Posted by Richard on December 23, 2017
It’s easy! Just don’t let them know it’s the GOP’s plan.
There’s nothing new about this phenomenon. Back before the election, Jimmy Kimmel did a couple of similar “man/woman in the street” interviews attributing Trump’s tax proposals and some Trump quotes to Hillary. Predictably, Hillary supporters loved them.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: bias, democrats, gop, leftists, liberals, politics, public opinion, taxes, trump | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on June 14, 2016
Last week, Steven Hayward drew attention to a correction in the American Journal of Political Science of a study they had published in 2012. Hayward’s post is entitled Epic Correction of the Decade. I’m thinking it may be the most epic correction of all time. I’ll paraphrase:
“Hey, remember how we said that conservatives are more prone to psychoticism and authoritarianism, while liberals are more prone to neuroticism and wanting to get along with others? It turns out we got that exactly backwards. Sorry, our bad.”
Well, at least they owned up to it. Years later. After a Ph.D. student pointed out the error.
But they’re also arguing (now) that the correlations are so small as to be meaningless, so which way those correlations go doesn’t really matter.
The same study by the same researchers was the basis for three other academic journal articles. According to Retraction Watch, two of those have also published corrections and the last will do so in July.
The trouble with peer review in the social sciences is that all the peers doing the reviewing share the same worldview and prejudices as the “researchers” being reviewed.
Oh, by the way: one of the authors said the surveys for this “research” were conducted in the 1980s and 1990s, and were combined and analyzed in the 2000s. So these “scientists” worked on this stuff for three decades. And your tax dollars paid for it.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: conservatives, liberals, political science | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on March 17, 2014
A week or so ago, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg started a campaign to ban the word “bossy” (apparently, Sandberg isn’t familiar with the First Amendment). Allegedly, the patriarchy uses the word to stigmatize girls who assert themselves, or something like that.
A number of people have pointed out that Sandberg is a major Hillary Clinton supporter and donor, and speculated that this plays into her motives. Glenn Reynolds described it as “astroturf battlespace preparation for Hillary.” And suggested an appropriate bumpersticker, which promptly came into existence:
But my favorite comment on the “ban bossy” idea is from Steven Hayward (emphasis in original):
So we’re supposed to ban “bossy” from our vocabulary, eh? This, coming from the same folks who imposed the mandate that we all buy health insurance from government-run exchanges, and dictate exactly what that insurance policy must have in it. I mean, if liberalism today isn’t about being bossy, then it hardly has a reason for being. …
Just about the bossiest person I can think of is Michael Bloomberg. By all means, let’s ban bossiness.
UPDATE: Apparently, the people who want to ban “bossy” have no problem with using it to describe white male Republicans.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: bossy, hillary, liberals, politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on September 20, 2012
Hillary Clinton denounced a laughably amateurish little YouTube video mocking Islam as “disgusting and reprehensible,” and it’s been repeatedly condemned by the Obama administration and all good liberals. But liberals’ condemnations of the mocking of religion are highly selective, as the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens pointed out:
‘Hasa Diga Eebowai” is the hit number in Broadway’s hit musical “The Book of Mormon,” which won nine Tony awards last year. What does the phrase mean? I can’t tell you, because it’s unprintable in a family newspaper.
On the other hand, if you can afford to shell out several hundred bucks for a seat, then you can watch a Mormon missionary get his holy book stuffed—well, I can’t tell you about that, either. Let’s just say it has New York City audiences roaring with laughter.
The “Book of Mormon”—a performance of which Hillary Clinton attended last year, without registering a complaint—comes to mind as the administration falls over itself denouncing “Innocence of Muslims.” This is a film that may or may not exist; whose makers are likely not who they say they are; whose actors claim to have known neither the plot nor purpose of the film; and which has never been seen by any member of the public except as a video clip on the Internet.
No matter. The film, the administration says, is “hateful and offensive” (Susan Rice), “reprehensible and disgusting” (Jay Carney) and, in a twist, “disgusting and reprehensible” (Hillary Clinton). Mr. Carney, the White House spokesman, also lays sole blame on the film for inciting the riots that have swept the Muslim world and claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff in Libya.
So let’s get this straight: In the consensus view of modern American liberalism, it is hilarious to mock Mormons and Mormonism but outrageous to mock Muslims and Islam. Why? Maybe it’s because nobody has ever been harmed, much less killed, making fun of Mormons.
Read the whole thing.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: double standard, hillary, islam, liberals, obama | 1 Comment »
Posted by Richard on November 4, 2010
The Daily Beast has a post entitled "5 Best Moments from MSNBC's Apocalyptic Night." Assuming you're not one of the 6637 people who actually watched MSNBC's election-night coverage, you might find these video clips amusing, enlightening, disturbing, and/or entertaining.
But the real reason for this post is Blue-eyed blue's comment on the above:
I get it now, I know why America has had it with liberals. I was at what was suppose to be a victory party for a local democratic politician last night… it was a concession speech. MSNBC was on TV half of the room cheered some of the comments by the MSNBC team while others were embarrased. Except when Bachman was on – they all cheered when he called her in a trance, then she dropped the big one…. the tingly feeling comment smacked Matthews and silenced the room. Right then I knew why America looks down on us libs and the night just fell apart from there.
But that was not the worst of it. As results from the rest of Florida came in, my fellow dems got ugly. The continuous racial remarks about Marco Rubio and Allen West got down right ugly, words I would never utter myself and was shocked that democrats would speak them so openly in public. Then came the results that Lizbeth Benacquisto, a republican state senate candidate had won. She got national press for responding to her opponentsTV adds about abortion and rape with her own rape expirience. I was shocked with the remarks from a prominent local lesbian who told our little group in quite graphic terms of what she would do to her. That was it – I left the party.
After the results from last night, the comments of MSNBC, the people I thought were my fellow dems and dreading having to go in to work today and face little miss tea party in my office I was close to calling in sick. But I held my head up and dragged my ass in, I got my coffee and waited for that smug little Palin wannabee to let me have it. Instead she came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder and asked how I was doing. I sat in my office and realized she has treated me with much more respect than I had been treating her but I was just not open to see it.
I get it, there is a reason why we lost last night, there is a reason why msnbc is getting whooped by fox, if we continue to go down that path we will lose everything and I don't want to be like the vile people I was with last night or the pompous panel on msnbc. I'm not joining the tea party or anything but we in the democratic party better use last night as a reality check because the rest of America is leaving us behind.
Bravo to Blue-eyed blue. Bravo to "little miss tea party." (And a great big wet raspberry to the maroons at MSNBC.)
HT: David Aitken (via email), who has resumed posting. Hurray!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: civility, liberals, media bias, politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on October 29, 2010
According to researchers at UCSD and Harvard, people "with a specific variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to be liberal as adults." But only if they were also "socially active during adolescence." So there's a gene variant that predisposes people to liberalism.
Rush Limbaugh calls it a genetic defect. I'd have to agree. It clearly seems to impair reasoning ability and higher cognitive functions. 🙂
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: genetics, liberals, research | 2 Comments »
Posted by Richard on July 23, 2010
A couple of months ago, I had some kind words for Britain's new Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, the junior partner in the coalition government formed by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Now it's time for some kind words for the senior partner, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. For his visit to Washington this week, the Prime Minister and his staff took a commercial British Airways flight, saving British taxpayers £200,000. Bravo!
Our president took Air Force One (and a backup 747) from Washington to New York for a "date night" with his wife. Countless Hollywood celebrities fly around the country constantly in their private jets and lecture us peasants about our carbon footprints. For last winter's "climate summit," so many world leaders and glitterati flew into Copenhagen in their private jets that there wasn't room for them all. They had to drop off their passengers and fly on to another airport to "park."
Prime Minister Cameron, on the other hand, apparently told one of his staff something like, "Book ten seats on a flight to New York for Monday morning. And make them business class." Yes, that's right — Cameron didn't even fly first class.
I'm really taking a shine to the leadership of this new British government — both the Conservative and the Liberal Democrat.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: air travel, britain, conservatives, liberals | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on June 17, 2010
The talking heads on the left seemed to be just as underwhelmed by the President's speech last night as those on the right. NewsBusters reported on MSNBC's post-speech panel discussion by Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and Howard Fineman, and all three seem to have been pretty critical.
For sure, Chris Matthews didn't get that tingle up his leg this time:
Why does he continue to say that the Secretary of Energy has a Nobel Prize? I mean, it`s almost gotten ludicrous. We had Carol Browner do it again tonight. … I`m not sure whether these degrees are going to help or these awards from overseas.
… We have a blue ribbon panel now that`s going to look into what went wrong. Can`t we move a little quicker than that, than to name a commission? That`s what they`ve done here. Another commission and another guy mentioned, they mentioned for having a Nobel Prize. …
…
I don`t sense executive command. And I thought that was the purpose of this speech tonight, command and control. I`m calling the shots. My name is Barack Obama. I`m the boss. I`m telling people what to do. I didn`t get that clarity. … He must be chief executive. He can no longer be Vatican observer or intellectual, or a guy calling in experts, or naming commissioners or whatever. I think he`s, or citing people for their Nobel prizes, I think he has to be the boss. …
The former Obama cheerleader is now surprised and disappointed by the President's lack of leadership and "executive command" skills. Back in 2008, there was no shortage of people pointing out that candidate Obama's background as an academic, community organizer, and part-time, present-voting legislator was sorely lacking in real-world job experience, much less any executive experience that might prepare him for the presidency. But Matthews pooh-poohed such concerns. He had that tingle running up in his leg.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: liberals, obama, oil, politics | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Richard on May 20, 2010
Radley Balko has begun to "warm up to this Nick Clegg chap," and I can see why. Clegg is Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government that the Conservatives formed with Clegg's Liberal Democrats, and he's promising "ambitious and radical" political reforms that aim to empower individuals and reduce the power and scope of government. I like most of the bullet list, but like Balko, my favorite is "a bonfire of unnecessary laws."
It's all just talk so far, but it's encouraging talk (emphasis added):
In an attempt to reassure Liberal Democrat members and supporters who doubt the wisdom of joining forces with the Conservatives, he will promise: "This will be a government that is proud when British citizens stand up against illegitimate advances of the state. That values debate, that is unafraid of dissent."
…
He will announce plans to consult the public on which laws should be scrapped. Promising to "tear through the statute book", he will attack Labour for creating thousands of criminal offences which took away people's freedom without making the streets safe.
"Obsessive lawmaking simply makes criminals out of ordinary people. So we'll get rid of the unnecessary laws and once they're gone, they won't come back. We will introduce a mechanism to block pointless new criminal offences," he will say.
…
"This government is going to transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state. This government is going to break up concentrations of power and hand power back to people, because that is how we build a society that is fair. This government is going to persuade you to put your faith in politics once again."
Mr Clegg endorsed David Cameron's flagship "big society" theme, which the Tory leader contrasts with the "big government" offered by Labour during its 13 years in power. In a U-turn, the Liberal Democrat leader told a Downing Street seminar for voluntary groups he hosted with the Prime Minister: "What I'm discovering is we've been using different words for a long time – it actually means the same thing. Liberalism, big society. Empowerment, responsibility. It means the same thing."
That sounds pretty good to my libertarian ears. It's just a hope at this point, but maybe — just maybe — Britain's messy election will lead to something really positive for that nation.
Maybe some British liberals are ready to re-embrace their roots as advocates of freedom, democracy, and civil liberties, instead of focusing on egalitarianism, regulation, and "positive rights." And maybe some British conservatives are returning to their traditional commitment to individual liberty and distrust of overarching government, instead of … well, whatever you call the inchoate policy porridge that's characterized them since the end of Thatcherism.
Maybe this coalition government is an opportunity for a realignment in British politics, the creation of a real, lasting coalition of those across the political spectrum who've recognized the limits — and dangers — of government power. Something akin to a tea party movement. Wouldn't it be appropriate for the Brits to have something akin to a tea party? Eh, wot?
One can hope.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: britain, conservatives, liberals, politics | Leave a Comment »
