I finally bought my own copy of Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone. I read a library copy shortly after it was published in 2006, but enjoyed it so much that I knew I would re-read it and refer to it often. It is, in a word, brilliant.
If you’re a “progressive,” you probably won’t agree with its premise, which is basically that there are two populations going in opposite directions: one is shrinking and getting older (post-Christian, postmodern Western civilization) while the other is growing and decidedly younger (Islam).
What happens when the first is coddled by the state from cradle to grave and believes in nothing while the other is animated by a violent ideology that takes no prisoners? Then add the fact that the former are elderly and addled by pop culture and politcally-correct multiculturalism while the latter are youthful and angry? The end of the world as we know it, at least according to Steyn.
The edition delivered to my front door includes a new introduction. While almost every sentence in the book is quotable, here’s a tasty one I found in the intro:
“Why do radical imams seek to convert young Canadian, British and even American men and women in their late teens and twenties? Because they understand that when you raise a generation in the great wobbling blancmange of cultural relativism, a certain percentage of its youth will have a great gaping hole where their sense of identity should be. And into that hole you can pour something primal and raging. Islam is an ideology. To claim it’s “race” is so breathtakingly stupid as to give the game away – and to confirm that “Racist!” is now no more than the cry of a western liberal who can’t stand his illusions being disturbed.”
It’s been awhile since I’ve written about Twitterspace, but every once in awhile I run into some crazy liberals there. Today I was just minding my own business, watching the Braves play and following the #Braves hashtag on Twitter. That’s when I ran into this guy. KCYeti is another member of the not-so-kind-and-gentle progressive left. I should add that his Twitter feed isn’t exactly family friendly. Here’s his take on Braves fans:
I know, I know, I’m picking on one guy in Kansas and frankly he’s had worse things to say about the Twins. This is just another example of a faux enlightened individual who cloaks his disgusting personality under the guise of progressive political superiority. This is what happens to people when they spend their free time reading The Daily Kos. That type of leftest fringe thought process makes anything easy to believe. It’s easy to pick on Atlanta Braves fans when you believe they’re all inferior racist tea party nutjobs. Just imagine if I ran across this guy and the topic was the Astros or Rangers! Hitler analogies, here we come!
It’s one thing when some Manhattan snob looks down at the South, but as I mentioned earlier Kirk Harris is from Kansas (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Who knew that Kansas was the new bastion of elite philosophical political thought? Then again, maybe it’s not. How stupid do you have to be to Tweet about the Braves anyway?
You know there’s pork on the table when Senator Tom Harkin is in the picture. How much does it cost to buy the vote of Senator Mary Landrieu? For a cool $100 million Landrieu was bribed to move forward with debate.
Tom Harkin loves communists
One would hope that there would be real debate about this issue. Democrats have ignored real reform from the beginning. It’s easier to characterize the opposition’s position as “hurry up and die.” Welcome to transparent government. Where the House and the Senate debate bills no one has read on Saturday when no one is watching. Thanks President Obama. Thanks for never taking the lead on this issue. Thanks for never submitting a plan, lying about the opposition, and letting the crazies in Congress derail this whole issue.
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
-Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
“And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.”
-Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address
Ever since the publication of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, fellow travelers on the left, either consciously or unconsciously, have followed Alinsky’s roadmap to affect sweeping change to American society.
Two points regarding Rules for Radicals are pertinent to Sarah Palin’s story. First, it emphasizes the destruction of the individual to discredit the policy views and beliefs of that individual. Second, it seeks to distract and complete the personal destruction by levying accusations of wrongdoing, whether true or not (known euphemistically in Rules for Radicals as, “Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.”)
Certainly, Palin has been victimized by the particular methods outlined, which, in part, contributed to her resignation from the governorship. Despite the fact that she had accomplished much in her short time as governor, her effectiveness was being sapped by any number of frivolous ethics complaints. It is no coincidence that these complaints coincided with Palin’s rise to prominence. Rules for Radicals anyone?
These distractions, which were costing the state and Palin millions of dollars, were launched in conjunction with a public campaign of personal destruction unprecedented in modern American politics. I won’t go into the litany of rumor, innuendo and outright lies disseminated about Palin; they’re already well documented.
The point is that she is a threat to the status quo, at least the status quo as envisioned by the progressive elites in politics and the media. Palin is a lightning rod for conservative values. She represents everything the elites hate: independence and freedom from government control.
Progressives seek to change the very fabric of our society, using the state as the mechanism to force conformity to their vision of Utopia. As has been mentioned here before, this particular Utopia requires the enslavement of the individual to the state, which is only possible through concerted attacks on the values of a functional society.
A dysfunctional society in which the family is useless and meaningless makes the individual ripe for state control. It is the breakup of the traditional family that was used as a control mechanism for the worst 20th Century tyrants. Palin, on the other hand, represents traditional American values, based on limited government and the supremacy of the family and the individual as the core drivers of society.
Thus she was targeted for destruction. The destruction was almost complete when Palin announced her resignation, or at least it seemed that way. It was apparent that the hits would just keep on coming, so Palin wisely announced that she would take the hits as a private citizen. This provides her the freedom and leeway to deal with those hits on her own terms, without having to fight off trumped up ethics charges that are so effective against a public official. She also has more time to support the causes she believes in.
Will she run for president in 2012? I doubt it, and believe it would be foolish to do so. She draws crowds and fires up the so-called “base” of the Republican Party wherever she goes, so she could be instrumental in turning the tide in 2010. I bet if she hones her speaking chops and policy positions between now and 2016 she could be a formidable force indeed in a presidential election, but not any sooner.
Following the horrendous vote in the House of Representatives favoring the Cap and Trade bill, eight Republicans who voted for it have been identified (HT to Michelle Malkin). For those of you who see in this bill the erosion of our freedoms and the stifling of our economy in favor of a suffocating federal government, I suggest you call the following members of Congress who voted for it and let them know how you feel:
Mack, CA, 202-225-5330
Castle, DE, 202-225-4165
Kirk, IL, 202-225-4385
Lance, NJ, 202-225-5361
LoBiondo, NJ, 202-225-6572
McHugh, NY, 202-225-4611
Reichert, WA, 877-920-9208
Smith, NJ, 202-225-3765
Why pick on these particular eight representatives? As mentioned, they’re all Republicans, and the only Republicans who voted in favor of the Cap and Trade legislation. So-called “moderate” Republicans who vote on the side of bigger and more intrusive centralized government need to be put on notice that this is not acceptable.
Cap and Trade is an indicator of which side someone stands on. Either you stand with the Constitution and the decentralization of power to the states and the people, or you stand with those who believe in the power and supremacy of the state, and particularly the centralized federal state. The latter are typically called Democrats, and if you’re a Republican who votes for more federal control, please switch parties.
Cap and Trade is a watershed event in our nation’s history that defines the ever widening divide between conservative and progressive. The progressive believes there is nothing government can’t do (control the climate and save the planet!), whilst the conservative generally believes the government should be restricted to the duties enumerated in the Constitution.
Progressives are fascist, according to the classical definition of the term, and are unconcerned about personal freedom, unless the “freedom” in question has something to do with moral depravity, but that’s another topic for another time.
The point is that the Cap and Trade legislation that passed the House and is on its way to the Senate reveals the fascist agenda of the progressive movement in America. It is an agenda which seeks to control each individual’s behavior and restrict their consumption and mobility, all in the name of what is increasingly being proved as a myth of epic proportions.
The myth – climate change, global warming, global cooling, or whatever the hell is the most convenient term based on the current weather – is simply the mechanism or excuse whereby the fascist is able to exert control over his fellow citizens.
As mentioned in a previous post, the progressive fascist is typically insulated from the consequences of his pet policies. They’re either very wealthy, dependent on the government, work for the government or a union subsidized by government, or hipster dufuses (dufusi?) who follow the latest “cool” trend and blindly follow the pack (more on this voting bloc later).
So I understand why a Democrat would vote for the Cap and Trade bill. They have a defined constituency: the very wealthy, hipster dufusi (dufuses?), government dependents, government employees and union employees.
Republicans, on the other hand, are charged with representing the individual, and to put the individual’s freedom and liberty above the demands of the state and its special-interest constituents. Therefore, I have called all eight of those House Republicans who voted for Cap and Trade and left the following message:
Hi…
Just wanted to let you know that though I am a Republican and live in Colorado, I am going to do everything I can to ensure your defeat in the next election, including financial contributions to your opponents.
Your vote in favor of Cap and Trade displays scientific ignorance and a complete disregard for the liberty and freedom of average American citizens who will suffer under the further expansion of the federal government’s power.
I suggest you do two things before you vote on any more so-called climate change bills: re-read the Constitution and look up in the sky at the big burning orb that constitutes about 99 percent of the total mass of the solar system.
Thank you,
Club Soda
John Edwards was right. There are two Americas. The problem is that those two Americas make up the constituency of his party. The very rich are attracted to the Democratic Party because they’re able to “do something” to help others without lifting a finger themselves. Plus, their wealth insulates them from the consequences “progressive” policies have on the average American.
The poor, meanwhile, become dependent on the government, which is the way government and the aristocracy prefers it. It helps ensure the perpetual power and wealth of those in power as the rest of us are forced into dependency by the policies of the powerful.
I happened across a Q&A in USA Today with Andrea Jung, Avon’s CEO. As you may already know, Avon sells cosmetics. But more importantly, Jung is a big supporter of “change”, particularly since the consequences of change are unlikely to affect her since she’s taken home about $36 million over the past five years.
“Without being a political pundit, each one of us has come into a leadership role knows that the first 100 days will be looked at. President Obama’s 100-day plan is pretty impressive. I think it’s a Wow 100-plus days. The administration is not operating from fear, it is trying to drive change for the future, and that’s a good thing,” Jung said.
Good lord. Jung’s missive about the first 100 days totally misses the mark. What the hell is a “Wow 100-plus days” anyway? You mean ramming trillions of dollars in unnecessary spending down our throats without giving anyone a chance to read the 500-lb. bill? You mean the litany of tax cheats and other ethically-challenged people Obama tried to foist on our system?
Then she has the nerve to say “the administration is not operating from fear…” Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel said it best: “You never want a serious crisis go to waste.” It is obvious the administration was operating from fear, and playing on the fears of the American people in order to implement its left-wing agenda.
Given this foolishness (and the response to her foolishness could fill volumes), how can you possibly trust anything else she says, whether it’s about politics or business? But again, Jung represents the new narcissistic aristocracy in America. When cap-and-trade and a new health care program goes down, Jung’s millions will shield her from the consequences.
When energy prices double and triple all in the name of reversing mythical, magical “global warming” (now called “climate change”) through cap-and-trade, Jung will continue to jet around the world, burning petrol like no tomorrow. Meanwhile, everyone else better figure out how to squeeze into those freaking clown cars, or add another two hours to their commute as they mount their bike for the 20-mile ride downtown. It’ll be like China, but without good Chinese food!
But it’s all worth it… this change that Jung is helping foster through her support. We’re all going to have to make adjustments. Well, maybe Jung won’t have to make any adjustments. I very much doubt that Jung will face the same health care system enjoyed by the average American. There will be no rationing, no interminable waiting lists, and no being subject to the whims of a faceless bureaucracy for Jung.
In Jung’s brave new world, everyone else must pay the penalty to make her feel good about “doing something”. Jung gave $30,800 to Obama’s campaign in 2008. Something tells me that if you can throw around $30,000 you’ll probably do just fine when the inflation, high interest rates, skyrocketing costs of fuel and health care, and all the other you-know-what hits the fan when the Obama administration’s runaway spending starts to pay dividends.
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