Month: April 2006

I hesitated to even use the word “liberalism” in the post title, because that’s actually a part of the “liberal psychosis”—amphibolous use of terms that mean something until, finally, the term has been used so many different and contradictory ways that it is virtually meaningless.

That’s the first clue one often has that someone in a conversation is a liberal psychotic: they use words in ways that make one think they are sane, but eventually one realizes that when they say “white” they are talking about what every sane person knows is “black”.

Example: free speech. Seems plain enough, doesn’t it?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The “free speech” clause is plain, simple, readily understandable by anyone who has grade school literacy. “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…” Currently, “liberals” take that clause to mean that common folks have no right to speak out publicly against a candidate for election within a certain period of time before said election occurs (McCain-Feingold–arch-“liberal” Feingold and snake-in-the-grass McCain, who pretends to call himself a conservative), and that Congress ought to abrogate the free speech of organizations that offer women an alternative to abortion.

“Free speech” is only allowed in the liberal psychotic’s view when that speech either agrees with the preconceptual biases of the liberal psychotic or can be marginalized, demonized or simply shut up. That’s right: as the two examples already cited demonstrate, if a view opposing that of “liberals” can be silenced, then it is deemed “free speech”.

Crazy, huh?

OK, I said this was a teaser, and it is. This is an extremely brief intro to a multi-post exploration of “liberal psychosis”—also known as “reality-based fantasy”—that I expect to post in small pieces over the next few weeks. If I had not posted this teaser, I probably would have simply let the thing slide, but now I have to get it out.

Tell you what. Post your contributions or arguments in comments here and I’ll include or rebut them—giving credit where due—as time goes on.

BTW, Angel has her first OTA Open Trackback party this weekend. Go ahead and trackback to her post, wouldya?

Via email from Hugh H., this lil morality play in one act…

---

The phone rings and the lady of the house
answers, “Hello”?

“Mrs. Walker, please.”

“Speaking.”

“Mrs. Walker, this is Doctor Jones at the
Medical Testing Laboratory. When your
doctor sent your husband’s biopsy to the
lab yesterday, a biopsy from another Mr.
Walker arrived as well, and we are now
uncertain which one is your husband’s.
Frankly the results are either bad or terrible.”

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Walker asks
nervously.

“Well, one of the specimens tested positive
for Alzheimer’s and the other one tested
positive for AIDS. We can’t tell which is
your husband’s.”

“That’s dreadful! Can’t you do the test again?”
questioned Mrs. Walker.

“Normally we can, but Medicare will only pay
for these expensive tests one time.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do now?”
asked Mrs. Walker.

“The people at Medicare recommend that
you drop your husband off somewhere in
the middle of town. If he finds his way
home, don’t sleep with him!”

---

You know, this sort of humor just doesn’t work without a real world meme to support it, in this case, Medicare itself, in all its bureaucratic “glory”, conflated with AIDS and Alzheimers… The sad truth that so many government programs, like Medicare, are fundamentally broken and cannot be fixed without cures that are worse than the diseases makes this classic humor: we laugh simply because it’s better than crying or attempting to storm the Bastille, as it were.

Checking my deductible and Medicare co-pay at Conservative Cat, Outside the Beltway, and at TMH’s Bacon Bits, where The Mary Hunter is taking the high road this Palm Sunday weekend.

I guess Anime fans might know about this, but the cat o’ nine tails isn’t just something to flog a swabbie with. The “cat” (really, fox) with nine tails” is also a creature of great power from Japanese mythology known as Ky?bi Kitsune.

Just thought ya oughta know.

Earth-shattering, eh?

😉

(Yeh, Friday’s Open Trackback Alliance post is open All Weekend Long—link to this post and trackback. See more info below the post body.)

---

If you’ve missed these gems in the last few days, buckle up, start clicking and enjoy the ride.

Christine just won’t put her teacup down… unless there’s a good cuppa joe or a luscious piece of chocolate needing her attention. Check out Jerry Garcia’s Magic Herb Tea and Yesterday & Today for samples. And DO click on over to her Flikr CTC photoset (get the link at her place) for pics of enough goodies to put on five ten pounds just from looking at the pics. She even throws a lil bit of jazz music history in for spice!

The Random Yak has The Random Carnival up, and it’s a wittier roundup of interesting material than I can do (though somehow one of my posts even ended up there! Miracles happen, eh? :-)). Well, even the carnival name and format is… uniquely Yak-ish: Carnival of Random Posts I Think You Should Read. *heh* Commenting is still “unenabled” there, so send ’em an e-, wouldya?

The English Guy Discovers Dawn; alarm clock works. *heh*

Civilization committing suicide: responsible behavior and welfare. *sigh* Would that it were a joke.

TSA goons abuse 83-year-old woman. Move along. Nothing to see here… Anarcho-tyranny. “When a stupid man does something he knows is wrong, he always insists it is his duty” or something to that effect… Just read it. You’ll feel oh so very much safer. I promise. (And I have some wonderful ocean-front property in Arizona I think you’d find interesting, too.)

Angel is getting focused on what’s important this time of year, here and here. (Thanks for the reminder, Angel. I’ve been meaning to get a couple of those kindsa posts up myself.)

Woody does a riff off a piece from the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller.

Alexandra keeps attracting the poles apart folks: reasonable folk who appreciate arguing from fact and the “usual suspects” from the realm of internet trolldom who think endless links to fantasies and repeated lies constitute argument. Hey, Alexandra! Don’t hog all the trolls, OK? 🙂 Some of us like to dress them up and use them as rhetorical targets. Cute lil buggers spouting gibberish and all that…

And over at Big Lizards, Daffy ab Hugh points out an insidious polemic fallacy. I try to make a similar argument from time to time, but he does it in his typically pellucid style.

S’all for now.

---

As I said, this is an Open Trackbacks post all weekend long. Link this post and track back.

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.

crossposted from Stop The ACLU

Via BP News

A new congressional effort to police advertising by crisis pregnancy centers is unnecessary, pro-life advocates said,
and unconstitutional, free-speech defenders charged.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has long promoted itself as the leading defender of freedom of speech and civil rights, is
right in the middle of the controversy, promoting the new legislation to the surprise of some.

However, this is not suprising to us at all. The ACLU have a long history of being selective in defending free speech, especially when it comes to pro-lifers. Besides, defending the first amendment is only third on the ACLU’s list of priorities, abortion is their number one priority.

Continue reading “ACLU moves to quench free speech”

when I read this I heard, in my mind’s ear, Tennessee Ernie Ford singing

Sixteen tons and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St peter don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go;
I owe my soul to the company store

Chinese man tries to sell his soul online

The man, in his late 20s, from Jiaxing, near Shanghai, attempted to sell his soul on Taobao, China’s top online auction site.

He attracted bids from some 58 potential buyers before the posting was pulled, reports China Daily.

I wonder what the bids were…

See today’s linkfests at Linkfest Haven

Why don’t alla youse guys who are on blogger who have me blogrolled and multi-linked in posts go ahead and switch over to WordPress. Here’s how ya do it (to benefit ME, of course! :-)):

1.) Set up your new WordPress Blog
2.) Make sure I’m the first one you put on your blogroll (that’s a very important step! Don’t forget: this is all about ME. heh)
3.) Import alla your old Blogger posts.
4.) Go back through all of ’em and change the links from any old Blogger twc links to the New! Improved! twc address.
5.) Make sure you leave your old Blogger blog up forever (after all, you DO want folks to find you, and I can tell ya, about half my traffic is still folks finding me from my Blogger blog… )

See? You’ve just doubled your links to me. Thank you very much!

Oh, and you would have helped me in my nevernding search for Truth! justice! and The American Way! as I keep trying to get Technorati to let me claim my own blog…

Just an idea. Now, get busy, ‘K?

John Stephemson sent out a lil note about this monument to educratic stupidity:

Schools Ban Patriotic Clothes, Flags

Reason given?

“According to school officials, some students are using the garments and flags to taunt classmates.”

If the students wear/wave the American flag AND taunt kids who identify with the “reconquistas” movement, THEN they are ENGAGING IN POLITICAL SPEECH, WHICH IS SPECIFICALLY THE _ONLY_ KIND OF SPEECH THE FIRST AMENDMENT ADDRESSES, apart from religious practice, which can contain speech and other aspects of expression.

(Minor apologies for the “shouting” but it’s either that or increase the font size by an order of magnitude… at least *sigh*)

I do with our judges and justices had the sense God gave a head of cabbage and could actually read what the First Amendment says, what the Framers said they intended it to mean (which is, shock!, exactly what it does say, no more and no less), and then say clearly: “Political SPEECH (not “expression”—the Framers SPECIFICALLY excluded that as an interpretation!) is protected by the Constitution. For protection of other speech or expression, look to state or local government.”

School officials who do not

a.) expel students who provoke AMERICAN students by proclaiming allegiance to another country and intent to conquer (at least portions of) America and
b.) affirm and support students who proclaim their alliegiance to the U.S.

…need an introduction to Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether… and “rail transport” out of town… and across the nearest border to “Aztlan”.

Students waving a Mexican flag and proclaiming allegiance to “reconquista” are engaging NOT in free political speech but in sedition and should be punished… or deported to the land of their affections.

Hoisting the AMERICAN flag at Basil’s Blog, The Real Ugly American and Jo’s Cafe.

Yeh, yeh: it took me forever to catch the typo in the post title. Fixed now.

I mentioned, in today’s Open Post, that the Fair Tax could both provide a (small) disincentive for “undocumented workers” and recoup some of the costs in social services caused by illegal aliens. Here’s this week’s Fair Tax Blogburst post dealing with some aspects of that in detail:

---

In light of the recent events transpiring over the course of the last two weeks, Terry and I thought it would be prudent to discuss the implications of the Fair Tax and how it would possibly cooperate with the immigration discussion. Rest assured, we strive to remain non-partisan, as we both firmly believe that the Fair Tax is an issue that liberals, conservatives, and libertarians can all come together on. This is why I will attempt to refrain from inserting some of my beliefs into this week’s burst as it pertains to the immigration policies Congress is grappling with.

What is one of the most explosive issues within this raging debate? Personally, and I am sure most of you share the concern with what, and to what extent do “illegal immigrants” or “undocumented workers” enjoy in entitlements and governmental resources? Whether you believe that this is a problem or not is somewhat moot, for it is an argument that is infused within the debate.

Insert the Fair tax into the equation, and this argument is nearly gutted in its entirety. With the Fair Tax, and as Mr. Boortz and Congressman Linder state in a better manner than I:

The underground economy, which currently escapes taxes on about $1.5 trillion, would no longer enjoy its tax-free status. The illegal activities in which they engage would not be legalized, but every retail purchase the criminals made – whether a mochachino or a Mercedes – would be taxed the same as yours and mine.

Herein, Mr. Boortz and Congressman Linder are specifically addressing such activities as tax evasion, drug dealing, et al; however, it is not outside the realm of imagination to see just how this would correlate to the problem of “illegal immigrants” not paying their “fair share” of taxes. It is undisputed that they pay little or no taxes based on the arrangement they have with their employers. It is argued frequently that many of them do pay portions of their taxes via fake and counterfeit social security numbers, but this is just a portion and it pales in comparison to what many hard-working Americans pay year in and year out under our current tax system. The Fair Tax would be a definitive solution, for it ensures that every new purchase or service would generate tax revenue. Furthermore, it would arguably create an incentive for these immigrants to seek the legal recourse for they would more than likely be precluded from the “prebate” we have discussed before.

Thus, with the advent of the Fair Tax, much of the political rhetoric and strife may be gutted since a tremendous concern of many Americans would be alleviated in the short term.

The FairTax Blogburst is jointly produced by Jonathan of Publius Rendezvous and Terry of The Right Track Blog. If you would like to join us, please e-mail Jonathan or Terry. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll.

FairTax Blogroll

• Ogre’s Politics & Views
• Blue State Conservatives
• Oblogatory Anecdotes
• Euphoric Reality
• Slobokan’s Site O’ Schtuff
• Right Truth
• Liberally Conservative
• United Conservatives of Virginia
• Third World County
• Ms. Underestimated
• The Buzz Blog
• Area 417
• Stuck On Stupid
• Publius Rendezvous
• The Right Track
• Cao’s Blog
• Right Wing Nation
• Kim Priestap
• Don Surber

…and in spite of myself, even I kinda like this. Just go watch it. I’ll either be here when you get back or meet you there. 🙂

I’ll put my critique of the piece as music elsewhere… maybe in comments, but I will say this, the lyric hook and the “Nyah-nyah” guitar lick are perfect for the piece.

Seen all over the web… h.t. to Romeocat for being the first place I saw it. (although I am playing off Jay Tea’s lead in).

Putting up concert posters at Adam’s Blog, Blue Star Chronicles, Conservative Cat, Diane’s Stuff, Stuck On Stupid and TMH’s Bacon Bits (have a nice trip, bud!).