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Conservative Affirmative Action
I believe that people should be judged on their abilities alone. I admire people of all persuasions who do well at their chosen path. Mostly I am talking about people's ability to do a job well. Be they in business, be they a bureaucrat, be they a lawyer, doctor, or architect, be they warriors, be they athlete, artist, writer, scientist, teacher, or politician (well not many of those). I don't wish to sound too high-flying here because there are many economists, activists, socialist, and progressives whom I don't respect though they may be considered to be doing well what they do. I don't like them for what they do. To avoid being criticized by the nit-pickers for minor chinks in my broad statement, no I don't like dictators, criminals, and crazy fundamentalists, Et cetera.
In other words I believe in meritocracy, the kind of thing that de Tocqueville admired about America, one of the things that has contributed to our greatness as a people. I don't care for people who are proponents of mediocrity at almost any level of our society. Or those that get ahead by political pull, or nepotism, or criteria other than competency. Or those who discriminate against other because of their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual preference, physical disability, thus not giving people who may be competent a chance to demonstrate what they can do.
This article isn’t about Dancing With The Stars or Bristol Palin. It’s about meritocracy, the conservative movement, and Sarah Palin. I don't watch this show, but I have to start with Bristol.
It is with regret that I must disapprove of Rush Limbaugh on his glee at the support Bristol Palin received by the phone-in audience which resulted in a superior dancer, Brandy, being kicked off "Dancing With The Stars." His glee related to his belief that the callers were mostly conservative Sarah Palin supporters and "Tea Party activists" and that "liberals" and "Progressives" were outraged by this turn of events. He believes that the majority of Americans are supporters of Mrs. Palin and anything they can do to irritate liberals and the "drive-by-media" is a good thing.
While it is difficult to disagree with the irritating liberals part, I believe he does a disservice to the conservative cause. Bristol Palin is clearly a mediocre dancer and Brandy was clearly a fine dancer. This is not about Mr. Limbaugh, whom I respect, it's about people supporting mediocrity for ideological reasons. It's not right. It is a kind of conservative affirmative action whereby people of lesser abilities are given support and credence though they are clearly unqualified.
I believe Mrs. Palin is a mediocre politician and generally uniformed and ignorant of the reasons behind the ideals she espouses, but that she gets paid a lot of money to say them as the Mama Grizzly to her fans. Many of my readers were unhappy with my recent criticism of Mrs. Palin. I've lost a few readers but actually have gained quite a few more as a result. Now that I am being critical of Mr. Limbaugh as well, I suppose I'll lose some readers and gain even more. Whatever.
I think my real point is that if we conservatives and libertarians are willing to accept mediocre leaders and politicians, then we will lose ground to the left and yield the field to the Obama Regressives. We do need charismatic, articulate, intelligent, and informed leaders. I believe Mrs. Palin gives us charisma and she reads speeches well, but she is avoiding tough interviews. She has demonstrated that she is mediocre, uninformed, and cannot well articulate or argue the issues underlying complex ideals which guided our Founders.
By setting the bar too low, and opening our arms to Mrs. Palin we will get what we deserve. I think even George W. Bush is more competent than Mrs. Palin, and he trashed the Republican Party and turned into to a movement of conservative Christian social values instead of traditional Republican values.
I believe such affirmative action shows that we are failing to live up to ideals that made this country great, which is to support people of merit and ability who support, understand, and can be effective advocates of our ideas of freedom, free market capitalism, individualism, and tolerance. I intensely dislike Mr. Obama's politics, economics, and general world view. But the guy is bright and articulate and can think on his feet, even if his world view is entirely wrong for America. He is persuasive, but he falls on his ideas. I am not suggesting we support losers like Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, Al Gore or Michael Dukakis. But I think we need the whole package. I believe we need to demand higher standards of our politicians and not settle for mediocrity.
Mrs. Palin said yesterday in unequivocal language that she is a candidate for the presidency. Personally I don't think she is serious. I believe it may be a tactic to keep her in front of the Republican Party, appear to be a power in the Party, and to enhance her status and appeal as a saleswoman for herself. Selling herself to America is something she does very well (see, "Sarah Palin's America") and you will see what I mean. I enjoyed the series and found her to be likeable, but that doesn't mean I would want her finger on the trigger or on the economy as my president.
But, in the off-chance that she would see it through to mounting a serious campaign for the presidency, then I believe that would be a big mistake for America's right wing to fall in behind her. Folks, we can do better than that. Demand excellence.
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Red alert! Red alert! No missile defense system seems to be able to stop Rocket Palin!
New York Times Demoliberal Frank Rich is having lots of fun right now because her first target is the GOP nomination. But his nuclear nightmare is that she might actually have a chance of beating The Professor…
My favorite part of the article is the implication, passed on by The Wall Street Journal no less, that Sarah Palin actually wrote her recent denunciation—rather, refudiation—of Ben Bernacke’s quantitative easing policy, much less understands it. But you know, I saw her reprising her position on Judge Napolitano’s TV show* and she sailed right through it without a single misstep. I’m not sure I could do that, and I’m so much smarter than her (I’m role-playing a liberal)! Among the things I never thought I’d see before I died were Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Sarah Palin making a reasoned case against quantitative easing.
The lady is learning—if nothing else, how to memorize. But there I go again, dissing the next President of the greatest nation in the history of the galaxy
Why were you watching dancing with stars?
I always thought the Republicans and Democrats were part of the same party. A very average assessment of the current state of affairs.
No. The author admitted he didn't watch it and then went on to comment on it at length.
/:
It can happen here, folks!
'Grumpy the Clown' elected to Brazil's Congress
IMO, what it REALLY shows is that we have a VOID of potential candidates that are CAN *DO* people, possessing the wisdom and vision to reduce the scope of government to what is needed and affordable, and the ability to sell the people on the merits of doing so. We are also missing the long term vision that the founders had, but then again, almost all of the wisdom they left us in the Constitution has now been worked around or ignored, anyway, especially in the past 100 years.
Thus far, the only person I've seen capable of actually DOING ANYTHING to clean up any of the MESS created in the past 200 odd years is Gov. Christie of NJ, who said just recently that he was definitely NOT running in 2012.
Who else could we trust to actually take on and succeed at such a Herculean clean up task? No offense, but I don't see Ron Paul succeeding any more than Obama, even if Ron might actually be TRYING to go in the correct direction by comparison.
Show me a real leader... Someone that has the wisdom and vision to know which way the nation needs to go, and the ability, and leadership qualities that could get us moving in the right direction and meeting doable goals all along the way. That's what we are missing...
There are literally millions of quality leaders in America just busting to get America moving in the right direction ... if you'd just get the fucking government totally out of the way and let them get on with the job of innovating, employing and producing without any interference or theft of their output!
Stop wishing to the tooth fairy for just one person to do all that for you, and 300 million others, from one oval-shaped office!!
You can't get to that UNLESS you have someone with the power, ability AND desire to TURN THE SHIP AROUND. We got "change" like what they wanted to be asked for. We got a DIFFERENT bunch of BS politico's, handing out the big bucks to a different bunch of politically empowered buddies, no better than the OTHER politico's they replaced handing out big bucks to the other bunch of politically empowered buddies.
To get the government out of the way is going to take a *REAL* LEADER, one that is driven to return the power to the people and the states, and isn't willing to compromise on that, and doesn't take any bullshit, and just forces the change back to a Constitutional government. The only NO BULLSHIT *DOERS* I've seen that I think were or are capable of such a thing in my lifetime have been Ross Perot and Gov Christie.
Who is it that will get the government out of the way?
The people. One by one and together in unison. There is no other way. Ask the French (1789), British (1215) and even the early American revolutionaries (1775).
Waiting for a strong leader is waiting for a despot. Only 300 million individuals have the strength to overthrow Washington, DC.
How many presidential nominees in the last 200 years have promised more freedom, more prosperity and smaller government? How many have delivered?
Andrew Jackson, Old Hickory, the kid who was captured by the British in the revolutionary war, and scarred because he wouldn't shine their boots. The same Jackson who led the defense of New Orleans in the war of 1812, and the same Andrew Jackson who put the country into a depression in order to rid it of the debt and paper money controlled by the bankers, and actually succeeded at doing so. Read his story sometime. BTW, thast was the last time the debt was zero.
We are like a modern day version of pre-revolutionary France right now, before people realized that paper money always ends as a disaster. The founders learned it the hard way with the Continental Dollar, and soon, because so many of us are so ignorant of history's lessons, we will have to learn those lessons the hard way for ourselves.
I actually thought this was a serious discussion blogg re the economy. I am overwhelmed by the total inane political bs of this guest post and the subsequent posts to it. Instead I find I am reading posts that should better be made at the National Enquirer. After reading a few, I jumped over the remaining posts to insert my first ever.
The current president has so far proven to be the worse "economic" one of all. In his defense, Wall Street and American economic greed had already knocked the bottom out. But he has made it worse. Sarah Palin seems to be a lightning rod for both liberals and conservatives - but, regardless of intellect, her general mindset would not have led her down the road Mr. Obama has taken.
Derangement syndrome seems to be pandemic in the USA. Witness that an inane post on a serious economic blogg has so many snide, useless replies.
When Presidents come into office they learn what is on page 47 of the Book of Secrets!
They are then putty in the hands of the ruling elite.
Palin would have her pantaloons scared off.
I seen that in a movie.
I cringe at the thought of her being the next pres, although, I think Americans we eat anything that has enough sauce on it. If they have not put enough whip cream on her yet, wait, the cherry will come.
Please, from the start, CNBC just happened to have a exclusive interview with her before her announcement of running with McCain. Did you buy that ??? Then she thinks Putin is her enemy, he would spit her out as bait on his real hunting trips. But now, we get Sarah's Alaska, what a staged, phony, commercial for dummies. National Geographic is jealous. Not !!!
Politics is SOOOO boring! And a waste of time.
Sad that libertarians have been sucked so deeply into it.
"My political opinions show that I'm a good person" has been, and always will be, a scam.
The republican party/conservative movement is rotten at the core. Palin is nothing more than the odious 'Southern Strategy' of race hatred and apartheid in drag. There is nothing new about the republican party and its Klan- centric 'leadership'. It simply uses different code words.
Traditional values like white picket fences with negroes hanging from lampposts out front. The political party of Lester Maddox and George Wallace has gotten better camouflage and new pimps but is morally bankrupt.
Any so- called conservative that cannot repudiate the republican party on moral/ethical grounds is a hypocrite.
So Econophile, from the comments I see here, judging competency objectively apparently is impossible. Which is always strange to me, because at every place I worked, we all knew who was competent and who was not, it was not very subjective. Only thing arguably was a generalist boss, who some could argue was a good boss even when they weren't very smart or experienced. But is politics, it seems harder to judge.
Frankly, I disagree with most conservatives on most things but I respect most of them as being reasonably smart and informed, at my work, in my family, amongst my friends and folks I know thru volunteer orgs, I do not find conservatives nor liberals nor libertarians more or less competent/intelligent/informed than the others. There are informed ones and uninformed ones in each group. Having said that, Palin by all accounts of those around her, while being reasonably smart, shows little interest in knowing things thoroughly/deeply. I think that is more due to attitude than lack of ability. I get the vibe from her, "we shouldn't make this complicated because its not, either you get it or you don't, I already know all I need to know, why should I study, I've got it right already."
But let me change subject a bit....I have noticed folks that I consider conservatives in sheeps clothing, such as Bachmann and Palin who will support Wall Street (Bachmann had proven it) while not speaking out about banks and fraud, they do rail against the FED. Now in general population, I would assume someone pro-big banks and anti-FED just sort of conflate FED with govt, which they hate and big banks with useful, enterprising businesses...but with Palin, it seems deliberate, Anti-FED but no anti-Wall Street. To me, this is an important clue about power insiders tactics...it will be interesting to watch.
She can get away with bashing the Fed because she knows (has been told) that she, as a legislator, could not effectively do anything politically incorrect about the Fed.
there is just plain and simple no hope for a country with such ignorance. a country which supports a sarah palin is doomed. banana republic here you come, and you will shout all the way down how the terrible marxist obama(who appointed goldman sachs and fed people to run the economy, they are i guess also marxists in your opinion) and the "socialists" are destroying everything, when in the end, it is ineptitude, ignorance, and corruption, and foolish pride which will destroy the country.
by the way. i don't want to see pelosi president either. in the end its the same people controlling things. no matter who you get in there, they've bought them all.
I'll defend Sarah Palin. That's an easy one.
She got her church fire-bombed and burned down 5 weeks after the presidential elections in 2008 with people still inside, making crafts. It was two weeks before Christmas. Never heard about it? Not surprising. She has not made a big deal about it, and the MSM covered it up. More?
The historic Govenor's Mansion in TX, was also firebombed. And two firebombers were caught red handed and convicted at the RNC convention in MN. There's lots more going on, but the one thing that is clear is that the creepy people who are currently in charge should not be in charge of a dog kennel. Sarah Palin any day. What made the socialist democrats qualified?
Obama's background is immersed in marxism, and he is the only president of an Ivy League law review, in the history of the all the entire Ivy Leagues, to have never written a paper. Where is it, if he's so brilliant? And if he's so smart why did he not get the memo from the 20th Century that socialism doesn't work? And plagiarist Biden was picked as the brains of the outfit, and no body has been more wrong, more often, than Biden in 30 years on foreign policy: Against Reagan on cold war, supported Carter giving Iran to the mullahs, was against Desert storm, and was for war in Iraq -- before was against it, and then wanted to balkanize Iraq -- and create civil wars. That was Obama's first decision as president, to pick the #3 most liberal senator -- Obama is # 1 most liberal. The admitted socialist, Sen. Sanders, was only #4 most "liberal". Obama supported the failed marxist takeover of Honduras with Hugo Chavez, 3 months are his inauguration.
Sarah Palin? She has only been on the winning side of every major issue of the day. In agreement with 70% of the American public. Spending, Healthcare, QE II, terrorists trials, bank bailouts, border security, and the war in Af''stan -- You name it. Personally, I was against the war in Iraq, but once we were there we had to win it. No matter what happens, for the first time in 5000 years, democracy is at least been put on the table as an option in old Mesopotamia. Hans Blix even admitted in 2007 he even thought Iraq had WMD said, "Why else whould he evade and act like he was hiding things?"
Mediocrity is Affirmative action for LIBERALS by LIBERALS. That is their total agenda. One size fits all human beings -- because it's easy, and the government can understand it. One example: in education they teach to the lowest common denomminator, gifted children are cast aside -- the resources are steered to failing students who are at risk of dropping out, and they get paid for for "at risk" students.
Conservatives earn 55% more college degrees than democrats - true every single year since 1955, when records were first kept. Conservatives are the high achievers and productive people in society. It's not even counter-intuuitive, it's obvious. That's why democrats demand free stuff from the government at everyone else's (conservatives) expense. The difference is so great, if democrats could just keep up with conservatives, there would be no national debt or social problems. Our prisons are not full of evangelicals, 90% of the prison population identifies with the democratic party. (Joseph Fried, 2008. Rhetoric vs Reality...Democrat vs Rupublican)
Sarah Palin's agenda is to keep individual freedom and opportunity alive. The same ones that gave obama the opportunity to be president. Obama wants to pull the ladder of opportunity up after himself and the Soros/Buffet crowd, and keep the masses on the government dole.
It's Palin hands down. If Palin is dumb, and she can get it, why can't Obama? How dumb does that make Obama? Obama is the affirmative action President all the way, and he is mediocre at best. Where's his grades?
Palin can do it all. Who do you want as your night nurse under Obamacare, Palin or Pelosi?
Next Question?
.
Other than the fact that she can't find her own state on a map, she's ideal.
so we are reduced to the lesser of bad choices?
exactly why I do not vote
Bill
No politician or leader from either or any side will solve this.
Because they can't and secondly ends the gravy train they all ride on. Millionaires row. Anyone (hollow enough) can become POTUS. The American myth.
I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University. -William F. Buckley
You may be right she is unelectable....but not for the reasons people think. It has zero to do with her competence or qualification....because our current POTUS has neither. It's because the press won't cover for her like Barry, in fact, they'll make it their mission to assassinate her.
If that bimbo ever became the Party's choice, this is the TV ad I would create and run:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal" Madison and Jefferson
"that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion" Abraham Lincoln
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself" FDR
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" JFK
"You betcha!" Sarah Palin
This would be the soundtrack, the voices of those for whom recordings do not exist would be covered by James Earl Jones or someone with a deep and resonant voice full of gravitas, while the others could speak for themselves, complete with film clips.
The camera would film within the Oval Office (or the old set from West Wing since only official photos of the Oval Office are allowed) making a slow zoom in on the President's desk, and doing a 360 of the room to show that the bust of Lincoln had been replaced by SpongePants Bob.
The ad would not diminish her fan base, as they are not clever enough to understand it, but it might light a fire on the rational electorate to encourage them to vote early and often.
I saw all that I needed to see from a photo of her at her governor's desk.
Prominently displayed was an Israeli flag. What's that all aboot for a state governor?
Now she is chiding the tea partiers to ditch all principles and go all in for some shitty socialist goomint and the war machine. How conventional can you get?
I am not so sure I like democracy now. If the US was ever so collectively ignorant to elect Palin as anything more than dogcatcher-in-chief or Shampoo Czar, I might jump to full fledged contempt of democracy. Perhaps the US has elected some buffoons in the past, but Palin would be a quantum leap in buffoonery. Bernanke might be able to drive the dollar to nothing by his monetary policy, but Palin would drive it to zero by her mere presence in the Oval Office. I would suggest to any foreign country who feared a world where the largest economy and most powerful military is headed by this bimbo (the list of such nations would include the entire planet Earth) that they either invade or engage in a covert op aimed at her removal by any means possible. I would join such a movement in whatever capacity I might be able to add value, though I suspect that the Secret Service has both enough sense and enough patriotism to do the job themselves before any foreign country had the chance to do the needful.
Palin is more than an embarrassment and more than proof that democracy is flawed. She is the Downing Effect in full bloom. She is the champion of the below average IQ crowd, or a sexual fantasy of the tasteless. Her abject ignorance and intellectual laziness where she just assumes she knows everything rather than go about educating herself---imagine a person of her age knowing so little about everything; such cluelessness requires a concerted effort to not read anything more sophisticated than comic books or the National Enquirer---started out as a cynical joke brought to us by a desperate and disappointing McCain. Now that the idiots think they have a shot at running the asylum, it is more than a joke. World leaders, any and all of whom have political, economic and historical knowledge light years above Palin, are more puzzled by the fact that the people of the US would take this clown seriously than they are that the power elite of the US would allow, or direct, its own financial system to move toward the abyss. There are degrees of craziness. Palin as President is the nth degree, a ten on the Mohs Scale, minus 273.15 Celsius. She is the return of the flat Earth, the champion of superstition over science, an abrogation of the bond humanity has made with intellect over willful ignorance since the time of the Renaissance.
There are many things the US has done in its brief history that make me proud. There are many things it has done that rile me or embarrass me. Electing Palin to the same office inhabited by the likes of Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt would be the most embarrassing and most damaging thing the country has ever done. It would be the final nail in the coffin of what was a work in progress and grand experiment in liberty and the championing of universal equality and rights. Everything great the country has been, and everything great it could ever be, would be shattered at 12:01 PM on a future cold January day when idiocy took command. And it would prove both the Greeks and Winston Churchill wrong.
chindit13 for Secretary of State!
I cruised by the Comedy Channel this morning and found Idiocracy on.
What a fitting tribute!
+ 1000
Awesome
and the intellects have done us such a fine job...oh, more of the same, please!
I believe Sarah Palin exists merely to make us feel grateful for the (relative) limited damage the elite and the intelligent have inflicted upon us.
Eye candy to fool the masses. We elected our first Black president, now it is time to elect the first woman. That gives them eight more years to pull off their crimes.
I hope that skank from Alassssska runs for President in 2012.
Comedians need new material. You betcha!
In that case, Tina Fey should be the VP for a true trickle down comictocracy...
Econophile,
I pretty much agree with your take on Sarah. I think she SERIOUSLY needs to get some Austrian School economics exposure and needs some good economics advisors. I also think she needs to put military adventurism in the rear view mirror. We simply can no longer afford it, and that's before you even consider whether we should be doing it at all, given the warnings of the Founders. I'm not yet convinced that she's as dumb as a box of rocks or that she's not a skilled and possibly even charismatic politician. I think the jury is still out on that. I just don't think she will be able to do any good at restoring liberty or reversing the economic spiral with her current skill set. It's nice to know how to field dress a moose, but I'd prefer she worked her magic on Bernanke and Gaithner instead. They would make passable trophies for the wall.
You're a moron. This article is so annoying, and it makes no sense. You speak of meritocracy, and then you bring George W. Bush.
And to top it all, you admire Rush Limbaugh.
Soros only uses politicians toward his ends; Sara Palin is just a tool, a blunt one at that.
Selecting any tool from the politician's tool shed would leave you holding a dull instrument
Why vote? It only encourages the bastards!
These politicians take an oath to uphold and defend the constitution. I wonder how many have even read it?
Of those elected only Ron Paul has demonstrated a desire to uphold his oath by actively defending the Constitution.
Sometimes i think things would improve if it were an act of treason to violate that oath in any way; (for example by proposing or voting for laws that obviously violate the constitution). At least they might read things before they voted!
Unfortunately things have gone too far and corruption is too well established for anything to work. Judges and prosecutors would be appointed to attack political opponents. The additional conflict would upset corporate agendas. So little will change in the "quality" of politicians elected.
Presidents of whatever party will continue to be talk show hosts for the corporate cartels until the system implodes. I'm just hoping it implodes before it gets to the gulag stage.
The Country went to hell the day that Congress voted to give that first dollar of taxpayer money to a person who did not earn it. Been downhill ever since.
Rather than boycott the ballot box, why not boycott April 15h instead?
Actually, not that much has changed, what you just said, people have been saying for 200 years.
self edited...better not say what I feel
Are you fearing your ZH comrades, or the eavesdropping Overlords?
Ah hell...go ahead.
just the facts ma'am:
Palin is reinventing herself, she has connections to George Soros, which Glenn Beck thinks is you know Spooky. Nothing Spooky about it, Soros wants to stop the Fed and Palin is the only candidate who will do it, well maybe other than Nader. Nader wants to put Bush in jail, and by implication I guess Obama, I mean if you cover up for the crime, what are you? Anyway I hope he (Nader) does something. Palin would probably sell out to Goldman Sachs in an Anchorage minute. I mean that's the problem, everybody lies.
Palin...connections to George Soros? You are kidding, right?
Yes, a member of her senior staff. Good grief man, t'is well in the public domain.
And a member of Obama's senior staff? Why Zbigniew Brzezinski!
Get the circle jerk yet everyone?
Problem is, the populace gets the soggy biscuit.
And that makes it true from a policy standpoint?