Negative Railroad

One of the Chicago Boyz, with a nom de blog of Lexington Green, figured out what Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally was all about:

Beck is building solidarity and cultural confidence in America, its Constitution, its military heritage, its freedom. This is a vision that is despised by the people who have long held the commanding heights of the culture. But is obviously alive and kicking.

Beck is creating positive themes of unity and patriotism and freedom and independence which are above mere political or policy choices, but not irrelevant to them. Political and policy choices rest on a foundation of philosophy, culture, self-image, ideals, religion. Change the foundation, and the rest will flow from that.

Another instance of the failed promise of a post-racial America under President Barry “The Mutt” Obama:

After an emotional meeting Thursday night where neighbors split along racial lines over whether an off-leash dog site should be built at Martin Luther King Memorial Park in south Minneapolis, the Park Board president said other options should be sought.

…much of the debate centered on whether the dog park would dishonor King, the slain civil rights leader.

It’s just an amenity in a City park, not a political statement. And dogs set the standard for judging each other not by the color of their fur, but by the content of their…um, “character”.

The administrator of the premier bicycling bulletin board in Minneapolis is calling it quits:

Candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin have won two-thirds of the time. A little more than half of those winners were non-establishment or Tea Party candidates.

Somewhere in disussions about the power of Sarahcuda, I caught this comment, worthy of a Snark Award:

I can see November from my house!

It is important to keep in mind that almost all the elections where Palin’s horse won were primaries. The dynamic is different when it is a Democrat against a Republican. People still tend to vote for the team instead of the candidate.

But I can’t help but grin when I think of all the leftoids who tried to dismiss Palin as a rube who’s 15 minutes expired two years ago.

Last night the current President took credit for executing a plan devised under the previous President to transfer control of Iraq to Iraqis. He did not mention that the 50,000 troops still in country have the same weapons and take the same risks as the day before, that “the end of combat operations” is an adjustment of administrative label instead of a marked shift in situation.

Barry also did not utter the word “win”. He did manage to say “victory” once, in a non-specific sense:

In an age without surrender ceremonies, we must earn victory through the success of our partners and the strength of our own nation.

Remember, the problem isn't the Democrats, and the solution isn't the Republicans.

Quoted from: Borepatch

Something else you’re not being reminded in arguments about the Hamasque (and in the broader non-dialog concerning the people of Antijudea):

According to the Arab American Institute, the breakdown of religious affiliation among Arab Americans is as follows:

• 63% Christian

Thanks to the latest technological advance, you can enjoy the interactive satisfaction found at community meetings and legislative sessions right from your keyboard.

Try it!

George Will makes two vital points in one paragraph. The first I consider lost amid the chatter of popular rhetoric:

The creation of Israel did not involve the destruction of a Palestinian state, there having been no such state since the Romans arrived.

The Palestinian identity is a recent invention. Yes, there has been that patch of earth sometimes called Palestine (when it wasn’t called Judea or Israel). But the people who lived there were simply arabs, or Egyptians and Jordanians if they needed a political label.

There’s post at Chicago Boyz highlighting the contradictions between leftoid rhetoric and the details of leftoid policy. They say they want to tax the rich and protect the middle class, but can’t define who is in which group. Is a small business owner who shows $200K of revenue rich or middle class?

What really caught my eye were a couple of campaign-worthy slogans for Tea Partiers:

• Shouldn’t “tax cuts” be distributed to those who pay taxes?

• Let the tax rates go back to the Clinton administration rates but let’s also go back to the number of government employees of the Clinton period.

I’ve seen several posts about all the other things within 600 feet of the WTC site. Strip bars, fast food joints, and pretty much eveything a big city offers. The point of the posts, I think, is to counter the notion that the proposed Hamasque site is sacred ground. If there are so many vices so close, how sacred can that spot be?

The counter-counter fielded by the Hamasque opponents is that the building in question was struck by a piece of one the planes. That damage somehow anointed the structure with socio-cultural holiness.

I see merit in both points. But I am not persuaded. On one hand, we’ve got the beginnings of a “George Washington slept here” farce. And we open ourselves to phony relics from “the one True jetliner”. Yet, the surrounding vices only increase the importance of holding some places sacred. If we promised to Never Forget, we do have to be on guard against the encroachment of the mundane.

It seems fair to say that there is a commonly-held belief that the U.S. Government has an obligation to make Social Security payment to those who paid into the program for decades. The benefits are part of contract between workers and the Feds that help ensure nobody has to retire to live on dog food.

Further, there’s a commonly-held idea that there is a Trust Fund, where all those worker payments are being held so there will be money to pay retirees. The promise of a trust fund is probably less trusted by the public, but they still think that they’re owed something from whatever Congress hasn’t already lifted from the trust fund cookie jar.

Well, there is a trust fund, but the cookie jar is full of empty promises instead of genuine savings:

Commenter “The Den Mother” at Neo-neocon pens my next T-shirt idea:

When you lie to Congress, it’s perjury.

When Congress lies to you, it’s campaigning.

Har!

There are some Islamic clerics speaking against the construction of a mosque near the WTC site. Out of respect and a spirit of cooperation, healing and peace?

Nope.

Because it is part of a Jewish conspiracy:

Dr. Abd Al-Mu'ti Bayumi, a member of Al-Azhar's Islamic Research Academy, said that the mosque's construction could link Islam to 9/11, even though Islam is innocent of the deed. He also called the plan a "Zionist plot”.

Dialing back the crazy just a bit (maybe?), here’s another pronouncement from the same interview on the futility of interfaith dialog:

The great illusion of Progressivism is that the middle class can make the poor into the middle class.

Quoted from: Cobb’s Rules