Two Narratives
Narrative one.
Narrative two.
It makes you think.
A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State’s motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY. …
“And this,” said the Director opening the door, “is the Fertilizing Room.”
Bent over their instruments, three hundred Fertilizers were plunged, as the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning entered the room, in the scarcely breathing silence, the absent-minded, soliloquizing hum or whistle, of absorbed concentration. A troop of newly arrived students, very young, pink and callow, followed nervously, rather abjectly, at the Director’s heels. Each of them carried a notebook, in which, whenever the great man spoke, he desperately scribbled. Straight from the horse’s mouth. It was a rare privilege. The D. H. C. for Central London always made a point of personally conducting his new students round the various departments …
He pointed. On a very slowly moving band a rack-full of test-tubes was entering a large metal box, another, rack-full was emerging. Machinery faintly purred. It took eight minutes for the tubes to go through, he told them. Eight minutes of hard X-rays being about as much as an egg can stand. A few died; of the rest, the least susceptible divided into two; most put out four buds; some eight; all were returned to the incubators, where the buds began to develop; then, after two days, were suddenly chilled, chilled and checked. Two, four, eight, the buds in their turn budded; and having budded were dosed almost to death with alcohol; consequently burgeoned again and having budded–bud out of bud out of bud–were thereafter–further arrest being generally fatal–left to develop in peace. By which time the original egg was in a fair way to becoming anything from eight to ninety-six embryos– a prodigious improvement, you will agree, on nature. Identical twins–but not in piddling twos and threes as in the old viviparous days, when an egg would sometimes accidentally divide; actually by dozens, by scores at a time.
“Scores,” the Director repeated and flung out his arms, as though he were distributing largesse. “Scores.”
But one of the students was fool enough to ask where the advantage lay.
“My good boy!” The Director wheeled sharply round on him. “Can’t you see? Can’t you see?” He raised a hand; his expression was solemn. “Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!”
Major instruments of social stability. Standard men and women; in uniform batches. The whole of a small factory staffed with the products of a single bokanovskified egg.
“Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!” The voice was almost tremulous with enthusiasm. “You really know where you are. For the first time in history.” He quoted the planetary motto. “Community, Identity, Stability.” Grand words. “If we could bokanovskify indefinitely the whole problem would be solved.” …
ART, SCIENCE–you seem to have paid a fairly high price for your happiness,” said the Savage, when they were alone. “Anything else?”
“Well, religion, of course,” replied the Controller. “There used to be something called God–before the Nine Years’ War. But I was forgetting; you know all about God, I suppose.” …
“But if you know about God, why don’t you tell them?” asked the Savage indignantly. “Why don’t you give them these books about God?”
“For the same reason as we don’t give them Othello: they’re old; they’re about God hundreds of years ago. Not about God now.”…
“Then you think there is no God?”
“No, I think there quite probably is one.”
“Then why? …”
“Call it the fault of civilization. God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness. That’s why I have to keep these books locked up in the safe. They’re smut. People would be shocked it …”
“But God’s the reason for everything noble and fine and heroic. If you had a God …”
“My dear young friend,” said Mustapha Mond, “civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic.
When Aldous Huxley wrote the Brave New World his vision of the future was as follows:
Recreational sex is an integral part of society. According to the World State, sex is a social activity, rather than a means of reproduction (sex is encouraged from early childhood). The few women who can reproduce are conditioned to use birth control, even wearing a “Malthusian belt” (which resembles a cartridge belt and holds “the regulation supply of contraceptives”) as a popular fashion accessory. The maxim “everyone belongs to everyone else” is repeated often, and the idea of a “family” is considered pornographic; sexual competition and emotional, romantic relationships are rendered obsolete because they are no longer needed. Marriage, natural birth, parenthood, and pregnancy are considered too obscene to be mentioned in casual conversation. Thus, society has developed a new idea of reproductive comprehension.
Spending time alone is considered an outrageous waste of time and money, and wanting to be an individual is horrifying. Conditioning trains people to consume and never to enjoy being alone, so by spending an afternoon not playing “Obstacle Golf,” or not in bed with a friend, one is forfeiting acceptance.
In the World State, people typically die at age 60 having maintained good health and youthfulness their whole life. Death isn’t feared; anyone reflecting upon it is reassured by the knowledge that everyone is happy, and that society goes on. Since no one has family, they have no ties to mourn.
Well we are not so far from Utopia after all. Is there a “war on women”? Who’s waging that war? Or is the war rather a more generalized one: a war on mankind; on humanity; on all that was once our birthright and can be no longer? How did it come to this?
Dan Riehl is in serious condition in the hospital from respiratory failure. You may wish to consider hitting his tip jar.
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, Volume II, Section 4: Influence of Democratic Ideas and Feelings on Political Society; Chapter VI: What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear:
I think, then, that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything that ever before existed in the world; our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. …
Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: …
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.+
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/detoc/ch4_06.htm
FWIW
Lena Dunham Signs Book Deal for More Than $3.5 Million
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/lena-dunham-sings-book-deal-for-more-than-3-5-million/
Y’know, Richard.
Sometimes your prose crosses the border to sheer poetry.
When you get to Heaven, which I’m sure you will, Shakespeare and Churchill and Lincoln and Jefferson and Grant along with an entire host of others will line up to shake your hand, because your heart is in the right place.
I’m sorry if this embarrasses you.
I just had to say it.
Wisdom always trumps smarts.
God Bless you.
I have thought many times over the past few years, without ever giving voice to it, that perhaps the reason that the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is so contentious is because just that one issue — the right to bear arms — captures all of the other issues and distills them to their essence.
Popular firearm ownership is messy. Accidents happen. Innocents are hurt or killed. Even worse, in a moment of passion or despair, guns can murder or provide the means to end oneself. It doesn’t take much. Elvis Costello’s “inch of trigger” is more like an eighth or a quarter. But they also help prevent crime and deter tyrants.
Freedom is messy. Markets soar and then crash. Cities like Detroit become centers of world-changing entrepreneurialism then sink into barbarism (is there any other word for it, really?) in four or five generations. Employment ebbs and flows. Some damn fool in the sticks gets the idea that he wants the moral standards of his forefathers to guide his community, rather than the the more secular version in vogue on the coasts. And free peoples can do stupid things. They can ignore existential threats just to keep the good times going another year. They can vote themselves the treasury. They can ignore their “betters.”
Guns and Freedom. Both are messy and dangerous. The alternatives are worse.
When even “true believers” like David Letterman are starting to question Obama’s veracity and honesty, something is happening.
Ron Paul.
Perhaps this thread ought to be called rather “The Narrative.” Only the first video contains a narrative—a sepia sermon about how wonderful and urbane and hip it is to vote for Barack Obama. Obama understands women; he gives them freedom, pleasure, and independence.
The second video shows the real-world price which must be paid for indulging in such nonsense: butchered babies ripped from their mother’s womb, along with a very penitent Roe who has since departed from The Narrative.
The three themes—Lena, dead babies, and repentence—could be worked into a triptych to better emphasize their interdependence. Perhaps one day they will be, as the Church and her artists and philosophers come to fully reject the great scandal of the modern world.
As for the obama girl in the first video – she can be seen starring in the HBO series Girls – it’s a disgusting little show including her in various scenes where she is naked. Not pretty and nothing to be proud of. Just sad and ugly. She’s perfect for obama.
A poll (sic) on AshleyMadison.com, a site for married people who want to cheat:
Romney or Obama, Who’d You Rather?
Probably has about the same validity as sneezing on the keyboard, but there it is. Also today, Rush was babbling on about a CNN article reporting a study of 23,000 women not on the pill, who get all warm and fuzzy when choosing who to vote for, something like that.
I mean, seriously, has either candidate broadcast a good old American traditional political event where the candidate kisses a few babies? Or is that now pedophilia?
You show two campaign ads for Mitt Romney and none for any competitors… It doesn’t matter though, since I consider them both actresses who simply want control over issues so they never get solved. The only question is what fringe candidate can stop this back-and-forth foolishness between similar parties? No one I know of, unfortunately.
Listen friends, and mark my words in this moment and this hour–
God is jealous for his name for his name is jealous.
Nor is this a charming flower to set before a man
nor one of his commands.
Yet, without Jesus, this is more than we can love as we desire
peace,
and less than we can know as we desire joy.
For the sacred fire
that makes us liars–
I mean, that separates speech from dreams,
and separates our flesh from the future–
is God’s power manifested.
So, in the year and the hour– for his sake, invest your desire
in Jesus.
Follow his holy fire for right now. Right now he intercedes for
us in heaven!
Some will say we are people of the way.
We are people of the way.
We praise his holy name
Yahweh.
I am who I am.
I cause things to be.
I am the first cause of creation.
We praise his holy name
Elohym.
And say “Thank you Jesus for your precious blood–
better, so much better than the blood of Abel.
How then should we pray?
I pray bless me a lot oh God.
Show me your kingdom and righteousness
in such a way that my thoughts words and deeds
reflect your wisdom and power–
and that– for the sake of your honor and glory.
So that I will live in your presence
in this life and the next.
For your name sake
Let me hear my children praise your name
And their children too.
Let them woo 10 generations
coiled up in their dimensions
to the praise of your name.
Let my enemies,neighbors,family, friends,
strangers praise Jesus.
the risen Lord
I pray all this in Jesus name.
If some Ads were run in California featuring Clint Eastwood saying it ok to vote for Romney and then looking off camera and saying “no I still can’t do that to myself.” And then turning to the camera and saying “And you shouldn’t either.”
Then play the theme song of the good bad and the ugly.
Likely then California would go for romney.
Walter, thanks for the Tocqueville quote. A peerless genius, that man.
And Charles, would this Eastwood ad do? http://www.redstate.com/2012/10/24/new-american-crossroads-clint-eastwood-ad/
Just out yesterday. “America is at stake.”
The Dunham woman’s ad is vulgar and obscene. Let’s do the Flip, shall we?
Imagine:
“Girls, you won’t be Women until . . . you let Romney slip you the ____. So Vote for the Collar-Ad Guy!”
Could it Be any more insulting and degrading? This is the kind of thing that gentlemen used to deck other men for saying in front of the ladies.
I turn 50 this December.
I’ve been a bachelor my entire life, and for the most part a happy one (I guess).
Why? Well, not really sure I could tell you, but…
Just take a look and a listen the the girl in the first video. Listen to the sense of un-merited self assurance, the blythe assumption of entitlement.
Um, just have a look at her haircut, her teeth, and the hokey tatoo on her arm.
One wiff of her and I thank Christ I’m a bachelor. I mean, how would you like to wake up with chick like this on a daily basis?
The ads are interesting as litmus tests. The first one — a genuine Obama ad by the way — may be perceived as ‘obscene’ by conservatives. The second one — also a genuine ad — will probably be regarded as ‘obscene’ by liberals. The obscenity in the second case will be attributed to the ‘scare tactics’ or ‘hatred’ that will be ascribed to the message.
Obscenity is a feeling associated with taboo breaking. In the first case the broken taboo consists of equating voting to sex. In the second the taboo consists of criticizing abortion, which is a sacrament to some. Those are things that each side will not do and finds the other side doing them.
It is pure “base energizing”. There is no appeal to those across the aisle. The last stages of this campaign seemed marked by polarization. They videos are lines in the sand.
There’s nothing shocking here. The utopians of our time have often asserted that they wish to abolish society as it is and impose their wonderful visions starting from zero. The true war is the war upon the essential culture of the West. Everything else has been just tactics. The useful fools of the moment can and will be thrown under the bus when they have ceased to be useful.
Its a war on our culture. Utopia cannot come until it is dead and abolished.
And no, as a practical matter Utopias can’t truly be appreciated by the people who inhabit them if they have a non-Utopia to compare it to, no matter how the social engineers who constructed their societies tell them how wonderful it is. How amazing it is that the Utopias of our time have to build walls to keep people in, not out. Its a historical first.
North Korea and California are both examples of this; they only vary in degree. The attitude of the rulers is the same. They only difference is in what they assume they can get away with.
And really the merchants of Utopia would like nothing less than to have it spread everywhere. After all, that means there is nothing to compare it to and nowhere for the guinea pigs to run.
It is pure “base energizing”. There is no appeal to those across the aisle. The last stages of this campaign seemed marked by polarization. They videos are lines in the sand.
Regarding video #1 … a less charitable fleeting thought in my brain upon seeing the opening seconds was, “What’s Elena Kagan doing in an ad for Obama?” Ohhhh. Nevermind.
The creep factor for me is the (yet again) culty vibe of the thing. You know how the cult leader gets sexual access to all the wimmens? Here’s a proud lefty proclaiming it. In nudge-nudge, wink-wink fashion, of course.
Seriously bent. Why doesn’t she just carve an “X” on her forehead?
OT, but:
Jacques Barzun passed today, age 104. That’s right: 104.
A man in full, a life lived in full. One of the great ones.
His final book, the magnificent “From Dawn to Decadence,” covered the past 500 years of Western Civilization’s history. It boggles the mind to think that he was alive for 104 of those years, 1/5th of the .
half-millennium span he chronicled.
See http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/26/cultural-historian-author-jacques-barzun-dies-at-104/?test=latestnews
Go with God, JB.
Two thousand years ago, at a time of war and strife and moral civilizational collapse, a child was born. But war and strife and moral collapse are endemic. Is it possible there has been more than one child? Is it possible we are ready for another?
At dusk, the wood in bold relief
A tiny fire breaks the night
Keeping warm a newborn son
His face seen dimly in the light
What wonders will you see, my son
His father asked the sleeping child
What will befall us, you and I
With all about us cruel and wild
I pray the gods will keep us safe
I pray that one day peace will come
And strangers will not take our lives
With happiness for all, not some
And yet in dreams I see a world
A distant land that eons hence
Will trust in nothing but itself
And scorn the thought of innocence
A brave new world my vision sees
Where life is nothing at its core
Where hollow men toil not at all
And satisfaction cries for more
I see a world of death, my son
Where babies are discarded live
Where dawn and dusk are not observed
And life is lived from nine to five
I do not like these dreams, I fear
That they are portents of what will
Be fashioned of our golden land
And yet I feel there is time still
To right the path, to chart the course
It takes but one to give the nod
To take the reins and by his will
Return the people to their God
The fire’s low, the night has come
And with the night the beast comes near
But I am with you, standing guard
Sleep soundly son, your Father’s here
13. beverly
I wouldn’t know what works and what doesn’t. That’s what you do testing for.
For my own giggles however, I like the Clint ad I outlined above for its sheer attitude. So you run that in last week.
The Obama Girl has a point. Power is sexy and the vote equals power. Access to power means access to pleasure.
Ms McCorvey has a point. Power includes the power of life and death. Actions have consequences that go beyond immediate gratification.
The Second Amendment focused advocates have a point. The weapon is a source of political power. The Nordic Weapontake of the Rohirrim was a summoning of the militia. As with the Germanic tribal assemblies it was modeled on the King Chieftan was confirming the democratic nature of his authority. Theoden was responsible both for and to his people. He was not appointed by God. In a healthy society people are aware of consequences and a virtuous leader seeks to limit them and understand “How did we come to this?”
You do not give the power of the gun, that is political power and the power to create irreversible consequences such as death or pregnancy, to children. Our problem is how to remain a democracy while keeping Obama Girl’s immature itchy fingers and other itchy parts off the guns and levers of power.
Wretchard says: Well we are not so far from Utopia after all. Is there a “war on women”? Who’s waging that war?
One surprising answer: someone formerly with the NYPD.
“A New York City police officer plotted to kidnap, cook and eat women, using a crime victim database and possibly an online dating forum to choose potential victims and discussing his twisted scheme in grisly detail online, local and federal law enforcement authorities said.
Six-year NYPD veteran Gilberto Valle, 28, who worked in Harlem, was arrested Wednesday by federal officers on a conspiracy to kidnap charge Wednesday. The U.S. Attorney’s office said Valle conspired with multiple, unnamed people ‘to kidnap, rape, torture, kill, cook and cannibalize a number of women.’. . . .
In a conversation from July 9 of this year, Valle is asked by an unknown co-conspirator, ‘How big is your oven?’
Valle allegedly responded: ‘Big enough to fit one of these girl[s] if I folded their legs…the abduction will have to be flawless…I know all of them.
‘I can just show up at [one prospective victim's] home unannounced, it will not alert her, and I can knock her out, wait until dark and kidnap her right out of her home,’ he also said before boasting that he could make his own chloroform.”
Later, Valle, who law enforcement sources told FoxNews.com is married with a child, mentioned how he would cook his victim.
‘I was thinking of tying her body onto some kind of apparatus…cook her over a low heat, keep her alive as long as possible,’ he allegedly wrote.”
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/25/nyc-police-officer-arrested-for-alleged-cannibal-plot/?intcmp=trending
No info. as to whether he might have considered cooking his child if it is a girl. Needless to say, the NYPD has suspended Valle. The whole story is a sad twist on Blast’s comment at #22: You do not give the power of the gun, that is political power and the power to create irreversible consequences such as death or pregnancy, to children. Unfortunately, it looks like some of those children are (were) cops.
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/10/25/is_obama_taking_ad_ideas_from_vladimir_putin
The Dunham schtick is lifted entirely from Vlad Putin’s ‘campaign’ earlier this year.
Despotic minds think alike.
The girl in video#1 is ugly as hell to the bone, just a nasty piece of work. Is she of the Obama line of Dunhams perchance?
Thank you for this post, Wretchard. Embedding the second video took a sort of courage. In the prior post I asked a question of tactics. Prudence. In whether to fight the abortion issue so in your face. It comes down to the heart of the people, I guess, how they will react. I’m afraid to find the answer. So I hesitate to ask the question. Because the ads come from a different campaign they do not go directly to Romney, but Obama’s campaign is eager to stir up the war against women meme.
What I appreciate about Randall Terry is that he’s thinking tactically, much like LL III’s strategy to throw out incumbents with an attack of Republicans from their right by organizing Tea Party participation at the primary level. Forgive me if I don’t know the difference between tactics and strategy. You need the former to bring about the latter, yes? “Amazing Grace” and the British abolition of slavery, also comes to mind.
I was unable to post earlier because I had to pick up pizza and then put kids to bed. I just spoke with my father about this question, who became a deacon after retiring. Coming straight from this talk to this article, I hear echoes in the comments of John, Charles, Walt, regarding the wisdom of God and human law, the love of our Father, a need to evangelize with a true conversion to Christ, that might be called masculine. Not a great post, but it’s late and time is short. In more ways than one.
Eric
P.S. Randall Terry reputedly has a good sense of humor. You may enjoy his rap ode to Samuel L. Jackson at http://www.uncletomjackson.com
Hmm. My comment appears not to have been registered. Mostly I wanted to thank Wretchard for the post. Off to bed now.
From “Origins of the Welfare State in America” by Murray Rothbard:
“Perhaps the most fateful of the events giving rise to and shaping the welfare state was the transformation of American Protestantism that took place in a remarkably brief period during the late 1820s. Riding in on a wave from Europe, fueled by an intense emotionalism often generated by revival meetings, this Second Great Awakening conquered and remolded the Protestant churches, leaving such older forms as Calvinism far behind. The new Protestantism was spearheaded by the emotionalism of revival meetings held throughout the country by the REV. CHARLES GRADISON FINNEY. This new Protestantism was pietist, scorning liturgy as papist or formalistic, and equally scornful of the formalisms of Calvinist creed or church organization. Hence, denominationalism, God’s Law, and church organization were no longer important. What counted was each person’s achieving salvation by his own free will, by being “born again,” or being “baptized in the Holy Spirit.” An emotional, vaguely defined pietist, non-creeded, and ecumenical Protestantism was to replace strict creedal or liturgical categories.”
http://mises.org/daily/2225
Charles Finney became President of Oberlin College in 1851; Lena Dunham graduated from Oberlin in 2008. 150 years of heterodoxy gave birth to unbridaled depravity. If you want to study the enervating effects of pietism, look no further than Oberlin College.
Reactions of middle school students to the Democrat’s add seems to be, “Hello Dorkness my old friend..” and “Loser trying to look cool.”
I’m well acquainted with Randall Terry and Jane Roe, as we all are somehow, although they are widely understood to be murky figures from the American fringe. Outcast characters. I’ve never heard of The Creature From The First Video, Lena Dunham, not being a part of the happening, trendy HBO chic. I see she’s an accomplished young woman, nominated for four Emmys on behalf of a sexually charged television series she’s cretaed, and a recepient of a $3.5 million book deal for a collection of her various sexual musings. The videos portray the juxtasposition, the first being a slick, high-production affair complete with seemingly the Obama imprimatur, and the second being a lowball affair with a guerilla-type flavor. It may have been shot with a cell phone.
This culture is increasingly odd, as you survey what values mores it lauds and rewards compared to that which it shuns.
You get the sense, I do anyway, that scales are dropping from eyes big time. When an person changes, achieves a new awareness that resolves conflict and brings relief, it happens more or less instantly, not gradually over time.
I see no reason why cultures are not subject to the same rules of psychic progress as are individuals. Idiots like Dawkins talk about memes, like they actually exist and are not just an abstract, cartoon representation of how things work. All of history and science argue that it is more like a process of downloading something from a higher level of reality to our plane.
Here in America, we refer to such events as great awakenings. Nothing new here, just to say that our intuition about such a thing being underway is looking increasingly justified.
We may be watching as the sky suddenly clears after a long, dreadful storm. More than Obama is collapsing as we speak, whether or not he actually finds a way to defraud his way into another 4 years, perish the thought.
He and his ilk are circling the drain, even though they don’t seem to know it. My prediction is that it will be surprisingly soon that abortion will be relegated to the same psychic bin as slavery.
Rebuilding is already underway among those of us who have returned to a rightside up view of reality and cast off the straightjacket of liberalism.
Soon, the real work will begin.
Young Janet Napolitano
No-one who reads Wretchard’s blog is in the target audience for the ObamaSlut advert — though it is unfortunate that people who are the target are allowed to vote. Further evidence of the good sense of Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” idea of limiting the franchise to those (male & female) who have first performed life-endangering duties in the military.
Never having been a teenage girl, I can’t predict what the reaction of an 18-year old female would be to a heavily-tatooed woman urging me to do the dirty with the same guy she had 4 years ago — and he was old enough to be her father even then! Ewwww!! Having once been an 18-year old male, I feel confident in saying that particular young woman could not have persuaded me to do anything. Anything at all! Ever!!
I don’t care for either ad, although the second one is at least serious, and “Jane Roe’s” story is compelling.
The first ad is incredibly stupid. Dunham’s (how ironic she has the same last name as Obama’s mother) bizarre, disjointed attempt to connect sexuality to voting decisions is . . . . incomprehensible.
The second clip is marred by the presence of Randall Terry, a creepy man of questionable character who has used the abortion issue as his vehicle to “fame,” although “notoriety” is more appropriate. That McCovey is connected to this man is not a good sign, and smacks of Cindy Sheehan-like exploitation.
14. beverly
Could it Be any more insulting and degrading? This is the kind of thing that gentlemen used to deck other men for saying in front of the ladies.
You’re right Beverly, and way back when, the guy who got pasted would stand up, brush himself off, serious up, and apologize, hat in hand, to the woman he insulted.
And the second difference? He wouldn’t sue, call the cops, or whine to his friends about the “bully” who laid him out. No, he’d be a man, and knowing full well that he violated every norm his father taught him, he would be truly humiliated. He probably wouldn’t ever mention it to anyone else either, out of pure embarrassment.
His final thought? He was lucky his Dad wasn’t alive, because if he’d have done that in from of him…well, he knows one punch wouldn’t have been enough for his Dad. Not to mention that look of disrespect from his father; knowing he’d just regressed to age 10, notwithstanding that he was now, supposedly, an adult.
/rant off.
The Dunham ad will be wildly popular among a certain urban, SWPL cohort of hipsters and scenesters. It’s probably getting plastered across thousands of Facebook pages as we speak.
But 90% of the people that find it cool are centered in major Blue State urban centers. Just like the gay population, their votes will add to the totals in states Obama is going to carry easily anyway. So the net impact of the ad is basically nil.
I will note that while I find the ad idiotic (and also smack-dab in Whiskey’s wheelhouse, as it’s all about status, status, status and HATE HATE HATE for the boring white guy), Ms. Dunham is a talented film maker and I enjoy her work. But then, I surrendered in the culture wars a long time ago and don’t let the viler aspects of what she does bother me all that much any more.
If we were completely rational, the voting age in today’s infantilized society would be raised to 25.
Also, there would be no early voting. Early voting isn’t just an issue for this election year because it favors Obama, but it is also a tool for further entrenching incumbents. I would love to hear what Leo Leinbeck III has to say about early voting, especially in regard to incumbency.
Am I the only person in America that sees Karl Rove’s fine hand in these ads? Pure genius!
REZKO, OBAMA, AND THE NADHMI AUCHI RAILROAD LINKING CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, AND BAGHDAD (Part 3 of 3)
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/10/26/rezko-obama-and-the-nadhmi-auchi-railroad-linking-chicago-washington-and-baghdad-part-3-of-3/
Sadly, even knowing Romney seems to be on a Landslide victory the foreboding of a 0bama squeaker (win) hangs in the air, the fact is everyone wants to be with the “Popular/Cool” kids (classic example is Hollywood and Music stars and their vast fan base), nobody wants to face (grim) reality so the majority (Sound bite Zombies/Honey boo boo’s) will follow the “Good Time(s)” pied piper… Government takers ARE out numbering the Producers, Romney’s win lie’s solely with the vast majority of the Takers not going to the polls but with absentee and early voting available it is becoming more and more likely their vote is cast (Not to mention the obvious Demoncrat Party members willingness to cast fraudulent and numerous votes). I personally want Romney to win but if that happens I see little change in D.C. or the Enormous Federal Government changing much from now! 0bamas win is an acceleration to Socialist/Communism and the bigger chance of Armed Civil unrest, while Romney only changes the speed to Socialism while keeping Armed Civil unrest to a much small chance… We are already a little “s” socialist country.
You might punch up the Clint Eastwood ad by having a background with highways and moving cars with a graph of gas prices & state debts. Clint Eastwood says. Anybody who knows California knows our state just won’t work if you have high gas prices.Then Clint looks off screen and says “I told you, I can’t do that to myself. Then Clint looks at the television audience and says “And neither should you.”
Then there’s a fade out with the theme song from the “Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”
BULLETIN: TOTALLY OUTRAGEOUS REPORT NOW ON FOX:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/
This TRIPLES the amount we now can infer about the overall situation, and also multplies by about ten times the malfeasance, cowardice, and lies of the entire administration.
She lost her virginity to Obama and he gave her that nasty little gift you can never get rid of, enormous debt.
That the Democrats are turning this whole campaign into The Vagina Monologues is the height of imbecility. “Feminism” and “women’s liberation” was supposed to be about treating women as full, adult equals of men. As full equals they have other concerns besides their lady parts.
Before this I had not heard of Lena Dunham. At first I thought the person in the Obama video was Sandra Fluke. However I have heard of the 18th century feminist Anne Bonny, a pirate of the Caribbean and I wonder who she would vote for if she was alive today.
OT,
1. Italy shows the world how to discipline a government. Berlusconi gets 4 years for corruption.
2. The lid comes off on Benghazi. Romney was smart not to press it during the debate. He let Obama hang himself knowing the truth would come out.
We now know that forces were available and pleas for help were not just ignored but denied.
Not just no but Hell No. You march into the Gates of Hell to save your people. Maybe you take care not risk to much if it could be a trap but you grab your socks and go. Panetta should be charged with Negligent Homicide. Petreaus should be grilled like a cheese sandwich by Congress.
wretchard if you start a new thread on this topic can you move my comment?
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/10/26/ac-130u-gunship-was-on-scene-in-benghazi-obama-admin-refused-to-let-it-fire/#comment-417771
This seems to be the morning for getting spitting mad at stuff, I’ve got another item or two like this in a total other part of my life.
hotter thread:
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/10/26/report-cia-requested-help-during-benghazi-battle-were-denied-three-times/#comment-417785
“If we were completely rational, the voting age in today’s infantilized society would be raised to 25.”
And we would have amended Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution to read:
No person except a citizen born of two citizen parents (natural born) shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of fifty years, and been twenty-five years a resident within the United States.
No more Presidents under the age of fifty. All of the forty-something year old Presidents with the exception of TR have been disasters in one form or another (though some would TR in this group too). None more than our current one.
28. MALTHUS
Charles Finney became President of Oberlin College in 1851; Lena Dunham graduated from Oberlin in 2008. 150 years of heterodoxy gave birth to unbridaled depravity. If you want to study the enervating effects of pietism, look no further than Oberlin College.
I went to Baldwin-Wallace in the late 60′s – Oberlin was “just down the road”. Oberlin was considered then to be uber liberal and teeming with anti-war types. Not ironically, they were never known for their football teams.
BW was a Methodist school, and students from the “sophisticated” eastern seaboard were always complaining that they had to walk 200 yards into town to drink. At one point back then, Playboy listed BW as one of the top X of small college party schools in the nation. It was certainly news to me when i heard it. Back then it was a badge of shame…today it probably would be celebrated.
When they started contacting alumna for donations, I registered with my final military rank in the database. Undaunted, they keep sending me requests for donations. They don’t understand that me giving to the school – any school of “higher education” today, would be like donating to the Communist Party.
The old cliché of the first person able to engage fish in conversation asks the fish, “How do you like the water?” The fish replies, “What’s water?”
Reminds me of social conversation with pathological libs. “But do you military types really have to kill so many people?”
“I never killed anyone while I was in the service.”
“Oh, you’re one of the good ones then.”
Or the sniper interview by the press: “What do you feel then when you have to take another person’s life?”
“Recoil.”
We are so far apart in this country…we are going to have to learn the hard way. Getting back to basics will hurt. Ignoring the reality that to be America we have to get back to basics, will kill.
Matthew 21-22 – “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.
You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.”
NIV – Matthew 10:34 – “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
I have already personally experienced a deep schism between myself and a beloved daughter. The second video represents but a starting point in that separation.
47. Josh
Something from my favorite ex-SEAL author:
http://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/bracken-obama-was-asleep/
“OBAMA WENT TO BED
Matt Bracken 10-25-2012
The biggest stench from the Benghazi fiasco is that it is beginning to smell like Obama went “nighty-night” to rest up for Las Vegas, instead of manning up in the Situation Room and seeing the crisis through and (had he only been awake) ordering a rescue mission.
In Benghazi, after 6-8 hours enduring a few “Fort Apaches,” with running street battles in … between, (like a mini Blackhawk Down), the living Americans must have been thinking, “Any minute now, here come the helicopters! Just hang on!”
But they didn’t. So even though Delta had forward staged to Sigonella Sicily (rumint) from base in Germany, nobody was willing or able to pull the trigger and send a rescue force. Or even a few F-18 supersonic flybys, to bust windows and warn, “Here comes American airpower, and you camel jockeys know what that means.” Just as a morale booster it would have helped the besieged staffers.
But it was never sent, not even a lousy supersonic low-level flyby. One hour from bases in Italy, max.”
Read the whole article – it’s worth it. For those without military experience, Matt’s phrasing is in the DNA of those that served and still “miss it every day.”
Glad to see he mentioned supersonic fly-bys. I haven’t lost all of my tactical sense…yet. Heck, all anyone had to do is put smoke or flares all around the annex and told the aviators – “anywhere but inside this circle.” Hell’s fire, the bombs dropped or the 30 mm wouldn’t even have to hit anyone to “make it stop.”
But even more importantly is the message the President sent lound-and-clear: “Forget that nonsense about not leaving our guys behind – there’s a new SOP. Get used to it, follow it, or get courts martialed – your choice.”
Matt’s bottom line: Only the President can authorize cross border incursions and he chose to answer that “3AM call” with a busy signal.
We must offer our prayers while we saw off the limb that offends us.
47. Josh
Betrayal.
Not two different narratives. Two different worlds.
Please fire these soulless destroyers of their own country.
Looks like something like 20% of the blacks vote this time will actually go to Romney. http://www.coachisright.com/obama-is-bleeding-african-american-support-whether-anyone-wants-to-believe-it-or-not/
that has to mean also that a still larger number of black simply won’t vote.
Off-Topic:
Four Dead In Benghazi – Parody of CSN&Y’s ‘Ohio’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvW4_sABQMk
Good stuff herein.
Thank you Charles for that writ.
I flipped a coin and thought on the back-side side:
“give unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar’s”
I flipped it again, and thought on the front-side:
_don’t_ give unto Ceasar that which is Mine!
Kept in His name, Yehovah (h\h`) !
#47 Josh: The C-130 article was a little unclear on a gunship being overhead until they wrote about someone on the ground lasing the bad guys. Haji in Afghanistan has learned how to use smart phone cameras to find active lasing devices and if they can see you, they can kill you, which they have done in ‘Stan. The thought of a second gunship in country minutes away make this all the more infuriating.
Kind of reminds me stories floating around the FAC community of the seizure of the Mayaguez in 1975 where the FACs on scene had “radio difficulties” that kept them from getting permission to work the target ( during part of the festivities they put the ordinance on target and didn’t ask permission). Damn shame the comm back to NCA in Libya was so good for the Spec Ops guys overhead. Cheers -
“20% of the blacks vote this time will actually go to Romney”
They must be awefully desparate to vote for Romney. Culturally there is a lot of pressure to go with Obama. But desparate times leaves one with desparate choices. This isn’t a beauty contest after all. Obama=Oreo with more cream filling than cookie crust.
re: Blert “Despotic minds think alike.”
Or are told what to think.
Obama=Oreo with more cream filling than cookie crust.
Nah! Obama’s filling is nothing but jelly.
Ad #1 – a tatted up, pudgy chick with short hair talks about sex for the Democrats. Instapundit is right, the social pendulum has swung – conservatives are way better looking than liberals these days.
She is probably related to Obama, considering the fact that voting for him is as screwing oneself.
All Mitt needs to do to cinch the election is buy everyone in the country a box of top quality condoms. Mass mailing. There is time.
Typical snack food cream filling is spun sugar and lard. No actual “cream” in that vending machine stuff and half of the packaged store bought.
I see there is a “Downfall” parody out already on the first time voter video.
Hitler didn’t vote, he wasn’t ready.
Sgian Dubh @ 49 -
Matthew 10:42 And whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.
Or as my mother taught me, “A man never stands as tall as when he stoops to help a child.”
Stirpiculture: Influenced by Darwin and the eugenics that were the cornerstone of every non-Shaker utopian or perfectionist cult, John Noyes organized the Oneida colony around orderly and scientific procreation managed by him and enforced by nightly group criticism sessions that anticipated Maoism by a century (Shakers enforced a sort of cultural eugenics by refusing to procreate at all).
Stirpicult pregnancies were followed by strict separation of mother and child after birth so that the children would not bond with their biological mothers but know themselves only as part of the collective. See also, Dr. Zhivago.
You can go to upstate New York and see the room where mothers were allowed brief, emotional visits with their infants. Occurring as this did around the rise of sentimental motherhood, Stirpicult rules weakened the Oneida colony from within and increased hostility by outsiders.
The first unifying principle of most of these socialist experiments was to terminate marriage and individual family life. Not surprisingly, women were often those who opposed the dissolution of these ties.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Marriage is the opposite of socialism. Christianity too, because of the counterbalance of family to community of man.
Happily, and probably thanks to the brief existence of the practice, many of the Stirpicults (children) maintained strong bonds with each other and loyalty to the colony itself. Once the pernicious influence of Noyes had fled (literally, and as is usual in these things, out a back stairwell), Oneida continued as a community bonded together by a common experience and common efforts — part of a great untold story of how certain cultural virtues — work ethic, ingenuity, property ownership, faith, family — transformed 19th century utopian socialist colony experiments into communities with traditions of voluntary assistance.
In the case of Oneida, Stirpicults (they called themselves that) came home after seeing the world and cared for their elders by creating a business and town in which they continued sharing everything — but returned to traditional families. There are still descendants living in the small apartments in the original mansion.
Oh, and the most prominent feminists back then were pro-life. They considered abortion a way for men to exploit unprotected women. It’s more complicated than that, but it is also a conclusion that would not be out of place today, though women must add self-exploitation to the list. Susan B. Anthony would be deeply dismayed today.