Friday, February 16, 2007

Acting Out the Fantasies of the Left and Overturning the Order of the Cosmos (2.07.09)

I suppose what bothers me most about the left except for the bad hygiene is that it institutionalizes man's fall and reverses the cosmic order. This order can be known with the higher intellect, which is why "job one" of leftism is always the elimination of the intellect properly so-called. Leftism is intrinsically anti-intellectual, in that it must abolish that part of man which is capable of seeing the error of leftism in a direct and unmediated way. In fact, a major part of the leftist agenda involves displacing the higher mind with the lower, that is, "small r" reason in its mechanical sense. Worse than the ideological takeover of academia has been the simultaneous eclipse of the higher mind, thus reducing man to a cultured beast.

The leftist program follows the split in the western world which occurred with the Enlightenment, which had its radical version in France and its skeptical version in England and Scotland. America has been by far the most successful nation in history because it was a product of the skeptical Enlightenment (i.e., classical liberals such as Adam Smith) and because our founders -- since they were so securely anchored in Judeo-Christian metaphysics and therefore "innoculated" against leftism -- categorically rejected the savagely utopian schemes of the romantic radicals.

Now, all purely secular philosophies that exclude the vertical are more or less error a grandiose scale, but at least most of these philosophies do not include -- as part of their intrinsic philosophy -- the imposition of their philosophy on everyone else. The whole point about being a classically liberal conservative is that it preserves at its very heart the right of anyone to reject it. It doesn't impose anything on anyone, which is what is so ironic about paranoid leftists who constantly fantasize about the imminent Christian fascist takeover!

The pneumapathology at the heart of leftism always includes acting out, which is one of the more primitive defense mechanisms, as it bypasses thought altogether and replaces it with action. This is why leftist intellectuals are always "activists," which simply means that they are more concerned with changing the world than understanding it. Naturally, classical liberals have no objection to change, but only so long as the change is rooted in understanding, including especially an understanding of human nature. For if your understanding of human nature is faulty or grossly incomplete, then your political philosophy is going to be nothing less than a disaster. The disaster may happen quickly or it may slowly unfold with time, but the disaster is inevitable. Anyone who lives in error eventually receives sharp blows from the world.

A couple of days ago while driving to work I was listening to Air America and caught a bit of the abysmally tedious program of professional unfunnyman Al Franken. The guest was a gold-plated leftist bull-goose paranoiac, Joe Conason, who has published a new cry for help, er, book, with the harrowing title, It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush!!! The shrill and paranoid title is just a measure of how free of irony the left has become -- as if we didn't just have a freaking election a couple of months ago that effectively undermines Conason's entire thesis. But reality is hardly a consideration for the reality-based community. As any competent psychologist can tell you, truth is irrelevant when someone has an emotional need to believe something.

Conason's unintentionally ironic title is a takeoff on uber-moonbat Sinclair Lewis' 1935 screed, It Can't Happen Here. Lewis is revered by contemporary moonbats for his boneheaded dailykosian remark that "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." Brilliant! Sean Penn couldn't have said it better! As always, the left confuses hysteria with "courage" or "insight," so that Lewis stands in a long line of courageous leftists such as Cindy Sheehan and Al Franken who don't speak "truth to power" but excitedly bark at their own omnipotent psychological projections.

Like all leftists, Lewis seems to have merely externalized his own existential misery and called it a political philosophy. I can't say I know much about his personal life, but his Wikipedia entry is instructive: "Alcohol played a dominant role in his life; he died of advanced alcoholism in Rome." If so, we can be fairly certain that Lewis was 1) miserable, 2) weak, 3) a slave who was not psychologically mature enough to handle spiritual liberty and who squandered his own, and therefore 4) in need of a political system to save himself from himself. Please feel free to correct me if he wasn't a total idiot, but I have never been drawn to didactic "realist" literature.

All leftists must know that somewhere deep inside, beneath the histrionic bluster, they are weak, dependent, envious, racist, and so on, because they wish to impose a political system on those of us who do not have those particular problems. If you are not envious, you don't give much thought to CEOs who earn more money than you do. If you are not a racist, it doesn't occur to you that Barack Obama is half white or that the Constitution might actually mandate racial discrimination. If you love women, you would not be drawn to the loathsome philosophy of radical feminism; etc.

The description of Conason's book on amazon sounds like it is taken from the nursing notes of a recent psychiatric hospitalization for acute paranoia:

"Despite recent election, patient still believes America in great danger. Hopeless re future. Doubts existence of democracy. Government conspiring with 'big business' and 'big evangelism.' Asked him 'what about big entertainment, big media, big labor, big education and big trial lawyers?,' but patient incorporated me into delusions. 'You're just part of Big Health. You're not helping me. You only care about bottom line!, etc.' Obsessed with nameless ideologues and religious zealots 'attacking logic' and 'scientific method.' Asked patient if he meant Al Gore -- became extremely hostile. Incoherent babbling: 'ruling party encourages xenophobic nationalism based on irrational, manufactured fear.' Confusing -- asked him if he meant irrational manufactured fear of Bush. Patient became agitated -- required sedation and restraints. Carotid veins visible, face flushed like Howard Dean, screaming something about 'party in power seeks perpetual state of war to maintain power -- willing to lie, cheat, and steal to achieve ends.' Empathically suggest to him can't happen here. More agitation -- 'it can happen here, damn you! My 'book' says so -- select group of extremely powerful right-wing ideologues driving us ever closer to precipice, etc., etc., etc.' Intravenous push of diazepam; patient now watching Keith Olbermann and quietly mumbling to self."

At American Thinker there is a wonderful article entitled Cultural Marxism that demonstrates how Marxism hardly died with the dramatic fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. As it so happens, Raccoon lore maintains that leftism can trace its squalid genealogy all the way back to the origin of mankind. For the "fall of mankind" was specifically a rejection of the divine-cosmic order (and partnership) in favor of a wholly man-made one. This lesson is reinforced time and again in scripture (and its shadow in the herebelow, history), as man repeats his fall, 32 feet per second per second, and suffers the consequences.

The author of the American Thinker piece, Linda Kimball, traces the various permutations of the leftist mind parasite which, like all parasites, knows how to survive. Although the "New Left" of the 1960's collapsed and fell apart, it simply underwent what I would call an "interior diaspora" into various ideologies that all have roots in the same infrahuman ideological swamp: leftist "revolutionaries reorganized themselves into a multitude of single issue groups. Thus we now have for example, radical feminists, black extremists, anti-war ‘peace' activists, animal rights groups, radical environmentalists, and ‘gay' rights groups. All of these groups pursue their piece of the radical agenda through a complex network of organizations such as the Gay Straight Lesbian Educators Network..., the ACLU, People for the American Way, United for Peace and Justice, Planned Parenthood, Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States..., and Code Pink for Peace."

This is why if you attack leftism frontally, it will simply mutate into all of these other viruses. The only way to effectively confront it is from "above" and "below." In other words, its common root must be attacked at its base, but only from a higher psychospiritual perspective. As Kimball notes, neo-Marxism thrives because it has mutated into various superficially appealing code words such as "tolerance, social justice, economic justice, peace, reproductive rights, sex education and safe sex, safe schools, inclusion, diversity, and sensitivity." All of these words and phrases imply one thing but actually mean the opposite -- i.e., tolerance is intolerance, social justice is economic tyranny, sex education is the rebarbarization of the sex drive, diversity is uniformity, sensitivity is a constraint on unwanted truth, etc.

Kimball goes into the intellectual history of Marxism, noting its intrinsic hostility to the Christianized West. If Marxism is to succeed, then the Christian West must fall. It is an either-or proposition: the West must be "de-Christianized, said Gramsci, by means of a 'long march through the culture.' The new battleground... must become the culture, starting with the traditional family and completely engulfing churches, schools, media, entertainment, civic organizations, literature, science, and history. All of these things must be radically transformed and the social and cultural order gradually turned upside-down with the new proletariat placed in power at the top."

Just read the whole thing. In fact, Dear Leader commands all Coons to bookmark American Thinker and check it out every day. It is one of a handful of sites I always fail to not miss.

One of the most important points raised by Kimball is that, for the left to succeed, "intellectual firepower was required: a theory to pathologize what was to be destroyed." As such, "Christianity, capitalism, and the traditional family create a character prone to racism and fascism. Thus, anyone who upholds America's traditional moral values and institutions is both racist and fascist." The human being is "but a soulless animal," so it naturally follows that contingent existence (or existential contingencies such as skin color) determines essence, rather than vice versa. Again, this is a complete rejection and reversal of the cosmic order upon which the American founders based our government.

And so we come full circle to Joe Conason raving in his hospital bed and chaneling the paranoid alcoholic Sinclair Lewis in the Al Franken nuthouse. An empathic and disinterested psychoanalyst would deal with Conason by respectfully acknowledging the urgency of his concerns and reflecting back to him an innocent but loaded observation, such as "I hear what you're saying. An extremely frightening and hostile force is trying to take over your world. Let's stand back a bit and try to understand who or what this force could be, shall we?"

107 comments:

Lisa said...

"I suppose what bothers me most about the left except for the bad hygiene is that it institutionalizes man's fall and reverses the cosmic order."

Hilarious, I really did laugh out loud when I read that first sentence. The dirtiness and smell of patchouli was by far the most disgusting part of being a hippie. I cried mercy after college! The saccharine-like love for all mankind was another annoying part, I mean really who are they kidding!? Churchill's famous quote about being liberal in your 20s shows you have a heart, being liberal in your 40s shows you have no brain always comes to mind.

NoMo said...

"institutionalizes man's fall"

And by so doing, redefines the object of HOPE from God to the institution.

Anonymous said...

Oh, the patchouli horror! I knew a guy in college who used it so much that a year after he moved out of his dorm room, it still reeked of patchouli.

That was an interesting article. I never knew that Hungary had undergone a program of de-Christianization; the results sound similar to what is happening in England today. I just read an article yesterday about how British grocery stores are actually (voluntarily!) hiring food police, people who lurk about their grocery stores and accost hapless consumers to harangue them about their poor food choices. More and more I see examples like this of the people of the British Isles abdicating their responsibilities to other people, including the responsibilities of parenting (I focus on Britain because I lived there as a kid, during the Thatcher years when things weren't so bad). The results: their kids are out of control, and the adults are powerless to do anything (exercise of parental responsibilities often being considered a human rights violation, and therefore punishable).

"...beneath the histrionic bluster, they are weak, dependent, envious, racist, and so on, because they wish to impose a political system on those of us who do not have those particular problems."

The results of this thinking are so terribly, tragically obvious, yet leftists keep insisting it's all for our own good.

The only cure is of course that which they wish to stamp out the most: verticality.

Anonymous said...

"If Marxism is to succeed, then the Christian West must fall."

Perhaps this explains the sympathy for radical Islam among the neo-marxians, e.g., "We Are All Hezbollah Now".

Also, even though one might think it would help, it turns out that a neoconservative outlook doesn't necessarily inoculate one against the loss-of-small-r-realism phenomenon. Even if one is able to develop a relatively enlightened personal ideology, immersion in leftist academia over too long a period leaves one with deeper scars that inevitably begin to itch with time.

NoMo said...

Further on HOPE:

Many view hope as "wishful thinking", but the Bible defines it as "confident expectation." I believe a lot of the latter happens here at OC.

Hope is a firm assurance regarding things that are unclear and unknown (Romans 8:24-25; Hebrews 11:1,7), and is a fundamental component of a spiritual life (Proverbs 23:18). Without hope, life loses its meaning (Lamentations 3:18, Job 7:6) and in death there is no hope (Isaiah 38:18, Job 17:15). The righteous who trust or put their hope in God will be helped (Psalm 28:7) and they will not be confounded, put to shame, or disappointed (Isaiah 49:23). Those who have this trustful hope in God have a general confidence in God's protection and help (Jeremiah 29:11), and are free from fear and anxiety (Psalm 46:2-3).

Hope in the left? I don't think so.

NoMo said...

Lisa and Juliec - I actually like a little patchouli (there goes what little respect I might have had...)

Anonymous said...

Did you know that patchouli gets rid of fleas? Used to live in the country several years ago and had an indoor/outdoor cat. In the summer the fleas got really bad in the house. I was going to get some of the flea medicine, but then I let an acquaintance who was temporarily down on her luck stay with me for a bit and she burned patchouli incense in her room. Fleas were gone within a couple of days.

ximeze said...

nomo:

Operative word: little.

Oh dear, oh dear, what's a Cultish Lockstepper to do?
Shall I begin gathering stones?
Find a protected position from which to fire upon you?

Having no brain of my own, not being able to think my way out of a paper bag, being terrifed of stepping out of the fold & exposing myself to CoonCensure.....

Better wait for instructions from the High Command.

Anonymous said...

Personally, I like sandalwood a lot more than patchouli...

Anonymous said...

lisa ~

'Churchill's famous quote about being liberal in your 20s shows you have a heart, being liberal in your 40s shows you have no brain always comes to mind.'

I have looked high and low for a proper attribution of the Churchill quote and am unable to find it. I have also seen it attributed to G.B. Shaw although that seems unlikely.


'Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side.'

anon.

Anonymous said...

They are also very diverse. They have lesbian Marxists, colored Marxists, Nicaraguan lesbian Marxists, Nicaraguan lesbian poet Marxists, gay Marxists, Marxists who ptich, Marxists who catch, bareback Marxists, neo-Aztec Marxists, transgendered Marxists, Brown Marxists, Jewish Marxists, Christian Marxists.... the whole rainbow of infrahumanity.

Anonymous said...

Huey Long (the Kingfish, y'all) put it more accurately and honestly than Sinclair Lewis & clones ever could:

"Fascism will come to the USA, only it will be called "anti-fascism".

He would know. Long, a radical populist, had plans to run for president in '36. He admitted to his trusted aides that once he became president, he would suspend future elections and essentially assume the role of American dictator.

Before he could do this, however, somebody shot him.

ximeze said...

Jenny: re fleas/patchouli

Now that's really useful info & explains alot. I was there, in the flesh, for the glorious-days-of-the-unwashed-Hippies.

Fascinating how supposedly aesthetic practices can be rooted in practical anti-bug realities. Kohl on eyes (fly repellant) & the various tribes who cover their skin with ash or mud (insects).

Gotta wonder whether the dark eye cosmetics of ancient Egyptians didn't actually have very practical origins. Everyone I know who has visited the pyramids feels compelled to comment on the smell of camel urine & the swirling swarms of flies. Probably helped with the daytime glare too (think football players with inti-glare dark smudges under their eyes.)

Anonymous said...

ximeze: I second that "little" comment; unfortunately, overexposure can sensitize you to life, much like gorging on somthing tasty until it makes you sick can cause you to feel nauseated at the mere thought of ever ingesting said item again.

Cousin Dupree,

Funny how the whole multicultural rainbow of infrahumanity must also be microclassified and labeled, the better for each group to showcase both their activist credentials and victimhood status. I suppose it could be said that they have their own lowerarchies, with the greater depth accorded to those who can have the longest hyphenated title.

What I find funniest about that is that I could, if I wished, accord myself many badges of victimhood (gender, multiple races, child/ relative of disorders x, y, and z, etc. ad nauseum). I find life much simpler and happier if I just call myself an American.

Anonymous said...

Oh, good grief; that should have read "overexposure can sensitize you *for* life."

Clearly my proofreading skills need work.

As to the kohl under the eyes, I had read somewhere it had to do with reducing the glare of the desert sun.

Hmmm... word verification this time is "nzyobey"
New Zealand why obey?

Anonymous said...

Well, Sinclair Lewis did contribute to the common good with "The Jungle," a novel about the meat-packing industry.

Unless you like your hot-links with lots of rat pellets enclosed.

Anonymous said...

You never need to worry about an "Imminent Christian Fascist Takeover" when you live under an Islamic Republic.

Anonymous said...

Is this post satire? I don't quite understand how it advances the liberal cause.

Read more in places like Dailykos for guidance. What you have here is so negative that the joke almost goes the other way.

Anonymous said...

Well, Sinclair Lewis did contribute to the common good with "The Jungle," a novel about the meat-packing industry.

If you read it all the way through, The Jungle is actually a call for Marxist/Socialist Revolution (TM). However, its in-your-face description of conditions in the meat-packing industry was what stuck, resulting in sanitary requirements for food products.

But it was originally intended to evangelize for Marx.

ximeze said...

Question of Cosmic Importance:

Can Vegans eat rat pellets?

Anonymous said...

(IGNORE THE TROLLS)

"Overturning the Order of the Cosmos"

It's the Jews fault according to a Republican congressman from Georgia:

"Indisputable evidence - long hidden but now available to everyone - demonstrates conclusively that so-called 'secular evolution science' is the Big Bang, 15-billion-year, alternate 'creation scenario' of the Pharisee Religion," the memo said. "This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic 'holy book' Kabbala dating back at least two millennia."

Does it get any nuttier than this?

Well yes.
Bush wants to bring 7,000 Iraq refugees into Ohio this year.

How does one "assimilate" a group of supremacist megalomaniacs that plans to conquer the European continent and subjugate the natives?

According to Condi and GWB, "freedom" is the panacea for radical islam. So why aren't muslim immigrants well-adjusted, productive European citizens?

Could it possibly be because islam interdicts personal freedom?

These compassionate bureaucrats don't have time to learn about and understand islam and its consummate control of every aspect of muslims' lives. When will it sink into their dense heads that Western values and thought are alien concepts to muslims?

Never?
---------------
Speaking of rainbows - presenting The Reds, The Browns and the Greens or The Convergence of Totalitarianisms.

Anonymous said...

Ironically, you don't want to know how sausage was made in communist countries: rat pellets, chicken beaks, pig butts, and dissidents.

Anonymous said...

Mmm, tastes like Chechen!

Van Harvey said...

Great post today Gagdad... much I'd like to re-quote, but it'd all end up stuffed in here in the comments section which is too cramped for that... so I'll pacify myself by just noting the entire paragraph beginning with "The pneumapathology at the heart of leftism..." and the section with "If you are not envious, you don't give much thought to CEOs who earn more money than you do" and {Step away from the Ctrl+C keys! Do NOT right-click & copy!}... ok, ok already [fakes left, then breaks right-] just this last one!:

"If Marxism is to succeed, then the Christian West must fall."
While that is true, keep in mind that while Christianity is the visible target in the West, in the East it was Confucius that Mao sought to exterminate. A quick read of Confucianism often leads to the conclusion that the most respect a person can attain to is by following the law and respecting all authority and governmental leaders - but Mao saw the true power behind it was respecting and seeking to embody an understanding and respect for the Vertical - and he ruthlessly went about stamping it out, along with Christianity, as best as his murderous little soul was able.

The true underlying target of the (our current ages moniker:) Leftist, is the concept of the Vertical altogether. They've done it chiefly with

"...In fact, a major part of the leftist agenda involves displacing the higher mind with the lower, that is, "small r" reason in its mechanical sense"

through the process of replacing Deeper thought, with visible thought, which is something I think was seen by Shakespeare as well and that (warning -shameless promotion ahead) I've just posted on on my site (I've rather impressed myself with myself on this one, have a look).

Still, though while acknowledging the bloodshed and real oppression the Gov’t can bring about, in respect to the numbers converted to the 'cause', as well as taking into account the harm done to the 'cause' by creating many whose backs are put up to fight back, the political foot soldiers are mere piker’s when compared to the leftist entertainers and popularizers.

The most effective way to destroy the Vertical, is to destroy reverence for it, and while that can be accomplished with fear, it may be even better accomplished through humor - you can't revere that which causes you to snicker whenever you attempt to take it seriously.

Shows like MASH which popularized snickering at the military, and the plethora of sitcoms which give us the obnoxious kids as sources of wisdom and action, with parents and adults as nerdy buffoons, have done just as much damage to our culture as the Inte-lectual elites have.

The Inte-lectuals work from the Top down, and the entertainers work from the bottom Up, and we get ground down in the middle.

(hmmm... 1st word verif: nipvgodh, 2nd: drteh)

Van Harvey said...

Will said "...He would know. Long, a radical populist, had plans to run for president in '36. He admitted to his trusted aides that once he became president, he would suspend future elections and essentially assume the role of American dictator."

Most definitely. Many apologists for FDR say much of his New Deal was an attempt to, as we might say today, 'triangulate' away from Huey.

From the TV ad's I've seen, didn't Sean Penn just make an admiring movie about him? Go figure.

Van Harvey said...

Jenny said... "Did you know that patchouli gets rid of fleas?"

Not completely true, actually it just transforms them into middle-aged hippies and causes them to migrate to the pacific-northwest. True, I've seen it.

Great for us in the mid-west, bummer for those trying to drink coffee & write software.

Van Harvey said...

O. Meyer said... "...Sinclair Lewis did contribute to the common good with "The Jungle," a novel about the meat-packing industry. Unless you like your hot-links with lots of rat pellets enclosed."

Or unless you dislike your Individual Rights and Freedom buried under mountainous regulations and laws of a gazillion alphabet beurarcracies, which began with the FDA, thanks to Lewis.

Anonymous said...

Repels fleas but attracts hippies, so pick your poison...

Anonymous said...

Once, I met a young girl who had just one arm, the other having been crushed in a recent car accident, and had been amputated to her shoulder.

In the hour we chatted she related that she swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel and went head-on into a tree at 45 mph.

A squirrel. She was totally proud of her choice, feeling that she had given her unimportant arm for the very important life of a tree rat; how she respected life and animals are just as human as we are and... oh, just insert standard PETA boilerplate here.

I was shaken to pity that, 1)no one had taught this child the most important thing about driving is the split-second choices that must be considered and hard-wired into one's brain before getting behind the wheel, and, 2) someone had convinced her to value a tree rat's life over her own.

Now, it could be that she just reacted instinctively and came up on the short end of the result. A good cover for that is the PETA flag, unfurled over the pathos of the situation, with the almighty power to redeem her poor judgement.

Rue for personal stupidity is an unsung and valuable asset. It is something necessary to the survival learning curve and decent character. The Leftists would take even that away by repainting it as something it never was.

But any casual observer of the accident and its consequences would first exclaim, "poor, stupid girl."
No, it's not kind, or PC to say it out loud about a personal tragedy. But it doesn't help to change the Truth into a lie, either.

Ah, but the squirrels as safe.
There is that.

Van Harvey said...

ximeze said... "Can Vegans eat rat pellets?"

Hey, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Van Harvey said...

Ms. e said "...These compassionate bureaucrats don't have time to learn about and understand islam and its consummate control of every aspect of muslims' lives..."

It's worse than that, they don't have the time to learn about and understand America, its founding principles, and requirements.

Oh... I'm gettin' ill.

vogz said...

"All of these words and phrases imply one thing but actually mean the opposite..."

Does this dovetail with what Flannery O'Connor was alluding to when she wrote that "in the absence of this faith now, we govern by tenderness. It is a tenderness which, long since cut off from the person of Christ, is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber."

Van Harvey said...

Dupree & Petey "...beaks, pig butts, and dissidents."
and "Mmm, tastes like Chechen!"

Oh! My sides are hurting so bad, good, ROFL!!!

Anonymous said...

Ms. E -

"The different components of this Axis have for a common objective the struggle against the new faces of Evil: America , Israel , “Imperialism”, and even the West in its entirety."

I had to stop reading there. This may be a good article, or at least an interesting one, but for today I'll leave the muck-wading to you and Gagdad Bob (who heroically listened to Air America, so that we don't have to).

*tekrhxjy? It's like a verbal Rorschach test...*

Van Harvey said...

juliec said... "*tekrhxjy? It's like a verbal Rorschach test...*"

Nah, actually wordverif is just a prank Gagdad cooked up because it's fun watching Joan of Arrgghh! scream Arrgghh!!! as she types & retypes it in 4 or 5 times before getting it right.

(I know it'll hurt me later, but it was so fun for now)

Van Harvey said...

Ms e. quoted "This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic 'holy book' Kabbala dating back at least two millennia."

Oh my. I read it, but I don't believe I read it. Lord, protect us from literalist fundies & athiests...

Anonymous said...

I think that the resurgence of Confucianism (which is only mostly dead in China) is going to be key in the fall of the Chicom government - whenever that happens. (They're already admitting implicitly that capitalism is better - sooner or later, the vertical element will re-enter the equation.)

Anonymous said...

Amen

Anonymous said...

(to Van's comment)

Anonymous said...

dupree said: Repels fleas but attracts hippies, so pick your poison...

If it comes to a choice between dozens of tiny parasites attached to my pet or one big one attached to my bank account... Well, that's a no-brainer, isn't it?

Van Harvey said...

Regarding the kabalis-bang link Ms. e. cited above, the link to the fundie site has a picture of a globe floating in an electro-magnetic desk display, and captioned below:
"He...hangeth the Earth upon nothing." Job 26:7
"An electromagnet and computerized sensor hidden in its display stand cause the Earth to levitate motionlessly in the air. Could God have engineered something like that for the real Earth?"

Oh my, the Vertical smooshed & flattened out flat upon the horizontal.

Must have more coffee.

Anonymous said...

Petey said...
Mmm, tastes like Chechen!

Ha ha ha! That was brilliant, Petey!

wv: zoppp

Fitting, somehow.

Anonymous said...

Van said...
ximeze said... "Can Vegans eat rat pellets?"

Hey, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.


Yet another all too funny comment!
That should be a commercial.

Anonymous said...

Hippies or fleas?

I prefer neither.

Fortunately, Frontline Plus takes care of the problem of fleas without attracting the human-sized parasites.

The person who invented anti-flea drops (that actually work) deserves the Nobel prize.

Anonymous said...

dupree: And blacks aren't even black. Obama, in case y'all didn't know isn't black... he's African African American...
See this hilarious (and scary) clip from the Colbert report ... it played on Prager yesterday.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Colbert_questions_Obamas_blackness_0209.html

btw, I've got to check my eyesight - I read "the reBabarization of sex" and thought there was yet another Gagdad line that went over my head - what could elephants and sex have to do with each other?

Anonymous said...

oops, that link didn't work

Colbert thinks Obama is black

ximeze said...

alan:

Proof positive that you're not a dullard.


wv:cofyy (anan?)

Anonymous said...

Van said...
juliec said... "*tekrhxjy? It's like a verbal Rorschach test...*"

Nah, actually wordverif is just a prank Gagdad cooked up because it's fun watching Joan of Arrgghh! scream Arrgghh!!! as she types & retypes it in 4 or 5 times before getting it right.

(I know it'll hurt me later, but it was so fun for now)

It's even more fun when Joan is drinking...I heard.

It's not as if I would know that information first-hand, or anything.

Anonymous said...

Alan,
I usually avoid Colbert like the plague, but that was too funny.
Thanks!

*dxihxs - Dixie Hicks??*

Van Harvey said...

Alan... Ouch!!! Ok people, my abs can't take this much laughter in one sitting, Joan, Dupree, Ximeze, Will, Ben, Petey!!! Stop it!

Thank God I put that coffee down.

Alan, the scariest part of that clip is that Colbert knows he's being funny, but she's being serious.

("which I think realizes Dr. King's dream in a very special way..." and "late to the party",,, oh my...)

ok, we've got to stop the wordverif quotes... after this:nzxdhnu - new zealand dunno?

Anonymous said...

Juliec said...*dxihxs - Dixie Hicks??*

Heh! Who needs the 'comedy' channel when you can experience transcendent comedy in it's purest form at the OC?

Note to trolls: That is a rhetorical question.

Anonymous said...

Wow, 50 comments already and the day's only half done!

Thanks to everybody for the interesting Friday morning discussion and laughs. This is one of the big reasons I hang around : )

Anonymous said...

Wow, 50 comments already and the day's only half done!

Thanks to everybody for the interesting Friday morning discussion and laughs. This is one of the big reasons I hang around : )

*muxfu - I think I just got cussed out...*

Anonymous said...

Any democrats here who have a problem with Pelosi giving William Jefferson Dity Cash in My Freezer a seat on the Homeland Security Commission rather than firing his ass?

Party of ethics my ass. Where's the outrage over this from the left. Oh that's right. Ethics only applies to "rethuglicans."

Anonymous said...

Joan, I think this is relevant to your squirrel comment:

Day By Day Cartoon

Van Harvey said...

Juliec said "*muxfu - I think I just got cussed out...* "

Nah, just deja-fool

;-)

uh-oh, ok, I know what I said earlier, but wv:yfjccfu I know I've been cursed out

Van Harvey said...

Paul G, Day By Day said "Daddy's a republican with a Chrysler 300 and poor peripheral vision"

Ok people, I give. Took a handful of Tylenal's... abs? what abs?

Now if I can just work out how to drink my coffee without getting in my locked & loaded laughter mouth...

I most certainly will NOT repeat what wordverif just had me type.

NoMo said...

"I can't wait for Obama's inaugural address when he reveals that he loves long walks in the rain, sunsets, and fresh-baked cookies shaped like puppies."

From Ann Coulter's column this week "Jonathan Livingston Obama" --a worthwhile read.

Anonymous said...

Paul G-
Ha! That was a good one!
I bookmarked that with a dead squirrel skin.

Squirrel meat is tasty, btw.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that "Day by Day" is really dangerous to electronics

Anonymous said...

Was thinking that nazism pretty much died with the nazis. On the other hand, communism, after the Wall Fall, lives on, nay, *thrives*, in cultural marxism.

To get all ontological on your *ss - wouldn't this seem to indicate that, at root, marxism, the spirit of, is just that, a spirit utterly independent of its hosts (though it does require a host to wreak max destruction, in our modern case, the multicults). Once a host dies, this spirit - and I do mean "spirit" literally, though "entity with a million appendages" might be more accurate - jumps to another host. Lots of willing hosts these days.

And I mean spirit, as in "evil spirit" - the ancient evil with its long-range plan for . .yes, world domination. Evil made flesh via our cultural institutions.

This might be my most dour comment ever. Not to mention weird.

Anonymous said...

Will-
I concur.
It's not an 'in-your-face' evil like the nazis, stalinists or modern jihadist fascism, but it is an insidious and cunning evil that slowly creeps about, like a cancer with the brain of a beast.

Anonymous said...

Mmm, tastes like Chechen!

LOL - Good One!

NoMo said...

...uh...uh...what happened? I think I Passed Out watching that Colbert clip. ROFLPO

wv: hjarikgu (or was that the first thing I said when I regained coonsciousness?)

Anonymous said...

From the vid clip: "...as black as circumstances allow..."

So does this mean that I'm really a black man who is being discriminated against just because my parents are white?

And for the record, I haven't laughed that hard since I watched "Snakes on a Plane"

Anonymous said...

Raccoon Brethren & Sistren:

UPTON SINCLAIR, not Sinclair Lewis, wrote THE JUNGLE.

Van Harvey said...

Will said "...This might be my most dour comment ever. Not to mention weird."

Nah, I remember... well anyway, nah whats weird is that coming from a wide angle, mucho interpration-oed perspective, I'm starting to buy into the spirit thing too.

Yikes.

(wv:fkyetriy... ok, ok, ok)

Van Harvey said...

Aquila said..."...UPTON SINCLAIR, not Sinclair Lewis, wrote THE JUNGLE."

I knew something was UP with that, but I was laughing to hard to google it, even so, half right was more right than it was.

Anonymous said...

Back from the flu, the quickest 10 pound weight loss program around. Leaner and meaner.

"...leftist "revolutionaries reorganized themselves into a multitude of single issue groups..."

Maybe it's just me, but it seems that since the last election, the rate of expansion of such groups and their mutating code words is exponential, as the loonies are further emboldened to stand up and spout off whatever nonsense strikes them as important at the moment. It's dizzying to keep up with. Sometimes it's comical, but other times downright chilling, as per the Cultural Marxism article. I'm way weak on Hungarian history, clearly.

It also helps to explain how the Chixie Dicks walked away with 5 Grammys for their awful Long Way and Dylan with only 2 for Modern Times last Sunday. Not that the Grammys is any indicator of musical relevance, but this year's results was just so much baldfaced agenda.

Anonymous said...

Damn it. I ran across this statement on somebody's blog,a nd I KNOW there's a violation of vertical logic operating somewhere in here, but I can't pinpoint it. Anyone wanna help me unpack this one?

"I've always found the idea to be preposterous that a being great enough to create this and every other alternate universe could be contained in human form. From my point of view, comparing God with a human is more ridiculous and more meaningless then comparing the smallest virus to a blue whale."

Anonymous said...

CosaNostradamus: Instapunk said it best.

Best Song Written by a Hired Songwriter for a Girl Band That's Really Really Pissed About Getting Criticized for Jeering at the President in Concerts Overseas: Dan Wilson.

Best Song Recorded by a a Girl Band That's Really Really Pissed About Getting Criticized for Jeering at the President in Concerts Overseas: The Dixie Chicks.

Best Country Album Containing a Song Recorded by a a Girl Band That's Really Really Pissed About Getting Criticized for Jeering at the President in Concerts Overseas: The Dixie Chicks.

Best Album of the Year Containing a Song Recorded by a a Girl Band That's Really Really Pissed About Getting Criticized for Jeering at the President in Concerts Overseas: The Dixie Chicks.

Best Album in the Entire History of Music Recorded by a a Girl Band That's Really Really Pissed About Getting Criticized for Jeering at the President in Concerts Overseas: The Dixie Chicks.

Anonymous said...

Dixie Chicks? You'd have to prove to me that that little chunky dude is a chick.

ximeze said...

jacob c:

IMO it's the "contained in human form."
We are a copy of God, not He of us.

Anonymous said...

"And I mean spirit, as in "evil spirit" - the ancient evil with its long-range plan for . .yes, world domination."

If said old spirit were to be temporarily removed from the planet for oh, say 30 seconds, the realization amongst humanity that it does indeed exist would be so profound as to cause millions to instantly hear Coon Radio through the static. How many would stick around after Old Scratch* is let out of the penalty box though? Seems like I've read this story somewhere... :-)

*Turing calls him Yozfaq.

Anonymous said...

"Dixie Chicks? You'd have to prove to me that that little chunky dude is a chick."

can't.. breathe...

ximeze said...

Ouch! Hey Beaky, you beast, don't bite my toes!

Just a minute ago she was drinking from her Hanging Hamster Bottle (the bottle, not hamster).

Oh Lord, Stealthparrot!

She had to let herself out of her cage & get over here, crossing hardwood floors, without being detected.

Must have wanted to know what all the fun was about. Beaky, say Hi to everyone.

Hi everyone! (Pbeckkkak)

Stephen Macdonald said...

cousin dupree:

"little chunky dude"

Oh my, that was funny!

Anonymous said...

"Both communism and the New Left are alive and thriving here in America." - from Ms. Kimball's critical analysis at the American Thinker.

The link I provided earlier to the de Valle article was made to bring awareness to the wider, worldwide Marxist-Islamist hemimetamorphosis.

Juliec could the phrase used by the author that gave you pause possibly not be his point of view, but the POV of the infrahuman ideological alliances being formed?

_____________________

Speaking of American radio:

Sen. Tom Coburn: Voice of America Harming U.S. Interests in Iran

Seems in this moral surrender of the West to Islam -- you don't need suicide bombers! You don't need "violence." Just people with the backbones of a slinky.

Lisa said...

Hey Cuz-
They actually started recording under the monicker:
Dicksie Chicks!!!

But the record label made them change it cuz the south really hates f*gs and the record would never sell!

Anonymous said...

ms. e,
I had actually figured that the author was expressing not his own view, but the views, in a nutshell, of the reds, greens and browns. Having had more than my fill, in recent years, of those views I just didn't have it in me today to read one more long and depressing article about how so many people in the world think that way. FWIW, I did skim most of it (fairly quickly) to try and determine which point of view the author was actually espousing. His summation at the end seemed to be that we should be fighting those ideologies, however it struck me as fairly vaguely worded. That may just be me, however.

Anonymous said...

"backbone of a slinky" - I think that describes the trouble very well...

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

The Dixie Chunks?

WV: fjdema

What is a progressive eating disorder?

Lisa said...

Bubba- so sorry I never researched it better just laughed when I heard it but...I found this...

* If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.

o According to the Falsely Attributed Quotations page at the Churchill Centre, "there is no record of anyone hearing Churchill say this." Paul Addison of Edinburgh University is quoted as stating: "Surely Churchill can't have used the words attributed to him. He'd been a Conservative at 15 and a Liberal at 35! And would he have talked so disrespectfully of Clemmie, who is generally thought to have been a lifelong Liberal?"

o Also variously attributed to George Bernard Shaw and Benjamin Disraeli and Otto von Bismarck.

o Variants: Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.
Show me a young conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.
If you are not a socialist by the time you are 25, you have no heart. If you are still a socialist by the time you are 35, you have no head

Anonymous said...

"Dicksie Chicks!!!"

Seriously! That's deflating.

Van Harvey said...

Enjoyed the American Thinker article. Something that isn't pointed out in it though, is that the Frankfurt School, which was behind (directly or through the efforts of its members) the horrors mentioned was shut down in 1933 by the Nazi's... guess where they moved to? With the aid of Columbia University, they moved to, and reestablished themselves in New York City.

Another article on this which covers the material from a slightly different tack is The Origins of Political Correctness

Anonymous said...

Nah, actually wordverif is just a prank Gagdad cooked up because it's fun watching Joan of Arrgghh! scream Arrgghh!!! as she types & retypes it in 4 or 5 times before getting it right.

Yes, it is awful. I've even been forced to click on the handicapped thingy (oh! the indignity!) like some leftist victim, but to no avail. Like so many other accomodations of the *ahem* challenged individuals, it doesn't work.

Sigh.

TW: hyxus
Yes, it feels like a curse...

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

To my fellow Raccoons:
In response to the ten's of thousands of e-mail requests I didn't receive, due to a vast left wing conspiracy, I have posted an updated pic of myself for your viewing pleasure.

Feel free to use it as your screensaver and wallpaper.
Print copies for your fridge!

Anonymous said...

Bubba cashes in on 5 minutes of his alloted 15.

One of my handful of favorite bloggers (Its another Robert) makes some recommendations for yours truly:

http://www.instapunk.com/

(scroll down a tad.)

If you've got anything to add to the list, I'm always listening.

Van Harvey said...

USS Ben USN (Ret) said..."I have posted an updated pic of myself for your viewing pleasure."

Huh. The mustache suits you, but somehow I thought you'd be taller.

(I'm sure this was Joan of Argghh!'s doing, my third(!) round with wordverif is 'gobuomat'. I'm hoping this penance absolves me of my p.i.n.'s)

Anonymous said...

"Dixie Chicks? You'd have to prove to me that that little chunky dude is a chick."
She does look like Eddie Izzard. How about
"Ditzy Clits"?
Hitler was going after the Christians once he finished off the Jews. He feared the transcendentalism of these religions because he could not get them to give up their faith and worship him rather than God. I am not explaining it very well. The book Bob recommended by Veath, "Modern Facism" does an excellent job in describing the left in this country and of course the left (Nazis) during WWll.
and please everyone,
we live in a Republic.

Anonymous said...

HELLO BEAKY.

YOUR HANGING HAMSTER BOTTLE SOUNDS VERY NICE.

IT'S GOT TO BE BETTER THAN THE "MILWAUKEE - AMERICA'S BREWERY" BOWL I DRINK OUT OF.

HOPE YOU ARE HAVING A GOOD ONE.

Anonymous said...

Deer Beaky:
How do you make a bottle out of a hamster?

I tried it once but it just got messy.
Pack Leader wasn't happy, even after I cleaned up the blood. Then he threw the bottle hamster away.

PS It doesn't taste like ham.

Anonymous said...

Juliec - I just saw your name written as JulieC on Ben's blog and I laughed at myself. Whenever I've read your name on OC - I've read it as "jooleeEK" and briefly thought 'coolname" - it and she remind me of "JooleeET of the Spirits" -- Giulietta Masina: Fellini's better half.

Fatti vivo!

Anonymous said...

Havent you already upset the "order of the universe" by dividing the world into at least two camps of figth to the death True Believers---yours and everyone "else"?

Anonymous said...

Don't tell him I said so, but you give Dear Leader far too much credit. He is not actually responsible for the fact that the sons of light are perpetually in conflict with the sons of the earth.

Anonymous said...

Bob- Can you suggest the best books dealing with the development of classical liberalism, as discussed in today's post, especially the split of radical vs skeptical and the results of each?
Thank you as always for your insight and the willingness to share it in generous quantities.

Anonymous said...

ms. e,
I must admit I had never heard of Giulietta; having Wiki'd her, I am flattered that you'd think that - she seems delightful. Sadly, I'm certain I don't measure up ; )

It's funny how the brain interprets things; my husband and I occasionally read to each other, and he once read the word "underfed" as "un-derf'd." He didn't realize the error until I started laughing.

Gagdad Bob said...

logosaustralis:

I'm not really an expert on that area, but have simply pieced things together from various sources here and there. One book that comes to mind is The Road to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments by Gertrude Himmelfarb. I'm guessing that if you search that book on amazon, it will link you to similar books. Michael Novak is always good as well. I'm sure I'll think of others later, but I'm a bit tired at the moment....

Gagdad Bob said...

The Mind and the Market is a wondrful book on the history of what various intellectuals have thought about economics, both sound and crazy. A fascinating book that shows how the left has always been with us and has always been wrong about economics -- because it is wrong about human nature.

Van Harvey said...

logosaustralis,

Regarding your question about Classical Liberalism and the Radical & Skeptical Branches of the Enlightenment, I came across a remarkable resource awhile back called THE ONLINE LIBRARY OF LIBERTY which has an impressive collection covering what you're asking about and more. From the home page hover your mouse down the left side menu, over 'Teaching Resources', then the popout menu '19th C Classical Liberalism', and it'll offer several sub menus including what it is, books, essays & speeches on the subject and much else.

From the Political-Economic perspective, it also offers a pdf of the entire book by Ludwig Von Mises "Liberalism: A Socio-Economic Exposition (IHS ed.)" which is quite good.

There's far more to the site than that though, think Gutenberg.org, but much better organized, such as by subjects such as Law, Literature, Individual Rights, Natural Law, Debates (such as "Intellectual Debate: Beauty and Virtue"), with summaries and also the free html or pdf's docs of all the relevant texts. Pretty impressive.

Also has under the main left side menu "Schools of Thought", and two of the popout menus are "French Enlightenment" (the radical branch), "Scottish Enlightenment" (which would be the skeptical/ english branch), "Founding Fathers" and more.

It of course also has all the documents for the other founding sources of Classical Liberalism such as the Founding Fathers speeches, letters, debates on the constitution, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, DeTocqueville, Fredrich Bastiat and back to Cicero and Aristotle....

Van Harvey said...

Also Thomas Sowell's "A Conflict of Visions" gives an excellent description of the different views, and their sources, between Classical Liberal, and Progressive Liberal thought and how & why they wind up in practice as they do (pretty difficult to go wrong with anything by Thomas Sowell)

Van Harvey said...

Oooh... "The Mind and the Market" looks realy interesting... I'm gonna have to get an engineer to run a stress test on my poor bookshelves....

NoMo said...

Ok, Van. Talk about stress test. I started following some of your leads and my head exploded. Take smaller bites, take smaller bites...chew slowly...

Tomorrow, go acquire a larger hard disk.

ximeze said...

ms e:

Juliet of the Spirits is likely my all time favorite film, certainly in the top ten. 8 1/2 is one of them too.

Once, while a college student, attended an overnight, 4 back-to-back, Felini festival. We watched 8 1/2, La Dolce Vita, Juliet & Satyricon.

Truely a mindblowing experience. We were gaga when we came out & wandered around predawn Tokyo until the trains started up again.

Thirty years later the effects of that night have not completely worn off.

Thinking of those 10 films, realized that not one of them is in English. Odd that.

Anonymous said...

Fergus & Oscar:
Hi guys, Beaky here.
Hope you're healthy & happy.

Had to wait for you-know-who to bed down for the night, to get back to you.

Geez, ya shoulda been here today. Just like that Larson cartoon: blah blah Beaky blah blah.

You'd think that was the very first toe-nibble in the history of the world. I mean, shes had plenty of 'break the skin & draw blood" nibbles before now & I didn't even do the peel-off-the-nail routine (really fun, like halving sunflower seeds & the howling it generates is most gratifying)

On & on, running at the mouth. Don't those women ever stop talking?

"Don't you know it's dangerous for you to stuff yourself thru that tiny feeding hatch, you could get caught & break a wing", "I'm going to the hardware to get a lock for that door that you can't pick" and the clincher: "You know there are cats in this house...."

No offence Ferg, but phaahleez, have already mandible-trained 3 in the past & the current one is a young'un & a bit of a wuss.

Oscar, you're so silly about that hamster. Bloodsport is studly and all, but a girl likes to take care of her nails.

Got a chance to dismember 2 plastic models before she wised up & got a glass number with a stainless spout. Not much fun 'cause it hangs on the outside. Can get at it when I come out, but she bent the clip so tight & ya need that working thumb thingie to loosen it.

Can make it rattle loudly & can clink the glass with no problem. Best part is she's driven to cussing, which she has to hide, when trying to refill the bottle.

Gotta go get my beauty sleep. See ya.

Van Harvey said...

River Cocytus said "...Was struggling (unfortunately) with a Bro last night, trying to get him to go deeper..."

Maybe by getting him to see that in the Bible itself, it gives examples that must be looked at from a non-literalist perspective. A similar example that comes to mind is from an interview with Richard Mitchell, talking about getting a class of students (graduated and certified Literate by a public school near you!) who had never learned to use their imagination, to see what a metaphor is:

I had a marvelous example in a class recently on the King James translation of the Bible. Somebody had read, they all had read the Book of Ecclesiastes; didn't find much in it; seemed to be saying all the same thing all the time. They couldn't really distinguish where the text was any different from anywhere else.

I said, "You noticed that the heart of the fool was in the House of Mirth." "Oh, yeah, yeah." "Well, what's that about?" "The same thing, you know; it's in favor of good; it's against evil." And I asked a very simple question, "Now, what exactly is the House of Mirth?"

Complete silence in class. "Is it a house?" Baffled silence continues. Finally he said, "Well, probably not." Probably not. Get that. Probably not. Well this engendered quite a long discussion and finally someone suggested, "It's not really a house at all. It's just a way of talking about something else, and the heart isn't a heart at all either."

And it took a whole class to get at the metaphor, a very simple metaphor. They don't think that way and they haven't been taught that way. They have been taught, What is reading? Reading is that process which leads to comprehension score, and they didn't think that was a fair question because it wouldn't appear on a comprehension test.


A tack like that might get him to see that, and on authority of the books that are in the Bible itself, that you have to dynamically use the chapter and verse to deepen youself, in order to be able to get at the full meaning of what was included in the Bible - otherwise he'll literally be leaving meaning on the table.

MikeZ said...

There's a great example of "meaning the opposite" in one of the Left's Academic Darlings, one June Terpstra, recently of Loyola University, Chicago.

She wrote a particularly vile screed in 2006 (you'll need a nose-mask to get through the start of it). She puts Gramsci at the root of the rightwing conspiracy, as a tool of the "ruling class". Those who know Gramsci realize that he is in fact at the heart of the Left's agenda: redefine the family, paint patriotism as pathetic, &c.

It's hard to wade through the Marxist rhetoric in her article. At the beginning, she bames "the ruling class" for using Gramsci's methods; the rest of it seems to be a paean to Gramsci.

This Person is a part-time lecturer at Columbia and Loyola U Chicago.

I sometimes have a hard time aligning with the Bob's position that the Left is not merely wrong, but dangerously wrong. People like Terpstra make it easier to accept that notion.

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