God wants me to be politically active tomorrow

Now I know where the expression "Oh, God!" comes from. It's not just profanity.

Anybody got some passion I can borrow?

My Fair Lady

My wife bought tickets, from the local PBS affiliate (so they were more expensive than they otherwise would have been, but they were well worth the price--we brought a spotting scope and a pair of binoculars, not knowing where we were going to end up, but they were absolutely unnecessary--we were in the eighth row), to that play.

I'm having a hard time writing right now without using the passive voice excessively. You see that I did manage to write a topical title without using "I," so I overcame that bugaboo.

The play was...how can I say this without sounding gay (another bugaboo)... Ah, screw it! The play was marvelous! I've loved "My Fair Lady" since I saw it on TV when I was about six. Henry Higgins is the man I want to be. But only if he gets Eliza Doolittle in the end.

Now long time readers (and there actually are a few) know where my passion for Audrey Hepburn comes from. Although, if you don't have a passion for Audrey Hepburn, I'll never understand what's wrong with you.

My wife and I are now contriving ways to get the kids to the play. We all watched the PBS special on the new production (twice) and the older girl really wanted to see it.

I'm going to write more on this on the other blog, but I have to go to the BPOU convention tomorrow. Hopefully I'll feel like it Sunday. I can't imagine losing enthusiasm for the subject, but I know how memories of dreams work.

In that light, I should say right now that although we had the understudy(?) playing Eliza, she was magnificent. What a marvelous voice that girl has! I'll have the playbill in front of me when I write my Bourgeois Philistine review so I can name names, but I had to put something out quickly about how much joy this has brought to my life. I felt terribly guilty about not putting something out about this before now. But my wife needed some attention.

William F. Buckley just died

He was a character, no doubt about that. Not being a "Crown and Altar" guy, I'm not feeling the loss. As a Rand and Rothbard libertarian it's tough to get worked up. The guy was the enemy.

Jason Lewis spent the hour I can't listen to on the subject. You're welcome to check out what he had to say. He's on to other things now.

See if you can guess who said this

before you check the answer:

It was long ago observed that the plain people, under democracy, never vote for anything, but always against something. The fact explains in large measure, the tendency of democratic states to pass over statesmen of genuine imagination and sound ability in favour of colorless mediocrities. The former are shining marks, and so it is easy for demagogues to bring them down; the latter are preferred because it is impossible to fear them.

It's a little more subtle than what you usually hear from the guy... I'll give you a hint: he means every word, and he's one of the greatest experts on the English language ever.

To play the game, open the comments, make your guess, and then post your reaction to the answer. You don't have to publish your comment between, just make a clear division.

Words to live by

My daughter got herself grounded from anything with a screen - TV, computer or anything else anyone can think of - for a month for leaving school and coming home during the day... Actually, it's a complicated situation due to arrangements with the local school district and the daycare lady that are all way off topic - complicated but not interesting.

Anyway, my daughter usually listens to Christian Rock and I enjoy that, but apparently she got bored with that tonight and she cranked up the local country station.

So I just heard the song "I'm Still a Guy" for the first time. Let me see if I can find that for ya.

Yup, right here:

When you see a deer you see Bambi
And I see antlers up on the wall
When you see a lake you think picnics
And I see a large mouth up under that log
You're probably thinking that you're gonna change me
In some ways well maybe you might
Scrub me down, dress me up aww but no matter what
Remember, I'm still a guy

When you see a priceless French painting
I see a drunk, naked girl
You think that ridin' a wild bull sounds crazy
And I'd like to give it a whirl
Well love makes a man do some things he ain't proud of
And in a weak moment I might walk your sissy dog, hold your purse at the mall
But remember, I'm still a guy

And I'll pour out my heart
Hold your hand in the car
Write a love song that makes you cry
Then turn right around knock some jerk to the ground
'Cause he copped a feel as you walked by

I can hear you now talkin' to your friends
Saying, "Yeah girls he's come a long way"
From draggin' his knuckles and carryin' a club
[I'm Still A Guy lyrics on http://www.metrolyrics.com]

And buildin' a fire in a cave
But when you say a backrub means only a backrub
Then you swat my hand when I try
Well now, what can I say at the end of the day
Honey, I'm still a guy

And I'll pour out my heart
Hold your hand in the car
Write a love song that makes you cry
Then turn right around knock some jerk to the ground
'Cause he copped a feel as you walked by

These days there's dudes gettin' facials
Manicured, waxed and botoxed
With deep spray-on tans and creamy lotiony hands
You can't grip a tacklebox

Yeah ith all of these men linin' up to get neutered
It's hip now to be feminized
I don't highlight my hair
I've still got a pair
Yeah honey, I'm still a guy

Oh my eyebrows ain't plucked
There's a gun in my truck
Oh thank God, I'm still a guy

Amen, bro!

I've never felt so close to another man.

I finally met somebody who's heard of Polo Hofer!

Of course it was a woman from Switzerland who's about my age. She told me she'd translate the Schwaitzer Deutsch for me. It's a different accent, or rather, dialect.

Most of the dude's German is incomprehensible to me, so I want to take her up on that. Actually, I suppose it's just one or two word per sentence, but their, like, the nouns and the verbs. The adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions are all obvious.

What?! Did I forget Valentine's Day?

No wonder the wife's been grumpy.

I've failed to mention thus far that David Strom has moved from the Taxpayers' League of Minnesota to the Minnesota Free Market Institute. He's the founder of both.

Other than that, I only have time [before the rolling-pin finds me] to mention these other two things I want to check out: Climate Change Forecasters on the Hot Seat and You Are What You Spend, by W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm.

I got both of those from NPCA, btw.

I got as far as this on the last article:

Income statistics, however, don’t tell the whole story of Americans’ living standards. Looking at a far more direct measure of American families’ economic status — household consumption — indicates that the gap between rich and poor is far less than most assume, and that the abstract, income-based way in which we measure the so-called poverty rate no longer applies to our society.

Oop! Hssst!

Gotta go!

I finally sat down and finished reading

The Betrayal of the American Right, by Murray Rothbard. That guy can sure write! This book should be made into a movie!

Let me give you the punch line, so to speak; though this excerpt is part of the summary (Ch. 13: The Early 1960s: From Right to Left, pp. 182-183 of the hard cover) and doesn't show the drama to be found in the rest of the book - the battles and final split of the paleocons and libertarians and the Buckleyite neocons:

Leonard Liggio then came up with the following profound analysis of the historical process, which I adopted.

First, and dominant in history, was the Old Order, the ancien regime, the regime of caste and frozen status, of exploitation by a war-making, feudal or despotic ruling class, using the church and the priesthood to dupe the masses into accepting its rule. This was pure statism; and this was the "right wing." Then, in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Western Europe, a liberal and radical opposition movement arose, our old heroes, who championed a popular revolutionary movement on behalf of rationalism, individual liberty, minimal government, free markets and free trade, international peace, and separation of Church and State--and in opposition to Throne and Altar, to monarchy, the ruling class, theocracy, and war. These--"our people"--were the Left, and the purer their libertarian vision the more "extreme" a Left they were.

...[B]ut what of socialism, that movement born in the ninetheenth century which we had always reviled as the "extreme left"? ...Liggio analyzed socialism as a confused middle-of-the-road movement, influenced historically by both the libertarian and individualist Left and by the conservative-statist Right. From the individualist Left the socialists took the goals of freedom: the withering away of the State, the replacement of the governing of men by the administration of things..., opposition to the ruling class and the search for its overthrow, the desire to establish international peace, an advanced industrial economy and a high standard of living for the mass of the people. From the conservative Right the socialists adopted the means to attempt to achieve these goals: collectivism, state planning, community control of the individual. But this put socialism in the middle of the ideological spectrum. It also meant that socialism was an unstable, self-contradictory doctine bound to fly apart rapidly in the inner contradiction between its means and its ends. And in this belief we were bolstered by the old demonstration of my mentor Ludwig von Mises that socialist central planning simply cannot operate an advanced industrial economy.

The rest of the book shows the consequences of adopting that analysis. The practical consequences. Rothbard was always trying to find a way to promulgate the message, which led to some bizarre alliances and associations.

This book disentangles the Gordian Knot of Twentieth Century American political history. It places all the movements where you can view them in the proper perspective.

Tom DeSabla is one of those guys

who "rages against the machine."

I just said I believe in politeness, but let's be more clear: politeness is not a metaphysical primary. It's a high value for civilization, but the fact is, sometimes you meet people who don't deserve it. I could probably do a dissertation on who deserves it and who doesn't. Basically, it's those who's ideas would destroy civilization who don't deserve it. What destroys civilization is the fundamental disagreement in politics, of course. That's what we're debating.

DeSabla, kind of a libertarian Michael Savage (both of whom I've managed to listen to this morning), weaves in some pretty strong points among the strong words of his anti-statist-media rant, some of which, to be sure, are about the incentives the media respond to, not all of which are about statism, a lot of their incentives are about their and their audience's short attention span. He's got an outline of the Feb. 6 show on his web page.

Too bad he blows out polite company right off the bat.

He rips this op-ed for not mentioning Ron Paul, but it's generally a pretty good article. Mickey Edwards should have mentioned Paul as the one guy who's saying more of what he's saying than the rest of the guys left in the campaign.

Speaking of who's left, Romney proved he's not a real conservative when he dropped out of the race the other day. If he had any real convictions, he would have campaigned through this weekend and tried to convince people that he really is the guy who stands for what we thought he stood for.

And here's what Dr. Paul says:

With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties -- just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.

I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.

In the presidential race and the congressional race, I need your support, as always. And I have plans to continue fighting for our ideas in politics and education that I will share with you when I can, for I will need you at my side. In the meantime, onward and upward! The neocons, the warmongers, the socialists, the advocates of inflation will be hearing much from you and me.

What's that sound like to you?

An open letter to Ron Paul supporters

I just sent this to Jason Lewis, after a long on-air argument...well, I think you'll get it:

I'd like to say something about my fellow Ron Paul supporters, perhaps this
should be an open letter to them:

Conservatives are not impressed by the Victim Card. Don't call conservative
talk host and expect to be respected when you play it. There are two great
organisations who will teach you how to campaign well for our candidate (and
every call, letter or hand signal to someone with a wide audience is
campaigning): one can be found at http://www.RonPaul2008.com. The other is
The Advocates for Self-Government.

I'm hearing way too much discourtesy from libertarians and paleocons on my
side.

Ron Paul is NOT a victim! He's ahead of his time. His ideas are so old,
they're new. And they're not taught in our schools.

It's OUR job to spread them. It's not Jason's or any other media figure's
job to spread them.

It's MY job.

And the Victim Card ain't gonna get it done.

Thank you,

Al (the Old Whig) from Brooklyn Center

When's the last time I mentioned

Promethea.org? Do I still have them in my blogroll?
http://www.promethea.org/bannersmall2.jpg

Oh, what have I done?

I went and nominated myself (I Freudian typoed "myserf", there) to be Vice Chair of my Republican District. Three of us did and we were all voted in. What a deal!

And all five precinct officers are also delegates to the next level convention.

Now I'm going to have to be an upstanding citizen for two years. What was I thinking?!

The gal sitting next to me was voted Chair. Unfortunately I was feeling a bit euphoric, so I was voicing every silly thought that popped into my head - sort of quietly heckling the proceedings. I think I just made an enemy of my boss. Oh, and also, I have a pulled muscle in my back that hurts whenever I try to move my head, in such a way that I reflexively reach for it - so I was fidgeting like Termagaunt the whole night.

I suspect she's a McCain supporter - the diametric opposite of my guy Ron Paul. She did say that "we have a responsibility to support the candidate who has a possibility of winning."

I respectfully disagree.

BTW, the presidential pole in our precinct went: Romney 18, Huckabee 8, Ron Paul 4, McCain 3.

And we passed along a party plank resolution, authored by a fellow RP supporter saying that we wish to deny recipients of matricula consular ID cards the right to use them for anything valuable in the US. I couldn't argue.

I see the argument for open-borders, but I also see the argument for shutting them down when you've been attacked. And reopening them in a very gingerly fashion.

My guy Dave Thompson just said that he [speaking of Freudian slips, I just capitalized "He"] just said that he had no problem with Ron Paul, he has a problem with some of his supporters. I get that.

Looks like Romney and Obama won Minnesota, but these are caucuses, not a primary, so, essentially, this is a straw poll. And, remember, somehow my neighbors made me a vice chair and a delegate. We just got us a force multiplier.

I think Teflonman has cursed me.

I haven't been able to think of much to write.

Actually, I talked about the Superbowl over on the other blog yesterday. I wasn't thrilled by any of the commercials.

I suppose it's more important that today is Super Tuesday. Go Ron Paul!!

I support Ron Paul because he's the only politician who's right about economics, and is willing to go down in flames for those principles.

Actually, he's a bit of a Buchananite on foreign trade, though he explains that.

I think he's the only one who can and will fix this to my satisfaction.

Ha ha! I got to listen to Jason Lewis twice today

and you didn't! Once on Rush Limbaugh and they ran the replay on his own show. What was so great was that he was on one of his marvelous Freedom rants the whole time. He absolutely kicked ass!

Of course, since he's a libertarian Conservative, and he was covering for Rush, he didn't suggest that everyone go to their primaries or caucuses and vote for Ron Paul in protest - like he did on the local show just last night - that would have gotten him permanently disinvited from EIB.

But, God (I say that prayerfully and in gratitude), it was fantastic listening, knowing that a huge chunk of America was getting an inspirational lesson in the thoughts of the founders.