Imagine If Liberals Were Capable Of Reasoned Debate

This post was occasioned by the Beast’s comment to a link put up by Drowning Creek in Dave’s Sabotaging the Tea Party post. DC speaks admiringly of a certain blogger’s effort to cast the Tea party issue in racial terms (like we haven’t seen that done before). The Beast’s response began small but grew and grew until he decided to give it its own post.  To wit:

It’s amazing how much effort is spent on flabby reasoning. Case in point, Blogger Tim Wise (self-billed as “… among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S.”) labors mightily to make the Tea Party racist, violent and probably hostile to weatherizing, while at the same time complaining of a double standard in its coverage. The title of his post is “Imagine If The Tea Party Was Black”:

Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.

This is actually not such a bad idea, but to make it work you have to approach the topic fairly. See if you think he succeeds:

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Guess we know where this is going, don’t we? Now, the Beast read the whole thing but in the interest of full disclosure, his mind bailed after that paragraph. It was obvious to him that this is the vision of the Tea Party movement filtered through the lefty ideological prism which tars an entire movement for the actions of a tiny fringe element and bears no resemblance to reality. It’s just another “Racist Right Wing Militia” smear job. Call me back when you manage to come up with an example of white people dressed in paramilitary garb standing outside polling places wielding batons.

Since you’ll probably be gone a long time waiting for the above to happen, check out Jack Kelly’s piece today explaining why liberals are smearing this movement so desperately: Thin-skinned Liberals Smear Critics.
Money quote:

What really terrifies Democrats is not just the number or size of tea party rallies, but that they are occurring at all. For more than a century, the protest demonstration has been almost exclusively a left-wing thing. Conservatives just don’t demonstrate. The tea party indicates a level of street activism on the right unprecedented in our history.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Dec. 16 indicated the tea party was more popular than either Democrats or Republicans. Respondents approved of the tea party, 41 percent to 23 percent. More disapproved of both the Republican Party (28-43) and the Democratic Party (35-45) than approved of them.

Libs are praying fervidly to Gaia, Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei for something violent to happen. Efforts to manufacture this (anybody remember the Hanged Census Taker fizzle?) have failed repeatedly. So the left hyperventilate over what “might” happen, forced to denounce future fantasies because reality stubbornly refuses to provide them what they want in the here-and-now. The Southern Poverty Law Center, for example, has been predicting a “rise in right wing militia groups” since 1990. These hate groups are like Ellie Mae Clampett’s biscuits – they’re always on the rise but never manage to actually do it.

As one wag put it: “The specter of Fascism is always descending on the United States but it always manages to land somewhere else.” Libs ought to check their own back yard.

Teen Falls Into Open Manhole While Texting

And in our “We Grieve For The Future Of Humanity” Department:

Alexa Longueira Suffers Deep Cuts, Bruises After Landing In Raw Sewage, Blames DEP For Leaving Hole Unattended

Alexa Longueira, a high school sophomore, was walking along Victory Boulevard near Travis Avenue on Staten Island Wednesday evening when she felt the earth move and was plunged into smelly darkness.

She said the manhole she fell in to was left open and unattended with no warning signs or orange cones. She said two workers with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection failed to secure the area as they prepared to flush the sewer.

“It was just really gross and it was shocking and scary,” she said. “Because of their careless mistake I got hurt.”

Longueira has deep cuts and bruises and said she now has nightmares about falling, But she also did admit she was texting at the time.

“Regardless of whether I’m texting or not if there was a cone there I’m going to see a big orange cone,” she said. “I walk that sidewalk every day, I don’t expect a big hole there.”

This story hasn’t spawned any coherent thoughts, just a series of fragments.

• Surely they meant to use the non-sexist term “Service Entry Portal”.
• This is the newest sign that Darwinism is still going strong.
• Funny, she looks like such a bright girl!
• We’ve found the text she was composing at the time: “OMG! Here cumz a big black thingy in the gr”

• 
  Daddy’s a litigator. Those are the scariest kind of lawyer. Even Lucy, our maid, is terrified of him

Sotomayor Enters Confirmation Process with Miers-Like Numbers

Senatorial primacy might not be enough to push Supreme Court appointee Sotomayor through to confirmation after all. From the website NOW Hampshire:

Sonia Sotomayor will begin her confirmation hearings next week with some of the highest levels of public opposition of any Supreme Court nominee in the last two decades, according to a new poll by CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation.

In fact, only one nominee had a higher level of opposition: Harriet Miers, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2005. Miers later withdrew her nomination under questions about her qualifications from both the political left and right.

Sotomayor even underpolls torpedoed left-wing lightning rod Robert Bork:

No other recent nominee, not even Robert Bork, whose own nomination under President Ronald Reagan was scuttled, faced public opposition this severe. In the last poll taken during the Bork confirmation fight, thirty-eight percent wanted to see him confirmed versus thirty-five percent who did not.

Thanks to her terse one-paragraph ruling in the Ricci case and her “Wise Latina” pronuncements, the public perceives Sotomayor as a racial spoils system/affirmative action fan. This bad for her because affirmative action has never been very popular with Americans in general. Her Ricci ruling has been generally viewed as unjust and, while the public might not know or care about the finer points of Judicial philosophy, they expect their judges to be fair.

Bush took a huge hit when he nominated Harriet Meyers, which he only partially recouped by replacing her with Roberts. As Obama’s approval numbers continue (albeit slowly) to drift downward , one has to wonder what a failed Supreme Court pick will do to him. He needs a genuine victory, and soon.

One way he won’t get it is by sliming Frank Ricci, the firefighter at the center of the original case. Sotomayor supporters (led by the liberal activist group People For The American Way – who declined to comment) have begun piling up opposition research on the man, sending emails to reporters urging them to probe his “Troubling History”. The Politics of Personal Destruction (a phrase coined by a Democrat) have served liberals well in the past, but in this case wreaking havoc on a person as sympathetic as Ricci isn’t going to make Sotomayor look any better.

“Dinnergate” Scandal: WaPo Fesses Up Today.

So it turns out that the preeningly pristine Washington Post got caught selling “intimate” rubber chicken dinners with Administration officials and liberal Think Tankers to anybody willing to pony up $25 grand who needs a favor or two!

Here’s the marketing flyer – click to expand:

Apparently it never occurred to to the WaPo execs that selling access to politicos was an ethically iffy proposition, but after the above flyer was leaked to Politico the hammer came down big time. Many lame excuses and outright denials ensued.

Now, WaPo Ombudsman Andrew Alexander has set the record straight. And he’s not mincing words:

The Washington Post’s ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record “salons” was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions.

The crash occurred July 2, when Politico.com disclosed details of a Post flier seeking underwriters for the first dinner to be held July 21 at Weymouth’s District residence. The damage was predictable and extensive, with charges of hypocrisy against a newspaper that owes much of its fame to exposing influence peddlers and Washington’s pay-to-play culture. The Post’s reputation now carries a lasting stain.

Wow. Fortunately this is an isolated incident. I mean, it’s not like the white house hosted a secret, off the record barbecue for reporters on the 4th of July or anything…

Son Of “What Americans Know About The Politics Of Other Countries”

It was a simpler time; a time before the most recent market collapse; before the party of “change” regained the control over government they’d enjoyed for the better part of the previous hundred years and began instituting the same market policies Karl Marx had advocated in the 19th century; a time of innocence and rampant cocaine abuse. A time when the Beast had his own blog and treated it with the same degree of neglect he treats his new one – if not more.

A simpler time.

Yet here we are; in a new epoch, transcending partisanship, nationalism and common  sense. Americans no more – we are all passengers on Spaceship Earth.

Steerage class, of course.

And so it is within this spirit of renewalagabitlity and modernabiliitisism, a time when Matt Damon can make Bill Kristol look like Emo Phillips, that the Beast resurrects his most successful series of nightmarishly unfair ethnic, geographic and cultural slurs.

Because, Dear readers, it’s time.

Son Of “What Americans Know About The Politics (And Now Culture) Of Other Nations”

A.

Haiti and The Dominican Republic.

1. Geography:

Haiti and The Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola.  Originally discovered by Columbus, only the prospect of scurvy, starvation and watery death could make this place appear appetizing. Haiti and The Dominican Republic don’t interact much culturally or economically, apart from kidnapping each other’s Zombies for work in the Sugar Cane Fields.

2. Government:

The political system of both nations is esentially the same but with a few key differences. While both conduct their legislative functions with all the deliberative dignity of a mass Cockfight (only bloodier), the chief executive of The Dominican Repulic tends toward brutal Junta Generals, while the Hatians favor Creepy Voodoo Shamans.

3. Culture:

Dominicans occasionally take time off from their brisk regimen of slaughter and thievery to harvest Tarantulas. This can be a hazardous job because occasionally a banana gets mixed in. Agriculturally less-blessed Haiti does a brisk trade in genital shriveling curses, sinister alkaloids and Human souls trapped in empty rum bottles.

4. Cusine:

The Dominican diet consists entirely of fat, starch and rum. The Haitian diet depends heavily on rum as well, but they have no cuisine because they have no food – apart from the occasional hallucinogenic weed and exsanguinated chicken.

6. Errata:

Typical Hatian Law: Zombie ownership capped at one per family.

Haitian Law We’d Like To See: National Machete Registry.

Typical Dominican Law: Women over three hundred pounds prohibited from wearing tube tops in public.

Dominican Law We’d Like To See: Women over two hundred pounds prohibited from wearing tube tops in public.

B.

India

1. Geography

India depends from the crotch of Asia and Africa like a half-descended testicle.  It’s climate ranges from fetidly hot to bakingly hot.  Life in India is somewhat akin to life inside a bamboo steamer that occasionally runs out of water. India is a land of deadly mountains, lethal deserts, pestiferous cities, malarial swamps and predacious jungles. In that sense it is not entirely unlike California with a dash of Louisiana. India swarms with deadly diseases, malignant parasites, dangerous insects, poisonous reptiles and vicious predators. India is also overpopulated, leading one to consider the possibility that as bad as these vermin are, the Indians must be worse.

2. Government.

India was once a British colony who managed to throw off the yoke of foreign government after the Second World War. Unlike America – who did this by killing Brits – India achieved their independence by killing Indians. They have continued this gambit ever since. The nation of Pakistan was once part of India but split off to pursue their own agenda of slow economic, political and religious suicide. Relations between the two nations are akin to the Hatfields and McCoys but with nukes.

3. Culture

Indians are a profoundly alien people and their centuries of association with Britain has not helped. They have shed some of their more repulsive traditions, such as burning widows alive and Kali Death Cults, but still cling to a rigid class hierarchy, religious intolerance, and foul cuisine – thanks a lot, Great Britain! Modernity has  transformed India into a nation of telephone operators and IT Techs self-named “Chip” and “Todd”. Entertainment in India has morphed over the years from half-naked Fakirs performing unspeakable acts with snakes to a movie industry that features films about god-knows-what,  occasionally interrupted by bouts of spastic gyrations and caterwauling. Indians believe to this day that the “Nightmare On Elm Street” series was a documentary.

4. Cuisine

Indian food comes in two basic flavors: Cat Shit and Perfumed Armpit. Occasionally the two are combined with a result best described as unspeakable. Their food staple is the Onion, from which the author believes the reader can draw his own conclusions.

5.Religion.

Draws heavily on Multiarmed Elephants, Allah, Buddha and human blood.

6. Errata

Typical Indian Law: Families are capped at no more than fourteen cobras per household.

Indian Law We’d Like To See: Why Bother?

So Three Weeks Ago The Beast Had This “Heart Attack” Thingy…

and is now the proud possessor of a “stent” in his right coronary artery. Naturally this had to happen 10 days before heath insurance kicked in at the new job.  The good news is that the attack itself was tiny (he thought it was a sore throat) and damage minimal. One blockage in one artery that was fixed literally 3 hours after he walked into the emergency room. On Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend, no less! The cardiologist showed up in shorts and a tee shirt.

There’s nothing like restored blood flow to make a guy feel Aces. He was back to work six days later. When the Beast-dad had his heart attack in 1988 he was out for 5 months. Technology is amazing.

The Beast Is Now Blogging Exclusively At Constitution Club

A group blog comprising Liberal, Conservative and Libertarian members. The rules are simple:

1. Keep it fairly clean.

2. Keep it fairly Civil.

3. No loony conspiracy theories.

Come on by and join the dialogue.

Weird Al – Star Wars American Pie

Gotta love it.

Separated at Birth?

Paris Hilton and John Mitchell Slept Here

Five score and multiple naked Paris Hilton’s ago . . .