Ace of Spades HQ

« Remember When the Media Was So Concerned About "Hate Radio"? | Main | Hate Radio: Liberals Condone "Full-Scale Civil War" »

November 12, 2004

Who's Voting on Values?

Charles Krauthammer debunks the "Angry White Christian" theory of the election.

Andrew Stuttaford makes a point that I think needs further exploration:

Amid all the weird, wild wailing in Manhattan, amid the hot air and hysteria in Hollywood, amid all the crazy-lady shrieks of mainstream-media anguish (yes, Maureen, I'm talking about you) and the banshee howling of liberal complaint, Americans heard one overarching theme from the disappointed and distraught left — one meme, one fear, one insult that finally spoke its name. Jesusland (that's what they call it now) had won.

The left likes to imagine that the right votes almost exclusively on these irrational culture-war issues.

But read the words of the left. Look at what seems most hateful to them-- not the War in Iraq, hated though that is. Not Bush's stand against increasing the minimum wage. Not partial privatization of Social Security. Not the so-called "jobless recovery."

No-- it's that "Jesusland" won the election.

Recall that Clinton was never popular with the left until he traded DNA with an intern.

Who, precisely, is voting on "values"? Who is animated chiefly by their idiosyncratic (and irrational, or at least not logically proveable) beliefs about what sort of sexual climate is best for us all?

The left is voting on "values," too. In fact, sometimes it seems hard to discern what the hard left is interested in apart from the culture war. They have values they cherish and seek to evangelize to the nation through politics.

Guys-- you can't whine endlessly about gay marriage and The Passion of the Christ and how uptight this bourgeois country of ours is (gee, it's practically 1952 again!) and then sit there and critique your opponents for voting on "values."

You're voting on values too-- or rather for the rubbishing of them.

Some people are voting for Jesus, yes. But can you really deny that many of you aren't voting on your hatred of Jesus-- and your obsessive desire to see the hated religion Christianity once and for all branded an antisocial cult?

I had a funny argument one time. I think liberals make this argument constantly.

A guy was saying we shouldn't have a flag-burning amendment, because "it just doesn't matter either way." There were more important issues, he asserted.

Fine, I said. If it doesn't matter either way, stop opposing it, let us pass it, and then we can deal with these more important issues of which you speak.

No, he said. It's unconstitutional and bad for the country.

I thought it "just didn't matter either way"? I queried.

It doesn't matter, he reasserted. It's a non-issue.

If it's a non-issue, I patiently re-explained, then you ought to be neutral about whether we have a flag-burning amendment or not. Obviously, you have a strong opinion on it, so stop claiming that you "don't care either way." You do care-- passionately. You're using this "who cares?" claim -- a false claim, by the way-- as a way to denigrate your opponents for bothering to care, while refusing to admit that you care just as much as they do.

But I don't care, he told me once again.

Then let it pass, I suggested once again.

No, he said firmly. It's unconstitutional and will bring this country back into the dark ages.

And on. And on. And on. And on.

I don't understand how the left can continue to delude itself that these issues are "irrelevant" and "not even things we should be discussing" when they are clearly, themselves, so animated by these issues.

They have very firm ideas on what "values" this nation ought to embrace. They're just not willing to discuss what those values might be-- at least not publicly.

Hence, the perpetual claim that these issues are beneath them and of little concern to any enlightened person. And yet they're what they vote on, cycle after cycle after cycle.

posted by Ace at 01:21 PM

Comments

You can take it a step farther and suggest that their hatred of religion is even more dangerous because they have adopted a religion of their own. They just don't recognize it as such and that's why it's more dangerous. And central to their own gospel is denigration of religion--Christianity in particular.

Whether the religion is Anti-Americanism or Collectivism or Atheism or Snotty Dipshitism I haven't determined.

Posted by: spongeworthy on November 12, 2004 01:39 PM

Church of the Snotty Dipshitists. I like it!

Posted by: Sharp as a Marble on November 12, 2004 02:06 PM

Your Blog is precisely right. But "I don't understand how the left can continue to delude itself"??? Yet we do know how they delude themselves. They have no real absolute values of any kind, merely a set of prejudices and things they think they oppose because alcoholic lechars like Ted Kennedy say so. Or because it means they get easy sex to be a part of that group. Being a Leftie is more of a social thing, it gains one entre into social groups that even Republicans envy for their casual sex and partying. And to be a Hero of such a group - WOW! Michael Moore does what he does not out of conviction, but because it allows a disgusting, ugly, fat slob to live like a Roman Emperor! Yes, sadly we do know how they delude themselves. Satan uses the same-old, same-old over and over again.

Posted by: 72VIRGINS on November 12, 2004 02:10 PM

I think it's more an issue of them hiding their true convictions, a la Kerry flip-flopping. As Ann Coulter once said, "If the American people understood what Liberals really believed, they'd boil them in oil."

Posted by: Golden Boy on November 12, 2004 02:30 PM

Mmmm, deep fried Wonkette. Tasty.

Posted by: Joe R. the Unabrewer on November 12, 2004 02:34 PM

Great point, Ace.

I think the American left joins the jihadists in valuing suicide. Why else would Michael Moore have bestirred himself to argue against suicide? More on that on my blog at:

http://paragraphfarmer.blogspot.com/2004/11/counsel-of-michael-moore.html

Posted by: Patrick O'Hannigan on November 12, 2004 02:37 PM

Golden Boy: Yes Ann Coulter is right, as always. But believing that they have a right to mooch off of others for a living, have sex lives like Caligula, and be accountable and responsible to no one and nothing except their own selfish lust and greed is a long way from having absoloute values.

Posted by: 72VIRGINS on November 12, 2004 02:51 PM

the funny part of all this to me is that, frankly, the left is obscenely stupid about who the right is.

Look, this is a blog with some fairly intellectually and possibly politically active conservatives checking in all the time.

And many of us spend much of our time here discussing lesbians on Survivor, speculating on Wonkette's personal life, and/or reliving our heady Dungeons and Dragons filled youths.

Most of us would prefer traditional values be respected instead of denigrated. And many of us are quite religious. But the absurd notion that Bob Jones III will be crowned emperor next week persists on the left in spite of any sustainable evidence.

They want an enemy. And they'll twist us into one no matter what the facts are on the ground.

Posted by: See-Dubya on November 12, 2004 03:55 PM

You nailed it right here I think:

They have very firm ideas on what "values" this nation ought to embrace. They're just not willing to discuss what those values might be-- at least not publicly.

That, at least was the case 110% on a messageboard I eventually got kicked off of for pissing so many libs off. All anyone would *ever* say is "bush is a retard" "his plan is wrong" "bush lied" - but god forbid one applies the thumbscrews to them and ask them to come up with a better plan - you know, anything that could actually be debated. For the life of them, they simply couldn't do it. It got to the point where it was funny (to me) and I'd just bait them all day long. At that point, we'd stopped talking about motorcycles which gave the mod's enough of an excuse to say I'd upset the apple cart, and I was banned.

This was all about 8 months ago, the ban was only for 5 days. The only post I've made since being banned was on 11/3 and it read something to the effect of:

Elected, not selected. Bitches.

Haven't gone back since.

Posted by: fat kid on November 12, 2004 04:18 PM

Ace,

Let me try and follow your liberal friend's logic. Passing a Constitutional amendment that says flag burning is illegal is unconstitutional. The income tax is illegal people should add that to their list of excuses--the amendment allowing an income tax is unconstitutional. If it's part of the Constitution it is constitutional. These guys are amazing.

Posted by: Dale on November 12, 2004 06:07 PM

Hm. Well, that's a plan. Taperecord those two lines "If it doesn't matter then let it pass," and "Yes, you do care." and we can keep the liberals forever arguing about whether or not they care instead of having to put up with them in the next election.

Posted by: Beka on November 12, 2004 10:12 PM

Talk about pinning the tail right on the Donkey's liberal leftist ass. Nice job Ace. I think that to a lot of people who chose the "Moral values" issue were saying that obviously lying about what you stand for in order to get elected shows a lack of "moral values". The split up of Iraq and the War on Terror was a flagrant attempt to dilute the importance of that issue too. To security hawks, Iraq and the WOT are one and the same, but they were likely to choose the WOT as their issue. Anti war weenies who don't think they are related were more likely to seperate Iraq and the WOT and vote against Bush based on Iraq. Totaly snow job.

Posted by: Dacotti on November 13, 2004 12:06 AM

Lipovarin Review Lipovarin Info Facts about Lipovarin

Lipovarin Information Lipovarin FACTS Lipovarin REVIEWS
Lipovairn reviews and fact and this special weight loss product.
Lipovarin Review Lipovarin Info Facts about Lipovarin

Lipovarin Information Lipovarin FACTS Lipovarin REVIEWS
Lipovairn reviews and fact and this special weight loss product.

Posted by: lipovarin on May 19, 2005 06:07 PM

Amazon.com Widgets

Now Available!
The Deplorable Gourmet
A Horde-sourced Cookbook
[All profits go to charity]

Top Headlines

Kid punks CNN chump by speaking truth to retard

Podcast: CBD and Sefton talk birthright citizenship, the 14th Amendment and SCOTUS, no boots in Iran, Artemis II and refocusing NASA, the NBA's hatred of everything non-woke, and more!

In more marketing for Project Hail Mary, scientists say they've found the biosigns indicating life growing on an alien planet. It's not proof, just signatures of chemicals that are produced by biological metabolism, and it could be nothing, but scientists think it's a strong sign that this planet is inhabited by something.

In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023.
Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it's only produced by living organisms.
"It is a shock to the system," Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. "We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal."

He means they tried to prove the signal was caused by things other than dimethyl sulfide but they could not.

Artemis moon shot a go, scheduled for 6:24 Eastern time tonight
Great marketing arranged by Amazon to promote Project Hail Mary. Okay not really but it does work out that way.

TJM talks John Boorman, director of Excalibur

Good rickroll

What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]

TJM acts like he knows anything about John Wick and screenwriting. It's embarrassing, really.

Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!

Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."

Batman fires The Batman
Batman is disgusted by the Joachim Phoenix version of Joker
Batman tries to fire Superman
Batman is still workshopping his Bat-Voice

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
And I was here to please
I'm even on knees
Makin' love to whoever I please
I gotta do it my way
Or no way at all

Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)

Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]

TJM gives you a brief tour of his movie collection.

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter
One day I'm gonna get that faculty together
Remember that everybody has to wait in line
Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine

US decimation of Iran's ICBM forces is due to Space Force's instant detection of launches -- and the launchers' hiding places -- and rapid counter-attack via missiles
AI is doing a lot of the work in analyzing images to find the exact hiding place of the launchers. Counter-strikes are now coming in four hours after a launch, whereas previously it might have taken days for humans to go over the imagery and data.