Ma’am, I was referring to you as a contemporary scholastic liberal.

If VDH has paled, maybe it’s not all style. If you follow the macrocycles of cultures, especially western cultures, you see that stability evolves from the inception of citizen control of power. Expansion follows as a result of the inherent ability of said culture to outcompete its neighbors, with expansion comes complexity, and with that complexity, coupled with excess spare time on the part of leaders and theorists, comes conscious efforts to ‘fix’ the societies with utopia as the ideal objective.

That’s where the democrats come in, by the way…

…and if you think that VDH is apocalyptic, please consider the almost unconsciously accepted paradigm of empire: rise, peak, decline, fall. What VDH has done is to propose that western empires fail once the citizens no longer perceive themselves to have a personal, vested interest in the success or failure of the system.

I don’t think he’s reactionary, and for that matter I don’t think calling Tom Tancredo that brings any value to the argument. There is no profit in allowing an underclass to be incubated in a free society – which is exactly the result, if not the intent, of unrestricted immigration.

The uniqueness of the American experiment transcends the cycles. It is the most vibrant, successful, and self-correcting society to ever exist on the planet. The key strength is not rooted in a state religion nor anything close to a monolithic ethnic identity, but rather in the concept of individual freedom and potential of individuals to pursue their own hopes and dreams. VDH and Tancredo don’t want immigration stopped, nor do they want any particular group excluded (well, not entirely – and I agree with VDH about muslims right now) but what they are against is the ongoing agenda of some political factions to use multiculturalism and the resulting balkanization of ethnic/national subgroups for their own use, contrary to encouraging assimilation into this unique and successful American culture.

People die to get here. It’s not fair to pen them in the same corrals they are trying to escape from…and the longterm costs could be measured as failure of our own system.

As an aside, I’ve seen “They blame the candidate” around a lot over the last few days. Yes, the party blamed Gore, and the supreme court, and Rove, and for all I know they blamed FOX news for 2000. The long knives are coming out earlier for Kerry. Of course they must blame the candidate – if it’s not his fault, they might be forced to look at the party, right? Can’t be having that!

Just got back from an airshow. The goddesses and I spent a few minutes out on the flightline with Specialist Elliot of the Utah ANG Combat Engineers. He was in his desert cammies. He says media is full of sh*t, the shooters they face run about 80/20 foreigners (Pal/Syrian/Saudi/Iranian, in that order) to locals, and almost without exception the dead ones they retrieve are carrying between two to four hundred dollars in cash – crisp bills – and the unit leaders even more. Contract employees of terror – holy outsourcing! Somebody better call John Kerry… He has a high regard for the local Iraqis his unit has been involved with in rebuilding infrastructure and roads.

He goes back to the sandbox in 10 days. Praying folks, please remember Spec. Elliot.

Yeah, exactly. There are a number of … I have to say “cultural reactionaries” … like Hanson, Tom Tancredo, a bunch of others — who are utterly horrified that there are people coming to the US and happily speaking Spanish. Little brown people.

I hate to ascribe racialist motives to anyone, but the notion of cultural reaction seems to fit anyway.

They’re equally appalled by the rise of Buddhism in the US, Islam anywhere, and — right now — a lot of them are appalled that the “natural order of the universe” is being disturbed by Bush taking the direction that liberty is more important to security than unity.

I need to think more on this, but “cultural reaction” seems like a really interesting notion….

Maybe we shouldn’t let Kerry watch anymore movies…

The drunk driving conviction hurt Bush because Rupert Murdoch dumped it on the air just days before the election. Susan Estrich has now dumped weeks before the polling day, giving plenty of time for the story to be debunked, defused and neutralized.

This was not a political move. This was a response of anger, a tit-for-tat retaliation. This was the reaction of a candidate and a campaign easily goaded off its strategy and its message. This was a response by a candidate who does not have the self-control for the Presidency.

If this is the same “abortion,” Flynt sent out his goons and his $1 million, found the woman she said Flynt wrong, and it was in the early – mid 70s, IIRC.

Remember that?

I thought it was before Laura. And I thought there was no there there.

Flynt couldn’t prove it in 2000.

Did Kelly find out anything on the coke meme?

My prayers are with you.

LOL!

Very, very funny!

Jamie Irons

Are you guys trying out for the New York Times or what?

If I remember correctly (and I always do), I was once asked what I looked like. I responded that one need only imagine the offspring of a Buddy Hackett-Ethel Merman coupling. There was no mention of feather boas and thigh-high black leather boots with 13 inch stilleto heels. That was in another post regarding what I do in my spare time.

Let’s get the facts straight.

I’m going to have to start getting up earlier in order to keep up. In re 6:55, I’ve followed politics the way some kids follow their favorite baseball teams for over thirty years. I have no training in political science and have only worked as an unpaid volonteer on a couple of campaigns. The first one was in ’66 for a fellow named Bob Finch for Lt. Gov. in California. So what I write here has only the weight of my observational experience behind it.

The reason that I believe that Kerry has taken the reins is that the midnight speech was one of the dumbest political moves I’ve ever seen. That coupled with the ineptitude shown in responding to the Swiftvets tells me that Kerry is at minimum unable to choose correctly between differing advice given by contentious advisors. I have no idea whether Kerry meets enough of the criteria established by the DSM-IV for NPD but he certainly makes choices in a manner that supports that conclusion. If he is a true narcissist then we can expect ever increasing fury in his attempts at rebuttal. His “you can’t challenge me on this” response is going to get worse.

Wrt Bush and the evangelicals, reaction by evangelicals to a revelation of misconduct is determined by the severity and frequency of the misconduct and the contrition shown by the penitent. If what is suggested did in fact occur then Bush better get it out now and explain it as an isolated incidence of weakness. It won’t have a tremendous impact unless it was an affair of some duration. If it was of some duration he’ll lose a significant portion of the evangelical support. The evangelical extention of grace tends to cover singular rather than serial events (although there is no theological basis for the limitation. He can win without them, he just can’t beat Reagan’s ’84 margin without them.

My reference to initiation of a minority support drive is indeed another indicator that Kerry is in control. Minority support has a monetary cost to it that I do not believe is covered in Kerry’s campaign budget. Brazile did a masterful job for Gore but she isn’t even giving a half effort for Kerry. As I said before, the minority voter sees nothing for himself in voting for Kerry. Kerry has absolutely zero minority presence.

Gotta run.