Tonight Glenn Beck alerted his audience to the fact that the problem isn’t limited to Fondy – it turns out the National Education Association’s website has a page recommending the works of an author “widely recognized as the father of, and pre-imminent expert in, grassroots organizing” – Saul Alinsky.
Yeah, that guy.
Paging John Boehner, Jim DeMint, Paul Ryan, Michelle Bachmann…any of you feel like maybe trying to do something about this sort of thing for once?
This week I found myself in the middle of a fight between conservative media blog Johnny Dollar’s Place and liberal smear blog NewsHounds, with NewsHound Priscilla falsely claiming that a Johnny Dollar contributor plagiarized something I wrote for NewsReal back in May. Predictably, the smear turned out to be bogus – you can see my rundown on NRB here, to which Johnny kindly links here.
It seems Priscilla has gone into damage control mode:
[W]hile “Blackflon” did explain the origin of the quote on his original comment with Mr. Freiburger’s quote, that doesn’t excuse him from not using quotes in subsequent comments.
So now the charge is reduced from plagiarism to merely being too lax in listing one’s sources. I guess this is the closest Priscilla will come to admitting that Blackfon wasn’t deliberately passing off my work as his own. And I’m sure our Arbiter of Blogosphere Commenting Etiquette holds her own commenters to such rigorous standards…right?
Surely, if Mr. Freiburger writes a term paper on – say – Shakespeare and, after using a quote from one of the plays, does not use quotation marks in subsequent use of the quote, his professor might not be pleased.
Uhh…it’s not an academic paper. It’s a BLOG COMMENT SECTION. Where people go for informal, impromptu discussion of political issues. I knew she was petty, but this…wow.
And if Mr. Freiburger thinks that I’m going to waste my time responding to his original charges, he’s “barking up the wrong tree.” All I will say is that I stand by my original contention that Sean Hannity is a racist and that Mr. Freiburger’s defense of said racism suggests that he too might harbor the same sentiments.
In other words, she doesn’t care that she writes demonstrable, vicious lies about people, and if I notice, that probably makes me a racist too. I think this says all we need to know about NewsHounds’ credibility. Thanks, Priscilla!
Mr. Feiburger, a student at Hillsdale College, needs to realize that he’s just a right wing blogger – in the same sense that I’m, as he calls me, a lefty blogger. He really is overinflated with his sense of self-importance.
If criticizing someone for defaming people is a sign of “self-importance,” then how self-important must the original act of defamation be? And wait! Now it’s “just” the blogosphere? I thought that a minute ago, even individual blog comments had to be held to the rigor of college term papers…
Ah, leftist demagogues…the gifts that keep on giving.
Don’t take my word for it that conservative opponents of standing for marriage – yes, even David Horowitz – are terribly, dangerously wrong. Last April, Robert Stacy McCain penned a must-read American Spectator column on why surrender is not an option:
Grant the radicals everything they demand today, and tomorrow they will return with new demands that they insist are urgently necessary to satisfy the requirements of social justice.
When they refer to themselves as “progressives,” radicals express their own basic truth: Their method of operation is always to move steadily forward, seeking a progressive series of victories, each new gain exploited to lay the groundwork for the next advance, as the opposition progressively yields terrain. Such is the remorseless aggression of radicalism that conservatives forever find themselves contemplating the latest “progressive” demand and asking, “Is this a hill worth dying on?”
My own instinct is always to answer, “Hell, yes.” Nothing succeeds like success and nothing fails like failure. Ergo, to defeat the radicals in their latest crusade (whatever the crusade may be) is to demoralize and weaken their side, and to embolden and encourage our side. Even to fight and lose is better than conceding without a fight because, after all, give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile.
This explains much about why I disagree with some conservatives who say we should not expend much effort defending traditional marriage against the gay-rights insurgency.
Some conservatives are wholly persuaded by the arguments of same-sex marriage advocates. Others, however, are merely unprincipled cowards and defeatists. Concerned about maintaining their intellectual prestige, some elitists on the Right do not wish to associate themselves with Bible-thumping evangelicals. Or, disparaging the likelihood of successful opposition, they advocate pre-emptive surrender rather than waging a fight that will put conservatism on the losing side of the issue.
Yet if the defense of traditional marriage — an ancient and honorable institution — is not a “hill worth dying on,” what is? In every ballot-box fight to date, voters have supported the one-man, one-woman definition of marriage. As indicated by exit polls in California last fall, this is one issue where the conservative position is widely endorsed by black and Latino voters. Should such a potentially promising political development be abandoned?
Stacy goes on to expose the seeds of gay marriage in the radical feminism of the 1970s, which sought to confuse gender equality with gender sameness, and point out that the conservatives of the era, busy with the fight against Communism, largely dismissed it as a mere social-issues distraction, thereby allowing themselves to be distracted from the Left’s designs…a mistake, I fear, much of the Right is repeating with Islam.
A federal judge has ruled California’s Proposition 8, which maintains the definition of marriage as a man-woman union, unconstitutional. I have a post condemning the ruling slated to be published on NewsReal later today (UPDATED: here’s the link); in the meantime, National Review has some must-read analysis on the decision.
Ed Whelan on Judge Vaughn Walker’s bias:
From the outset, Walker’s entire course of conduct in the anti-Prop 8 case has reflected a manifest design to turn the lawsuit into a high-profile, culture-transforming, history-making, Scopes-style show trial of Prop 8’s sponsors. Consider his series of controversial — and, in many instances, unprecedented — decisions:
Take, for example, Walker’s resort to procedural shenanigans and outright illegality in support of his fervent desire to broadcast the trial, in utter disregard of (if not affirmatively welcoming) the harassment and abuse that pro–Prop 8 witnesses would reasonably anticipate. Walker’s decision was ultimately blocked by an extraordinary (and fully warranted) stay order by the Supreme Court in an opinion that was plainly a stinging rebuke of Walker’s lack of impartiality.
Take Walker’s failure to decide the case, one way or the other (as other courts have done in similar cases), as a matter of law and his concocting of supposed factual issues to be decided at trial.
Take the incredibly intrusive discovery, grossly underprotective of First Amendment associational rights, that Walker authorized into the internal communications of the Prop 8 sponsors — a ruling overturned, in part, by an extraordinary writ of mandamus issued by a Ninth Circuit panel consisting entirely of Clinton appointees.Take Walker’s insane and unworkable inquiry into the subjective motivations of the more than 7 million Californians who voted in support of Prop 8.
What Walker did not prepare us for is the jaw-dropping experience of reading his sophomorically reasoned opinion. Of the 135 pages of the opinion proper, only the last 27 contain anything resembling a legal argument, while the rest is about equally divided between a summary of the trial proceedings and the judge’s “findings of fact.” The conclusions of law seem but an afterthought — conclusory, almost casually thin, raising more questions than they answer. On what grounds does Judge Walker hold that the considered moral judgment of the whole history of human civilization — that only men and women are capable of marrying each other — is nothing but a “private moral view” that provides no conceivable “rational basis” for legislation? Who can tell? Judge Walker’s smearing of the majority of Californians as irrational bigots blindly clinging to mere tradition suggests that he has run out of arguments and has nothing left but his reflexes.
But the deeper game Judge Walker is playing unfolds in those many pages of “fact finding” that make up the large middle of his ruling. There, through highly prejudicial language that bears little relation to any fact, the judge has smuggled in his own moral sentiments — in precisely the part of his opinion that would normally be owed a large measure of deference in the appellate courts. To take one example: It is hardly an incontrovertible fact that “Proposition 8 places the force of law behind stigmas against gays and lesbians.” But there it is, as finding No. 58. With “facts” like these, and appellate judges disinclined to question them, Judge Walker plainly hopes to propel this case toward a gay-marriage victory, regardless of how transparently weak his legal conclusions are.
From an anonymous conservative-hating commenter on Boots & Sabers:
The more the lowly fireman talks about his job / life, the more I feel sorry for him. 24 hour shifts…lack of an education…terrible working conditions…I truly wish things worked out differently for you. Unfortunately, or fortunately for the rest of us, we do need people to take those jobs. Thanks for the sacrifice.
In the continuing battle over Scott Feldstein’s political character assassination masquerading as thought, Boots & Sabers commenter A Son of Liberty has provided this effective summary of liberalism’s folly, and how conservatism answers it:
Liberals have politics that are often based on feeling while conservatives base their beliefs on the reality of the situation. If you are naive in regard to the results of the policies you support, then of course you feel that the folks who point out the problems will seem mean to you.
Welfare, food stamps, public housing, free health care… all programs that are the backbone of the modern liberal social net. It just feels good to vote for them and then sit back with a smug feeling that you have helped the poor… you’ve made things better and punished those bad rich people at the same time. After all, they don’t deserve the wealth… the poor gave it to them… you are just doing what is right. Yay.
The problem there is that the cradle to grave care that you so generously offer from the pockets of others has turned into a new king of slavery… slavery of the spirit. People have the basics of life… but there is no way to climb out of the nest. Get a job and we cut you off…. why work for the same pay that you get for free? That system has resulted in millions of citizens who have no connection to the concept of self sufficiency and the pride that comes from paying your own way and working to better yourself. Families were also attacked through the liberal application of policies that penalized families with two parents. Ridiculous? Yes, but it was all done with the best intentions.
Modern slavery put people in a position that they see no hope of working their way out of. Politicians, teachers, media, neighbors… everyone points out that they can never get ahead… so they don’t. Some of our inner city kids actually believe that education is a bad thing…. it marks you as one of “them” … it’s actually looked down upon by some groups. Ridiculous? Yes, but it’s a natural human instinct to justify your actions… and so they do. I can’t get ahead because “they” won’t let me. I’m poor, black, Hispanic, female, a single mom… insert whatever class of victim you like into the excuse matrix…. the result is the same. Generational slavery on the governments farm… at the hands of people who claim to want to help you.
Learned helplessness legislated and enforced by the state.
Yeah, that is what being naive got us…. and then, to protect the system, the power brokers have labeled the realists as uncaring, hateful, racist, sexist, bigoted … whatever works to maintain the system.
That is where Scott’s original definition of conservative traces it’s etymology… and that is why we are so offended by the malicious character assassination contained within. No more dancing around the truth.
Via Hot Air, here’s Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) claiming that there are virtually no limits on Congress’s power:
Ed Morrissey says that “Republicans in every district should play this clip and demand an answer from incumbent Democrats who voted for ObamaCare.” Indeed. Pete Stark’s understanding of government is nothing short of despotic, and he’s not the only one. Every member of his party needs to be challenged on their how they expect to preserve liberty in a nation without limits on government…or if they even care.
National Review’s Stanley Kurtz is debating FrumForum contributor “Eugene Debs” on whether or not Barack Obama reasonably fits the definition of “socialist.” Kurtz lays it out nicely here, to which Debs responds with a “point” that can only be described as infantile. In a nutshell: Obama can’t be a socialist because various high-ranking Obama appointees aren’t socialists and/or don’t come from socialist circles.
Of course, there are all sorts of practical reasons his particular examples don’t matter all that much. Robert Gates, for instance, was already Defense Secretary before Obama took over, and he deals with military policy rather than economic anyway. There’s the little matter of looking at the rest of Obama’s czars and appointments. As one of FrumForum’s brighter commenters points out, presidents have a publicized confirmation process to deal with, too. Overall, Debs’ is essentially saying that in order to qualify as a socialist, one’s appointment-making process has to be virtually all ideology and no practical or strategic considerations.
Speaking of socialism, how does a guy who names himself after one of America’s leading self-proclaimed socialists expect to be taken seriously defending leftists from charges of socialism, again?
Oh, that’s right: because David Frum takes him seriously. Somehow, in free-market Frum’s mission to forge a rational, responsible “conservatism that can win again,” a Democratic activist who takes the moniker of a socialist icon managed to get a platform on Frum’s website.
Huh. I wonder how that happened…
David Scum thinks it’s somehow significant that one of the Daily Caller’s own reporters was a member of Journolist for a while, because it shows that the group wasn’t the left-wing monolith it’s supposedly been made out to be.
But 1.) the piece has Sam Stein quoting Gautham Nagesh as saying it was, on balance, a collection of predominantly left-of-center figures, and 2.) just how many people on there thought what really isn’t the story. The scandal is that certain journalists have been caught conspiring to kill coverage of political scandals, slander people as racists, speculating about using government to shut down media outlets, and enjoying the heart attacks of political opponents.
Not that we should expect Scum to care. Any excuse to present himself as the Last Principled “Conservative” in America TM is good enough to run with. He routinely allows his website to run badly-sourced, inflammatory misquotes, ugly and ill-founded insinuations of racism, and condemnations of pro-lifers generally for a crime committed by one. Scum’s faux zeal for responsibility doesn’t apply to Trig Trutherism crusaders, either. The real scandal is that this fraud still finds anyone willing to pretend he’s anything more than the miserable creature he is.
Conservative Standards 