This Week In Being No One

Hey all!

Been a crazy week in the blogosphere, hasn’t it?

The creepy-crawlies have squirmed out of the woodwork for a while, and as the boat continues to sink . . . they will continue to swarm into the light.

I’ll write more on this Friday, the inaugural “Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day.”

Meanwhile, I am still living the happy-go-lucky life of the not-yet-hunted-nor-harrassed conservative blogger.  I’ve even finally begun to try out this wild thing they call The Twitter.

Wee!  Twitter is kinda fun.  Older Son recently chose the movie “Not Evil Just Wrong” for his afternoon educational viewing.  When he ranted, with eyes aglow, about environmental politics at the dinner table, I joyfully tweeted about it, throwing in the movie creator’s twitter name.

And then?

I ended up in a little twitter convo with Phelim McAleer himself!

Cool.

I heartily recommend The Twitter to anyone else that is not yet tweeting.  I’m a reluctant convert, but a convert nevertheless.  A special “thanks” goes to His Royal Shamus for holding my hand as I wade into the scary, shark-infested Twitter waters.  You are a kind man.

On to the last topic of the week.  Short Timer has been kind enough to elaborate on the issue of women in combat.  His wisdom needs repeating, for this reason:

Even dyed-in-the-wool, military-loving conservatives often don’t understand what the big deal is about letting women try their hand at Ranger School or Marine Infantry School.  We’re all feminists now, in today’s culture, you know?  If you haven’t had the military experience, it’s hard to understand the real problems involved.

Short Timer thoroughly explains the problems here.  Should you be pressed for time, here are the cliffnotes:

“If the standards are kept as high, women won’t pass.  If there’s a 75% pass rate for men, and a 10% pass rate for women, the bureaucrat social-engineer leftist political[ly]-correct hack who came up with this idea will, as always, refuse to accept that men and women are different.  And the test will be changed.  . . .  The instructors will be viewed as sexist . . . good ol’ boys and face retribution at the hands of the social engineers.  The loss will be to the country, to security (one of the few legitimate functions of government), to the Marines and Rangers, to the men who pass, and to the women who actually could pass without the standard being lowered.”

“No one wants to teach a class of students that starts making EEO complaints.  . . .  It disrupts the class, and means the instructor has to walk on eggshells.  A good instructor won’t want to be there – he can’t make the course difficult enough to prepare the candidates for their careers as Rangers or Marine combat arms MOSes.  He can’t ask for the same level of performance when someone can’t give it – and washing someone out who has a (as a horribly politically incorrect coworker once said) “career enhancement device” – isn’t much of an option without facing retribution from higher-ups, bureaucrats, EEO, and harassment charges.  There are plenty of people when faced with difficulty who will take the easy way out, and claiming harassment or unfair treatment is an easy way to pass.  It’s hell for the instructors and dissuades good instructors from ever signing on.  The knowledge base there is lost.”

Please do read the whole thing.  To anyone who questions whether instructors might keep their mouths shut rather than breaching the Code of Political Correctness in order to criticize a female candidate, I give you Exhibit A:

Well, that’s all the news from this ’lil nowhere section of the blogosphere.  Normally, I might say “Happy Blogging” to all you folks, but tonight I say, “Safe Blogging!  Night-night!  Don’t let the leftist bugs bite!”

Vintage Culture

Offend A Feminist week has sent me off to find vintage ads, because searching the ‘net is way easier than writing.  Here’s the best I’ve found:

I can’t help but chuckle at the use of “B.O.” as an acronym for something other than “Barack Obama,” which is no less odious as far as I’m concerned.

I also found this beautiful shot, which I’m assuming is sexist because women aren’t allowed to be on a pedestal anymore, are they?

Me, I’d be happy to be on that pedestal, looking all pretty. What is she wearing, anyway?  Daywear, sleepwear, evening wear?  I can’t even tell, frumpy ol’ me.

Then, I found this gorgeous image of a manly man.  Check out the fedora on this one:

Fedoras, of course, make me think of Da Tech Guy, who recently enjoyed a well-earned laugh over leftist anxiety about size . . .

Size of the crowd, that is.

Hah.  I remember fussing about the size of my crowd, too.

Da Tech Guy concludes his post:  “God these guys must hate the internet.”

Um, yeah.  They must.

Want to see what it was like when the left wasn’t threatened by the internet?  Check out this vintage news footage:

“Engineers now predict, the day will come when we get all our newspapers and magazines by computer, but that’s a few years off.  For the moment at least, this fellow (a newspaper seller is depicted) isn’t worried about being out of a job.”

A local station news babe continues, “Now, it takes over two hours to receive the entire text of a newspaper by phone, and with an hourly use charge of 5 dollars, the new tele-paper won’t be much competition for the twenty-cent street addition.”

Nope.  No competition at all, my pretty.

Offending Feminists Through Music

Participating in Stacy McCain’s fourth annual Offend A Feminist Week is both an honor and a pleasure.  I know, I know:  some folks will not find this exercise “helpful,” but let me explain why they are wrong.

Actually, let me allow Mr. McCain to explain, since he’s a man and therefore much smarter than me:

“The empowering message of feminism is that all women are victims.  Victimhood is synonymous with power. To deny women their victimhood is therefore to re-victimize and disempower them.”

Thanks so much for clearing my mind on this issue, Mr. McCain.  I was starting to wonder:  why in the world is making fun of my own gender so much fun?

It’s fun because, unlike the typical feminist of today, I’m not empowered by victimhood.  I am empowered by throwing off the shackles of political correctness.  To reject political correctness is to liberate one’s mind.  Even if it’s a feeble female mind.

Snort.

I participated last year with a post still worth a click if you didn’t back then.  Dunno if I’ll be able to wax as profoundly poetic this year, what with all the homeskooling, cooking, and house cleaning I have to do.

Sometimes, it’s hard to be a woman.

Which leads me to the musical portion of my post.  There’s something here for everyone, young and old, so just scroll down ’til you find your style.

Country?

Or good old-fashioned?  How about Andy Williams, singing a Bacharach tune to warn us ladies:

“Don’t think because there’s a ring on your finger you needn’t try anymore.  For wives should always be lovers, too.  Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you, I’m warning you . . .

Day after day, there are girls at the office, and men will always be men.  Don’t send him off with your hair still in curlers.  You may not see him again . . . .”

Speaking of classic, there is always Elvis:

If 60′s were your decade, scroll no further.  Mick Jagger will offend you now:

It’s down to me
The way she talks when she’s spoken to
Down to me, the change has come,
She’s under my thumb
Ah, take it easy babe

(Ain’t the women screaming with rapture an extra kick in the feminist pants?)

And check out this more obscure 60′s song, Be A Caveman:

Were you a teen in the ’80′s, like me?  If so, you might appreciate a little B-Boys.  This one’s dedicated to MCA:

And finally, I just heard this song on the radio yesterday, and I right like it.  Language warning, however.  Apparently, it’s a bluegrass-style cover of a rap song:

Happy Offending, everyone!

P.S.  Which song was your favorite?  Do you have one that should be added?

(Hat Tip:  I found several of these songs at drownedinsound.com.)

Cross-posted at Disrupt The Narrative

The Big Voice Goes Silent

Vicarious grief is not my thing.  Grief is very personal, and reserved for those you knew, loved, and lost.

And I didn’t know Andrew Breitbart.

Still, though, I have fought tears all day.  He was one of my heroes.  I don’t have many.  I’m late to this whole conservative blogosphere party, but I understand and appreciate the fact that this “party” would not exist without certain key outliers.  Rush Limbaugh, Neil Boortz, Matt Drudge, Glenn Reynolds, and Andrew Breitbart are prime examples.

Breitbart.

The “Big” voice.

I dunno if you’ve noticed, but my tagline is “just one voice from the rabble.”

This tagline is meant to emphasize the smallness of my voice.  Insignificant.  No one of any import.

Well.  As a typical average nobody, can I just say?  It’s awesome when a bigger voice speaks for you.  And that’s what Andrew Breitbart did.  When nobody-ol’-me attended the Code Red anti-Obamacare rally, and promptly got accused of terrible racism, what good would my little tiny voice have done?

Not much.  Enter Andrew Breitbart, who offered $100,000 to anyone who could provide evidence of this supposed outburst of racism.  Of course, no such evidence existed.  Because it was a lie.

Andrew Breitbart helped us to feel comfortable with calling out the lie.  Most of us have a hard time even believing that folks want to lie about our beliefs and motives.  Many of us want to help “The Left” to understand us.  We want to assume the best from people.  Maybe they misheard.  Maybe they misunderstood.

Andrew Breitbart helped us to remember that many people don’t mishear or misunderstand.  They hate us.  They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.  They do not deserve respect.

So yeah.  Go ahead and point out the fact that Andrew Breitbart disrespected the memory of Ted Kennedy.  Cry me a river.  But don’t expect me to swim in it.  Ted Kennedy was a bad actor, and the best one can say is that he was reckless, not premeditated in the death of Mary Jo.

Does Andrew Breitbart have a Chappaquiddick in his past?  Duh, no.

He does, however, leave a grieving widow and four children behind.  I pray that they find comfort and healing in the upcoming days, months, and years of grieving.

Not that grief ever goes away.

I’m glad that I was willing to defend Andrew Breitbart in the past.  I’m glad that he inspired so many of us.  I intend to embody his spirit in the future.  The Happy Warrior lives on, if we happily fight his battles.  A lot like the Smiling Soldier.

The YouTubz Are Not Down With EBT

So my boys think the EBT song is funny, and asked to hear it again today.  Remember I posted about it, but made folks click over to Disrupt the Narrative to view it?

Lo and behold, YouTube has disabled it.

What the what?

A Google search provides this info:

“YouTube has found itself at the center of a heated debate concerning free speech, a dysfunctional welfare system and the power of the conservative blogosphere.”

An interview of Mr. EBT is here.  He says that he intended the video to be a parody of  EBT abuse.  This explanation sounds plausible enough, and so I laud his effective spotlighting of a very important issue.

He played a convincing role in this parody, so much that most of us didn’t pick up on the fact that he was in on the joke.

Anyway, what do you reckon is the real reason that YouTube removed this viral video?

PS:  You can still watch it here.

More Loose Ends Need Tying

Various and sundry items have stayed in my mind this week, and they seem related.  I’m going to try tying them together.

First item up is over a week old.  Remember that federal worker at Obama’s town hall?

“I am seven months pregnant in a high-risk pregnancy, my first pregnancy.  My husband and I are in the middle of building a house. We’re not sure if we’re gonna be completely approved. I’m not exactly in a position to waltz right in and do great on interviews, based on my timing with the birth.  And so, I’m stressed, I’m worried.  I’m scared about what my future holds. I definitely need a job. And, I just wonder what would you do, if you were me?”

Of course, expressing anything other than sympathy is Bad Form.  Serious life challenges are confronting this woman.  Saying anything critical about any pregnant lady is highly inadvisable, truth be told.

Let the Bad Form ensue.

She asked what the President would do?  Seriously? 

WWOD? 

Whether her question was genuine or purely theater doesn’t matter.  Either way, folks are expecting our reaction to be sympathetic. 

They are not expecting us to wince at the very idea of a grown woman asking the President for advice on navigating life’s hurdles. 

Therein lies the truly disturbing question:  how many putatively competent adults did not wince at the inappropriateness of this exchange?

Second up is my favorite shiny ‘Bot’s conversation with a young college student.  She responded to one of his posts for a class assignment.  Her response is even-tempered and sincere.  I commend her for having interest in political issues.  Still, the unwitting espousal of collectivist training is jarring:

 ”. . . I will probably be old one day too and I hope that when that day comes the programs I am entitled to are there to help me after I have paid into them my entire life.”

You probably picked up on that key phrase, “I am entitled.”  How many otherwise capable young adults feel entitled to government care once they reach a certain age?

Third up comes a video over at By Design.  It’s a great find; go watch the whole thing.  In the meantime, here is the basic point:  leftist-trained college folks will sign anything “anti-Beck” or “anti-Rush,” and they will not question the wisdom of it.

The responses in that video are disturbingly reflexive.  No critical thinking, just automatic approval of something that comports with what they’ve been taught.

How many of those petition signers would support a law banning “right-wing” speech?

Okay.  What ties these three things together?  They are all examples of the entitlement mentality that now pervades American culture:

I should be entitled to my federal job because life is stressful enough.

I am entitled to government care when I reach retirement age.

I am entitled to get rid of political opinions that I do not like.

Anybody who thinks that “the gimmies” is a condition confined to the welfare class is profoundly mistaken.  We’ve all got the gimmies now.  We don’t even know what liberty is anymore, because we reject the fact that insecurity is part and parcel of it.

We can’t have both liberty and complete security.  Every demand for security will necessarily detract from our freedoms to some degree.  Sure, most of us are comfortable losing some freedom in the form of taxation, in order to provide the public with a basic level of security against privation.

But we’ve moved so far beyond that baseline.  We’ve moved into a territory where we can look to our rulers whenever life gets difficult and ask them: what do I do?

What a vicious cycle.  The more we look to government to solve all our problems, the more we drain our ability to solve them ourselves.  The guy that started Home Depot would not have done so if he had been faced with today’s regulatory landscape.  Home Depot employs 300,000 people today.

This is the hidden but very real price of all our extra regulations and additional job security.  How many future Home Depots have been snuffed out before they even began?

For how long can a nation continue to hamper its own growth, before it collapses on itself?

We were once a nation of people willing to risk failure, even without a safety net.  I agree with Jim Gourdie:  this aspect of the American Spirit has diminished greatly.

How do we rekindle this spirit?

One person at a time, one conversation at a time, and one election at a time.

There’s a saying about this.  Something about how you should eat a whale.

I just hope we have time to finish the meal.

Critique Of Latest Annie Leonard Vid

Lee Doren’s vlog, How The World Works, is over at the YouToobz.  He does a great job of countering every Story of Stuff video that Annie Leonard and the Tides Foundation crank out. 

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about:  the first Story of Stuff came out in 2007, and it has been shown to millions of school kids nationwide. 

Let Ann McElhinney explain, and remember to hear her lilting Irish accent while reading her quote:

“It’s hard to know where to start with Leonard. Is it the fact that she had enough ‘stuff’ to spend 10 years on the film; or the amount of stuff she used making the film; cameras, computers, planes and cars; or the fact that everything about her life is based on the very ‘stuff ’ she so abhors; or is it that pretty much everything she says is false. 

For now lets ignore Leonard as another spoilt idiotic Californian (whose life has been gorgeously enriched by ‘extraction’ and who conveniently ignores that in this anti-extraction sermon) and concentrate on how a documentary that has so many factual inaccuracies is being shown to so many impressionable children by their teachers.”

On to the latest video:  Story of Citizens United, The Critique.  Please do share it around.  I would love to see one of Doren’s critiques get more views than the original.

Totally Quotable

I keep running into some great statements on the intertubz this morning. 

Here they are, in no particular order (that would require critical thought and I don’t have a square to spare today):

1.  Via Questioning With Boldness:

Xtra Normal lady:  “Courts keep ruling Obamacare unconstitutional.  Why would the best and brightest liberals spend so long on a law that’s going to be overturned anyway?”

Xtra Normal guy:  “Remember when Nancy Pelosi said they would have to pass Obamacare before we find out what’s in it?”

Xtra Normal lady:  “Yes.”

Xtra Normal guy:  “Surprise!”

2.  Over at Down Under, MK asks why anti-gun lefties don’t want women and homosexuals to be able to defend themselves effectively.  Don’t ponder that too long; let commenter Chuck answer:

“You are trying to apply logic to liberalism. Please stop before you hurt yourself.”

3.  A worm’s advice to the President:

“If you’re going to be an idiot, at least be an ambitious idiot.”

Hmm.  I may take that advice myself . . .

4.  Fleecy cuts right to the chase in a must-read post about the Senate’s repeal of that onerous 1099 requirement:

“Aww, poor Senate, we are forcing them to rob their slush fund.  Poor guys.  I really hate my government.”

5.  Mr. Saddleburr’s latest post title says it all:

 ”It’s official.  Obama thinks he’s King.”

6.  I miss the good old days when the left was all about freedom of speech, so they could burn flags and junk.  Well, let Professor Althouse explain why those days are gone:

“Remember when lefties were all about free speech? When did that change? Why did that change? Perhaps the answer is: Free speech was only ever a means to an end. When they got their free speech, made their arguments, and failed to win over the American people, and when in fact the speech from their opponents seemed too successful, they switched to the repression of speech, because the end was never freedom.”

I admit to a previous belief that some lefty principles were, you know, more principled.  My bad.

Pat Condell’s Latest Video

Via the Gates of Vienna comes Pat Condell’s latest video, about the trial of Lars Hedegaard for some sort of hate speech against Islam/Muslims (since they are more equal than others):

“This week, Lars Hedegaard, President of the Free Press Society, is on trial in Denmark, for accurately referring to the comparatively high number of family rapes in Islamic culture.  As most people know, violence against women and girls is one of the things that makes Islamic culture distinctly inferior to Western culture.”

Apparently, he was acquitted.  Still.  The video is well worth it, ifn ya got the time.

P.S.  A commenter at the Gates of Vienna has the Hungarian translation of Mr. Condell’s video.  How cool is that?

I Am TJIC, Part Two

My last post is about an unknown-to-me-until-now blogger named Travis Corcoran, whose site is TJIC.com.  His website is down, his license to carry firearms suspended, and his firearms were confiscated because of a perceived threat in his post on the Tuscon shooting. 

A commenter to my last post, Ed Flinn, kindly provided a link to the cached post at issue, entitled, “1 Down, 534 To Go.” 

Much like Mark Alger at the fine site Eternity Road, I find this post to be a joke along the same lines as “What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?  A good start.”  I wonder, have any lawyers who heard that joke complained to the authorities that they have been threatened?

In “1 Down, 534 To Go,” Mr. Corcoran is calloused in his treatment of Mrs. Giffords’ plight.  So the worst that you could say is, well, that he is calloused.  That hardly translates into a real threat.

There is a long comment thread with protests of outrage interspersed throughout, but Mr. Corcoran is clearly not the type who is going to dial it down just because somebody gets the vapors. 

His responses to commenters included a bit of minor defense of McVeigh (who beat himself up for killing innocents, says TJIC ), discussions of legitimate uses of force, and a lot of insults (anti-American boot-licking slave, anonymous coward, anonymous statist puke).

His responses were acerbic and unequivocal in defense of the right to take up arms and use them against unconstitutional abuses of governmental authority.  Yet–this is important–the discussions are completely theoretical.  No imminent plans are made, no government officials named.  He states a preference for nonviolent means of regaining civil rights.  He also clearly states that, under the Catholic Just War doctrine, “I do not think that it is wise or just to start shooting politicians. Yet.”  (emphasis mine.)

It is clearly the intellectual argument of a well-spoken and knowledgeable, but hard and unflinching, man.

I think I like him.

Mr. Corcoran maintained a sense of humor throughout the comment thread.  (I also loved the Star Trek “evil Spock” reference, by the way.)  Here’s my favorite:  “Oh noz! Government employees in robes disagree with me about the legitimate extent of government power!  Who could have seen that one coming!?!?”

It appears that Mr. Corcoran has blocked his own website until all legal matters are resolved.  Beyond the obvious 2nd Amendment infringement, I still think this has First Amendment implications too.  State action basically shut him up, after all.  I can also imagine a chilling effect for all weapon-owning bloggers in Massachusetts.  No, I haven’t looked up the relevant case-law interpreting the First Amendment.  Like Mr. Corcoran, I’m not real impressed with a lot of the government employees-in-robes, either.

If you want more information, please visit Mr. Porretto’s site, Eternity Road, and see Mr. Corcoran’s comment, #11.

In that comment, Mr. Corcoran said he is not currently seeking donations for his legal costs, but that could change if the costs escalate.  Please let me know if you start such a legal fund, Mr. C.  Hopefully, that won’t be necessary because this will get resolved quickly.  Then you can get your site back online.

Something tells me I’m going to be a regular reader.