Archive for “Culture”

The Honor of a Great People

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Three hundred thousand people gathered in the Washington Mall on August 28, at the invitation of radio and TV host Glenn Beck, to discuss restoring the honor of the American people.  How did a great people come to lose their honor?

It certainly hasn’t been lost by all of us.  Individuals, families, and communities across America never broke faith with the noble traditions of self-reliance, responsibility, and adventure that forged this honorable nation.  Such people can be found in every neighborhood of every city… but the nation as a whole has lost its way.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

The Narrative of Hate

Friday, August 27, 2010

You hear a lot about the “hatefulness” of conservatives and Tea Party activists these days.  Lefty web sites were eager to pin the recent stabbing of a Muslim cab driver in New York on right wingers, since all opposition to the Ground Zero mosque is dismissed as vicious bigotry.  They were crushed to learn the perpetrator was a volunteer for an interfaith organization that supports the mosque.

Jim Treacher of The Daily Caller points out a hilarious post from Talking Points Memo, where the commenters cling desperately to The Narrative Of Hatred, even after learning the guy who urinated on a Muslim prayer rug was a garden variety drunk instead of a Tea Party storm trooper.  One TPM blogger was so upset by the blood-dimmed tide of right-wing fury that he ran off and firebombed Russ Carnahan’s office.

Ignoring this useless reality, MSNBC ties the wee-weed rug into “a spate of anti-Muslim incidents” and delivers the chilling warnings of a CAIR spokesman that fiery clouds of violent hatred are massing over the Religion of Peace:

FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko told msnbc.com that New York City has not seen a change in the number of hate crimes reported by Muslims so far this year, but every report is taken seriously.

But recent incidents — including the stabbing of a Muslim cab driver and the desecration of a California mosque — have some members of the Muslim community worried that crimes against Muslims could reach crisis levels.

“Without a significant response by mainstream political leaders, this disturbing trend will only continue to grow,” said Faiza Ali, a New York spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Even the Grand Old Party may fall victim of a hateful “insurrection,” as Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne sobs from his fainting couch:

Republicans are in the midst of an insurrection. Democrats are not. This vast gulf between the situations of the two parties — not some grand revolt against “the establishment” or “incumbents” — explains the year’s primary results, including Tuesday’s jarring outcomes in Florida and Alaska.

… That the deficit increased primarily because of two tax cuts and two wars was not part of most conservatives’ calculation because acknowledging this was ideologically inconvenient. In the meantime, the election of President Obama by a demographically diverse coalition anchored among younger voters helped unleash the furies inside an older, overwhelmingly white and Southern-leaning GOP coalition.

Leave aside the fact that only a complete idiot would believe the deficit has increased primarily because of tax cuts and wars, and heed the wisdom of Dionne’s warning to his beloved Republican Party.  Last Tuesday’s primaries were the most horrific bloodbath since Blade walked into a vampire disco.  Rick Scott ran a “brutal campaign” to become the Republican nominee for Florida governor.  A terrified Lisa Murkowski was crushed by “right-wing power” and is now huddled beneath her desk, waiting for the murderous avatar of Joe McCarthy to come and devour her soul.  John McCain barely survived his primary by “modifying long-held positions to appease hard-line conservatives,” and unleashing Darth Palin on the fearful voters of Arizona.  Meanwhile, Glenn Beck prepares to lead a horde of his followers across the sacred ground where only duly authorized heirs to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. may walk.  They will spend the weekend dressed in ghoulish makeup and tattered baseball outfits, marching in circles around Congress and taunting Democrats to come out and play.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

The Destiny of a Free Nation

Thursday, August 12, 2010

In the comments to The Dominion of Liars, itzWicks asks:

The refrain that I hear over and over again at the conclusion of excellent essays such as this (as well as from the well articulated comments that follow on this blog) is sadly the same: “What are we going to do about it? What can be done now?”

That’s a great question.  It’s easy to react, analyze, and criticize.  It’s natural for a writer to spend much of his time doing so, when the philosophy he opposes holds all the power, and makes all the news.  Today’s current events are largely created by the Left.

I write essays like “The Dominion of Liars” because I believe every opportunity should be taken to present the case that statism is fundamentally flawed, from its mistaken premises to its corrupt conclusions.  It’s important to couple that prosecution with testimony about the power and virtue of freedom, along with a fair accounting of its dangers.

The scale of the challenge facing us is formidable.  Like all fearsome things, it is also exhilarating.  In the blood and bile of this dying statist economy, we can see the desperate future of an indentured nation… a truth many of us have refused to see, when displayed in bankrupt socialism around the world.  What is the destiny of a free nation?

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Requiem For An Ideal

Friday, August 6, 2010

California’s Proposition 8 added a provision to the state constitution, declaring “only marriage between a man and a woman is recognized in California.”  Its supporters fought a hard campaign in 2008, and passed it with seven million votes.  Now federal judge Vaughn Walker has knocked it down, citing due process and equal protection concerns:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

We’re on the last few steps of the path leading to the end of our traditional understanding of marriage.  Soon Anthony Kennedy will stamp it null and void, imposing a new understanding of “marriage” as any long-term monogamous relationship between two consenting adults of any sex.  Imposing is exactly the right word.  The full power of the State will be turned to ensuring the new definition is universally accepted.  Centuries of culture, deeply held religious beliefs, and the objections of a majority will provide no protection.  Not long ago, it was suggested we should get government out of the marriage business.  Now, as the Anchoress notes, the government will own it completely, and it’s religion that needs to think about closing up shop:

My first thought: the churches–any of them who wish to remain able to practice their faith in relative freedom–will have to seriously consider getting out of the business of acting as “duly recognized” agents of the state in legalizing marriages. The alternative will be inevitable lawsuits charging “discrimination” for disallowing church weddings, a diminution of our constitutional right to free worship, and a further emptying of church coffers as settlements and fines are levied.

These are stark terms to express the victory of gay marriage proponents, but I suppose they must grimly nod in agreement.  This is how it had to be, since marriage is a fundamental human right, guaranteed by the Constitution.  Sincere proponents of gay marriage, desperately seeking betrothal to beloved same-sex partners, no doubt regret the anger and confusion of traditionalists.  They weren’t looking to hurt anyone’s feelings, or insult their profound religious beliefs.  Oddly enough, that’s how most defenders of traditional marriage feel about same-sex partnerships.  As Kathleen McKinley notes in her plea for the compromise of civil unions, the two sides were always close enough in spirit.  They will now be pressed together by force, rather than united in understanding.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Honor From Our Fathers

Sunday, June 20, 2010

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: he believed in me.
- Jim Valvano

Honor is essential to the maintenance of a free society.  We learn about honor from our fathers.

When the duties of fatherhood are widely dismissed, or rendered poorly, our understanding of honor is diluted… and freedom soon begins to wither.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

The Betrayal of Mystery

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Note: the following includes spoilers about the finale of Lost.

If you enjoyed the finale of Lost, I’m not writing this to challenge your taste.  You have nothing to apologize for, or defend.  There’s nothing “wrong” with cherishing the fine acting and emotional resonance of its reunions and farewells.  For my part, I loved the early years of Lost, which I would happily have declared the greatest television drama of all time, in the moment when Jack’s season-ending “flashback” was shockingly revealed to be a flash-forward.  I absolutely hate what the show degenerated into.  I thought the plot of the finale was a stunning act of creative cowardice, which no amount of effort from the talented cast could redeem.  I offer these thoughts as a memorial to what I thought Lost was trying to be, and a critique from someone fascinated by the art of storytelling.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Broken Puzzles

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Note: some spoilers about the sixth season of Lost, the recent Sherlock Holmes movie, and the television series Babylon 5, Heroes, and Battlestar Galactica follow.

Tonight, fans will bid farewell to Lost, one of the most potent obsessions to erupt from popular culture in the past decade.  It began six seasons ago, as an intriguing combination of mystery and suspense.  Audiences followed the adventures of several dozen people who inexplicably survived a plane crash on a remote island in the Pacific, only to discover they were not the only inhabitants.  They found evidence of scientific experiments conducted thirty years ago, leaving behind ominously deserted facilities haunted by sinister people known as “The Others.”  Viewers met in chat rooms after every episode, poring over screen captures of vital clues, trying to riddle out the true story of the island and its deadly, fanatical inhabitants.  When one episode included a glimpse of a map of the entire island, drawn with invisible ink on the inside of a door, the Internet nearly melted down.  How many delightful secrets did we distill from magnified images of that map?

Last year, we learned the true story of the island revolved around an ancient wizard we had never heard of before, the magic cave he is sworn to protect, and the angry cloud that hates his guts.  Last week, we watched this wizard create an immortality potion by chanting some broken Latin over a cup of water.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Men of Iron and Steel

Saturday, May 8, 2010

The release of “Iron Man 2” this weekend kicks off the summer blockbuster season.  It’s an interesting cultural moment for conservatives.  The movie version of Iron Man is one of the most unambiguously libertarian figures in popular culture, a billionaire industrialist playboy who spends much of the new movie telling the government to get bent when it tries to claim his amazing suit of high-tech armor.  He’s patriotic, loves the military, and views the bad actors of the world from a Reaganite position of moral confidence.  In the original movie, he did what Hollywood has been painfully reluctant to do, ever since September 11: he flew over to the Middle East and took out the trash.  This Atlas doesn’t shrug… he busts out repulsor beams and micro-missiles.

The recent wave of super-hero movies has been largely agreeable to conservatives.  “The Dark Knight” topped many lists as the most powerful expression of conservative themes in recent years.  “The Incredibles” would be a hit on pay-per-view in Galt’s Gulch.  Spider-Man carried his famous motto, “with great power comes great responsibility.”  The hero of last months’ “Kick-Ass”, disillusioned by the passive willingness of so many people to tolerate evil, illustrated the conservative pedigree of Spidey’s creed by turning it around: “with no power comes no responsibility.”

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Common Decency

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Marine Lance Corporal Matthew A. Snyder was twenty years old when he died in a non-combat vehicle accident in Iraq.  Four years later, his father Albert has committed to a grueling battle on the front lines of free speech, where he mans the crumbling ramparts of common decency.  The odds would seem to be stacked against Albert Snyder.  Marines don’t pick easy battles, and neither do their fathers.

When Lance Corporal Snyder returned home, to pass through the arms of his family one last time before proceeding into the warm embrace of the Earth and the radiant hands of eternity, the atmosphere was fouled by the virulent hatred of the Westboro Baptist Church.  (Writing their name always makes me feel I should offer an apology to Westboro, Baptists, and churches.)  The Westboro cult believes that America deserves to suffer for its embrace of homosexuals.  Actually, they’re convinced God hates the entire world, and probably the other planets of the inner Solar System as well.  Just look at Venus, sinfully naked beneath hot clouds of sulfuric acid, strutting through her orbit like a wanton tramp, while Mars pouts and preens in a red cocktail dress.  There used to be another planet after Mars, but God especially hated that one, and look what happened.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark

Tales of Valor

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

HBO’s mini-series The Pacific, the encore to its sensational World War II mini Band of Brothers, is well under way. So far, The Pacific has been decent, but not the equal of its illustrious predecessor. It’s taken several episodes to begin developing memorable characters, something the original series accomplished within its first hour. This might be partially due to the acting, which is serviceable, while the original cast was hitting grand slams in every scene. No one has really jumped off the screen except William Sadler’s “Chesty” Puller… a man history tells us was not easily forgotten.

The scenes of jungle combat on Guadalcanal were intense, but not quite as memorable as the heart-stopping depiction of the air drop over Normandy in the first series. The most recent episode, a peaceful interlude on leave in Australia, provided much-needed character development, but broke the pace of a narrative that was just beginning to pick up speed. The Pacific suffers from having an extremely tough act to follow.

(more…)

  • Share/Bookmark