Uncivil war

I’ve noticed it already, right after last night’s election was understood to be truly lost. On the message boards and the comments sections of many blogs, two types of commenters started to proliferate: those on the right who were lashing out in rage at the loss, blaming Mitt Romney, their fellow conservatives, election fraud, Karl Rove, you name it. And then there were the mocking Obama supporters, come to crow about their victory and taunt and tweak and insult the grieving conservatives.

No surprise, really. The internet can be a nasty place, with a lot of free-flowing anger. I well remember the trolls of the left who visited blogs on the right in 2008, spiking the ball and celebrating in a mean-spirited way, like jackals or vultures feasting on the bodies.

I don’t frequent enough left-wing blogs to know whether their equivalent on the right comes to taunt the left in years of defeat, such as 2004 or 2010. But I do know that those on the right who are tearing each other apart in their agony over what happened last night should find a way to cease and desist.

Maybe that’s impossible. Maybe human nature just doesn’t allow it. Maybe they need to vent. But taking it out on each other is exactly what the left wants, and it can only weaken and splinter the right. We’re weak and splintered enough right now without doing more damage to each other.

Comments

Uncivil war — 174 Comments

LondonTrader on November 7, 2012 at 12:58 pm said:

Exactly
rickl on November 7, 2012 at 1:30 pm said:

I’ve been predicting civil war, the hot kind, since election night 2008. I’m frankly surprised that violence hasn’t already broken out.
carl in atlanta on November 7, 2012 at 1:33 pm said:

I still remember hearing Glenn Beck’s taunts put to music after the 2010 “shellacking”.

To the tune of “Happy Days Are Here Again” they were singing, “We really kicked their ass, we really kicked their ass, we really, really kicked their aaaaaa-ass!”.

Human beings really, really love their schadenfreude, no?
George Pal on November 7, 2012 at 1:38 pm said:

Once is a mistake, twice, — felonious misprision.

If the imagination cannot make sense of so many American having lost their freakin’ minds — not once but twice, it thrashes about and like a drowning man will grasp at flotsam to postpone the inevitable — in this case the inevitable conclusion:

“RIP American Exceptionalism.” Roger Kimball’s Friend

My sentiments and condolences exactly.
Artfldgr on November 7, 2012 at 1:52 pm said:

So its business as usual, keep talking and make sure that they get to tick off where you stand so you can be put in the right category for the local councils (made by the eo order) of community organizers can determine your fate.

We have to get used to the change that has occurred, and realize what it actually means to how we live and what we think and whether we want to reveal ourselves to the world and so be judged by these new things to be lacking what they want or need.

women and minorities and the young, the constituency of the coalition majority, have finalized the deal, the trade, the exchange of their power for their perks.

In fact, i don’t think they were even smart enough to realize that is what they were trading, too busy being told they were smart, they would not examine themselves for fear of finding out the political Lotharios were seducing them. (tell me lies tell me sweet little lies)

Now, you will see even people that opposed this, running to join the parade and be a part of it.

would YOU want to be the last company to convert in Germany? no… you want to be the first, so their wrath is vented on someone else. no? (Gliecshaltung)

the idea of merit as a way forward was refuted by the paper i referenced today – The personal is political

ie. the way this works is that the ideas are printed and discussed and the ones that win wihn.

so last century, this would have happened earlier but for hayeck, who was able to refute the prior idea by marx which was trying to refute the other idea.

so… if you wanted to stop all this, all you had to do was refute that one papers point till the idea dominated and overturned that and the precedence.

THATS how this system works.
thats what they know most dont.

how did they change women from demure people who Norman Rockwell would paint images of kind old granny to a woman who exercised on a stripper pole, has a tongue stud, high odds she has an STD, and willing to sell out the future, her children and mates to the state?

Someone wrote a book and the publishers published it. the feminine mystique…

when that started wearing off, what did they do to get the women back up on that same horse? write a book… “the rules”…

how did they get African Americans to forget Landry parish, the murder of their own kind by their saviors today, and so on? they paid blacks to write revisionist history that they read that conveniently left out the history (you can blatantly see it at the NAACP site)

I said… what books did lenin read
what books did obama read.

what helped change our state?
book by Zinn?
how about fukyama and The End of History and the Last Man?

didnt Marx write a book?
did cramsci write a book?
did Ayers write books?
did saul alinsky write a book?

want to know how to control the people and negate this all?

go to the fulcrum.. write a refutation.
however, now that the press is so skewwed, how would you get that book and refutation to the people? can you get one to them before they lock down the internet?

by the way… what was the most influential thing that happened to mankind?

the birth if Christ?

no.. the assembly of the stuff into a book..

Islam is fighting over what? whats in a book

why do they change history in the books?
[edited for length by n-n]
Sam L. on November 7, 2012 at 1:59 pm said:

The circular firing squad does no good. The dead are gone; the wounded hate. Does not improve chances for working together later. And we must work together later–and later begins right now.
Artfldgr on November 7, 2012 at 2:11 pm said:

cargo cultists copy the appearance of something

they dont learn substance as they skirt it to the same end without the effort.

so if you want to know what they are thinking (and i said this before) read what they read. read the ideas, papers, books that shape their thoughts to know what they are thinking.

basically, we had the code book and we could read it, but rather than use enigma to decode it, we decided to work on it like a Sunday cross word puzzle, or Sudoku…

where did the doctrine of MAD come from?
unicorn farts? spontaneous generation?

the earliest reference to the concept comes from the English author Wilkie Collins, writing at the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870: “I begin to believe in only one civilizing influence–the discovery one of these days of a destructive agent so terrible that War shall mean annihilation and men’s fears will force them to keep the peace”.

and were did MAED come from?
Mutually Assured economic destruction was the idea that if capitalist states and communist states linked up (ie send factories to china) there would be no war because it would be like attacking yourself.

problem is if someone pulled the pin on the system, all the capitalist countries would economically collapse like dominoes.

TIME magazine
Mutually-Assured Economic Destruction

Confirming our report Friday that China is our next big enemy, the Rand Corp. has just issued a study entitled Conflict with China. It paints a pretty dire picture of U.S. military prospects in China’s ‘hood, and encourages the U.S. to keep developing weapons to keep China at bay. While the study says the prospect of war is unlikely, it urges development of new weapons and technology to maintain a military edge over Beijing.

RAND is an old player in this game…
(i actually bumped into one of the Rand family taking a walk in Manhattan. we had an interesting discussion… )

the report notes such a strategy may be doomed:

…the direct [U.S.] defense of contested assets in that region will become progressively more difficult, eventually approaching impossible…the United States can make more explicit what has been only faintly implicit in its strategy toward China: the threat to use nuclear weapons if conventional defense fails, if U.S. forces face defeat, and/or if vital U.S. interests in the region could be harmed.

just tap into what the leaders discuss to know what they think and to know whats coming up.

People here pay attention to the press… and wont read this kind of stuff, and policy papers, an more..

by the way… where did the idea for a totalitarian state come from?
Phillip Dru Administrator… a book

note that the MAED is in play, and obamas response is to slash the military.

soros just fomented the idea of cutting the military by a trillion.

that will make it lots easier for russia to grab the rest of georgia, china to take the islands, and maybe even singapore and taiwan, which will give them LOTS of intellecutal property, process, experts and secret stuff.

hold on dorothy
this isnt kansas any more
Rose on November 7, 2012 at 2:54 pm said:

It doesn’t really matter. We have become a one-party nation. Just as California is a one-party state now, and there is no hope of stopping the Democrats spending juggernaut.

They won’t come around. They won’t self-regulate. They won’t come to their senses, and they won’t do the right thing for the right reasons.

I don’t see any solution. This was our last hope. On so many levels.

But I do know one thing – and that is this – the Republicans MUST stand strong and refuse, REFUSE, to give one single vote to increase spending, increase debt limits or raise taxes.

They MUST force the Democrats to OWN this economic disaster fully.

And the Republicans must articulate at every turn the exact reason WHY they stand. Write a book, as Artfldgr says.

And even then. I don’t see a way out, and sadly there is nowhere to go.
sergey on November 7, 2012 at 2:56 pm said:

Art, this is not exactly a book what conservatives lack, but a coherent ideology resonating with present population. Ideology can be defeated only by a rival ideology. But there is a trait in conservative circles to hate and despise any ideology as such. I do not think this is healthy or even natural. The vital nerve of conservatism is the tragic conception of human existence. In the times of abundance, comfort and safety this conception inevitably fades and is replaced by false optimism and complacency. Many civilizations were mortally enfeebled by their own success. Even Spartans became hedonists and this was the end of Sparta.
But Americans are optimists and hate whining. That is why they are easy pray for demagogues who promise them utopian future. You need a way to reconcile a tragic vision of reality with optimism. Only this is a winning combination. Founding Fathers had it; the Great generation had it too. But these men were witnesses of Satanic evil and triumph over it. Today idealists and optimists are utopian leftists, and with rare exceptions conservatives are all doom and gloom. This must be overcome.
Steve on November 7, 2012 at 3:04 pm said:

I think it is important to remember that it is unrealistic to expect others to play ‘fair’ or to admit when they are ‘wrong.’ This is a game. The strategy that works is the one that is fitter. If we want the outcome to be different, then we have to adopt a different strategy: one we know has a good chance of succeeding. As others have noted the left has been playing the long game and is relentless (end justifies the means). My sense is that there is no changing Washington DC. Both parties are invested in the current system. They will not enact reforms that take away their power. So what is a plausible strategy? Fortunately the Framers anticipated the possibility overbearing central government. They built in mechanisms for states to exert control. One such mechanism is the power to call an Article V convention. The constitution can be amended without having to rely on the cooperation of the legislative branch in DC. Republicans are strong at the state level. If the tea party movement focuses on increasing the number of state legislatures under Republican control, we can do a hard reset and permanently frustrate the statist goals of the left.
ziontruth on November 7, 2012 at 3:21 pm said:

“And then there were the mocking Obama supporters, come to crow about their victory and taunt and tweak and insult the grieving conservatives.”

Yeah. I was just browsing Cagle for the cartoons, and there I saw a delightful piece by some Michael Kindt with the promising title, “American Family Radio: ‘This is probably the saddest day in the history of America’.” Here’s the money quote (the sarcasm is the author’s original):

“Not only did Obama, who is BLACK* and a deep-cover Muslim agent working to destroy America from the inside, win, but gay marriage passed in two states, plus a constitutional amendment banning it in Minnesota failed.”

What’s down below where the asterisk is pointing to? Glad you asked:

“*pointed out with numerous code words”

I think it’s a good thing I’m not an American, because I’d have exploded with rage on reading this. As it happened, I “merely” seethed about how scummy the Leftists can be.

To use a phrase beloved by the reelected president: Let me be clearâ„¢, the Left’s past two electoral victories have been based on gratuitous hatred, the Marxist “divide and conquer” tactic of pitting groups within a nation against one another. In Europe they import the groups from abroad to create strife, in America they have the groups in position, ready-made; in both cases, Marxists create the hatred, then sell themselves as the cure for it.

The Leftists think the fire of gratuitous hatred is their devoted electoral servant. One day, however, it will go out of control and turn on its masters. No nation has ever been better off for nurtured internal strife. The Celtic nations in Britain lost to the Anglo-Saxons because of it, and the Jewish nation lost the Second Temple because it’s a sin equal to a combination of idolatry, incest and murder in God’s eyes. This is a portent.

America bless God,
Israel bless God,
Then may He save us all.
Steve on November 7, 2012 at 3:27 pm said:

ziontruth, there seem to be a lot of sociopaths on the left, don’t you think?
Sally on November 7, 2012 at 3:34 pm said:

I’m truly not happy with the results, however I think it important to not let disappointment, anger, fear, etc. take over our lives.
For various reasons my husband and I watched “Return of the Jedi” last night instead of the elections. I had seen just enough of the results to realize what was going to happen with the election, and during the part where the emperor is goading Luke to give into his rage and grief and fear or “go to the dark side” as he put it, I realized I had to let go of my resentments, disappointment, etc. Indulging and feeding these negative feelings are not going to get us anywhere positive.
ziontruth on November 7, 2012 at 3:34 pm said:

Steve,

They’re so like the Muslims it’s amazing. Nurturing the hatred and feasting on it is something I’m quite used to seeing on MEMRI’s dispatches from the Muslim world, but to see it so in the heart of the free world should give a shudder of dread to any decent person.

This double-headed demon assaulting the free world is a messenger of misery and death everywhere. We must do what we can, but let us not think human effort will suffice, for this war is deeply rooted in a spiritual conflict; the physical manifestations of it are just symptoms.
neo-neocon on November 7, 2012 at 3:37 pm said:

Rose: it is certainly possible that, if Republicans do that, they will be reviled as obstructing the wonderful Obama agenda, and some of them replaced by Democrats in 2014. Then Obama may once again have the legislature he wants.

Obama has the media on his side; they will cover for him and help him with his blaming. And obviously the nation is not repulsed (as I have been) by a president who uses blame as a tool the way Obama does. I’ve never seen his like in any president in that regard, Democrat or Republican. It used to be that blaming was considered unpresidential and weak. Not when Obama does it.
Artfldgr on November 7, 2012 at 3:40 pm said:

sergey,

so Thats why the coherent strategy predates marx das capital.

right?

the strategy came first, the idea came second

you got it backwards as the ideas create desire, and desire creates need and need creates a strategy.

there is no coherent strategy for the not left because the left has prevented such in various ways.

your point is so silly (and i am surprised)

ideas come before action
action never before ideas.

shall i quote marx i am sure you know and are conveniently forgetting to make your point?

How Lenin Studied Marx
Nadezhda Krupskaya

Lenin did a tremendous amount to illuminate the path of struggle of the Russian proletariat with the light of Marxism. Fifty years have passed since the death of Marx, but for our Party Marxism is still the guide to action. Leninism is merely a further development of Marxism, a deepening of it.

how did lenin even know about marx?
oh yeah… he got a copy of his book

your wrong sergey, and you know it
and you know i am right.

how did solitzhen have an effect on the soviet system. by speeches? or by the gulag archepeligo?

how did anne frank influence a world? a diary, a book, otherwise, she would be one of the nameless millions… right?

how did gramsci redeem himself from prison?
his nine volumes

how did hitler redeem himself from prison?
mein kampf

oh.. and since they all like hegelian ideas, how did they learn about them and knwo what ideas hegel had? oh yeah, his book.

so tell me how you can disseminate a strategy to a group with no de facto leader but get them on the same page?

a book… that they read and are influenced by

in fact.. here is a list of the 100 most influential books in history, you tell me how many died and all that related to them, and let me also know if the book came AFTER or before (and note how many you know and can tell me the ideas in and we can talk about!)

I Ching
Hebrew Bible
Iliad and Odyssey
Upanishads
Tao Te Ching
Avesta
Analects
History of the Peloponnesian War
Hippocrates works
Aristotle works
Herodotus histories
The Republic (plato)
Elements (euclid)
Dhammapada
Aeneid (virgil)
De Rerum Natura
Allegorical Expositions of the Holy Laws
New Testament
Parallel Lives (plutarch, not the tv show)
Annals, From the Death of the Divine Augustus
Gospel of Truth
Meditations (aurelius not later philsopher)
Outlines of Pyrrhonism
Enneads
Confessions
Quran
Guide for the Perplexed
Kabbalah
Summa Theologiae
The Divine Comedy
In Praise of Folly
The Prince
On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church
Gargantua and Pantagruel
Institutes of the Christian Religion
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
Essays Michel de Montaigne
Don Quixote
Harmony of the Worlds (Kepler)
Novum Organum
First Folio (Shakespeare)
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
Discourse on Method
Leviathan
Gottfried Leibniz Works
Pensées
Ethics
Pilgrim’s Progress
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
The New Science
A Treatise of Human Nature
Encyclopédie (diderot)
A Dictionary of the English Language
Candide
Common Sense (paine)
The Wealth of Nations
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Critique of Pure Reason
Confessions (Rousseau)
Reflections on the Revolution in France
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
An Essay on the Principle of Population
Phenomenology of Spirit
The World as Will and Idea
The Course in Positive Philosophy
On War (Carl von Clausewitz)
Either/Or
Communist Manifesto
Civil Disobedience
The Origin of Species
On Liberty
First Principles
Experiments on Plant Hybridization
War and Peace
A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The Interpretation of Dreams
Pragmatism
Relativity
The Mind and Society
Psychological Types
I and Thou
The Trial
The Logic of Scientific Discovery
General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money
Being and Nothingness
The Road to Serfdom
The Second Sex
Cybernetics
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
Philosophical Investigations
Syntactic Structures
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
The Feminine Mystique
Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (Little Red Book)
Beyond Freedom and Dignity

your right sergey, all those ideas above, and the complexity of them, we all know them because of the cohesive strategies that came before them.

look over that list..
there is so much there that is you and me, and others that it would suprise you. that we reference and quote and speak in parrotisms from that, and yet, you say the book is not the thing?

the american experiment was the result of thebooks the founders read which was a majority of the above.

the kids today, have read almost none of the above list except for the marxists tracts and often they just pretend they read it!!!

for some reason, call me silly sergey, but i beleive that if plato didnt write a book, you would never know what his ideas were as a collection from the republic.

and the road to serfdom didnt prevent an earlier communist finality..

after all, it was the cohesive plan of Friedrich von Hayek that convinced everyone.

no. its the book

the book is the way to get someones undivided attention for hours to listen to you talk and not be able to talk back to you

your turn to refute this.
please give examples

(note that you learn strategy and those things you say are needed – from books)
Bilwick on November 7, 2012 at 3:44 pm said:

My question to the gloating Obama Zombies is: “WHat is it about serfdom that you find so appealling?” No, really. As someone who has loved liberty ever since I had my consciousness raised by Reagan at the 1964 Republican convention–when he asked, “What will we tell future generations that we valued more than freedom?”–the whole statist mindset is a puzzlement to me and can only be explained by either ignorance or aberrant, sadomasochistic psychology.
Curtis on November 7, 2012 at 3:51 pm said:

It’s a good point, ziontruth, except the conclusion seems to equate the two parties. One stands for freedom to worship not man but God. The other disdains God except as an abstraction of man’s “higher” powers. How much comity is possible when one culture sneers at the ten commandments and the other culture attempts to live by them?

Our nation is corrupt and there is no guarantee we will not continue to sink further into poverty and insecurity. In fact, we are more likely to do so as we approach the Greek situation where there is just no more free stuff to pass out.
ziontruth on November 7, 2012 at 4:03 pm said:

Curtis,

By “this double-headed demon” I was referring to the Marxist-Islamic unholy alliance–so different and opposed yet so joined together by common hatred and a shared global-totalitarian mindset. I wasn’t referring to the U.S. political parties (though the Dem party is today a Marxist party in all but name).

“…we are more likely to do so as we approach the Greek situation where there is just no more free stuff to pass out.”

And after that, the usual outcome: The breakdown of civil society, likely as not followed by a Napoleon. They shore be interestin’ times a-comin’.
gcotharn on November 7, 2012 at 4:28 pm said:

neo,
re Repubs ought not obstruct every last spending increase, et al, b/c media and Dems will blame Repubs

This is the single greatest area of disagreement which I have with you. Respectfully:
Republican attempts … to prevent media and Dems from blaming Repubs … are complete losing strategies. McCain tried it: he lost. Romney tried it: he lost. Geo H.W. Bush tried it: he lost. Gerald Ford tried it: he lost. It is a losing losing losing strategy.

Here is a winning strategy: be conservative, and DO NOT apologize. Do not be timid and polite. Be openly, blatantly, in-your-face conservative.

Media and Dems are going to blame Repubs, NO MATTER WHAT. So? Its a given. Our being ashamed is not going to help us accomplish anything … more and more and more losing.
neo-neocon on November 7, 2012 at 4:30 pm said:

gcotharn: I think you misunderstand me.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t do it. I’m saying what might happen as backlash if they do it.

They are between a rock and a hard place, that’s all. But I’m not suggesting just cooperating with the liberal agenda.
gcotharn on November 7, 2012 at 4:31 pm said:

Do not apologize! Re principles: we have nothing to apologize for. Re efforts to prevent the government from doing foolish spending: we have nothing to apologize for. Do not be apologetic in any way!
gcotharn on November 7, 2012 at 4:31 pm said:

Respectfully.
gcotharn on November 7, 2012 at 4:32 pm said:

Thanks for your reply.
DNW on November 7, 2012 at 4:39 pm said:

“Bilwick Says:
November 7th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
My question to the gloating Obama Zombies is: “WHat is it about serfdom that you find so appealling?” ”

Liberation from the moral burden of the self.
ziontruth on November 7, 2012 at 4:43 pm said:

gcotharn,

That’s the spirit. When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” means you can do anything you want. Pragmatic compromise is for when you’re confronted with a respectful adversary who might be swayed by your concessions; for other adversaries, like the Marxists and the Muslims, you’re best off doubling down on anything they criticize you for.

I’d like to hear less, much less, about “not stooping to the other side’s level” from the good side. Imagine an army commander who proposed fighting with swords and horses while the other side has guns and tanks, because fighting with guns and tanks would be “stooping to their level.” How long do you think such a commander would remain in his post? Gentlemanliness only signals weakness to the forces of oppression.
southernjames on November 7, 2012 at 4:43 pm said:

Neo – Repbubs in Congress are indeed between and rock and a hard place. If they oppose Obama, you are right – he will whine and blame them and they will be slimed non-stop by the media.

But they must.

Because any who do NOT oppose him, will fare much worse – they will be targeted (rightfully I would submit) in their primaries by tea party alternative candidates, and reviled by all those Repubs who think the party has no principles, is “Dem Lite” and is full of RINOs.

So I support the position of quiet, polite, obstruction; and them carefully explaining why. They need to take a principaled conservative position, explain why that position is better for America, and hope that the message somehow gets out to as many people as possible….and then let the chips fall where they may.
neo-neocon on November 7, 2012 at 4:54 pm said:

gcotharn: who’s apologizing?
Charles on November 7, 2012 at 4:55 pm said:

Neo: (from a comment above) “It used to be that blaming was considered unpresidential and weak. Not when Obama does it.”

That’s part of the thing that has me so upset (I have never been upset about any election before, not happy perhaps, but never upset) Obama is taking us down so many paths which, once taken, cannot be backtracked.

His crudeness (such as giving Hillary the finger, talking about McCain as an old fish wrapped in newspaper), his love of being a celebrity (really that crap started with Bill Clinton – do you prefer boxers or briefs? What kind of effing question is that?! Playing the sax just to show how cool one was.) Going on all the TV talk shows instead of doing real news conferences. Picking a fight with news reports (hating them is nothing new; but making it publicly known is new), Showing off your sports picks, but, not attending intelligence briefings, Swearing in a public setting. etc. etc. etc.

Lord, I could go on and on; but I would just be preaching to the choir . . . I think, (trying to be honest here) that I could live with any of this nonsense, I wouldn’t like it, but, I could live with it. These are things that will change our society (really asking “boxers or briefs” is now sort of a required question for any candidate)

Honestly, I could live with all this as just new nonsense. No, the number one thing that has me so upset about this election is how could the public not see that he is taking this country down the path of global and financial ruin? Obamacare will NOT be sustainable, it simply will not. The government picking losers or winners in business will not be sustainable, cannot we see how that worked out for the old Soviet Union? Borrowing massive amounts of money that future generations will not be able to pay unless they borrow even more or there is hyperinflation to whip out the debt. Hyperinflation, gee, that worked so well for Weimer Germany, didn’t it? (I swear that last sentence is NOT me going all “Godwin’s law” here)

That, I think is what has so many on the right upset – not that we are now Obamanation, which will NOT last – but what Obamanation is replacing may not be able to be brought back.

Welcome to the “new normal.”
gcotharn on November 7, 2012 at 4:58 pm said:

neo,
I composed the 4:31 “do not apologize!” comment .. before I had read your 4:30 explication.
neo-neocon on November 7, 2012 at 4:59 pm said:

gcotharn: oh, I understand now.
Holmes on November 7, 2012 at 5:10 pm said:

http://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/2012-election-time-out-from-history-definitively-over/

I thought this was excellent.
Papa Dan on November 7, 2012 at 5:57 pm said:

I’m sorry to be so surly, but I never dreamed the election would be this bad.

Althouse’s advise is to “time to stop talking about the election and have our lives be about love and beauty”.

Would that we could.

The bastards will never leave us alone now. If you are rich they will suck you dry. If you are poor and need to live off subsidies you will become they’re personal guinea pig. And if you are in the middle class, you are the most screwed of all-just wait until all the new taxes they’re dreaming of become a reality. Bohner say’s he’s willing to play ball. We have no more representation in Washington, and that’s just the sad truth of the matter.
Mr. Frank on November 7, 2012 at 6:18 pm said:

I’m guessing folks in Israel are a bit nervous today.
Occam's Beard on November 7, 2012 at 6:20 pm said:

I’m just sick. I also just noticed neo’s post from the 5th about California, which, not content with drifting toward the apocalypse, is in a power dive toward it. The state’s moronic voters approved Jerry Brown’s tax increase, declined to stop direct deduction of union dues from union members’ paychecks, and apparently have sent super majorities of Reds to both houses of the legislature. (Heretofore, a 2/3 majority was needed to raise taxes, so the ~~grownups~~ Republicans could still impede the Politburo’s most suicidal tendencies. But no longer.

And to think that California used to be Republican. On the other thread I did not notice anyone mentioning my conjecture for the change: namely, that liberals flocked to California to escape the hellholes they’d created on the East Coast. Recall that, e.g., NYC’s financial problems hit in the mid-70s; I think that that (and similar problems in other liberal utopias) caused the locusts to come here.
parker on November 7, 2012 at 6:22 pm said:

I remain baffled by the election results. Unemployment is high, according to the polls a large majority of the voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and disapprove of BHO’s handling of the economy, BHO ran a petty campaign based on fear, and then there remains the economy stupid. I don’t think R&R ran a bad campaign and they had momentum going for them, so I am trying to understand how BHO managed to squeak by.

I agree the House republicans are in a difficult situation. The solution is to put Team Obama on the defensive.

1.) Thoroughly investigate Benghazi. Find out what went on in the situation room. Find out what options were presented to Obama and who provided the information. Find out exactly what response the POTUS ordered his subordinates to carry out. Put HRC, Panetta, Donilon, and Jarrett under oath. Force Obama to claim national security or executive privilege and keep pushing back. Never stop until the truth comes out. This should be the first order of business when the House convenes.

2.) Put Fast and Furious under the microscope. Put Holder, Melson, and their subordinates under oath. Pursue justice wherever it leads. Force Obama to claim executive privilege and keep pushing back.

3.) Let Obama own the ‘fiscal cliff’ and the tax hikes come 1/1/13. Throw up your hands and proclaim loud and clear that Obama and the democrat Senate refuse to compromise and negotiate in good faith.

4.) Little Timmy at Treasury is bleating that DC will soon hit the debt ceiling. Fine, put this in Obama’s lap.

5.) Hold hearing on the affect Obamacare will have on the economy, consumers, and small businesses.

Yes, the MSM will try to run cover. But they will run cover no matter what, so simply defy them. They are the real adversary.
Curtis on November 7, 2012 at 6:27 pm said:

I regret not only the inevitable loss of our country, but the loss of what I expected would be a great Presidency. Just to have Mitt and Ann in there instead of that sourpuss and his sourpuss wife. I will not listen to that cadence and arrogance. I will not forget what he got away with and how it was approved by more than half of my countrymen.
parker on November 7, 2012 at 6:32 pm said:

I think southernjames is correct, “Because any who do NOT oppose him, will fare much worse — they will be targeted (rightfully I would submit) in their primaries by tea party alternative candidates, and reviled by all those Repubs who think the party has no principles, is “Dem Lite” and is full of RINOs.”

Republicans are toast unless they change the way the do business in DC.
rickl on November 7, 2012 at 6:52 pm said:

I’ve seen comments at other sites (namely, Ace) where social conservatives are blaming libertarians and I’ve also seen libertarians blaming social conservatives. Each group is telling the other to sit down and shut up, or else get the hell out of the Republican Party.

What nobody has pointed out is that the majority of the American people don’t want either traditional moral values or individual liberty/personal responsibility. They want hedonism and free shit. That’s exactly what the Democrats offer.
Occam's Beard on November 7, 2012 at 6:53 pm said:

the Marxist “divide and conquer” tactic of pitting groups within a nation against one another

Bella Dodd’s School of Darkness (h/t Artfldgr) documents when this came about: shortly after WWII, when several visiting Italian Communists came with the orders from Moscow. Out went Earl Browder’s approach of presenting Communism and Communists as all-American (along with Browder himself), and in came the Balkanization of the population into various aggrieved hyphenated identity groups.

Dodd’s book is available free online, and is well worth reading.

Thanks, Art.
Jim on November 7, 2012 at 6:56 pm said:

gcotharn, you have it exactly right.

I’m going to resurrect this dead horse and start flogging it again, but I proudly championed Sarah Palin as our best presidential candidate, and I’ll continue to do it today.

Neo, you posted about this over a year ago, that Sarah’s image had been poisoned by the media and there was no going back. Republicans abandoned her for being too “radical,” and that a moderate, like Mitt, was the best way to go. However, you and I agreed that whoever the candidate was would get Palinized. When she opted not to run, I think I posted on this blog (or it could’ve been another one), that the (R) establishment got what they wanted, and “their” candidate had BETTER win, or the party would be divided. The “experts” assured us that a Tea Party candidate like Sarah had absolutely no shot, or even more ludicrously, that she had cost McCain the election.

Now, I’m not going to turn on Mitt. I think he did a great job, and he really got me fired up toward the end (in the final two weeks he seemed like he was ALREADY the president). But he lost. He got Palinized and he lost. I have had arguments with friends who called Romney a RACIST. Yeah, absolutely zero evidence to back that up, but they were convinced he was/is a racist. And he lost. Sarah may have lost too, but she would NOT have let Obama slide on Benghazi, or the Hurricane photo ops, or just the plain fact that he’s the most far left president in modern history.

Personally, when Sarah didn’t speak at the RNC, I made the decision not to send a donation Mitt’s way. He was going to get my vote and my support, but not my money. It was my small way of standing up for conservatism. Uncivil war? That might be too strong a term, but I’m seriously considering stepping back from politics altogether and just not voting anymore. My values are not being fully represented, and the candidates who come closest are going to lose anyway.
ziontruth on November 7, 2012 at 6:56 pm said:

Mr. Frank,

“I’m guessing folks in Israel are a bit nervous today.”

That’s right, but each faction is taking it in a different way:

The Israeli Jewish Left, just as unwilling to learn from history as your Left, sees this as confirmation of the path of land-for-nothing agreements (my term for land concessions), as well as an opportunity for kicking Bibi out.

The Israeli secular Right is calling for careful steps regarding Iran and also for making Israel more self-sufficient for its defense.

The Religious Zionist Right (that’s my group) takes it as somewhere between a call for lessening dependence on the U.S.A. for Israel’s defense (for the calmer ones) and a signal that a divorce between the two countries is coming (the alarmists). The feeling that everything is in HaShem’s direct control is also becoming stronger, thus bringing to a little warming up with the Ultra-Orthodox.

The Ultra-Orthodox see it as a call for nationwide repentance and stronger observance.

As for the Arabs in pre-1967 Israel, I can only guess they’re waiting for the signs to see if they can rejoin their brothers in the post-1967 territories in a new Intifada (like the one that happened in October 2000–Arabs of both pre- and post-1967 territories participated).

I could say there’s a general mood of grim determination among the Israeli Jewish populace. No feeling of utter panic or hopelessness (except among the Left, who are now a minority owing to the incessant Arab terrorism of the last decade), but definitely a feeling that the coming years will be challenging and require toughness of spirit.

I personally feel much less like crying for my own country than for the United States of America. A majority of Israeli Jews think straight, while the American Right just lost the election by underestimating how this is no longer so for Americans.

Ultimately, the ones with most to fear now are the non-Muslims living under this so-called “Arab Spring.” My country has its boots on, while they can only get out before they find themselves like the Jews of 1930s Europe. Nobody’s going to protect them, least of all the one who wrote he’d stand with the Muslims.

Nobody can say for sure when the End of Days will be; still, the likelihood of it happening in the time frame of the next four years is quite high. History looks so different from the vantage point of the present tense.

Signing off for the night, buds. America bless God, Israel bless God, then may He save us all, amen.
rickl on November 7, 2012 at 7:00 pm said:

Occam’s Beard Says:
November 7th, 2012 at 6:20 pm

Recall that, e.g., NYC’s financial problems hit in the mid-70s; I think that that (and similar problems in other liberal utopias) caused the locusts to come here.

I think it started a few years earlier.
rickl on November 7, 2012 at 7:03 pm said:

Good luck, ziontruth. I’m not Jewish, or even particularly religious–and I don’t call myself a neocon–but I do support Zionist Jews. It’s really simple. Israel belongs to the Jews.
Occam's Beard on November 7, 2012 at 7:05 pm said:

Rickl, yeah, it started with all that hippie crap, but most of the liberals I’ve encountered (a hopelessly unscientific datum) seem to fetched up here about 20-30 years ago. The nitwits in the Haight Ashbury were just the advance guard, and were confined not only to SF, but to a small portion of SF, which was largely a blue collar Irish and Italian union town then (and, as a consequence, had no particular reputation for homosexuality, either). The big infestation came later with liberals and homosexuals from the East Coast started coming here in droves.
gcotharn on November 7, 2012 at 7:14 pm said:

and, Jim at 6:56 pm, you are exactly right:

every person on the right … who had an instinct to be disdainful of Sarah Palin … is complicit in the attitude which is killing conservatives, which is an instinct to try and get the cool leftist kids to like them, or at least to get the cool leftist kids to fail to ridicule them. Lets say you are conservative, and Sarah Palin is not your cup of tea. Fine. But, she should be revered by conservatives as a great warrior: as a redneck public school William Buckley. We should be building her statues and giving her awards. We should viciously attack any media leftist who attacks her. She is a hero. That she is shunned, by much of the right, is unbelievably foolish.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Protein Wisdom points to the way back – into the game and on to dominance – for the right:

I’m already hearing from GOP pundits that we must start putting up more Hispanic candidates […] It’s a defensive posture, it smacks of desperation […]

That is, it agrees to play by the left’s rhetorical rules. And they who own the rules own the game.
[…]
This isn’t “pragmatism.” This isn’t about “winning” – because every victory would be Pyrrhic one under such circumstances, built on repeating the panders necessary to gain power in the first place while keeping hidden the core principles of conservatism, and so perpetuating the left’s paradigm for governance.

That’s no way to play. Either change the rules, or change the game. And to do so begins – as it always has – with language.

And the left controls the language precisely because we’ve allowed them to institutionalize linguistic and hermeneutic ideas that are a systemic foundation for tyranny and collectivism. Our language – how we conceive of it, how we believe it to function, how we’ve allowed its abuses to become found truths and bedrock foundational assumptions – is what is moving us inexorably toward authoritarianism.

The way forward is through a reclamation of language. Because a reclamation of language leads to a reclamation of epistemology – which in turn creates a problem for leftist indoctrination, itself reliant on those incoherent linguistic assumptions that they’ve managed to turn into perceived linguistic truisms.

Once we regain the ability to think in a way that is consonant with Enlightenment principles, we’ll then be able to begin our own long march through the institutions, clearing out the false prophets and would-be tyrants and all the jargon-rich sophistry they’ve laid as a fancy veneer over what is essentially a creaky, moldering foundation.

http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=45154
ziontruth on November 7, 2012 at 7:18 pm said:

Thanks, rickl. What we all can offer each other across the distances is solidarity. This isn’t touchy-feely sentimentalism, it’s an undeniable consequence of the same reality seen during Hurricane Sandy: You can expect words from afar (“afar” meaning the government as well as a far-away country), but if you want help, you’d better seek it close at hand, from those close to you, family and friends.

Family and friends, family and friends. No going around it, survival will depend on people centering their lives around family and friends, the small-town communalism that is a legendary symbol of American and traditional Jewish greatness. Weather all the storms with your family and friends. Go Galt together with your family and friends. Get you a smaller world and you’ll see how really bigger it is, while the lure of the big world (government and cosmopolitanism) only leaves you with the emptiness of being so small. Switching off the TV, that spoutlet of mind-mushing decadence and MSM disinformation, is a blessing all by itself.

And so I ramble. Alright, night all.
gcotharn on November 7, 2012 at 7:38 pm said:

of course: reclaim the language, but also vote Rubio/Ted Cruz 2016, and Ted Cruz/Susannah Martinez 2024, and Susannah Martinez/Piper Palin 2032.
Mr. Frank on November 7, 2012 at 7:40 pm said:

On average, Hispanics are religious, conservative, hard working, and family oriented. Many are small business people. There is a very good fit there with the Republican party. Working on bring them in has to be a high priority for Republicans. Giving work permits to young people who were brought here as children and who have stayed out of trouble is not asking much.
blert on November 7, 2012 at 7:40 pm said:

That the Wan lost 10,000,000 votes vs 2008 is not TOO surprising.

That the Stormin Mormon under-polled McCain by 3,000,000 votes is VERY surprising.

I’d say that the negative campaign spun over the summer did the trick.

It’s also proof that Obama-lite can’t beat Obama.

For many, that’s all that Mitt entailed.

———-

Newsweak leaves the newsstand this year.

Further MSM portals will shut down. The Internet is toxic to their business model.

———-

It is entirely realistic to project that Barry will break the US Dollar before 2017.

The world will fly apart as that unfolds.
foxmarks on November 7, 2012 at 8:08 pm said:

rickl:

The righties aren’t quite ready to hear the bad news we’ve been telling them. They’re in shock and reverting to tribalism.

I wish they would read and at last follow the Constitution, instead of playing “find the traitor”. Everything you need to know about national government is in our Founding documents.

I say embracing equality of opportunity and equal justice will begin to build a new coalition that includes lawful immigrants and working class Americans.

It is hard to beat promises of free stuff. But part of me can avoid that cynicism. People don’t mind earning their bread. Its when they feel that everyone cheats that cheating and entitlement take precedence over the human desire to achieve.
helenL on November 7, 2012 at 8:08 pm said:

You can not properly fight that which you do not understand. You can not properly understand that which you refuse to see for what it is.
Tom the Redhunter on November 7, 2012 at 9:13 pm said:

Nice post, Neo. For the very reasons you state I haven’t read conservative blogs today, and if the comments above are any indication of what’s going on, I’ll continue to stay away for a few weeks or months. For that same reason I’m staying away from conservative talk radio.

I think that of the group who ran in the primary, Mitt Romney was by far and away the best choice, ran the best race, and did far better than any of the others would have done. Gingrich is hated by too many people, and Santorum would have taken the bait on Obama’s “war on women” attack and doubled down on his crazier statements, making the situation even worse.

So I say we congratulate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for having the courage to run and leave it at that for now.
Mrs Whatsit on November 7, 2012 at 9:15 pm said:

ziontruth: I am thinking not just of switching off the TV but also switching off the internet once and for all; it has done nothing in the long run but to break my heart and fill my head with fear and anger. Except for here. This place, this particular small little node on the giant internet — Neo’s place — I think this is a place of family and friends.
thomass on November 7, 2012 at 9:19 pm said:

Yeah on all points. The old rifts and rivalries on the conservative side come up after losses (libertarians saying dump the social cons, Rove being a stand in for the non libertarian conservatives getting dumped on, et cetera).

Then there is the left… bigger and more insular (and hence more annoying) than ever…
thomass on November 7, 2012 at 9:23 pm said:

rickl Says:

“I’ve been predicting civil war, the hot kind, since election night 2008. I’m frankly surprised that violence hasn’t already broken out.”

Not enough easy geographical boundaries to take off IMO. I mean, even in Texas Obama got what, 38-40%? Where do you say, ‘we’re keeping this part’? It would be more Iraq or a central american model / a big mess that goes on forever.
thomass on November 7, 2012 at 9:34 pm said:

sergey Says:

“Ideology can be defeated only by a rival ideology. But there is a trait in conservative circles to hate and despise any ideology as such.”

I think that is an example of conservative projection. We are more ideological than the US left. The US left doesn’t read, know history, et cetera. They think this makes them pragmatic. They want what they want since it is based on their pure reason conclusions (eye roll).

But to proclaim themselves ‘not ideological’ conservatives redefined ideology. To them (or us) only totalitarian theories are ideological. Just thinking the free market works well doesn’t meet this definition.
thomass on November 7, 2012 at 9:49 pm said:

ziontruth Says:

“The Leftists think the fire of gratuitous hatred is their devoted electoral servant. One day, however, it will go out of control and turn on its masters.”

Yeah; I often wonder why they think they’ll always be able to control some of the ethnic power groups they work with now. Same goes for some of the groups themselves (re: if they smaller and in conflict with another group in the left).
rickl on November 7, 2012 at 9:58 pm said:

thomass:

Right. The original American Civil War was more accurately called the War Between the States. There were national armies lined up on battlefields.

Most real civil wars in other countries have been literally neighbor vs. neighbor in a free-for-all without rules.

That is what we are now facing.
parker on November 7, 2012 at 10:09 pm said:

“A government is like fire, a handy servant, but a dangerous master.” — George

This is a lesson the left fails to understand time after time. The same can be said of some supposedly on the right. I must agree, reluctantly, with rickl, we are on the edge and civil war is looming. I can put up with just so much and then I have to side with my 4 grandchildren. It does not take a DC sponsored village to raise a child, it takes a mom and a dad.

BTW, nice to read your comments foxmarks. I’ve missed your obstinate posts. Be of good cheer and make sure you have plenty of ammo.
M J R on November 7, 2012 at 10:12 pm said:

Suppose Romney had just managed to eke out a victory over the incumbent.

Would the left have taken defeat quietly, or would there be riots and lawsuits galore? Would they have taken defeat quietly, or, if the lawsuits didn’t go their way, would they be working overtime to delegitimize the new presidency before it got started?

Hmmmmmmmmmmm?????
thomass on November 7, 2012 at 10:16 pm said:

rickl Says:

“That is what we are now facing.”

The left is not only not ready; they have no reason to start such a thing since they’re winning. Down the line.. when things start going to hell? Maybe.

As to us; we can still use some of their tricks to avoid things like obamacare.
Pat on November 7, 2012 at 10:18 pm said:

I do not blame Romney for the loss. He was not my first choice candidate but I warmed up to him. I thought he would win it handily and am devastated that he lost. I was amazed that Romney/Ryan could not out-poll McCain/Palin. I want to know who stayed home. Paulians? Evangelicals? Or just people who couldn’t be bothered? Or people turned off by 24/7 campaigning? I suspect people more focused on dealing with the aftermath of Sandy rather than voting might be a big factor. The polls don’t tell us, at least so far.

We know the Democrats cheated where they could and it may cost Allen West his seat. But they didn’t steal the election; Romney lost it.

The GOP lost two senate seats through stupidity (Akin & Mourdock) and one because it is tough to win in Kennedy country.

I don’t think the GOP needs to descend into civil war. Beating an incumbent that has the MSM as his PR firm is a big ask in today’s dumbed down culture. Romney worked harder than anyone to climb that mountain and just fell short. Sandy didn’t help; talk about a perfect storm for Obama. A lot of people in Cleveland lost power for five days or more and had to deal with flooded basements. Voting was far from their minds last week.

But Obama may wish he lost. He can’t carry on borrowing 40c in every dollar the government spends. The capital markets are going to start charging higher interest rates. When that happens, the deficit explodes. No amount of revenue depressing tax hikes will solve the problem. Printing even more money won’t help. It will just ignite inflation. Business will expand, but only off-shore. Some will move completely. The GOP should do what it can to mitigate the coming financial catastrophes but its best strategy is to let it all happen on Obama’s watch. They don’t have much choice.
rickl on November 7, 2012 at 10:26 pm said:

thomass:

Well, maybe. But the Left has the full apparatus of the State to come down like a ton of bricks on anybody who looks at them funny.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s either civil war or death camps. There is no other choice now.

This really was the last chance we had to fix this at the ballot box.
thomass on November 7, 2012 at 10:28 pm said:

M J R Says:

“Hmmmmmmmmmmm?????”

I’m going with yes.
thomass on November 7, 2012 at 10:29 pm said:

rickl Says:

“This really was the last chance we had to fix this at the ballot box.”

I’m keeping an eye on the exits myself.
Occam's Beard on November 7, 2012 at 10:37 pm said:

Not enough easy geographical boundaries to take off IMO. I mean, even in Texas Obama got what, 38-40%? Where do you say, ‘we’re keeping this part’? It would be more Iraq or a central american model / a big mess that goes on forever.

The closest analogy would be the Spanish Civil War, where the protagonists were interdigitated geographically but still had bases of strength, e.g., Barcelona for the Reds, to which partisans would migrate.
Occam's Beard on November 7, 2012 at 10:50 pm said:

So I say we congratulate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for having the courage to run

I agree. It takes real conviction and fortitude to endure the nasty smears that will be leveled at any pro-American candidate. It pains me to say it, but I think we need to engage in the same sort of gutter tactics, of character assassination by innuendo, that lefties use against us. It’s reprehensible, but you cannot employ Marquis of Queensbury standards in a street fight with someone who is only too happy to kick you in the balls and gouge you in the eye. It’s unsportsmanlike to do so, but this isn’t a sport.

Make leftist candidates defend themselves against scurrilous accusations that cannot be refuted (perhaps use that old leftist standby, “I’m just asking questions”). This can’t be done by candidates themselves, but must be done by proxies.

This strategy should be used not only against Red candidates, but also, e.g., journalists. Picket their houses, insult them publicly, investigate every detail of their lives. Would Candy Crowley have been complicit with Obama – as she so obviously was – if she knew we’d investigate every detail of her life and make it public?
parker on November 7, 2012 at 11:08 pm said:

Forget the debt clock, Timmy is debt clock cubed:
http://tinyurl.com/cvbxqo5 The ship of state is manned by fools. Their supporters will be screaming into their ‘Obamaphones’ when the inevitable SHTF: http://tinyurl.com/9wjyp4j

They covet what we produce. They seek to exploit the system that protected them. They reap what they have not sowed. The end of their days will be bitter and ashes will be their blankets.
foxmarks on November 7, 2012 at 11:08 pm said:

parker: Thanks. I am prepared enough that it may violate the fire code. 🙂

For those more willing to consider an impending doom, the anarcho-libertarians may have some salve. The system depends on our consent. Every transaction you take off the white market deprives it of nourishment. Every deal done in the black or barter market builds a competing network.

If we’re heading toward a Euro system on the way to a fully-planned economy, getting acquainted with bribes and graft seems wise. Italy is the model. Despite a dysfunctional economy, I am led to believe it is pleasant place to live.
Curtis on November 7, 2012 at 11:18 pm said:

Pat, I like your post. I too am flummoxed by the loss. If the polls were so right, how come they missed the level of voter turnout so completely?

Something of a different nature is going on and it might be as simple as you suggested: people were disgusted with the never ending campaign and showed their disgust by disfranchising themselves. I think that’s a very good possibility.

And Occam’s point is entirely rational. An analogy exists in that military strategy is largely subservient to weapons and arms development. Where weapons are equal, strategy and morale become important. Where there is no parity, there really isn’t a war, merely a conquering. Shall we continue to deny the weapons are enemies are employing so effectively? What if that begins to include assassination? And so I see the concern of those who see no alternative to the downward spiral.

We could go Ghandi, but I doubt there is much persuasion in that vein given our opponents. I think they would be delighted to accept our proferred annihilation. They rather hint so.
Charles on November 7, 2012 at 11:39 pm said:

Good News! Good news – well, at least it is good news in my neck of the woods.

Some folks in my town finally got power back – just in time for their furnaces to heat up as we are getting covered with a couple of inches of snow (I think pipes in some homes were close to freezing and bursting). There are just a couple of hundred left without power now.

A couple of the gas stations that closed to due lack of gas have re-opened. I couldn’t get any as it isn’t my ration day, maybe I will tomorrow.

The local grocery store had some deliveries of dairy. Fresh cheeses such as cream cheese and hard cheese like bricks of cheddar. Fresh Orange juice which sold out before I got there – drats! No yogurt yet – drats again!

And meat in the meat department. yea!

No frozen stuff yet except popsicles which I can do without.

And the greengrocer has been restocked – their shelves were empty of everything except apples, winter squash, bags of onions, and other such “non-perishables.” It was nice to get some fresh scallions, peppers, and wow! some nice white mushrooms, along with beautiful heads of cauliflower.

Had some fresh food tonight for dinner – yippee!

Sorry, went a little off topic here – but, there are still a couple of hundred thousand here in NJ without power while we get covered with the first snowfall of the season from a nor’easter.

Sadly for many Obama being re-elected is not on their minds. Let’s keep them in our thoughts and hope for a quicker recovery.
Gringo on November 7, 2012 at 11:43 pm said:

Occam’s Beard:

This strategy should be used not only against Red candidates, but also, e.g., journalists. Picket their houses, insult them publicly, investigate every detail of their lives. Would Candy Crowley have been complicit with Obama — as she so obviously was — if she knew we’d investigate every detail of her life and make it public?

If journalists consider politicians fair game for being investigated, fair play suggests the same should apply to journalists. Who guards the guardians?

Another point about harassing “journalists” is that to the degree that they are spending time defending themselves, they are distracted from their jobs as Democratic Party operatives.

Make leftist candidates defend themselves against scurrilous accusations that cannot be refuted (perhaps use that old leftist standby, “I’m just asking questions”). This can’t be done by candidates themselves, but must be done by proxies.

I am reminded of a story that LBJ told. Someone running for county sheriff said, “My opponent F#@$#s hogs.”
“But you know he doesn’t F@#%$ hogs.”
“I know he doesn’t, but I love to hear him deny it.”

However, there are at least two problems with this. Who is asking these nasty questions? There were a lot of blog readers and writers who, in response to Harry Reid’s claiming that Mitt Romney was a tax cheat, circulated some nasty and probably false rumors about Senator Reid. Nothing happened. A person of power needs to be making these questions- but as you point out, NOT the candidate.

Second, there are some issues that are not productive, e.g., pointing out far leftist inclinations about politicians. Stanley Kurtz, John Drew, and others have written enough to show the Socialist/leftist inclinations of Obama. Obama also freely admitted this in Dreams. What has publicizing this done, even if it is true? Nothing/nada/bupkis/zilch.

As you said, scurrilous. Nothing scurrilous about socialist/lefty inclinations.
Otiose on November 7, 2012 at 11:55 pm said:

It’s hard to think of what could go wrong with Obama in control for another four years.

Controlling the House can stop or slow down some actions by Obama, but he can and will likely do a lot of damage.

Some formerly black swans are now very grey.

Bernanke is very likely to continue his voodoo economic unlimited currency creation. This will not create jobs, nor will it induce/encourage real growth no matter how many high priests of the Keynesian faith bless the experiment.

In the short to medium term this will continue and probably accelerate inflation abroad first, which will result in unrest that will make the Arab Spring look tame by comparison. What to us is modest inflation in food / energy here is life/death in many regions abroad.

Spending is unlikely to be brought under control and we can expect debt levels to continue climbing rapidly.

At some point – and no one knows when – the Feds buying Treasury issued debt will manifest as inflation here and in higher interest rates. In the early 80’s the higher interest rates were mild and due to tightening. We could well get the hyperinflation version. Bernanke claims to be able to stop it once it’s detected. I’m sure that once started it won’t stop until a lot of savings/capital is wiped out.

Remember the Keynesian answer to a huge debt overhang is to use inflation to eliminate the debt and lower relative labor costs. That savings is rendered worthless is a necessary sacrifice some of the haves will make for the greater good.

We can expect accelerated amnesty for illegal immigrants – a very widespread and loose version – via additional executive actions that will soon swell the ranks of new foreign born voters, who by the way tend to vote overwhelmingly left of center.

There will be no action taken to upgrade/repair our nuclear weapons reserve and don’t be surprised if further reductions aren’t undertaken – possibly unilaterally. The Russians have been working to upgrade their own – they wisely don’t trust the Chinese – and will likely lag in any reduction agreements. The Chinese have been building underground tunnels – miles upon miles – to house/hide their own weapons – about which we know nothing, because they refuse to participate in any reduction agreements. It’s likely they have many more bombs of a greater level of sophistication than what our ‘experts’ keep saying – just a ‘few hundred’.

Israel will come under renewed pressure to negotiate the right of return. Leverage will likely include the withholding of the not small amounts of annual aid.

Britain will likely be strongly encouraged if not pressured directly to give in to Argentina over those pesky islands.

You might want to sell stock in any companies with exposure to coal.

California and Illinois will be needing bail-outs soon – probably within the next four years. Even if the House can veto direct funds transfers there’s a lot the President can do via the Treasury to favor state debt in the markets.

Europe is about to resume their nervous breakdown induced by the shortfall in means to pay for their current lifestyle. The Fed did huge favors (at US taxpayer’s expense) for Euro banks by paying off in full on AIG’s derivative contracts, and then there’ve been the dollar/euro swaps to their central bank. I’ve been expecting new imaginative ways soon that will involve the Fed doing something to keep the European heads above water for as long as possible – anything to avoid cutting government workers/expenses over there.

Fortunately I’m an optimist. I think I had Obama pegged accurately some 5 years ago. Unfortunately it seems many of my fellow citizens need more than the last four years to understand Obama’s thinking and policies are bad for the country.

It will be important for blogs like this one and other media sources to make sure that as many as possible understand the causal link between Obama’s actions (or non actions) and the bad results so that we don’t repeat history. To this day many people believe Roosevelt was a positive force in the 30’s. That’s the larger goal – to make sure that left of center policies get credit due for any bad that they cause so that voters can deliver just retribution at the polls.
parker on November 7, 2012 at 11:58 pm said:

foxmarks says, “I am led to believe it is pleasant place to live.”

Rural Italy is pleasantly idyllic and will remain so for a while; but soon they will run out of “other people’s money”. This is true of Greece, Portugal, Spain, the USA, and all of Western Civilization.

http://tinyurl.com/yzunke7

“They mostly come at night, mostly.” Sharpen your knives, perpetually stay cocked and locked, and never forget that they can not take your liberty. All they can do is kill you.
M of Hollywood on November 7, 2012 at 11:59 pm said:

a book. great idea.
artfldgr: what is the vision of the book’s purpose? to convert? to capture the imagination of the unformed young? to awaken the leftist who is slipping into weariness? to catalog all the worthy thoughts for posterity? to start a movement? to direct action? to cast off hopelessness among those who already see the conservative foundation?
parker on November 8, 2012 at 12:01 am said:

Otiose Says:
November 7th, 2012 at 11:55 pm

Excellent take on what is coming.
neo-neocon on November 8, 2012 at 12:03 am said:

Pat: About those McCain voters that stayed home—I read somewhat that, with absentee ballots and the like, vote ordinarily trickle in for quite some time and the totals rise, often by millions. So those voters may turn up yet.
Baklava on November 8, 2012 at 12:15 am said:

Neo,

I haven’t had the stomach to read anything or even watch anything on TV.

1) I’ve come here only to see how you are doing – because I care.

2) I wasn’t mad, and as I told certain conservative coworkers and my sweetie today – we’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. Because why? Because I’m an able bodied conservative with many skills and I will always do the best for my family.

3) Yes, there is a certain amount of sadness that there will be so much hardship and despair out there because the policies that Obama is pushing and the fiscal cliff and all of that is just going to hurt a lot of people. But I can only do what I can do for my family and friends.

4) My sweetie informed me she voted for Romney. It’s a political conversion that she came to on her own because I did not have many conversations with her recently. Her SON TOLD her that he likes Romney because there was a black girl in school that said that she likes Obama because he is black and she is black and she hopes he wins for that reason. What did that do to a hispanic 16 year old? That showed him something. He came home telling his mom.

Racism is alive and well. 1/2 of my sweetie’s friends are posting today on facebook (they are hispanic) and they are posting racist things. They are friends. I don’t comment. I don’t “like”. I want to say to them – replace the word latina with white or hispanic with white and read to me what you just wrote.

Family oriented, free market loving, national security people can only hunker down and try their mightiest to support the House of Representatives in the coming fight.

Love my family. Love of all people. Love of country. Love of my favorite blog.

Peace!
Baklava on November 8, 2012 at 12:16 am said:

Btw, I read zero comments today. I don’t know what was posted. I won’t be able to for awhile.
neo-neocon on November 8, 2012 at 12:22 am said:

Baklava: welcome! I haven’t watched TV at all last night or today. Don’t think I’ll be doing much of that for a while (of course, I don’t ordinarily watch much TV news, but I’m sure if Romney had won I’d be watching it with pleasure).

That’s great news about your sweetie.
parker on November 8, 2012 at 12:29 am said:

“But Obama may wish he lost. He can’t carry on borrowing 40c in every dollar the government spends. The capital markets are going to start charging higher interest rates. When that happens, the deficit explodes. No amount of revenue depressing tax hikes will solve the problem. Printing even more money won’t help. It will just ignite inflation.”

Bernanke has been a busy bee. He is buying US T-bonds and mortgage backed securities to the tune of trillions. He has also been priming the pump of the waterless Euro well. So far hyper-inflation has been kept at bay but the firewall grows weaker day by day. The reckoning approaches. Forget the Mayans; 2014 and the full inception of Obamacare is the tipping point.

Thrash on: http://tinyurl.com/bjdxfc7
Bob From Virginia on November 8, 2012 at 12:38 am said:

First allow me to repost what I commented on another thread:
I just spoke to my daughter. She voted for Obama because after watching the foreign policy debate she did not see much of a difference between the two candidates. Needless to say she had heard nothing of Benghazi or Honduras as she and her husband are tied down with work and school and don’t time for much of anything else. They had a copy of the ACA and could understand its ramifications. Finally she said that Romney seemed to offer them nothing they could not get from Obama. I did not ask her if she knew of the messed up SOFA in Iraq, the betrayal of the surge in Afghanistan, the absurd Cairo speech, the insults to Netanyahu or the stimulus to Obama’s green buddies who subsequently went bankrupt. Romney lost the information war especially in foreign affairs. The whole disaster is explained far simpler that I would have thought.

As for the future, we here understand Obama or we do not. If we are right then the rest of the world will have a painful awakening while we move our money into gold. If we do not then we are all completely delusional and should be committed for our own safety.
parker on November 8, 2012 at 12:49 am said:

I wish to acknowledge neo for providing a space of sanity in a world gone insane. Neo, you are a gracious, wise, and patient host. (So say we all.) And thanks to all of the regular commenters at neo-neocon. Although we sometimes disagree with one another; when it comes to core principals we find commonality. I never doubt the sincerity or sense of conviction I find here. Bless you all in the days ahead.
parker on November 8, 2012 at 12:56 am said:

“… the rest of the world will have a painful awakening while we move our money into gold…”

In November, 2008 I began moving my money into silver and into long term food storage and reloading supplies. Speaking of long; I’m long on 8MM, .223, and .357 mag. You caliber may vary. 😉
Baklava on November 8, 2012 at 1:22 am said:

Love you Neo! and Parker!

BTW,

I cashed out a 401K today.

Not that I needed to.

There were a few reasons. I have about 5 baskets and that was one.

Yes, I’ll be paying penalties because I’m not retirement age.

Yes, I’ll be paying income taxes but it’ll be this year’s income tax rates.

DO YOU PEOPLE know what tax rates will be in 20 years? I don’t. They could be back up to 70% which Reagan lowered them from.

I do NOT understand the principle of tax deferred at this point in time. I believe i saved myself a bundle on that one. 🙂

I did it also to pay for my wedding coming up in December.

Cheers to me and my sweetie!
Curtis on November 8, 2012 at 1:22 am said:

A night about ten years ago I fell asleep while reading. I had taken the lampshade off the lamp because I wanted the fuller light.

The lamp fell over and the bare lightbulb heated and began to smolder my pillow. I have not forgotten the battle while I was asleep. A voice yelled at me insistenly to wake up. Another force attempted to keep me in deep sleep.

I did wake up. The pillow was crusted in black ash and the room was filled with acrid smoke. I remember the incident because it had played out as a battle between the voice that said wake up and the force compelling sleep. It seemed to me they were separate from me.

I get that intutition now that this is no ordinary contest. I sense there are dark forces compelling sleep so that a fire may break out from which the sleeper will not recover. And there is a voice commanding “awake.” The fire has not yet started but smoke is billowing and alarm is surely being given. In the coming days, I will not be surprised to see various manifestations.
Baklava on November 8, 2012 at 1:23 am said:

Now I need some farmland and some chickens ! Oh! And a river that I can get hydro power from!
Baklava on November 8, 2012 at 1:26 am said:

Curtis my friend,

We’ll be okay.

The most I worry about is foreign enemies that want to kill the infidel.

Internally, I worry that we’ll go into a fiscal mess that creates havoc for so many people and crime goes through the roof for so many people without hope.

But for some reason – I know that there are enough GOOD people in this country that are family oriented that we’ll be fine.
IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States on November 8, 2012 at 1:39 am said:

BTW, since the media certainly won’t say anything about it, I just thought I’d note this:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505124_162-57545531/ohio-faces-controversy-over-voting-machines-update/

http://www.dailypaul.com/261322/ohio-recently-installed-untested-uncertified-software-patches-on-ess-voting-machines-in-39-counties-says-liberal-tabloid

http://www.forextv.com/forex-news-story/election-2012-irregularities-appear-in-ohio-and-penn-voting-machines

Irregular behavior in two different swing states. *Hmmm*.

Why? Why do I still find the results improbable?

===================
I noted this earlier today —-
===================

WHAT THE F***.

From Yahoo comments:

=====================================
Johnny – 8 hrs ago
Yay! We saved the schools! Unlimited money for life! South Korea spends $4,500 per student per year. California just raised their spending from $14,500 to around 18,500 per year per student and South Korea runs rings around our students in terms of academic abilities. It was never about funding as to why California schools have been sliding and failing. It’s a Cultural problem.
=====================================

WTF, “wtf”?

582 Rate a Thumb Up
52 Rate a Thumb Down

WHERE the F*** were these people YESTERDAY?!?!?

LOLZ.

I’ve been seeing shit like this for the last TWO MONTHS. Heavily anti-liberal thumbs-up/thumbs-down votes.

It doesn’t seem to me to make SENSE that you’d have a 10-1 response to something like that and still have *equal* votes in the polls that COUNT.

I’m not a conspiracy type, but it would be a damned good thing if some people spent their time seriously looking into this shit. That’s all I’m saying. Something smells.
RandomThoughts on November 8, 2012 at 1:59 am said:

Occam’s Beard, re: …California, which, not content with drifting toward the apocalypse, is in a power dive toward it.

Power dive indeed. My own district (recently gerrymandered to suit the Democrats) just elected a carpetbagging liberal to Congress, putting an end to 70 years of conservative representation. For me, this is in many ways worse than Obama’s reelection; I am now represented by someone who has no vested interest in my community or my county (never having lived here until she moved here to run for office) and whose political and personal philosophies are absolutely in no way whatsoever reflective of my own.

I feel like I’ve been politically violated.

Today at the Store Where I Work, a customer grinned at me and asked (I wish to God I were making this up) “So, did the Election Bunny bring you everything you wanted last night?”

And that, my friends, is the mentality of the liberal voter in California. It’s like Easter; we get goodies when we vote!

It took a moment of genuine effort and a deep breath, but I managed to refrain from responding with anything other than the total amount of his purchase.

If California is, as it seems, a mirror of the country as a whole, we are truly doomed as a nation.
rickl on November 8, 2012 at 5:17 am said:

Charles Says:
November 7th, 2012 at 11:39 pm

A couple of the gas stations that closed to due lack of gas have re-opened. I couldn’t get any as it isn’t my ration day, maybe I will tomorrow.

The local grocery store had some deliveries of dairy. Fresh cheeses such as cream cheese and hard cheese like bricks of cheddar. Fresh Orange juice which sold out before I got there — drats! No yogurt yet — drats again!

And meat in the meat department. yea!

Your comment reads like a dispatch from the future.

The only thing missing was, “And Big Brother raised our chocolate ration from 30 to 20 grams per week! Yay!”
rickl on November 8, 2012 at 5:19 am said:

RandomThoughts Says:
November 8th, 2012 at 1:59 am

Today at the Store Where I Work, a customer grinned at me and asked (I wish to God I were making this up) “So, did the Election Bunny bring you everything you wanted last night?”

You’re on trial for murder now, right?
Sergey on November 8, 2012 at 5:19 am said:

thomas: to think that free market works is not an ideology, this is an empirical fact. Ideologies are not about empirical reality, they are about more general assertions how this reality can or cannot be changed, that is, about the future. The closest thing conservatives ever came to genune ideology was PNAC – Project of New American Century. This was a faulty ideology, because it supposed that all cultures are basically equal and that democracy and free market can work everywhere. This obviously is not true. Without Protestant working ethics and universal trust they don’t work. They don’t work even in Southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy), even less in Arab world or other Third World countries. So what is next, after neoconservatism failed? What is the general vision of the future for US and the world as a whole conservatives can propose? I cannot see any inspirational ideas about this, only defencive, like resisting liberalism and islamism. To win any war, ideological included, defence is not enough, a positive goal is needed.
blert on November 8, 2012 at 6:37 am said:

Random…

Obviously, you’re dealing with a hop-head.
kolnai on November 8, 2012 at 7:29 am said:

On the theme of intra-right civil war, I’ve stated my views in other threads. The problem in the election, from a philosophical perspective, was not that the people rejected socons or fiscal conservatives exclusively – it’s that they rejected both of them, decisively. That is, the people rejected all planks of conservatism (one would think that the mere fact of them voting FOR Obama, the incarnation of anti-conservatism in all respects, would make that clear).

Mind you, I’m not saying they consciously or intentionally rejected all of this – they may have, but probably not. I’m saying only that this is the upshot, the implication, of their choice.

A few things. First, when we go back a few elections we see this:

2006: Democrat Congress
2008: Democrat President and Congress
2010: Democrat Senate and Republican House 2012: Democrat President and Senate, Republican House

By contrast, on the state level, we’ve seen a pretty steady move toward Republicans.

What this says to me is that on a national level the people don’t want Republicans setting policy, but rather think of them as liberals like Sam Tenenhaus do – a responsible opposition party that will put a check on the more extreme proposals of those they want to govern. This is not the same as wanting divided government – that means balance (i.e., Presidency in one party’s hands, Congress in the other party’s hands). This is – as a trend, from 2006-present – pretty clearly wanting Democrats to prevail on policy, with pruning and checking from Republicans.

At the same time, going GOP at the state level is a sign that when the rubber hits the road and the problems come home, people are prepared to trust Republicans to set policy.

I mentioned Bryan Caplan’s “Myth of the Rational Voter” in a prior thread, and this seems to be an instance of his thesis – when the “price” of a vote is higher, it gives people more incentive to use it rationally, while the converse holds, mutatis mutandis, for when the “price” is negligible.

Thus, in a national vote, the price of a vote is at its lowest, thanks both to the massive amounts of people voting and to scope of the choice. Contrariwise, in an intra-state decision, the electorate is much smaller, magnifying the import of one’s vote, and the impact of the eventual policies hits “closer to home,” and more quickly.

Now, my second point is an extension of that one. It isn’t necessarily that the people consciously and knowingly repudiated the conservative plank in toto (we still saw, e.g., more people opposing Obamacare than favoring it in exit polls). But they did repudiate it in effect. They did this for many reasons, but one big cause was surely the low price of their vote, which gave them a blank check, as it were, to indulge their emotions and desire to “feel good.”

But then, one might ask, if there was nothing new about the “price” of a vote in 2012, why did the people act irrationally and emotionally in a way they never quite have before? Very good question, and that’s probably where demographics, the Gramscian complex overlaying society, the growth of the “taker” mentality, and other causal factors come in.

Perhaps it can be put like this: in the past, “Americanism” was something that always had the potential to give a “warm glow” to a majority of people. “Personal responsibility,” “self-government,” “the Constitution,” “American exceptionalism,” and all of the conservative buzzwords and slogans had a place in the electorate’s psyche to go and resonate profoundly.

However. Subtract the un-Americanized segment of the population, including ghettoized immigrants, many (if not most) blacks, airheaded white college students and young singles, particularly women, and government workers and unions, and you get pretty much what we saw on Tuesday. It wasn’t that Romney/Ryan ran a bad campaign or didn’t make a principled argument (as Jonah Goldberg thinks). They definitely did, even providing some nice Reaganesque phrases, such as “trickle down government,” “picking only the losers,” etc. Rather, it was that these arguments and buzz-phrases had no place to go in the minds of the un-Americanized to activate a warm fuzzy feeling.

Again, I’m repeating what I’ve said elsewhere (for which I apologize), but this point bears repetition: saying, as Goldberg and many others have, that we “failed to make a compelling argument” is comforting – similar to the Democrats eternal excuse that they just need to work on their messaging – but for that reason we should be wary of it. The lesson of this election is not comforting – I think we all sense that – so we shouldn’t run to the comforting account of it. The lesson is that conservative arguments DO NOt RESONATE anymore with a majority of the voting populace who will turn out in national elections.

Understanding this, we can retrodict the election results pretty well. If the Caplan thesis is correct, and conservative phrasing no longer produces a warm glow in a majority of national-election voters, and, finally, the common denominator in the make-up of that majority is that they are “un-Americanized,” then Tuesday is almost exactly what we would expect to see.

Alright – so does this recommend any course of action for the future? Right off the bat, the first recommendation is to cease and desist with all of the fractiousness. Conservatism and conservative arguments are BOTH libertarian and socon in different respects – that needle is usually threaded with an emphasis on federalism – and NEITHER of them resonate, because both are “traditional” American arguments which appeal only to the Americanized among us. “Self-government” and “personal responsibility” fall on deaf ears as much as “traditional family” and “the life of the fetus” do.

I emphasize once more that cutting each other’s throats is a product of seeking a comforting lesson from this supremely discomfiting disaster. How nice it would be if all we had to do was drop the socon stuff and focus on Paulbot themes to get the resonance we require. How nice it would be if all we needed was to talk more about families and moral communities.

But the reality isn’t so nice. The reality is that both sides here are making American arguments to un-Americanized people. For illustration, think of what it’s like making libertarian/socon arguments to a European. It’s not just that we can’t get the messaging right. It’s that it’s absolutely pointless, like smashing your head on an iron maiden.

On the flip side, though, we have also seen that when elections take on a more local complexion and the price of a vote seems higher to people, these arguments can get through to people, even in blue states. There’s nothing we can do to raise the price of a vote in a national election – that depends on events and luck.

The other factor, as we’ve said, it the Gramscian complex, and this we can fight actively. This tells me that the suggestions of Occam’s Beard should be seriously considered. It is very important to have an army of surrogates deployed and ready to character-assassinate, investigate, slime, and undermine. Breitbart was a master of this. There must be more of it, and it must percolate up into the party.

Rich conservatives need to take some lessons from Rupert Mourdock. Buy out papers, magazines, news outlets – use the money to create chaos in whatever Granscian institution we’re targeting. Money should become the political equivalent of a smart bomb.

There’s nothing we can do about the schools except keep pushing for choice while building new media outlets.

The general idea on this score is that we need to stop talking strategy in abstractions. We can’t “combat the MSM,” but we can deploy smart bomb money at specific targets and create tactical havoc. A right-wing George Soros is long, long overdue.

The idea behind this is that we’re not “making arguments,” but rather destroying characters and institutions, appealing to emotions. Make people feel sour about democrats and they’ll be more emotionally prepared to swallow whatever arguments we forward. And, to paraphrase Everett Dirkson, “A Democrat here and a Democrat there, and pretty soon we’re talking real emotional resonance.”

The other prong of this is something that has been mentioned by commenters above – the cool factor. We need young, sharp, ethnic candidates. This is not an ANSWER to our problems; it is merely a PRECONDITION. Yes, we will be attacked no matter what. But it’s WORSE when the recipient is a wealthy white male. We need to lessen that blow however we can.

In sum: counter-propaganda. We need to focus on emotions in our battle plans, because that is where the majority is. Right now, we are all cerebral, trusting the populace to still have that old emotional attachment to traditionally American slogans. They don’t. We need to reach their emotions in other ways. This is NOT to say that we should abandon our American slogans or arguments – not at all. All it is saying is that we need to prepare people emotionally to LISTEN to us.

And that means destroying Democrats and Democrat institutions.

That’s all I’ve got for now.
Papa Dan on November 8, 2012 at 7:57 am said:

Kolnai writes-
“Perhaps it can be put like this: in the past, “Americanism” was something that always had the potential to give a “warm glow” to a majority of people. “Personal responsibility,” “self-government,” “the Constitution,” “American exceptionalism,” and all of the conservative buzzwords and slogans had a place in the electorate’s psyche to go and resonate profoundly.”

I believe this is it in a nutshell. To speak of being a proud American to an ever larger segment of the population has the same connotation as saying you are proud Nazi. The Ward Churchill’s of this nation are winning.
kolnai on November 8, 2012 at 8:04 am said:

To amplify my post, everybody should read this piece from Jay Nordlinger:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/332979/bitterfest-2012-jay-nordlinger

Key remark:

“The Left is winning, in more than the electoral sense. The Left is winning culturally – psychologically, spiritually, if you will…

“The Left has… what? They have education, the movies, entertainment television, popular music, the news media – the core shaping institutions. And we have… what? Country music, talk radio, and NASCAR? Ain’t enough! Need more juice!

“In this election, Mitt Romney did not have merely Obama and the Democrats to overcome: He had the grievance culture, the entitlement culture, and the Hollywood culture to overcome. These cultures, together, have triumphed in American life.

“Perhaps the current America simply would not and could not elect a Mitt Romney. He is, in a way, out of his time. Out of step. A throwback…

“In America today, we have 14-year-olds screwing like banshees. Everyone thinks that’s cool, or most people do. We have abortion on demand. Nobody gets married, except gays. Divorce is over 50%, I believe. It’s ‘no fault’ divorce, at that. ‘The culture is a sewer,’ as my friend Mark Helprin says.

“Could a Mitt Romney win in this environment? An environment that adores Bill Clinton? Cool is king. Obama is cool. Romney is not. He’s square.”

All very insightful, and true. But as you all can guess, I think he’s straining not to say what his analysis clearly implies: it wasn’t Romney per se that didn’t fit into this America, it was Conservatism.

A much bigger problem.
Sharon W on November 8, 2012 at 8:20 am said:

I, too, want to join the chorus of commenters thanking Neo for this blog. As a person who grew up as a news junkie (in Chicago, our family received 2 newspapers a day-3 on Sunday), I cancelled both L.A. newspapers the day after the election in 2008. I wrote a letter outlining the reasons why I held the media responsible for the election of the President. Every time I have been called since, or solicited since I repeat my reason for refusing to give them my business. The L.A. Times wanted to offer it free for 3 months (needed subscriber roles I’m sure). I told them if I found their paper on my lawn I would call them to remove the garbage they left on my property. A number of years prior, I gave up watching TV news but occasionally watched Fox. I stopped that altogether when the debacle of Hurricane Katrina coverage exposed the disinformation and foolishness of television news. So I’ve relied on the internet exclusively for my news these last 4 years. Without disparaging other sites, I will say this group of commenters is a rewarding read. The mining that must be done, or the need to overlook foul language or snark, do not make it worth my while elsewhere. So again, Neo, thanks for a wonderful balance of topics mixed in and your insightful analysis. As for dealing with the fallout of this election, more than 57,000,000 citizens feel as we do. As a Catholic, I will double-down in prayer, but I will not give up; for my children, and grandchild and in honor of every American past and present who has sacrificed for the sake of our country.
NeoConScum on November 8, 2012 at 8:21 am said:

Wednesday’s Quote of the Day:

“In a nation of children, Santa Claus wins.”

Rush…He was as flattened as many of us, but to the point as always.
carl in atlanta on November 8, 2012 at 8:30 am said:

I don’t know how many here like what Bill Whittle has to say, but I just finished watching his post election manifesto — apparently recorded late Tuesday night ( 11/6/2012). It’s long (and I usually don’t have the patience to watch long or even longish YouTube videos), but I was impressed enough to feel compelled to post this link to it:

A new Beginning

He may be onto something. It’s not “going Galt” exactly; it’s more like creating a separate society withing a society. Having grown up as a Christian in an area which has a sizable Jewish population, and having had many Jewish partners, colleagues and friends over the past 30 years of practicing law, I have often marveled at and admired the Jewish culture and people, particularly their seemingly unique ability to be good (and incredibly productive) citizens within the larger community, while maintaining a discrete, self-contained and self-supporting society within the the larger society. This model seems to be what Bill W is advocating. Is he onto something? I don’t know. But he impressed me enough to induce me to pass the word along, FWIW.

It certainly made me feel better.
southernjames on November 8, 2012 at 8:34 am said:

On the one hand, I agree with Kolnai and others who talk about the larger cultural issues impacting the outcome. Indeed, as Jay Cost at the Weekly Standard points out, 2012 definitely demonstrated the impact of “indentity politics.”

However, as Cost also points out, this outcome had a lot to do with marketing and propaganda and campaign strategy.

Obama’s strategy was just flat out better than the “party of stupid”, and in fact was pretty brilliant. Two pronged: 1) hit hard on trying to get his base to turn out. War on Women, Mitt will take away your birth control; GOP hates blacks and will “put you back in chains.” 2) The second prong, is to try to convince the people who did NOT like Obama and had no intention of voting for him, that Mitt was “the other,” and not “like them.” Rich, elite, out of touch – Bain Capital, Dog on roof, Binders, Big Bird, gave my wife cancer, etc., etc. – to depress turnout of the middle class suburban and rural white vote. Which it did. It worked. THAT was the surprise the conservative pundits (and people like me) were not expecting. We did not think it would work.

I also heard that as it turns out, Obama started campaigning for 2012, in Ohio, starting in 2009! First the auto bailout, combined with something like a total of 60 visits to that State over the next 3 years, combined with attack ads on Romney in Ohio and not running anywhere else, that began DURING THE GOP PRIMARIES!
rickl on November 8, 2012 at 8:51 am said:

I’m surprised that this quote, allegedly from Valerie Jarrett, didn’t get more play:

After we win this election, it’s our turn. Payback time. Everyone not with us is against us and they better be ready because we don’t forget. The ones who helped us will be rewarded, the ones who opposed us will get what they deserve. There is going to be hell to pay. Congress won’t be a problem for us this time. No election to worry about after this is over and we have two judges ready to go.
kolnai on November 8, 2012 at 8:58 am said:

rickl –

Is that for real? I honestly can’t tell anymore. The difference between conservative caricature of leftists and real leftists has become almost zero.

If it is real: Come and get me, mother***er. As Parker said, the worst they can do is kill me.
rickl on November 8, 2012 at 9:01 am said:

kolnai:
It’s from Ulsterman’s “White House Insider”, and some people doubt his veracity.

But it sounds about right for this gang of Chicago thugs.
southernjames on November 8, 2012 at 9:14 am said:

rickl at 8:51. Why on earth are you surprised Jarrett’s quote did not get “more play?” From whom, pray tell?

The Romney camp? This is the campaign that, in the words of some pundit – out of fear of somehow offending the delicate and fragile sensibilities of people who voted for Obama but were now not so sure — put the emphasis at their convention on Obama being a terrific guy who just didn’t have a good resume — rather than a) championing IDEAS; and b) pointing out that Obama’s ideology is fatal.

Obama made non-stop PERSONAL attacks on Romney’s CHARACTER in his ads, in Florida. These were not Super Pac (“swift boat” ) type of ads — these were HIS ads, closed out by the “I’m B.O., and I approve this message.” Hateful, viscious, shameful.

Turns out, Romney blew it big time by taking the “high road” — the “we can’t afford four more years of this” theme was weak soup, and the jobs jobs jobs jobs, and nothing else theme was too one trick pony and he missed on all sort of target opportunities.

But back to Jarrett….From the media? From the same media that vetted Obama by e.g., looking into his ties to the terrorist Bill Ayers? From the same media that contrasted Obama’s love of J. Wright and professed regular attendance every Sunday for 20 years, with his 180 degree shift of claiming “not to know” Wright? From the same media who pointed out that Obama’s green czar Van Jones was an avowed communist and a 9-11 truther? Oh yeah – none of that ever happened.

After all….”Everyone” knows that MSNBC is left wing, Fox News is right wing, and CNN and the three networks are “in the middle.” That’s what most of the people I come into contact with actually believe. So if something is JUST on Fox, or Glen Beck, or a right wing blog or radio show, it must be some sort of right wing ranting — otherwise it would be on the middle of the road, “in-between” media. “I mean, if the Libya cover-up thing, that or Fast and Furious thing was really all that important, wouldn’t it be on the ABC nightly news?”

THAT is what people believe.
LisaM on November 8, 2012 at 9:16 am said:

The left behaved abominably in this election. No lie was too over the top. Inconvenient truths were simply ignored. They voted like they were making a snarky discussion-board post, or an oh-so-witty Tweet. “Take that, Mitches!” And now we all have to live with it.

I am in utter despair. I really believe that all hope is lost, barring some catastrophe that bursts their bubble. I despair for my son, the worst feeling in the world.

I lay the blame squarely on the media and academia. My only consolation is that they’ll suffer right along with the rest of us. I love Occam’s suggestion of turning the tables on the journalists. Candy Crowley is the vision in my brain when I think “corrupt media.” I’m all in on making her life a misery.
ziontruth on November 8, 2012 at 9:40 am said:

Mrs Whatsit,

“I am thinking not just of switching off the TV but also switching off the internet once and for all;”

There’s a big difference between the all-passive TV, where you can only shout at the screen, and the Internet, where you can make your voice heard to more than those in physical vicinity. That’s why I stopped watching TV long ago (the only thing my HD screen in the living room ever shows is DVD movies streamed from my laptop), while I’ve never been able to give up on the Internet, frustrated though I may be. All the same, you’re right:

“it has done nothing in the long run but to break my heart and fill my head with fear and anger.”

Yeah, there’s that feeling of inadequacy; your voice is heard on the Internet (contra with the TV), but how much of a difference does it make? My hopefulness with regard to Internet activity has its highs and lows.

“Except for here. This place, this particular small little node on the giant internet – Neo’s place – I think this is a place of family and friends.”

It’s not the real thing, but our hostess deserves credit for making it as close as it could get. Her feat of striking the balance between the two extremes of an echo chamber and a troll-infested free-for-all is impressive, to say the least.

thomass,

The Leftists like their Muslim allies get to learn each time anew that living by the sword (of generating strife) means dying by that same sword. The scandal is that they always forget that message after the storm is passed. Human rationality would abandon Marxism and Islam as failed political movements, but human rationality has never been a big player in history.

Baklava,

“Btw, I read zero comments today. I don’t know what was posted. I won’t be able to for awhile.”

Baklava, the club of conservatives going local, Galt, real-life and family is a big one. This was exactly as Neo called it, a watershed election.

The image of Frodo and Samwise sitting on the stairs of the pass of Morgul, just after the march of the orc army, is one I can’t get out of my head. Least of all can I dislodge the exchange between the two hobbits, where the one compares events to the heroic tales of old, and the other remarks that somehow a heroic tale doesn’t sound so exciting when you’re a character in it. Which brings another exchange, from the beginning of the book, to mind:

– “Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.”
– “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
– “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Indeed. May HaShem give all good people the strength to withstand adversity.
M of Hollywood on November 8, 2012 at 9:56 am said:

Adding to the chorus: thank you neo.
This is a thread to save. I almost wish the comments could be synopsized down the side:
London Trader violence prediction
Carl in Atlanta schadenfreude
George Pal RIP American Exceptionalism
Artfldgr their power for their perks.
Sam L we must grow together
Artfldgr MEAD Mutually Assured Economic Destruction
Rose A One Party Nation
sergey coherent ideology resonating with present population
steve both parties are invested in the current arrangement
ziontruth numerous code words (aka “let me be clear”)
steve – are they sociopaths?
sally – a valiant effort not to be depressed w help from Jedi
ziontruth – double-headed demon – so like another tribe
neo-neocon – blaming has become “Presidential”
Artfldgr 100 books (lifetime’s worth)
Bilwick question: “Wh is it abt serfdom U find so appealing?”
Curtis – results of worshipping man, not God
ziontruth – Marxist-Islamic unholy alliance
gcotharn – be brave; they’re going to blame you anyway
neo-neo – no, not cooperate w lib agenda …
gcotharn – repeat, no apologies
DNW – it’s ‘liberation from the moral burden of self.’
ziontruth – gentlemanlyness signals weakness – on not-stooping
southern james – quiet, polite obstruction

Random Thoughts CA redistricting to fail to represent
M of Hollywood on November 8, 2012 at 9:59 am said:

I’ll finish soon – a Liberal just knocked on my door . . . coffee . . .
Occam's Beard on November 8, 2012 at 10:38 am said:

I am in utter despair. I really believe that all hope is lost, barring some catastrophe that bursts their bubble. I despair for my son, the worst feeling in the world.

Me too. The despair rather comes in waves. And looking at my boys, I feel great sadness. Their lives are going to be tough, their opportunities fewer and more limited, and no one is going to give them a break. Quite the contrary.

I love Occam’s suggestion of turning the tables on the journalists.

I’m pleased to hear that my suggestion has not met with opprobrium. I had some trepidation about submitting it, and philosophically find it repugnant, but I do think it’s needful. We have to raise the ante on the Left’s minions. If you think about it, we self-censor in public because we don’t want to deal with the vituperation leftists will direct at us (not featuring a bumper sticker for fear of vandalism representing a prosaic example of the phenomenon). We need to fight fire with fire.
southernjames on November 8, 2012 at 11:10 am said:

Occam at 10:38- I just wish the Republican politicians themselves would grow a spine, and turn on the journalists.

It would not necessarily have to be pit-bull Newt Gingrich style slap downs – which may energize our (small, now a minority nationally) base, but does not serve to make any “converts” or open eyes that are currently blind (e.g., the millions who truly believe that CNN/ABC/CBS/NBC is “in the middle” between MSNBC and Fox)…

It could simply be polite, direct, calm and to the point.

“Mr. Rubio, How do you explain the discrepancies in your descriptions of how your parents came to America from Cuba with the facts we uncovered that they were actually not penniless and were legal immigrants!” (Just to use a made up example).

Wrong, FORMER GOP approach: Get defensive and attempt to explain oneself.

STOP PLAYING BY THEIR RULES!

NEW approach – and hammer then with this tactic over and over and over again:

“Katie, any questions or inquiry about any detail or fact of President Obama’s entire 44 years of his life leading up to his 2008 election were considered strictly off limits, by every single journalist at your network and by the national media in general. Why was that?”

Make her sputter……”uh this question is about you sir, and not the President – are you going to avoid the question?”

“Well you know, Katie, I believe that, in the spirit of fairness and journalistic objectivity, total non-interest in a candidate’s past and no challenges to his descriptions of his past, should be the standard that should be adopted and apply accross the board to all politicians, since that is the standard you firmly established for Mr. Obama – wouldn’t you agree? Or is it your opinion that Republican politicians should be held to a different standard?”

Sputter sputter – “well you are just avoiding….” cut her off.. “Are you opposed to fairness Katie?”
physicsguy on November 8, 2012 at 11:14 am said:

“I am in utter despair. I really believe that all hope is lost, barring some catastrophe that bursts their bubble. I despair for my son, the worst feeling in the world.”

I was beginning to wonder if this sentiment is common only to those of us here. However, I am seeing the same feeling across many people I know who share a more conservative viewpoint. I have seen the idea that the republic is now ended on many different forums, and in personal conversations.

I wonder what this means. I am getting the impression that 49% of the population are in a state of shock. Have THEY truly won? Is there no way out, except to wait for the collapse? Have the 49% given up, or will the shock turn to anger? At the moment I don’t see the 49% arming themselves and marching on DC demanding their country back. Just too many quantum branchings in this new “many worlds” we find ourselves in.
Debra on November 8, 2012 at 11:38 am said:

Conservatives should be furious at Conservative pundits who lie to them and live off them! And furious at those who censor those who try to ring the bell of reason.
Teri Pittman on November 8, 2012 at 11:47 am said:

I thought of a couple of things this morning. One, we need to stop talking about a “big tent” and start making it happen. We can’t allow the establishment politicians to shut out Tea Party and Libertarian members. We would have done a lot better by being conciliatory towards the Paul supporters and including them in the process. Same thing with the Tea Partiers and Gay Conservative. We need to be seen as an inclusive group, not a country club.

Next is small businesses. We paid a lot of lip service to small businesses creating jobs. We even did a decent job of showcasing a few of them. How about a lot more of that and an occasional “no” to corporations? I was thinking about maybe a website that regularly showcases small business owners, talks about how they got started and about how much regulation restricts what they can do. Let them talk about how hard they work and how much they enjoy providing jobs to people. Let’s do this without chosing them for their politics. Think about how people rallied around Chick-a-Fil. Why not support them up front?

And one other thing, if you look at back in the day when Nixon ran the first time, he championed values. That discipline, thrift, morality that was present at the time felt represented by the Republican party. We know there are a lot of families that are struggling, good people trying to raise their children. We need to support that, without preaching morality. We need to let people see that those values mean a more successful life.

And it might be good to shine a light how good our Congressmen and women have it. They aren’t popular right now. They get outrageous perks and love to pass programs that don’t affect them. We just might be able to get some reforms in place in front of the next elections. If they love obamacare, then let’s let them share in it. Get rid of all special medical programs for Congress and their employees and put them into the same programs that the rest of us are in.
southernjames on November 8, 2012 at 11:53 am said:

Physics guy at 11:14. In terms of “doing something” I think the 49% is completely splintered – aside from sharing our general despair, we see a wide range across the spectrum…….some saying “Go Galt,” some like Ann Barnhardt saying “don’t pay your taxes at all,” some saying “work hard now for the 2014 mid-terms;”……some taking the Bill Whittle approach (watched it via Gerard V’s site American Digest); some saying “reach out to the hispanics, et. al;” others saying “no that’s pandering.”

We still have the stupid and destructive social con vs. fiscal con/libertarian idiotic internecine war that splits us…..which I am so f–king tired of.

As for me — at this point, yes I am in a state of shock still – and I have pretty much given up – in terms of given up hope. Nobody is going to secede. No armies of white middle class married church/temple attending traditional oriented patriotic Americans (the only demographic it appears Romney won a majority of votes for) is going to pull out their pitch forks and march on DC. That is a pipe dream.

If there is any violence at all, it will be a continuing onslaught of “wildings,” “sucker knock-out punch games” “flash mobbing” etc., that will get uglier and larger and more frequent, as the slow motion crash continues, and even less hope combined with even MORE class envy propaganda is unleashed to keep the resentment of the Lefty base energized.

Now that the statist approach has been validated, and the statist are in total control? We ain’t seen NOTHING yet in terms of regulations coming down the pike, “hate speech” laws and other p.c. speech and thought controls; “carbon” taxes; FCC shut downs or harrassment of “hate” media; EPA/OSHA harrassment/shut downs of the “wrong” (e.g, not a crony capitalist contributer to the “right” politician) companies; etc.

Short term? Hunkering down with immediate family; getting ready to scale back our lifestyle drastically. Long term plan? Haven’t a clue. Haven’t…a…clue.
Sharon W on November 8, 2012 at 11:55 am said:

Carl in Atlanta: ‘He may be onto something. It’s not “going Galt” exactly; it’s more like creating a separate society withing a society.’

My husband and I are in our 50’s. Presently our oldest child lives and works in this city. We are close and watch our granddaughter a minimum of once a week. Our one son is an active duty Marine whose term comes up Jan. 12th. His package to enter MSG school is about to be decided upon. After Benghazi and Obama’s re-election, he is trying to determine if it is approved whether or not he should accept it. Our younger son is finishing his undergraduate degree. Our small home in Los Angeles is almost paid for. Starting this week, we are establishing a fund to buy a home in a small-town in a red state in which to retire. We will be actively looking for a place where we can live amongst people that share our values and principles. These places exist and are not going away, no matter how much the government-loving, urban areas foist upon us their redistribution policies. My husband and I know how to enjoy life, appreciate and take care of nice things, work hard but be satisfied with what we have and can provide for ourselves without it owning us. So there will exist 2 options: Continue living in L.A., being an influence for long-held American ideals and have the closeness we’ve enjoyed with our immediate family, or eventually move with our sons establishing their lives in the new place (a get out of dodge possibility for their young lives). Any suggestions offered by readers here to start us on our search would be welcome.
Mr. Frank on November 8, 2012 at 12:08 pm said:

Sharon W.
Look at the deep south anywhere from Texas to South Carolina outside of big cities with the exception of Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. Your neighbors will be conservative as are the schools and politicians.
Occam's Beard on November 8, 2012 at 12:35 pm said:

We’re looking at Alabama. We have been looking at Arizona, but are concerned that the liberals are starting infest it too, and don’t wish to engage in a demographic surfing safari any more than necessary.
Debra on November 8, 2012 at 12:38 pm said:

Occam — lots of fairly inexpensive nice property around Ole Miss.
Occam's Beard on November 8, 2012 at 12:51 pm said:

Debra, sounds good. We’ll put that on the list.

I have family in Florida, but have never met most of them. I’m leaving tomorrow morning to play in a baseball tournament there (representing CA, perhaps for the last time!), and will meet many of them for the first time. From Mr. Frank’s comment I take it Florida is problematic?

After living all over the world, I moved the earth to come back to my beloved California to live out my days where I grew up.

So I hate to leave, but things are looking worse and worse here. The Dems now apparently have super majorities in the legislature, and so can now do whatever they want (/shudder). The only thing stopping them before was Repubs digging in their heels on tax increases and the crazier ideas of the libs, but there’s no stopping them now. Prop. 13 (limiting property tax increases) is clearly on Death Row, and proposals to institute an exit tax (for those selling houses in CA and not buying another) are back on the table.

Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go …
texexec on November 8, 2012 at 12:52 pm said:

kolnai:

I agree with almost everything you said in your posts above.

Another way to look at why state legislature elections are so Republican while our national elections aren’t is that Republicans are more likely to vote in”just state and local elections” than Democrats. That’s not as complicated as worrying about “the price of a vote”.

Republicans used to do better in national elections back when they (especially older voters) were much more likely to vote than young people, blacks, Hispanics, etc. But the national Democrat campaigns are now doing a better job of getting those people to the polls than they used to and it’s showing up in the election results.

After the election results were known the other night, I was pretty ticked off at Dick Morris. He was wildly optimistic about how the election would turn out. I would listen to his luncheon videos when I needed to be “bucked up” and relieved from my worry.

Today his video explains why he missed his prediction so much. He didn’t believe that the turnout models being used by most polls would happen. They predicted turnouts similar to 2008 which he thought was an outlier. He thought turnout percentages would be more like 2004.

Turns out those polls were right. Tuesday’s turnout for young people, blacks, and Hispanics were MUCH higher than 2004…they were close to 2008 percentages.

Gallop and Rassmussen polls don’t reflect “juggling the numbers for turnout” at all or as much as the other polls did, so they predicted better results for the Republicans.

Let’s all be realistic and accept that Obama, Axelrod, and the Dem’s campaign did an excellent job of winning this election. I’m not saying they should have won but their job was to win and they did it well.

They got out their voters:

1. Obama showed up on “The View” several times. That helped get out the women’s vote…especially single women who like the liberals on that panel.

2. The Dems ran ads on MTV, the MSM, courted rock stars endorsements, etc. That helped get out the youth vote.

3. Obama showed up a bunch of times on late night TV…Letterman, etc. This got young voters and women’s votes.

4. Not too much before the election, Obama announced he wasn’t gonna enforce immigration laws very vigorously. That got the Hispanic vote.

5. Axelrod and Obama knew they could count on black votes and they bussed them to the polls from retirement centers, etc. I bet they didn’t do that in Burnet Country, Texas.

OK…it’s gonna be hard to change how those people think but we can’t give up.

Here’s what I propose:

1. Start educating Hispanics NOW on how much Republicans have helped them and will help them. They tend to be practicing Catholics and family oriented. They are a natural group to bring into the Republican tent. Let’s not wait until 3 months before the next national election to do this. Also WE need to initiate laws to address illegal immigration in a way that conforms to our conservative principles but gives Hispanics a reason to vote for US.

I actually think some, even many illegal workers have made contributions to our economy by working for low wages in construction, etc. We shouldn’t just blow them off and say we’ll deport them if we want the votes of LEGAL Hispanics here who vote. We should at least give them the right to work here. But I would be against giving them the right to vote and would require good ID to vote.

The pathway to becoming a citizen should be fair and somewhat difficult. Tests should be required for citizenship.

But STILL give these hardworking people a way to support their families.

I have worked with refinery employees in Venezuela and my house was pretty much built by Mexicans and I’m sure my subcontractors were using some if not all illegals.

AND THESE PEOPLE WORKED HARD.

2. I’m reading a book now (“The Big Sort” by Bill Bishop) that reveals that in the last 30 years, strongly Democrat counties tend to have more persons with college degrees than strongly Republican ones do. That surprised me and seemed counter intuitive. But then I realized that people with college degrees spent at least 4 years listening to liberal professors while blue collar men didn’t. We have to find a way to counter that. Perhaps give off campus seminars at live music events or SOMETHING to bypass the profs.

Young folks need to be taught that the Dems are hurting them economically and why.

3. We need to lighten up some and start showing up more and running more ads on MSM, late night shows, The Viewer, etc. to get the youth vote. I loved Clint Eastwood’s performance at the RNC but I betcha’ it wasn’t very meaningful to a 21 year old.

4. If we believe in prolife principles, we should say we do…mostly to our base but shut up about it when a lot of single women are in the audience.

5. We can think that marriage between two persons of the same sex is silly and maybe even wrong but we should let them do what they damn well please as long as it doesn’t hurt society or us as individuals.

6. I don’t know what to do about the black vote. We may just have to give up on them.

7. We need to get out OUR base…hard and better than ever. I was amazed to hear that (so far) it seems that Romney got fewer votes than McCain. That’s ridiculous.

I know many of you will disagree with what I just said but if we want to preserve our principles and still win elections we need to do some of these kinds of things. Losing elections is no way to preserve America as we want it to be. We may need to bend a little in order to not break.

I definitely want to try to preserve America in these ways before we seriously start thinking about such things as civil war.
davisbr on November 8, 2012 at 12:52 pm said:

@Sharon W

Coeur d’Alene! And environs. Perhaps Sandpoint. Northern Idaho is simply beautiful, and has a true four seasons.

And only 30 minutes (less!) from the mid-size city of Spokane WA (itself a very culturally conservative community, though in a mildly – well, to me the ex-Californio – blue state).

As an attractive place to retire, with so many year-round, differing recreational opportunities, it is without peer. IMHO. Clean water (my gawd: I drink the tap water), clean air, natural beauty …and yet you can “drive to town” (Spokane) for the symphony, the theater (various), fine dining if you need a cultural change of pace on a Saturday night. And easy connections out of the nearby Spokane International Airport if you fly a lot.

Also. People from California, who have lived there all their lives, have never experienced the humidity of the South and East Coast by and large. I bet you won’t like it. At all.

(Which sadly removed great swathes of otherwise attractive alternatives of the US for us, when we were trying to determine where we should go, in much the same manner you are. I simply wasn’t going to get out of the shower, and 5 minutes later have to take another LOL.)

I know humidity sounds like a trivial issue, but it isn’t. (Well, for us it wasn’t: my wife is from Pennsylvania, and she rather put her foot down, if you will, on the subject.)
Steve on November 8, 2012 at 12:56 pm said:

There are reports that Romney did not get as many votes as McCain did in 2008. That is simply amazing. It is also damning. Both Romney and McCain are establishment types. McCain is arguably less appealing than Romney. Why did he get more votes then? Maybe it was Palin. Romney distanced himself from the tea party movement. That was a calculation by the establishment. They lost. Not only Romney though. The Republicans did not fare well down ticket either. They did great in 2010. What was the reason? Maybe the tea party again. Looking forward to 2014, we need to focus on the tea party and ignore the establishment. No more RINOs.
Artfldgr on November 8, 2012 at 12:57 pm said:

its coming out now that it was the womens vote that won this… ie. sans their vote against their own country, mates, and children, the mandate to change the republic into a socialist state as in germany would have fell flat.

here is my message to them from the past (language slightly changed to correct for PC feminist sensibilities):

“Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrypersons.”
–Samuel Adams
texexec on November 8, 2012 at 1:01 pm said:

Sharon W and Occam’s Beard:

Come check out the Texas Hill Country. I live in Burnet County not far from Austin but trust me…we are VERY conservative out here…as are our schools.

There’s a couple in our neighborhood who were born and spent all their lives in CA. They moved here to get away from CA and are loving it.

Here you get the beauty and serenity of our rural, hill country but it’s just a 45 minute drive into Austin for cultural events at UT Austin and other venues. When there, you can easily blow off and ignore the Austin liberals who wanna “Keep Austin weird”.
Occam's Beard on November 8, 2012 at 1:07 pm said:

People from California, who have lived there all their lives, have never experienced the humidity of the South and East Coast by and large. I bet you won’t like it. At all.

My wife and I have lived in the Midwest, and I’ve lived in Boston, and so are familiar with humidity. God knows I didn’t like it – it’s awful. The problem with an Idaho is the winters. Growing up in CA, I’m a warm weather guy, and detest cold winters.
Sharon W on November 8, 2012 at 1:13 pm said:

I’m appreciating all these recommendations and will include them in my file as we move forward! Thanks much.
Artfldgr on November 8, 2012 at 1:17 pm said:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” Alexis de Tocqueville

just so they know what they had created and traded their power to the state for (for perks and for the state to take power from the others).

not only that, but the women KNEW and declared from day one that they were making a dictatorship… (want to see a hundred quotes from their own lips again?).

Obama 2012: President Wins The Way His Campaign Predicted

In the end, President Barack Obama won re-election exactly the way his campaign had predicted: running up big margins with women and minorities

funny, but thats what i said disparate impact and the same games in germany led to!!!

Black voters made up 13 percent of the electorate, just as they did in 2008

Hispanics increased from 9 percent to 10 percent.

so if everyone of them voted 100% for Obama, they still couldnt win without the educated middle class women vote exactly as in germany… (for the same reasons too. after all, in germany they didnt sell them on totalitarianism, but the perks)

Obama won more than 70 percent of Hispanics and more than 90 percent of blacks, according to exit polls. He also maintained his advantage with women, defeating Romney by 11 points among female voters.

and everyone was crazy to expect the same actions and ideas leading to a different end result than the same end, a dictatorship of some kind

Divided America Revealed as Women, Hispanics Back Obama
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-11-06/divided-america-revealed-in-exit-polls-of-voters

The victory yesterday came even as the electorate remains divided like two foreign lands, split between men and women, whites and minorities, rich and poor, young and old, a national voter survey showed.

just think… all it took to buy women was to tell them they could screw a fence post and their representatives would scold anyone doing it. that they could have illigitimate children and not call them illigitimate. that we will provide the capability for mothers, good mothers, superior mothers, to murder their chilren to make their lives easier (after all 50 million is few and far between, so what would the number so if it wasnt rare). they went for more than equal, and so on and so on.

and every step of the way IF they paid attention, they were knowingly bringing us to a totalitarian state.

maybe the women on the right didnt, and were waiting for the traditional man who was disarmed to fight in her stead, but no. this was HER fight, and they sat on the sidelines mostly

AS germany went, we go
we have our Volk. the people selected by the state to recieve the perks in exchaneg for their power. the exchange of power was negotiated so that the state would use the power they give, to take away the rest of the power from the other side.

now, who has power?

welcome to the dictatorship..
you just havent realized it girls..

and dont worry, when you cry to be saved, the men you alienated, devalued, disenfranchised, and all that. will jsut give up so they can go back to nintendo

if they fought and won the women would just betray them for an apple at the word of a serpent and then murder their kids without their having a right to protest (isnt that what we have now?)

once bitten twice shy, eh?

and the record number of single women that is now being reported as the fastest growing demographic in the UK (and US). these are well off women, single, no kids, no family.

i guess they are going to ration care to them, as no one after the fact will fight for them. they have no family, and the inheritance tax will be painting a big bullseye on their back to help pay for it all. lets see… joe lost his job, and is on the dole, he gets rationed care cause he costs too much. sarah, she is single, made good money, has a house, but no family. while she can afford to pay, she cant as we are now equal (right sarah?). so she will be selected for the same rationing, because the state will get money from that more than they will get from her in taxes, and more than profit if they treat her for the cost.

besides, as any fool on the planet will tell you
you cant get rid of all the white men unless you also get rid of all the white women. if any of them survive, you can make a race again.

and then where would it all be? the same old white male oppressors that women would have to destroy again. so i am sure they will make sure to get all the fertile women that could restore that.

if you can bring back an almosd dead species like the condor, then that says, you ahve to get them all to guarantee no return Eh Va…

no?

good thing they have their mates to rely on and stand up for them.
neo-neocon on November 8, 2012 at 1:22 pm said:

southernjames and rickl: one reason Jarrett’s quote didn’t get more play is that it was from a suspicious source.
NeoConScum on November 8, 2012 at 1:22 pm said:

Sharon W….8:30am: A*M*E*N*…!!

texexec…Not to poop on the sfety of your state, but is it true that due to the invasion Texas will be Blue fairly soon? Lord, I pray NOT.
ArmyMom on November 8, 2012 at 1:24 pm said:

I am in utter despair. I really believe that all hope is lost, barring some catastrophe that bursts their bubble. I despair for my son, the worst feeling in the world.
….
I love Occam’s suggestion of turning the tables on the journalists.

Same for me. I have a new graddaughter and I am despairing of the future that she has been denied.
And, I also want to make the media PAY for what they have been complicit in. I will do anything I can to marginalize them and take them down. Sign me up!! Kevin DuJan at Hillbuzz is proposing much the same thing. #WAR Andrew Britbart had it right. I so miss him! We must prepare a new media to take the old media’s place that will be viewed as cool. Greg Gutfield ‘s show RedEye is one example of how conservative snarkyness is cool. I know of quite a few young people who love his show and have heard of quite a few who were converted by it.
NeoConScum on November 8, 2012 at 1:24 pm said:

“safety of your state..”
Papa Dan on November 8, 2012 at 1:24 pm said:

Occam-

North Florida is pretty much like Southern Georgia and Alabama, and in my opinion the prettiest part of the state and still pretty conservative. There is still a lot of old South feel to it.

Central Florida is a grab bag of displaced Northerners who constantly remind anyone who will listen to them how much better it is up north, mixed in with the original Cubans and Redneck’s. It is gloriously beautiful in the winter, but is increasingly liberal.

South Florida is sadly sliding into the third world.
holmes on November 8, 2012 at 1:30 pm said:

We’re actually moving to College Station, TX, TexExec. It’s not because of the election, but I think the timing could not be better. It’s a very conservative place and I don’t have to hide my yard sign there.
davisbr on November 8, 2012 at 1:30 pm said:

@Occam’s Beard

The “opportunity” to live in winter-snow country was actually an attraction for me …along with never experiencing weeks on end of triple digit summer temps again LOL. I hate the heat (I was born in the Sacramento Valley); it makes me crazy.

Different strokes.

For me, the snow (and granted: the locals all tell me how mild it’s been the past few years, so I still don’t really know squat about it) was like “living in Christmas” if you will. It was just magic. (I’ve never lived in snow country, or even visited it much.) Like being a child, maybe, kind of. I thought it absurdly wonderful (hell, I’m obviously no objective judge, as I was excited I “got to” use a snow shovel).

Of course, I don’t have to go out in it and work in it for a living. So I don’t have that long kind of intimate history, that would cause me to loathe it.

…our first winter last, if it was too snowy, or we deemed it too icey, we just snuggled in and made hot chocolate, LOL.

And the other three seasons are nothing like winter here. Summer was shorter, still quite warm (80’s to mid-90’s: which for me, coming from the plus-100’s, was actually laughably mild), and pretty much similar to the Central Valley summers (dry, intensely sunny …leavened with some rare thunder showers …with VERY long days due to the latitude).

Probably the biggest difference in summer was the air: it was clean, clear, and smelled good (save for a few short weeks in September: and though the locals complained, the worst of those days was more like the usual Sac’ Valley air quality year ’round: which sucks).

Oh Gawd. I just realized that I’ve become a travel agent.
daniel on November 8, 2012 at 1:30 pm said:

Why is it that in EVERY vote decided by a percentage point or so, and I’m talking states like Florida/Ohio and elections for the House/Senate, the Democrat won?

Is this statistically possible? I don’t think so.

When I was a left winger ringing my hands after the 2000 election, left wing blogs started reporting on the DNC’s plan to establish Democrats as election commissioners in every key state/county/city out there. Before 2000, there was pretty much a random distribution of these election officials by party throughout the country. I remember how the discussion after the 2004 election was that they weren’t able to establish enough election officials in Ohio to “stop the rigging of the election by the Republicans”.

Looking back, this alleged Republican vote rigging that started in Florida 2000 was sheer projection. When I see Republicans losing key races by a few thousand votes across the country, and no Republican winning a race in this fashion, it’s easy to imagine widespread vote rigging/suppression.

All it would take is the election officials in these key states/races (all Democrats) to avoid counting ballots from a single Republican-heavy district to ensure a small victory.

Likewise, to all those who see the 11% drop in voter turnout despite the record lines at the polls, and who are baffled how McCain got more votes in 2008 than Romney this year, maybe because of the record Obama enthusiasm and votes in 2008, McCain simply had more votes COUNTED.

As Stalin famously said, “Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”

You can be sure Soros and his ilk had this in mind when they designed their plan to control elections after the Florida recount in 2000. The Democrats ARE smarter/more devious than the Republicans, and their willingness to gain heretofore unimportant positions of power to bend the rules has set them up for permanent governance of this country. Unless we can get a bipartisan sampling of election officials in the swing states again, the fix will always be in. But here’s the rub–it will be near impossible to vote out these crooked Democrat election commissioners–since they’re the ones that will be in charge of counting the votes in their own elections! CHECK and MATE, Republican Party.

Get ready for 8 years of President Michelle Obama starting in 2016. No matter how many votes she gets in swing states, you can be sure her competitor will fall JUST short.
Mr. Frank on November 8, 2012 at 1:31 pm said:

My concern with Florida is limited to the central and southern part of the state which are an extension of New York and New Jersey. The panhandle coast is beautiful, conservative, and cheap. Florida has no income tax.
neo-neocon on November 8, 2012 at 1:40 pm said:

When conservatives move out of swing states, those states become blue. Moving out of a blue state doesn’t affect much of anything.

Of course, most people don’t make a decision about moving based on such considerations. But I just thought I’d mention it.
Occam's Beard on November 8, 2012 at 1:43 pm said:

Papa Dan and Mr. Frank, thanks for the info. My relatives live in Jacksonville and Ocala, the latter of which looks like it would qualify as central FL.
Of course, we wouldn’t need to live cheek by jowl with my relatives, either. The panhandle sounds pretty good.
Pat on November 8, 2012 at 1:45 pm said:

Never forget that Obama borrowed $5 trillion to pay for his re-election and put it on our tab. How can a challenger overcome that?
Artfldgr on November 8, 2012 at 1:47 pm said:

Rights: “Civil rights as defined in the USSR Constitution of 1936 provided the primary example of the soviet approach.

Guarantees of freedom of speech, press, and assembly were limited to such exercise as might strengthen Socialism.

isnt that just like the winners here?
that to say something else is hate speech?

but that would be equivalence we didnt detect
in fact, we dont detect most of the equivalents.
if a fascist dont have a swastika, then its not a fascist… right? cause the surface cargo cult symbology matching is key, not the substance underneath and who cares what the thing is wearing.

Judicial practice indicated that speech evoking hostility to Soviet authority on grounds of disagreement with the elements of social order declared by the constitution as fundamental to Socialism– such as state ownership of the productive resources, collectivization of agriculture, the one-party political system, and equality of races (and women) — was punished as a crime against the state if intent to disrupt the system was found. (Brittanica 20-1034)

bet you didnt know that hate speech laws are the same as crimes against the state in the soviet union or china…

IF YOU DID, ALONG WITH THE OTHER THINGS, WOULD YOU HAVE WORKED HARDER?
Artfldgr on November 8, 2012 at 1:49 pm said:

Totalitarian Democracy: goes back to the period of the French Revolution and the ideas of economic democracy which emerged as a phase of the revolutionary movement. Although revolutionists were mainly preoccupied with the problem of legal equality, a minority wing claimed that economic equality was also a basic right of man. The Revolution would be meaningless unless joined by a transformation of existing economic order. This tradition found its most effective expression in the works of Karl Marx. To him, economic inequality made democracy impossible. To establish democracy, the proletariat must overthrow the bourgeois state and lay the foundations of a truly classless society. “This is the great unfinished business of the democratic revolution. Economic equality is the essence of democracy.

Lenin saw minorities as the true agents of revolutionary action. His totalitarian democracy, exemplified by the Soviet constitution of 1936. It negates traditional western democracy and makes Communist goals and ideology the standard for political approval.

A selective elite was kept under close supervision and discipline by the smaller elite at the top–guaranteeing the success of the revolution by putting total authority in the hands of a small groups of its most ardent and able supporters.
texexec on November 8, 2012 at 1:56 pm said:

“texexec…Not to poop on the safety of your state, but is it true that due to the invasion Texas will be Blue fairly soon? Lord, I pray NOT.”

I pray not also, NeoConScum. Last time I checked, Romney won Texas 52-47. We still have a fairly good margin. Of course, our inner cities are liberal like anywhere else. Rural areas are VERY conservative.

FWIW, we have no state income tax.

holmes Says:
November 8th, 2012 at 1:30 pm

We’re actually moving to College Station, TX, TexExec. It’s not because of the election, but I think the timing could not be better. It’s a very conservative place and I don’t have to hide my yard sign there.

Good for you, holmes! My dad was an Aggie. I’m a Longhorn, but I have a deep respect for Aggies nevertheless…good people.
Occam's Beard on November 8, 2012 at 1:58 pm said:

I really appreciate the outpouring of support for the suggestion of going after the “journalists.” They’re the soft underbelly of the leftists, for several reasons.

First, I strongly suspect many of them are pretty dissolute and corrupt, either financially and/or intellectually (as JournoList demonstrated).

Second, they don’t expect to be investigated themselves, and therefore as mere fellow travelers probably have not hidden their tracks as assiduously as the hard core Reds.

Third, they probably don’t have the thick carapaces necessary to withstand vitriolic attacks. Someone going into politics (esp. a conservative) expects attacks; “journalists” probably don’t.

Fourth, they’re accustomed to viewing themselves as high-minded arbiters of the political scene, impartial referees above the fray. Being pushed into the middle of the fray – where they’ve placed themselves, God knows – and forced to defend themselves against relentless attacks will probably unnerve them, and certainly will undermine their carefully crafted pose of impartiality. Most people observing a dispute assume that there is some truth on both sides, and automatically discount any statement that could conceivably be viewed as self-serving (the “he said, she said” effect).

The logic is simple: Dem politicians are protected from attacks by the media. So, attack the media instead.
Curtis on November 8, 2012 at 2:06 pm said:

I agree with Daniel and would like a statistical check of about five battleground states. It should be fairly easy to randomly select about 2000 names from each state, contact them, and ask them how they voted. If there is a real discrepancy, it would show up.
texexec on November 8, 2012 at 2:07 pm said:

Occam’s Beard:

I wholeheartedly agree with you about the need to get hard and rough with the MSM. They are a major force in ruining our country.

BTW, I posed a comment here a few days before the election that we should fight the media…hard.

We can’t just talk about it…we have to hurt them. They’re slowly going out of business anyway but not nearly fast enough.

We need a well organized, professional, and well funded effort to do many things including these:

1. Start showing up at their stockholder meetings and get the floor to complain about their news policies and how it is hurting them financially. We need to publicise this.

2. Have demonstrations outside their corporate headquarters.

3. Write to their sponsors, saying that we will no longer buy their products as long as they maintain their biased approach to the news. Losing about 49% of the population’s business would hurt them badly.

4. Try to acquire the companies or their network divisions.
Papa Dan on November 8, 2012 at 2:11 pm said:

Just once in my life I would love to see one of our guy’s say after one of their “gotcha” questions, laugh in their face and look them in the eye and say “just what kind of an a**hole are you anyhow?”.
texexec on November 8, 2012 at 2:17 pm said:

Occam’s Beard:

“First, I strongly suspect many of them are pretty dissolute and corrupt, either financially and/or intellectually (as JournoList demonstrated).”

…or lowwwwwww class. Have you seen the video of Diane Sawyer’s coverage of the election? She was drunk as a skunk.

Check it out at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yUuLzFCgS2w#t=0s
Curtis on November 8, 2012 at 2:19 pm said:

It was immediately stated that American Politics has seen a realignment. I don’t think so and the following excerpt from RCP puts the real situation more briefly than I could:

But in terms of interpreting elections, and analyzing the future, the substantial drop-off in the white vote is a significant data point. Had Latino and African-American voters turned out in massive numbers, we might really be talking about a realignment of sorts, although we would have to see if the Democrats could sustain it with someone other than Obama atop the ticket (they could not do so in 2010). As it stands, the bigger puzzle for figuring out the path of American politics is who these non-voters are, why they stayed home, and whether they might be reactivated in 2016 (by either party).

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/11/08/the_case_of_the_missing_white_voters_116106.html

Was it fraud? Was it anti-Mormonism? Was it anti-Rinoism? Was it tired of policitcs-ism? Was it the result of successful demonism of Romney? Was it the sum of all above?

But it doesn’t add it: the polls, the big crowds, the dedication to defeat Romney, the Catholic priests and even Black pastors urging an anti-Catholic vote.

Or is this yet another example of adding of what I want to see?
texexec on November 8, 2012 at 2:19 pm said:

Oops…that video has been taken down because of a copyright claim by the network…but trust me…she was three sheets to the wind.
Artfldgr on November 8, 2012 at 2:31 pm said:

My question to the gloating Obama Zombies is: “WHat is it about serfdom that you find so appealling?”

they dont..
they just think that the beast they are going to parasite off of is so strong it will never fail or fall and so their endless struggle is a free ride of extra perks.

the dont think far enough ahead to wonder what happens if they win, and the beast dies of the parasitism.

then what?

a woman having lots of sex today, are now the ones writing that they are barren and they have no families, and are alone in a house of their own, and have missed out on what they really wanted.

ie. their short term stupidity called genius denied them the long term genius they called stupidity.

and the men were neutralized from pointing out to them how stupid..

you see…
when the women declared war on behalf of soviet communism they sided with against their own society, mates, and children (but didnt put it that way), they declared war on their mates.

their mates, who didnt want to fight, have played Neville chamberlains, lets appease them, maybe they will stop, and we can avoid the mutual destruction and genocide of western civilization and the people that make it up.

so their prospective mates, helped them make revolution to get laid. steppe back and appeased them by allowing a negation of the constitution, and hoped they would stop at equal. but they went onwards to more than equal, and now are the ones who run things, and like obama, just ran out of its their fault excuse.

if men and women share near parity
then turning women against their own men, was the easiest way to negate the vote of both. and leave the result to the very angry and murderous minorities.

her power neutralized his power
and all the other votes are what counts after that. and they vote to the 90% level for one side.

so women siding with the opposition against their own, did not get liberated from work. they were liberated from freedom.

the leaders never told them what was being liberated… did they? they let the idiots assume what it was. (and note what will happen now i called people who voted for totalitarianism like Hitlers women, idiots. if they had any power left they might trade it to get the big state to beat up the man who said it in exchange for that power).

the problem is that they have a huge vanity and ego that exceeds men, and for 40 years we have not been able to admit it and then say, you know… if you have vanity, then that can be used against you, so be careful. it was denied, and so why be careful.

now… in order for women to actually change their vote and all, they would have to admit that the past 40 year sof their effort was for something they dont want.

now, when have i put up a post that showed the quotes of the leaders, how they would prevent women from what they want, and the response was a form of…

to imagine that they are vain and ego and vindictive is to see the women of rome, and the lessons of the bible.

now, if your secular, yhou cant accept that any of them are right, and so you take the opposite, evne if they are right.

sooooo… follow it to its conclusion, the women didnt guard against some handsome man secuding them and abandoning them when they ahve what they want, they just accepted waht strangers wrote in books, then remolded their lives and all based on that.

if they wer actually smart they could see that alienating your mates would be self extermination.

or do you think mates of other groups would let them waltz in and make up for the slack? not really since the only way for alineation to succeed was to make them unmarryable!!! while inflating how great they were for being that way.

which is why their mates are marrying others in droves and leaving these to their fate.

ie. their mates are preventing the death of their family line going back a billion years.

the woman buying chotchkies for her house in a room alone, she is just walking dead with no future of her own as she has no progeny.

and ultimately, to look at it from above and the big picture. all they did was engage the legal system of nature. the legal system of nature, does not care about law, does not care about much of anything other than making the right choices for the lineage. being stupid is rewarded with death and extermination.

the largest growing population today is 45-64 female…(male is still in the sex race in that age, she is not, and she has found no one wants to bother with barren as other people value the billion years of evolution that came to them and think they and what issues from them is important)

http://www.atlantaregional.com/File%20Library/Info%20Center/Newsletters/Regional%20Snapshots/Aging/RS_Sept2011_Aging.pdf

Recently-released data from the 2010 Census reveal that the Atlanta region is getting older and that those ages 45-64 make up the fastest-growing segment in the region.

its just atlanta, but its the same all over..
no place is a woman who is not having kids balancing the act with another that is having 5

so. the population is genociding, and since women live longer than men, its shifted to their favor the same way that war killed the men that balanced it in germany… but this time its baby boomer old age creating the same

men between 45 – 64 if not married are in their prime and have lots of desperate barren women to screw around with (thanks to feminism). and they are at the peak of their earnings and so can pay a surrogate if they cant find a young enough girl.

so this demographic importance is more about women, and their outcomes.
[edited for length by n-n]
Artfldgr on November 8, 2012 at 2:34 pm said:

oh just delete that… sorry… had to leave and come back and continue.. argggh…

anyway… i should point out that a lot of the suggestions for fixing things, require being the winners… not the losers..

so get that part right…
Occam's Beard on November 8, 2012 at 2:39 pm said:

texexec, I think we need to attack journalists at the personal level, not at the corporate one. Stockholder meetings are all well and fine, but pointed revelations about individual journalists are more effective. A corporation has resources (lawyers and PR firms) that an individual does not; it’s easier and cheaper for a corporation to cut loose a discredited journalist than it is to defend him. Knowing this, journalists would be more inclined to steer clear of cheap shotting conservatives. (Which of them tees off on Muslims, after all?)

The weak point is the individual. As the Marx-Lite Alinsky said, identify, freeze, personalize, isolate, and attack.
carl in atlanta on November 8, 2012 at 2:46 pm said:

“Moving to Montana soon, gonna be a”… aww nuts! I must be having flashbacks.
LisaM on November 8, 2012 at 2:49 pm said:

Curtis, I agree. I’ve never seen enthusiasm like I saw this year, and I live in a blue-dog Democratic area. There were dozens of Romney signs in western PA and Eastern OH. I saw one – ONE! – Obama sign. Tens of thousands at the rallies. I just don’t get how turnout was lower. I just can’t wrap my brain around how a conservative could sit at home and watch Obama and Biden be reelcted.
kolnai on November 8, 2012 at 2:50 pm said:

I’m from central Florida, the notorious I-4 corridor (which reprehensibly went for Obama two times, and was instrumental in handing him the state).

The area where my family is, basically the Clearwater suburbs about 25 minutes from Tampa (I went to high school in Tampa), is more or less like Mr. Frank said. Tons of transplanted Northeasterners who bleat endlessly about how much better New York or Boston is than the hick-country they live in. Want an explanation for increasing blueness of the I-4? There it is.

Because the natives are mostly conservative. Even though we moved there from San Francisco, precisely to get away from the communism my dad could no longer abide, I consider myself a native – I lived there long enough, and from a young enough age. By no means is it a haven for lefties, though, and we could use as much red-blood, if you will, as we can get.

It’s beautiful, and almost entirely suburban. I often say that the Tampa Bay area, up to and including Clearwater and Pinellas county, doesn’t have any cities, just a bunch of suburbs with a couple of tiny downtown areas. However, it is, indeed, very humid. When I first hot there it was unbearable, but I got used to it. Like Occam’s Beard, what I cannot stand is cold winters. I almost went insane when I lived in New York. Such cold I had never experienced before, and never care to again, if I can help it.

Oh, one more suggestion – Sarasota county. Heavily, almost monolithically Republican, except for the small, rabidly leftist liberal arts college (which I just happened to attend). Sarasota is the most amazing place I’ve been to in Florida, including my hometown in Clearwater, Orlando (which is actually dingy and depressing), Fort Lauderdale, Key West, Tallahassee, and Jacksonville.

It’s kind of a city, but small enough to have a community feel. It’s sunny (of course) and right by a fantastic beach. There’s good restaurants, good culture if you want it (opera, etc.), good landmarks like the Ringling museum and its art collection, good bookstores… It’s the hidden gem of Florida.

I, too, have turned into a travel guide. Better than talking about Black Tuesday, I suppose (crap, is that racist?).
kolnai on November 8, 2012 at 3:50 pm said:

texexec –

1) We conservatives need to be very careful in what we assume about the majority of Hispanic voters. Yes, we need to make inroads, but that won’t happen if we look at them and see what we’d like to see.

It is a mythos among conservatives that Hispanic voters are “natural conservatives” (we’ve also said that about blacks, note well). They’re not. Sure, they’re nominally Catholic, but that’s exactly why they love Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden – they share their nominal Catholicism.

Consider this from DrewM at Ace’s place:

http://minx.cc/?post=334774

And this from Heather Mac Donald:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332916/why-hispanics-dont-vote-republicans-heather-mac-donald#

And this from Andrew McCarthy:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/332988/immigration-delusion-andrew-c-mccarthy

The facts are well-nigh undeniable. Hispanics are not just liberals, they are big time liberals. A recent survey found that only 7% of California Hispanics objected to Republicans because of their stance on immigration. 29% objected on class warfare grounds. Hispanics tend to be poorer than mean, and thus they use more government services. Their out-of-wedlock birthrate is 53%.

They STRONGLY favor socialized medicine (only 25% said they wanted to repeal Obamacare). The first and second generations are basically socialists – 81% of first generation Hispanic immigrants say they favor “Bigger Government, More Services” over “Smaller Government Less Services;” and 72% of the second generation answer the same. Even 58% of the third generation give that answer.

Remember that giving that answer is a sign not only of being socialist, but also of not being (what I’ve called) “Americanized.” Even liberal Americans, for the most part, know that on surveys like this the “correct” answer is to say “Smaller Government.” That’s why most people in surveys give that answer. But not Hispanics. They haven’t even reached that point of double-consciousness yet.

As for their social conservatism, bah. 52% support gay marriage; and while they may oppose abortion in their personal lives, they have no problem supporting abortion extremists if only their leftists/leftist Hispanics (such as Obama and Sonia Sotomayor).

And this goes across the board for the minority groups among whom Romney got smashed. Asians (with the exception of the tiny Vietnamese population, who are conservative for the same reasons Cubans are) are so Democratic they’re starting to make Jews look right-wing. Again, it would be a colossal mistake to think of Asians as being “naturally conservative” in the sense that AMERICAN conservatives are conservative. They’re not.

Asian’s “natural conservatism” is mostly based on their conservative personal and family lives, and their work ethic. But in the countries they hail from, it is precisely the conservative position to be in favor of rather very large government – it’s conceived of as being a kind of communal bond as well as an appropriate pinnacle on a hierarchical social pyramid. Think of Japan, China, Thailand, Korea – strong monarchical traditions, all of them, that still permeate their democratic (and in China’s case, communistic) societies.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a Chinese American who was a Republican. The only Japanese Republicans I’ve met were Christians (obviously not a large demographic). I’m not saying they don’t exist – of course they do. I’m saying that they are a huge minority, and not because they’re the only ones who “get” that their “natural conservatism” better aligns with the GOP. They’re conservatives, in the American sense, because they consider themselves Americans, and therefore appreciate and love America.

In short, assimilation and culture are the problems here. Appealing to a non-existent latent conservatism (in the American sense, again) in these groups is a fool’s errand. It failed for blacks. It will fail for Hispanics and Asians. Precisely because they are liberals, or more accurately, leftists (they believe, passionately, in Big Government and socialist, centralized programs).

As I said in my post above, the problem is that these minority groups, just like airheaded young whites and singles, are un-Americanized. Which brings us back to the same old problems: the media, the schools, and the entertainment industry – that is, the Gramscian complex.

The best we can do for “outreach” right now is the minimum – put more Republican Hispanic and Asian faces out there. That won’t make a huge deal at first, but it will gradually chip away at the notion that the GOP is strictly for whites. We will make NO inroads, NONE, until we put that notion to bed. And we cannot put it to bed by just talking, by having Rich White Men telling these racists (sorry, but let’s be honest here) that conservative economics are better for everyone, regardless of skin color or ethnicity. No, the racists and tribalists need to see members of their tribes comfortably maneuvering in the conservative tribe.

I said above that this is not an ANSWER. It is, however, a PRECONDITION. And I think we should take things in order, first things first. The first thing is to get behind the racism and tribalism of minorities that they wield like a shield to conservative ideas out of their skulls. By showing them their own kind among us.

Second is to do what Occam’s Beard recommend, immediately. Attack the Gramscian complex, ruthlessly, personally, put faces on it, disgrace and shame them. Humiliate them. Leave no stone unturned. Make them a joke. It can be done; we just need the stomach for it. And it will be nauseating.
Papa Dan on November 8, 2012 at 4:22 pm said:

kolnai is correct about hispanics, not only are they not an automatic fit for conservatism, but it is condescending and patronizing to treat them as a monolithic group. Don’t make the mistake of calling a Puerto Rican a Cuban. And there is nothing that is written in stone that they are either liberal or conservative, and there is little culturally the same between them and Mexican’s. I’ve lived in two different Mexican neighborhoods in my life, one in LA, and one in a migrant community in the Indian River area of Florida, and they were cultures apart. Read Tim Russert’s Big Russ about growing up in a ethnic Democrat Catholic family to get a feel for why Catholic’s can be the most loyal of Dem’s.
blert on November 8, 2012 at 4:37 pm said:

kolnai…

EVERY Chinese American I ever met in Hawaii registered Republican.

In that state, the Democrat Party is a Japanese fief, hence they’re excluded — stigmatized worse than haoles. (!)

On the Mainland, everything is different.

As for WHY Asians love big government: that’s where their start up capital has traditionally come from. (Last forty-years)

The Vietnamese strongly associate Democrats with national disaster. (Duh?)

Modern Cubans have pretty much figured it out: Democrat Kennedy entirely fouled up the liberation of their nation.

All of this is balanced by the immense free sugar that these ‘Democrat’ minorities are free-riding off of European Americans.

When European American were free-riding off of African Americans in the antebellum South — the Democrat Party was wildly popular, too.

(!)

It all ends when the sugar runs out.

Perversely, this can only end Flight 93 style, augering in, with a certified Gonnabee at the controls.

Just because we’re Americans doesn’t mean that we’re immune to the follies of self-absorbed fools.

Today’s Democrat Party’s ethos ought to be re-branded from Liberalism — it’s National Solipsism.
Occam's Beard on November 8, 2012 at 4:51 pm said:

Attack the Gramscian complex, ruthlessly, personally, put faces on it, disgrace and shame them. Humiliate them. Leave no stone unturned. Make them a joke. It can be done; we just need the stomach for it. And it will be nauseating.

In conversations I sometimes casually link the Democrat Party with criminals, who are a natural constituency (e.g., referring to the show “COPS” as “Meet Your Local Democrats”). Liberals grind their teeth, but even they can’t deny the truth: Democrat politics and criminality go together like peanut butter and jelly.
kolnai on November 8, 2012 at 5:14 pm said:

blert –

Huh – I did not know that about Hawaiian-Chinese (I bet that’s an interesting group of people), though I did know Hawaii is, as you put it, “a Japanese fief.” I guess I didn’t know there was all that many Chinese in Hawaii, but on reflection I shouldn’t have assumed that there wasn’t.

But man, these Chinese in California… hoooo boy. I’ve hardly met more liberal people in my life, politically speaking (in their family lives, they’re like Spartans). And they really, really love their homeland and have a sense of grievance I found shocking when I first encountered it.

They constantly complain about persecution or having been oppressed. Many are outright racists – I mean openly so, as in, “I do not date white people, they can’t be trusted.” I once made friends with a pretty racist Chinese woman and when she finally came to admit I was an alright guy, after all, here’s how she admitted it:

“It’s like you’re not even white.”

Okey dokey.

It’s bizarre, like they’re trying to co-opt the sense of racial entitlement from blacks by portraying their history in similarly Marxist victim/oppressor terms (“Once upon a time, we were nice native people minding our business, and then the WHITE MAN/AMERICA came and ruined everything… and now we live to make him pay for it”).

Many of them, I know for a fact, identify as Democrats for the same reason many Muslims do. They know Democrats are for a weak and ashamed America, and that that’s good for China. They don’t put it like that, but it’s clear that that’s what they’re getting at.

Sad but true.
texexec on November 8, 2012 at 5:32 pm said:

kolnai:

I’m not an expert on the makeup of these minority groups so I don’t know if you or I are right or wrong about them. Someone needs to form a well funded organization that employs professional publicist/pr firms to get the real answers to these questions and develop a strategy to penetrate them as much as possible. I DO agree with what you want to accomplish.

Occam’s Beard:

Whatever works is what I wanna do. I have seen purchase boycotts work against corporations in some cases. Concerning stockholders meetings, back when I worked for IBM, there was a woman gadfly who was showing up at large corporation stockholder meetings complaining and she did accomplish getting these corporations to do some things they needed to do. She got LOTS of publicity as she did it. Maybe Fox would cover the events. 🙂 (I know..preaching to the choir but better than nothing.)
Papa Dan on November 8, 2012 at 6:06 pm said:

Soros has created a dedicated media empire solely to attack Fox, NY Post, and other conservative outlets. The closest thing we have is Brent Boyzells Newsbusters and Breitbart.
kolnai on November 8, 2012 at 6:15 pm said:

texexec –

Understood. I have just grown sick of watching conservatives tilt at windmills trying to appeal to the innate conservatism of these groups.

There was a very interesting documentary film recently released, the name of which I just can’t recall at the moment, about blacks and conservatives. One section of the film focused on Ken Mehlman’s effort to “sell” conservatism to blacks by going around to their communities, apologizing, and spreading the gospel about shared values and economic freedom.

A catastrophic failure, tax dollars flushed down a drain. Mehlman is a dorky pasty-white politico who looks and sounds like he’s never been in the same room with a black person in his life. A good man, but that’s irrelevant. I know this is taboo or whatever, but it is a fact that we must confront: blacks are, by and large, racists. We all know this. Every conservative politician knows it. Hell, even social science has shown it with hard data (cf. “Black Pride and Black Prejudice,” by Paul Sniderman and Thomas Piazza, both liberals, FWIW). Blacks themselves know it (they just think it’s appropriate, like all racists do – and thus they don’t call it “racism”).

I’m not kidding. We cannot underestimate this or wish it away. To take just one example: 25% of blacks believe that AIDS was invented by white doctors to target blacks – ONE IN FOUR! And we sit around thinking that telling them of the glories of Hayek and Friedman will do the trick.

Now I ask you, I ask everyone: Is sending Ken Mehlman into a room full of racist black Democrats to talk about capitalism and Christianity likely to have any chance of doing anything, except confirming to these people the stereotypes they have about Republicans (i.e., “real” white people)? They don’t give a damn what the Mehlman’s of the world have to say. Just look at him. Just listen to how he talks. What a croc-of-you-know-what. What a salesman. Boy, these whites are crafty.

I grew up among these people in San Jose before I moved to Florida. Me and my brother were the only white kids in our neighborhood, and I can confidently relay this to my conservative brethren (those who don’t already know): 99% of Republicans/conservatives have NOTHING in common with them. We simply do not understand how different the cultures are. When they speak English and we speak English, it only seems like it’s the same language we’re speaking. It isn’t. Their English, as it were, comes from a culture of extreme amorality, promiscuous sex as a completely ordinary fact of life, misogyny, paranoia and conspiracy mongering, racial solidarity in (what they think of) as a shared history of glory and subsequent oppression dating back to prehistoric times, and unity in opposition to The Great Oppressor (namely, us).

That culture is behind every word they speak, just under the surface. Again, we know this. It’s why we are very careful to watch what we say around even middle class blacks. One slip up, and all too many of them feel the need to “let the ghetto come out” of them, even if they’ve never been within ten miles of a ghetto.

I am generalizing, and I’m sorry about that. But these minority groups generalize themselves by acting, thinking, and believing tribally. 93% of blacks voted for Obama. Slightly above par for the course for the Democratic black vote, in fact. The Democratic party represents one thing and one thing only for them: the conduit by which blacks can fleece whitey for historical rectification, sticking it to the man and gaining power OVER him. Not working with the man, not joining him as a fellow citizen. But gaining power over him.

I won’t go further with this because I sense I’m getting myself in trouble, and I probably sound racist myself. In my defense I’d say that Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele, I’m pretty sure, would agree with what I’ve said. Again – I’m not a racist. I simply think we must stop pretending as though racism isn’t a huge, integral, essential part of black identity, as conceived by (a majority of) blacks themselves.

THAT is what we are up against. The bare minimum – the absolute essential prerequisite – to any attempt to make inroads to these groups – who are, again and again, largely racists/tribalists – is to send messengers that are members of their tribe. Messengers who have been in a room full of black people before, and look and sound like it.

Is that likely to work? Hell no. Nothing will “work,” if by “work” we mean “Getting a majority of minority group X into the Republican party.” It won’t happen, and if it does it will be because of an unforeseen event out of our control. The best we can do is the best we can do, and for now that means sending the right messengers to carry our message, while showing them publicly that their tribe is a part of our “tribe.”

After that – then we’ll talk about how to hook more of them. Right now, there’s no mystery:

NO MORE KEN MEHLMANS IN COMPTON.

Republicans can really be embarrassingly stupid.
neo-neocon on November 8, 2012 at 6:49 pm said:

kolnai: please read this post of mine about why Obama was afraid of Herman Cain.

When the sexual allegations came out against Cain everyone seemed to think the impetus came from one of the other Republican candidates. I have always had a gut feeling it was the Obama camp, for the reasons I explain in that post. I think the left is very afraid of the power black Republicans could have to turn a not insignificant number of black voters to the Republican camp.
Jamie Irons on November 8, 2012 at 7:00 pm said:

Pretty darn depressing thread!

But at least I got one smile out of it — a smile at my own incredible stupidity.

I’ve been reading the comments of Occam’s Beard now for a number of years, and they are indeed intelligent and insightful remarks, but I did not until just a moment ago “get” his moniker!

Duh!

🙂

Jamie Irons
Jan of MN on November 8, 2012 at 9:45 pm said:

kolnai says:

… we need to prepare people emotionally to LISTEN to us. And that means destroying Democrats and Democrat institutions.
…
The Democrat myths must be destroyed, such as the one about the Dems being the minorities’ only help and salvation. It should be made very clear, for example, that Dems dragged their feet on civil rights for decades, and that it was Republicans that advanced the cause. Communication IS crucial, and conservatives have not found the concepts and the language to wake up the blind followers of the LEFT. Forget the professional left, they’re not persuadable. But we should systematically construct obstacles to the furthering of their propaganda.

Read Jonathan Haidt. I believe it was neo who provided a link to his article, and to his book, “The Righteous Mind”. It gives a window into the moral framework of the liberal, plus another into the moral references of the conservative. His work makes sense to me, and could be used to develop effective means of communicating our ideas and policies.

If we can’t tap into emotions, we can’t win elections. We need to learn how.
kolnai on November 8, 2012 at 10:09 pm said:

Jan of MN –

Well said, and I agree. I read Haidt very carefully, and The Righteous Mind should become mandatory reading in the conservative canon, sort of like our Lakoff, except rigorous and accurate. (and notwithstanding that Haidt isn’t a conservative).

Indeed, one way of framing what has happened to a critical mass of the voting populace is what I called “moral amputation” after reading Haidt. I’ve been referring to something called “Americanization” and “un-Americanization,” and in Haidt’s scheme, this would translate into a mind open to the full gamut of moral signals versus a mind reduced to the liberal couplet. Thus, “un-Americanization” can be referred to as a process of moral amputation.

This tracks well with my sense of events thus far. It seems as though when we conservatives speak to the populace, to target groups, to anyone who doesn’t already agree with us, we’re not just arguing but not even being understood. Haidt lucidly demonstrated exactly that. Morally amputated liberals do not understand conservatives, for they do not have the moral multi-dimensionality required to do so.

Our task is to regenerate those limbs, and we have to believe it is possible (else we may as well just give up). Tapping into emotions is the best and maybe the only way to do it.

Occam’s Beard had suggestions that I think should be sent express email to the big whigs in the GOP. How they react would go a long way to revealing how serious they are about reclaiming this country. Neo also linked to Bookworm who listed a bunch of suggestions from his readers, many of them excellent. Not pie in the sky stuff. The only question I have is WHY did we not do any of this after 2008? (I did suggest similar things back then, and then just dropped it, because I don’t have any money and can’t do any of this stuff myself). Oh well.

Hopefully our stupidity and apathy has finally found its remedy.
Papa Dan on November 8, 2012 at 11:21 pm said:

Blacks as a group hate, and I mean hate us. One on one you can get along fine.

I raised 5 kids in the public school system, 4 of them girls. There was no such thing as using the public school bus, as it was a daily wilding. Read some of Robin of Berkeley’s posts about being bussed in her teen’s.

The public school system refuses to mete out punishment for anything but the most grievous offense. The white kids figure this out real fast.

If you could mend this one evil, you would be halfway to fixing public schools.
RandomThoughts on November 9, 2012 at 12:57 am said:

Such a rich, worthwhile thread to read, despite–or perhaps exactly because–it raises more questions than it answers.

There are so many elements of what went wrong for Romney, starting with the brutal competition between a ridiculous number of candidates in the Republican primary. Obama never had to contend with that; it was the worst kind of political party self-sabotage.

If we are to avoid this debacle of an election again, if there’s any hope for us in 2016, we have to look at all the aspects of the failure. And it wouldn’t hurt to look at what made 2010 so different from 2012 too.

After reading all the thoughts in this thread and being extremely impressed at the wisdom herein, I’ve come to a few conclusions.

I agree with Occam’s Beard regarding the need to go on the offensive when it comes to exposing Democrats for who they are. Mitt Romney (and Sarah Palin, and for that matter Dan Quayle too) is a tragic and avoidable lesson in what happens when we allow Democrats to define our candidates. Once they paint the picture, once they establish the image in the minds of voters, nothing can be done to counter it. We need to be as aggressive if not more so than they are. But while it won’t be pretty, nor pleasant, it doesn’t have to be vile.

I also agree with the insight offered here, particularly from kolnai, about ethnic minorities, Americanization, and conservatism. The next Republican presidential candidate simply must be someone who comes from their “tribe.”

However, I do not believe that shifting the nature of conservatism, watering it down as it were, to make it more palatable to those who found Romney “not one of us” is the answer.

I can’t become less of a conservative. I just can’t. To walk away from my position on abortion would be a betrayal of who I am at the core as a human being. If I have to pretend abortion doesn’t matter to me, and back a socially liberal yet economically conservative candidate who is totally pro-choice in order to get him or her into the White House, I’ve become what I detest.

I refuse to let my economic interests completely dictate my politics. What price is an election worth to me? Is it worth my soul (Mark 8:36)?
kolnai on November 9, 2012 at 1:48 am said:

Random Thoughts –

I completely agree about not watering down the message. I’d rather die standing up than on my knees supplicating and begging. Never, ever do we grovel.

So I hope it’s clear that that’s NO part of what I recommend. I recommend being Machiavellian, and exploiting whatever advantages are to hand. In this case, it’s image, style, packaging. That’s it. Messengers on the ground have to be willing and able to speak in the tongues of the tribes, to sound “authentic” to them.

Beyond that, I do not go. If conservatism has to become socialism Plan B to survive, then better to just go down with ship and our honor, clinging to our lost cause. My eternal sleep will be unperturbed.
RandomThoughts on November 9, 2012 at 2:24 am said:

Kolnai, no, I didn’t gather that from your words, I think it was texexec who suggested that we not speak of issues like abortion outside of our own political circle. Thing is, those issues ARE big, and candidates have no choice but to address them. Any future Republican candidate must not avoid nor trip over them, but instead address them eloquently and compassionately.

Wouldn’t hurt either if future Republican candidates were adept at forcefeeding future Democrat candidates’ words back to them (I’m thinking of Obama saying he didn’t want his daughters “punished” by a having an unplanned baby).
kolnai on November 9, 2012 at 2:25 am said:

And one more thing, in re: Random Thoughts –

With respect to abortion, there are varying schools of thought among pro-lifers – and I consider myself one – about how to connect means to ends.

First, no sugar coating – what happened on Tuesday was a catastrophe for the pro-life cause. Liberals will almost certainly take over the Supreme Court (spare some prayers every night for the health of the Conservative justices, particularly Kennedy and Scalia, both 76 years old). And that means there is no foretelling how radical abortion rights will get. We may even see abortion restrictions at the state level challenged before a compliant liberal court, and stricken down as inconsistent with Roe and Casey or whatever, justified on grounds of failing to meet a compelling state interest.

I’d bet on it. Gay marriage, too, is coming soon to a Bill of Rights near you. Not federalist gay marriage, but gay marriage as something intended by the Founders and the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment. Gay marriage as something it is unconstitutional to oppose. And after all of this, the REAL goal will be within reach, namely, knuckling the church under the iron fist of the state and stamping out religious freedom.

And I haven’t even mentioned gun rights and freedom of speech.

It is not too much to say that of all the disasters implicit in the re-election of Obama, the loss of the Supreme Court will prove to be the worst. It will essentially become the legal rubber stamp for liberal fascism. We’ve seen what liberal justices can get done in the minority on the Court. Just imagine what they will do when they at last achieve their majority.

Once they get working in earnest, the debt bomb blowing up will be a mere epitaph, destroying a country no longer worth preserving anyway. I’m not saying I welcome such a denouement; but it is what it is. The thought is horrible, and it causes me to lose sleep at night.

So what to do until then? Don’t listen to people who tell you to shut up (conservatives especially). My only advice is for the pro-life PR team to be sure to get a party line down on rape and incest, learn it by heart, and communicate as clearly as possible to every potential candidate that they not deviate from it. Akin, and to a lesser extent Murdoch, were disasters for pro-lifers, setting the cause back God knows how many years or decades.

Now pro-lifers have to clear away a mountain of rubbish just to begin talking. Yes, the people are so far gone that you have to soothe their childish little excuses for minds by explaining to them that you don’t condone rape. This is the Brave New World we’ve entered. Being assertively pro-life now signifies to people – even people who might be inclined to call themselves pro-life, for the most part – that you’re really just some 1950’s hangover who uses rhetoric about babies to justify male power over women, up to and including forcible intercourse and grouping them together and cramming them into binders.

Never did I think people would buy this crap. Well, never came, and they bought the hell out of it, and are now all in.

This quandary is at least clear to thinking pro-lifers. Libertarians are still blissfully unaware of the fact that they are in the exact same position. Sure, they can talk with the canaille on “social issues,” but as soon as they start talking about charity as a substitute for government programs and private initiative and letting companies go bankrupt and unfettered free trade and open borders and reducing the military to twenty Predator drones and a fat man with a joystick eating Doritos off of his pot belly – they’ll see that we’re all in the same boat.

I don’t have any answers. We may be fighting on behalf of causes that have already lost. So be it. My two cents is just to keep fighting and be smart about it.

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The New Neo

A blog about political change, among other things

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