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Joe Wilson: Apologize No More

By: Loren Heal (Diary) | September 11th, 2009 at 03:36 PM |

RESIZE: AAA

President Obama has himself to blame for the heckling he received from Rep Joe Wilson (R,SC-2). The President abused the system by calling a joint session of Congress for the purpose of passing a piece of legislation. He took such an extraordinary step not to ask for a Declaration of War, for a Constitutional Amendment, nor for any other weighty institutional purpose, but merely to help in selling a product his customers do not want.

The members of Congress Barack Obama called to audience had spent their summer away from the halls of Congress and in different halls in their home States and districts. They encountered a quiet determination from those unwilling to surrender the freedom to direct their own health, life, and the time and manner of their own deaths. The members met with others who were just as determined, but who refused to be quiet: hecklers, and Americans standing at microphones making the cogent, searing case opposing the destruction of liberty.

At one town hall with Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL), a citizen used the word “revolution”. A murmur of approval swept the crowd. The Congressman was forced to explicitly argue that it was not time for revolution. He could see the torches and pitchforks.

Mr. Wilson doubtless faced this same American steel over the recess.

As a result of his misuse of the processes and institutions of government, Mr. Obama cheapened his office and opened himself up not just to the standing ovations of his allies, but to the pitchforks as well. It is no wonder, then, that Joe Wilson stood to oppose the Demagogue in Chief. I wish there had been more who did.

I wish honest Republicans and Democrats had sat facing away from the podium, arms folded, perhaps talking among themselves. I wish they had stood as one and yelled “You lie!” whenever the President lied, or “Divisive!” when he called them names and belittled the people they represent. (They would have had sore throats the next morning, but their medical care is the best our money can buy.) I wish they would have followed Mark Shimkus (R-IL) and walked from the room.

Of the uproar in the press and the finger wagging from ostensible conservatives, Mark Levin said, “I’m not one of these conservatives who’s worried whether the dining room table is set properly when someone is trying to burn my house down.”

We are in a desperate fight for the future of Western Civilization, and you’re worried about decorum?

Our forefathers dressed as savages and, against their own economic interests and at under penalty of Treason, threw tea into Boston Harbor. They took arms against their own government’s attempt to tax the whiskey they wished to buy, sell, and consume. And since then we have never shied away from fighting that government with their voices when needed.

The time for hushed and quiet talk is past, though the time to take up arms has not arrived. Now we must be unafraid to stand on the truth, on principle over form, and not shy away from any opportunity to express ourselves, whether in a town hall or a Congressional one.

Joe Wilson will not go quietly into the night. Neither will I.

I can’t speak for Joe, but when the time comes, I’m on the side of the pitchforks.

Tags: Add new tag, Barack Obama, decorum, Joe Wilson

COMMENTS

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clowngirl

I think decorum remains important to reach moderates and independents – but Mr. Wilson’s breech was really pretty mild and much less than Obama’s. And Obama did offer extreme provocation.

Just to give a personal example: I used to really dislike Ann Coulter. I actually wrote a couple of satirical sketches attacking her. Looking back I’d say some of her points were valid but I was turned off by her way of presenting things and not open to it and some of what she’s said I will never condone.

Now, I’m reading her semi regularly and think she’s been fantastic on healthcare.

What happened? Was it just because she stuck to her guns and kept being a blowhard that she provoked me into seeing if there was some validity to her perspective. Not at all. On her own she never would’ve changed my mind. I never would’ve given her a chance, never would’ve visited RedState, NRO, or RushLimbaugh.com if it hadn’t been for John McCain. He was the gateway Republican and if I hadn’t have been supporting him I’d never have accepted the more hard core types.

If we want to avoid an actual revolution ( and I think we all do) we need the middle – but I do think Joe Lewis’s remark served the middle in that at least it brought the issue to the forefront.

So, I have conflicting feelings on this. It’s not cut and dry.

nessa

A revolution doesn’t have to be bloody, in 1797 when George Washington left office and John Adams assumed the Presidency the world had very seldom seen a bloodless change of power. Yet now we have been doing it for 212 years and most of the nations on earth do it as well. I don’t think we need the middle as much as the middle would have us believe. The Tea Parties and recent Townhalls are showing that the American People are finally awakening, those citizens demonstrated dedication to the Constitution alone puts them right of center, from reading your diaries, I think you’re nearer us than them as well. At least on the scale as I judge it.
We are fighting politically to take our government back from the soft tyranny of the left, no threat of bloodshed there. The leftists, with few exceptions, are those “decayed and degraded” souls that John Stuart Mills spoke of. Little threat of real revolution there, only more skulking into office and skirting around the Constitution. Not that the fight is over but if the American people stay interested and concerned imagine BOs reaction when he is saddled with a Republican majority in one or both houses! He doesn’t have the ability to accept defeat and make the best of it like Clinton did. That promises to be truly historic.

clowngirl

I’m pretty sure I don’t fall on the far right end of the scale. I’ve been around enough pure idealogues to know I am not one.

To give an example: I was raised (for 6 years) by a single mom who worked full time while going to school part time and then went to school full time while working part time while raising two kids ( and years later she said – without conscious irony- “I have no idea where you get your work ethic”). We could have probably qualified for welfare when my mom first got divorced (for reasons that were fully justified) but she chose not to go that right, But that doesn’t mean we were completely without government assistance. We did benefit from student loans (which can be used to cover some living expenses) which enabled my mom to be able to take a full time course load and graduate MUCH more quickly than she would’ve been able to otherwise.

So – it’s a story off hard work, determination, overcoming difficult circumstances, etc. BUT there was some government assistance. BUT anyone who would suggest we were mooching off the taxpayer first off, had better duck, but more importantly would miss the fact that the government actually did very well on its investment. The student loans were repaid decades ago and my mom has had a rather successful career – paying a lot more taxes than she would’ve otherwise. My brother and I also are probably also doing better financially than we would have without that help early on.

I’d say student loans are sort of a happy medium between letting people struggle through things on their own and bailing them out all the time,

I understand – on a very personal level- that sometimes people get into a tough spot due to extraordinary circumstances and there is a need for a safety net, but I also have been through hardship and know that it is possible to overcome it and do believe it is PRIMARILY a person’s own responsibility.

So I come down on the side of individual responsibility for the most part – but I don’t make it a doctrine. I think there is a need for balance – for looking at what actually works.

Is that making any sense?

http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

There are problems with the government providing direct student aid.

First, it pushes private lenders out of the market.

Second, since government is such a big player, it allows colleges to raise tuition, since almost no one is paying their own tuition. Because of the government assistance, everyone needs assistance of some kind.

Your mom’s divorce was justified (I’ll take your word for it, certainly). But the presence of assistance may lead some to reject a spouse with whom they would otherwise have reconciled. Again, I’m not talking about cases where reconciliation is out of the question.

Also, I’m not faulting your mom in any way. I took Pell Grant money myself. I’m just saying that as a government policy, it has negative results that are in many ways as bad as the problem it’s supposed to solve.

clowngirl

I’m a bit skeptical – private lenders are likely to charge much higher interest rates and might be choosier about who they loaned money, but then again I’m not totally dismissing the idea.

There are private endowments/ programs that provide scholarships and such. I benefitted from one of those (I was a National Merit Scholar – though you’d probably never guess it from my constant typos). So – I have no trouble believing that there are private citizens who can and do put up money to help others pay for college via grants. Possibly there would be some who would provide student loans at low rates and on easy terms as well.

As to the argument that some people would rush to a frivolous divorce due to the presence of student loans- I think that’s quite unlikely. We were not comfortable by any means. Not for some years to come. Even a decade later, after my mom had remarried and had a decent job – there was some nervousness about how I would pay for college. I think part of the reason I did so well on the PSAT ( the test that National Merit uses to pick it’s awardees) is that I knew I needed to while many of my wealthier classmates really didn’t.

(Actually, I was probably perfectly positioned, socioeconomically speaking, to do well on that particular test. I took honors English classes at one of the top public schools in the state and they drilled us on vocabularly all through sophomore year explicitly for the purpose of preparing us for that test. (and for SATs) but also – probably due to my less than comfortable upbringing – I went into the test with the mindset that I was going to win a scholarship not just kind of see how I did.)

You can make the government-messes-things-up argument for abolishing publc schools in general (and Libertarians would do that without batting an eye).There ARE a lot of problems with public schools ( and with the whole concept of treating education as a “right” rather than a priviledge) but- I think even hard core conservatives would agree that the issue is complicated.

(This actually is one area where I’ve gotten frustrated with McCain. I didn’t like him referring to education as “the civil rights issue of our day” I sort of see what he’s talking about but that kind of language further confuses the whole rights vs. entitlements distinction that too many Americans already don’t get)
http://www.conservative-compendium.com BrianGarst

I think from the context that you consider it to be a negative that private lenders “might be choosier about who they loaned money.” I see that as a positive.

Right now we have too many people taking on too much debt to go to college than is economically justified. A portion of these people are never going to see the added income to justify the amount of debt they took on. This kind of inefficiency is a consequence of government distortion.

I think it would be a net improvement in many ways to be more thoughtful in loan disbursement than the Federal government is capable of. They loan your tax dollar and so don’t care how sensible any particular loan is (and bad loans hurt the borrower just as much as the lender), while private institutions have greater incentive to be smart about loans.
mbecker908

around. Let the universities holding them “invest” those endowments in their students, in the form of loans and grants, and get the fed out of the loan subsidy business.

Bottom line is that federal student aid is based on an arbitrary definition of “need”, not the concept of “ability”.

In the case of student loans, they actually have the ability to hurt the borrower a whole lot more than than the lender. Student loan defaults are typically not able to be discharged in a BK, and if you’ve got a student loan default you can’t get a mortgage, without regard to your credit score or income.
Achance

She’d just graduated from a good private but not “elite” law school and had passed the Alaska Bar. I started her at $60K and change and she was absolutely desperately poor, as in zero disposable money, because of the Godawful student loan balances she’d run up. Unless she wins the lottery or something, she’s sentenced to ten years or so of living like a rat, fancy education notwithstanding.

The ease of getting the loans has pretty much done away with the “starving student” and “worked my way through college” life that actually teaches something. Our oldest simply could not give up his affluent lifestyle and just kept borrowing money, confident I’m sure that we’d pay off his loans or bail him out. Thankfully, “we” haven’t – yet and he’s working and learning to live the way he should have lived when he was in college.

I’m doing all I can to persuade the youngest one, the one that just got out of the Army, to go into an apprenticeship program. You make good, great later, money and don’t run up debt. Work with the tools for a few years to get yourself well established and put up your sign. That’s the way this Country should work. All colleges are doing is turning out herds of not very well educated people who HAVE to either work for government or a large corporations. ‘Course, that does make them a natural constituency for the Democrats and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
nessa

…has made it a perpetual motion machine. Lib educators have ever increasing salaries because there is no need to keep costs down. They’re basically subsidized by the govt. The costs will continue to increase and the quality to decrease until there is true competition, which is only available with LESS, or no, govt involvement.
Sure I could get around the job requirements for a degree because of 20+ years of experience but even then it took a company with two retired COLs running it, who also knew what they could reasonably expect from a recently retired SGM, to take a chance on me. Without a degree in today’s job market a kid has no chance. Even with one they have no more than the same long hard row to hoe that their parents or grandparents faced with a HS Diploma.
Achance

to entry and many are discriminatory to women and minorities. Of course, it isn’t PC to say that requiring education is a form of discrimination, but it clearly is in many jobs that are much more effectively done by someone who’s worked their way up.

Most professional licensure requirements are equally artificial. I have a USCG Master’s Licence. It is both hard and expensive to get and I’m glad I have it, but I’ll be the first to admit that very little of it is about the things it takes to actually operate a vessel and the only time I’ll ever use most of the stuff I had to learn was to take the tests.
nessa

…that I lead (I refuse to be a manager) 300 unskilled civilian employees in the Socialist Republik of Kalifornia. No discipline, no work ethic, and “At Ease” has no effect on them. The depth that the entitlement mentality is ingrained in so many of these people is terrifying. Don’t get me wrong, its not all of them, but enough to make some days truly challenging. Challenging enough that I still, a year later, have the re-enlistment NCOs number in my phone.
Xasteius

It almost should be easier for them to get funding considering there are no scholarships for white, middle-class males.
Achance

It’s an employment barrier. The federal government is the worst, they want Ph.Ds to be a GS-7 – unless, of course, you fit the right block on the AA form. White, married women probably suffer worst from all the artificial degree requirements unless they’re the sort that waits to have children until they’re well on their way in a career. That’s something that I think is awful for both the couple and the kids; there are really good reasons to have children when you’re younger.
Xasteius

I am probably more fortunate than other students as I have no college debt, but I know too many unemployed engineers holding masters degrees (I actually am one), which is one of the reasons I was very peeved with the One, when he told us to go back to college

Frankly I’m thinking of getting my ESL teaching certification or emigrating to another country to find work.
nessa

My step daughter is in college now, we’re taking everything we can get, local, state and federal and shouldn’t have to borrow to get her through the first four years. She wants to be a lawyer (shudder) but it’s a step up from being an Infantryman.

Yea, go back to college, that’s just enough to get you in the door, nothing special anymore. You would think the Green Energy “revolution” or whatever they’re calling it would need engineers, but if you never get to build any windmills ‘cuz they are in somebody’s backyard I guess it does negatively impact the number of engineers you need on staff.
Xasteius
Xasteius

For some odd reason, the head of the my department is a staunch Democrat, even though their avowed anti-nukes. Go figure.
Xasteius
mbecker908

sayth the Cal Poly SLO grad.
eburke

and part of the problem with ‘easy loans’ is that you have young men and young women ‘trying out’ college who really don’t have any business being there, not because they’re not good, honest people but because that’s not where their gifts lie. I see that in our student body and we have academic thresholds that a prospective student must meet.

At those institutions that have lower thresholds, or state schools which are required to have ‘open enrollment’, I can’t even imagine the number of students there for whom a college education is neither attainable or necessary in order for them to lead a productive, useful life.

The result is students burdened with debt even if they don’t graduate, and government programs which, never forget are *our* programs paid for with *our* money, cost billions of dollars.
http://www.conservative-compendium.com BrianGarst

for the insider insight.
http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

as a schoolteacher I have not seen any widespread “liberal” indoctrination of the students, but I have seen a remarkably complete pro-college indoctrination.

They absolutely push college as though it was the only thing in the world of value. I fear they are setting up thousands of students for failure.
furious

…while my ticket punched in grad school at a West Coast Jesuit university I worked part-time in the Budget Office on setting tuition, forecasting enrollment and aid demand, and publishing departmental budgets. Two things that stick in memory…

1. colleges are apparently legally able to share and compare tuition. I saw undergraduate and graduate tuition tables for like colleges and universities up and down the West Coast. Bias was obviously towards matching the high-end of the sample, as that was what the market would bear.

2. increases in aid demand force increases in tuition, and increases in tuition increase demand for aid. The cohort of universities and colleges in the sample were locked in to continually raising tuition on order to balance their budgets.

Like the tickets for the new Dallas Cowboys’ stadium, as long as people are willing to pay the rates institutions will be able to continually raise them.
eburke

especially #2. It becomes a Catch-22. As colleges & universities become more and more competitive, they need more and more facilities and programs. This requires more and more money. The money comes from our pockets in subsidies to the public universities and in federal aid dollars to all institutions. As tuition goes up, the whining about the high cost of education goes up with it, causing more aid enabling more spending causing more tuition hikes.

The result is you’ve got duplicative programs all over the place as insitutions vie for more and more students, including the ones that have no business or need to go to college.

As usual, and as is the case with health care, the more the government tries to ‘level the playing field’, the more it costs all of us.
http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

Before college tuition went to the moon, you could get private loans. Schools did it themselves, which I think is the best of all solutions. The colleges are the ones with the vested interest in a) keeping tuition low, to compete, and b) making the best product so the student has earning power. After a while they started selling the loans in the aftermarket. This is all in parallel with the growth of government involvement.

We’ve got quite a history of government involvement in the creation of universities, funding them, and the like. It’s like a lot of things, though: if a little bit of something proves popular or effective, government can’t resist supplying a ton of it.
clowngirl

I’m off to work now and can’t respond in detail – but will think on it.
mbecker908

you could go to an excellent school, work and pay for school.
clowngirl

I hadn’t realized that government student loans/grants were driving up the cost of tuition but it makes sense. I hadn’t realized colleges used to give there own student loans – but it makes perfect sense for them to do so and they’d have an incentive to provide them. Since they’d be profiting from the tuition there’d be no reason not to give reasonable rates/terms and competition should ensure it.

Making a college degree an arbitrary requirement for virtually any job also skews the market and pressures colleges to graduate people whose performance doesn’t merit a degree. I have a professor friend who tells me she’s under a great deal of pressure not to fail students virtually no matter what.

There are also serious problems with education being treated as a “right”. I met a mother one time who told me she had her 5 year old enrolled in private school even though she cou;dn’t really afford it because her daughter was badly beaten by an older boy who had hidden in the girls bathroom then snuck up behind her and put his hand over her mouth so she couldn’t cry out. Her daughter was terrified to go back to school and she went in to talk about ensuring her protection. She learned that no steps whatsoever would be taken to protect her daughter. The little boy had attacked other children several times and his name was down for a “special education” class but there wouldn’t be a space available for several months. He would not be removed in the meantime.

They told her if she didn’t like it “you know what your options are”

I initially thought this was a case of one school with insane leadership, but talking to various friends that are teachers …. They were unsurprised and said that violent students were not removed from their schools either. Their “right to an education” couldn’t be interrupted.

One friend told me a story of a little girl who was repeatedly beaten up for doing her homework. Despite this she continued to be a conscientious student and finally was transferred to another schoo to get away from the violence but my teacher friend thought the same thing was likely to happen there.

I read that “No Child Left Behind” says that “persistently violent” schools will be dealt with and will have a change of leadership, etc. but that schools can set their own standard as to what consitutes “persistently violent” This means that schools have a perverse incentive to cover up their violence because reporting it ( classifying themselves as persistently violent) means they are at risk of getting the sack. Many of the schools were making repeated incidents of gun violence part of the prerequisite so that ” there are schools that have incidents every day or certainly every week but there is no school that is persistingly violent.”
Achance

It is dogma that violent and other “special” children benefit from being in the same classrooms with children who actually want to and can learn something. They have different standards for them, different tests, special resource teachers, etc. Of course the non-special kids know that the playing field isn’t level; their test has twenty questions, the special test has two, and the non-special kids make a joke of it all. My stepkids are not shrinking violets and are not averse to a bit of violence themselves but all three of them were assaulted by “special” kids at school, one being hit with a peice of lumber and requiring a trip to the ER. Of course, the school would do nothing. We talked to the cops about assault charges but they were reticent to pursue it and told us that the most that would happen was the kid would be sent to counselling. And of course they knew the kid already. Just one more thing to damage our society brought to you by the Democrats and the Ed Schools.
clowngirl

It’s a case of “rights” interferring with actual rights. Liberals don’t seem to realize that all they’re misplaced compassion results in kids being required to go to school where it’s almost guaranteed they will be subjected to violence.

They’re sacrificing the rest of these kids for the sake of the juvenile delinquents ( who are actually being done a disservice by the schools’ choice to basically reward their anti social and actually criminal behavior) Even when they aren’t attacking fellow students kids like this are talking at the top of their voices and walking about in the middle of class and otherwise making it practically impossible for the other kids to actually get anything done.

Some of the teacher friends I know are actually extremely resourceful and downright heroic in inspiring their students to behave and learn – and manage to create a classroom environment where kids can actually learn. but the results still aren’t what you would expect. They can’t enforce any sort of meaningful discipline at all.
clowngirl

The kid who hit your stepkid with a piece of lumber. I’m just curious if the cops were reluctant to pursue it because the kid was especially young or if this is their general policy for anyone under 18.
Achance

They were reluctant because it was on school grounds and because the kid was “special needs.” They figured it was a waste of their time and they were probably right.

Juneau is the set for the Who’s old song “Teenage Wasteland” or Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange.” There are so many high-level government types here that all the children are above average. The greatest fear the cops have is arresting a kid with the wrong last name, so they generally won’t arrest any of them except for crimes against political correctness. They’ll definitely nail you underage smoking or drinking. Bust you for oxy if you have the wrong last name or for fighting in public unless you’re a jock or well-connected. I don’t know what somebody would have to do to get busted for pot or coke unless they committed some other serious crime; then the drug charge would be added but probably pleaded out. There’s been a good bit of burglary lately, getting money for drugs being the motive, and they’ve been pretty tough on that no matter who you were. But even with serious crimes sometimes you only know about them from the whispers.
clowngirl

I can’ t help feeling a bit shocked to hear of a middle schooler sending another kid to the ER. The thing that strikes me most about it – is that I think it’s extremely unlikely the kid would be escalating to that kind of violence without the indulgence of the school.

They say kids feel the need to push their limits. The school board seems to be sending the message that they have none. Being “special” is carte blanche. ( provided they don’t actually kill anyone)
Achance

As a boy of seven or eight, I was pretty proficient with a .22 rifle and a .410 shotgun. We country boys fought all the time; it was a sport. Consequently, we knew what it was like to be hurt. I posit that the reason you have these appalling outbursts of violence from modern kids is that they have no conception of being hurt. Injury and death are just an abstraction or a video image to them, so hitting a kid with a board is about the same as shooting a target in a video game. When you hit reset, it’s all the same again.
http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

In the 1960′s my dad was on the vanguard of the movement to mainstream the developmentally disabled (though that’s not the term they used back then). It’s not a big field, or wasn’t back then, since Special Ed hadn’t subsumed the role of discipline yet.

So he got a bunch of grants to study how great it was to put people who couldn’t cope with complete sentences in the same class with people who would diagram sentences from Macbeth for fun. At first he pushed the idea that it was wonderful, which of course got him more grant money.

In the 1990′s he came to the conclusion that his earlier efforts had been misguided. Students benefit from diversity in the classroom (think one-room schoolhouse), but not past a certain point. Kids are mercilessly cruel to those outside of the normal range in any area, and that includes intelligence. Kids have to be enough alike to accept one another on some level before they can benefit from their different skill levels.

Mainstreaming is, as you say, now embedded in the political correctness culture of the NEA.

mbecker908

that the cost of “higher” education has risen faster than about any other part of the economy while the “performance” of colleges and universities makes elementary and secondary schools who consistently graduate people who can’t read, look pretty good.

Take out federally subsidized “student loans” and you’ll see the programs that add basically nothing to our society disappear in a big hurry – and that would be every program with the word “Studies” in it.

One of the fundamental problems with “college” today is the idea that everybody has a “right” to a college education. Like every other venture the government gets involved in, that immediately drops the overall quality of the program – ie: the worth of the degree. Which would be precisely why we are now inundated with idiots who sport MBAs while being unable to produce either rational thought on about any subject or the ability to write in a way that makes a point so that people can understand.

Student loans don’t work, if the end product you’re looking for is a usable education. “Usable” being a program that generally adds to the net worth of society and makes the holder of a degree more able to contribute to the national wealth. The only thing student loans do is put people who have no business being in a post-secondary setting into college, raising the cash flow of the institution and enabling it to hire people who should generally be allowed to starve to death (university faculty) while foisting “graduates” on employers who are fundamentally incapable of rational thought or productive work.

In every business I’ve been involved with as an owner/policy maker, the first thing I changed was the requirement of a college degree for entry level jobs not requiring a specific technical education such as engineering. I would much prefer a person with a GED and 3+ years in a combat arms unit (even in peace time, but especially today) to an MBA graduate with an entitlement complex from ANY school – Ivy League especially.

Bottom line, get rid of federal involvement in funding post-secondary education and the product will improve.

eburke
http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

your bottom line is applicable to nearly all situations I can currently think of.

clowngirl

Wasn’t sure if that’d happen at first. I posted a couple of diaries that nobody read (or at any rate, didn’t comment on) and then posted a comment defending McCain and almost thought I was gonna get banned!

But since then folks have been pretty friendly and welcoming (those who probably still don’t like me are content to leave me alone) and I’m glad I started posting.

mbecker908

naivete. You are wrong on McCain, you are wrong on the political climate in general and your postings are so scatter-shot and unfocused that it’s not worth the time to refute arguments that go nowhere, unless it’s a slow weekend.

You were trolling with your idiocy on McCain, and you’re still trolling. Personally, I’ve just got too much going on right now to deal your obvious stupidity.

nessa

…the older ones (mid twenties) who are still figuring out what they think and where they stand on things. I’m not that different myself when I’m initially exposed to something new, there comes a time when I have to say what is going through my mind on an issue and see how it plays out. That may account for the “scatter-shot” and naivety in diaries and comments.
CG, you are wrong about McCain, his years of treachery, disloyalty and constant identification of himself, falsely, as a conservative have made him a… … ahhh… polarizing figure, to put it politely. But keep driving on, you’ll be exposed to an a**load of knowledge in diaries and these comments sections and develop a thick skin as a bonus.
mbecker908

CG is incapable of rational thought, she has no concept of “prioritizing” and she is utterly clueless to recent (as in 1965 forward) history. Her screen name is perfect.
nessa
http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

clowngirl is simply young, and needs time to unlearn all of the things she’s been taught that simply aren’t so, as Ronaldus Maximus said.
nessa

CG makes me think of an incident with my daughter that seems to be appropriate.
I was talking to my daughter late last November, she’s 24. Just as she informed me that she had voted for the anointed one, my phone lost the tower and our conversation was interrupted. I called her back a couple days later and we finished our discussion. I didn’t find out the rest of the story till a few days ago when I was talking to my mother. My daughter’s family had gone to visit her grandparents in the days between my losing her call and my calling again. Of course with my father there the subject of the election came up, Mom said my daughter was practically in tears because, “I told my dad that I voted for Obama and he hung up on me and I don’t know if he’ll ever call me back!” My father’s response to that was “Well, I guess you won’t do that dumb sh*t again!” Yea my family just overflows with empathy.
The more I bring up politics with her the more I am surprised at her utter ignorance of anything outside of the MSM and lib talking points. She’s learning, willingly, and has promised to discuss her next vote with me before she casts it. Hopefully she’ll be 100% onboard by then.
mbecker908

your daughter and CG. Your daughter doesn’t parade around a Republican/Conservative website and pretend she actually “knows” anything.
nessa

Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool… She is also going to have to learn to deal with curmudgeons, she’s gotten a practical application of both lessons today. LOL.
I just felt the kid needed someone in her corner, you’re one of the powerhouses here, she deserved someone to give her a towel and a water bottle after accidentally stepping into the ring with you. I’ve got no issue with you setting her straight, I’d just like to see her stick around long enough to learn a few things.
mbecker908

1. Don’t confuse me with “a powerhouse”. That would be Franz Prince of Dogness. Or maybe Moe or Erick. I’m just a water carrier.

2. She’s sticking around, she’s just not learning ANYTHING. If anything, she’s getting more stupid.
clowngirl

If I’m not going to say what I honestly think – and give you all the opportunity to point out any errors, etc. then what is the point of even being here?

So, I don’t really feel “set straignt” at all. I just perceive Becker as not liking me -( and really – why would I be motivated to change that?) and as acting like a bit of a jerk and I’m left with sort of an unpleasant feeling towards Redstate as a result.
mbecker908

THAT is the problem. You don’t know how to think.

I have no use for people, especially those who manage to graduate from college, who are incapable of rational thought and who can’t present and defend a position. That is you.

You are all over the lot on your “thoughts”. You also don’t process events and it’s very evident that you know absolutely nothing that happened in the period from 1965 to the present. You take absolutely everything at some sort of face value and just run with it.

Am I a jerk? Probably, because I have high standards. You, OTOH, have none. You just seem to type what you feel. Dealing with you is pretty much a waste of time and that’s why I only do it on slow weekends for perverse entertainment. I could give a tinkers dam whether you “like” me or not, and you can trust me on this, I have absolutely no opinion of you one way or the other. You are simply decoration. Sometimes you’re not so bad decoration, but most of the time you clash badly with reasoning and reasonably intelligent people.

I leave you with sort of an unpleasant feeling? Tough. Grow up. Go someplace and learn how to think, how to reason, how to assemble a cogent argument and how to present and defend it. Then come back. Right now, discussing anything with you is like talking to an obnoxious seven year old.
Achance

Walking in with a lot of unformed and untested ideas stuck to your bared breast is kind of a risky thing and that’s what you did. This is a very tough big league crowd and amateur night can get ugly here.

A lot more listening, a lot more questioning, and a lot less of your own opinion might have been a good start. Nobody’s called for you to be blammed, and even ‘becker has been kind by ‘becker standards – you haven’t seen the bunny or talked to Fraz yet. So, if this isn’t a poli-sci project in a left wing school, you can try to work your way into this discussion. Moe gave me the ka-klick once too. If it’s a poli-sci project, well, you can tell them all about how naste the rightwing troglodytes were.
clowngirl
izoneguy

For when you go out in the world to confront the idiots that are flying the plane right into the ground. That is what we all have to do. Get out of your comfort zone and battle with those that don’t agree with you.
It’s easy to stay on the right wing blogs and agree with everyone that the left is bad. We need for everyone to get out like Joe Wilson and yell Liar – and then back it up with facts & sources…….
Martin Knight

Despite the utter stupidity of your statements (not to mention confusion) on Presidential nominations and legislation and the frankly weird view that marries them via signing statements to the filibuster … I don’t think you’re a troll.

You’re just ignorant. Worse is that you’re stubborn about it.

But I take it as the effect of youth and don’t hold it against you – I’m a little respected (I think) here but that’s because in my blogging/commenting life pre-Redstate I got very thoroughly schooled and learned I wasn’t so smart or knowledgeable.

Be prepared to be roughed up. It’ll only make you stronger.

No one has called for you to be blammed yet.

Which is why I think ‘becker is lying – deep down he might actually like you; the JDAAMs he’s throwing your way may just be his way of saying; “You can do better.”
mbecker908

come in here, listen and learn some useful things instead of trying to pass her ignorant self off as somebody who actually has experience, useful knowledge or – heaven forbid – wisdom.

Reagan didn’t make a damn fool of himself with his ignorance, he simply followed a time honored adage, STFU until you actually “know” something and have the requisite wisdom to back it up.

CG coming in here with the vast majority of the crap she posts is a lot like her attacking my fully armed and painted SpOps Marine son with a dry rot stick.
clowngirl

I’m just sharing my POV. You don’t like me. Other RSers seem to find me tolerable if ” young” and still needing to finish deprogramming or what not. A couple of my diaries have even been recommended enough to make the “recommended” list. That would suggest that some folks think I add some form of value even if I’m young, inexperienced and imperfectly conservative.

“I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something.
The fact I can’t do everything
Will not prevent me from doing the something that I can.”

I’m not expecting you to answer – and probably won’t respond if you do. I’m actually logging off now to chat with my mom.
http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

If you look up “curmudgeon” in the dictionary, you can find out what he looks like.

What that means is that if I disagree with you, and naturally assume that means I’m smarter than you are, and kind of sort of suspect that maybe you have some kind of weird undiagnosed personality disorder for not agreeing with me, I stop short of saying so .

Becker, not so much.
mbecker908

Curmudgeon: noun; a bad-tempered, difficult, cantankerous person.

I have no problem with that. Especially when faced with infantile reasoning and utter ignorance of recent history and current events. And all the more so when said person represents they actually have a command of facts.

I don’t care a whit if people disagree with me, some of my favorite folks are the thoughtful lefties who drop in from time to time. I am absolutely offended by gross ignorance of recent history and of current events. I am offended by a complete inability to perform even an effort at rational thought while being at least moderately able to prioritize events and then present arguments. clowngirl fits that bill to a tee.

To clowngirl, I don’t dislike you. It’s not worth the effort. I have absolutely no “feelings” for you one way or the other. I don’t deal in “feelings”, I deal in ideas, facts, history and rational argumentation. None of those things are you able to recognize.

You want to add value to this forum, go learn something. Go learn how to think and how to make a rational argument.
JSobieski

Reason, evidence, and decent writing are what matter. Everything else is just sophistry when it comes to politics.

X% of the country has a point of view that 9/11 was an inside job. Why should anyone care about their point of view except to be concerned that ignorance is widespread.
clowngirl

For sort of defending me even if you aren’t exactly complimenting me…

LOL!

Too tired to respond to the school discussion tonight though it is interesting.

patlandy

I think I got emails requesting donations from the hackers of Joe Wilsons site….. they are linking me to this site…

https://secure.piryx.com/donate/WzJc4e8g/joewilson/support

I think this is a bogus site!!!!
Someone Please check it out…..
I know the information came from Joe’s site because I used 2 variations of my first name to contribute….

nessa

All the links go to http://www.joewilsonforcongress.com/.

The text of the email is:
Dear XXXXX,

As you may be aware, the attacks and threats from the liberal Democrats have not let up.

On Fox News I made one thing clear: I will not apologize to Nancy Pelosi and her allies who threatened to censure me in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Washington Democrats and their liberal allies want to divert attention away from the concerns about the massive government takeover of health care. In fact, they have made me their Number One target — already raising more than a million dollars to attack me.

But I will not give up and I will not back down from our fight. We will not be muzzled.

I need your help today.

Will you please make a donation to help me fight back against these unwavering attacks?

Thank you for standing with me in this fight,

Joe Wilson
U.S. Representative

http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

I had not seen in the news cycles that Rep. Shimkus had walked out on Teleprompter Boy’s “historic speech.”

I looked him up and found he was a West Point grad.

So I called his office to let them know that I, as a fellow grad, and a fellow American, greatly appreciated his courage in taking a stand, literally, by standing up and walking out on the “historic speech” of the man who reads so well the words of others displayed on a teleprompter.

I wish his walk out had received more news coverage.

In case you want to call his office, here’s the number: (202) 225-5271

Thank you.

ColdWarrior

nessa

…damn shame, LOL. You must have given some 1SG a nice cushy couple years working with you. As long as you know I’m going to be unable to resist poking some fun at your commission at some point in the future.

Leopard1996

Playing nice with these idiots died for me at about the same time I heard Bushhitler, and Bushlied, and it’s Bush’s fault for everything under the sun.
Menlo

The problem with too many Republicans in Congress, especially those like Boehner, has been that they are so obsessed with being “respectful” that they cannot, will not, and do not want to think about or address anything in any way people can see and understand. A person can show respect (and do so more genuinely) without obsessing over it and explicitly attaching it to every statement he makes. For too long, too many Congressional Republicans, especially those in the leadership roles, have been total wimps; and that is an understatement.

Obama did lie, and this most certainly WAS an appropriate time and place to call him out on it.
Scope

and that makes me sick. According to what Wilson said it seems that it was Boehner? Cantor? who asked him to appologize immediately. Cantor has been on Fox and some other shows talking about “showing respect for President Obama”, and, saying that Republicans need to work with him. He said that Obama has “invited” the Republicans to have talks with him. Cantor, unfortunately, is my rep. He never had the first townhall, that I am aware of, during the recess. Cantor is untrustworthy. Cantor is McCain lite.

Recently, a friend emailed me the link to a series of blogs by David Horowitz. Here is an excerpt from Horowitz’s bio-

David Horowitz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Joel Horowitz (born January 10, 1939) is an American conservative writer and activist. The son of two life-long members of the Communist Party, and a former supporter of Marxism as well as a former member of the New Left in the 1960s, Horowitz later renounced his “left-wing political radicalism” and became an advocate for conservatism.

Here is a link to the blog-

http://newsrealblog.com/2009/08/16/alinsky-beck-satan-and-me/

One of the things that Horowitz advises is that Republicans have to stop being so nice, and respectful. The only way to beat the Liberals/Progressives is to play their game, using their own rules. Alinsky said- “Make them abide by their own rules, and you will destroy them.”

Ausonius

Ultimately Wilson’s apology for his lack of decorum in expressing his righteous outrage should have expressed the “hope” that NObama would apologize for his lies and finally state the truth.

I cannot write “hope” in such contexts any more without the ironic quotes.

6eorge Jetson

about your HR 3200 claims that “change” daily.
Scope

he should make sure that he expresses that he already appologized in writing and by telephone to Obama. Obama already accepted his appology, why does Pelosi have a need for further dragging him through the mud? Then I would ask her if Harry Reid is willing to appologize for calling Bush a liar. I would ask if Murtha is willing to appologize to the Marines for calling them cold-blooded killers, I would ask if Kerry is willing to appologize to our troops in saying that “if you don’t study, you wind up in Iraq, ask if Hillary is willing to appologize for saying that “It took a willing suspension of disbelief” to listen to Gen. Petreaus. The list cn go on and on. Please Joe Wilson- do NOT appologize on the House Floor. You have now gotten over a million dollars for standing up, don’t sit down now? Stay strong!

Kowalski

It’s been a long time since Republicans had enough spine to stand up and make a statement that encapsulates what so many have known for so long.

Wilson wasn’t particularly eloquent, the two words were concise and blunt, and he has been duly punished by such reputable outlets as the Washington Post, who print E.J. Dionne’s garbage by the barrel full of ink.

But when he said that, I stood up and cheered here and I’m going to keep cheering and hoping that more Republicans do the same thing in the coming months.

Republicans need a new paradigm for protest and Joe Wilson has helped start the discussion about what’s needed. Far too often Republicans are willing to shy away from making noise and saying what they think because of the rules of “decorum”. I don’t believe in decorum when you know you’re being fed a pile of lies. I don’t believe in keeping quiet when it means the future of our country, and I don’t believe in banking on a change in the political tides when so much is at stake.

Republicans need to engage in a lot more civil disobedience of the kind Joe Wilson engaged in the other night — they need to refine their techniques and they need to be more active about it. We have allowed Congress to become the official Studio Audience for the Executive branch (the credit for this quote goes to Pat Ruffini) and at this moment in time, we need more hecklers, not less.

Get up out of that chair and open your mouth, ladies and gentlemen. Don’t sit there with your hands folded in your lap while these idiots wreck the country.
Kowalski

I agreed with Marcus Trianus on this blog a while back about leaving your guns at home. This is the time for making your mouth move, asking your friends to join you, and getting out to events and supporting people through all the civil means available to you. There is nothing as powerful as the show of force that’s possible when people who ordinarily wouldn’t get together and do so peacefully.

Keep the 2nd Amendment for your defense and engage politics with your voices and your words. Over and out.
http://www.stevengivler.blogspot.com Steven

I concur.

Maybe, like some of my friends above (Whom I’ve yet to meet) it’s my years in the military that lead me to agree, but I’m inclined to think that no matter what I’d been doing for the last 24 years, I’d still think it’s just plain refreshing to see someone who can’t countenance a lie.

“I will not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do.” – Doesn’t leave a lot of room for sitting quietly.

http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

That cuts to the heart of the matter. The time to oppose a lie is when you become aware of it, not when it’s had time to spread. Silent tolerance can be seen as tacit acceptance.

Scope

and then kept going back for more. When Russert asked someone a question, he expected an answer to that question, and then he would move on. Wallace got his answer more than once, but felt the need to keep rubbing Wilson’s face in it. When he brought up the Dowdy article, with her saying that Wilson was a racist, that has proven to me that he has crossed all the way over to the other side. To wrap up his show, he did a very very nice and kind segment on SEIU.

Joe Wilson, if you read here, thank you for saying that you will not appologize on the House floor. As you said, you appologized for your lack of decorum directly to the President and Vice Prsident, and your appologies were accepted. You are so correct, Pelosi’s actions will be nothing more than political grandstanding. If you did appologize, I think you would lose the newely earned respect you have earned from your constituients, and all those who have donated to a Rep who has the guts to call a lie a lie.

louisiana

Made me sick to watch Wallace put him on a spit over a hot fire. You would have thought it was his dear Daddy Mike doing a 60 minutes interview. Good propaganda segment for the SEIU, too. With a few exceptions, FOX seems to be learning more & more to the left. I can’t help but wonder if O is putting the screws to them somehow.

Scope

It most definately is. They seem to have taken “fair and balanced” out of their game. For a good while they seem to be having more and more “Democrat Strategists” on, and giving them full voice without ever correcting some of their misstatements or outright lies. I watch Glenn Beck every night, and sometimes I stick around for the panel. Those that seemed to be more right leaning at one time, have gone squishy. I wondered myself if some are feeling threatened that they may be out of jobs. If that’s the case, they are no better than the lying Liberals. Can you please tell me how the Republican side had a chance today with Wallace with Conrad(D), McKaskill(D), Hatch(R) and Gramnesty(I think he’s still an R).

Will someone please tell me if McKaskill’s glasses style are now the rage? Is she copying the great trend setter Garofolo? Or, is there just more black plastic to hide behind?

http://impudent.blognation.us/blog kyle8

They will get absolutely zero credit for anything they do that liberals might agree with, and will risk alienating non-liberals.

louisiana

If FOX reins in Beck & Hannity, then we’ll know the writing is on the wall (quite literally in Beck’s case). Scope, as for McKaskill’s glasses — she might want to confer with Michelle, the” fashion icon”. BTW- kyle8 love the name– I’m biased, that’s my son’s name!

nessa

I just got an email from action@joewilsonforcongress.com with this video:

He’s NOT going to apologize again, and he’s NOT going quietly into the night!

redneck_hippie

smagar

He said it on the floor of the House, in 2007. Did the House rebuke him?

Someone on the GOP side needs to bring this up tomorrow, when they hold the “floor vote.”

http://www.the41stvote.org rcov092

n/t

whoframedrudy

if Obama wasn’t lying and Wilson has nothing to shout about (proving he’s racist), doesn’t that mean Obama has caved to Wilson’s hard right agenda on immigration?

And if Obama wasn’t lying about abortion funding, doesn’t that mean Obama has caved to the anti-abortion agenda?

It seems to me that any liberal who didn’t see their primary role in life as Presidential toilet paper would be furious if Obama wasn’t lying! This is what Modobot and her Obama knee-jerkers are reduced to: “He didn’t lie! He really did surrender to a tiny Republican minority.”

He has supermajorities in both houses! He’s either lying or he’s pathetic.
idealjoe

For the first time in my life I am ashamed of my country.
Wait a minute, for the first time in my life I am proud of my country. Yeah that’s the way Michelle put it. In other words, all my life I have been ashamed of this country and so my husband has been forced to go all over the world , in every country he has been to, and apologize for our countries actions. Things like feeding the hungry,clinics and medicines for aids victims in African countries, victims of earthquakes, floods , tsunamis, rebuilding Europe, rebuilding Iraq,Viet nam, missionaries to every country,the list of achievements by Americans out of love for our fellow man is unmatched by any other nation in history, that’s ever! But yet we unacceptable and must be changed to Rev Wright’s,Bill Ayers and Hugo Chavez’s, and all the pot heads of the late 60′s vision of a brave new America. That vision was probably conceived while on a L.S.D. trip. Barak O Bama is a twisted, dangerous person with a personal agenda of destruction for this country that I love. I can understand how a few individuals could be so whacked out, but the whole democratic party? Give me a break. This situation will not stand! Americans are a proud people and we will take action as we did in1776. How about it America? Are we going to stand by and watch a small group of extremists destroy 250 years of liberty? I’m not! How about you?
http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

We’re giving them signals, and a chance to accept our offer to mend their ways.

Then we throw every last one them who doesn’t get the hint summarily out of office. Your trough time is over, oinker.
DONTREADONME

on Joe Wilson speaking the truth…

As Rush said, I too was screaming at the TV liar so much it was infuriating, so when Joe Wilson cried liar I was like damn right.

Now, was this an appropriate forum for that, sure it was, this was not a SOU speech or a joint session called for an emergency say like 9/11/01.

So still to this day, I have never forgot the Dems booing Bush during the SOU and I found that uncalled for with a President laying out the SOU. I would say that during the SOU their should probably be some adherence to “decorum”. I am sick of that buzz word already. Anyway, good piece.
http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

Wasn’t meant for you, idealjoe.

RS

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