I require a good guffaw. You likely could use one, too. Luckily for the both of us, I managed to find one.
All the squawking sheepleoids on the Loopy Left® love to bleat on and on about how c/Conservatives take everything too seriously and have no sense of humour whatsoever. To listen to them, you’d think we were a bunch of stone-faced golems without a funny bone in our bodies. Not so.
As you might know by now, the Tories have decided to respond to Dion’s carbon tax-and-grab in the only way that it really deserves to be responded to: with one hell of a good belly laugh. So get your tail on over to the website at willyoubetricked.ca, and don’t forget to play Tax Tag while you’re there…
… and get yourself comfy, because this one’s gonna take some time of your day.
First things first: a quick tip o’ the lid to Kate over at SDA for putting something up on this first. It’s a series of posts by Mencius Moldbug over at Unqualified Reservations and it’s not exactly something that you’re likely to file under “light reads” — and you’re sure as hell not going to agree with all of it; I know I don’t — but, as usual, it’s usually the stuff that you have to plough through that gives you the most to think about.
The posts are written as something of an open letter to all those Progressives® out there who have been buggering things up for so long. And no, I haven’t had anywhere near the time to get through all of them yet. Here’s a few excerpts to wet yer whistles, though…
If you are an open-minded progressive, you are probably not a Catholic. (If you are, you probably don’t take the Pope too seriously.) Imagine writing an open letter to Catholics, suggesting ways for them to free their minds from the insidious grip of Rome. That sort of thing is quite out of style these days – and in any case, how would you start? But here at UR, we are never afraid of being out of style. And as for starting, we already have.
Let’s take a look at this independence thing. What exactly is a multilateral declaration of independence? Since it’s not this?
Well, on the sweet and good and true side, MDI seems to involve a change in the ethnicity of government officials. Foreign officials are replaced by native-born officials. Clearly, for example, it would be an outrage for true-born Americans to be governed by a dirty no-good Mex – oh, wait. We’re progressives. We’re not racists. Ethnicity means nothing to us.
“Too weird.” Indeed, weirdness is the mother of doubt. Is it not slightly weird that a twenty-year member of the Church of Hate Whitey could become not only the leading candidate for the Presidency, but the candidate who stands for racial harmony? Is it more weird, or less weird, than the fact that Robert Mugabe had no interest in T.S. Eliot?
The thing is: these things don’t seem weird to me. In the progressive story of the world, they are mysteries. They can be explained, but they need to be explained. In the reactionary story of the world, however, they are firmly in dog-bites-man territory.
The proposition is neither new nor mysterious. We’ll call it Dr. Johnson’s hypothesis – from this quip by the great Doctor. Of course this is not a hypothesis in the scientific sense of the word – we cannot prove it, nor will we try. It is just a phrase you can agree with, or not.
The great advantage of Dr. Johnson’s formulation is that it has a pleasant boolean quality. You can agree or disagree. It is pretty hard to be indifferent. Let’s take it for granted that, as a progressive, you disagree, and we’ll try to figure out what might change your mind.
So here is my claim about government: as a progressive, your theory of government – its history, its principles, even its present-day structure and operation – is nonsense.
Here are the basics: a government should be secure, effective, and responsible. None of this is rocket science. The only secret is that there is no secret.
Let’s define and analyze these qualities individually, assuming the others in each. When we explain how to make a government responsible, we’ll assume it is secure and effective. When we explain how to make it secure, we’ll assume it is effective and responsible. Etc.
In fact, dear progressive, you fear and loathe democracy. Moreover, you are right to do so. Representative democracy is a thoroughly despicable system of government. It is dangerous and impractical at best, criminal at worst. And you hate it like the poison it is.
But first, let’s nail down our terms. The great power center of 2008 is the Cathedral. The Cathedral has two parts: the accredited universities and the established press. The universities formulate public policy. The press guides public opinion. In other words, the universities make decisions, for which the press manufactures consent. It’s as simple as a punch in the mouth.
The Cathedral operates as the brain of a broader power structure, the Polygon or Apparat – the permanent civil service. The Apparat is the civil service proper (all nonmilitary officials whose positions are immune to partisan politics, also known as “democracy”), plus all those formally outside government whose goal is to influence or implement public policy – ie, NGOs. (There’s a reason NGOs have to remind themselves that they’re “non-governmental.”)
Like I said, it’s long as hell and some of it will likely piss you right off. But it’ll make you think…
For those of you that don’t know already, Andrew Coyne’s going to be live blogging C-Sixer Mark Steyn’s little chinwag with the B.C. Human Lefts Tribunalâ„¢ today, starting at 12:30 EST (in about 20 minutes) and going until… well, whenever the clowns get tired and decide to fold up the tent, I guess… Pop over and click your refresh button from time to time to keep updated.
Naturally, I’ll be brazenly plagiarizing/stealing the choicest tidbits and sticking them in this post as the days go on… 😉
This was driving me absolutely batshit. Really, it was.
No, I don’t mean the Human Lefts Commissions (although they do drive me batshit). I’m talking about that nagging, gnawing, “where the hell have I seen this before” deja drive-you-outta-yer-skull vu sensation. It bugged me for damned near two full days. It all started when I tripped over this vid in the first place. It shows Ezra Levant taking a bit out of Ian Fine’s little weasel ass. Check it out:
That’s where it started. And nevermind, just for now, the sheer and utter hypocrisy of what the son of a bitch keeps saying. Forget that, just for a few. I kept looking at Fine mewling about how they didn’t do this and they didn’t do that, with Ezra beating him over the head with the evidence the whole time, and part of my brain was screaming, over and over and over again, “YOU’VE SEEN THIS BEFORE, YOU’VE SEEN THIS BEFORE, YOU’VE SEEN THIS BEFORE!!!!!” It was a pain in the ass, believe me. And then, like a bolt from the blue, it hit me…
Some things really can be posted with no commentary whatsoever.
Things like the speech delivered by American President Ronald Reagan in Pointe Du Hoc, Normandy, on the sixth of June, 1984. The 40th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion (careful, though; it’s kind of a big file)…
Not a whole buttload of time right now so all I’ll do is just say that there’s some serious chapeau acrobatics to Neo over at HOM for tripping over this before I did. It’s pretty long-winded but it’s TOTALLY worth the read. Every child a dauphin, indeed….
Well, in the words of Vladimir Illych Lenin, who had no children, what is to be done? Not very much, I suspect. When such seismic shifts in the culture as that represented by the rise of Kindergarchy take hold, there isn’t much anyone can do but wait for things to work themselves out. My own hope is that the absurdity of current arrangements will in time be felt, and people will gradually realize the foolishness of continuing to lavish so much painstaking attention on their children. When that time comes, children will be allowed to relax, no longer under threat of suffocation by love from their parents, and grow up more on their own. Only then will parents once again be able to live their own lives, free to concentrate on their work, life’s adult pleasures, and those responsibilities that fall well outside the prison of the permanent kindergarten they have themselves erected and have been forced to live in as hostages.
Check it out. You’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.
I require a good guffaw. You likely could use one, too. Luckily for the both of us, I managed to find one.
… and get yourself comfy, because this one’s gonna take some time of your day.
This was driving me absolutely batshit. Really, it was.
Not a whole buttload of time right now so all I’ll do is just say that there’s some serious chapeau acrobatics to 
