Archive for the ‘internet/free speech’ Category

…and Cynthia Yockey rebutts

Posted: August 6, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news, the courts
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You’ve read and examined my opinion of Gay Marriage. Making the case for the other side a blogger I respect who is just as nice in person as she is committed to what she believes, my friend Cynthia Yockey:

The fundamental rationale social conservatives advance for denying equal treatment to lesbians and gays under the law — including the liberty and freedom to choose sexual partners and spouses on the same bases that straight people use: sexual attraction and love — is that gays are intrinsically evil.

This of course is not the Catholic position but the number of people who make that argument is not insignificant to say the least.

Read her whole post and her others on the subject. Her opinion is worth hearing and understanding. After all once can’t be secure in one’s own opinion and beliefs and be unwilling or unable to hear the other side without rancor.

Hitchens and St. Jude

Posted: August 4, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, internet/free speech, oddities
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Today this tweet came from the Shrine of St. Jude:

Today is the Day of Prayer for Cancer at the National Shrine of St. Jude. Today we pray in a special way for all those affected by cancer.

On the same day one of the worlds most famous atheists pens an article called Topic of Cancer where he talks about the effects of radiation therapy:

Myself, I love the imagery of struggle. I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient. Allow me to inform you, though, that when you sit in a room with a set of other finalists, and kindly people bring a huge transparent bag of poison and plug it into your arm, and you either read or don’t read a book while the venom sack gradually empties itself into your system, the image of the ardent soldier or revolutionary is the very last one that will occur to you. You feel swamped with passivity and impotence: dissolving in powerlessness like a sugar lump in water.

Even as we regret the sad ending to an exciting story and empathize with certain battles that are lost; “If Penélope Cruz were one of my nurses, I wouldn’t even notice.”“, it is apparent that he struggles with cancer he hasn’t ended his struggle against redemption to wit:

Instead, I am badly oppressed by a gnawing sense of waste. I had real plans for my next decade and felt I’d worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read—if not indeed write—the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger emphasis mine?

Ah yes the villainy of the pope, that arch meddler who still leads a church that insists on praying for him and doing its all to grab him from the abyss he cannot see and refuses to acknowledge. Some things never change.

I’ve often said that people have the rest of their lives to ridicule, abandon or live without the grace of God for their satisfaction and the approval of the world, after that they’re on their own. For Mr. Hitchens that reality is closing in, but in fact it closes in on all of us every day. The difference is that Chris Hitchens is aware of it. May the rest of us not forget.

Via Robert Stacy’s post titled Just another Deadline:

Memeorandum thread here.

Update: The Anchoress response reminds me of the nuns at the convent at the end of Cyrano de Bergerac

And Tea party fans would care about this because?

Posted: August 3, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, tea parties
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TPM has a great suggestion for liberals who can’t seem to actually prove that Tea Party members are in fact racists, show up at Tea Party events with Confederate flags.

A pseudonymous liberal blogger in Washington state hopes that progressives across the country will show up to tea party rallies on September 12

Because nothing says people on the right are racist like leftists showing up at their rallies carrying Confederate Flags, but that’s not all they really have a great plan to get Tea party People riled up.

and — if it’s legal — light up a confederate flag so tea partiers can watch it burn

Apparently Evan McMorris-Santoro is so ignorant that he believes that the Tea parties are all a bunch of confederates just waiting for a new chance to reinstate slavery. (Paging Shirley Sherrod anyone?). Do you really think any of us give a damn if you burn a confederate flag or no?

The Civil War flag of the Massachusetts 15th from Leominster Mass.

Mr. Santoro let me show you a picture from a tea party rally I attended. It’s the Flag of the Massachusetts 15th regiment that fought in some very tough civil war battles. It’s being held by a tea party member at a tea party flag day event. You will note that their hands aren’t burning from contact with a union flag.

Ironically if the Capital police don’t allow it you to set fires (Considering the crowd size that is highly likely) what will you end up with? A bunch of liberals holding confederate flags at a rally. What are you going to do then? Hire another batch of “Progressives” to act outraged?

Then again you guys are getting better, back in January liberals didn’t know one flag from another.

When you create a phony stereotype of the tea parties you make fools out of yourselves, you sound like the type of people who send racist gift baskets.

memeorandum thread here.

Two last things concerning Bainbridge’s post…

Posted: August 3, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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…first of all I must link to Roxeanne De Luca’s excellent piece that not only linked to mine, but puts the lie to his anti-intellectual point that the professor tried to make:

While Bielat is the only one of those guys (and gals) who pulled off the double-Ivy education, one can hardly call the small army of JDs, CPAs, MBAs, and professors “anti-intellectual”. One then has to wonder at Bainbridge’s assertions: who, among this growing conservative movement, is really “anti-intellectual”? Are we stupid? uneducated? have the audacity to think that our BC, Georgetown, and Tufts educations are not so dismal as to disqualify us from public debate and office? or just not relentlessly focused on degrees obtained two decades ago? is what is happening in Massachusetts not representative?

As they say, read the whole thing as the young lady with TWO DEGREES of her own defends the tea party she is so much a part of.

Secondly and more importantly as I re-read his piece I noticed something that I hadn’t caught in his 10th point, lets review:

Whatever happened to smart, well-read, articulate leaders like Buckley, Neuhaus, Kirk, Jack Kent, Goldwater, and, yes, even Ronald Reagan? emphasis mine

Even Ronald Reagan? EVEN RONALD REAGAN?! That sentence, the idea that: Today’s conservatives are so dumb they even make Ronald Reagan look smart, well-read and articulate, brings me back to my college days.

Starting college 8 months into Reagan’s first term I recall the way that liberals treated Reagan with disdain and/or fear. My favorite professor the spectacular Ed Thomas, (the best history teacher I ever had) used to talk about how Reagan “Scared him”. Liberals reacted with glee when he got the nomination. They couldn’t believe he won.

But I also remember how elite conservatives absolutely HATED him. They hated his small town background, they hated that he was a Hollywood actor, they hated his abandonment of realpolitik saying bluntly what the Soviet Union actually was, they hated him because he was so comfortable in his own skin and beliefs they he didn’t feel the need to seek their approval.

Most of all they hated that due to his success and popularity among the idiot people that they had to pay homage to someone so obviously beneath them to get elected or to be supported.

Remind you of anyone today?

We have seen this last point often in the last few years among the leftist media and pols (who can’t believe and won’t forgive Reagan for drawing more sympathy in death than Ted Kennedy) who now avoid criticizing him, acting as if they had been with him all the time.

I had almost totally forgotten the absolutely visceral hatred some Republicans had for Ronald Reagan. Thank you Professor Bainbridge for reminding me of an important lesson from the days of a full hairline.

Update: An Instalanche in my sleep. Very odd to wake up and find my first post of yesterday to be linked by Glenn at the very end of the day. Nice to have you all. You may want to check out the article I put up at Examiner.com on the subject called:
Conservatives in Massachusetts should be grateful not embarrassed by the Tea Party that answers the point concerning Tea Parties.

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