One hazard of blogging that I’ve lamented before is having an idea for a topic overcome by events. This is one time that this headache is actually a good thing. In fact, it is a very good thing. The first two parts of this are actually two separate posts that I had been kicking around, and the tone of both posts was very negative (you’ll see why). But recent developments over the last few months have given me a new hope that I have not had in a very long time. This was originally posted to my own blog back in April, and by the time I sent it over to Flopping Aces the topics had gone stale. I’ve made a few updates to this and another old post that missed publishing at FA – I think the changes and pairing the two make for an appropriate combo as we celebrate Independence Day. The first half, the pessimistic post, is here.
Knock Off The Loser Talk. This Fight Hasn’t Even Begun
That was the headline of a recent post at Townhall by Kurt Schichter. of whom I am generally a fan. The title of my post was going to be something along the lines of inviting Mr. Schlichter to perform a physically impossible act upon himself. He wrote his post a few months ago, when conservative morale was understandably low. Despite an overwhelming rejection of President Obama’s agenda in the 2014 midterm elections, the president decided to punish the American people for their defiance. Insane extra-constitutional overreaches on issues such as environmental and Internet regulation, not to mention executive action on immigration that he himself had declared illegal were President Obama’s response. And how have the Republican leaders in Washington reacted? By making some weak talk and promptly folding on every issue. Funding for ignoring the law? No problem! New nomination for Attorney General who promises to break the law? Sure, this confirmation can move right along. These cowards didn’t even have enough of a spine to correct the press when they accused the Republicans of “forcing a shutdown” over the Democrats refusal to fund only parts of the budget that were not illegal. You can see a good video where Schlichter makes his case over at PJTV, and Jay Cost at the Weekly Standard gives the argument for reforming, not abandoning the GOP. But as a follow up to Glenn Beck saying he was through with the GOP, Ace said what many of us were feeling: (censorship mine)
Yes, Establishment GOP, you can teach us that you will always lie to us, stab us in the back, humiliate us and crush us; but if you teach us that, be aware we are learning another lesson, too. Not just that “The Establishment Will Always Crush You,” but the lesson that There is no hope in any kind of conventional politics for those of us who want better than this Pile of S*** the two parties give us.
You can deal someone a defeat, but you contend with hurricanes when you seek to kill all of their hopes as well.
I am now well and truly convinced of the Object Lesson our Establishment Masters sought to teach us last fall and this past winter:
They will lie to us, always, so that we cannot even have an argument about policy differences with them. We cannot explain to them why amnesty is a bad deal because they lie and claim that they are already against amnesty.
They will not even respect us enough to have the argument with us.
They will betray us constantly, because they think they can.
They think that our desire for a better America will draw us to vote for the Least Worst candidates.But many of us now feel like the Communists, or the hardcore paleocons: There really is not a large enough difference between the two parties any more to bother oneself in terms of emotional and financial investment any longer
My personal thought on this was that if Republican leadership won’t even state the case for conservative, pro-American principles when they have the power to do so what makes us think they ever will? As much as I like the idea of a Scott Walker presidency does anyone doubt that even if by some miracle the Republicans gained every seat in the Senate and left Nancy Pelosi as the only remaining Democrat in the House they would still find a way to be useless? Does anyone think that even an overwhelming GOP majority in DC will have the courage to uproot whatever new bureaucracy the president entrenches to enforce his illegal actions? At this point if we’re going to screw this country into becoming another failed Socialist state I’d rather have Elizabeth Warren as president with nine judges on the Supreme Court that would make Justice Ginsberg look moderate. I’ve always been a “rip the band aid off” kind of guy. When one party is driving us off of a cliff at 110 miles per hour while calling it “progress” and the opposition party that supposedly represents me has decided to only drive towards the cliff at 55 MPH in the name of bipartisanship I’ve got a problem with that. I don’t want the slow death that Europe is choosing – if the bastards have got us on a path to this nation’s destruction let’s have at it so we can get to the part where we bottom out and rebuild. As long as there are a few Dagny Taggarts and John Galts left this country will always have the foundation it needs.
Or another way to look at the differences between both parties, to use an old saying the Republicans are pointing up at the sky and telling me it’s raining but when I look down they’re peeing on my leg. A Democrat will pull up a chair next to me, climb up and start whizzing on my head, the entire time laughing that I’m too stupid to appreciate what they’re doing to me. At least Democrats are honest about their disdain for me.
For these reasons I was ready to swear off any kind of support for any kind of Republican at the state1 or national level. I’d stick to my blogging and helping with some local campaigns where I have enjoyed some small victories, but beyond that level my days of helping were about to end. This is loosely tied to my next point…
I was wrong in my conclusion about how the press handled the Ferguson case.
Back in January I wrote about how the press ran a smear campaign to destroy Officer Darren Wilson over the Ferguson shooting. My angle was that I had misgivings about how the public fired back at journalists engaged in some incredibly unethical behavior.
While what Boseman and Robertson did in The Times was wrong, I don’t like the idea of anyone being harassed as they are, and absolutely do not want to see any kind of violence against them. Luckily for them, they did not offend the ideologies that are almost always behind politically/religiously motivated acts of violence in this country, so I doubt that will come to pass. And as much as I hate this kind of harassment, what other recourse does the public have against journalists who engage in this kind of malpractice? It’s not like they have a license that can be revoked, and however unethical, Boseman and Robertson’s actions were completely legal. Boycotting advertisers is always available, but it still is not always effective and affects everyone who works at said publication, not just the offending reporter(s) and editor. Is there a better way? I can’t think of one, so I’d love to hear alternatives in the comments.
Then again, any sympathy I might have felt for the journalists was dispelled toward the end of the column as Weigel sums up what seems to be the sentiment of too many journalists who’ve covered this story:
Wilson is being portrayed as a decent man who did what he had to, court of public opinion be damned. And there’s precedent for that. That “precedent” that he cites would be where Weigel likens the Brown shooting to the My Lai massacre. Stay classy. But even more disturbing is Weigel’s (and almost everyone on the left’s) notion that facts and evidence be damned. If you are the subject of the left’s anger, then you are no longer entitled to due process under law and deserve to be handed over to their lynch mobs, or as Weigel calls it, the “court of public opinion”. If journalists feel that the subjects they cover deserve nothing better than a lynch mob mentality then why should they be treated any differently?
I’ve been thinking on that one line from Weigel: “…court of public opinion be damned.” It seems almost unbelievable how arrogant our press has become. Forget the facts pertaining to the case, what the law and what the Ferguson PD’s procedures might be for apprehending a potentially violent criminal. The press will serve as your judge and jury, and if your guilt is necessary for a narrative they’re pushing, well then facts, and your rights, be damned. And of course, we need look no further than the current administration to see how if a person is favored by the press, there is no level of criminal activity that they’ll overlook. We’re going beyond unethical to viewing themselves as not above the law, but telling us what the law is as they see fit. In the words of the great Robert Ellsworth, “A peaceful coexistence is dropping out of sight“.
But the media still holds a powerful upper hand, and fighting back is no easy task, especially how we’ve just seen how they could arbitrarily destroy someone’s life. Between this and the Republican leadership’s desire for a slow death it’s been tough to not be discouraged. Then came three signs of life.
The first bit of good news – The Hugo Awards
The radical left’s Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) have a need to nose into every aspect of life where people are enjoying themselves to try to make the rest of us as miserable as the SJWs. We’ve seen them attack video games in Gamergate, heavy metal music in Metalgate (Yes, they seriously took up a campaign against a culture that takes pride in offending people and not giving a damn), and even science fiction writing. To make a long story short, on the sci-fi front leftists were uniting to push authors based on specific social agendas as opposed to the quality of work. The geeks successfully fought back, and Ace pointed out how in typical fashion the radical leftists took umbrage and gave the “It all started when the other guy hit me back” defense. Even if this is only fighting a defensive war it’s good to see the forces of sanity striking back, and winning. This reminds me a bit of the brilliant counter-protest against the Westboro Baptist Church at Comicon a few years ago, where the convention goers launched their own protest, beautifully mocking the stupidity of the WBC. Maybe the geeks shall inherit the Earth?
The second piece of good news – Memories Pizza
You know the story of Memories Pizza in Indiana, the ones who became the victims of a radical left wing virtual lynch mob after a reporter ambushed one of the shop’s co-owners and made her the face of the left’s latest Two Minute Hate. Conservatives responded by setting up a GoFundMe page that so far has raised over $800,000. Never content with a bloody scalp, the funding effort to help this family owned business was followed by radical leftist Pizzeria Truthers. Yes, the reality is every bit stupid as the name implies. And Steven Crowder was ready to expose the leftist hypocrisy by running a similar sting on Muslim-owned bakeries. Needless to say, outrage from the left on that last one was nonexistent.
It was also refreshing to see that Alyssa Marino, the reporter who first launched this attack has come under fire on her social media pages, and will hopefully enjoy similar scrutiny as long as she remains in “journalism.” Even better, the first prominent Pizza Truther, Alex Bryan from CBS6 in Richmond not only came under fire for reporting the GoFundme account for Memories Pizza, but also wound up under investigation by her employer. It is good to see malicious hacks posing as journalists being called out for their partisan unprofessionalism. But it’s much harder to build a campaign to assail journalists over their every day biased reporting. If only somebody on the national stage would give the mainstream press the punch in the teeth it so desperately needs…
The third piece of good news – Rand Paul fires back
Rand Paul is one of those politicians who has a number of views that I agree with, but unfortunately brings just enough of his dad’s Ronulan nuttiness to the table that will keep him slightly on the fringe. Around when Sister Babe and I got married a few years ago we went to a family gathering and one of her uncles asked me my opinion of Ron Paul. I responded that “I like that sometimes Ron Paul makes some great points and brings up arguments that nobody wants to talk about but should. Unfortunately, most of the time he’s Ron Paul.” Take that last sentence and reverse the “sometimes” and “most of the time” and that sums up how I feel about Rand. But when he’s on, he is on:
When quizzed on his about his views on abortion, Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul avoided the gotcha game and told NH1 reporter Paul Steinhauser to ask DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz if it was okay to “kill a 7-pound baby in the uterus.”
“Why don’t we ask the DNC: Is it okay to kill a 7 pound baby in the uterus?” Paul reportedly said. ”You go back and you ask Debbie Wasserman Schultz if she’s okay with killing a seven pound baby that is not born yet. Ask her when life begins, and you ask Debbie when it’s okay to protect life. When you get an answer from Debbie, get back to me.”
Beautiful. Instead of walking into whatever trap the radical leftists in the press try to lay he’s swinging back. Over at Ricochet, Jon Gabriel follows up on this in an excellent piece called, “Dear GOP Candidates, Beat the Press”
Instead of waiting for her newsroom allies, Wasserman-Schultz released a huffy statement. “Here’s an answer,” the DNC Chair wrote. “I support letting women and their doctors make this decision without government getting involved. Period. End of story.”
She forgot to mention that Obamacare ensures government is intimately involved with this life-or-death decision, but I appreciate the clarity. To use Paul’s phrasing, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the Democratic National Committee are okay with killing a seven-pound baby in the uterus. She doesn’t care when life begins and has no intention of protecting the life of any baby in the womb, even if it’s a minute from being delivered. The baby can be killed anytime and for any reason. Period. End of story.
Of course, rather than take Paul’s rebuke as a sign to take a hard look at their own biases, the media went into full on attack mode, suggesting that questioning a reporter who happens to be female equates some sort of sexism. Note how critical it is for all of the sexist journalists to focus on the reporter being female – would talking back to a male reporter get similar scrutiny? I, for one, dream of a day when bigots on the left can judge reporters on their merits and not their gender. Since I originally wrote this post Marco Rubio blasted attacks by the New York Times that were so ridiculous that even leftist media outlets were questioning The Times. And for attacking, look no further than Carly Fiorina’s shots at Hillary Clinton. And as irritating as Donald Trump may be, Ace pointed out that the rest of the GOP would do well to take a few plays out of his book.
After too long of putting up with the self-righteous harassment of the radical left it’s refreshing to see that conservatives are finally fighting back. We’re still fighting too much of a defensive war, though. The fight needs to be taken to the left in their domains, and force them to put resources into defending their silliness as opposed to trying to make everyone else as angry & miserable as they are. As I suggested two years ago, college campuses are a great battleground to start putting the radicals on the defensive. But, as I also pointed out in that piece:
…all of this sounds like a real waste of time and a pain in the neck to bother with. We could just all respect other people’s views and have an adult conversation, but if that were the case none of this would have started in the first place, now would it?
Since that won’t be happening any time soon, it’s good to see that conservatives are starting to truly fight back. On a related note, as I was writing this post the subject of my ire from earlier, Kurt Schlichter, wrote a new piece over at Town Hall, “Time to Go on the Offense Against Liberalism.” While I’m not sold on all of his proposed tactics, his strategy is a sound one, and a theme I’ll be returning to more frequently. The fact that this is finally happening is a reason for hope. And dare I say it – perhaps change as well.
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1 I live in Virginia, where in the last few years the Republican candidates for Governor and the Senate lost close races. The fact that the national GOP seemed to pour resources into easily won races that could have been used here, along with some scorched Earth tactics by the local GOP after Eric Cantor’s primary loss have led to some bad blood here in the Commonwealth.
