Overnight Open Thread (11-12-2014)

Still feeling a bit newtish but I'm getting better.

Quote of the Day I

Quote of the Day II

"A rule not ultimately backed by the threat of violence is merely a suggestion. States rely on laws enforced by men ready to do violence against lawbreakers. Every tax, every code and every licensing requirement demands an escalating progression of penalties that, in the end, must result in the forcible seizure of property or imprisonment by armed men prepared to do violence in the event of resistance or non-compliance. Every time a soccer mom stands up and demands harsher penalties for drunk driving, or selling cigarettes to minors, or owning a pit bull, or not recycling, she is petitioning the state to use force to impose her will. She is no longer asking nicely."

On Forbearance: or, Why I Pity Jonathan Chait

Chait lets his hate flag fly:

We should all endeavor to be dispassionate and fair. It's only fair to try to understand Republicans' thinking, engage with their arguments on their own terms, and concede when they have a fair point. I know Republicans, and some of them are lovely human beings. That doesn't mean I want one of them to move in next door and marry my daughter...

There are millions of Americans who think it's okay to deny legal citizens their voting rights or force them to go without health insurance. Those people live in a different moral universe than I do. They're not necessarily bad people. (Lord knows the people who agree with me on those things are not all good.) But, yes, I believe their political views reflect something unflattering about their character.

And Sonny Bunch responds:

Chait's piece is a handy reminder of the old maxim: "Conservatives think liberals are wrong; liberals think conservatives are evil." The smug invocation of moral superiority, the silly suggestion that conservatives revel in denying people health insurance, the tossed off notion that voter ID laws are secretly about disenfranchising poor minorities: it's a warped worldview, one created not by rational thinking but by blind hatred. The refusal to contemplate that maybe-just maybe!-people can honorably disagree is remarkably damaging to the polity. It's an ideal that invites a sort of Total Political War, the sort of ideological combat that can rip a nation asunder.

...This is why I feel pity more than anything else for Chait and those who think like him. His lack of empathy and inability to set aside his ideological prejudices must close him off to so many people and so many experiences. It seems like an extremely sad way to go through life.

Plus Ed Driscoll noted a while back that Jonathon Chait is pretty much a one man inflection point in the slow destruction of contemporary political discourse.

Instapundit on Bruce Springsteen and Dave Grohl's Cover of 'Fortunate Son' on Veteran's Day

The thing is, I love Creedence Clearwater Revival, but even in its original form the song Fortunate Son is a big steaming pile of hypocritical horseshit. John Fogerty wrote it after doing one-weekend-a-month Army Reserve duty designed to keep him away from Vietnam. It was the sort of deal a lot of people got, not just "Senator's sons," and his bandmate Doug "Cosmo" Clifford - the most underrated drummer of rock's ascendancy - swung a similar Coast Guard gig.

Meanwhile, Fogerty says he wrote the song as "my confrontation with Richard Nixon," but in fact Nixon refused the military exemption he was entitled to as a Quaker and served in the Pacific during World War Two.

Basically, whenever lefties go all moralistic, you can be pretty sure they're being hypocritical. Because that's just how they rock and roll.

California Once Again a Shall-Issue CCW State

For now - unless the Supreme Court says otherwise.

Peruta is settled law in 9th. There is no one to appeal. If you live in CA, you may now do a victory dance and exercise your natural civil rights in CA. "Self defense" must be recognized as a good cause for a carry permit. Sheriffs are going to have to start abiding by Peruta if they are not already.

It also means it's now extremely likely that the Supreme Court will take up a "may issue" carry case, because the 9th is now in direct conflict with other decisions. There are two other cases - including Baker (HI may-issue) - pending in the 9th Circuit which depend on Peruta. Probably one of those gets appealed (likely, Baker).

Why Lena Dunham Triggers the American Right

[Note that this site seems to have a white supremacist/anti-semitic taint which I wasn't aware of when I linked the article until commenters pointed this out. Leaving the link here for the record with this warning and obviously without any endorsement]

And thus we get closer to the real reason conservatives of all stripes hate-yes hate-Lena Dunham. (Or, as leftists would say, find her "threatening.") Everything about her existence is a representation of decadence in human form, wrapped in a cloak of victimhood. The current insistence that parading her childhood pervasions should be celebrated is only the latest example. Dunham is the crystallized essence of the leftist commentariat demanding we accept obvious untruths: that 2+2=5, that ugly must be called beautiful, and that writing out the equivalent of scrawling dirty words on a bathroom stall is cause for tribute and celebration.

...It's like they're daring us to call out the lie. Lena Dunham is the walking reductio ad absurdum of feminism, of liberalism,  and of the managerial state-a terrifyingly prominent homunculus spawned by this monstrous cultural machine.

Blue on Blue: James Wolcott Takes a Blowtorch to Lena Dunham

Apparently she even annoys the lefty establishment.

Such is the critical protection racket for the Lena Dunham legend that even Daum's comparison of her subject to Woody Allen and J. D. Salinger was found not flattering, but mildly deflating. "Comparing Lena Dunham to Woody Allen Is Unfair-To Lena Dunham," contended a headline at the Indiewire site, assuming a contrarian stance. "Likening the 'Girls' Auteur to Allen and Salinger predictably raises hackles," the subhead read, "but what had they done at her age?" The author, critic, and hackles-tamer Sam Adams, wrote, "It's worth pointing out that at 28, which is Dunham's age now, Woody Allen was a successful but not widely known comedy writer and standup comic who had yet to release his first album, and J. D. Salinger was still four years away from publishing The Catcher in the Rye." The article neglects to note that perhaps the reason Salinger didn't match Dunham's precocious output was because his early twenties were interrupted by something known as World War II (it was in all the papers), during which the future novelist was drafted, landed ashore at Utah Beach on D-Day, took part in the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Hurtgen Forest, interrogated prisoners of war as a member of the counter-intelligence division, and bore witness to one of the newly liberated concentration camps, a sub-camp of Dachau; after the war, Salinger entered a mental hospital, suffering from what today would be designated post-traumatic stress disorder. So the guy was busy.

The AR-15 Soda Can Launcher

BATF approved and not considered to be a destructive device or firearm. (Cans not included)

Foreplay According to the Feminist SJWs

But I'm pretty sure even the SJWs don't have sex like this either. This is for the unenlightened little people who are prone to getting rapey without a sex checklist.

Candygram For Winston

Life Insurance Restrictions For Space Tourists

Kinder, Gentler KKK Now Open to Jews, Gays, and Blacks

This can't help but make me think of this video.

The Group knows what you did.

Tonight's post brought to you by WWI as a bar fight:

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Surprise badger attack!!

posted by Maetenloch at 09:28 PM

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