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I feel confident…and exhausted.
I am confident that Romney is going to win this and in January we will be watching the Inauguration of President Mitt Romney.
I will be at the polls tomorrow and I will cast my vote for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, the men can bring our country back from the downward spiral that President Obama has put us in.
This is the most important, most exciting, most exhausting, election that has happened in my lifetime and, god willing, it will be the most important one of my lifetime.
I’m not really sure I can deal with such a stressful election season again.
Just remember to
The inevitable immature melt-down and temper tantrum of the left.
It’s not like they aren’t already operating on the maturity and intelligence level of a 4 year old, screaming “MINE MINE!” at all the other kids toys, but it’s going to get worse.
A lot worse.
In fact, it’s already started.
I’ve started running a political blog on tumblr (partially to blame for my slow updates here on wordpress). I have cultivated a large group of awesome gay and straight conservatives on the website, but it is still an overwhelmingly liberal site in most ways.
The stupidity and mudslinging is reaching a fever pitch.
Want proof? Visit the tumblr tag pages for things like ‘Ann Romney’, ‘Paul Ryan’, or just the word ‘conservative’.
If tumblr isn’t your thing, check out Debbie Wasserman Schultz twitter account or the accounts of other prominent figures in the Democratic party. Or just the twitter accounts of liberals in general.
They’ve stopped pretending to caring about facts and started the equivalent of a child throwing themselves on the floor and screaming ‘NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!’ or a teenager running into their room and screaming ‘I HATE YOU, WHY ARE YOU RUINING MY LIFE. I WISH I WAS DEAD!’*
Or similar to a monkey throwing his own feces.
This is about how an argument with a liberal goes at this point.
Liberal: Paul Ryan want to GUT medicare!
Conservative: Actually, no. Paul Ryan is working to make Medicare a feasible plan for all those currently on the plan and for those would go on the plan in the next 10 years. After that a voucher program will be instated. Obama is actually the one gutting Medicare.
Liberal: NO HE’S NOT YOU RACIST!
Conservative: Wow, that was uncalled for. Obama is gutting Medicare. He’s using funds that were supposed to used to keep medicare solvent for several more years and he’s funneling them into funding Obamacare.
Liberal: But Paul Ryan thinks rape is a ‘method of conception!’
Conservative: Wait…weren’t we talking about Medicare a second ago? Also Ryan was ACTUALLY talking about pregnancy, whether it ocurrs through rape or consensual sex, and in that case…rape is a method of conception.
Liberal: BUT ROMNEY AND RYAN HATE WOMEN AND GAY PEOPLE AND WANT TO SHIP ALL OUR JOBS OUT THE COUNTRY AND BAN IMMIGRATION AND….
Conservative: Whoah! Slow down. None of those things are true. *starts trying to lay out facts*
Liberals: Shut up you stupid racist bitch/asshole!**
Conservative: *walks away and mutters* Lord give me the patience to control myself and not go back and punch that moron in the face.***
Yes, that’s more and more what we are hearing from liberals. No facts, just accusations and storms of misinformation, hoping they can confuse the voting public for long enough that they will experience a moment of delusional insanity, much as they did 4 years ago, and vote for Obama again.
They are getting desperate, they are getting scared, because they can see the end coming.
As I tweeting to Debbie Wasserman Schultz last night…their desperation tastes like sweet, sweet victory to me.
Obama needs to get ready to find a new place to live.
Romney is moving into the house on Pennsylvania Avenue come January.
On a side note.
Here, have a psuedo-campaign video. It’s my new favorite. Based on one of the line’s from Paul Ryan’s speech last night at the Republican National Convention.
“College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life. Everyone who feels stuck in the Obama economy is right to focus on the here and now. And I hope you understand this too, if you’re feeling left out or passed by: You have not failed, your leaders have failed you.” – Paul Ryan
*my response to liberals in that case is ‘So do I, we finally agree on something’.
**depending on gender of conservative. Sometimes interchangeable though.
*** I may not believe in a personal god, but I find myself praying to one more and more often and hoping I will not go back and punch these people’s light out. It helps that most of the arguments are the on the internet.
The Conservative New Ager and The Snark Who Hunts Back Review The Dark Knight Rises: A Tale of Heroes, Politics and Death
This last week we (The Snark Who Hunts Back and The Conservative New Ager) went to go see The Dark Knight Rises together for the second time (the first being a trilogy marathon on opening night). We delayed writing a blog then because it became obvious there was so much we would have to see it again to fully appreciate the depth…and even on a second viewing we realized there is more than a single blog here.
But let’s get the overture out of the way. The final piece of this spectacular trilogy, like almost all of director Christopher Nolan’s recent work is thematically based off a work of literature…A Tale of Two Cities, in the case of The Dark Knight Rises. And while it might be hard to find the undercurrents of Othello in The Dark Knight, Faust in The Prestige, or Zorro in Batman Begins (which for symmetry should be renamed The Dark Knight Begins).
But it’s not just literary, it’s political…or at least it appears to be. The Dark Knight seemed pretty obviously a defense of the War on Terror, and The Dark Knight Rises seems a pretty striking assault on the morals of leftist economics. Now Nolan claims that his works aren’t political (a common defense by those who want to survive in a hostile political environment) and Occupy Wall Street thugs think they’re really smart in pointing out that the movie was written before OWS so it can’t be about them (this poor argument ignores that their rhetoric of evil has been spouted by the left quite vehemently in the last few years and also they clearly are so ignorant of the history of their own ideas that they don’t know their filth was spouted by demagogues in ancient Athens, and shown to be stupid then…so just because Nolan didn’t know about OWS doesn’t mean he wasn’t responding to the evil)…and even if Nolan is telling the truth that he didn’t intend it to a political statement (which I doubt) it works too well as one not to make some comments about the philosophy of the work.
Now ignoring the message of the trilogy taken as a whole (that’s another blog for another time) we think there are three main philosophical statements to this film: The nature of heroism, the politics of progressivism, envy and “social justice”, and the fear of death.
The Nature of the Hero
“A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat over a little boy’s shoulder to let him know the world hadn’t ended.”
One of the more unbelievable complaints I’ve heard about The Dark Knight Rises was that it made it look like the common man can’t do anything for themselves, that they need the rich to save them. Never mind the fact that, by the end, Bruce Wayne barely had a cent to his name or that his money certainly didn’t help him climb out of the pit. We would just want to know if the person who made the complaint was even watching the same movie that we saw with our friends.
Not long after Bruce Wayne loses all his money, due to Bane’s attack on the stock exchange, he has a conversation with John Blake, a police officer who knows Wayne’s identity as Batman. Wayne tells Blake that the whole point of Batman was that he could be anyone, Batman was meant to be an inspiration to the people of Gotham, something that is repeated in both of the previous movies.
In Batman Begins Bruce Wayne tell Alfred:
“People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy. And I can’t do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man I’m just flesh and blood, I can be ignored, destroyed. But a symbol….as a symbol I can be incorruptible, everlasting…..”
In The Dark Knight, the Joker asks the fake Batman, Brian what batman means to him. Brian answers “He’s a symbol … that we don’t have to be afraid of scum like you”. And the whole point of Batman, as we see come to fruition at the beginning of The Dark Knight Rises, was not to create a legion of caped crusaders, but an army of men like Harvey Dent (before his psychotic break) and Jim Gordon—a group of people willing to stand up for what is right.
But we digress. The point is what made the average person a hero in The Dark Knight Rises.
At no point did John Blake, Commissioner Gordon, or the other members of the resistance, sit down and go ‘well, I’m just a common person, I’m just going to wait for the government or Batman to come save us’ (except for the character of Foley, who was rightly called out for being a coward). They worked tirelessly to find a way out on their own, they realized they were on their own the moment Bane took over the city and began to look for ways to free the city’s police force from the sewers.
When Batman did come back, in an a miraculous 11th hour miracle, they didn’t wait for him to clean up the mess. The police banded together and marched on Bane’s army, many of them dying in the fighting to save their city.
Selina Kyle, despite telling Batman that she was leaving the city as soon as she destroyed the debris blocking the tunnel, turned around and risked her life to fight for the city and to save Batman’s life.
Lucius Fox risked death and drowning , trying to find a way to stop the nuclear bomb from detonating.
Even Ra’s al Ghul (don’t you hate it when you agree with the words, if not the actions, of a villain?) says, during Bruce’s training, “The training is nothing! The will is everything! The will to act.”
The heroes who kept Gotham alive while Batman fought his way out of the pit
Every one of these people, training or no, had the will to act. They were all willing to give everything for their city, for their freedom. What could possibly be more heroic than that?
Fancy toys, nice cars, and a cool suit will only get you so far if you don’t have the will to do what is necessary, even when what is necessary may end your life.
Heroism isn’t about money, toys, or good looks; it’s a state of mind and living life, not with no fear of death, but with a willingness to die to defend others and defend your beliefs.
You may not be a superhero, but anyone can be a hero. That’s what The Dark Knight Rises shows us about heroism.
Politics, Socialism and evils of envy
“Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend, will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof shuts out the sky.’”—A Tale of Two Cities*
You would have to have been pretty dense not to get that this movie was thematically inspired by A Tale of Two Cities. Even Dickens, for all of his sickeningly naïve progressive rhetoric, had an inkling of the evil of the French Revolution. A quick review of history if it’s been too long since that high school history class. Louis XVI in response to economic woes and civil unrest had given the public everything they wanted: an assembly, power of due process of law, and abdicated much of the absolute power of the monarchy. And while many where happy with these changes, the ignorant rabble who were open to the rhetoric of the most extreme thought it wasn’t enough. They stormed the Bastille, arrested Louis and his wife (who if you actually study history was not the vapid slut a layman’s understand of history tries to depict her as), and placed power in the hands of radicals like Robespierre and Marat. The Terror, Madam Guillotine, rivers of blood, atrocities on a scale that wouldn’t be seen again in France until the Nazi’s allowed the French to revel in their anti-Semitism. (A similar pattern would be seen when the Russians replaced the Tsar with a democratic government…but soon got rid of that in favor of a psychotically evil government).
She learned to hate her “ideal” world quickly enough.
This history lesson is important because this is the same pattern Nolan shows in Gotham. For all of it’s corruption in the first two films, Gotham at the beginning of The Dark Knight Rises was a city that had everything it wanted: Clean streets, an efficient police force (a city of 12 million with only 3,000 uniformed officers means an obscenely low crime rate), a healthy economy (the city could afford multiple simultaneous construction projects by Dagget, that means an incredibly good tax base, ergo strong economy…and football stadiums aren’t packed to the brim with every last seat filled during hard times), a mayor who has survived for over 8 years in office (usually a sign of prosperity) Even Selina Kyle’s words of decrying inequality ring hollow, he “old town” (suggestive of the gutter) apartment is hardly a shabby SRO or the slum heap of “the narrows” from the first film—and while in Batman Begins criminals could carry on with their nefarious dealings out in the open, or hide them in the vast slums, this is a Gotham where there are so few places to hide your activities you literally have skulk in the sewers (everywhere else is too bright and too well off to hide such activities)…Like the French they had everything they had asked for. And, like France, it took only a little fear and few mad men to stir the lowest rungs of society and bring about anarchy.
There are of course differences between A Tale of Two Cities and the Revolution it describes and the events of The Dark Knight Rises. The Bastille was stormed not to free prisoners (there were hardly any left in the Bastille by the time of the Revolution) but to gain weapons to take over the city. And even if you buy the myth of the Storming of the Bastille, the prisoners released from the Bastille were primarily political prisoners…not hardened thugs of organized crime. The fact that the Dent Law in The Dark Knight Rises was passed because there was a martyr to push through the law, does not change the fact that it, like all three-strikes laws and mandatory sentencing laws, are a particular point of hatred for the progressive who think it’s unfair that people who do evil and horrific things should, heaven forbid, be locked up where they can’t do any harm. But be it the Bastille and the release of a mere seven political prisoners or the opening of Blackgate Prison and letting a host of violent criminals go free, the result was ironically the same: The Terror.
The terror: a system where justice and trials are a mockery and the innocent are held as guilty for crimes they never committed…and where there is only one punishment: death. The terror, a system that provides so much that it makes everyone so equal that they are all starving and tearing at each other for daily sustenance (or like the Soviet Union or Gotham you could have food imported from the capitalistic society because you can’t produce any on your own). The terror: the utopia every half brained progressive idealist praises, only to lead to their own downfall.
In the real French Revolution the villain was Robespierre who used high rhetoric to justify rank thugery as a progressive march to fraternity and equality. In A Tale of Two Cities the villain was Madame De Farge, a woman so hell bent on avenging her family’s murders that she will see the whole world burn to get her pound of flesh. Nolan gives us both villains in the form of Bane and Talia al Ghul. Which of course leads us into the villainy of their perverse understanding of economics.
Let me spout the politics of envy and class warfare knowing it will only lead to your eventual destruction!
Before we get into showing how Nolan destroys the ideals of progressivism by showing what it brings, let’s dismiss one semi-intelligent objection: Bane and Talia don’t believe in progressivism, they’re trying to show how it is a failed system and how people must reject it. That’s not entirely an incorrect point…but what you need to also realize is that just because the villains may be a tool they don’t really believe in doesn’t mean that it isn’t showing the flaws of progressivism…and that just because they don’t believe in progressivism doesn’t mean they’re capitalist. Point in fact, the entire League of Shadows from Ra’s Al Ghul’s first words to Talia’s last is a world view based on feudalism and cronyism. The League believes it should be the one who decides who shall be successful and who shall fail. Bane says as much when he tells Wayne, “I learned here that there can be no true despair without hope. So, as I terrorize Gotham, I will feed its people hope to poison their souls. I will let them believe they can survive so that you can watch them clamoring over each other to “stay in the sun.” You can watch me torture an entire city and when you have truly understood the depth of your failure, we will fulfill Ra’s al Ghul’s destiny… We will destroy Gotham and then, when it is done and Gotham is ashes, then you have my permission to die.” As we stated above they rule through terror, not reason, not ethics, not law, justice—they dress their words up in the clothes of these higher ideals but their actions show them to be as hollow and lacking in substance on the inside as any scarecrow (especially if said Scarecrow sets himself up as the instrument of justice).
Politically speaking, there is much that is applicable to our current political situation in our country. Now, to be fair, I don’t believe that Christopher Nolan’s intent was to create a modern political allegory. This movie was written and being filmed long before the Occupy Wall Street movement, which shares many of the villains sentiments, began.
During the first few weeks of the Occupy movement we both remember having many conversations about the similarities between that movement and the early days of the French Revolution. Which is why the connection between The Dark Knight Rises and OWS comes so easily.
The views of Occupy Wall Street were shown almost perfectly in Bane’s and Catwoman’s words, as well as the actions of the people who jump at the chance to drag the rich out and punish them for their success.
Bane’s entire speech outside of Black Gate Prison is so reminiscent of something from a ‘mic check’ at Occupy Wall Street
“We take power from the corrupt, who, for generations, have kept you down with myths of…opportunity and we give it back to you, the people. Gotham is yours, none shall interfere, do as you please. We’ll start by storming Black Gate and freeing the oppressed…an army will be raised, the powerful will be ripped from their decadence and cast out into the cold where we all have endured, courts will be convened, spoils will be enjoyed…”
-Bane (apologies for mistakes, I was working from a VERY scratchy audio clip)
and for those of you who remember the scenes that accompanied the final lines of that speech, the violence is so similar to the rioting at Occupy Oakland that is was almost frightening, especially when you realize that this movie was written months before any of that every happened.
Selina Kyle (Catwoman) starts out with the same exact rhetoric as many an Occupy Wall Street supporter. In a conversation with Bruce Wayne she says “You think this is gonna last? There’s a storm coming Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches. ‘Cause when it hits, you’re all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large, and leave so little for the rest of us.”
Though after her betrayal of Batman she appears to change her tone in a way that OWS never did. Upon entering a home that had been ransacked after Bane’s Black Gate speech she comments on the fact that ‘this used to be someone’s home’ when she looks at a smashed family photo. Her friend says ‘now it’s everyone’s home.’ Kyle, unlike just about everyone in OWS who only has to look to the failure of the Soviet Union, the collapse of Greece or the repression of China and North Korea to know what a failed system socialism, when she saw what her ideals brought about very quickly had no problem seeing their evil and abandoning them.
The Dark Knight Rises shows what happens when give us capitalisms for anarchy or socialism. You have perversion of justice. You have to survive on the handouts and scraps provided to you. There is no growth. No prosperity. No civilization. Only blood and the terror.
Now on to a slightly more hilarious turn of events.
Shortly before the movie came out the Obama campaign (and liberals in general) noticed something they thought they could use as a brilliant attack against Romney.
Did you know that Romney had a business named Bain Capital?
Bain/Bane…get it?**
One of these guys is someone rich who could easily leave others to fend for themselves but doesn’t…the other is named Bane. Which one reminds you the most of the presidential challenger?
“It has been observed that movies can reflect the national mood,” said Democratic advisor and former Clinton aide Christopher Lehane. “Whether it is spelled Bain and being put out by the Obama campaign or Bane and being out by Hollywood, the narratives are similar: a highly intelligent villain with offshore interests and a past both are seeking to cover up who had a powerful father and is set on pillaging society,” he added.
As the Friday release date has neared, liberal blogs were the first to connect Batman’s toughest foe with Romney’s firm.
- Christopher Lehane (via Washington Examiner)
Yeah, they actually did that.
Hilariously, when Rush Limbaugh dared to point out the name similarities, liberal bloggers thought he was being insane and completely ignored that their side was the one who made the comparison first.
Luckily conservatives had a fellow conservative Chuck Dixon, comic book creator, and coincidentally, the co-creator of the villain Bane, to smack some sense into liberals.
In an interview with ComicBook.com Dixon had this to say.
“The idea that there’s some kind of liberal agenda behind the use of Bane in the new movie is silly…I refuted this within hours of the article in the Washington Examiner suggesting that Bane would be tied to Bain Capital and Mitt Romney appearing. Bane was created by me and Graham Nolan and we are lifelong conservatives and as far from left-wing mouthpieces as you are likely to find in comics…As for his appearance in The Dark Knight Rises, Bane is a force for evil and the destruction of the status quo. He’s far more akin to an Occupy Wall Street type if you’re looking to cast him politically. And if there ever was a Bruce Wayne running for the White House it would have to be Romney.”
-Chuck Dixon (Via ComicBook.com)
Romney is Bruce Wayne? That’s the best pseudo-endorsement I’ve heard all year. If I wasn’t voting for Romney before, I sure am now.
The Fear of Death
Blind Prisoner: You do not fear death. You think this makes you strong. It makes you weak.
Bruce Wayne: Why?
Blind Prisoner: How can you move faster than possible, fight longer than possible without the most powerful impulse of the spirit: the fear of death.
Bruce Wayne: I do fear death. I fear dying in here, while my city burns, and there’s no one there to save it.
Blind Prisoner: Then make the climb.
Bruce Wayne: How?
Blind Prisoner: As the child did. Without the rope. Then fear will find you again.
Now on the Conservative New Ager we have a fairly low opinion of the fear of death. In numerous blogs it has been ridiculed as the foolish, childish, ignorant paralytic it is. However, it must be admitted, that in the rush of these blogs to point out that “Wise men at their end know [death] is right” and that it is nothing to be feared but merely a natural part of life, that the wise also “do not go gentle into that good night.”
Bruce Wayne doesn’t fear death for the first half of the movie, that is true. He is not hindered by the fears that he once was. The problem is that in this attempt to rid himself of fear he went too far and rid himself of the desire for life as well. While the movie only uses the phrase “fear death” it might seem that it is encouraging people to embrace fear. But from context the movie is not telling people to embrace the paralyzing fear of death because it is this fear that encourages the federal government and the people of Gotham to stand ideally by, and the fear that causes Modine’s Foley to hide, while a terrorist takes over the city. Rather, the movie is encouraging a balance—that the proper way is to rid one’s self of the paralyzing fear of death of Wayne did in the first film, but to maintain the love of live, and the appreciation of death and knowledge that each moment could be your last and must be fought for, that comes with this love of life. It is only this appreciation of death, that pushes Wayne to make a jump that he could not otherwise make, because he knows that if he is to live he must push himself—and he cannot push himself without both the knowledge that there is no turning back or without the desire to do something other than seek his own end.
And then of course, as a final thought we can’t forget how wonderfully patriotic this film is. Okay maybe not so much in it showing the President to be a sniveling coward who gives into terrorist demands (patriotic or not that might be an accurate assessment)…or in how cowardly the bureaucracy is when they blow the bridge condemning many to die (again might be an accurate conservative message). But you will notice that the people of Gotham (not the scum the who follow Bain mind you, but the people who are terrorized by them) stand for “The Star Spangled Banner” and the only person shown to not have his hand over his heart is the scummy mayor (who apparently is close to an even scummier Congressmen…again perhaps an accurate assessment of current events). And along with the police it is these people who fight against Bain. And you’ll notice that on the day of the battle even a British director like Nolan knows to show the tattered remains of the flag still flying, still offering hope, and as a symbol that on that day evil will fall. Finally the last words about Gotham, which they say is America’s greatest city, is that it will rise from the ashes of this act of terrorism…you would have to be pretty dense not to see this as a reference to New York, and a testament to how quickly America did pick itself up.
You don’t owe these people anymore. You’ve given them everything.
Not everything. Not Yet.
And the sad fact is that we’ve only scratched the surface of this film…
*On a side note, it should be said that, for all of Dickens’ flaws, A Tale of Two Cities is Dickens’ best work…too bad he stole half the plot from Victor Hugo’s Ninety-Three.
** Oh and if you want to to play the silly let’s compare political figures to fictional ones…I see your Bane/Bain…and raise you…
(Romney Ryan photos thanks to Heather Parsons)
Open primaries v. Closed primaries
Over the last few weeks I’ve been stopped several times, both on campus and off, to be asked to sign a petition to get open primaries in our state…which seems a bit like closing the barn door after all the cows have escaped, since my state’s primary was held on February 28th.
The last time this happened I had just had enough. I pointedly asked the women who was carrying the petition to tell me what party she was registered with.
Unsurprisingly, after a bit of prodding, she told me she was a Democrat. I asked her how she would feel about Open Primaries if I, as a Republican, were to gather up Republicans and go to a Democratic primary to vote for the worst Democratic candidate so that the Republican nominee would be able to wipe the floor with him. She told me “well I would be getting people to sign a petition if I didn’t support it.”
Which didn’t actually answer the question, mind you.
As this was a public space another person came up to interject their opinion. He asked me what my solution would be if a Democrat, such as himself, wanted to vote in the primaries for Ron Paul. (Not sure why a Democrat would want to, since 90% of what Ron Paul supports is completely opposite to Democratic views…the only thing I can think that this guy wanted was the legalization of drugs…) I told him to do the same thing that my independent friends had done, which was register as Republicans for the primary and then re-register as their actual party.
He didn’t seem to find that satisfactory…too lazy to go to the trouble I guess.
Here is the key problem with this particular guy’s argument. The Presidential election is the time for the entire country to decide, based on whatever their views are, which nominee will make the best POTUS. That is why you vote across party lines, you can watch the debates, view the records, and decide between the party nominees to decide who will best lead the country.
This is not what primaries are for.
Now, ideally, members of the party should be voting for the candidate who will make the best President. However, Democratic and Republican ideals of what makes a good President are not the same at all, so cross primary voting would be unhelpful at best and disastrous at worst.
What a primary does is allow the members of the party to decide on who, of the available candidates, best represents their ideals and will be the best President possible within those ideals.
So the problem with a Democrat voting in a Republican Primary is that they will not be voting for the candidate that best represents Republican ideals, they will be voting for either 1.) the candidate who best represents Democratic ideals or 2.) the candidate that will be most easily defeated by their Democratic nominee.
And considering that option 2 is exactly what happened this year in the Republican Primaries in several states which have open primaries.
Democratic activists and strategists have launched a campaign to push fellow Democrats and independents to vote for Santorum to try to derail the more moderate frontrunner Mitt Romney, a Michigan native and the candidate President Barack Obama’s campaign least wants to face in the November 6 election.
“I think Santorum is completely radioactive and will bring an electoral disaster to the Republicans – he could deliver Obama a landslide,” said Michigan Democratic strategist Joe DiSano, who has launched one of the efforts to help Santorum. “We need to focus on the one real challenger to Romney.”
- Reuters
Gotta love that sort political trickery. Of course this says a lot about how worried the Democrats are about my candidate of choice, Mitt Romney.
However, this is why closed primaries are necessary. I don’t want to vote in a Democratic primary, I’m not a Democrat and it’s not my job to choose a candidate who upholds their ideals. Neither is it a Democrats job to choose a political candidate who best upholds Republican ideals.
Math and logic show media bias against Romney is unfounded (Via The Conservative New Ager)
I am getting tired of the media downplaying that Romney has been the winner of numerous primaries and is headed toward the Republican GOP nomination (and is without question in a strong position to take down Obama).
Let’s just ignore that no GOP candidate has ever gotten as high as Romney is currently at about 40%.
Then let’s deal with the fact that it’s pretty much a mathematical impossibility that Romney isn’t going to win the delegates.
via Math and logic show media bias against Romney is unfounded.
Facts, please base your opinions on them. Don’t be this guy.
Needed to do a little decompression… (Via The Conservative New Ager)
After a draining week in politics and work…I was very relieved at tonight’s Romney victory…but still needed to get a little snark out so I turned to twitter…
.And on twitter I saw@DinaFraioli tweeted
“The Eye of Sauron points to Ohio….”
so I responded
“Great, now I’m going to be spending all night putting the major political contenders in LOTR roles in my mind.”
believe it or not, there was no alcohol involved in this…it’s just trying to get publicity for Republicans and Reincarnation and keeping up blogging during an election year that I have almost no time for my other writing passion—writing fantasy novels. So this random little musing is making up for that loss in my life…I fully admit this is stupid and pointless, but it was a wonderful stress relief to write…and it’s disturbing how many parallels I was able to make.
At the very least, I hope it gives you a small chuckle.I would love to actually write this parody…but not sure I have the time…so settle for how you would cast “The Lord of the White House and the Return of the Conservative”
My life is now complete.
Thanks to The Conservative New Ager for making me giggle after a very long, difficult week.
Time to party!
Well not yet, the primaries aren’t over, but my state just gave Romney another 29 delegates and he won Michigan as well.
It’s a good night.
Thank you Arizona. You occasionally make me happy to live here.
Time for another glitter-bombing post.
Back to my roots, complaining about the liberal gay left.
Also Occupy Wall Street/any city they can get to, because they seem to be doing a bit of the glitter slinging these days as well.
I’ve talked about glitter bombing before, but I thought it was time for another go at it, since people still seem to consider it a good way to deal with their issues….instead of, y’know, actually having civilized discussions.
Because throwing things was so helpful in solving disputes in kindergarten. *eye roll*
So last time I talked, it was mostly about how childish the concept of throwing glitter at your opponents makes you look.
But I’ve changed my mind (don’t faint, it happens). It still makes you look irreparably stupid, but there is nothing childish about it.
Nothing is childish about assault.
Yes, you heard me right. Glitter bombing is assault.
Here is the definition of assault.
noun
verb
- In criminal and tort law, an act, usually consisting of a threat or attempt to inflict bodily injury upon another person, coupled with the apparent present ability to succeed in carrying out the threat or the attempt if not prevented, that causes the person to have a reasonable fear or apprehension of immediate harmful or offensive contact. No intent to cause battery or the fear or apprehension is required so long as the victim is placed in reasonable apprehension or fear. No actual physical injury is needed to establish an assault, but if there is any physical contact, the act constitutes both an assault and a battery.
- In criminal law, in some states, the term includes battery and attempted battery.
- Any attack .
- The act of inflicting bodily injury upon another. See also mayhem.
The parts in bold are what I want you to look at.
Sure you didn’t mean to glitter in that senator/aid/candidate/judge’s eye. You didn’t mean to lacerate their cornea or cause major injury or disability.
But you still did…or you risk doing so with every handful of glitter that you throw.
[A] Washington, D.C., optometrist warns that it is possible to injure someone with glitter.
“If it gets into the eyes, the best scenario is it can irritate, it can scratch. Worst scenario is it can actually create a cut,” Stephen Glasser told The Hill. He also noted that breathing glitter into your nose and sinuses could cause an infection.
- NPR
So it’s not childish. It’s criminal.
As 20 year old intern, Peter Smith, found out last Tuesday.
Tuesday’s glitter bombing, however, is different. The student who tossed the glitter was charged with “throwing a missile” and “unlawful acts on campus grounds.” If convicted, 20-year-old Peter Smith could face up to 6 months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Smith, who was working as an unpaid intern for the Colorado Senate Democrats, was promptly fired and also faced possible expulsion from University of Colorado Denver. Although UCD chose to take no disciplinary action, Smith still faces the other charges.
The IDS paper is calling the charges “a little disproportionate.”
Claiming that being fired was appropriate, but expulsion and jail time/a fine was a punishment unfit to the crime.
One has to wonder…would they be so tolerant if this was another situation.
Here’s one for you.
My school gets a lot of these “street preachers” who show up with megaphones and stupid t-shirts and big signs quoting Biblical verses (all out of context) that talk about hellfire and damnation. I’m not impressed by this…I grew up in the Southern Baptist church. I cut my teeth on fire and brimstone preaching.
However, what if this group took things a step farther. What if, instead of just shouting abuse at us, they started throwing pamphlets at us and spraying super-soakers filled holy water on the students.
Pamphlets can give people paper cuts and certainly carry the danger of cutting someone in a dangerous place…like…I don’t know…the eye.
A super-soaker on campus could, similarly, have bad results.
So, we could legitimately claim this as assault. It fits the legal definition I quoted in enough ways to make that feasible.
So would these same writers feel it was “disproportionate” to charge the speakers, with their loud protests about how being gay and masturbating will send you to hell, with assault?
Well?
I don’t know, but I have a feeling that they would be fine with it.
And just for reference. Here is the golden rule again. (I’ve quoted it before)
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
If you would appreciate a handful of glitter in your face, a slashed cornea, and a painkiller/eye-patch fashion combo, then, by all means, keep throwing glitter at people.
If you would appreciate Bible’s being thrown at you because you are gay, and the street preachers thought that physical violence would change that, then, by all means, keep assaulting others to get them to change their opinions.
If, however, you realize how much you would not appreciate either one of those things.
Then please, give it a rest, put down the craft box, screw the lid back on the glitter container, and go write a blog or something.
