Spartacus Gay #METOO

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/10/whataboutmetoo.php

Rick Moran writes at PJ Media: “A gay man who describes himself as a liberal Democrat is accusing New Jersey Senator Cory Booker of sexually assaulting him in 2014…The man, who wishes to remain anonymous for now, penned a lengthy open letter that was posted on Twitter. In the letter he describes the assault that occurred in a bathroom following a meeting at his workplace, where the two met.” Moran links to the letter posted here on Twitter. As Moran puts it, the letter “goes into excruciating detail.”

"Justice" works in mysterious ways, especially if your version of "justice" relies on a belief that the accuser is always to be trusted and the accused is "guilty" unless they can somehow "prove" a negative!

I await the unlikely event of Booker being held to the same standard as Kavenaugh, Judge Moore, or others on the right.

Betomania, TP On Their Own

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/25/beto-orourkes-false-claim-he-did-not-try-leave-scene-dwi/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5090bd76539d

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-wilhelm-heather-beto-orouke-ted-cruz-1021-story.html

Unsurprisingly, it looks like "Beto" with his $38 million war chest is going to lose big.

Mr. O’Rourke announced Friday that he had raised over $38 million in the last three months alone, a staggering sum for a statewide race and the most of any Senate candidate in history. But a new poll completed Thursday night by The New York Times Upshot and Siena College indicated that Mr. Cruz now leads Mr. O’Rourke by eight percentage points, 51 percent to 43 percent, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 points.

It turns out that "Beto" (Bob) , while a common Hispanic nickname, has not even 1/1,024th Hispanic blood in him -- although lots of people THINK he is Hispanic, something that Ted Cruz actually IS -- 1/2 Cuban descent from his father.

Beto also has a drunk driving arrest in his past, which he tried to "run" away from. "Run" would be a misnomer, since he was so drunk he could hardly walk. He lied about running away in a debate and the WaPol article above gives him 4 Pinnocios after giving lots of creedence to how it "might seem true to HIM".

O’Rourke was so drunk that he could barely get out of the car without falling, so perhaps he would not have gotten far — or he was simply confused. Perhaps in his memory, O’Rourke believes he did not try to leave. But, given his blood alcohol content at the time of the crash, O’Rourke’s memory 20 years after the fact is not nearly as credible as the police reports written just hours after the crash. Even if one is inclined to dismiss police reports as riddled with errors, it is the one contemporary record we have. 

O’Rourke could have dodged the question during the debate or he could have said his memory of the night is not clear. Instead, he chose to dispute the factual record. We also believe in second chances, and O’Rourke should revise his answer if given another opportunity. In the meantime, he earns Four Pinocchios.

They certainly believe in 2nd, 3rd, or 40th chances for DEMOCRATS! For Republicans, well, we just saw with Kavenaugh, any 35 year old assertion against you with no corroboration is as good as a conviction, and 35 years of exemplary life are not evidence of a "2nd chance". For Republicans, the WaPo / TP standard is "One accusal and DONE"!

The middle linked article has this "remarkable" in a sane universe quote ...

Of the countless head-scratching elements of the O’Rourke phenomenon, one wins handily as the head-scratchingest of all: A troubling percentage of the Betomaniacs I have met in Texas moved here after fleeing places ruined by Beto’s favored policies. These locales are often expensive, increasingly dysfunctional, wildly overregulated and inevitably run by Democrats. Why does no one seem to make this connection? I don’t know! One hero in Austin has taken to posting stickers around town featuring an image of a giant locust, paired with the following text: “I MIGRATED TO A THRIVING TEXAS FROM A LEFTIST (NIGHTMARE) AND NOW I’M VOTING FOR BETO FOR SENATE.” (The posters feature a word much worse than “nightmare,” which I’m not reprinting because I run a PG-13 column here.)

I had to flee one of the high tax, high cost of living, job losing economies of CA, OR, IL, etc and move to Texas -- but hey, "consistency is not an issue"! My favorite polices destroyed my own home! Let's see if the same policies have the same effect here!

Yes, as a fat guy, this DOES align with how I deal with food -- "Hey, I lost some weight! Let's have some high calorie food to celebrate!" The IDEA of democracy was that we would have more sense on such things when it came to voting, but since we live in a world that has sworn off cause and effect,  many of us clearly don't ! 

Can Tribalists Be Sane?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/opinion/the-american-civil-war-part-ii.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

I've always found Thomas Friedman to have a rather "flat" view of the world -- he has been driving in the left ditch for so long that anything but the view from that ditch seems "insane" to him. I found this paragraph to be completely telling ...

This also feels worse than the divisions over Vietnam and civil rights because there were three huge forces holding us together back then that are missing today: a growing middle class, the Cold War and a sane Republican Party.

Well, no ... The NY Times of that day thought Goldwater was definitely INsane, and naturally they were happy -- they held giant majorities in Congress, had the White House, and a SCOTUS that was headed to make baby killing a liberal sacrament! They didn't like Republicans then either -- they were just certain that the left was WINNING as they have been up to Trump! (with a little time for self-reflection under Reagan, and then Gingerich)

As the article makes clear, "The Party" (TP-D) feels strongly that the only viable "solution" is unconditional surrender of anyone that doesn't align with their views 100%. To whit, the comment on Kavenaugh:

And nothing is sacred. Brett Kavanaugh defended himself the other day with the kind of nasty partisan attacks and ugly conspiracy theories that you’d expect only from a talk radio host — never from a would-be justice of the Supreme Court. Who can expect fairness from him now?

Even the generally far left "Politifact" finds the supposedly "worst" of the Kavenaugh statement to be very questionable as being as "politically biased" as the NY Times, TP, and the general TP media want to make it to be. "What goes around DOES eventually come around" -- it is a matter of faith in pretty much all religions, karma in Bhuddism, reap what you sow" in Christianity.

Maybe the most ironic thing though is that since we have religious wiring in our brains, it is actually impossible for humans to have "nothing sacred". Throw out God, and the positions of your own tribe become "sacred" ... so he is wrong on that as well.

So we have become Tribal, and who is to blame? Surprise surprise, only the "right"!

It would be easy to blame both sides equally for this shift, noted Ornstein, but it is just not true. After the end of the Cold War, he said, “tribal politics were introduced by Newt Gingrich when he came to Congress 40 years ago,” and then perfected by Mitch McConnell during the Barack Obama presidency, when McConnell declared his intention to use his G.O.P. Senate caucus to make Obama fail as a strategy for getting Republicans back in power.

 Yea, right. Watergate was tribal, the attacks on Reagan were tribal, Borking was tribal, Clarence Thomas confirmation was tribal, Plame was tribal and Kavenaugh as well as the whole "resistance" is totally transparently tribal.

It may be accurate to say that Newt gave the D's some pause when congress went back to Republican hands for the first time in 50 years in '94, but only in the mind of the left is the opposition winning an election something that has to be treated as a social crisis!

BTW, McConnell made his statement during the runup to the 2010 midterms, NOT "at the start of BO's first term as D's, BO himself and the media (but I repeat myself) continually lie to us about. When you are the dominant party, lying is quite effective, since most people don't catch you at it. Good thing we aren't hearing any D's or media talk about trying to make Trump a failure if they can win the midterms, right? That would be the same as McConnel's supposed egregious tribal sin! Talk about #fakemedia!

The roots of Tribalism go back at least to the early 1900s, when "progressiveism", scientism and historicism took over from Christian escatology as the "right side of history", and the idea of respecting a written Constitution became dangerously reactionary from the POV of  "Progressives".

As this secular faith become the power based faith of the intelligencia, things like "love your neighbor", "the golden rule", "love your enemies", "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God" were replaced by faith in science and the doctrine above. Once Christianity was a transcendent faith shared by something like 80-90% of the population -- simple belief in the Golden Rule would have ruled out the Kavenaugh debacle. Nobody would want what was done to Kavenaugh to be done to themselves or those they love.

Oh, you think they were concerned about Ford? Notice the news lately?

There is still a spark of remaining Christian values on the right, but yes, Trump is certainly evidence that tribalism is winning on the right as well as the left. In human terms, tribalism is VERY sane -- it is completely natural. Do all you can so that your tribe wins and if possible exterminate the other tribe -- they are "evil and insane" after all!

Chrisianity on the other hand is "crazy" in human terms -- love even your enemies is positively INhuman! In fact, as we are finding out now, even kindness to your neighbor if they are not completely of your tribe is insane to the human mind. Might is right, your tribe is always right, and the OTHER tribe is completely insane -- that is human "wisdom" as preached by Friedman.

"Sanity" is definitely in the eye of the beholder -- in the tribal world, Friedman is correct that "Republicans are insane" from his POV. Clearly Trump finds Democrats to be insane. As we descend away from the transcendent truth of Christianity, sanity will be defined in human tribal terms and the only way to be "sane" and survive as a tribe is to WIN BABY WIN!

Welcome to the world without Christ -- a world where the other side can be given no quarter and must be destroyed -- as Hillary says:

“You cannot be civil with a political party,” she explained, “that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.” She added that if Democrats retake a house of Congress, well, then, “that’s when civility can start again.

I suspect that Friedman agrees -- as long as the left is in power, they will be certain to operate with THEIR brand of "civility"! TRIBAL "civilty" -- we win, and we exterminate you if we can. Perfectly sane in the natural world, "Red in tooth and claw" (Tennyson)

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love Creation's final law

Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

The Liberal Mind

http://www.skepticaldoctor.com/2013/05/02/kenneth-minogues-the-liberal-mind-at-50-2/

I covered this fine where back in 2005 and and thankful that I've had the time to fill in some of my lost knowledge since then. If you follow the link above you will see that I've linked to yet another review of this fine work, one from the 50th anniversary of the book in 2013. The book is just a little younger than me.

The "liberalism" used here is Lockean liberalism -- government based on the consent of the people, AND, the individual being the "master of all things", AND, "representing political life as the struggle by which men make their society rational, just, and capable of affording opportunities for EVERYONE to develop his own potential", AND peace, tolerance, equality, "modern" ... essentially "utopia"!

"... Liberalism has come more and more to see politics simply as a technical activity like any other". In programming, we used to mutter after being treated to some grand vision by a high level manager or software "architect" that all that was left was a "small matter of programming" -- typically as in a millions of lines including some yet to be invented sleights of hand, but never mind, "the brilliant ones" had set our course!

The "engine" of liberalism is meliorism -- the faith that everything is "getting better every day, better in every way". Faith is faith, so things like the election of Trump can be a bit of test for the liberal meliorist faith, but never mind -- they will win the midterms, impeach Kavenaugh, Thomas, Trump and Pence, Pelosi will be president and they will appoint and approve 3 liberal judges, declare thoughts not aligned with the theirs to be Constitutional Treason, kill all those guilty of those thoughts and things will be perfrect from then on!

Think I'm joking? Page 134 ... The "real question" in liberal terms is "wether the social order actually serves our needs"?  Naturally of course it is THEIR "needs" which count, since they have defined themselves to be the most "moral".

Around 101 and 102 there is a good discussion of meliorism;

"Meliorism is, then, a way of discriminating between activities according to how effectively they produce rsults in which we happen to be interested. The various doctrines to which it gives rise are really tangental to meliorism itself; and at the center lies the metaphor of "building"."

I am reminded of Don Henley ...  wow, they have cracked down on at least SOME songs available on Youtube!

A little later on page 102 is "The conversion of a majority point of view into a monolithic one lies behind most versions of meliorism". Liberalsim -- "ideas so good they must be mandatory"!

In the age of mass marketing, "education" done by left wing unionists from K-MS and PHD along with total media control as well as "polling" that shows whatever you want the answer to be, just how hard is it for the dominant left culture to make a "point of view" a "majority one"???

Page 99 goes through the philosophical sleight of hand to turn virtually everything into a "human need" ... at least for "generic man", the object of all of liberalisms "goodness".

"A great mistake has been to imagine that an ideology consists of a set of answers to neutral questions, where in fact it consists in the questions!"

In many ways, liberalism is somewhat the "forbidden fruit" of Genisis. We have all sampled it -- we like the individual freedom to pursue our "happiness", and the idea of "equal opportunity" sounds "just". As in all things of this world, the devil is in the details. Eden, the promised land, utopia, shangrila, eldorado, etc always seem "just in our grasp" -- "if only".

I'll close with this quote from 178 ...

"Whenever men have in recent history attempted to snatch a political salvation, it is truth which has always been the first casualty, since, of all the causes of human turmoil, facts are the most obvious, and therefore first to be suppressed. The more we dream of utopia, the less we can bear to face our imperfections".

Thirty Years of Rush

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/08/what-a-rush.php&source=gmail&ust=1539041717483000&usg=AFQjCNFFQmX_U7JdAvVTbA4hNbdIjo7vDw

When I graduated college and went to work for IBM in 1978, I was a Democrat. What else would I be? I wasn't filthy rich or a NE Ivy League snob! The Democrats were the party of "working Americans"!

It was Jimmuh Carter that got me finally looking around to find some thought beyond his "Malise Speech" ... "the world is out of oil,  put on a sweater, shut off your Christmas lights, drive 55, and accept that America's best days are behind her". He was closer to right than I imagined then -- yes, Reagan brought us back in the '80s, and Trump has re-lit the engines for a bit now, but one can't help but escape the sense that the oppression of BOism is going to return in the not too distant future.

Starting in the late '80s, Rush Limbaugh showed up on radio, a direct response to Reagan's repeal of the "Fairness Doctrine" -- the idea that Deep State Democrats ought to decide what was "proper speech"!

One thing that needs to be remembered in this happy occasion, though, is that Rush Limbaugh was only made possible by the Reagan Administration’s repeal of the so-called “fairness doctrine,” which required “equal time” for “opposing viewpoints,” which meant in practice that conservatives existed on short rations in electronic media. There was some sentiment on the left to bring back the “fairness doctrine” under Bill Clinton, and everyone understood it was really a proposal for a “Hush Rush” regulation, and it died quickly. But rest assured that if the left gets back in power again, they will propose a new “fairness doctrine” whose intent will be to shut down Rush and Fox News.

The USSR eventually ended because the could no longer suppress free speech and maintain a remotely viable economy. No question, the folks on the left will continue to try to silence Talk Radio, Fox News, conservative voices on campus, on social media, and anywhere they can. The left can only keep being the left with more and more powerful centralized government with greater control over your whole life. They will seek to destroy and even criminalize those that don't kneel before their ideology -- Brett Kavenaugh has just a recent example. 

Actual diverse thought and true freedom of speech -- of ideas that are in disagreement with "The Party" (TP-D) will ALWAYS be costly -- in reputation, treasure and sometimes your life! 

The Left Trusts Trump Supporters

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/10/trump-comes-to-rochester.php

My wife and I tried to get in to see Trump in Rochester Thursday night -- we didn't, but it was an amazing experience anyway. The BIG observation is that Black women, Muslim women and frail white women and men in pussy hats don't actually believe the nasty things they say about Trump supporters. Exhibit A ...

Would you go to N Minneapolis and walk around happy and confident with a sign reading "ALL Lives Matter! I Support the Police! ??? I wouldn't, because I would consider it to be provocation, and I would be unsurprised if the local residents responded violently. I actually would not blame them all that much -- I'm invading their turf with a provocotive message after all. 

The attitude of the leftist protestors last night was much like that of preschooler teasing a dog through a fence or poking some animal in a cage -- primitive, giddy, unserious, "it's a game and we know that we are safe". On one hand, I'm extremely proud of the Trump crowd -- as we all know, the odds that many of them are Christian are pretty high, and they fully displayed it as lefties waded out into the crowd yelling obscenities, showing signs with obscenities, and naturally belittleing the President any way they could. The media loves to report to us every time Trump "mocks somebody" -- right after which they do an article on how he is crazy, stupid, looks funny and is pretty much "Hitler". 

My mind goes back to the VERY moderate and reasoned Tea Party "demonstrators" (like the description hardly fits)  in 2010 -- specific messages like "Cut the Debt", "Smaller Government", "Follow the Constitution", etc, No profanity, virtually nothing about Obama beyond maybe "We DID build this!", or "Bitterly and HAPPILY Clinging to Bible and guns!". Naturally, the Tea Party was maligned as RACIST ... and sexist, homophobic, backward, stupid white men, DANGEROUS!, etc. 

We have become tribal, but it is obvious that our tribes are very much not "the same"!

How crazy and violent will the left need to get before they awake the sleeping giant of the right? Standing in the MASSIVE crowd trying to get in to see Trump last night, I'm wondering if they have not already accomplished their task? 

Certainly we all now know that the left has no interest in such arcane morality as "The Golden Rule" --  nobody would want what has been done to Kavenaugh and his family done to them or those they love. We can of course never know "for sure" what happened between two people 35 years ago, but we CERTAINLY know WHY what has happened to Kavenaugh NOW has happened! Ford decided that she wanted to smear Kavenaugh and prevent him from gaining the SCOTUS! Wether it is made up out of completely whole cloth, or she saw him "behaving badly" (in her judgement) at some party once, or exactly what, we can't know -- but since nobody corroborates her story, reasonable people must conclude that what she says happened did not -- at least if "reasonable people" assumes the presumption of innocence. If it doesn't, then "reason" really doesn't mean much. 

Certainly anyone with some semblance of "reason" remaining understands that when you go up against "The Party" (TP-D), there is no presumption of innocence and the burden of proof is on whomever is not of the party. It is also important to know that even if whatever infraction you are accused of -- say a remark, or a look deemed to be sexist, racist, homophobic, etc, there is absolutely NO REDEMPTION. If you are a member of TP in good standing, any "infractions" are unlikely to even be of interest (Ted Kennedy, Slick Willie, Hildebeast, BO, etc) however if there is ANY interest, time redeems TP members in a matter of weeks. 

For example ... 

Oh, and if they call you a "rapist", any response on your part means you "lack judical temprament"! Oh please! 

Cultural Twilight

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/30/epitaph-for-a-dying-culture/

A great one be Victor Davis Hason, better to just read it than my weak musings.

So everything from Facebook and Twitter censorship to politically recalibrating the order of Google searches serves the larger collective “good.” Even ancient ideas of wealth and poverty fade before our current ideology. If riches are used for social change, even if cynically and for careerist and self-interested reasons, then how they were obtained or otherwise used is irrelevant; if not, then they are proof of greed in their acquisition. Multibillionaire George Soros might be a wanted felon in France or have attempted to break the Bank of England and thereby ruin small depositors. But his wealth is welcomed because he invests a small percentage of it in progressive causes and thereby purchases his own progressive insurance and protection. As did the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages of yore, the Progressive Church now sells indulgences.

Man never lives by bread alone -- he always lives by faith, the question is just "in what"? The reason is that Christ's yoke is light is that besides being Divine and loaded with Grace, it is "not of this world". Taking on the yoke of Christ puts this world in it's right perspective -- temporal, passing away, and certainly passing away QUICKLY for us all, easily seen by those of us over 60!

Your faith, your religion -- or ideology permeates your life. If it is of this world, then you will merely be tribal as man has been and continues to be since his createion. "Progressiveism" is the secular church, and as we see in the Kavenaough hearings, it permeates our culture making largely bad men like Teddy Kennedy, George Soros or Bill Clinton, to be "good" in the eyes of the left, while making me like Kavenaugh, Clarence Thomas, or even W and HW Bush to be "bad" because the left requires it.

Much better to just read it and likely weep a little. America is long gone because as Hanson covers, culture trumps politics. Our dominant culture is totally of the BOistani tribe.