COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Bill Buckley had come to recognize the degraded state of American conservatism. In 2006, he deplored Bush's "absence of effective conservative ideology - with the result that he ended up being very extravagant in domestic spending."
ReplyDeleteAnd he noted the failure of Bush's expansive, interventionist foreign policy.
"If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we've experienced it would be expected that he would retire or resign," Buckley told CBS News. No "successor would reenunciate the words he used in his second inaugural address because they were too ambitious."
Conservatism Dead?
Headline at Drudge, no article yet that I could get up---
ReplyDeleteNYT: MCCAIN'S BIRTHPLACE IN CANAL ZONE RAISES ELIGIBILITY QUESTIONS...
he,he,he,---would that be poetic justice, or what, given how he has, and will, screw us on immigration.
Lawyers who have examined the topic say there is not just confusion about the provision itself, but uncertainty about who would have the legal standing to challenge a candidate on such grounds, what form a challenge could take and whether it would have to wait until after the election or could be made at any time.
ReplyDeleteIn a paper written 20 years ago for the Yale Law Journal on the natural-born enigma, Jill Pryor, now a lawyer in Atlanta, said that any legal challenge to a presidential candidate born outside national boundaries would be "unpredictable and unsatisfactory."
"If I were on the Supreme Court, I would decide for John McCain," Pryor said in a recent interview. "But it is certainly not a frivolous issue."
Rules Him Out?
I can't see much of a problem here. I mean as long as his parents were born in the US you would think that trump.
ReplyDeleteI'd think so too, but where was Obama born? And his parents weren't both Americans, were they? Maybe we could kill two birds with one stone, saving the Republic!!
ReplyDeleteObama is definitely not a pro-lifer. This will piss a lot of people off.
Obama's got a pass. Born in Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteDamn, the Hawaii ticket.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Buckley clips, whit.
ReplyDelete"Obama relies on tired rhetoric and criticism without considering the effect of a still free and unimpeded Saddam Hussein."
Wed Feb 27, 06:03:00 PM EST
Were McCain running against Hillary, Iraq would be reduced in public debate to an issue of (mis)management. But McCain isn't and won't be running against Hillary, so the subject takes on rather more significance and stark contrast. And it'll be that much harder.
I think OIF an entirely, tragically misguided affair. It WAS the wrong war at the wrong time and I very much regret that I supported it, especially on the heels of Kosovo, in which case I knew better.
I am therefor sympathetic toward those whose support of Obama is significantly a consequence of that war. I regret that consequence, too. How McCain is going to intelligently and forthrightly deal with the Iraq issue, I don't know. But "Thank God the SOB Is Out Of Our Hair" isn't going to cut it.
It WAS the wrong war at the wrong time...
ReplyDeleteOr as I've said before, it was never - never - a legitimate part of the War on Terror and significantly hampered what was. It was strategically senseless and therefor militarily useless and if I were McCain I'd be having that little chat with Fallon about moving offshore operationally.
"it was never - never - a legitimate part of the War on Terror and significantly hampered what was. "
ReplyDelete---
Wrong to use the past tense, of course, as Afghanistan and our national will continue to fray.
I would imagine Arnold's complaint about stolen equipment has been repeated in all the other states also.
Ingraham read this hilarious piece, and then had racist moonbat Rivera on to say not only is it all true, and we are all fearful racists, but added figures like
ReplyDelete"17 Times less likely to Commit Crimes than..."
Ingraham is going to be on TV will Geraldo Twice, I'm sending this to Kevin James so hopefully he can get some backup material to her in time.
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Fear and immigration
San Francisco Chronicle, 02/27/08
Talk radio hosts: Listen up. It's time to turn down the volume on the hysteria about crime and immigration. A new study by the Public Policy Institute of California shows that immigrants are far less likely than U.S. natives to commit crimes in California...
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Sandy5274 wrote:
Attention Ultra Liberal Out Of Touch With Reality On Illegal Immigration SFGate.com and SF Chronicle Editors so explain to me why then are over 40% of the 74,000 Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff's Jails ILLEGAL ALIENS and of which over 25 to 30% are charged with serious felony crimes and/or drug trafficking,according to an Official 2007 Maricopa County Sheriff Department Report just completed and released by Sheriff Joe? So okay go ahead and call me a "racist" or whatever warms you misguided little liberal heart now if it will make you feel better.
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btw, When Kevin had dinner w/Justice Roberts, Ted Olsen was mentioned as a probable McCain nomination.
Ted is presently doing the research on the highly unlikely Panama thing.
Sure will be tough toenails to watch Obama Nominate People like Hillary and think what coulda been w/Ted and Company.
Kevin worked for the same firm as Olsen in his first job.
Bill Cunningham,
ReplyDelete(Barack Hussein Obama fame and Infamy)
calls Gallagher to report that two more ladies fainted in the front row in Cincinnati!
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He'll not be voting for John unless HE also gets a Heartfelt Apology.
...and renunciation of Cain/Feingold, etc etc.
If all these fainters would just go ahead and die, it would thin out the voting roles a bit, and might do some good.
ReplyDeleteWhen politics reaches the level of a rock concert, we're in trouble.
Cute Little Commie
ReplyDeleteNext Picture in series looks like it was composed by a professional photographer in a studio.
Buckley's First language was not English!
ReplyDelete...Spanish.
Admiral McCain was on Buckley's team in the debate, Reagan, Zumwalt, and others on the other.
ReplyDelete"It's Parmount to have a plethora of terms in your lexicon."
ReplyDeletetrish wrote:
ReplyDelete"It was strategically senseless"
Not if you consider securing sweet light crude as strategically important.
Wrong to use the past tense, of course, as Afghanistan and our national will continue to fray.
ReplyDeleteI would imagine Arnold's complaint about stolen equipment has been repeated in all the other states also.
Thu Feb 28, 04:43:00 AM EST
True, I should've used the present tense.
I should also add that Afghanistan has problems that go far beyond the siphoning-off of assets that began in the ramp up to OIF, but that perhaps would have been somewhat ameliorated had international attention not been diverted also.
Re: Stolen Equipment
One of the "dirty little secrets" of every major military operation I'm familiar with. Creative requisitioning, we used to call it.
Buckley strikes me as a self satisfied sophist, and not a very good one at that.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you there Mats. Sorry if it pisses you off ;)
ReplyDelete"It WAS the wrong war at the wrong time.."
ReplyDeleteYou're an idiot and a liar.
You're liar, you never supported the Iraq war, and don't say you have. And you're an Idiot, if you think this war has not caused a paradigm shift in the way we will approach the next war with Islam, and the way we approach the global energy supply issue.
Not if you consider securing sweet light crude as strategically important.
ReplyDeleteThu Feb 28, 09:21:00 AM EST
Ah, but "resource security" wasn't a prime mover in that war.
Were our motives ever so prosaic and concrete we might actually be encouraged to think twice.
Mat, I established a policy of not reading your comments. In fact, I've handily removed them from the thread as it appears on my laptop and will continue to do so on every subsequent thread.
ReplyDeleteJust so you know.
Fsck off.
ReplyDeleteRe: Buckley and the Panama canal (like the Suez canal).
ReplyDeleteIf you can't hold the line on the little things, you can't hold the line on the big things. This has been proven in practice over and over again.
"Welcome to The Elephant. Drinks are on the house if you bring your own. Do not kick the dog. Gents please pick up the seat. Smoking permitted. If you do not inhale, please leave. We encourage freewheeling conversation, keep it civil and interesting. Thanks-2164th & Whit, proprietors."
ReplyDeleteAnd you Mətušélaḥ are on the board of directors. I guess hypocrisy is the norm here.
Yeah, Ash, that's what gets me about Mat, never picking up the seat like he does, er, doesn't.:) But he agrees with you and I on Buckley, so he can't be all bad:) And no one has ever been so right about all things as we three:)
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletemat said...
ReplyDelete[nothing]
mat said...
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mat said...
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This will more than compensate for an afternoon spent conjugating verbs in Spanish.
I was told that the third, fourth, and fifth languages are easier. But everyone neglects to mention: only after you've learned to momentarily, thoroughly keep out of mind the second, which is something of a minor art.
And I've yet to understand why Spanish (in fact, all the Romance languages) is considered, by DOD, State and OGA, no less, to be easier for a native English speaker to learn than German, which grammatically and phonetically is a walk in the park.
Concorde Lost Tail on Buckley Supersonic Round the World Trip.
ReplyDeleteIn which 98 passengers learn the meaning of hysteresis,
meet the equator and the international date line,
and travel at twice the speed of sound from the future of the Pacific Rim
to a sheep farm where time stopped with the death of Queen Victoria.
Full circle. (Around the World at Mach 2)
Her new tail in place, the Concorde takes off again...
I think the subtleties of meanings with German are probably at the root. I'm monolingual but I remember all the footnotes in books translated from German trying to explain what was really meant by the author. When I traveled in Germany I was amazed at how much I seemed to understand though when folks spoke.
ReplyDeleteMoody's book "The Last Laugh" has much about the language of the playfully paranormal. Any good dictionary is a gold mine, a linguistic archaeological dig, of information about our paranormal past, recorded there in the old meanings of words, now forgotten.
ReplyDeleteDo you know where the word bonfire comes from, perchance?
Well, you are in luck again, cause bob's gonna tell ya.
In olden times, before the church suppressed most instincts towards the paranormal, even the playful kind, the druids and whoever, used to make fires out of the bones of sacrificed animals, and try to read the secrets of the near beyond through the swirls of the smoke, and the dance of the flames. These were called bonefires, now we roast hotdogs on the bonfire. I remember my sis one time, telling my little nephew, in all innocnece I presume, Zach, look into the fire, and see what shapes you can see. Theodore Roethke has a poem, or a line, the shape of the fire. The word fey is chock full of meanings, but nowadays even the word itself is forgotten. And fie on ya if you don't think this interesting.
Mat talks about nothing more than anyone here, according to Trish:)
ReplyDeleteAccording to my way of looking at things, there isn't much to say about nothing, so why waste the breath? Yet I often find myself talking about nothing, too. It's odd.
ReplyDeleteI quess that Concorde didn't have any tail wind.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't find any tail on the Concorde.
ReplyDeleteBob,
ReplyDeleteThat seat is bolted to the floor. So forgetaboutit. But should the seat cover go pink, you can count on me to tear it off.
When I traveled in Germany, I couldn't understand a word of what the pushy bastards said. I thought it funny though, this was in the 60's, the porters on the trains acted like leftover SS, and wore spiffy warlike uniforms, with leather straps and stuff, and took their job of looking at my passport with great seriousness, finally pronouncing with a great tone, "Ja".
ReplyDeleteMy Canadian counterparts (BTW Thanks for the link, Doug) have a leg up, as does my daughter. If you can speak French, Spanish is that much easier. Which is also, conversely, why French was that much easier for my husband. (French is a conspiracy, I believe, concocted to thwart all comers.)
ReplyDeleteSubtleties? What I have always appreciated about German is its relative straightforwardness, idiomatic phrases notwithstanding.
Mat:
ReplyDelete"Re: Buckley and the Panama canal (like the Suez canal).
If you can't hold the line on the little things, you can't hold the line on the big things. This has been proven in practice over and over again."
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Bill Pre-empted you in his delivery!
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EB Hosts the Three Stooges on Buckley!
German was the College Language course that I chose to slither through by a process of elimination.
ReplyDeleteI too think Spanish is easier, but pronunciation is beyond this white boy.
...Easier to guess at if you don't know either language, and were raised in Calif!
ReplyDeleteBill Bryson's The Mother Tongue is a great read, if you haven't.
ReplyDeleteTell us about your Concorde Trip AlBob!
ReplyDeleteBryson:
ReplyDeleteWife has read a bunch of him, I haven't yet.
Think there was an ad for a New One in NR a while back.
Last one she read was:
ReplyDelete"In a Sunburned Country"
Australia.
I won't tell a tall tale, Doug, there wasn't much tail to tale about, I'll tell you that. Never having been on a Concorde.
ReplyDeleteThey tried to get me on Latin in high school, then German and Spanish in college. Mostly failing. I used to read El Excelsior out of Mejico Ciudad, though, had it home delivered for awhile.
I think Ralph Waldo Emerson had it right. It's futile to try to teach a dead language to most Idaho farm boys. They'll end up talking American, just like they should.
I think Latin is what made it possible for me to pass German.
ReplyDeleteMy HS Latin Teacher was a piece of work.
Big Battleax of a woman.
No screwing around.
...course I did anyhoo.
For sheer enjoyment of storytelling, read Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. A two day read. Donuts to dollars, you'll never put it down after picking it up.
ReplyDeleteThat's the only kind of book I can get through anymore, post internet.
ReplyDeleteI'll see if the wife already has it.
bobal said...
ReplyDelete"The body was found by the body's personal cook, who informed the body's butler, who called the body's personal physician, who pronounced the body dead, and a statement was issued by the body's personal spokeswoman."
---
"Buckley, 82, was found in his study, where he had been working on a column."
Al-Bob-Al will be found in bed, listening to "Overnight."
:-)
Al-Doug will be found on the tile floor beside his computer stool, where he landed and cracked his skull after going to sleep while "blogging."
I just stumbled across this guy, isioz courtesy of Wolcott:
ReplyDelete"Jesus. The praise for Buckley. The mad encomiums! He was the A.K. Chesterton of our time. He was a third-rate thinker with a second-rate vocabulary who only ever impressed the fourth-rate English majors who cluster in newsrooms and on the teevee. He was always wrong when it mattered and only right when it was too late. The fact that he was the exemplar of American Conservativism and one of the movement's great intellectuals proves something about both Buckley and American Conservativism, neither proof being proof of anything good. He was Ezra Pound shorn unfortunately of classicism, talent, and a cage."
http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/
and for Rat from isioz:
ReplyDelete"The so-called virtual fence was an awfully silly idea to begin with, and the fact that the virtual has failed totally as the actual is not exactly surprising. I mean, they're going to spend $8 motherfucking billion on some kind of fanciful scifi pipe dream. I can't wait until they announce that there was no majority report. You know how many dune buggies and border agents you can get--and for how long!--for $8 motherfucking billion? Personally, I'm in favor of open borders as a prelude to the destruction of human society and a return to matriarchal hunter-gathering, but honestly, there is very little that sensitive, finicky, high-techery can accomplish that some dudes with binoculars can't. If one were a cynic, one might suspect that both the idea of the virtual fence and the practical failure of its application were smoke and mirrors intended to camouflage the fact that our government is not in fact interested in staunching the necessary flow of cheaper labor into the United States. Surely, though, that couldn't be the case."
http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/
I was at a little cafe in Prague, bob, and at the adjoining table were two young girls and two young boys. The girls were Czech and the boys were German. They settled on English. Warmed my lazy, English-loving heart.
ReplyDeleteWon't work with me and my doorman, though, or any of a thousand other people.
How about the Kevin Nealon look alike that holds your towel in your 400 ft tiled bath?
ReplyDelete(early 90's Sat Nite Live)
WILLIAM F BUCKLEY, JR, 1925-2008
ReplyDeleteSHADES OF GRAY, AND BLACKIE
A Cold Warrior, and novelist
"How about the Kevin Nealon look alike that holds your towel in your 400 ft tiled bath?"
ReplyDeleteShe starts on Monday. Wasn't my idea.