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Throw the Book at Him
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Testimonial to a Great American
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Obama’s Imbroglios
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My Rahm Reunion
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The Current Crisis
Liberalism Always Goes Too Far
Public nudity is its latest great cause. But not lewd thoughts, please.
WASHINGTON — One of the causes that has brought the great and worthy movement of Liberalism to its present state of decrepitude has been remarked upon in this column many times before: Liberalism always goes too far. Even in the case of a noble impulse, it goes too far. Public events in recent days in that magnificent monument to Liberalism, San Francisco, show us once again the example of Liberalism over the edge.
But to review my thesis — Liberalism going too far. It started with the workingman trying to organize a union in the 1930s. It ended with the unions barring everyone save a particular type of man from the union shop. In the 1950s, about a decade before the Liberal Crack-Up got going, it barred women from the union; and of course it barred Blacks and Latinos. Moreover, no one who was non-union could still work in the union shop. Liberalism always goes too far. Bring Liberalism up into modern times. It talked of peace in Vietnam and negotiating an end to the war in Vietnam. But not long after negotiations got started Liberalism was against all use of force in the world, notwithstanding how threatening the USSR (then our enemy) might be. In time Liberalism was calling for disarmament and turning the Pentagon into a peace museum, or perhaps a place for the homeless.
Take poverty. Liberalism favored all manner of methods to alleviate the plight of the poor. Presidential candidate George McGovern called for a government stipend for everyone (and practical expropriation of us all upon our death). More reasonably, Liberalism favored the perfectly sensible “safety net” for the least of our brothers and sisters. Yet, of a sudden, it was calling for redistribution of the wealth. President Franklin Roosevelt, of blessed memory, favored the CCC, WPA, and PWA, all requiring the disadvantaged to work for their government check. By the 1970s work was not a requirement for public largess, and many of the poor lived the life of a comfortable retiree from the local bank. They developed suntans and some a tolerably good golf game. The more farsighted took their welfare checks and dabbled in the stock market.
One sees this proclivity for taking a good cause too far all the time. Do the Liberals call for tolerance of homosexuality? In only a matter of time, they are calling for gay marriage — not civil union, marriage! They are for tolerance for nudity at the beach, then nudity in public restaurants, even at fashion shows, even at churches and synagogues.
Which brings me to the crucial public events in San Francisco last weekend. There a city supervisor, infelicitously named Scott Wiener, has introduced a law calling for the prohibition of nudity in San Francisco’s great restaurants — family restaurants and otherwise — and requiring that naked arses placed on park benches or other public seats be swaddled in a towel or newspaper or other ameliorative materials. Needless to say, San Francisco, when faced with the nudist craze then sweeping progressive towns such as Berkeley and San Jose, adopted legalized public nudity wholeheartedly and put no limits on it. In fact, I would think reactionaries in a coat and tie or a chaste dress might be in danger in San Francisco of being proscribed.
Still, city supervisor Wiener sought limits, and he sought them on the nudists — mainly dumpy, bald-headed men, all fat and some with hairy backs, if the photographs I saw of last weekend’s of the momentous protests were accurate. There were no statuesque super models demonstrating against his legislation in San Francisco. One gentleman said he already wraps himself in a towel when he enters a restaurant or sits on a bench. “This is about body acceptance, not politics,” said the “Nude-In’s” leader Mitch Hightower, who runs a pornographic website.
What have these moribund Liberals created? If I follow the news reports, it is the unprecedented prospect of thought police. The law that allows nudity everywhere in San Francisco asserts that nudity is illegal only when it inspires “lewd thoughts or acts” or “there are present other persons to be offended or annoyed.” Well, who in San Francisco would be “offended or annoyed” by a guy from the Nude-In dining at the next table? But notice that reference to “lewd thoughts.” Frankly, I find it alarming. Nowhere in the country are we barred from “lewd thoughts” save in San Francisco. As the Thought Police descend on the City by the Bay, remember what I have said: Liberalism always goes too far.
About the Author
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn’t Work: Social Democracy’s Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (165) | Leave a comment
More Articles by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
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Brian Mc| 9.29.11 @ 6:33AM
If we take this point to it's inevitable conclusion, then the recent psychological 'arguments' attempting to favor (or disregard) the mindset of individuals belonging to that wonderful group known as NAMBLA should make us all wonder the fate of Lot's wife.
Alan Brooks| 9.29.11 @ 8:53PM
We wouldn't want to see Ben Stein or Jed Babbin in the altogether.
But I shouldn't criticize them, Ben and Jed have 'done' more debutantes than most HS guys. The tedious lecture circuit has its consolations.
KyMouse| 9.29.11 @ 7:13AM
As my wise mother once pointed out, "Most people over 16 look better with their clothes on."
Mike Hawk| 9.29.11 @ 8:16AM
I'll give the PETA babes a pass on this. They are funny when they parade aounnd in the buff, get lots of applause and elicit lewd thoughts from the male observers.
Brubaker| 9.29.11 @ 3:18PM
Your mom obviously knew a lot more than the SF exhibitionists.
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 9.29.11 @ 7:27AM
Whatever happened to "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service"?
This is why these social battles matter, and why we have to fight to conserve sound traditions at each and every turn. The Left keeps chipping away at the foundation that keeps this Country sane, and with every loss, with every new change that they force feed us, the Country we thought we knew becomes more unrecognizable, and less recoverable by the day. Now we're supposed to "accept" naked people at our local Dunkin' Donuts? No F'ing way!! The first one I encounter, I'm kicking the sh*t out of!! Sorry!! Call me intolerable if you must!! Well I guess I am then!! Enough already!! Put you clothes back on, keep them on, show some damn respect to the People around you!! Stop forcing your craziness upon the rest of us, pretending your way of doing things is the way things have always been, or should be done!! Act like a normal human being!! Grow up already!! Act like an adult!!
TrueBlue| 9.29.11 @ 4:46PM
To add to that, pedophelia is at the same level of social acceptance that homosexualism was 30 years ago. America is heading the way of Rome. (Here come the flames)
Michael Tomlinson| 9.29.11 @ 7:30AM
Democrats not only think small, but are small.
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Dan Mathewson| 9.29.11 @ 8:06PM
I tried to watch it. Holy cow! That dude it nuts! Couple bricks shy of a full load.
Cpm| 10.1.11 @ 9:26AM
But it does give you an insight into that feverswamp POST calls a brain.
John Navratil| 9.29.11 @ 7:46AM
To the liberal it is never far enough. The goal is complete devolution. Man as just another animal on the planet. Perhaps someone in the government labs will provide the gene therapy for our use to grow fur before turning off the last light and ceding the lab back to the forest.
I'd like to see any one of them live a year "on the economy" in Bangladesh or even in their beloved Cuba. Of course their problems would be with the failure of capitalism and other faults of man; man who can be perfected by just the next set of liberal nostrums and quackery. Nude dining in public is nothing a good Cholera epidemic wouldn't fix.
martin j smith| 9.29.11 @ 8:16AM
I do not talk of Liberals I talk of Socialists or Communists-Marxist-Leninists. Big difference.
These people under the monker of the Democrat(ic ? ) Party have shown us who they really are. They want a take over. Some have verbalized a desire to hold no elections. The SEIU and other LEFT grounds engage is disruptive and violent protests. The Obama Regime engages in thuggish tactics. No the Liberals have not gone too far. But the folks who do not recognize what we are actually dealing with have not done enough work. There is no "work across the aisle" possibilities with this crowd. That is where we are at now.
Teaghan| 9.29.11 @ 8:34AM
Sweet Jesus~
FastJohnny| 9.29.11 @ 8:35AM
We are talking about San Francisco here. Even though I am very secular, this is the place that is the real Sodom and, hmm there must be a city very close by that would be Gommorah. Anyway, the whole place is beyond understanding, not to mention surreally grotesque.
MikeBee| 9.29.11 @ 8:51AM
FJ,
It's called Berkeley.
Mike Hawk| 9.29.11 @ 11:17AM
That is Berzerkely
Margaret| 9.29.11 @ 4:59PM
In Deuterocanonical position Wisdom 10:6 refers to Five Cities, including Sodom, or Pentapolis:
"Wisdom rescued a righteous man when the ungodly were perishing; he escaped the fire that descended on the Five Cities."
vb| 9.29.11 @ 8:37AM
I just read that the newest move is for transgenders in the military.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 12:03PM
VB, obviously you think the modern military's purpose is what it has been since civilization first dawned on this planet: To protect and defend the citizenry and its interests.
Au contraire, my benighted Neanderthal: The military's new, progressive-enlightened purpose is to act as a laboratory for social experimentation - that is, when they're not handing out food for the UN to countries that will slit our throats the minute we turn our backs.
As a good liberal, I won't be satisfied until the only thing we arm our soldiers with is self esteem, and the only engagement with other soldiers we sanction is to dole out big, fat hugs.
America doesn't have enemies. We just have friends we haven't put on the dole yet.
Timothy L. Pennell| 9.29.11 @ 9:00AM
You've got to understand what Liberalism, is.
It's the Anti-Religion. It's the Religion, for those who hate Religion.
What is Religion, exactly? It is a whole bunch of RESTRICTIONS.
"Thou Shalt Not" this. "Thou Shalt Not" that.
This is Forbidden. You HAVE to do these things. Killing, Lying, Stealing, Wanting other people's things. All of these things are Frowned upon.
It's why they HATE the Constitution.
They LIKE doing all the things that Religion tells them not to.
Thou Shalt Not Kill? "What about my RIGHT to an Abortion?"
Thou Shalt not Steal? "Hey. I'm just stickin it to the Man."
Thou Shalt Not Covet? "TAX THE RICH!"
Their Leader is the Muslim Boy who came to Power, with the aid of the Jewish Boy, who helped the NAZIS exterminate his fellow Jews. He "Claims" to be Christian, and says of the Constitution: "It is a Document of NEGATIVE Rights.
Religion is that x 10.
So, they have their own Religion. The Un Religion. Kinda like, the 7UP, of Religions.
Lie, Cheat, Steal. Hey, if it feels good, do it. And, they've got some pretty DEVOUT Followers.
The idea of walking around NAKED, is just their way of sticking their finger in GOD'S eye, and the eyes of everyone who believes in HIM.
They don't need GOD, anyway. They've got their own God. Their own Messiah. They always have.
Lenin was GOD. Stalin was GOD. Hitler was GOD. Mao was GOD. At least to those who followed them.
Today's Liberals. OUR Liberals, don't need GOD. They have OBAMA. He is the ONE that they've been waiting for.
The Boy, raised in the Muslim Schools and Mosques of Indonesia. A Follower of MARX and MAO. The Cigarette smoking, COKE HEAD, who immersed himself in the Counter Culture of The Black Panthers, The Weather Underground's Leaders, The PLO, Cloward and Piven, and Louis Farrakhan.
"Liberalism always goes too far"?
If you ask them? They haven't gone Far ENOUGH. But, they will.
Next year they will BURN DOWN America's Cities. These Black FLASH MOBS, are just the beginning.
"We are the ones we've been waiting for. Now, let's BURN IT DOWN."Mark My Words.
Hollywood Hick| 9.29.11 @ 9:35AM
"Just TRY and stop me." But, oh, by the way, you need to stop doing what it is YOU do." This is the liberal mind.
Peter McGrath| 9.29.11 @ 10:01AM
Try using paragraphs, and spaces, and avoid CAPS, if you want anyone (other than yourself) to bother read your screeds, which frequently do have good points (it's just too difficult to glean them from the poor composition).
Timothy L. Pennell| 9.29.11 @ 10:14AM
Nobody's forcing anybody to read anything.
Maybe you're Glasses Prescription needs adjusting?
Perhaps, if I wrote it in CRAYON?
Timothy L. Pennell| 9.29.11 @ 10:27AM
Dear Pablo Picasso;
Hello. It's Peter McGrath. You don't know me, but, I've often seen your paintings, and I've got some advice.
If you want anyone (other than yourself) to bother looking at your scribblings, you might want to start putting the Eyes and the Ears and the Noses, in your pictures, where they belong, and not all over the place. (It's just too difficult to glean them from the poor composition).
Idiot.
Ghost of William Shakespeare| 9.29.11 @ 1:14PM
So you're equating yourself with Picasso?
Gee, no shortage of ego there, eh?
As a matter of fact, I think Picasso's early stuff - before he became so enamored of cubism - was far more accessible, expressive and human than his later stuff, which is always interesting, but doesn't pack the punch you get from, say, his "blue period."
Yours,
Will S.
Oldefarte| 9.29.11 @ 4:15PM
TLP, you nailed it, as usual!!!!!!!!
Timothy L. Pennell| 9.30.11 @ 5:25PM
I write these things for guys like YOU.
I'm 54. An Air Force Vet, a Husband, and a Father of two young sons: 6 and 11.
I remember the BETTER DAYS.
I just hope that they're not gone, forever.
I really appreciate your opinion.
God Bless.
Timothy L. Pennell| 9.29.11 @ 9:05AM
You've got to understand what Liberalism, is.
It's the Anti-Religion. It's the Religion, for those who hate Religion.
What is Religion, exactly? It is a whole bunch of RESTRICTIONS.
"Thou Shalt Not" this. "Thou Shalt Not" that.
This is Forbidden. You HAVE to do these things. Killing, Lying, Stealing, Wanting other people's things. All of these things are Frowned upon.
It's why they HATE the Constitution.
They LIKE doing all the things that Religion tells them not to.
Thou Shalt Not Kill? "What about my RIGHT to an Abortion?"
Thou Shalt not Steal? "Hey. I'm just stickin it to the Man."
Thou Shalt Not Covet? "TAX THE RICH!"
Their Leader is the Muslim Boy who came to Power, with the aid of the Jewish Boy, who helped the NAZIS exterminate his fellow Jews. He "Claims" to be Christian, and says of the Constitution: "It is a Document of NEGATIVE Rights.
Religion is that x 10.
So, they have their own Religion. The Un Religion. Kinda like, the 7UP, of Religions.
Lie, Cheat, Steal. Hey, if it feels good, do it. And, they've got some pretty DEVOUT Followers.
The idea of walking around NAKED, is just their way of sticking their finger in GOD'S eye, and the eyes of everyone who believes in HIM.
They don't need GOD, anyway. They've got their own God. Their own Messiah. They always have.
Lenin was GOD. Stalin was GOD. Hitler was GOD. Mao was GOD. At least to those who followed them.
Today's Liberals. OUR Liberals, don't need GOD. They have OBAMA. He is the ONE that they've been waiting for.
The Boy, raised in the Muslim Schools and Mosques of Indonesia. A Follower of MARX and MAO. The Cigarette smoking, COKE HEAD, who immersed himself in the Counter Culture of The Black Panthers, The Weather Underground's Leaders, The PLO, Cloward and Piven, and Louis Farrakhan.
"Liberalism always goes too far"?
If you ask them? They haven't gone Far ENOUGH. But, they will.
Next year they will BURN DOWN America's Cities. These Black FLASH MOBS, are just the beginning.
"We are the ones we've been waiting for. Now, let's BURN IT DOWN.
"Mark My Words.
Timothy L. Pennell| 9.29.11 @ 9:15AM
Oops.
9thID| 9.29.11 @ 10:19AM
Liber-als and Liber-tarians all come from the same root of Libertinism. The former ends up in totalitarianism and the latter in anarchy..
Douglas Fletcher | 9.29.11 @ 4:48PM
If I ever actually read one of these Pennell screeds I know that I have finally gone insane.
Douglas Fletcher | 9.29.11 @ 4:48PM
I will know
Peter McGrath| 9.29.11 @ 5:00PM
He actually pretty good at inflammatory polemics. Just once, I'd like to see him try using conventional composition (paragraphs, spacing, fewer really annoying CAPS, etc.)
Timothy L. Pennell| 9.29.11 @ 5:15PM
Again: Dear Pablo Picasso;
Hello. It's Peter McGrath. You don't know me, but, I've often seen your paintings, and I've got some advice.
If you want anyone (other than yourself) to bother looking at your scribblings, you might want to start putting the Eyes and the Ears and the Noses and the Mouths, in your pictures, where they belong, and not all over the place. (It's just too difficult to glean them from the poor composition).
Idiot.
Margie| 9.29.11 @ 7:01PM
You kill me.
Figuratively of course.
Occam's Tool| 9.30.11 @ 4:12PM
Dear Tim:
When all they've got to criticize is your style, and not your substance, think about thanking them.
I like your substance myself.
Anthony| 9.29.11 @ 9:32AM
RET, You are being way too polite here. Liberalism is more than just going too far, liberalism is indeed a form of mental disorder.
The left are incapable of comprehending the concept of limits and boundaries when it comes to concepts they support.
Petronius| 9.29.11 @ 9:43AM
San franshithole deserves Sharia. I want to see all the "multiculturalists" and "feminists" there accommodate Islam. They despise the rules of civilization and always will. Then they should experience the ancient meaning of those famous words of one Jagger; "everybody must get stoned."
Dave Williams| 9.29.11 @ 9:55AM
Um, that would be Mr. Robert Zimmerman, a/k/a Bob Dylan...
Petronius| 9.29.11 @ 2:04PM
I stand conflicted, conflated, berated, corrected, deflected, inspected, and superannuated. Now back to Blood on the Tracks.
Cheers Dave
Margie| 9.29.11 @ 7:04PM
Well, not too hard to confuse Jagger with somebody stoned all the time, is it really?
But at least Jagger can sort of still sing.
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:58PM
Margie, I must quibble:
"Jagger can still sort of sing." This implies that at one point Bob Dylan could sing. When was this?
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 10:00PM
For example, are you aware that Jimi's great hit, "All Along the Watchtower" was a COVER of the original Dylan song---Dylan actually performed it himself (he wrote it, after all) before Hendrix blew him away?
Margie| 9.30.11 @ 2:27PM
Hahaha! Very funny.
Margie| 9.30.11 @ 2:30PM
About him being able to sing, that is. That reply was supposed to have come out under your first post, but that isn't how its working anymore.
Oh, I know Hendrix did Watchtower and it was Dylan's song. I used to be a huge Dylan fan. When I gave my life to Christ, I started praying for him to do the same.. and God did save him, and he became a Bible believing Christian.
What do you mean though by it was "a cover" of the orig. song?
Occam's Tool| 9.30.11 @ 4:17PM
Dylan actually recorded a version first, Margie. Like, for instance, Proud Mary has been done by CCR and Ike and Tina Turner. I believe the CCR version came out first (and was written by them) so Tina would be doing a "cover" of the song. Or Led Zeppelin doing covers of Robert Johnson's Blues masterpieces.
Here's a WIKI excerpt that explains it better:
"All Along the Watchtower" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The song, which has been included on most of Dylan's greatest hits compilations, initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding. Over the past 35 years, he has performed it in concert more than any of his other songs. Different versions appear on four of Dylan's live albums.[1]
Covered by numerous artists in various genres, "All Along the Watchtower" is strongly identified with the interpretation Jimi Hendrix recorded for Electric Ladyland with the Jimi Hendrix Experience.[2]"
You see?
Have a lovely weekend, you and your husband.
Doctor Right| 9.29.11 @ 9:49AM
San Francisco is a city of freaks and morons.
Most of the sensible people have moved outside of the city limits, where they can smoke, buy a gold-fish, or have their newborns circumcised without government intrusion OR in-your-face displays of homosexuality on the street corner.
It's a sick, degenerate place. If another earthquake caused it to fall into the sea, that would be a good start.
Peter McGrath| 9.29.11 @ 10:04AM
My brother (who once loved S.F.) had to evacuate his family from this sick, sad place back in the 1980's.
Paul McGrath| 9.29.11 @ 12:17PM
HI Pete,
Oh, I still love the city. We go there all the time. You just have to be careful not to go to certain neighborhoods on certain weekends--the Folsom Street Fair of last weekend comes immediately to mind--and you have to have a certain tolerance for bums.
Haven't run into any naked guys yet, but I suspect this is only a matter of time. Surprisingly, this is a controversial subject in S. F., at least to judge by the letters to the editor section in the Chronicle. Not too many people are happy about this new advance of liberty.
Douglas Fletcher | 9.29.11 @ 4:50PM
I suppose the logical endgame in this is naked bums.
Peter McGrath| 9.29.11 @ 5:06PM
Well, actually, the logical endgame would be large group orgies in Union Square followed by ritualistic blood sacrifices of blond-haired children of committed Christians - with their parents forced to either renounce their faith or watch their children die. After all, it's part of a religious ceremony, so it's legal, right and - furthermore - those damn Christians don't deserve to live, what with their sneering judgmental attitudes.
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:31PM
Dear Doctor Right:
Apparently, a California Judge has removed the Circumcision Ban from the ballot. FURTHERMORE, in pigs fly news, the ACLU came out against the Circumcision ban! Of course, this would have affected Muslims badly, as well.
In other heartening news, Barry Manilow, who it appeared would endorse Ron Paul, is going to be a typical Libtard Jewish guy and support Obama.
Finally, Paul's support is down to SIX PERCENT.
Bill Diebold| 9.29.11 @ 9:57AM
...one can only hope they abort themselves out of existance...
Louis Jenkins| 9.29.11 @ 10:39AM
Sick, absolutely sick. But it is San Fran. And that's where Pelosi's from?
NotALibertarian| 9.29.11 @ 10:41AM
The problem is that we have allowed these people to turn everything into the Establishment of Religion. If antipathy toward homosexuality is only the imposition of religion, then so are public nudity laws.
It doesn't matter how self-evident it is that a specific sexual behavior should be discouraged or illegal. Any limits of sexual choice, we are told, are driven by religious fanaticism.
The irony is that the people who have been brainwashed into supporting "rights" for something as naturally stomach-turning as homosexuality are the ones demonstrating how little sense they have, thus proving how crucial religion is. THEIRS are precisely the "intellects" that religious sensibilities protected society from in the past.
DLSCHREIER| 9.29.11 @ 11:05AM
Nancy Pelosi naked....hmmm. That should halt liberalism in it's tracks!
Mike Hawk| 9.29.11 @ 11:17AM
Ick!
Drunken Sailor| 9.29.11 @ 11:57AM
Great! Now I need to bleach my brain to kill that mental image. I think I'm goint be sick.
Petronius| 9.29.11 @ 2:08PM
For Brain Bleach, see nicedoggie. The recipe is TopSecret.
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:32PM
Are you a fan of the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Site, too!
Petronius| 9.30.11 @ 8:58AM
Careful how you say that. The Emperor is not as forgiving as I.
Occam's Tool| 9.30.11 @ 4:18PM
Oh, I adore the Emperor, for he is great!
Anthony| 9.29.11 @ 11:19AM
Can we make a trade here? How about allowing these fat, balding, diminutive, and unattractive nudies permission to sit in public places in the buff, so long as we can once again enjoy a smoke in a public place without placing us in danger of physical violence or fostering " lewd thoughts or acts" against us smokers?
We are so far gone as a society, it's disgusting!!!
Robert Pinkerton| 9.29.11 @ 5:55PM
Hear! Hear! Well said! What the Establishment is doing to us smokers by salami tactics, is just too closely comparable with Nazi Germany's Nurenberg Laws. (BTW, Hitler was a smoke-hater.)
cuban pete| 9.29.11 @ 8:53PM
And a vegetarian.
Churchill & Roosevelt, a cigar and cigarette smoker and drinker.
No wonder why we won.
Skippy| 9.30.11 @ 4:45PM
Ike.
Four packs a day.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 11:51AM
Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a guess as to when explicit homosexual sex will appear on laundry detergent commericals?
"Tide doesn't discriminate when it comes to getting those tough stains out of your best sheets!"
I'm not joking. Given our culture's relentless march ever further leftward (which, at bottom, is what this article is describing), it's just a matter of time.
On a related note, those of you who think America is finally moving back to the right - for real, this time - let me ask you a question: Given that it's looking more and more like the fickle, feckless independents will ensure that Obama will be replaced by a Republican president in 2012 (that is, if the GOP doesn't shoot itself in the foot worse than the Obama Keystone Kommunists are doing), does anyone have a prediction as to where these independents will go in 2016, when, at best, we'll still be crawling from the wreckage?
Hint: They'll all fly right back to the feel-good, empty, "free lunch forever" promises of the Democrat Party, just as surely as the swallows return to Capistrano, and our march right over the cliff will continue unabated (that's assuming that America will still exist in 2016, which is, at best, a 50/50 proposition at this point).
M*A*S*H got it wrong: Suicide isn't painless; it's long and slow and fraught with denial.
Paul McGrath| 9.29.11 @ 12:23PM
I'll take it a step further Mr. Grzmylyk. Based on the way homosexuality and sexuality is portrayed in the media, it is only a matter of time before one's refusal to participate in homosexual sex will be construed as homophobia, or bigotry. "There's nothing wrong with it, man. What are you so uptight about, man? Do you have some kind of a hang-up about gays, man? You're on the wrong side of history, man." Etc.
Mark my words.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 12:52PM
You are so right, Paul. Because, per Tyrell's thesis, "tolerance" wasn't enough for these people; they had to have "acceptance." Then "acceptance" wasn't enough; they had to have "preferred political status." Now, "preferred political status" isn't enough; they're gunning for "ideal expression of human existence" status. And then they'll be able to dictate to us, which is the goal of all liberalism.
I know a very wealthy woman in Palo Alto, CA - just 40 miles or so south of San Francisco, and the home of Stanford University - who WISHES her son were gay. She's saddened because he is not.
Yes, in the America of the not-so-distant future, there will be a mandatory class for seventh-grade Leninist Indoctrination students in which each student will be required to have sex with a representative sampling from all five sexes (male, female, pre-op transgender, post-op transgender and "undecided").
This will of course have to be cross-matched with members of each different State-approved racial victim group - so little Johnny's only homework assignment for at least a year will be to have sex with virtually everybody, just to ensure that he celebrtates diversity. After all, a State can't have serfs who aren't "with" the program.
And when Johnny comes home from high school and tells one of his parental units that he has chosen to enter into a temporarily exclusive sexual relationship with someone special, the first words out of that joyous parental unit's mouth will be, "Is it a boy or girl?"
Not that it'll matter one iota by then.
And don't get me started on what'll happen when PETA gets involved in the mix.
Al Adab| 9.29.11 @ 2:02PM
Actually GRZ:
At great risk of being a smart alec (and don't tell my wife I suggested it) but I was rather hoping our Conservative women might take up the cause of public nudity.
Drunken Sailor| 9.29.11 @ 2:07PM
Now, Now Al.
Sure it sounds great at first. Just like topless beaches. Then you turn around and see grandma working on her tan lines.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 2:34PM
Al Adab, I understand.
Drunken Sailor, that's the beauty of selective memory.
Back when I was in my early 20s, I was vacationing with friends on Martha's Vineyard (this was a poor man's vacation, believe me); one friend asked me if I wanted to go to the nude beach there.
Well, I wasn't going to get naked (just what I needed - multiple sightings of the Loch Ness Monster wearing a turtleneck sweater off of Martha's Vineyard!), but he assured me it was "cool" to show up in regular swim attire and just stroll among the, uh, natives.
So I threw caution - and nothing else - to the wind.
I have to say, while there was the anticipated smattering of aesthetically-challenged middle-aged men and women quivering and sagging and jiggling in all the wrong places, a small percentage of the female denizens was utterly beautiful; youthful, as yet impervious to the deletrious effects of gravity and eager to share their pulchritude with the world (I do believe exhibitionism played a much larger role in their presence there than a desire to "return to nature" or lounge about with a Eurotrashy pseudo-indifference to the more arousing aspects of human body).
When I think of that day, I choose not to remember the disquieting sight of the corpulent 70-something man who bent over right in front of me to pick up a seashell. Instead, my memory's gaze always casts me back to the lovely, taut women glistening majestically in the forever-young sun.
Drunken Sailor| 9.29.11 @ 2:46PM
I understand Grzmlk. I enjoyed the beaches of Italy and their top optional vistas. I ran into the most beautiful bald Italian young lady wearing not much more than a smile. Bald by choice but she pulled it off wonderfully. Anytime afterwards I say the physically less appealing, I closed my eyes and thought of her.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 3:14PM
Amazing how memory filters out the bad, eh?
I'm hoping to forget the entire Obama administration.
Might be hard to do from inside a DNC-operated gulag, though.
Seriously - female beauty is one of the best reasons to alive.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 3:21PM
BTW, Drunken Sailor, I went to Rome by myself several years ago - had a hotel room not far from the Colosseum, right across from the Vittorio Emmanuele Memorial. I'd do a long day of tourist stuff, then sit at the bar outside on the street in the evenings enjoying a few cocktails. It just so happened that a bevy of young Italian women congregated there (I guess there were some males there, too).
Talk about gorgeous. Their cell phones rang non-stop, and I was so taken with the way they all pulled them out of their jeans and chirped, "pronto" into the receiver.
Viva Roma!
W| 9.29.11 @ 3:29PM
G,
I love Rome, I lived there near the Spanish Steps for three months while in school.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 3:36PM
W, I spent 8 glorious days there - I cannot believe how much I loved it. I did see the dark underbelly, for sure, but my god - so much art, so much history, so many beautiful women.
That city's beauty is one reason Roman Holiday is one of my favorite movies. Audrey Hepburn is the other reason!
W| 9.29.11 @ 4:00PM
G,
Gregory Peck's apartment was on Via Babuino, which connects the Piazza di Spagna to Piazza del Popolo. I lived on Via Babuino near that apt.
As for the women, you are 110% correct, especially the way the walk. The food was outstanding, especially the pizza.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 4:11PM
Wow - I'd love to spend more time there, as you did. That's amazing that you lived so close to that apartment! I assume it's still standing - some great shots in that movie of the area around his apartment.
Something about those Mediterranean women - just phenomenal. Very sensual. American women are no slouches, either.
Now I'm not only wistful but jealous of you! Might be time to take another European vacation. . .
W| 9.29.11 @ 5:10PM
Hope you don't mind I used G instead of the full name, I was able to save three seconds.
I took my daughter to Rome ten years ago, she also did a semester there, and she lived in the Travestere section, near the Vatican. Also a beautiful area, I only spent five days there, that was my last visit. Now you have me interested to go.
Drunken Sailor| 9.29.11 @ 5:17PM
I stayed just a few blocks from there myself for a week(BEST WESTERN Hotel Piccadilly. Still didn't get to see everything. Great city. Where else can you go get a hotdog from a vendor and have a seat on a stone pillar thousands of years old to eat it? It took me 6 months here in the states to quit answering my phone "Pronto".
Met my wife after that tour and she has heard me talk about it so much that she made me promise to take her. Would make a great anniversary trip.
W| 9.29.11 @ 5:55PM
G and DS
Maybe we can have an AmSpec reunion in Rome.
Ciao.
grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 10:56PM
Hey, that sounds like a plan.
I did love Rome. Absolutely breathtaking in every way.
W| 9.30.11 @ 7:41AM
I read that Hillary had the State Dept pay $100,000 for a goodwill gay event in Rome with Lady Gaga. I suggest we ask for the same amount to study something in Rome and we all promise to make an Obama campaign contribution and vote Dem...we'll call the Solyndra people for advice.
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:36PM
There are some women I wouldn't mind seeing naked all day long. My wife, for one.
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:33PM
Yes, but even the older Conservative women are still good looking---look at Michele, for example.
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:57PM
If Grandma is Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin, that wouldn't be a problem.
Anthony| 9.29.11 @ 12:36PM
I suspect Grzmlyk, right after explicit heterosexual sex acts appear on laundry detergent commercials.
All good things in their proper order, my man.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 12:55PM
True: But, eventually, heterosexual sex will be so YESTERDAY. I mean, on college campuses, it already is.
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:36PM
Especially at the Ivies.
Bob Foster| 9.29.11 @ 12:11PM
It seems almost fitting, to be mooned by lunatics.
Gary| 9.29.11 @ 12:12PM
What's the deal with nudists? I've never understood the motive for going nude in public. Is it to say look at me I'm not ashamed of my body? Well, who cares? Well, I AM ashamed of YOUR body dude and have no reason to relish its' display, especially when I'm eating. It's unsanitary and mankind at various points in its' evolution decided to wear clothes for practical and social reasons. There is no glory in nudity other than perhaps an art display. Grow up nudies, your bodies are not unique and showing them off with complete nudity in every day life is sill, impractical, offensive, and childish. It's bad enough how people who do dress wear wear all manner of slovenly apparel displaying their anatomic traits which most have no desire to see.
Jim Hlavac | 9.29.11 @ 12:19PM
Well, Mr. Tyrrell, one reason I've been reading this magazine for 3 decades is that you are very correct on many things. But as usual, you are a bit perplexed about us gay folks. I don't know what liberals want or think any more than you do; I'm appalled at the public nudity in SF. But I don't live there, I live in Louisiana, where the mosquitoes would eat you alive if you tried nudity outside, I assure you. So, first, don't lump us all together. Yes, we got Frank and San Fran, and well, you heteros, you got Pelosi, and well, San Fran. I can't vote there, I can't get them out of office, anymore than you can.
But on whom wants what -- it is we gays who have always requested some decency, and yes, marriage. From the very beginning, in the 1950s, not the Stonewall Riot, no. And we had to beg the liberal heteros just as much as we keep begging you conservatives; and many of them still don't get it.
Alas, some of you still "go too far" -- I dare say for Tony Perkins of the FRC and Bryan Fischer of the AFA to repeatedly call for my arrest for merely smooching whom I wish to smooch is way too far. It's nuts. To arrest us all, and incarcerate us together, for being together, well, that's just weird logic. But he's trying, maybe you should tell him to shush for "going too far."
As for marriage; well, I understand the problem you have with the word, I do. Years ago I proposed "twainage" -- I have also said that if hetero family law is say, Title 2, and we don't fit it, or you don't want us in it, then give us Title 2.5 already, and be done with it.
We keep telling you we're born this way; many of you still are basically calling us liars by saying "choose" -- we don't know why. What can I say, folks are just wrong on this; put us on the autism spectrum and stop the "evil" stuff.
But then too, I know two couples here in my city, Richard & Guy, and James & Kyle. Each couple has been together for over 32 years. Each owns one of the gay bars in town, and their own homes, and both bars have been going for more than 30 years. And if that's not small business Main Street American married couple tax paying decent citizens I don't know what is. Ironically, one of those bars is literally on Main Street!
Now these two couples have had to go through legal gyrations of many kinds to effect what they need to do -- and in a way the state already recognizes the "partnership" for we partners do it through commercial law. And so your mission is to figure out how to move all these gay couples, and more to come (us older gays never got much relationship practice, so it won't be us; but younger couples abound -- like the one redecorating the house down the block from me. I don't know them, they seem happy though,) away from the hodgepodge of commercial law to the conformity of family law, even if by a special section for us.
And along the way stop the arrant nonsense that gay people are "Attacking" anything. I can't help it if some liberal gays are ninnies, but us conservative gays try to talk them out of it. But I can't do much with guys like Rick Santorum simply going way too far in calling for my criminalization once again to save my my family. And you know, I address these many things on my blog, which links through my name; perhaps you might go and learn a thing or two of my family values and what I want. Thanks.
Carol| 9.29.11 @ 1:11PM
Jim, you are so right. The disease is not divergent sexuality, it is the unmitigated need in some incipient tyrants to mind everyone else's business. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who want to control everyone else and those who don't. There are straights and gays in both camps. Let's keep our eye on the ball, and clearly identify the enemy...and it ain't our gay brothers and sisters who share our love of liberty!
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 2:09PM
Carol, I agree with you. As a member of the arts community, I have many homosexual friends and colleagues. I had several gay roommates all through my college years.
I tend to evaluate a person holistically; the extent to which a person's identity is wrapped up in his or her sexuality is exactly the extent to which it will figure in my ability to relate to that person. There are homosexuals I like very much and heterosexuals I dislike very much.
And I believe someone has the right to love whomever they wish if both are consenting adults. I may not approve, but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to tolerate and accept.
But I draw the line in two ways: One, I resist being forced to think of it as no different from somebody preferring blondes over brunettes; according to my way of thinking, it remains an aberration, and you may put duct tape over my mouth to shut me up, but you will never change my true feelings.
Two, I resent the liberal attempt to make a powerful political cadre of "the gay community," which really shouldn't be looked at as a community in any case - it's made up of disparate individuals of widely varying quality of character, intelligence, morality and ability.
Ultimately, the politicization of "the gay community" has nothing whatsoever to do with sexuality and everything to do with power. And its true aim is attainment of the most toxic form of power: tyranny.
And I will resist tyranny, whatever shape it assumes.
idalily| 9.29.11 @ 3:49PM
Well said. As always.
Robert Pinkerton| 9.29.11 @ 6:05PM
A comment from a family friend, three decades dead now: "The sheer variety of female human beauty is proof of God's Love for us men, but the miracle of it is that they're weought from the same flesh as we men, who are the ugly half of mankind."
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:38PM
Correct as usual, Mr. G.
Ron| 9.29.11 @ 12:31PM
If the liberals love everything under the sun to be non-taboo, I want gladiatorial games brought back then.....real ones, not the namby-pamby "American Gladiator" fakes games, but real ones...I mean, why not? Every other vice and cause seems okay, so why not those?
keyboard jockey | 9.29.11 @ 1:09PM
Imus, Chris Wallace, The GOP & The Theater Of The Absurd.
Mitt Romney can't poll above 25% that leaves 75% who want someone else for their Presidential nominee. Chris Wallace, made reference to the Republican base "Waiting For Godot". The play by Samuel Beckett, that is performed in the Theater Of The Absurd. The Republicans still haven't found who they're looking for.
The GOP insist on running a liberal against a liberal and can't figure out why no Republican candidates can get any traction with the American electorate.
Herman Cain TEA party favorite endorses Romney while he is running against him in the republican primary that's absurd.
http://youhavetobethistalltogo.....er-of.html
Stefan Stackhouse| 9.29.11 @ 1:37PM
There is a simple remedy here. Just patronize those restaurants where a chef prepares your meal at your table. Frying the food. At a high temperature. With oil or grease spitting every now and then.
I will leave it to your imaginations to figure out why unclad people may not find this to be an altogether pleasant dining experience.
Drunken Sailor| 9.29.11 @ 2:12PM
I agree Stefan, in fact I was thinking powdered habenero pepper treated seats would solve the problem pretty quickly.
NoCAGal| 9.29.11 @ 2:13PM
Disgusting! What about the spread of diseases upon taking a seat? Left behind fecal matter and such? The thought of sitting next to a nude person while I'm dining is beyond disgusting. No thank you. I will ban all cities promoting this disgusting practice and take my money and shopping, dining, entertainment elsewhere!
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 2:27PM
Well I'm a happy liberal nudist. I've been to SF and quite enjoyed it. Given the vitriol against liberals on this site we're never going to agree. But lets just say that some of us feel about our nudity the way many of you feel about your guns. You think we go to far and we think you go too far. Since you get to keep your guns, let us keep our SF nudity. Since most of you hate SF, just keep away; don't look, ignore it. We're not here to hurt you, we just want to live in peace.
Drunken Sailor| 9.29.11 @ 2:49PM
Nice strawman. I will keep my guns and out of deference to those it makes uncomfortable will keep them out of your sight unless needed. Can nudist say the same?
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 3:29PM
Those of us who love guns can kill a criminal who invades our house.
What are you going to do? Gross him out to death?
And those of us who love guns can sit on vinyl barstools without ramifications when we get up.
Can you say the same?
Just as you want us to put our guns away, We'd like you to put something on.
Please. For the love of god.
Peter McGrath| 9.29.11 @ 5:15PM
LOL
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:40PM
To avoid nudists, might I STRONGLY recommend Atlanta's Dante's Down the Hatch. AWESOME Fondue, Great Jazz.
Hard to be nude when you're cooking meat in very hot fondue liquid.
idalily| 9.29.11 @ 3:54PM
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." Please, liberal, tell me how those words are ambiguous. We do not "go too far" about guns. We are where the Second Amendment put us and we intend for it to stay that way, in spite of people like you. As for nudity, well, I don't give a rip how many clothes you wear, as long as I don't have to foot the bill when you get pneumonia, so pay for your own healthcare.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 4:16PM
Touche, Idalily.
Game, set and match.
Dick Nome| 9.29.11 @ 3:06PM
AH, San Fran, Sodom by the the Bay. Land of the Freak and Homo of the Depraved.
Curtis Rasmussen| 9.29.11 @ 3:17PM
San Francisco is a lost cause. From the honoring of the pedophile Harvey Milk to the "Up Your Alley" Fair where disgusting sexual acts were performed publicly without police interference , that town is a microcosm of what's wrong with liberalism. Push until the most perverse iterations of immoral behavior become acceptable.
somnolence| 9.29.11 @ 3:36PM
If this is an omen of the end times, then asexuals and suicide advocates will rule the days before these pathetic lunatics gain their will on society. That's my answer to the perceived notion above that "hey man, what's wrong with you; there's nothing wrong with homosexual acts." No, MASH had it wrong, suicide is a BLESSING if there is to be nightmarish coercion of the masses. God, grant us the right to go out in a blaze of lead flying before these followers of Lucifer realize their ULTIMATE aim.
shipley130| 9.29.11 @ 3:40PM
Liberalism goes too far and becomes dangerous.
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 4:16PM
Conservatism goes too far and becomes dangerous.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 4:38PM
The height of conservatism is not, as you no doubt believe it is, a totalitarian regime a la the Nazis - the Nazis were s-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-t in name and fascist in practice, which is a form of left-wing totalitarianism (the means of production are privately owned, but the strings are pulled by the State).
The Obama administration is a socialist/fascist hybrid - he picks a few corporate cronies to do his bidding and Big Government will take care of everything else.
Don't believe me? Well, government has grown some 25% just in the time he's been in office. And just look at all of Obama's corporate crony buddies. GM. GE. Every company that is run by union thugs. Goldman Sachs. All of the mainstream media. All of Hollywood. The entire "green" energy industry (which is a chimera at best). People on whom the regulatory sun shines because they bribe the regime to buy protection.
The only significant difference between the Nazis and the Soviets was the Nazis' fetish for nationalism. Jeanine Garofalo's ranting notwithstanding, the modern GOP embraces ecumenicism in things like LEGAL immigration and world trade, and welcomes any person who believes in American values, which includes blacks like Herman Cain, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Shelby Steele; "Hispanics" like Marco Rubio, Bill Flores and Linda Chavez, people of Indian descent like Bobby Jindal, and Governor Nikki Haley, Filippinos like Michele Malkin - it doesn't take a particular race of person to understand freedom. What's important is not which victim group you belong to so that you can start claiming entitlements as civil rights. What's important is your values.
Conservatism stands for individual responsibility and free markets. That's it. Real scary, eh?
But that's why power hungry progressives and lazy liberals think it's dangerous. God forbid you mind your own damned business and get off your ass to produce something of real value.
Peter McGrath| 9.29.11 @ 5:21PM
Folks like Hazlit really don't know the first thing about conservatism, the American Constitution or our amazing history as a people, or the values of our founding fathers.
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 6:20PM
Actually you're right. I'm writing to you from a socialist cesspool--a country with relatively higher taxes, nationalized healthcare--I see my doctor for free—significantly cheaper higher education, a better wage structure, public support for arts and culture. But I miss Texas terribly!
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:43PM
Hazlit: nice that you see your MD for free. Wait until you have a chronic expensive disease to treat. Like, oh, say, Macular Degeneration. TANSTAAFL, son.
Your wage structure is reflected in higher prices, as well. I lived in New Zealand, son. Sucked.
Texas kicks it to crap. Don't notice many people from the States in your MD's Clinic, do you?
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 11:33PM
No, not patients, but the doctors are leaving in droves. Pay and working conditions are better up here. And Canadians living in the U.S. nearly always come back to Canada for medical care--'cause it's FREE!
Occam's Tool| 9.30.11 @ 4:25PM
No they aren't, and, no they aren't. I worked in an NHS, and knew plenty of Canadian refugee docs in 'Bama.
And I seem to rcall something about the Premier of Newfoundland...it will come back to me...but why am I arguing with a guy who wants to eat on a seat which previously held some gay guys' naked asses before he sat down on it to eat? What the hell does he know about sanitation, much less Medicine?
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 6:12PM
"Every company that is run by union thugs. Goldman Sachs."
You think Goldman is run by unions? Do you have a source for that?
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 10:03PM
Bailed out by Union thugs. Favorite of Obama, who was elected by Union thugs.
grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 11:20PM
Actually, Occam, I like your response better than mine! Too true,too true.
But shhhhhh. Don't let reality spoil Hazlit's pretty little dream, ok?
grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 11:18PM
Uh, no - I didn't include a segue. I worked on Wall Street; I know exactly what the game is and who the players are.
I should have said, "Among Obama's crony capitalist members of the kleptocracy are companies run by union thugs AND Wall Street powerhouses, such as Goldman Sachs." Clear now?
BTW, your country - I assume it's Canada - is living on borrowed time and sclerotic growth. With a high tax structure for individuals and businesses, there's no incentive to become an entrepreneur. And without an entrepreneur class, no new wealth can be created. The end of all socialist countries is the same. Like all ponzi schemes, at first it looks like they really have created the economic equivalent of the perpetual motion machine. But they always collapse, and always for the same reason - eventually you run out of other people's money at the same time the welfare recipients reach critical mass and refer to their entitlements as civil rights. Have ya looked at Europe lately?
Why don't you just make it so nobody works, and everyone gets everything for free? Wouldn't that be swell?
There is no such thing as a free lunch, and governments cannot create wealth - they can only take it by force from one group and redistribute it to another (just so you know, printing money is not the same as creating wealth).
You may see your doctor for free right now, but Canada is doomed; and if it had a bigger population, and weren't protected by its proximity to what used to be the greatest economic machine the world had ever seen, it would already have gone bye bye. Or aren't you aware that 90% of Canada's population lives within 100 miles of the US border?
Why don't you write back after you are stricken with cancer and regale us with the glories of the the health care system you have "for free" then?
Something tells me won't be inclined to do so. Because you won't have the courage to admit it. Or you'll be dead.
Oldefarte| 9.29.11 @ 4:22PM
The bible of liberalism comes to all of us daily from Hollywood. Today's movies and TV shows are indoctrinated brainwashing of not only children but adults as well. Hollywood's attacks on traditional values, religion, morality, the military, etc comes to us everytime we view primetime television nightly, and it has accompolished its liberalistic goals [as witnessed by the decline of church attendance and of the family structure in general]. Our traditional ways of life are shifting toward their desired directions, and we are passively witnessing it happen to our detriment!!!!!!!
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 4:30PM
Turn off the TV, stay away from the movie theaters, and read a book. You don't like what we peddle, don't buy it. You believe in a free country right? So let the nudists be free to be naked. (Or be honest and say you believe in freedom for you and yours but not the freedom of others.)
Drunken Sailor| 9.29.11 @ 5:20PM
Not a problem. I'll holser my gun, and ask you do the same.
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:47PM
Dear Hazlit:
you want a nudist restaurant to go to, build one and have that policy. But no one should be forced to breathe someone else's cigarette smoke or see someone else's nude body when they are trying to eat.
It's called common courtesy. As a Liberal, I know you're ignorant of it. Also, for some of us, getting an accidental erection is something we would prefer not to display to our waitresses, since for some of us there would be no way to disguise it---I understand that problem does not apply to you.
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 11:05PM
Dear Occam:
Thank for letting us have our nudist restaurant and our erections. Really, that is all we're asking for.
Occam's Tool| 9.30.11 @ 4:21PM
Nicely played, Hazlit. I disagree with you, but---nicely played.
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 4:26PM
The penis is mightier than the sword! :)
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 4:39PM
I understand that, in your case, it's more of a cheese knife.
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 6:27PM
Cuts like a knife, but it feels so right!
Paul McGrath| 9.29.11 @ 6:29PM
No matter what is being discussed; no matter how complex the issue; no matter how reasoned or unreasoned, illogical or logical; you can be sure that the gay person, sooner or later, will bring his penis into the argument.
Paul McGrath| 9.29.11 @ 4:36PM
In response to the converstation above with Mr. Grmzlyk (and I apologize if I've misspelled your name; I am becoming weary of looking it up letter by letter) and Mr. W., having to do with nude beaches and beautiful women in Italy: there are no more beautiful women in the world than in, yes, San Francisco!!
First, every single kind of woman in the world is represented. From Asia: Chinese, Korean, Philippino, Japanese, Indian, Vietnamese, Thai. From Europe: Greek, Italian, French, German, English. From South America: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia. I dated girls from Greece and Italy, and married a girl from the Philippines.
Second, because of the vast numbers of people walking around everywhere, women feel safe enough to wear the latest fashions, some of which are provocative, some of which are tasteful, most of which are a combination of both. The big thing now seems to be short skirts, stockings, and high boots. I must stay, I like this style.
Last but not least, there are a lot of gay people in San Francisco, but as my old buddy from Peru used to say: "That leaves more chicks for us!"
Ehh. He was right. There is no better town in the U. S. A. to be a single young man than San Francisco, CA.
Grzmlyk| 9.29.11 @ 4:44PM
Hey, Paul, I lived in SF for two years - alas, I was working pretty much the whole time, but I agree - lots of beautiful women in SF.
But I also lived in NYC, Boston and Chicago - and, I'm happy to say, there are beautiful women everywhere.
Right now I live in - gulp - Vermont. My father, whom I moved here to care for about 8 years ago, used to complain that there were no pretty women here. I'm happy to report that he was WRONG.
There might not be quite the embarrassment of riches you find in a more cosmopolitan, large-population city, but there's plenty of pulchritude in Burlington that keeps me happy.
BTW, I was a theater major in college, and I benefitted greatly from the higher population of gay men in the department. I'd never have made out so well had the playing field been more level!
Occam's Tool| 9.29.11 @ 9:53PM
BULLSHIT, gentlemen. The most beautiful women in the world, taken as a whole, reside on the Texas Christian University Campus. Period.
I'm a friend of a Playmate of The Decade, and practiced medicine in LA for 5 years, so I know of what I speak. The most beautiful daughter of a Conservative Icon, Amy Wallop, was my classmate at TCU during the time I attended, 1980-1984. TCU women had this effect on men---you would repeatedly walk into walls. Fortunately, you wouldn't hit head first.
That being said, the finest woman alive was found in Alabama.
Stay with the Daughters of the South, gentlemen.
DaveS| 9.29.11 @ 4:57PM
If the sight of these slobs cause fewer women to mate with them, at least there will be a societal benefit.
Vasu Murti | 9.29.11 @ 5:01PM
Liberals champion "public nudity" ?!
That's news to me!
What about conservatives invading others' privacy (while demanding privacy for themselves) ?!
In his 1992 book, Visions of Liberty, former Executive Director of the ACLU, Ira Glasser writes:
"The use of wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping emerged during the Prohibition era. Roy Olmstead was a suspected bootlegger whom the government wished to search. It placed taps in the basement of his office building and on wires in the streets near his home. No physical entry into his office or home took place. Olmstead was convicted entirely on the basis of evidence from the wiretaps.
"In his appeal to the Supreme Court, Olmstead argued that the taps were a search conducted without a warrant and without probable cause, and that the evidence seized against him should have been excluded because it was illegally gathered. He also argued that his Fifth Amendment right not to be a witness against himself was violated.
"By a 5-4 vote, the Court rejected his arguments and upheld the government's power to wiretap without limit and without any Fourth Amendment restrictions, on the grounds that no actual physical intrusion had taken place.
"Olmstead's Fifth Amendment claim was also dismissed on the grounds that he had not been compelled to talk on the telephone, but had done so voluntarily.
"Thus the Court upheld the government's power to do by trickery and surreptitious means what it was not permitted to do honestly and openly.
"It wasn't until 1967, in a similar case involving gambling, that the Court overruled the Olmstead decision by an 8-1 margin and recognized that the Fourth Amendment applied to wiretapping and electronic surveillance.
"Interestingly, these cases arose in the context of crimes like bootlegging and gambling. During the past twenty years, the majority of wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping by both state and federal officials has been in cases involving drug dealing and gambling.
"Serious crimes of violence, such as homicide, assault, rape, robbery, and burglary, are rarely the target of electronic eavesdropping, which is not normally a useful tool in such cases.
"From the beginning, when wiretapping was virtually invented to enforce laws prohibiting the sale of alcohol, to the late 1960s, when gambling was a major target, to the present, when the use and sale of drugs other than alcohol are the main target, these intrusive devices have been used mostly to enforce laws aimed at punishing and proscribing personal conduct that society deems immoral.
"Because such conduct essentially involves private activities among consenting adults who are all likely to want to keep those activities secret, they are harder to investigate and prosecute than crimes like robbery or burglary, in which an unwilling victim will probably aid any investigation...the invasion of privacy inherent in wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping remains with us as part of the legacy of our attempts to criminalize personal conduct.
"The other major use of electronic eavesdropping has been to punish political dissent. For decades, former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover used wiretaps and other electronic devices to spy on political figures and citizens not yet suspected of having committed a crime. He built vast dossiers on their political activities and personal lives. Special units of local police called 'Red Squads' did the same.
"Nor has electronic surveillance been the only source of our loss of privacy. The widespread use of urine-testing in employment to see whether people may have been using illegal substances violates the rights of many innocent people.
"Urine-testing programs are usually not restricted to those who show evidence of impaired job performance that may be due to the use of drugs. These tests are normally administered randomly. Without any probable cause for search, this is a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
"Many of these random tests have been struck down by the courts, where the government is the employer. But some have been upheld. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (hardly a Constitutional liberal!), denounced them as 'an immolation of privacy and human dignity in symbolic opposition to drug use.'"
In January 2006, on the eve of the West Coast Walk For Life in San Francisco, CA, Carol Crossed of Democrats For Life (kind enough to write the foreword to my own book, The Liberal Case Against Abortion) spoke optimistically of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
When I asked her if Roe could be overturned without Griswold v. Connecticut (the 1965 Supreme Court decision which guarantees a right to marital privacy regarding contraception) being overturned as well, Carol froze, and couldn't answer the question!
I would have preferred it if Carol had said:
"You're right. Only a pervert watches or eavesdrops when others pee, defecate, copulate, masturbate, etc.
"It's wrong to put people under surveillance without their knowledge or consent. Democrats For Life will never resort to draconian tactics to protect prenatal life."
Democrats For Life of America, 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, South Building, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20004 (202) - 220 - 3066
Timely Renewed | 9.29.11 @ 6:10PM
The fundamental underlying problem is that federal judges have vastly expanded beyond the original meaning of the Constitution. We will not be able to stop and roll back the ever-increasing expansion of the federal leviathan and leftist social policy imposed by judicial fiat until we have restored the original meaning of the Constitution. Given the deep entrenchment of the special interests and Supreme Court precedents which support the leviathan, we can only accomplish this by amending the Constitution to reverse such Supreme Court misinterpretations of the Constitution's original meaning and structure. See http://www.timelyrenewed.com.
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 6:26PM
A well-regulated militia...What is the original meaning of well-regulated O wise conservatives?
John Navratil| 9.29.11 @ 7:07PM
Hazlit,
It may surprise you to learn to you are, quite probably, part of the militia of the United States.
U.S. Code > TITLE 10 > Subtitle A > PART I > CHAPTER 13 > § 311
§ 311. Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
From the Articles of Confederation: "every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage."
Reading the English, which was not intended to be abstruse, the meaning appears to me to be trained and provisioned.
Al Adab| 9.29.11 @ 8:49PM
It would be a good thing, and perhaps in our current society necessary, for local cities and towns to reestablish their local militias. Those would be the "well regulated" ones of which the 2nd speaks.
After all, the federal government is refusing to perform its constitutional mandate to protect the states from invasion and is suing the States that attempt to help themselves to prevent their action.
John Navratil| 9.29.11 @ 9:27PM
Al Adab,
Indeed!
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 10:57PM
I asked for the meaning of "well regulated." You did not answer that question O wise one!
Al Adab| 9.30.11 @ 12:35AM
Hazlit:
If you mean me, I think I did. Simply because the states and their subdivisions choose not to form their militia on a regular basis does not mean that the right to do so is forfeit. Any jurisdiction could call their militia, form them up and use them to protect the community. The militia is simply the citizenry under arms as an act of government.
John Navratil| 9.30.11 @ 11:46AM
Hazlit,
And if you meant me (it's why I almost always use a salutation), it's the last sentence of my post.
Wayne| 9.29.11 @ 6:10PM
The liberals started the Viet Nam war. They also wanted the draft. War is NOT a conservative idea, its a liberal one. Neo-cons are just old liberals.
On nudity, the homosexual mayor or Portland rides nude with the naked riders, violating all traffic laws in the process. When a male entered the female dressing room at the Portland pool, he decided that if they are trans-gender, that is their right. Now how do you prove you are transgender? Is it NOT having an erection in a female shower.
Mrs Vito| 9.29.11 @ 7:18PM
These cretins need a theme song. How 'bout "I Left My 'Part' in San Francisco"??
Curtis Rasmussen| 9.29.11 @ 7:36PM
Careful.
In my state a woman can decide she's a man, start dressing like a man, and use the men's room and locker.
If someone working for you at your company does not like it and makes her uncomfortable, you can be held personally liable for creating a hostile work environment along with the company that you work for. Pure insanity. Heck, you'd probably be sued by doing something as simple as asking for and getting an individual bathroom to prevent a female from seeing your naughty bits.
John Navratil| 9.29.11 @ 9:21PM
Curtis Rasmussen,
Damned if you do and damned if you don't. I expect my wife you be more offended at some female seeing my "naughty bits." I'll have to rely on a mens rea defense.
fliteking| 9.29.11 @ 10:16PM
Hey Progressives, these are your kids teachers and coaches... uhhh, most folks would not celebrate this
Hazlit| 9.29.11 @ 11:25PM
O wise conservatives I have come to your temple of knowledge here to tell you a secret. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy going on! We social commie nudist pinko liberals have made an alliance with dirty capitalists like George Soros, Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates and with Hollywood. Together the socialist nudists and the dirty capitalists (along with a few hard-working Chinese and a cadre of pretentious wine-sipping Frenchmen from the newspaper Le Monde) have hatched a plan to take over the real America.
You, it's true, have the guts and the guns. But we control the legal profession and the banks and we're coming to get you! First we will pass laws outlawing NASCAR races on Friday night; then we will allow gay nude wrestling on prime time ESPN. After that our unions will take over GE, Goldman Sachs and Boeing. This will be the prelude to our taking over the government, buying a bunch of black helicopters from the UN, and dropping Harvard-educated lawyers on your towns who will regulate and annoy you until you are deprived of every freedom you hold dear.
Yours,
In nudism,
Hazlit
Erica Brigid| 9.29.11 @ 11:34PM
Supervisor Wiener's proposed regulation is something that is a standard rule in nudist camps, particularly the part about sitting on a towel and wearing at least shorts where food is served.
When a person sits bare-arsed on something, one's excretory organs come in contact with the seat. In a restaurant it would be like creating a toilet seat in the dining room.
Mike| 9.30.11 @ 2:54AM
To add to that, pedophelia is at the same level of social acceptance that homosexualism was 30 years ago. America is heading the way of Rome. (Here come the flames)
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Wayne| 9.30.11 @ 6:07AM
Rome and Greece
Jessie| 9.30.11 @ 3:00AM
It would be a good thing, and perhaps in our current society necessary, for local cities and towns to reestablish their local militias. Those would be the "well regulated" ones of which the 2nd speaks.
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Jessie| 9.30.11 @ 3:03AM
Thus the Court upheld the government's power to do by trickery and surreptitious means what it was not permitted to do honestly and openly.
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Simon Templar| 9.30.11 @ 5:16PM
Liberalism Always Goes Too Far because you allow it to, rarely challenge it effectively, give in too readily, and do not raise enough ruckus about it.
You give liberals the permission to be self appointed arbiters of morality, economics, politics, and culture.
You fail to point out their hypocricy, inconsistency, and illogical arguments.
You accept their false premises.
Dan T| 9.30.11 @ 10:22PM
The United States is quickly becoming a massive filthy cesspool of degeneracy and self-indulgence. We set such a horrific example for the entire world. The U.S. used to be respected everywhere, now we are looked upon as degenerate scum. There are many good and decent people left in the U.S., unfortunately, the only image the world sees is that of a warmongering, self indulgent and pornographic society. We look like the Whore of Babylon.
Fredx| 10.2.11 @ 10:10AM
In chilly San Francisco, it gives the expression "freeze your ass off" a whole new meaning.