Highlights of Mark Steyn’s latest column:
- He wants us all to get syphilis. The BooMan explains.
- He repeats a much-debunked Republican lie that the Obama stimulus package contains $4.2 billion for ACORN. In fact, the bill does not mention ACORN. But you know righties — once they get a story in their heads that reinforces their opinions, you can debunk it from now until doomsday and they’ll keep repeating it anyway. Years from now, when both the stimulus package and ACORN have faded into history, they will still believe ACORN got $4.2 billion.
Other stuff to read:
“The Nativists Are Restless” — The GOP continues to shoot itself in the foot over the immigration issue.
Frank Rich notes that the GOP keeps promising us “new ideas” but so far haven’t produced any. However, they (although not the Democrats) live in fear of the wrath of Rushbo.
I’ve read about 100 blogs since yesterday and have lost track of where I saw this, but the story said that Mitt “The Twit” Romney had said recently (maybe in Hot Springs) that in order to take back the country, Republicans would have to offer fresh, new ideas to the American people, like we have during the economic bailout bill negotiations.
Tax cuts? These are their “fresh, new ideas”? Only in Rightie World could tax cuts be considered fresh and new. It’s the 21st century guys. Reagan has been out of office for 20 years. Let’s get with the program, shall we?
Btw, I’m taking bets on whether Rush comes on the Campbell Brown show to debate economic bailout theory. The odds aren’t good.
Wedge issues and Special Interests until this election were firmly entrenched – like trench warfare of WWI. With the election of President Obama the battle lines have changed and are still in flux. The next 6 months will set the parameters of the new battlefield.
The GOP is going to experiment with (and probably intensely poll) new wedge issues to see what flies. Immigration is one potential issue, but the GOP is trying to create a new wedge issue, people who receive benefits who don’t pay taxes. (The GOP can no longer identify this group racially.) Economicaly, these ARE the people you want to get the stimulus money; they are living on the edge and will spend all the assistance they get, which is what you want. (Business & fat cats in the top brackets will hang onto money, which takes the power out of tax cuts as a stimulus.)
But the GOP is going to try to stoke the fires of resentment against immigrants & the poor as they woo the middle class. In an odd twist of fate, this pits the GOP against the Chamber of Commerce who has tried to protect illegal immigration as a way of capping wages at the bottom end.
The GOP is risking alienating hispanics if the proposals they want are too repressive, and pissing off business if the GOP reforms will drive up the cost of labor. Benefits for non-taxpayers could bacfire as well, since many voters can see themselves close to the edge of economic ruin, and WANT a parachute if they need one. Can Democrats demonstrate that the GOP is proposing parachutes only for passengers in first-class?
What’s with Mark Steyn’s obsession with loose women? He brings back memories of my listening to my Cuban grandfather and his warning of the dangers that could befall a young man who didn’t guard himself against the evils of loose women. To grandpa women were property, and I think Steyn also views them as such.
He wants us all to get syphilis:
Mark Steyn has to turn his back on a classic pearl clutching opportunity in order to choose between two favorite old chestnuts, posturing as the protector of innocent children and punishing women. He chooses to punish women. It must have been a tough choice for him.
What about cases where the father of a baby cheats on the mother of his child during pregnancy and gives her an STD? I am assured by my friends in obstetrics that this is a common occurance, even here in the Bible Belt. (Hard to imagine, I know.)
In such a case there are two obvious, innocent victims, the mother and the child. The impact of STD’s on both can be severe, but in the case of the infant can be devastating and deadly. So, this is a classic case of choosing to let innocent people suffer in order to punish those whom they see as morally flawed, i.e. different from themselves.
It is hard for me to interpret Mr. Steyn’s attitude toward women without revisiting my junior high school mentality. At the risk of sounding jejune, I suspect that he was not very popular with women as a young man. He harbors resentment towards those who chose “feckless” men over the more virtuous, e.g , guys like himself. Such a bad choice would obviously suggest a character flaw. This all makes perfect sense, at least to Mr. Steyn.
In a “Revenge of the Nerds” twist, he gets paid to write this stuff.
I suspect that he was not very popular with women as a young man.
Ya think? 🙂
Straight conservative men are terrified/resentful of women. They engage in much macho posturing and tree-peeing to cover up their massive insecurities about their masculinity. We see this over and over and over again. It’s like a syndrome.
And, Maha, they’re also the group rabidly opposed to abortion. The possibility that a woman all on her own has the power to abort his seed is his ultimate emasculation.