Forgive me for being so blunt, but your reaction to our reelection of President Bush has been so outrageous that I'm wondering if you have quite literally lost your minds. No need to wonder, Herb. They have.
One of Britain's largest newspapers ran a headline asking "How Can 59 Million Americans Be So Dumb?", and commentators in France all seemed to use the same word — bizarre -- to explain the election's outcome to their readers. In Germany the editors of Die Tageszeitung responded to our vote by writing that "Bush belongs at a war tribunal — not in the White House." And on a London radio talk show last week one Jeremy Hardy described our President and those of us who voted for him as "stupid, crazy, ignorant, bellicose Christian fundamentalists." Well, in my case at least, the "bellicose" part is right. But Jeremy, honey, if the best you can do is 1 out of 6, might I suggest you don't go into the wagering business?
Of course, you are entitled to whatever views about us that you care to hold. (And lucky for you we Americans aren't like so many of the Muslims on your own continent; as the late Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh just discovered, make one nasty crack about them and you're likely to get six bullets pumped into your head and a knife plunged into your chest.) But before you write us off as just a bunch of sweaty, hairy-chested, Bible-thumping morons who are more likely to break their fast by dipping a Krispy Kreme into a diet cola than a biscotti into an espresso — and who inexplicably have won more Nobel prizes than all other countries combined, host 25 or 30 of the world's finest universities and five or six of the world's best symphonies, produce wines that win prizes at your own tasting competitions, have built the world's most vibrant economy, are the world's only military superpower and, so to speak in our spare time, have landed on the moon and sent our robots to Mars — Righteous bitch-slap!
may I suggest you stop frothing at the mouth long enough to consider just what are these ideas we hold that you find so silly and repugnant?
*snip*
Your rate of marriage is at an all-time low, and the number of abortions in Europe is at an all-time high. Indeed, your birth rates are so far below replacement levels that in 30 years or so there will be 70 million fewer Europeans alive than are alive today. Europe is literally dying. And of the children you do manage to produce, all too few will be raised in stable, two-parent households.
Your economy is stagnant because your government regulators make it just about impossible for your entrepreneurs to succeed — except by fleeing to the United States, where we welcome them and celebrate their success.
And your armed forces are a joke. With the notable exception of Great Britain, you no longer have the military strength to defend yourselves. Alas, you no longer have the will to defend yourselves.
What worries me even more than all this is your willful blindness. That's the problem in a nutshell.
You refuse to see that it is you, not we Americans, who have abandoned Western Civilization. It's worrisome because, to tell you the truth, we need each other. Western Civilization today is under siege, from radical Islam on the outside and from our own selfish hedonism within. It's going to take all of our effort, our talent, our creativity and, above all, our will to pull through. So take a good, hard look at yourselves and see what your own future will be if you don't change course. And please, stop sneering at America long enough to understand it. After all, Western Civilization was your gift to us, and you ought to be proud of what we Americans have made of it.
Lots more at the link - read it all. It would be nice if the Euros would listen, but I'm not holding my breath.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/12/2004 12:28:57 PM ||
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#1
I would agree with everything but the "selfish hedonism" part. Granted, the Euros screw up selfish hedonism, but a lot of Americans do it right, and to considerable profit. Even at our most swinish, we still consistently do it better than they do. Take the Internet, for example. A virtual "Wild West" of bad behavior, with minimal taxation, supervision or government control. Surely the apex of selfish hedonism (and liberty.)
Edited for highlights, length
Liberals took their historic defeat in the 2004 elections quite well. They could have reacted with bitterness, rancor and hysteria. Instead they were gracious, and engaged in thoughtful introspection.
I'm kidding.
Actually, liberals behaved predictably. They've spent the past week sneering at red-state residents remarking on the alleged poverty, stupidity and plain gullibility of Bush country (combined with neo-Marxist cant about how capitalists use faith appeals to control the masses). snip
Liberals have concocted a fantasy version of America, where all of the nation's brain-power and productivity reside in the blue states, while red America is a land of trailer parks, country-music bars, tractor-pulls and Klan rallies. (Quick, someone tell the Texans with their oil reserves, cattle and industrial output that they're a virtual wasteland.)
There may be more money in New York and California than in Oklahoma and Indiana. But most of the people in the blue states who've created that wealth voted for Bush. According to exit polls, Bush got 63% of the vote of those with incomes of $200,000 and up.
#2
I wrote an opinion defending Jane on her article. The whole article starts off as moonbat, tinfoil stuff. But then she states: "The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind." I thought that was brilliant.
Would you want a President that had this problem? Nope, only a moonbat would, and most people are not moonbats. Case closed. Good stuff Jane.
#3
Who the f*** is "Jane Smiley" and why should anyone care? Why are we forced to pay attention to the cant and the stupidity that the MSM serve us?
Oh wait, I forgot: we're not forced to pay attention. Can't wait to see the results of the next audit of circulation figures for the NYT. Express elevator, going dowwwwwwwwnnnnnn
This guy is good. A righteous bitch-slap of monumental proportions.
The Left is going to hurt for weeks from that one. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/12/2004 11:50 Comments ||
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#5
Like I said before, I watched a lot of Christian TV before the election, some great fire and brimstone stuff too, and was struck at how well informed of the issues it was and at how firmly they were ready to stand. Really commited.
#6
Interesting. Guess these folks aren't thinking about the 4 million votes they need to convert to their way of thinkin' in the next election in order to win! Or make that 5 million, to really bring home their power.
Problem is, we dumb folks have long memories and I'm not sure they will be able to git me to forgit all these names they are callin' me, so 'twill be hard to git my vote when they want it.
YASSER ARAFAT died at age 75, lying in bed surrounded by familiar faces. He left this world peacefully, unlike the thousands of victims he sent to early graves. In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."
God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil -- as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize -- but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity.
Arafat always inspired flights of nonsense from Western journalists, and his last two weeks were no exception. Derek Brown wrote in The Guardian that Arafat's "undisputed courage as a guerrilla leader" was exceeded only "by his extraordinary courage" as a peace negotiator. But it is an odd kind of courage that expresses itself in shooting unarmed victims -- or in signing peace accords and then flagrantly violating their terms.
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Posted by: tipper ||
11/12/2004 8:19:35 AM ||
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#1
Tipper, thank for recalling the PLO's victims at Maâalot. Arafat is paying the highest price for each of those little ones and the thousands he ordered butchered in Israel, the Lebanon, Jordan along with American citizens plus so many others .
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
11/12/2004 8:45 Comments ||
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#2
Best Epitaph:
"The son of 60,000 whores"
Syrian Defense Minister
#1
Today's Rantburg discussion topic:
Is it ethical to set fire to LLL media-dhimmis, drag their carcasses through the streets and hang them from the nearest Bridge?
Why or why not and who should be included?
#5
For someone that hosts his own show and makes a lot $$ doing so, I've found Maher to actually be a pretty ignorant person. Especially in respects to the constitution and American history in general. Sure, he comes up with one-liners once in a while that make me chuckle, but on the whole, he over simplifies everything. He also paints those with whom he disagrees with a very wide brush. I stopped watching him about two years ago.
#6
Jarhead: For someone that hosts his own show and makes a lot $$ doing so, I've found Maher to actually be a pretty ignorant person. Especially in respects to the constitution and American history in general. Sure, he comes up with one-liners once in a while that make me chuckle, but on the whole, he over simplifies everything. He also paints those with whom he disagrees with a very wide brush. I stopped watching him about two years ago.
This is probably because he gets his history from left-wing magazines like the Nation, Mother Jones and In These Times. Their methodology consists of lying through omission and distortion of history. Basically, they'll write about something bad that happened, and then blame America for it. The structure of their arguments works like this - the first part is correct, whereas the second is typically a bald-faced lie. In some cases, they'll claim that something bad happened, when in fact it was something good.
#7
ZF - "Their methodology consists of lying through omission"
-Bingo, good call Bro' - that's what I should've articulated better. Mike al-Moore has gotten that down to a science. The MSM does that all the time as well. They forget to add "the rest of the story" as another commentator would say.
#8
Back when Political Incorrect was on Comedy Central Bill Maher was up on things. He was a fair-minded Libertarian. When the show shifted to ABC he started doing a Lewinsky to Clinton and lost all attempts at fairness. Now he's just a hack trying to make a name for himself with shocking headlines from time to time.
By the way, I'll shoot back too. And I might shoot first; preemption is a lovely thing.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/12/2004 11:54 Comments ||
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#10
For someone that hosts his own show and makes a lot $$ doing so, I've found Maher to actually be a pretty ignorant person.
Actually, success on TV goes hand in hand with a deficit of intellectual curiosity. The problem is the medium itself, which militates against real thought, real discussion or intellectual to and fro.
Maher, O'Reilly, Katie, the other network bubbleheads-- all of these folks, no matter their ideological orientation, would have trouble making and defending a coherent line of argument. They're paid to deliver one-liners and to telegraph, via facial expressions, the desired emotional response to their target demographic audience. It's an inferior form of acting. Has nothing in common with real intellectual activity.
#14
OMG, eLarson & CrazyFool - I thought you all were kidding.
Now that's funny. Unlike Maher.
Maybe that's why he's such a yutz - traumatized by the shame of having appeared in such drivel.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/12/2004 14:44 Comments ||
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#15
Three words: Bring it on! we have a three guns stores and an indoor shooting range on main street. Lots of Republicans (4-1) in our town, but i wouldn't go waving a weapon around because it might get someones attention.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
