The American Conservative Is Increasingly Insane

[goldenvalley]

May 6, 2022 20:58:28 GMT LFC said:

And read these words he approvingly quotes again. This is the very definition of the authoritarian state and state sponsored religion. Is it any wonder he has such a boner for Orbán?

Today we have to use state power to rebuild those communities and create new national elites. Society will not heal itself—nor will the free market heal it. If your house is destroyed, you must actively rebuild it; it won’t be rebuilt by an ‘invisible hand.’

Got that? The state will "rebuild those communities" and "create new national elites." Yeah, that's not scary at all.

That is exactly what he and others accuse the "woke" of doing...create elites, rebuild society to fix what is wrong with it now....  It's all about who is in power, that's all it ever is.  

[AnBr]

Remember when the right used to whine about social engineering? Seems like the free market is getting dumped on the same trash heap. At least for them.

[LFC]

May 7, 2022 11:16:42 GMT AnBr said:

Remember when the right used to whine about social engineering? Seems like the free market is getting dumped on the same trash heap. At least for them.

Ditto freedom.

[LFC]

TAC continues to be a shitshow of a post-truth conservatism. Here's a piece that so clearly doesn't get what corporations have been doing on inclusiveness. It's like it was written by somebody in a bunker who has never actually been in the working world.

Recent Pew Foundation report reveals the supposed death of religion has been much exaggerated. As a result, companies are waking up to the need to include religious faith as part of their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.

Despite declining church membership in Europe and the U.S., a study by the Pew Foundation projected that “atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.” Corporations are taking notice.

On May 23, the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation (RFBF) published their third Corporate Religious Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (REDI) Index, which surveys Fortune 500 companies’ commitments to religious inclusion in the workplace.

Increasingly, companies are “allowing employees to bring their whole souls to work,” RFBF President Brian Grim said. “They want people to know that their faith and belief matters. This gives people of faith an official voice within the company.”

They've been so busy playing the victim for so long that they can't grasp that companies want ALL employees to feel comfortable, not just the ones the right clearly wants to feel UNcomfortable. It's good for business when you can hire from across the board and when everybody at your company is happy and content. Instead we have "Oooo! Look at the big shift!" that hasn't occurred.

[goldenvalley]

I looked at The American Conservative for the first time in a long time.  If I'm not mistaken it's dropped all comment sections and I'm not sure Rod Dreher seems to be a blogger. Is this a new thing or have I so tuned it out that I missed this?

[LFC]

Jul 8, 2022 7:13:11 GMT goldenvalley said:

I looked at The American Conservative for the first time in a long time.  If I'm not mistaken it's dropped all comment sections and I'm not sure Rod Dreher seems to be a blogger. Is this a new thing or have I so tuned it out that I missed this?

I see they've changed the layout since I last visited. Dreher's still there over in the right-hand column but it does seem like they've dropped comments. I guess they didn't like their bullshit being pointed out over and over. Contrary (i.e. sane) opinions were already dying as they seemed to be hacking down non-sycophants in the comments section pretty hard.

And it's still completely insane. Gotta' love a piece titled "Conservatives Must Prioritize the Second Amendment" in the face of sky high gun deaths.

[pnwguy]

Jul 8, 2022 13:45:53 GMT LFC said:

And it's still completely insane. Gotta' love a piece titled "Conservatives Must Prioritize the Second Amendment" in the face of sky high gun deaths.

Is there anything more Pro-Life than the worship of guns?  Are you some cheese-eating surrender monkey? Shouldn't TAC have their own logo imprinted infant onesie that says "I can't wait until I can hold a gun (and go RINO hunting)" ?

[LFC]

Just out of interest I checked out TAC's coverage of the hearings on the Jan 6 Republican Insurrection. Going back to June 1 there was only one piece from June 20. Just one. It's entitled January 6 Was Not a Coup by Peter Van Buren who, to put it bluntly, is a liar and a nutjob and has been for as long as I've known who he was. Here's his vast intellect on full display:

Was there a coup attempt on January 6? For the answer to be “yes,” there had to have been a realistic path by which some action on that day could have resulted in Donald Trump remaining president of the United States.

Watching the show trial on television, you could believe it might have been possible. The special committee’s TV show is dedicated to convincing a lay audience the Trump administration came “that close” to tossing away our democracy, with some mechanism almost clicking into place that would have left Trump in power.

It would be easier to take the Democrats seriously if they would coolly outline just how Trump could have stayed in office without the military, who were clearly not taking a partisan stance on January 6. Absent that, you had political theater and a riot, not a coup attempt. Think back to the 1960s and ask yourself if occupying the administration building on campus would have stopped the Vietnam War in its tracks. This is politically much ado about not much, except Democratic Party 2024 electioneering.

To stage a coup, you need tanks on the White House lawn. Instead, America transitioned peacefully from one administration to another. That hard reality is wholly missing from the Democrats’ January 6 committee hearings and all the frou-frou that accompanies them.

Could Trump have used the Capitol riot to declare martial law and stay in power? No. The president cannot use the military domestically in a way Congress does not agree with. The “web of laws” Congress enacted to govern the domestic activities of the armed forces—including the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of federal troops to execute the law without express congressional authorization—would stop Trump cold.

The amount of reality this has to dodge to work is vast. It's a propaganda masterpiece, to be sure.

[indy]

There are a lot of criminals in jails all over the U.S. that would fervently support the proposition that attempting to do something illegal is only a crime if it can succeed..."You see, your honor, the vault was on a timer and I couldn't possibly open it with the screwdriver and wire cutters I was attempting to use. Let's just call it a day here and go home."

And, of course, I'm sure Putin would entirely agree with the assertion that there can't be a coup unless tanks are involved.

[LFC]

After reading about Viktor Orbán spoke against "race mixing" I had to look to see if Rod Dreher would spin a steaming pile of apologetics for his man crush / daddy figure. He didn't fail to disappoint with not one but two articles filled with lots of "you have to understand"-isms. At least he admits it's all about tribalism (where have we heard about "purity" before?) but doesn't seem to think that's necessarily a bad thing.

So in the first one we get he's not really racist and "LOOK! SQUIRREL! SOME LIBERAL ORGANIZATION!" He manages to equate inter-racial / inter-culture marriages with a university reaching out to the families of minority freshmen over their concerns. That takes some amazing mental gymnastics a blunt refusal to think about a comparison at the most fundamental level of reality. (No mention of Liberty University's relatively rescinded policy against interracial dating which would have been vastly more comparable.)

1.  Again, I don't read him as making a statement we regard as racist, in the sense of saying that one race is better than other races. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I truly believe that the concept of race is seen so differently here in Europe, and in Central Europe, than in the US. In America, given our history, to protest against "race mixing" has a clear and unambiguously ugly meaning, one that decent people must reject. It is unfair, though, to apply the American framework to Europe, which has a very different history.

2. Before I say anything else, let me say emphatically that I have no interest in hearing a lecture from leftists who believe that it's fine to have race-exclusive commencement addresses and academic meetings, as long as the race being excluded are white ones. For example:

UCSD is against "race mixing," flat out, when it comes to people of color (but not Asians!) mixing with whites. I think this is un-American and wicked. For many years, as longtime readers will attest, I have been warning that the Left's embrace of racial identity politics unavoidably justifies the same thing on the Right, with white people. You can't have it both ways.

From the second link here is his defense of tribalism. I've heard those I consider to be decent people speak up against every one of his examples in the past.

Plus, as I've said here before, the Hungarians are a culturally distinct people, with a unique language. There are more people living in New York City than in the entire country of Hungary, which is partly why the Hungarians are so anxious about being assimilated out of existence. Is it wrong for Hungarians to want to strictly limit immigration into their country for the purpose of preserving their cultural distinctiveness? I think not, any more than it's racist for Israel to limit migration to preserve its Jewish character, or for Japan to limit migration to preserve its Japanese character. How can a Hungarian express this without coming across as racist to Americans and to European liberals? I don't know if it's possible. If you're going to trash Viktor Orban for his view, what do you have to say to the Israelis and the Japanese (to name just two liberal democratic peoples who nevertheless believe in defending the cultural and ethnic distinctiveness of their nations).

Then comes the big reveal. He's basically a religious bigot. He believes in the acceptance of tribalism because he is deeply embedded in his own tribe, just one based on religion rather than language. Both look to "defend" their "culture" against those who aren't like them. And that, my friends, forms the very basis of bigotry, bullying, and the belief that the "others" don't get an equal say.

This is something very, very hard for Americans to understand. We find it much easier to move across racial lines, in part because we have a shared generic culture, and a shared language that is in no danger of going extinct. In the case of my own kids, I don't care about the race of the person they marry, as long as the person they marry is a serious Christian. We really are living in a time when the Christian faith is in decline, and its preservation matters greatly to me, not only because I want my children and grandchildren to believe that Christ is their Savior, but also because I want Christian faith and culture to be strong. Let me put it like this: I would a thousand times rather my white children marry a believing Christian of a non-white race than marry a white person who has no faith, or a non-Christian faith. Faith, not race, is what is important to me. My niece married a dark-skinned Latino from South America, which delighted me because they met at church, and he is a believing Christian.

I completely understand why many Jews feel strongly about their children marrying only Jews, why Muslims feel that their children should only marry Muslims, Hindus feel that, etc. In the case of Jews in particular, I greatly empathize, because through intermarriage, they are being assimilated away in the United States. Yet if we are going to give Jews a pass for wanting to marry only within their religion and ethnicity, how can we begrudge it to others, even if we don't share their views? My first heartbreak was pining away in high school for a girl who was the daughter of Indian immigrants. Man, I was desperately in love, for a couple of years, with this girl -- and I never could tell if she liked me or not, or if she was just afraid to go against the will of her father, whom she adored, and who insisted that she only date Indians. (She eventually married a Jewish guy.) I met her dad, a doctor, and liked and respected him, but thought of him as kind of a bigot back then. Now, I totally understand where he was coming from. I don't think he was a religious Hindu, but I completely understand why it was important for him, as one of a small minority living in a non-Hindu, non-Indian country, that his children hold on to the old ways, including their racial heritage. The racial part doesn't matter to me, but I might feel differently if I lived in a country where I was part of a tiny minority in danger of being assimilated out of existence. In any case, I might not agree with that way of thinking, but I don't think it's crazy on its face either.

[LFC]

Moving on from Dreher we have this amazing example of false equivalence. To give the author credit they didn't try to bury that fact. They put their stake of stupidity in the ground right in the first paragraph and continues from there.

Alex Jones has made a business of saying things that are false, conspiratorial, and paranoid. In these ways and more, he is exactly like America’s most respected journalists. His false claims about Sandy Hook caused real suffering. So did the New York Times’s reports about WMD. He has drawn false connections between his enemies, just as reputable men did between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. He has told countless lies about Hillary Clinton, though no more than mainstream journalists have told about Donald Trump.

If Alex Jones had promoted Russiagate rather than a downscale conspiracy, he might have received a Pulitzer Prize. If he had relayed untruths on behalf of the elite rather than saying things true and false at its expense, he might be editing the Atlantic. If he had pretended to seriousness rather than clowning, he might even now be spreading paranoia on MSNBC. As it is, he is banned from every platform and broadly despised, condemned by people who have no right to judge him.

Alex’s War, a new documentary by Alex Lee Moyer, shows that Alex Jones has much to apologize for. But it also suggests that he is far from uniquely guilty. Moyer’s previous film, TFW No GF, took an unprejudiced look at the disaffected young men sometimes called incels. The director brings the same sympathetic, ironical eye to the story of Alex Jones. Through interviews and archival footage, she follows Jones from his turbulent boyhood in Dallas to his breakout on public-access TV to his present infamy.

[LFC]

Then there's this perfectly written I'm not a racist but we should promote a racist museum piece. At least he's honest about the establishment he's talking about but somehow he thinks this is a worthwhile group to promote rather than a complete crank, racist group that still supports treason. It's just another example of TAC swirling down the toilet as they allow an apologist for racist lies write for them. Of course that's part of American conservatism today.

Prominently absent from the Moon guide as well as the maps distributed by the city’s tourism promoters was any mention of the Museum and Library of Confederate History, which is the kind of filiopietistic throwback that makes New South boosters cringe.

Chamber of Commerce be damned, I dropped by the museum, which is operated by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and tucked away in a modest flag-festooned house (though I didn’t see Old Glory) in the Pettigru Historic District.

Upon entry, I was greeted by a man whose accent was redolent of the days before the Greenville region became the North American headquarters of BMW and Michelin.

“I’m Larry Waddell,” he said, extending his hand. I shook it.

“Bill Kauffman.”

“You from around here?”

“No, I’m from New York.” I hastily added, “Towards Buffalo way.”

“Buffalo,” he said with a vague look of distaste, as if I’d said, “I’m a Unitarian poet from Boston.”

“Another damnyankee. You’ll need a green card.”

And he handed me a green card, which was bannered:

Confederate States of America

Immigration and Naturalization Service

The bearer of this card, it went on, “is a citizen of the Northern United States and has been granted the privilege of living within the Confederacy. Privilege has been granted by virtue of marriage to a Southerner, adoption, or by exhibiting a willingness to forgo inbred damnyankeeness. Reverting back to the damnyankee way of life will automatically result in the voiding of this card and immediate deportation across the Potomac.”

The museum pulls the "black friend" card rather nicely.

Pictures of black Confederates and their descendants also line the walls, with descriptive text emphasizing their Southern patriotism. The museum frames the war as a sectional conflict in which the matter of slavery was secondary. I’ve never bought that line, but how far we have fallen if those who offer alternative interpretations of what Gore Vidal called “the great single tragic event that continues to give resonance to Our Republic” are ostracized.

You have to love how the author simply presents two separate, easily verifiable lies and then unblinkingly says they disagree with the slavery angle and calls it an "alternative interpretation." I don't know how you alternatively interpret one document and speech after another by Confederate states and leaders that say it was about slavery, unless of course lying is now viewed as legitimate "interpretation."

On the black Confederates it only took the simplest web search to find out that this too is a lie, er, "alternate interpretation." (Sounds like another term for alternate facts.)

Some black Southerners aided the Confederacy. Most of these were forced to accompany their masters or were forced to toil behind the lines. Black men were not legally allowed to serve as combat soldiers in the Confederate Army--they were cooks, teamsters, and manual laborers. There were no black Confederate combat units in service during the war and no documentation whatsoever exists for any black man being paid or pensioned as a Confederate soldier, although some did receive pensions for their work as laborers. Nevertheless, the black servants and the Confederate soldiers formed bonds in the shared crucible of conflict, and many servants later attended regimental reunions with their wartime comrades.

This is not to say that no black man ever fired a gun for the Confederacy. To be specific, in the “Official Records of the War of the Rebellion,” a collection of military records from both sides which spans more than 50 volumes and more than 50,000 pages, there are a total of seven Union eyewitness reports of black Confederates. Three of these reports mention black men shooting at Union soldiers, one report mentions capturing a handful of armed black men along with some soldiers, and the other three reports mention seeing unarmed black laborers. There is no record of Union soldiers encountering an all-black line of battle or anything close to it.

In those same Official Records, no Confederate ever references having black soldiers under his command or in his unit, although references to black laborers are common. The non-existence of black combat units is further indicated by the records of debates in the Confederate Congress over the issue of black enlistment. The idea was repeatedly rejected until, on March 13, 1865, the Confederate Congress passed a law to allow black men to serve in combat roles, although with the provision “that nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize a change in the relation which the said slaves shall bear toward their owners,” i.e. that black soldiers would still be slaves.

[LFC]

Man, TAC has practically become a Putin propaganda factory.

Putin’s Last Laugh: Because higher energy prices in Europe means Putin won the economic war? Lots of quoting by Dreher but he finally gets around to polishing Orban's knob. He then tap dances around a bit and throws up the strawman that nobody (other than the great and all knowing Orban) saw Putin's energy retaliation coming. For real? I guess he doesn't follow real news anymore.

Viktor Orban said from the beginning of this conflict that the West had better pursue peace, because it cannot afford the cost of an energy war. "Putin symp!" they all screamed. But Viktor Orban was right.

Is the World Weary of War in Ukraine?: In summary, we need negotiations! Why didn't we negotiate? Another author who clearly doesn't follow any real news.

The ships laden with grain recently leaving the ports of Ukraine might be taken to suggest that those who doubted it was possible for Ukraine and Russia to negotiate had been wrong. But with the exception of a brief meeting between U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky, there have been no recent diplomatic attempts to negotiate an end to the war.

Instead, the U.S. has consistently discouraged negotiations. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Zelensky not to negotiate with Russia. In his dying days as prime minister, he repeated that call on August 24, saying that now was not the time to promote a “flimsy plan for negotiation” with Russia.

German Foreign Minister: ‘Let My People Freeze’: Back to the energy war with Dreher. Apparently suffering to support a people being slaughtered by a maniac who has threatened and invaded multiple countries is a bad thing. For a "Christian" he sure doesn't see saving lives having the value of an uncomfortable (but with LNG deliveries doubtfully fatal) winter. How weak his faith is. Then this throwaway really shows his hatred in the cold, harsh light of day. He can't help it anymore.

Maybe if the German people can convince their government that transgenders and illegal immigrants are suffering the most from the energy crisis, they will change direction.

How far from democracy they've fallen. With people there like Pat Buchanan it makes me wonder if they ever really cared about democracy in the first place. At least some of them used to.

[LFC]

Dreher: Biden's the fascist! He really has become a good Nazi.

I was flying back to the US last night, and missed Joe Biden's prime time speech. But oh, oh, oh, I did not miss the memes, which were savage. I cannot for the life of me understand why the White House allowed this speech to be framed this way, unless they've taken the Dark Brandon stuff too seriously. A speech that framed millions of Americans as "threats to democracy" and is delivered in this fascist-aesthetic setting, is an extremely bad look.

I actually read the speech on the White House website last night while waiting for the connection in Atlanta, and though I think it was extremely inappropriate for a US president to use that kind of setting for a speech so partisan, it was not as bad as I expected, given the imagery. But the imagery is what is going to count more than the words, in the end. And you know, I'm not a MAGA guy, and never was, though I've never been a Never Trump person either. Still, it is seriously chilling to hear an American president say words like this:

And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people.

They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.

MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards — backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.

They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.

They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6th — brutally attacking law enforcement — not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger to the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots.

More:

I believe America is at an inflection point — one of those moments that determine the shape of everything that’s to come after.

And now America must choose: to move forward or to move backwards? To build the future or obsess about the past? To be a nation of hope and unity and optimism, or a nation of fear, division, and of darkness?

MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.

But together — together, we can choose a different path. We can choose a better path. Forward, to the future. A future of possibility. A future to build and dream and hope.

And we’re on that path, moving ahead.

And:

Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans: We must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA Republicans are to — to destroying American democracy.

We, the people, will not let anyone or anything tear us apart. Today, there are dangers around us we cannot allow to prevail. We hear — you’ve heard it — more and more talk about violence as an acceptable political tool in this country. It’s not. It can never be an acceptable tool.

So I want to say this plain and simple: There is no place for political violence in America. Period. None. Ever.

This is dismissed with one word: "fine." Then he goes on a rant trying to bring parity with the BLM protests (but not mentioning that much of the violence had nothing to do with the protestors, of course), and transexuals and whiteness, and and and... It's a classic right-wing meltdown where anything and everything can be, if not excused, dismissed with "fine." This is the full embrace of fascism without admitting that he's fully embracing fascism. He'll "tsk, tsk" as the violence erupts and then blame the left for making them do it. He's one sick, twisted puppy. No wonder his wife left him.

Fine, but let's consider the context. I am not aware that Joe Biden ever endorsed left-wing violence, but the Left in general in the US downplayed or excused the George Floyd rioting. Some called it "rebellion." Remember NPR elevating that book "In Defense Of Looting" by a tranny author? Over and over and over these last two years, we have seen left-wing mobs deface and remove statues of historical figures they hate. I'm not talking about removing them through the political process, which however regrettable the outcome may be to some people, is at least done in a law-and-order manner. I'm talking about mob violence.

And let's keep in mind the kind of America that Joe Biden and his team stand for:

An America where children can be mutilated by surgeons and physicians attempting to change their gender, and where parents are allowed by law to be kept in the dark -- and even disempowered by their minor children. An America in which once-trusted institutions, like local public schools, are now in the business of corrupting the minds of little children sexually, and lying to parents about it (see Chris Rufo's latest).

An America where you can be fired for not giving the correct answer to the question, "What is a woman?"

An America where people are promoted or kept behind on the basis of race, and in which "whiteness" is demonized.

[LFC]

Praise for the AZ Senate candidate is who one hair from being pure and open about his racism. He's also said Jan 6 was a false flag operation and "black people" were responsible for gun violence. And he supports a federal "personhood" law for fetuses. In other words, TAC loves him.

Blake Masters is good on camera. From his launch video last year to this week’s declaration of war on affirmative action, the Republican nominee for the Senate in Arizona has demonstrated fresh mastery of a stale medium. His primary election ads read like a cross between director Terrence Malick and 2015’s Sicario. His talks to the phone camera rival AOC for savvy use of social media. It doesn’t feel poll-tested or consultant-driven. It looks real even while being slick. One would expect the aesthetic to change a bit since Masters won the primary. And indeed, now there are some Masters for Senate ads that look just as seizure-inducing as every other GOP politician’s. Maybe it’s the mandates of general election TV or maybe it’s the national party; it’s probably both. But there aren’t many of them.

Monday’s message from what looks like a hotel elevator bay is primary Masters through and through. “I'm declaring war on Joe Biden's dysfunctional affirmative action regime,” he tweeted with the video. “I don’t care if every single employee at the Fed is a black lesbian,” he said, “as long as they’re hired for their competence and not because of what they look like or who they sleep with. News for Joe Biden, we are done with this affirmative action regime.” So far, safe enough, but then, the consultant heart attack: “I can’t think of a single policy since the end of Jim Crow that’s been worse or more divisive for race relations in this country. Race quotas are wrong. Gender quotas are wrong. They’re unjust. They’re illegal. But the Democrats are addicted to this kind of identity politics garbage.”

Yeah, none of the other racist shit even mentioned. He's their boy. (And the GOP wants nothing to do with him, apparently, other than the fact that they need a warm body in that seat.)

[LFC]

TAC goes after a PA supreme court ruling on mail-in ballots. Note the failure to mention a) that it does allow voting to be more accessible which should be an unalloyed good and b) that Republicans were for it before they were against it. Note the giveaways right up front with the Republican epithet "Democrat justices" and the meltdown that mail-in ballots (during a pandemic) benefited Democrats ... THIS time. But again, it was Republicans who were for it before they were against it. Not a peep on that steaming pile of hypocrisy.

Something is rotten in the city of Harrisburg, and I don’t refer primarily to the holding of the case. For years, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has suffered from a reputation for political bias. A couple lines in particular in the McLinko opinion stand out as unnecessary political intrusions into this decision.

The majority opinion, written and signed by the five Democrat justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, begins by admitting the partisan backdrop to this case: “A ‘clear partisan split when it came to the method of voting’ was soon evident; Joseph R. Biden defeated Donald J. Trump by more than three-to-one among mail-in ballots, while Trump beat Biden by two-to-one among the votes cast in person on Election Day.”

Now, the Court knew that it was about to uphold mail-in ballots, which will benefit Democrats. It also knew that the vote would be 5-2, with five Democrat justices voting to uphold the law and the two Republicans on the Court dissenting. This already has the appearance of a partisan decision. After analyzing the passage of Act 77, the Court here explicitly points out that Democrats prefer to vote by mail, while Republicans prefer to vote in person. The Democrat justices go on to uphold the constitutionality of the method of voting they stated was preferred by Democrats. Why would the Court include in its opinion the fact that this Democrat-decided decision benefits Democrats? The Court should be judging what the law says and how it applies to the facts before it. It should never needlessly make statements giving the appearance that political considerations are affecting its decision.

[goldenvalley]

Sept 3, 2022 15:08:45 GMT LFC said:

TAC goes after a PA supreme court ruling on mail-in ballots. Note the failure to mention a) that it does allow voting to be more accessible which should be an unalloyed good and b) that Republicans were for it before they were against it. Note the giveaways right up front with the Republican epithet "Democrat justices" and the meltdown that mail-in ballots (during a pandemic) benefited Democrats ... THIS time. But again, it was Republicans who were for it before they were against it. Not a peep on that steaming pile of hypocrisy.

Something is rotten in the city of Harrisburg, and I don’t refer primarily to the holding of the case. For years, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has suffered from a reputation for political bias. A couple lines in particular in the McLinko opinion stand out as unnecessary political intrusions into this decision.

The majority opinion, written and signed by the five Democrat justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, begins by admitting the partisan backdrop to this case: “A ‘clear partisan split when it came to the method of voting’ was soon evident; Joseph R. Biden defeated Donald J. Trump by more than three-to-one among mail-in ballots, while Trump beat Biden by two-to-one among the votes cast in person on Election Day.”

Now, the Court knew that it was about to uphold mail-in ballots, which will benefit Democrats. It also knew that the vote would be 5-2, with five Democrat justices voting to uphold the law and the two Republicans on the Court dissenting. This already has the appearance of a partisan decision. After analyzing the passage of Act 77, the Court here explicitly points out that Democrats prefer to vote by mail, while Republicans prefer to vote in person. The Democrat justices go on to uphold the constitutionality of the method of voting they stated was preferred by Democrats. Why would the Court include in its opinion the fact that this Democrat-decided decision benefits Democrats? The Court should be judging what the law says and how it applies to the facts before it. It should never needlessly make statements giving the appearance that political considerations are affecting its decision.

Such whinging about being a loser.  A ballot is an expression of a voter's choices; that's all it is.  The method of returning it doesn't change the voter's choices.  

[goldenvalley]

Sept 3, 2022 1:19:38 GMT LFC said:

Dreher: Biden's the fascist! He really has become a good Nazi

An America where people are promoted or kept behind on the basis of race, and in which "whiteness" is demonized.

Seriously Mr Dreher? I do hope he'll be renouncing his American citizenship soon. 

[pnwguy]

Sept 3, 2022 15:43:42 GMT goldenvalley said:

Sept 3, 2022 1:19:38 GMT LFC said:

Dreher: Biden's the fascist! He really has become a good Nazi

Seriously Mr Dreher? I do hope he'll be renouncing his American citizenship soon. 

He must be in the process of applying for Hungarian citizenship right now, as a "refugee" from a country where white Christian nationalists are persecuted. In his deluded fantasies the 21st century gas chambers will be of Americans herded into libraries to listen to drag queen story hour.

[LFC]

Sept 3, 2022 16:47:38 GMT pnwguy said:

He must be in the process of applying for Hungarian citizenship right now, as a "refugee" from a country where white Christian nationalists are persecuted. In his deluded fantasies the 21st century gas chambers will be of Americans herded into libraries to listen to drag queen story hour.

Having semi-followed Dreher for a number of years I have clearly seen his descent into madness and his mounting inability to see the world as it is, rather than his persecution filter. I imagine his wife saw that too and finally gave up trying to make him whole again. He is now a complete mess, an amalgamation of massive daddy issues, a dash of childhood trauma, and a heaping dose of f***ed up orthodox religion all boiling in a stewing persecution complex. I think he may be beyond repair at this point.

[LFC]

I did a quick check-in at TAC and the utter nuttiness was out in its full glory. What would a TAC check be without Rod Dreher in a total meltdown (it must be tough to live in a state of near constant freaking out)? This times it's about sex. Sex, sex, and more sex. He is totally obsessed with every other kind of sex other than male-female within marriage, plus I wonder if he believes and obeyed the Orthodox Catholic stance that all sex must be potentially procreative. I could see his obsession pushing him into that camp quite easily. Anyway here, in part of its glory, is Rod melting down over sex.

Read it all. I said that sugar-babying is being "a kind of whore," because while these women are not trading actual sex to paying clients, they are selling what are called "thirst traps" -- social media posts designed to entice people (including paying clients) sexually. What is breathtaking about the culture depicted in that story is how destigmatized "sex work" and adjacent activity is among that generation. The idea is that you are entitled to exploit yourself sexually for fun and profit, and nobody can judge that. But if you read on in the story, you'll see that these poor working class bastards, men who are this culture's losers with women, are paying their last dimes to these Stanford skanks. It is extraordinarily immoral, and not just because of the sex. As Nicola Buskirk, the piece's author, writes:

Cassie and Lainey’s experience is a microcosm of the broader cultural changes in America over the past few decades. American men, especially working class men, have been left behind with little hope for the “American dream” of a good family and stable job, income, and community. Rather, they self-medicate with drugs, alcohol, porn, and the pseudo-personal relationships offered by girls like Cassie and Lainey.

Got that? The instability of working class men with little hope for the "American dream" is because of ... porn and paying to talk dirty to somebody. Not because they are angry at people who look down on those bettering themselves and who treat women like shit, especially those who are bettering themselves.

And, of course, gay marriage is what's destroying heterosexual marriage. Uh, huh.

Why did things fall off a cliff in 2017? There are surely several causes, but I would propose that the 2015 Obergefell ruling is one of them. I can't prove it, obviously. Still, the broad cultural changes in the shared understanding of what marriage is for (which also entails an entire view of the human person, and of sex) necessary to legitimize gay marriage obliterates the rationale for marriage. It's not the fault of gays, necessarily, but they are its avatars, they are its vanguard, and activists like Sullivan could only get what they wanted by destroying the last vestiges of the Christian imaginary. Gay men are the ultimate beneficiaries of the Sexual Revolution, as are high-status (wealth, looks) men. Homely and poor straight men, and women, are the losers. And, of course, children.

The rest of the piece consists of the same brand of meltdown over any expression of sexuality that he disapproves of, which is almost all of them. It's always been one of his standing gripes but this piece brings it all together in one big meltdown.

[LFC]

This one isn't as fun as watching Dreher's freakout over sex but it's a nice piece of classic right-wing soft pedaling. Bold min.

Three years ago, United States senator from Missouri took aim at a fourth- and fifth-century heretic in the pages of Christianity Today. Josh Hawley’s “The Age of Pelagius,” adapted from a commencement address delivered to The King’s College in New York City, identified Pelagius’s denial of original sin and the necessity of grace as the root, or at least a precursor, of the disorder afflicting the post-Christian West.

Hawley, by then already a rising star on the still-forming New Right, gained a reputation as one of its elected intellectual heavyweights. In addition to academic and legal accomplishments, Hawley had already published Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness in 2008, a book which hinted at his own political agenda. “The Age of Pelagius” was true to form: smart and well-reasoned, without sacrificing that trademark Hawley hint of rhetorical fire.

In the 39 months since the essay’s publication, Hawley has continued to gain favor among those who would reimagine the GOP. And he has become a favorite villain of the #Resistance left, after he walked by some protestors on the day the 2020 election was certified.

In fact, Hawley, an Evangelical Presbyterian, is a key player in the psychodrama of the Jan. 6-panic crowd. Left-wing media commentators and their lackeys in the Biden regime have insisted that the driving force behind the events of that day was some nefarious ideology called “Christian nationalism.” There’s no evidence at all to suggest this is the case, but Hawley is a Christian, and a nationalist, and he was in the general area, and he made a vaguely approving gesture to one group of people early in the day.

Let's roll that image, shall we?

[indy]

Sept 19, 2022 22:30:05 GMT LFC said:

Why did things fall off a cliff in 2017? There are surely several causes, but I would propose that the 2015 Obergefell ruling is one of them. I can't prove it, obviously. Still, the broad cultural changes in the shared understanding of what marriage is for (which also entails an entire view of the human person, and of sex) necessary to legitimize gay marriage obliterates the rationale for marriage. It's not the fault of gays, necessarily, but they are its avatars, they are its vanguard, and activists like Sullivan could only get what they wanted by destroying the last vestiges of the Christian imaginary. Gay men are the ultimate beneficiaries of the Sexual Revolution, as are high-status (wealth, looks) men. Homely and poor straight men, and women, are the losers. And, of course, children.

I'm always a little fascinated when I see these graphs because SO MUCH context is just missing from a one-dimensional view like this. What happened with divorces during this time frame? Did they go down? If so, less of the population is available to be married. You should actually look at something at least a little more relevant to the discussion at hand, like age groups, etc.

Here, for example, is a look at the last ten years from the census bureau which shows marriages of women aged 15+ along with what has happened to divorce rates in the same time period. Things look a lot less dramatic, which of course won't feed into his twisted narrative.

 But beyond this, I assume at least somebody mentioned in the comments that, you know, a global pandemic had occurred?

[LFC]

Rod Dreher is actually moving to Budapest to live in an increasingly fascist, bigoted paradise with a heavy helping of theocracy, of course.

The image above is artist Alice Tait's fairytale map of Starhill, the country settlement where I grew up. It is the endpapers of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, the 2013 memoir that I produced upon returning to my hometown following the cancer death of my sister Ruthie. Today I end my return to Louisiana, by moving to Europe. I never, ever could have foreseen this denouement. My heart is beyond broken. But this is the way.

When I read this all I could think is that, as part of his descent into literal madness, he drove away not only his wife but also his children. He's the righteous nutjob who can't understand why the people he loves just can't understand what is so clear to him. If he failed to separate that from his family dealings, and I find it hard to believe he would have been able to as these people never can, the burden of dealing with this crazy man on his family must have been tremendous. Of course Rod is the victim because, well, of course he is.

Over coffee that morning, I told L. that I could never in a million years imagined things would turn out for me as they had. Eleven years ago, I moved here with my wife and children to be close to my Louisiana family. I expected to stay in St Francisville for the rest of my life. I wanted to. Now I am leaving Louisiana with all of that in ruins. I have been careful not to give too many details, out of the respect for the privacy of others, but when I tell you it’s all in ruins, I don’t exaggerate. If I could stay here in Louisiana, I would, but circumstances are such that there is nothing left for me here but pain and brokenness. (I owe it to others not to get into the details in public, and anyway, that's not important; I would only remind you who are eager to judge, and who think you know what's going on, that you really, really do not have all the complicated facts.) I am going into exile, comforted only by two things: the certainty that God is with me (which entails meaning to this suffering), and the knowledge that Dante’s exile was the making of him. I’m not Dante, heaven knows, but I have faith that this pain can bear good fruit in time, if I let it.

As he rides off to live his best life in a fascist nation all I can say is...

[indy]

Rod seems a bit old to have finally realized the world has no problem moving on with or without you. You can't outrun it either.