel the pain that neurology suggests is denied our wooden neighbors.
On the other hand, an individual who protests the termination of a nascent human life is unlikely to get much media coverage—much less media sympathy. The same can be said about the attitude of most state legislators toward ending the development of what used to be called “a baby.”
Indeed, Sacramento is so unconcerned (or embarrassed) about the culling of human fetuses that it no longer keeps track of the state’s annual contribution (around 100,000) to the estimated 1.2 million abortions that are performed in the United States each year.
What the state does apparently care about is access to abortion providers—a practice known in the Orwellian language of the Healthcare Workforce Pilot Project as “early pregnancy care.”
In 2006, for the sake of this “Pilot Project,” the state legislature suspended regulations that required abortion providers to be licensed physicians. According to State Senator Sam Aanestad, a trenchant critic of the program, Planned Parenthood has since employed procedure-trained nurses, midwives, and physician assistants to perform abortions by suction aspiration.
Aanestad further notes that HWPP #171 exploits a program that was established in 1973 to address shortfalls in the gerontology workforce in order to expand access to abortion in “underserved areas” of California—including San Diego.
Perhaps the proper name for this little-advertised “research project,” designed to facilitate abortions in poor communities where they are already common, should be “No Abortion Left Behind.”
This “clinical study” has been conducted under the auspices of the University of California San Francisco, Kaiser of Northern California, and several Planned Parenthood affiliates. The program is scheduled for renewal in March—in case there are readers out there who care to climb down from their trees long enough to contact their legislators about Healthcare Workforce Pilot Project #171.
It is unlikely, however, that tree-climbers who weep over the fate of vegetative life will show similar concern over the loss of human life in utero. After all, the former activity is popular and demands only episodic commitment on the part of the activist. The latter activity is likely to invite ridicule from powerful media sources (Hollywood and major television networks) and requires, on the part of those most intimately involved in the decision, years of commitment to the welfare of a child.
The psycho-dynamics of these moral priorities are as follows: As crucial moral standards are increasingly ignored by the public, matters of marginal moral significance take their place—filling a yawning void with moral distractions.
Even health concerns engendered by bird poop right outside an Oceanside restaurant don’t mitigate the righteous indignation of some environmentalists who viscerally feel the pain that neurology suggests is denied our wooden neighbors.
On the other hand, an individual who protests the termination of a nascent human life is unlikely to get much media coverage—much less media sympathy. The same can be said about the attitude of most state legislators toward ending the development of what used to be called “a baby.”
Indeed, Sacramento is so unconcerned (or embarrassed) about the culling of human fetuses that it no longer keeps track of the state’s annual contribution (around 100,000) to the estimated 1.2 million abortions that are performed in the United States each year.
What the state does apparently care about is access to abortion providers—a practice known in the Orwellian language of the Healthcare Workforce Pilot Project as “early pregnancy care.”
In 2006, for the sake of this “Pilot Project,” the state legislature suspended regulations that required abortion providers to be licensed physicians. According to State Senator Sam Aanestad, a trenchant critic of the program, Planned Parenthood has since employed procedure-trained nurses, midwives, and physician assistants to perform abortions by suction aspiration.
Aanestad further notes that HWPP #171 exploits a program that was established in 1973 to address shortfalls in the gerontology workforce in order to expand access to abortion in “underserved areas” of California—including San Diego.
Perhaps the proper name for this little-advertised “research project,” designed to facilitate abortions in poor communities where they are already common, should be “No Abortion Left Behind.”
This “clinical study” has been conducted under the auspices of the University of California San Francisco, Kaiser of Northern California, and several Planned Parenthood affiliates. The program is scheduled for renewal in March—in case there are readers out there who care to climb down from their trees long enough to contact their legislators about Healthcare Workforce Pilot Project #171.
It is unlikely, however, that tree-climbers who weep over the fate of vegetative life will show similar concern over the loss of human life in utero. After all, the former activity is popular and demands only episodic commitment on the part of the activist. The latter activity is likely to invite ridicule from powerful media sources (Hollywood and major television networks) and requires, on the part of those most intimately involved in the decision, years of commitment to the welfare of a child.
The psycho-dynamics of these moral priorities are as follows: As crucial moral standards are increasingly ignored by the public, matters of marginal moral significance take their place—filling a yawning void with moral distractions.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
SET ASIDE CHILDISH BUDGETS
Barack Obama in his inaugural address observed that “the time has come to set aside childish things”—that the time “of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions…has surely passed.”
That rhetoric is sound advice for Californians who just last November, in the midst of an economic recession and rising budget deficits, voted to approve a 10 billion dollar high-speed rail program designed to get folks from Escondido to San Francisco in three-and-a-half hours--for only $67.
The childish aspect of this proposal was right there in the proposition voter guide, which declared IN CAPS that the 10 billion dollar project (20 billion according to opponents) would be funded “without raising taxes.” Well, if billions in bond indebtedness is a tax-neutral event, why not fund the state government with bonds—in perpetuity?
As the proposition’s “adult” opponents pointed out in the voter guide, the “full faith and credit of the state of California” is pledged for the payment of these bonds—a pledge with profound fiscal implications for a state sporting a budget deficit projected to reach forty billion dollars by June, 2010.
The city of San Diego was only recently able to float infrastructure bonds after starting to get its pension-happy finances in order. And North County residents should be familiar with the huge cost overruns associated with construction of the Sprinter.
Those children who believe there’s “free money” available to build a really fast choo-choo probably also believe that governments can (as candidate Obama frequently promised) create “five million green jobs” with the stroke of a pen.
As for the state’s yawning budget gap, the Governator has no good options. Higher taxes are sure to depress an already bad economy and send even more residents scurrying out of state. (During the last fiscal year 135,173 more people moved out of California than moved in from other states.)
On the other hand, cutting business taxes isn’t going to stimulate growth soon enough to balance the books—which is mandated by law.The only realistic solution is to muddle through with smoke and mirrors--tactics (like fees and accounting gimmicks) that represent the legislative equivalent of bonds unrelated to taxes.
For the long run, “adult” solutions might include undoing the auto-pilot budgeting that’s been put in place for education and other items by California voters, developing the state’s energy reserves (including offshore drilling), providing tax incentives for businesses, and implementing policies aimed at reducing costs associated with illegal immigration.
Based on passage of the high-speed rail proposition, however, I’m not optimistic that California voters and legislators will be adopting the aforementioned suggestions in the near future. Instead, I anticipate more “green” taxes and fees that are magically expected to generate thousands of “green jobs” as opposed to creating an even longer wagon train of U-Hauls headed out of state.
I also expect the kids in Sacramento to throw tantrums to get their hands on bailout funds dispensed by the teenagers in Washington D.C.
That rhetoric is sound advice for Californians who just last November, in the midst of an economic recession and rising budget deficits, voted to approve a 10 billion dollar high-speed rail program designed to get folks from Escondido to San Francisco in three-and-a-half hours--for only $67.
The childish aspect of this proposal was right there in the proposition voter guide, which declared IN CAPS that the 10 billion dollar project (20 billion according to opponents) would be funded “without raising taxes.” Well, if billions in bond indebtedness is a tax-neutral event, why not fund the state government with bonds—in perpetuity?
As the proposition’s “adult” opponents pointed out in the voter guide, the “full faith and credit of the state of California” is pledged for the payment of these bonds—a pledge with profound fiscal implications for a state sporting a budget deficit projected to reach forty billion dollars by June, 2010.
The city of San Diego was only recently able to float infrastructure bonds after starting to get its pension-happy finances in order. And North County residents should be familiar with the huge cost overruns associated with construction of the Sprinter.
Those children who believe there’s “free money” available to build a really fast choo-choo probably also believe that governments can (as candidate Obama frequently promised) create “five million green jobs” with the stroke of a pen.
As for the state’s yawning budget gap, the Governator has no good options. Higher taxes are sure to depress an already bad economy and send even more residents scurrying out of state. (During the last fiscal year 135,173 more people moved out of California than moved in from other states.)
On the other hand, cutting business taxes isn’t going to stimulate growth soon enough to balance the books—which is mandated by law.The only realistic solution is to muddle through with smoke and mirrors--tactics (like fees and accounting gimmicks) that represent the legislative equivalent of bonds unrelated to taxes.
For the long run, “adult” solutions might include undoing the auto-pilot budgeting that’s been put in place for education and other items by California voters, developing the state’s energy reserves (including offshore drilling), providing tax incentives for businesses, and implementing policies aimed at reducing costs associated with illegal immigration.
Based on passage of the high-speed rail proposition, however, I’m not optimistic that California voters and legislators will be adopting the aforementioned suggestions in the near future. Instead, I anticipate more “green” taxes and fees that are magically expected to generate thousands of “green jobs” as opposed to creating an even longer wagon train of U-Hauls headed out of state.
I also expect the kids in Sacramento to throw tantrums to get their hands on bailout funds dispensed by the teenagers in Washington D.C.
A CASE OF STATISTICAL DECEIT
A popular aphorism identifies three types of lies—lies, darn lies, and statistics. A variation on that theme declares that figures don’t lie, but liars figure.
Both observations apply to the widely publicized study by Northeastern criminologist James Fox that touted an “alarming” increase in murders by and of black teenagers and attributed the spike to (what else) cuts in federal programs during the Bush years.
Fox’s spin on his numbers was released in late December and was reproduced without critical scrutiny by newspapers throughout the country. (See Dec. 29, North County Times: “Study: Murders among black youths on rise”)
A few weeks earlier Southern Californians had the rare privilege of hearing Mayors Jerry Sanders and Antonio Villaraigosa announce that crime in their cities had been reduced to levels not seen since the 1960s. Then came Fox’s black cloud standing ominously within those silver linings.
According to news accounts of Fox’s study the “rate” of black teenage murders had increased precipitously (40%) from 2000 to 2007. This “rate” of increase, however, was illustrated by providing absolute numbers, not ratios. As anyone of modest intellectual ability knows, official crime statistics are always translated into ratios (usually per 100,000) in order to take into account population shifts. (A numerical increase of 20% in a population that increases 20% produces a statistical straight line, not a 20% increase.)
I found the omission of ratios odd and was pleased to see that “Freakonomics” author and University of Chicago economist, Steven Leavitt, felt the same way. Indeed, Leavitt isolated for analysis the same ratio chart within Fox’s data that I found revealing of a publicity ruse.
That chart, taking demographic changes into account (a 15% increase in the 14-17 year old black population), showed only a modest increase in black teenage murders during the last seven years—a virtual straight line that remained near the bottom of the precipitous statistical slide that began in the mid-1990s. As Leavitt notes, this statistical “blip…doesn’t seem so frightening.” The ratio chart, of course, was absent from Fox’s publicity spin or any newspaper accounts that I saw.
While no increases in murder figures are welcome news, it would be nice to see some skepticism on the part of journalists vis-à-vis academic reports that are funded by government grants and whose bottom line focuses on the need to devote more public money to their area of concern.
The problem of gang violence, which ticked up in San Diego during the first 9 months of 2008 (but declined in L.A.) is a continuing source of concern. But according to County Supervisor Pam Slater-Price, the feds last year targeted $1.3 million for the San Diego region to help address this problem.
What’s sure to boost crime rates among blacks, whites, teenagers, and adults is a policy of early release of criminals that’s been proposed by California lawmakers and may be required by a panel of jurists intent on capping the state’s prison population. That story line, however, doesn’t warm the cockles of most journalistic hearts.
Both observations apply to the widely publicized study by Northeastern criminologist James Fox that touted an “alarming” increase in murders by and of black teenagers and attributed the spike to (what else) cuts in federal programs during the Bush years.
Fox’s spin on his numbers was released in late December and was reproduced without critical scrutiny by newspapers throughout the country. (See Dec. 29, North County Times: “Study: Murders among black youths on rise”)
A few weeks earlier Southern Californians had the rare privilege of hearing Mayors Jerry Sanders and Antonio Villaraigosa announce that crime in their cities had been reduced to levels not seen since the 1960s. Then came Fox’s black cloud standing ominously within those silver linings.
According to news accounts of Fox’s study the “rate” of black teenage murders had increased precipitously (40%) from 2000 to 2007. This “rate” of increase, however, was illustrated by providing absolute numbers, not ratios. As anyone of modest intellectual ability knows, official crime statistics are always translated into ratios (usually per 100,000) in order to take into account population shifts. (A numerical increase of 20% in a population that increases 20% produces a statistical straight line, not a 20% increase.)
I found the omission of ratios odd and was pleased to see that “Freakonomics” author and University of Chicago economist, Steven Leavitt, felt the same way. Indeed, Leavitt isolated for analysis the same ratio chart within Fox’s data that I found revealing of a publicity ruse.
That chart, taking demographic changes into account (a 15% increase in the 14-17 year old black population), showed only a modest increase in black teenage murders during the last seven years—a virtual straight line that remained near the bottom of the precipitous statistical slide that began in the mid-1990s. As Leavitt notes, this statistical “blip…doesn’t seem so frightening.” The ratio chart, of course, was absent from Fox’s publicity spin or any newspaper accounts that I saw.
While no increases in murder figures are welcome news, it would be nice to see some skepticism on the part of journalists vis-à-vis academic reports that are funded by government grants and whose bottom line focuses on the need to devote more public money to their area of concern.
The problem of gang violence, which ticked up in San Diego during the first 9 months of 2008 (but declined in L.A.) is a continuing source of concern. But according to County Supervisor Pam Slater-Price, the feds last year targeted $1.3 million for the San Diego region to help address this problem.
What’s sure to boost crime rates among blacks, whites, teenagers, and adults is a policy of early release of criminals that’s been proposed by California lawmakers and may be required by a panel of jurists intent on capping the state’s prison population. That story line, however, doesn’t warm the cockles of most journalistic hearts.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Mark Steyn: Gaza has its version of rocket scientists
Mark Steyn on Gaza, crucifixion, and Western wishful thinking.
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