Archive for April, 2009
Facebook Facilitates Israel Hatred
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009The Fan Page on Facebook is not subtle. The last status update reads:
Israel is not fighting war against Terrorism; it’s fighting WAR AGAINST HUMANITY and INNOCENSE!… “Fuck Israel”.
It’s also not very literate, but that sort of enhances the foaming-at-the-mouth sputtering. Distressingly, there are 121,363 fans of this page. That’s a lot of people who hate Israel.
I wonder where to find the “Hate Women” fan page. I’m sure it’s close to the “Hate fill-in-the-blank racial epithet-here” fan page. And of course, there’s the I Hate Iran Group with a whopping 117 members.
But the Fan Page isn’t anti-Jewish, no sirree. It isn’t antisemitic. They LOVE the Jews they just want the state where Jews live destroyed. And the names of the haters aren’t Muslim. Nope. They’re just your average open-minded Middle Easterner expressing their free speech.
This Facebook Fan Page would be an example of ignorant philistines using the modern Western culture against itself. These people do not believe in free self-expression. They do not believe in individual rights. And they most certainly do not believe in Israel’s right to self-determination free from being bombed by their neighbors. They are racists and fascists and it is shameful that Facebook allows this group to exist when similar Fan Pages aiming hate at other groups or people would be banned.
If Facebook is a safe community, why is this tolerated? And if it is tolerated, will the Ku Klux Klan be allowed to start a Fan Page with pictures of burning crosses? Just trying to clarify their terms of service here.
Kathleen Sebelius Will Let You Die
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009And why not? You, old person, do not fall within the parameters of the rules for saving. Neither do you, small child with degenerative disease. Nor do you, Lance Armstrong with your 10% chance.
Suck. It. Up.
And remember, you’re saving money for the people who are worth saving. From Matt Lewis:
Reading the Associated Press report, one would assume Tiller is the only problem, yet he barely draws a mention in Kyl’s press release on Sebelius. Instead, Kyl (who voted against Sebelius) singled out Sebelus’ views on “comparative effectiveness research”.
In English, that translates roughly as research to determine who is worth health care and who we should just let die. [Emphasis added]
Essentially, when you factor “comparative effectiveness” into medical decisions, it means that those decisions have to be made at least partially based on cost rather than the best interest of the patient.
She should receive no Republican support but she’s got two Senators in her corner. And some wonder why the Republican brand is crap.
Domestic Eco-Terrorist: Third Domestic Terrorist On FBI List, Not First–UPDATED
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009CORRECTION: Turns out that there are now two FBI most wanted lists one for regular baddies and one for terrorists. The lists got split. So technically, this is the first domestic terrorist. Strangely, Osama Bin Laden makes both lists. Why?
The point about this leftist crazy on the list is a diversion, stands.
Facts are such a distraction to this administration. And pesky. Just to set the record straight, folks. The doofus who bombed buildings in San Francisco for doing scientific testing on animals is NOT the first domestic guy to ever make the FBI terrorist watch list. He’s at least the third.
Confederate Yankee says:
I have to ask—by what standard is San Diego the first domestic terrorist added to the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list?
Ted Kaczynski was a high-profile left-wing domestic terrorist that went on a 17-year bombing spree that put him on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list as the Unabomber.
Eric Robert Rudolph was on the “Most Wanted” list as a right wing domestic terrorist when he was captured in 2003.
Those are just the first two domestic terrorists that were on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list that immediately come to my mind; I strongly suspect there were others.
If I didn’t know better, I might suspect that the addition of an obscure left-wing terrorist who planted two bombs that caused no injuries and only minor property damage to “Most Wanted” list was a political calculation, perhaps made specifically to help take the heat off a DHS Secretary under fire for supporting the release of a controversial report that labeled mainstream conservative values as those belonging to extremists, and who more or less stated military veterans were too stupid to keep from being duped into joining extremist groups.
No way! I was thinking the same silly thought! Imagine–the government trying to deflect attention from their bias’ and real focus. They would never, ever, ever do that. Not. Ever.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
Meghan McCain’s Message For Republicans
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009During McCain’s tedious, frustrating campaign season, Meghan McCain’s blog shone as a bright spot. Her cute behind-the-scenes pictures and sunny outlook made me like John McCain just a little more. Like many conservative-libertarian types, I held my nose and voted for the man believing that he would be a less-bad alternative to Barack Obama. I’m not sure if that assessment would turn out to be right. We’ll never know.
Since the election, Meghan McCain has made quite the splash. Because she’s young, vapid and, like her father, hates her own, she’s a media darling. She is the perfect embodiment of what it means to be a moderate. As Kim Priestap says about Ms. McCain in her Pajama’s column today, ” ‘I love you. Now please change.’”
Kim disagrees with this urge from moderates:
Ms. McCain is like an ideological carpetbagger. A moderate, she floats into the political culture on the wings of her father’s name in order to set Republicans straight and push them into what she defines as the mainstream, a mission eerily similar to the one her father engaged in for many years. It is unfortunate, for the sake of our Republic, that John McCain was defeated in November, despite his moderate leanings. However, if the Republican Party were to follow the advice of another McCain, the result would be more electoral defeats, further shrinking of the Republican base, and more blurring of the differences between the two parties.
It’s true that the blurring of the parties makes it difficult for voters to get what Republicans stand for and so vote for the clearer message coming from the Left. It is also true that moderates follow personality. And not to knock presidential hopeful John McCain, but he was an old guy who came across like the curmudgeon who yells and shakes his cane at kids running through his yard. Hip and happening he was not.
Where Meghan is right is that Republicans are going to have to find a way to sway political superficials like her or else they’ll continue losing elections. A vast group of people, many women, vaguely follow election coverage, don’t really care about issues and vote on personality and “feelings.” While in Chicago I had a conversation with a couple such women. My travel companion was appalled at their ignorance. I just smiled, asked questions they couldn’t answer, and pondered how the Republican party is going to reach these people.
John Hawkins wrote an excellent piece yesterday about how ideological purity will consign the Republican party to irrelevance. He says:
If you’re conservative or even a libertarian who places a high priority on small government and restraining spending, there is no perfect option. All you can really do is try to get the Republicans back in power, hold their feet to the fire, and get as many Americans as possible to come around to our way of thinking on capitalism, free markets, deficit spending, and the government.
Ideas matter. Principle matters. The Republican brand has been destroyed by hypocritical Republicans who have abandoned any substance that defined them–fiscal restraint, small government, maturity.
Image and message matters too. Republicans have been long on facts and short on story. They’ve done a good job projecting a morally superior, logical argument when people don’t respond to being preached to and are rarely convinced by logic. People don’t like being hectored.
People, especially women, respond to how they feel. Go ahead and curse this reality. Bray at the moon that women like Meghan McCain will be the deciders in the next election. But the fact is, they will be.
So the candidates must have core conservative values but be appealing to the people who follow trends instead of principle. John McCain just didn’t do it for these voters. And if a moderate platform was the key, he would have won in a landslide. But he didn’t.
And moderates need to get this, too. John McCain, the towering moderate that he is, got his butt kicked. Blame Sarah Palin. Go ahead. That’s convenient and maybe partly true. But the bigger problem was McCain’s message (vague, tongue-tied and incoherent) and his ideas (all over the map).
Republicans need to do better. They need to be more principled and more defined and also appeal to people who find smooth talking, fine suits, fabulous mascara and superficial trappings important. To ignore either part of this puzzle will cause us to lose again.
Footnote:
I’ve been waiting to add a link to a very important piece about this topic. Rick Moran of Right Wing Nuthouse has a rather depressing take, but one that deserves consideration.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
Teh Resistence Blog
Tuesday, April 21st, 200910 Things You Didn’t Find At The Tea Party
I’m late to the Tea Party with this, but it’s a must read.
Illinois Review
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009What A Modern Activist Looks Like
What is Sam Adam’s Alliance doing?
