Reader Mail
The Conservative Comeback
Readers eye 2010 comeback, World War I, Inspector General scandal, life under the Sun, and much more -- including barbs from Barb. And limp-wristed Obama's opening pitch.
(Page 3 of 3)
The Democrats and their media allies have now gone "borking" one
better with "palining." I don't need to retail the disgusting
attacks on Sarah and her family. When are Republicans going to
step up and play the game as the opposition has defined it? Why
don't we and our media and our interest groups retail every rumor
we can invent about prominent Democrats? I'm sure there are
plenty of things we can find out about their children, since it
is now open season on families. For instance, the Obamamessiah's
daughter was running around Europe with a big peace sign on her
tee shirt. I'm sure there's potentially a lot of humor in her as
a throwback to the 60's, and even some possible blue material for
a rightwing David Letterman (if such exists). Let's bring phony
ethics charge after phony ethics charge and cripple every
prominent Democratic leader in the nation. Let's demoralize the
other side for a change as they are committed to demoralizing us.
Yeah, I know, we are ladies and gentlemen and consider it a point
of honor to bring a pocket knife to a gun fight. And when we find
ourselves in an unconstitutional society we no longer recognize,
we can be glad that we avoided confronting our enemies with some
of their own tactics in our quest to be "better than them." Our
intellectuals will take the high road, though they will no longer
have access to academy, airwaves, or publications. Our
politicians will take the craven road, though they will no longer
have access to public office. And Big Brother will be there to
run five minute hate sessions against any dissenters who might
find a circuitous path to public notice.
-- Stephen Zierak
Kansas City, Missouri
DO NOT GO GENTLY INTO TYRANNY
Re: R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.'s Saving
Liberty:
Precisely. Why is no one else is willing to say it?
Now, in the summer of our heart's discontent,
When we haven't a leader, our plea to present,
And may have to endure a long winter's cold,
Still, we can stand front and center, and bold.
We don't have to suffer these fools now on stage,
As they howl at the moon in their cynical rage.
And, where is it written, that we who can see,
Must be blind, when they say, "In a cage, you are free?"
So, dust off the patriot dreams worn and tattered,
And think of the time, when THEY were what mattered.
For if we are cowed, by this maddening crowd
Our hope in the spring will be shattered.
-- Mike Showalter
OUT OF THE MONEY
“We’re out of money” -- President Obama commenting to a national
audience on his inability to help the National League when
jokingly asked about a “bail-out” by sports commentator Joe Buck
in the latter’s broadcast booth at the 2009 baseball All-Star
Game in St. Louis last night. My mind reels, my
heart sinks at the shameful and condescending
treatment of the American people by the Obama Administration and
our elected government servants. Apart from the President’s
acolytes, a slavish Congress, political and street hustlers and
other New Carpetbaggers does he think the rest of us are so
ignorant of history, guilt-ridden about “race” or “the
disadvantaged” or fat, complacent and obsessed with iPods and
cell phones that at least some of us cannot see behind the façade
of his anti-American acting out? Cannot see the “deconstruction”
through lawyerly manipulations of the normal, rational principles
underlying the founding of the Republic? Cannot see that an
off-hand, un-telepromptered comment portends death and disaster
for the nation? Out of money??
With the fawning, tremulous media peeking out of his pocket we are looking at mass-psychology at work. Clever wordsmithing and “framing” about “tax cuts”, “conscience”, “values,” “folks,” “health-care,” “the Founders,” “empathy,” “core” this and “core” that and on and on ad nauseam is not going to change the fact that he has consistently misrepresented what he believes and intends to do for the sole purpose of persuading his listeners that their thoughts and desires coincide with his, not the other way around, thus offering the illusion of “empowerment.”
Bravo! to the many TAS writers for having the decency, sense and grip on reality to articulate a pattern of un-Presidential behavior that in anyone not shielded by wealth and power would be considered evidence of a serious underlying psycho-emotional disorder and make that person medically unfit for social leadership. Instead, American civilization has been handed over to a needy sociopath whose charmed narcissistic career has led to what he thinks is his moment for turning the ship of state on a dime in the ocean of history.
Please, someone should write a piece carefully articulating and exposing in a straightforward way the mass-psychological and emotional bases for what politicians, especially the President are getting away with. Indulge me for a moment: the extreme hatred of so many Americans for President George W. Bush represented a huge amount of stirred-up, pent-up emotional energy that was deliberately but unconsciously guided and converted to love for Obama as he, analyst-like told the people “I feel your pain”and encouraged the “patients” to fantasize about him as their “love-object.” Running a nation is not like organizing a "community." There could be terrible consequences to this kind of behavior. The signposts on the road to hell are symbols that activate deeply buried emotions. Dimly or not the Soviets and Nazis knew of this. Modern “cognitive scientists” like George Lakoff have sanitized the earlier Freud-derived concepts but they also know a thing or two about manipulation. I may be an armchair psychologist but it seems to me that if the dynamics of emotion are ever-present and the Republic was by design erected on a foundation (the Constitution) to minimize a fatal national political plague then the recent campaign and election results are like a “general alarm” on the nation’s ship. The icebergs have not melted, they are directly ahead and the stupid band (Congress) is still playing.
It really is all about behavior. TAS writers do their
best to explain this in specific terms and contexts and I
appreciate it. Legalism and philosophy aside, what is the
Constitution if not a manual for how the “national family”
members are to relate to each other? I think that the Founders,
with a Biblical/life-wisdom cast of mind, nearly two thousand
years of secular and scientific inquiry behind them and an
awareness of how serious and rare the achievment of
independence from an authoritarian monarch really was, for all
their individual shortcomings knew that they had to carefully
consider and achieve a Constitution “for the ages” that
incorporated their collective understanding of “the world” and
human emotions. To paraphrase and add to old King Solomon, “there
is nothing new under the Sun,” just new ways of pretending that
this is not so. Who will step up to the plate to
persuasively say this?
-- MF
MY KIND OF GUY
I’ll take the flyboy from Texas.
The one with the determined gait.
His syntax may fall,
But hand him a ball
And he’ll drill it over home plate.
-- Mimi Evans Winship
SEGREGATING BIGOTRY
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Two
Presidents and the Court: When Bigotry Takes the Bench:
This was one of the most interesting articles I've read on your
website.
-- Robert Nowall
Cape Coral, Florida
Letter to the Editor View all comments (31) | Leave a comment
Leave a Comment
More Articles From Reader Mail
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/16/the-conservative-comeback
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- Evolve or Die
- The Collapse of Jon Corzine
- Herbert Hoover's Long-Awaited Magnum Opus
- Digital Subscription (Save 78%)
- Buy a single issue (Save 50%)
- Send Spectator as a gift
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Rocco| 7.16.09 @ 7:32AM
Mr. Zierak, well said. I have long recognized over the years that if someone brings a gun, I bring a bazooka.... and use it. I really don't know what goes through the minds of these Repubs in Congress. Everytime I hear this BS about Republicans taking "the high road," I feel like puking. It's the high road to oblivion. It reminds me of the BS I used to hear from an old girlfriend who didn't like me giving her younger brother boxing lessons to defend himself from bullies at school - "he's too mature to fight." My answer was, then he'll go through life getting the crap knocked out of him. Where in the hell do these idiots come from?!?
We need another Lee Atwater to recruit a crop of street-fighting conservatives to rout these cowards once and for all.
Mike Dooley| 7.16.09 @ 9:07AM
Dear Barb:
1.) There are times I wish there actually was something like a "right wing conspiracy". Unlike the left wing fantasy that conservatives had been trained in Argentina by former members of the Nazi S.S., Conservatives are much like herding cats.
2.) We are long accustomed to having what we say mean nothing to you.
3.) On the other hand, apparently it is you who gives a flying*&^% what any of us think.
4.) Conservatives happen to like cowboys. As with most heroes, we wish we were more like them. As the story goes, an English royal was visiting America and asked a mounted cowboy where his master was. The cowboy replied that the SOB ain't been born yet.
5.) Being free and self-governing men and women has nothing to do with shutting up and enjoying the ride.
6.) In case it passed you by, Conservatives find there was a whole bunch of things Bush did that were absolutely deplorable. Last fall's "first stimulus" package was about as anti-conservative as you can get.
7.) As Obama is slowly learning, getting the rest of the world to like us is a fool's errand. The only times Europe "likes" us is when we do the heavy lifting for them or when we save them from their foreign policy mistakes.
8.) Unlike “you” during the Reagan and Bush years, we do not take these “Obama years” as a personal insult. Doesn’t it strike you as a little bit odd that you now have the Congress and the Presidency and are pretty much getting your way—and yet you are still so angry?
Geoff| 7.16.09 @ 10:17AM
Bravo (as usual) Mr. Kessel. You too, Rocco.
But, Mike, your "poetry" will never match Mimi's.
We're in a World'o'Hurt, gang.....
Big J| 7.16.09 @ 10:20AM
"I sit back and laugh as I watch you all squirm. I'm lovin' it!! I wish you could, too."
Wasn't Nero fiddling, even as Rome burned?
"Your party screwed up this country so bad over the last 28 years, it's time for you to sit down, shut up and enjoy the ride"
Is that also your recommendation to a rape victim? "It's your fault for looking so pretty, so just sit back, relax and try to enjoy it."
I ask, because rape is exactly what is occurring at the moment. The destruction of the pursuit of happiness, liberty and American Exceptional ism. All at an extremely alarming rate.
You and your ilk disgust me. You will not be happy until the rest of the world is just as miserable and self-loathing as you. No, not even then. Because after you have dragged the rest of us down to the level of your miserable existence, you will find that you don't feel any better. You are not one bit more successful than you were before. The only difference will be that you won't have the backs of others to carry your burdens anymore.
"Go out and try to make the world a better place instead of clogging up the system with useless opinions and stories."
That is precisely what we are trying to do, no thanks to people like you who foolishly fall for the "Hope and Change" scam.
My advice to you, Barb: Get a life.
Who knows, you might find happiness one day.
IMKessel| 7.16.09 @ 11:03AM
Rocco ,
I like your steel. Atwater is certainly missed.
Mr. Dooley, well said.
Respectly,
IMK
Daddy| 7.16.09 @ 11:03AM
Barb needs blood pressure meds....or a cold beer.
JerseyJ| 7.16.09 @ 11:17AM
Mr. Shepler ... extremely well said Sir.
Mr. Sour asks (regarding the largely duped public) ... "Is someone going to give them an injection of wisdom between now and then? "
That job is up to all of us Mr. Sour. I can tell you from the first-hand perspective of someone who was formerly attentive yet inactive in the political debate, that there are many, many people getting quickly "up to speed" on the issues. Those who until recently trusted in their Representative Republic and did not feel the need to become active. There are many more out there who are suffering buyer's remorse and are being educated by those of us who understand the slide into Marxism and the perils inherent in the trashing of our Constitution.
People are starting to get it, of that I can assure you. I just hope it's enough.
Barb ... your incoherent and factually devoid post does a fine job illustrating the failings of the party of "I won". You would be well served to investigate Lenin's definition of "useful idiot". Thanks for dropping by though.
IMKessel| 7.16.09 @ 11:18AM
Ms. Rogers,
You painted with rather large brush strokes. Please, can you eludicate on just three policies you found deficient during the time the GOP ruled over all the Congress and held the White House? Please be specific and include how a liberal policy would have been preferable.
Thank you.
IMKessel| 7.16.09 @ 11:37AM
Mr. Welli,
Well written piece, but, not to play "gotcha, I respectfully point out you are mistaken when you write, "In the Middle East...and the idea of a Jewish state, Israel, was conceived."
Israel was concieved by God over 5,000 years ago. It was founded with blood, sweat and tears, much like our proud nations. If fact, our nation was deliberately designed to reflect the ethos and majesty of Israel.
From a historical perspective, the Zionist movement predates WWI as well. The term "Zionism" was coined 1891 and can be traced to the Austrian publicist Nathan Birnbaum. From humble roots of a displaced people yearning to return to their sacred land came Israel, the return of Israel, the fruition of a people's hope and dream.
Mattled| 7.16.09 @ 1:42PM
Picture Barb as Janeane Garafolo---without the looks. [[[[shudder]]]]]
Michael L. Hauschild| 7.16.09 @ 3:01PM
I marvel at the lead lined vacuum chamber someone like Barb lives in. I am not a soothsayer but indulge me when I say that her sales tax, grocery bill, and vehicular fuel cost will not be any different than my own.
Patriot| 7.16.09 @ 6:29PM
The last 28 years? Geez, Barbie, I thought Clinton was one of your perverts.
DaveS| 7.16.09 @ 7:12PM
That was by far the most effeminate first pitch of all time. No teleprompter help?
Conservative Chick| 7.16.09 @ 7:48PM
I tell my young son to steer very clear of angry liberal women like Barb: 'Barbs' are usually afflicted with PMS 24/7 and sleep around a lot. Trouble!
Tootsie| 7.16.09 @ 10:14PM
The pitch was bad but the 'mom' jeans were the real laugher. What a geek.
jordan 6 rings| 7.17.09 @ 4:45AM
We need another Lee Atwater to recruit a crop of street-fighting conservatives to rout these cowards once and for all.
E-Bikes| 7.17.09 @ 4:47AM
I like your steel. Atwater is certainly missed.
Mr. Dooley, well said.
Respectly,
IMK
Ben Frusher| 7.18.09 @ 3:17PM
We the Republicans have screwed the country the last twenty years, come on. Actually it has been Us Republicans that have keep you liberals in check. The problem is Republicans have been washintonized and they end up spènding more like you Democtats the more they stay in Washinton. We as the American people just need to vote out the entire Congress, and elect a completly new congress with term limits.
And quite frankly We as the American people should demand that the Politicians quite limiting the voice of the people and churches. Churches should not be able to comment on the moral rot in this country, give me a break. And and the Bible says, in Proverbes, a nation with moral decay falls easily. And you are so blinded to what is going on you can´t see it, quite a pitty.