CalvinDude.com

(The following is a reprint of a blog post I wrote on November 5, 2008, with bolded “I told you so” passages for purposes of gloating stoically rubbing our chins in deep contemplation.)

Now Is Our Time

Some Conservatives are naturally upset about how the election has gone. But while The One campaigned successfully with his mantra of “hope” and “change,” it has always been the Conservatives that embody hope. Indeed, unlike the Liberals who immediately whine of stolen elections when they don’t get their way, Conservatives do not live and die by political fortunes because we recognize that we are some things (read: “almost everything”) more important than politics.

So while it is okay for Conservatives to be disappointed that the Omighty One is elected, as a Conservative myself I see the countless reasons to remain optimistic, even in “defeat.” Consider just one number for a moment:

55,543,527.

That’s how many people (according to the counts at the time of this writing—and look for it to be revised upward too) who voted against the Anointed One. Fifty-five million is not a small number. Fifty-five million is, indeed, a very substantial portion of our voting population.

There is fear that Obamessiah will try to institute many of his radical ideas. The media, who failed to do basic journalism and were so in the tank for the Chosen One from day one, engineered a victory for a man with some of the most questionable associations, statements, and beliefs ever elected. We’ve seen O lie about public financing, promise to bankrupt coal companies, and continue to lower the dollar cut-off for whose taxes will be raised upon.

But 55 million people are a check against him. Even with majorities in Congress, the Democrats have to acknowledge that the electorate has only given them a razor thin edge at the moment; if they try to do anything radical, that edge will shift immediately to the Republicans.

Conservatives can take heart about this. We are logical people. We understand that reality is real. All our dreams (or our father’s dreams) and hopes do not change what is real. And the reality is: 55,543,527 is not a landslide loss.

But while Conservatives deal with reality, let us also use our imaginations for just one moment. McCain got 55 million votes. Imagine what we could have done with a real candidate.

See, the Republicans nominated a weak candidate. McCain was burdened by being in the same party as an unpopular president, he was outspent in commercials, faced a hostile media, was inarticulate and unable to debate to save his life (or in this case his candidacy)…and he still got 55 million votes. Change any one of these factors and he would have won. So what could we have done with a real Conservative, one who understands Conservativism and therefore can defend it even against all of the above?

There is no reason we can’t have a real candidate in the future. Indeed, if Republicans are paying attention we will get that real candidate in four years.

Moderate Republicanism is a dead-end. And this election demonstrates the fruit of selling out our core principals. If Republicans ignore Conservatives, they lose; it’s that simple. If Americans want Liberalism, they can vote Democrat. If Republicans do not offer an alternative then why are they surprised when they lose?

Just to make it personal, after 2004 I could see that the Republican Party had strayed from its Conservative base. As a result, in 2006 I ceased to call myself a Republican. As Ronald Reagan would have said: “I did not leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left me.” The Republicans ought to have seen the problems in 2006 given their massive losses in Congress. They ought to have realized that they could not win on a moderate ticket; they had to return to their Conservative roots.

They didn’t. Instead, they nominated McCain. Conservatives were told, “Support McCain because he’s electable.” (Good call there, RNC!) But I couldn’t do so. Only after what the media did to Joe the Plummer did I even think to vote for McCain. I never supported McCain, though; I just despised the media. And I’m not at all heartbroken that McCain lost. I had nothing invested in this man.

There’s more reason to hope though than just McCain. The Republican losses extended well beyond the presidency. The Democrats increased their majorities in both branches of Congress. This ought to be a major wake-up call for the Republican Party: you CANNOT win on moderate Republicanism!

Because we’ve now had two straight losses due to moderate Republicanism, even the densest political strategist ought to grasp that. That’s why McCain’s loss should be a good thing for Republicans. See, Conservatives like me are still waiting for you, dear leaders of the RNC, to return from your prodigal path. If you use this opportunity to reform and return to your Conservative roots, you will find success once again…plus I’ll be able to call myself a Republican again.

As I stated earlier, Conservativism is built upon logic. Unfortunately, logic is intentionally no longer taught in public school. But it is not very difficult to grasp for those who are interested in learning it, and simple analogies (which require candidates who are good at thinking on their feet, unlike McCain) can quickly show the error of virtually every fallacy even for those who do not wish to see. We need to teach people logic once again, to show them how empty and hollow Liberal rhetoric is.

Conservative ideas are strong because they are based on reality, not illusory dreams. It is preferable to be the party of rationality than the party of emotionalism, even if most people these days are irrational. This is still a position of strength because (as I also stated above) reality is real. That which is based on reason will win out in the end, no matter how deluded anyone may be.

This is why Conservativism wins. This is why we cannot give up on it for an easy “win” by caucusing with the intellectually lazy.

Related to that, we must argue for our ideas, especially since we do live in irrational times. It is not enough to simply present those ideas and hope others see the logic of the position. We must be able to defend each and every Conservative position. This requires Conservatives to have an understanding of Conservativism; we cannot accept candidates who claim to be Conservatives but who have no understanding of the philosophy behind it. This is how we ended up with moderate Republicans in the first place, and we’ve seen where that leads us. If Republicans seriously want to win again, they need to winnow the field. Cast out the RINOs. Insist that if you are going to call yourself a Republican there are certain philosophical standards you must uphold.

If Republicans do that, then they will begin to win again. But if they do not—if they are still convinced that “moderate” is the way to go—then Conservatives need to take the next step. This election ought to be our line in the sand. If the Republicans won’t return, then it is time for us to get rid of them. It is time for Conservatives to form their own party. Conservatives may have been hesitant in the past because we did not wish to lose everything by dividing the Republican vote with a third party…but Republicans have lost everything anyway. Conservatives have nothing left to lose in forming our own party.

It would naturally be preferable for Republicans to return to the Conservative fold. But this election has shown us that we Conservatives no longer need to be tied to Republicans on the false hope that it will provide us victory. And that, perhaps, is the greatest reason for optimism of all.

So Conservatives take heart. We did not lose this election, and now is the time to take back our party. The chaff has been cleared away, the façade broken. All excuses are banished. Now is our time.

Incidentally, right before I wrote the above post, I also posted:

…I actually look at it with relief to know that now we no longer have to put up with spineless “moderates” under the guise that “they’re still winning.” They’re not. And after four years of hell, Conservatives will be poised to recapture everything (well, we’ll get Congress in 2 years).

So now that we’ve established that I’m a better prophet than Benny Hinn, it’s time for you to all reach deep into your pocket and send me some cash!!!

One of the refrains that leftist newscasters (but I repeat myself) oft repeat is that the Republican Party is in trouble because it embraces its radical right wing kook fringe. The premise is that if the GOP would just get rid of social conservatives and focus only on maintaining fiscal conservatives, the GOP would win elections again.

Given that this advice comes from leftists, conservatives already ought to reject it (since when does the opposition really care about helping their enemy win elections?). However, since there is a libertarian wing that is fiscally conservative while socially liberal, they echo these claims too.

That’s why examining the recent initiatives in California and Maine are so important. In California, the courts ruled that gay marriage should be allowed because there was nothing in the state constitution to deny it. So social conservatives passed a constitutional amendment to outlaw it. Even though Obama carried the state by a wide margin, gay marriage failed.

Ditto in Maine, where the only distinction is that the legislature passed the law instead of the courts ruling it. Still, it was not put to a popular vote, and once it was…gay marriage was defeated. In fact, in every state (31 total) where gay marriage has been put to a vote, it has been defeated.

And more importantly, in the California election, the initiative came at the same time as the presidential election. Which means there were a lot of people casting a vote for Obama and Proposition 8 at the same time. In Maine, homosexual activists were quite vocal in trying to keep the law the legislature had passed, yet they failed too.

Because of libertarians, we know that one can be fiscally conservative and socially liberal. But voting evidence indicates there are also a sizeable number who are fiscally liberal while remaining socially conservative. This is why California and Maine could vote for a liberal president and still vote against gay marriage.

If the GOP wants to win elections, they have to stop nominating “moderate” candidates and return to their socially conservative base. The public consistently votes for socially conservative initiatives even in liberal states. This means liberals must rely on the courts to impose their agenda, because they lack popular support.

Why anyone would consider socially conservative voters to be a weak-point in their party can only be explained by willful blindness.

I love how the media complains that bloggers need to be “fact checked” and yet then they fall for fake quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh without bothering to, you know, “fact check” and all. Irrelevancy would be an upgrade for the lamestreet media.

Here’s hoping Limbaugh sues for libel. In any sane legal system, he’d win. But this is America…

Back in November 2007, I watched the special edition of 2001: A Space Odyssey. At the time, I described the movie this way:

First of all, the movie is long and boring. There’s also some monkeys in it, a talking computer that gets disconnected, and it’s really long. Plus boring.

Other than that the movie was…well, underwhelming isn’t weak enough.

In addition to this rather apt description (if I do say so myself), I also mentioned something about the special commentaries they had:

Ask ten people and they’ll give you two hundred answers about what the movie is about. My favorite [is] Camille Paglia, a feminist whacko, who concludes that when Dave turns off HAL 9000, it’s really a depiction of a sociopathic man raping a woman.

I concluded: “if Dave’s killing of HAL 9000 constitutes a metaphor for rape, then the rest of the movie is a metaphor showing that if you leave a woman unsupervised for five minutes she’ll kill everyone on board the ship…”

So why do I bring this up? Because Camille Paglia has a column in Slate, and I’ve read it semi-consistently for about a year now. Despite her overt liberalism and being in the tank for Obama, I…I agree with almost the entirety of her latest column. She still won’t admit that Obama is the problem (it’s always his advisors who make mistakes, and never him for nominating such incompetent people), but the rest of the article savages Democrats. For the record, I even agree with most of what she says about Republicans, although really her paragraph about Republicans seems to be tacked on as an afterthought, as if she realized “Whoa, the leftist nutroots aren’t gonna let me get away with saying this unless I throw in at least SOMETHING about Republicans too.”

Here are some excerpts from her column (be sure to read the whole thing, linked above):

As an Obama supporter and contributor, I am outraged at the slowness with which the standing army of Democratic consultants and commentators publicly expressed discontent with the administration’s strategic missteps this year. … (Who is naive enough to believe that Obama’s [healthcare] plan would be deficit-neutral? Or that major cuts could be achieved without drastic rationing?)

…

At this point, Democrats’ main hope for the 2012 presidential election is that Republicans nominate another hopelessly feeble candidate.

…

An example of the provincial amateurism of current White House operations was the way the president’s innocuous back-to-school pep talk got sandbagged by imbecilic support materials soliciting students to write fantasy letters to “help” the president (a coercive directive quickly withdrawn under pressure). Even worse, the entire project was stupidly scheduled to conflict with the busy opening days of class this week, when harried teachers already have their hands full. Comically, some major school districts, including New York City, were not even open yet. And this is the gang who wants to revamp national healthcare? [Ed.--bold mine]

…

Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers (one reason for the hypocritical absence of tort reform in the healthcare bills). Weirdly, given their worship of highly individualistic, secularized self-actualization, such professionals are as a whole amazingly credulous these days about big-government solutions to every social problem. They see no danger in expanding government authority and intrusive, wasteful bureaucracy. This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism.

…

Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it’s invisible. The top schools, from the Ivy League on down, promote “critical thinking,” which sounds good but is in fact just a style of rote regurgitation of hackneyed approved terms (“racism, sexism, homophobia”) when confronted with any social issue. The Democratic brain has been marinating so long in those clichés that it’s positively pickled.

There is much more there too. It’s hard to believe this is the same woman who obsessed over male genitalia in her review of 2001 (see here–the comparison of turning off HAL to a psychopath raping a woman begins around the 5:55 mark). I mean, after turning that entire movie into one sexist comment after another (sexist in the sense that the bone at the beginning of the film is a phallic symbol (see also: the ship in space) so everything is sexualized), she here points out that that is exactly what you get from academia.

Most of her article could have been written by a conservative. When a leftist feminist starts thinking this way, it doesn’t bode well for Democrats in 2010.

We now have even more tangible evidence as to why socialized healthcare is a BAD IDEA. Sure, all anyone’s had to do is watch how many Canadians flee to America for healthcare treatment instead of using their lovely Canadian “free” healthcare, but the argument could always be made that Americans will do it better.

Now we can respond with a resounding: “Whatever.”

The problem with socialized healthcare is that the government is involved in the process. And if you want to know what will happen to you on healthcare, then look no further than the boondoggle that was (notice the past tense) the “Cash for Clunkers” program. Yes, that program lasted…a whole six days before the gum’ment realized they were running out of money to fund it.

Quote of the day: “If they [the government] can’t administer a program like this, I’d be a little concerned about my health insurance.” – car salesman Rob Bojaryn (Source).

Here’s some more from the same article that the above quote appeared in, with emphasis added by me:

In a shocker, the government announced it would suspend the program at midnight because demand was too great.

…

On Thursday night we learned the program was only good until midnight, all because of a backlog of red tape. [Note: it’s not ALL because of red tape—ed.]

…

But the money may be running out faster than anyone imagined.

And this encapsulates the problems inherent in government “oversight” of the free market. 1) The government is run by people who have, by and large, never run a lemonade kiosk let alone a business. As a result, they 2) lack the ability to imagine all the relevant reactions to their dictums in a market situation. It wouldn’t have taken a marketing genius to realize that if you give people $4,500 for a car that’s worth $12.87 you’re gonna end up with a lot of worthless junk and not much money, but it does take a government official not to realize it. 3) Additionally, anything that government touches is covered in so much red tape it takes a machete, two flamethrowers, and an ancient Mayan treasure map just to get to the box containing your “prize.” If you look up “efficiency” in the dictionary, you won’t find “government” as a representation of that concept.

With all this in mind, you already know what will happen with socialized medicine. People are told they can get “free” healthcare. If people swamp the market with junk vehicles because they get a good deal, how much more so will they swamp hospitals when they’re told they get free healthcare? It’s a hypochondriac’s dream!

In 2010, this story will be written about healthcare, complete with sentences like: “In a shocker, the government announced it would suspend socialize healthcare at midnight because demand was too great.” And: “On Thursday night we learned the program was only good until midnight, all because of a backlog of red tape.” And: “But the money may be running out faster than anyone imagined.”

Because this is the inevitable result when you let government intrude into the free market.

This is why people should never be arrested for words, other than the obvious exception of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater.

There’s a reason we have the First Amendment. And I’m sorry, but if a telemarketer calls me and I say “I’m going to burn your building down” that’s in no way an illegal threat, IMO. It’s only illegal if I actually, you know, buy gasoline and stuff and set out toward the building.

This is ridiculous.

That Algore. Man, someone should get him a Nobel Prize or something.

I look outside at all the global warming and think, “Thank God Algore is right or we’d be in a freaking ice age right now.”

It’s June. At least, that’s the rumor.

I saw this article about how this June has been the coldest on record in Chicago—seven degrees below average. So I looked up how the weather has been here in Colorado Springs. First I needed to get the baseline averages.

The average high temperature for June in Colorado Springs on the average year is 78 degrees. The average low is 51 degrees. The average mean is 65 degrees.

Incidentally, this proves that the way they calculate the average temperature is just to add the high and the low and divide by two (78 + 51 = 129; 129/2 = 64.5, which rounds to 65). I’ve checked several of the different values from many different places and have gotten this same result. Thus, “average temperature” is a big pile of penguin poo (that’s a shout out to my mom’s blog, for reasons she will know even if you don’t!). Just to give you a radical example of why such an average is pointless, if you had a high of 80 and a low of 70, the average temperature would be 75. But if you had a high of 150 and a low of 0, you’d also have an average temperature of 75. Something tells me these two days are radically different from each other and as such, saying they have the same average temperature is (as reported earlier) a big pile of penguin poo.

Moving on.

Now it’s time to look at what this current June has been doing. Thus far in June 2009, the average high temperature has been 69 degrees. The average low has been 48 degrees. The average has, you guessed it, been 59 degrees.

78 – 69 = 9 degrees cooler than our average high so far this month.
51 – 48 = 3 degrees cooler than our average low so far this month.
65 – 59 = 6 degrees cooler than our average mean so far this month.

Let’s use the 6 degrees because…well, why not? Gotta use something. And Algore doesn’t tell me how he picks the numbers he uses so he can lump it.

6 degrees Fahrenheit = 3.3 degrees Celsius.

Global Warming is supposed to = doom because of a rise of….1.6 degrees C.

But we’re 3.3 degrees C COLDER and THERE IS NO DOOM!

Someone get me a Nobel.

Over on Big Hollywood, I’ve been reading Jon David’s (note: not his real name) series on dating liberals. He’s one of the funnier writers out there. Apparently, he’s got some musical talent too. After the latest date with a liberal, which you can read about here, he penned a song called American Heart.

The song is actually a little “country” for my tastes. (I don’t hate country, but c’mon—gimme metal or gimme death metal.) Even so, it’s a great song. And since Andrew Breitbart himself said we needed to make this go viral, I hope he doesn’t mind me hot-linking to the Big Hollywood website and telling you to listen to the song :