Posts Tagged ‘maryland’

The Best MD Has in the Barn For Now

Posted: February 16, 2024 by datechguy in election 2024
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John Cleese: It was from such an unlikely beginning as an unwanted fungus accidentally growing on a sterile plate that Sir Alexander Fleming gave the world penicillin. James Watt watched an ordinary household kettle boiling and conceived the potentiality of steam power. Would Albert Einstein ever have hit upon the theory of relativity if he hadn’t been clever? All these tremendous leaps forward have been taken in the dark. Would Rutherford ever have split the atom if he hadn’t tried? Could Marconi have invented the radio if he hadn’t by pure chance spent years working at the problem? Are these amazing breakthroughs ever achieved except by years and years of unremitting study? Of course not. What I said earlier about accidental discoveries must have been wrong. 

Monty Python’s Flying Circus A Book at Bedtime 1973

For a very long time there was basically one book on the Falklands War that existed. It was The Battle for the Falklands by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins. It came out in 1984 only two years after the war and has sat on a bookshelf in my home for around 25 or 30 years.

One of the things that struck me from the book was a bit was something that one of the British special services officers mentioned concerning training. It seemed that various nations just wouldn’t believe that it was training and hard work that make them what they were. To paraphrase what he said the various nations militaries all think there is some kind pill they can take if only you would tell them what it is.

I thought of that when I saw the negative reaction to the former Maryland Gov Larry Hogan running for the Senate in the state and when I saw these pols indicating that he may have an easy time of it in that deep blue state:

Note the numbers. He is +7 in a state where Biden is +23 and this makes an important point that needs to be remembered.

If you want to have a strong conservative running in a state, you have to have a state where people understand that conservatism means a better life for them and their families. There will be more responsibility but not only is the potential greater but as a state becomes more successful there will actually be more actual money to build a safety net for those who can’t climb.

Maryland is not such a state, but IT CAN BE.

The problem is you don’t turn a state via a National election or even a Statewide election. In fact even a state legislature race doesn’t do the job, at least not at first.

What you have to do is get strong conservative at the school committee and city/town/ward council levels. Someone local and known who national and state parties will have trouble demonizing. Have them apply conservative solutions to local problems, from the basics in education to the broken windows theory in law enforcement.

As these solutions work such people can seek higher office with a record of success while folks inspired by said success replace them at that bottom rung.

That’s the real work of building a party and convincing people that they will have a better life.

It’s not easy, there will be pushback and of course it takes time but when you do that the end result is model schools, model neighborhoods and successful towns and cities and that is how you turn a country and then a state.

In a state like this. You would not have to settle for a Larry Hogan to carry the GOP banner. There would be a solid bench of conservatives who the public trusts who could run and win given the GOP the ability to prevent leftist judges from reaching the bench and having a reliable conservative vote when you need it.

Alas that day is not yet here. So until we have a party ready and willing to do the heavy lifting to change hearts and minds my suggestion.

Let’s get Behind Mr. Hogan, get the senate majority and be happy to get a 70-30 guy in a state where the GOP has no business having a senator and work for the day when Mr. Hogan can be upgraded to a stronger conservative.

And if we aren’t willing to do the work then let’s be grateful that we can manage even him.

Gay Marriage fails yet again

Posted: March 14, 2011 by datechguy in culture
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This time in overwhelmingly democratic Maryland:

The withdrawal capped a tumultuous few weeks, which began with the bill’s sponsors saying that its passage was all but assured and that Maryland would soon become the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage.

But the closer the bill got to a final vote, the bumpier its path became. One of its co-sponsors, Delegate Tiffany T. Alston, a freshman Democrat from Prince George’s County, had withdrawn her support, apparently bowing to pressure from her constituency, which contains a powerful religious community.

Dan Riehl point out the obvious:

Many of the arguments against running conservatives are false arguments spun by the Left which the GOP establishment embraces because the media embraces them.

How many states are we going to concede to liberalism? We’ve done that for so long, we’re now in a place where a Leftist like Obama can get elected without being exposed until he gets into office. If the pattern continues, you can forget conservative. We’re almost at a tipping point where we’ll never have a conservative Washington because we accept the notion that conservatism can’t win in so may places, especially due to social issues.

As you might guess Jonathan Capeheart is very angry:

The outrage directed at Arora is understandable. As is the sense of betrayal. He raised money from gays and lesbians based on his support for marriage equality. He secured the endorsements of Progressive Maryland and of Equality Maryland because of it. In fact, get a load of what he wrote as an addendum to his questionnaire for Equality Maryland. emphasis mine

Hang on a second I’m confused. Haven’t we been hearing the left screaming about money in politics (particularly from the Koch family)? Doesn’t the left believe that reps should be voting based on the wishes of the people they represent and not donors? Apparently not, check some of the gay sites, they are very angry about people they gave money to voting against them.

So we must conclude the rules are as follows:

If you get money from the right and you vote your constituents vs your donors, you are a brave independent voice.

If you get money from the left and you vote your constituents vs your donors, you are a traitor.

Any questions?

Polls vs Actions

Posted: March 4, 2011 by datechguy in catholic, culture, politics
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I’ve talked a bit about the difference between what a poll might say vs actual actions.

Early this morning insty linked to this post at hotair concerning polling on libertarian issues such as Gay Marriage.

Forgetting the splits lets see how this actually works in practice in a couple of blue states:

Getting a gay marriage bill through the Rhode Island House of Representatives with Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s support and a new openly gay House speaker was supposed to be a cakewalk. Instead, as The Boston Phoenix (an alternative paper) reports: “The end game is proving trickier than advocates had hoped. … They’ve been caught off guard by the prowess of the church, which has joined with the nation’s leading anti-gay marriage group to mount a surprisingly potent defense of the status quo.”

And in Maryland another deep blue state things are getting interesting too:

This week in Maryland, black Democrats from progressive districts are beginning to jump ship. First Melvin Stukes, a co-sponsor of a gay marriage bill in that state’s House of Delegates, unexpectedly announced he was switching sides.

A few days later, two black Democrats counted as “yes” votes suddenly went missing, refusing to show up for a committee vote, which had to be postponed.

Maryland is a deep blue state — core Democratic territory — but opposition to gay marriage is also surging

And the reason?

The reaction has been extraordinary! The black church in particular has risen to this occasion in an extraordinary way. Whose vision and whose values count to the Democratic leadership in the Maryland legislature, black pastors are asking? Well, maybe this week they will find out!

If the trends where with them the democrats would not have the trouble they are having. It’s precisely because they don’t have the numbers that it’s necessary to push without public support.

A peek around the field guide

Posted: May 22, 2010 by datechguy in Uncategorized
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Let’s take a peek around a few blogs in the field guide:

We will start with Cynthia Yockey who explained what liberal taxation did to a once thriving film industry in Maryland:

Maryland’s film industry caught my eye. Not too long ago, the Baltimore-Washington area was third in the country after Los Angeles and New York for film and TV production. However, thanks to Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley and a Democratic-majority legislature full of believers in high taxes and big government — who also, disastrously, have no comprehension whatsoever of the concept of competition, or the remotest inkling that they were in one where the film business was concerned AND WINNING — Maryland’s film industry has been almost completely destroyed

The mindset was explained thusly:

“It’s like, if I gave you one dollar and you gave me back 20 cents, you’d still have made 80 cents. But the state doesn’t think of it as making 80 cents. They just think, ‘Hey, we gave you 20 cents!‘”

Not the best news plan if you want to create jobs, does anyone else have a different plan?

At American Freedom Barbara Espinosa is not thrilled with the president of Mexico these days:

How will drones be able to stop the violence, sure it can pinpoint a location and take a picture? The use of drones will help law enforcement patrol the border more effectively.. That is a big problem the real conservatives have with the GOP.
Build the fence and push for it. All Democrats are trying to do is acquire a new voting populace. He has no intention of enforcing existing laws. And Calderon is NOT on our side. What has he done to take care of his own populace? What has he done to create jobs, REALLY fight the corruption? I call BS and if you really represent us, you will too.

She has some VERY GRAPHIC EXAMPLES of what is going on just over the border.

The Lonely Conservative’s headline and first paragraph says it all:

Millions of Deaths Be Damned! Dalai Lama is Still a Marxist!. No wonder his people live in exile and poverty. Ironic that they’re in exile from a Marxist land. When it comes to Marxist ideology common sense never has been in vogue.

You would think Tibet never happened. Robert Stacy has a suggestion.

Meanwhile on a different subject Andrea of the Job corps fraud blog finds the bugs in the system bedbugs that is:

While trolling the internet for buried stories about Job Corps mis-management I found a Facebook Page called The Scupper. This is no ordinary page mind you, its author is apparently a student/staff who wanted to share the truth behind the bed bug infestation at Flint/Genesee Job Corps Center… The Scupper’s site is replete with pictures and information that has so far been successfully white-washed by its “business community liaison ” Verona Terry. She/he did a great job downplaying the seriousness of the situation and minimizing the size and scope of the infestation.

It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence.

and finally speaking of confidence DaScienceGuy notes a problem with people who fund research:

What bothers me is that I have been reading a lot of history books. There is no doubt in my mind that scientists, engineerings, experimentalists, etc are responsible for things like the wheel, things like the laser….All manner of stuff.

Modern day politicians and companies have the folks who fund this research so scared that if a project doesn’t work they’ll be fired that you almost can’t get research funded that is anywhere risky. You almost have to prove it will work before you can get funding to make it work.

How do you make REAL progress doing this. Sure you can make incremental progress made but real revolutionary process can’t be done.

Of course it would be a lot easier to fund science if people weren’t making stuff up.