Quick Roundup 510

If you haven't rolled your eyes lately, ...

... mosey on over to this Washington Post article (registration required) on the predictable (and predictably derivative) "Coffee Party" "movement." (Will Keith Olbermann call them "coffee grinders?")

Myrhaf pretty much says all that needs to be said about it in this post ...

This movement is typical of the New Left, in that it cannot be honest about what it wants. If these people were honest, and capable of thinking in principles, they would say they want socialism. Of course, they can't say that because it would make the Democrats a party of, I would guess, 15-20% of the population. Honesty on the left means electoral suicide.

... and this:

The idea of forming a movement around "cooperation" is a gimmick to help the Democrats succeed with their socialist agenda, particularly health care reform.

The Tea Party, at least what's best about it, is [sympathetic to] timeless principles: limited government, individual rights. I have held these principles for 33 years, since I first read Atlas Shrugged. [minor edits]

At its worst, the Tea Party movement is unclear about the full meaning of said principles and, thus, sometimes misidentifies the real enemy of freedom. Interestingly, a pair of quotes from the second page of the Washington Post story pretty much helps us see that:

The next evening, Fox News pundit Glenn Beck paces during his keynote speech at the [CPAC] conference. "It is still morning in America," Beck tells the crowd. "It just happens to be kind of a head-pounding, hungover, vomiting-for-four-hours kind of morning in America. . . . What is it that has caused the problem? And if you say 'Obama,' it's too simple of an answer because it's not Barack Obama." He writes "progressivism" on a chalkboard. "This is the disease."

Actually, no. Progressivism is only a symptom.

"There is a synergism between people who realize we've got massive corruption," says [tea partier William] Temple, 59. "We want citizen legislators, people who know about sacrifice. Get the career politicians out of here."

Actually, no. We don't merely need to "throw the bastards out." We need to reach the point where we aren't electing bastards, and that's going to take time and cultural change.

Progressivism is secularized Christianity, and is all about the ethics of self- (i.e., human) sacrifice and collectivism. Until the tea party movement generally grasps that freedom is not and can not be based on anything but self-interest and individual rights, its effectiveness will be limited.

What a run!

Team USA's young, swashbuckling squad held off a team of all-stars from a nation fanatical about the game of hockey -- on home ice -- until overtime in the Gold Medal Game of the Winter Olympics.

The hockey gods were kind enough to bless the gold medal game with overtime, bonus action in a classic matchup between the two superpowers. It merely added more drama, more intensity and more passion to what could go into the books as the most entertaining game in Olympic history. Or hockey history.

Where does this one rank? Up there.

Way up there.

I'd have loved to see gold, but it would be wrong not to applaud this team.

Thank you, Team USA!

Throw in Lack of Empathy

It was interesting and amusing to read the following on the subject of misandry at Classical Values (HT: Instapundit):

I have to say, it's not often that I stumble onto evidence in support of the subject of a blog post simply by the act of writing the first sentence.

Eric Scheie's spell-checker had tagged the term as misspelled, although it was not.

Briefly checking the Wikipedia entry on the subject, I found the following humdinger of a passage from SCUM Manifesto, by feminist Valerie Solanas:

As for the issue of whether or not to continue to reproduce males, it doesn't follow that because the male, like disease, has always existed among us that he should continue to exist. When genetic control is possible -- and soon it will be -- it goes without saying that we should produce only whole, complete beings, not physical defects of deficiencies, including emotional deficiencies, such as maleness. Just as the deliberate production of blind people would be highly immoral, so would be the deliberate production of emotional cripples.

Where is the empathy for us poor, unfortunate cripples, from this emotionally superior being? Solanas does not even regard men as fully human.

Setting aside many, many of the other things wrong with the above passage, it is amazing how thoroughly collectivism can eradicate even the most rudimentary trace of benevolence from man's soul.

The New "Tan"

While looking for a sample image for carotenosis, I stumbled upon Pale is the New Tan, a hilarious blog about fake tans and bad burns.

Wow. Page after page of it.

-- CAV