Whittle, Part IV

I wonder how long he’ll keep this series running.

Is 2010 REALLY the Dirtiest Election Year Ever?

Speaking as a ginormous John Adams geek, I was pleased to no end when I came across this:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *thud*

Election Shorts

I’ve been published! Well, sort of. I wrote a quick letter to the guys at Hillbuzz regarding the race here in VA-11, and they’ve posted it here (scroll down to the second letter).

*****

Meanwhile, in the interest of fairness, I am obligated to praise NOW for its willingness to denounce Gawker’s shamelessly sexist attack on Christine O’Donnell. Finally, establishment feminists have done the right thing.

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And lastly, here’s an interesting take on Obama written by Shelby Steele:

A Referendum on the Redeemer

How is it that Barack Obama could step into the presidency with an air of inevitability and then, in less than two years, find himself unwelcome at the campaign rallies of many of his fellow Democrats?

The first answer is well-known: His policymaking has been grandiose, thoughtless and bullying. His health-care bill was ambitious to the point of destructiveness and, finally, so chaotic that today no citizen knows where they stand in relation to it. His financial-reform bill seems little more than a short-sighted scapegoating of Wall Street. In foreign policy he has failed to articulate a role for America in the world. We don’t know why we do what we do in foreign affairs. George W. Bush at least made a valiant stab at an American rationale—democratization—but with Mr. Obama there is nothing.

All this would be enough to explain the disillusionment with this president—and with the Democratic Party that he leads. But there is also a deeper disjunction. There is an “otherness” about Mr. Obama, the sense that he is somehow not truly American…

…But Barack Obama is not an “other” so much as he is a child of the 1960s. His coming of age paralleled exactly the unfolding of a new “counterculture” American identity. And this new American identity—and the post-1960s liberalism it spawned—is grounded in a remarkable irony: bad faith in America as virtue itself, bad faith in the classic American identity of constitutional freedom and capitalism as the way to a better America. So Mr. Obama is very definitely an American, and he has a broad American constituency. He is simply the first president we have seen grounded in this counterculture American identity.

I think that pretty accurately sums it up.

Fire the Bums!

65% Favor Getting Rid of Entire Congress and Starting Over
@ Rasmussen Reports

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% of Likely U.S. Voters say if they had the option next week, they would vote to get rid of the entire Congress and start all over again. Only 20% would opt to keep the entire Congress instead. Fifteen percent (15%) aren’t sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Of course, the Political Class strongly disagrees. While 84% of Mainstream voters would opt to get rid of the entire Congress, 64% of the Political Class would vote instead to keep them all.

Personally, I think we should start agitating for a term limits amendment.

The Annoying Barking Dog vs. the Zombie Apocalypse

Republicans Kind of Suck … Which Is Why They Will Win Huge in November
Because in the Democratic land of epic, mega, ultra, apocalyptic levels of sucking, those who kinda suck are king.

AMERICANS: “Look what you did! Now the economy is way worse, we’re even deeper in debt, and we have a bunch of new laws we don’t want!”

DEMOCRATS: “You’re racist.”

AMERICANS: “Wha … How is that racist?”

DEMOCRATS: “Now you’re getting violent! Stop being violent and racist, you ignorant hillbillies! And remember to vote Democrat in November.”

So the Democrats sucked. But not just plain old, usual politician sucked, but epic levels of suck where it’s hard to find an analogue in human history that conveys the same level of suckitude. It was sheer incompetence plus arrogance — and those things do not complement each other well. We’re talking sucking that distorts time and space like a black hole.

…

But the Democrats will counter that the Republicans also suck. And while this is true, it’s not really going to help them. As I pointed out before, both a dog incessantly barking and a zombie apocalypse are things that everyone would agree suck. Yet no one during a zombie apocalypse, while hiding out in a boarded up mall, would turn to the other survivors and say, “We don’t want to kill all the zombies; then we’d have to go back to being woken up at night by that annoying dog next door.” But this is the best argument the Democrats can come up with. “Remember how awful the Republicans and Bush were? You hated them. You don’t want to go back to that.” Yes, why would people want to go back to when 6% unemployment was considered high?

I’ve seen this everywhere lately, and it really is just too funny not to post.

Cross Post: Political Correctness and the Death of Science Fiction Fandom

Political Correctness and the Death of Science Fiction Fandom

Here, I discuss how the intolerance of the left has adversely affected something very near and dear to my heart.

On Being Gay… and Conservative

On being out, proud and conservative
by Tammy Bruce @ The Guardian

The real story of bigotry and intolerance is the fact that it lives and thrives on the left. As a gay woman who spent most of her adult life pushing the cart for liberal causes with liberal friends in a liberal city, I found that sexism, racism and homophobia are staples in the liberal world. The huge irony is liberals spend every ounce of energy promoting the notion that they are the banner carriers of individualism and personal freedom, yet the hammer comes down on anyone who dares not to conform to, or who dissents even in part from, the liberal agenda.

Think about what would happen if you did act up? If you dared to say you like Sarah Palin, or admire Margaret Thatcher, or think global warming is a hoax, or think Bill Clinton is a sexual predator, or that George W Bush isn’t to blame for everything, or that Barack Obama has absolutely no clue what he’s doing, you know there would be a price to pay. Odds are that your “liberal” friends would very liberally hate you. At the very least, being shunned would be your new experience, condemning you to suffer that horrific liberal malady called social death.

The gay men at Hillbuzz concur:

The worst religious people will ever say to us, for being gay, is that they will “pray for us” because they wish we were straight…not out of some meanness, but because they believe being straight would mean a happier life and they don’t want to see people unhappy. So, this is a little ignorant on their parts to presume that the only definition of happiness is for us to like girls…but it’s not coming from an evil place. They just don’t understand that you can, in fact, be gay and happy and not a sad Queer as Folk cliche.

The Left, on the other hand, threatens violence when they find out you are conservative. They get up in your face to intimidate you for being gay and daring to step out of line with whatever the DNC is issuing as talking points that day. They don’t want you to think for yourselves or vote in your own economic best interests because the identity-blocs the Democrats are based upon require you to identity-vote Democrat your entire life if you are gay. No questions ever asked, no individual thought allowed. The punishments are harsh for stepping outside the approved circle of thought. You are ostracized, personally attacked, and subjected to intense bullying.

I also have right-wing lesbian friends who have had similar experiences. From what I can tell, if you are a member of a left-designated protected group, you better damn well pay homage every day of your life to the political party that loudly claims it is looking out for your best interests. If you stray one iota from the left-wing plantation, you will have your metaphorical foot cut off for your trouble.

This is where identity politics has taken us, folks. In its zeal to stamp out what Brad Torgersen calls “ist and ism,” the left has created a world in which, ironically enough, only white heterosexual men are wholly free to express an independent opinion. Awesome.

We Rebellious Americans

Do you know what’s really funny about this whole situation? The Pledge was written by a turn-of-the-century Christian socialist. That just goes to show how far afield the left has drifted in the past century or so.

A Third Installment from Whittle

“Now, if you want to hand deliver a message scratched on a tree bark using a sharp stick while wearing a grass skirt, I will be much, much more impressed with your moral outrage.”

ROTFL!

On Feminism, Part IX

In truth, I could extend this series out to Part XX, but I think I’m going to conclude at this point with a manifesto of sorts that details what I feel should be the guiding philosophy of a new conservative feminism that moves beyond the leftist ideology of the radical feminist establishment.

Conservative Feminism:
A Declaration of Principles

As women living in the West in the 21st century, we can freely choose to pursue a career, stay at home, or do some combination of the two. We have the vote, and we are free to run for elective office. We can and do serve in every branch of our government and participate in our national economy as entrepreneurs and business leaders. In short, we Western women enjoy a freedom that is absolutely unprecedented; we are more affluent and more educated than any other group of women in the history of the world. And we recognize that our freedom and prosperity exists thanks to the efforts of our feminist foremothers. Because Elizabeth Blackwell persevered in her studies despite the taunts of her male classmates, women can now go to medical school. Because of the ceaseless activism of women like Susan B. Anthony, we now have a voice in national and local politics.

However, as the 20th century progressed, the feminist movement – which had previously been focused on establishing basic equity – evolved into something different. Cultural Marxism gradually made inroads, and it gave feminism a distinctly illiberal flavor. Simone de Beauvoir, one of the earliest members of this new feminist vanguard, became a harbinger of things to come when she declared in The Second Sex, “No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” Today, many self-declared feminists idolize sexual libertinism, propagate misandry, attack marriage and child-rearing, and actively discourage dissent within their own ranks.

As conservative feminists, we categorically reject any ideology that seeks to control other human beings in the name of a supposed societal good;

We reject the proposition that marriage and motherhood are inherently limiting;

We reject the proposition that a woman’s freedom rests on her ability to murder her unborn children;

We reject the proposition that freedom and sexual license are the same;

We reject the proposition that a woman must be leftist in her politics to be considered intelligent, authentic and worthy of respect;

And we reject the proposition that men are uniquely sinful and deserving of special rebuke.

Instead of the hateful radical feminist creed, we affirm:

That all women – whether they be laborers, secretaries, CEO’s, or homemakers – should be encouraged to make choices according to their individual interests and desires and not according to a narrow “feminist” ideal;

That motherhood is a beautiful, fulfilling, and socially necessary profession that should be honored, not derided;

That struggling mothers should be supported by crisis pregnancy centers in the communities in which they live;

That abortion should never be our default response to an unplanned pregnancy;

That sexual monogamy promotes the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of women and should be actively encouraged;

That women are best served by a political system that is based upon objective truth, liberty, and the rule of law;

That women are best served by an economic system that fosters entrepreneurship, as many women are currently seeking ways to work from home;

That women are best served by a society in which the family is the central organizing principle;

That women should be able to express any opinion without fear that they will be personally attacked by those who control the engines of our popular culture;

That free and respectful debate should be encouraged among women and orthodoxies-by-fiat discouraged;

And that men are partners – not adversaries – with whom we will happily cooperate in order to advance those ideals that will lead to the betterment of the entire human race.

As conservative feminists, we feel it is our responsibility to vigorously champion the guiding principles outlined above — and we refuse to be silenced by the aspiring totalitarians in our midst.