Freepac Phoenix is this weekend.

As I’ve recently found my admiration and respect for Glenn Beck to be rekindled (so much so that I’ve been getting up at 6 in the morning to catch his entire radio show before class) and Dana Loesch will be there, you can bet your ass I’m going to be in attendance.

It’s rare to have a local political conference of the conservative type (even in this red state). The last one I attended was Right Online in Las Vegas this summer and that was quite an adventure.

It looks like a great line up of speakers at the event, which will include a 2 hour grassroots training seminar and a 3 hour rally from 4pm to 7pm. If you are a local reader, you should shell out the $15 ticket fee and join me there. Tweet me (@MeredithAncret) if you come.

If you don’t come, never fear. I’ll likely be live tweeting at least portions of the event at that same twitter account and I’ll do a write up of the even afterwards.

For a write up on a previous Freepac event, look no further than Dirty Sex & Politics whose author, Donlyn Turnbull, covered their event in Dallas this summer.

PS: Who else is excited to watch Paul Ryan completely humiliate Joe ‘Gaffe’ Biden Thursday night?

Also Atlas Shrugged Part II comes out this Friday. Buy a ticket, support the movie, and drag your friends to see it. I have it on good authority (from CommunismKills on tumblr who went to an early release) that’s much better than the first one and definitely worth your time and money. I’ll post about that after I go to see it as well.

I would just like to inform Mayor Bloomberg and Michelle Obama that I am drinking a huge soda and eating a king size candy bar. Come at me bro.

And I’m in great shape, my girlfriend says I’m hot, and I don’t need you to “protect” me from making choices about what junk food I eat. I’ve made it to where I am under my own power and self-control, I never even used a dieting program.

It’s public health initiative free for all in government these days. Everyone from Mayor Bloomberg of New York City to the First Lady Michelle Obama, are all busy trying to tell us what we should or shouldn’t put in our mouths.

Is it just me or is our current governing bodies becoming more and more like River Tam’s downright creepyfyin’ description of the Alliance in this clip?

This may seem like an odd thing for me to get worked up about. Even Bill Schulz and Greg Proops commented on Red Eye (on the June 1st episode) that Andy Levy was so worked up about this topic and they rarely see him with his dander up so much for anything.

However, it isn’t just about soda. Sure I think I should be able to drink as many 44oz. big gulps as I want, without anything or anyone other than my bank account complaining about it.* The bigger issue is best summed up by this quote.

“When you look at the history of the some of the initiatives, … they initially engendered a fair amount of criticism — the smoking ban being principle among them, I remember back in those days it was seen as unpopular and there were politicians that opposed it…I think people looking back will see this as a great accomplishment for public health, I think this is going to start a nationwide movement towards this, a nationwide trend. … I think it will prove to be very popular.”

- Howard Wolfson, the Deputy Mayor for Government Affairs (via Politicker)

I doubt Wolfson realized how clearly his words show the liberal agenda. It is a simple process, taking years or even decades, where they take away one small right after another…in the name of the “public good” or “public health” or whatever else they want to call it.

They wait until people’s ire dies down and then they come for the next little right. They are just trying to help us live better lives after all, we don’t know how to take care of ourselves, they just want to take the bad things away so we don’t have to worry about making bad decisions. Aren’t our nannies taking such good care of us?

Yeah…right. I haven’t needed that sort of babying since I was 12 years old. I don’t need it now.**

I’ve heard this compared to the prohibition of the 1920s, but I think that might be overstating. (Though I would like to note that the prohibition did more to create black market, organized crime in the United States than it did to get rid of alcohol.) However, how many more years before Bloomberg, or someone like him in NYC or some other city, decides that they can help the public stay healthy and out of harm, but limiting how many drinks I can buy in a bar or how large a bottle of tequila or rum I can buy?

How long before a smoking ban becomes an act that says a store that sells cigarettes can only sell 1 pack person?

Or an act that bans whole milk sales? (The Federal government already raids Amish farms that sell unpasteurized milk, it’s not a stretch).

An act that bans people from handing out “unhealthy” candy to children on Halloween?

An act that forbids the sale of snack foods or baked goods or candy bars at school events. (Oh wait, Massachusetts is already doing that.)

Or how about a ban on certain sizes of snack foods, across the board. It’s not far fetched, Michelle Obama’s pet organization, Partnership for a Healthier America (which “monitor[s] and publicly report[s] on the progress” of partners…to “make the healthy choice the easy choice.”) is already pressuring companies to phase out the sale of king size candy cars and reduce the size of their regular candy bars. With the FLOTUS at the reigns, it wouldn’t take much to go over the edge into a federal regulation.

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The saddest part of this is people like this.

“I don’t necessarily think it is such a bad thing,” Sean Cashin, 47, told Reuters at a McDonald’s restaurant inManhattan.

“(Soda) is my drug of choice and I am dealing with the consequences of it,” Cashin said, referring to a struggle with his weight.

- Chicago Tribune

Oh boo-fuckin’-hoo.

Cry me a freakin’ river.

The fact that you have no self control does not mean that I need to be controlled by the government.

This sentiment is the same one that causes former alcoholics (I’m looking at you Glenn Beck, you’re a smart guy, but I’m still looking at you) to support big government moralizers like Rick Santorum. Or big government immoralizers  like Obama…(not a jab at GB, but still true).

Your inability to control your intake of sugar, soda, big macs, alcohol, or cigarettes does not constitute a need on my part to become controlled for the “public health” by the government, whether it be on city, state, or federal levels.

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The only good thing here is that peoplearegetting worked up over this and maybe we can finally start standing up for our rights and freedoms.

Just a couple of examples.

Middleboro School Committeeman Brian Giovanoni, whose board will discuss the mandatory meal makeover Thursday night, said, “My concern is we’re regulating what people can eat, and I have a problem with that. I respect the state for what they’re trying to do, but I think they’ve gone off the deep end. I don’t want someone telling me how to do my job as a parent. … Is the commonwealth of Massachusetts saying our parents are bad parents?”

- Massachusetts issue (Boston Herald)

“I don’t think it should be left up to him (Mayor Bloomberg) to decide what I drink,” said Alonzo Johnson, an 18-year-old environmental science student. “I think we should be deciding it.”

- Soda ban (Chicago Tribune)

And of course Andy Levy’s impassioned “Andy-gram” from above.

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*Seriously, when I lived in the dorms at ASU, I used to hit up the local Circle K for gigantic sodas and king size candy bars when I was writing papers and studying for finals. You take that away from me and I will start hurting things…people…my grades.

**Okay, so sometimes I need babying when I’m sick. However, I go to to Doctor Mom for that, not even a regular hospital and certainly not Michelle Obama or Nancy Pelosi’s “loving” government arms.

The media is just to gosh-darned centrist…or what the hell have Kerry and Krugman been smoking and where can I get some?

The O’Reilly Factor, which I watch fairly often if I have nothing else going on in the afternoon, replayed a fairly old episode yesterday evening and I watched it with my dad. I had seen the second half with the interview with Marco Rubio, who my friend over at Dirty Sex & Politics has a serious crush on (and even this lesbian can see why; young, attractive, conservative, sticks to his beliefs, what is there to dislike), but had missed the earlier report about John Kerry and Paul Krugman saying that the media was just to centrist and they needed to stop giving equal time to Conservatives and Republicans and the Tea Party.

What?

I wonder what my Journalism professor would have had to say about that last semester?

Isn’t journalism supposed to be objective after all?

I guess not, considering the debacle that occurred in the reporting about the Gingrich and Arnold situation. Objective journalism seems to have been well and truly defenestrated, in favor of journalists who cherry pick their quotes, to get just the right story while attempting to maintain a thin veneer of objective writing.

To bad for them though. Not everyone in this country is brain dead enough to fall for that.

Also, lucky for us, we have idiots like Kerry and Krugman saying that they believe the media should maintain an even harder left view in their reporting. I don’t know what leg Liberals have to stand on at this point when they claim that mainstream journalism isn’t biased or that they don’t want it to be more biased.

But making nebulous calls for centrism, like writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties, is a big cop-out — a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse.

- The Centrist Cop Out – Paul Krugman

This “centrism” that Krugman calls the “cult of balance” is actually what Journalists are taught in Journalism school. A place that Krugman has never attended, obviously.  Journalists are taught to be objective, to air all sides of a issue, to write the facts, not hearsay or rumors.

And sometimes I do feel that Journalists prefer the center ground over facts. I cannot deny that I would prefer more fact based journalism and less political correctness.

However, what Krugman is advocating  (and what Kerry advocated when he said that the media had a responsibility to not give equal time to the Tea Party) is not fact based, objective reporting. That is the worse possible sort of bias, one that encourages people to only think inside an information bubble that only feeds them information that they already agree with (or it brainwashes people with different ideas, because they seem to be the only one that believes such ridiculous nonsense because the media never talks about, so they might as well give up having any original thoughts).

Nothing about that idea is reasonable, nothing at all.

Now of course, when you have situations like the one portrayed in this SMBC skit, things are a little different.

What Krugman wants is, essentially, that same skit. Only with just one of the sides represented. I’m not saying both views are equally valid, clearly a steak knife to the eye is not a good idea, but when it comes to complex issues like economics, there is a definite need for both views to be looked at and analyzed. Krugman seems to, falsely, believe that their is some clear cut proof that Liberal economic policies are the best. As if the difference between Conservative economics and Liberal economics is like the difference between saying the world is flat and the world is round. It simply isn’t that easy and it’s both dishonest and naive to think that the world would be a better place if journalism only offered one view of a situation, especially if that view is Paul Krugman’s.

We have a place for that, it’s called the editorial page. Krugman has been haunting us from that page for years, spewing his rhetoric at us. Luckily we are not told that we only show one side of the issue and so I can continue to read the news (even if it is still more biased than I would like and much less worried about the facts than it should be) and his opinions, as well as Glenn Beck’s opinions. Christiane Amanpour’s opinions and Bill O’Reilly’s. I can watch Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and Red Eye W/Greg Gutfeld. I can see opinions from both sides, I can find the facts no matter who approves of those facts. I can come to my own conclusions about the world, instead of being told what the think.

We call that The Marketplace of Ideas and it’s a beautiful thing, even if means having to wade through things that you think are untrue or things that you disagree with. Of course, considering that philosophy’s close ties to free market economics, I shouldn’t truly be surprised that Krugman doesn’t care for it much.

Doesn’t mean it wrong though.

 

I’m a “bad American” because I want the president to fail.

I hear that a surprising amount. Sometimes in reference to myself, usually in reference to people like O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, S.E. Cupp, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, etc.

And I suppose that depends on what you define a “bad” American as and what you define a “good” American as.

Were the Germans who hid Jews and secretly undermined Hitler’s plans, who wanted Hitler to fail, “bad Germans” because they wished for the plans of their leader, plans that were destroying the very fabric of German culture, history, society and politics, to fail in completing his plans?

I know, I know. I brought up Hitler, shame on me, invoke Godwin’s law. Though I’m not comparing Obama to Hitler…that would be bad and could possibly lead to Attack Watch coming after me somehow. (Oh look, I’m so scared. *rolls eyes*) I’m merely calling into question the idea that I’m a “bad” American if I don’t support the current President and his ideas.

I argue that I could only be a “bad” American if I spat on the constitution, denied that it should have any power over the decisions and actions of the federal government, began selling American off, piece by piece, to foreign powers, and instituting legislation that destroyed the very framework of freedom and capitalism (redundant almost, since the words are essentially the same thing) that makes up America.

Now who do we know that has done all of those things in the past 3 years? I’ll give you a clue, his last name starts with an ‘O’.

So am I a “bad” American for wanting Obama’s plans for this country fail? No, I don’t think so. Neither do the many others who believe in the same ideals of freedom that I do.

But I suppose it really depends on your perspective of what it means to be “American”. It would have never occurred to me to believe that such a thing would be up for discussion…yet here we are.

Henry Raymond, the origin of the New York Times and what it has become today.

We cover a lot of topics and a lot of time line in my Journalism class. In the last class I attended we talked about several editors of major “penny-press” newspapers from the mid to late 19th century. One of these editors was a man named Henry Raymond, his newspaper…The New York Times.

Raymond ran a different sort of paper than many of the other Penny Presses at that time, many of the other papers were very partisan…not to any particular political group, but to the views of the individual editors. Horace Greeley for instance, a man whose paper was so popular that, in the mid-west, it was “next to the Bible” in importance, refused to cover criminal cases or the theater…because he believed such things were immoral and would corrupt the morals of his readers.

Raymond wrote about everything. He favored, as my teacher’s power-point said, “fair, careful, accurate reporting, especially foreign news.” He was non-partisan and dispassionate about politics and news in general. In his own politics he was sometimes conservative, sometimes radical, but always a champion of the public good and a supporter of the constitution.

Editorially, Raymond sought a niche between Greeley’s open partisanship and Bennett’s party-neutrality. In the first issue of the Times Raymond announced his purpose to write in temperate and measured language and to get into a passion as rarely as possible. “There are few things in this world which it is worthwhile to get angry about; and they are just the things anger will not improve.” In controversy he meant to avoid abusive language. His editorials were generally cautious, impersonal, and finished in form.

Raymond’s moderation was evident during the period after President Lincoln’s election and before his nomination. He wrote Alabama secessionist William L. Yancey: “We shall stand on the Constitution which our fathers made. We shall not make a new one, nor shall we permit any human power to destroy the one….We seek no war — we shall wage no war except in defense of the constitution and against its foes. But we have a country and a constitutional government. We know its worth to us and to mankind, and in case of necessity we are ready to test its strength.”

- From wikipedia (Yeah, yeah, I know…)

What would Henry Raymond think of the modern version of his penny-press newspaper today?

I’m a big fan of partisan blogs and editorials, I read S.E.Cupp, Michelle Malkin, Dirty Sex and Politics, and The Conservative New Ager. I watch O’Reilly and Red Eye and listen to Glenn Beck.

But I know they are partisan, I realize that and I do my best to hear the other side of the issue as well. I also realize that, while what they may report on may be rooted in factual events, it is heavily colored by their personal opinions and it is not journalism.

What you expect to get from The New York Times is Journalism, objective, fact based, rooted in reality, terms defined, and biases removed. Henry Raymond strove for that, even while he strove to support his country…or his country’s constitution (which these days can be two different things sadly).

Henry Raymond is likely spinning in his grave these days with ever partisan article that rolls of the presses at that his, once bi-partisan and factual, newspaper. What a shame…

Response to Peter Singer’s Solution for World Poverty: The Third Degree

Did you know that the term “The third degree” is thought to have originated from a practice that The Masonic Lodges use?

(Yes, those Masonic Lodges. The movie “National Treasure” didn’t invent the Masons you know. They are a real, slightly creepy, group. I lived across the street from a Masonic Temple for a year…)

In Masonic lodges there are three degrees of membership; the first is called Entered Apprentice, the second Fellowcraft, and the third is master mason. When a candidate receives the third degree in a Masonic lodge, he is subjected to some activities that involve an interrogation and it is more physically challenging than the first two degrees. It is this interrogation that was the source of the name of the US police force’s interrogation technique.

Anyway, interesting bit of trivia from The Phrase Finder.

On to the essay. (Parts I and II here)

One genuine difference between Bob and those who can afford to donate to overseas aid organizations but don’t is that only Bob can save the child on the tracks, whereas there are hundreds of millions of people who can give $200 to overseas aid organizations. The problem is that most of them aren’t doing it. Does this mean that it is all right for you not to do it?

Suppose that there were more owners of priceless vintage cars —Carol, Dave, Emma, Fred and so on, down to Ziggy— all in exactly the same situation as Bob, with their own siding and their own switch, all sacrificing the child in order to preserve their own cherished car. Would that make it all right for Bob to do the same? To answer this question affirmatively is to endorse follow-the-crowd ethics —the kind of ethics that led many Germans to look away when the Nazi atrocities were being committed. We do not excuse them because others were behaving no better.

Singer once again reverts to Poisoning the Well as his attack…and this time he compares it to Nazi Germany. I’m pretty sure that invokes Godwin’s law. Depending on what message board you are talking to, that may or may not mean he automatically loses the argument. While I see no problem with, on occasion, comparing certain people to Hitler and his cronies…I only do it when what they are actually doing is comparable. Once again Singer is blowing his comparisons way out of proportion.

Now you might say that the comparison of the Nazis was just a good example of “follow-the-crowd ethics”. Well I can think of a lot better comparisons that don’t invoke Hitler and the Gestapo. The choice to use the National Socialist party as his comparison (Really hilarious when you consider that this guy appears to love socialism) was intentional, because, as I said in a conversation with The Conservative New Ager last night before we went to see The Debt, the mention of Hitler has a very visceral reaction of disgust from people. It’s why Godwin’s law was created after all, people like comparing others to Hitler in debates, because that tends to scare off their opponent.

We seem to lack a sound basis for drawing a clear moral line between Bob’s situation and that of any reader of this article with $200 to spare who does not donate it to an overseas aid agency. These readers seem to be acting at least as badly as Bob was acting when he chose to let the runaway train hurtle toward the unsuspecting child. In the light of this conclusion, I trust that many readers will reach for the phone and donate that $200. Perhaps you should do it before reading further.

If you have read parts I and II of my reaction to this essay you will realize that what Singer said in that first sentence is completely untrue. I won’t go over that again.

Then he makes this appeal to an irrational emotional reaction. “Go, donate now. Don’t think logically about it. Don’t research the organization. Just donate. Do it because it will make you feel better, after all I’ve done such a good job of making you feel guilty so far right?”

I’m trying desperately to think of the last person I heard on TV to push that idea of “do this now, it’s the right thing. Don’t think about it, just do it. You have a moral obligation. Don’t bother to think critically about what you are doing with the money, just do it. You’ll feel better afterward, I promise.”

Oh right…that was Obama’s “Jobs speech”. Let’s not talk about that right now.

That’s all for now. Except that I want to tack on a bit of an addendum to what I wrote in the last post. Something that The Conservative New Ager said in a comment, but you may not have read the comments. I apparently missed this line in the essay when I discussing the implausibility of Unger/Singer’s “Bob” scenario.

He has invested most of his savings in a very rare and valuable old car, a Bugatti, which he has not been able to insure.

TCNA said that “if something is worth money, there’s an insurance company out there that will insure it–again Singer doesn’t seem to understand how capitalism works–so in reality there would be no economic loss.”

And that’s the truth. If it exacts and it’s worth money, there is a an insurance company that will insure it.

On another side note. I just started reading Glenn Beck’s Common Sense, I might post about it when I finish the book. My parents have also promised to buy me a subscription to Glenn Beck TV for my birthday, which was this past Tuesday. Happy Birthday to me ^_^