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Nightly Ramble:Heading West

Welcome to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

ramble66 [1]

  • MISLABELING CONSERVATISM: Melissa Clouthier says Steven Hayward’s got it wrong.

    I don’t have time for a fisking right now, but I thought I’d address this little gem from Steven Hayward’s article in the Washington Post [2]:

    Today, however, the conservative movement has been thrown off balance, with the populists dominating and the intellectuals retreating and struggling to come up with new ideas. The leading conservative figures of our time are now drawn from mass media, from talk radio and cable news. We’ve traded in Buckley for Beck, Kristol for Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites.

    melissacouthier [3]

    Melissa Clouthier

    This is utter bunk. There is no question that the conservative movement is still coalescing after years of being thwarted by…Republicans. The Republican party has moved away from conservative principles and toward the mushy, ideologically incoherent middle.

    Exactly. What’s happening here is Hayward is mislabeling conservatism so as to push the ” mushy, ideologically incoherent middle” Melissa speaks of. That is exactly the nonsense being promoted by Hayward, here.  From the POV of that mushy middle, the conservatives are the enemy as is anyone who effectively communicates and promotes conservative ideals.  Such is what we invite in with “Big Tent”  philosophy. It’s how we ended up with the Bush family twice, for example.  Let’s remember the question of just who and what, conservatives are suppsoed to be making compromises with, hmm? And notice, please, the nopises coming other sources [4] are similar to what Hayward is spewing.

  • SERVING AS A FINE EXAMPLE: If you think the Democrats  aren’t in serious trouble going into the next election, perhaps a look at this list [5] will give you a clue.  Everyone on that list is on the bubble or worse.
  • THE NOBEL PRIZE: I note with mild interest David’s post of earlier today [6] regarding the Nobel peace prize and a Barack Obama. David correctly points out that Mr. Obama has not achieved anything save soaring rhetoric. Interestingly,  Lech Wakesa says the same [7].  Which of course places David into some rather heavy company.   What most people don’t seem to understand is for liberals, soaring rhetoric is all that’s necessary.  Any weekly accomplishing something need not apply.  Thus it is that quadriplegics from the leftist point of view, can be considered fireman, for example.  Its intentions, not accomplishments.  They are trying, you see, to promote a particular point of view, a particular worldview.  Which is precisely why we ended up with a terrorist and a moron being given the Nobel peace prize for peace that never occurred, in the case of what David mentions…. and to that list I add Al Gore.   It’s also we have such an outpouring of praise for Mr. Obama, given the same utter lack of actual accomplishment.  The Nobel committee is a group of committed leftists, committed to bringing the world around to their point of view.  It’s been that way for at least all of my 50 years, and in fact longer than this.  The Nobel committee has long since rendered itself an embarrassing joke.  Privately, around the network this morning, there are a lot of pundits who are quietly suggesting that this was an attempt on the part of the Nobel committee to reinforce a failing presidency . [8]Boortz adds some brilliance, here: [9]

    [8]First – you have to come up with a definition of “peace.” There’s a Nobel Prize for physics; one for medicine too. In virtually every culture and every country in the world you define “physics” and “medicine” pretty much the same way. Not so for “peace.” During the post World-War II the Soviet Union defined “peace’ as “an absence of opposition to world Communism.” As long as nobody was challenging their communist expansionism they felt we were all at peace. Let some country; The United States for instance, challenge their plans for world domination and … no more peace.

    For me any definition of “peace” must have a component dedicated to freedom. You can, after all, live a life of peace in a jail cell, so long as there isn’t someone there to stir things up. You’re not free, but peace reigns.

    Now … to Obama and the Peace Prize. I take you back again to that Pew Research poll conducted in Europe last year. Almost 60% of Europeans who responded to the poll wanted America to be less powerful in world affairs. That’s not an uncommon sentiment – right up until the time some other country is threatening to kick some international tail.

    So … along comes the Nobel committee. Can we reasonably assume that this committee reflects much of the European attitude? I mean, they’re not exactly headquartered in Boise. They look at the nominations before them, and there’s PrezBO! Now what has Obama done in the past nine or so months? Why, he’s given the Euro-weenies just exactly what they wanted! Now we have a United States with a weaker presence in world affairs! Russia and China are striving for military domination. Obama backs off the American promise of a shield against Iran’s missiles for Eastern Europe. Then we have the Arab states reportedly working to replace the dollar as the petroleum trading currency. Today there are suggestions that Obama is just going to declare that the Taliban are too entrenched in Afghanistan for us to possibly prevail there – a prelude to a cut and run. Does any of this sound like a projection of strength? Of course not. America is projecting feel-good, hopey-changey weakness at every turn.

    This was a message to Obama. Europe likes your style.

    Exactly so.This award is a political statement on the part of the Euros… the guys who want a weaker America. Do the math, gang.

  • SNOW IS JUST A FOUR LETTER WORD: Thing is, they’re  expecting some in Chicago on Sunday. [10]Personally, I blame global warming.  And why not, it works for them.