Monthly Archives: December 2012

The Gipper’s Penchant For ‘Gargantuan Government’

Conservatism, Government, Intellectualism, Israel, Liberty, Music, Republicans

At Beliefnet.com, Jack Kerwick rips into a certain elephantiasis to have plagued Ronald Reagan—the Gipper’s penchant for “gargantuan government.” So far, I have only 4 comments, all of them positive, on “The ‘Reagan Revolution’: A Myth Exploded” by Jack Kerwick:

With rare exception, virtually every “star” in the movement is a neoconservative. From the personalities on Fox News to the shining lights of “conservative” talk radio, from “conservative” politicians to the most well known “conservative” writers, there is scarcely an intellect to be found that isn’t indebted to the neoconservative worldview.

[Jack Kerwick, Dec. 26, 2012]

1) Technically, Jack may be right to invoke the word “intellect” with respect to the perpetual parade of mega mouths seen on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, etc. But there must be a better way (a word combination that triggered my musical memory: Watch what passes for pop music in Israel. It’s v e r y g o o d. More solid stuff from “Noa” here. And more about Mira Awad here).

How about “intellectuals who are not intelligent”?

2) Republican Ann Coulter has fleetingly voiced this “Reagan Epiphany,” saying that “Ronald Reagan should not be held up as ‘the touchstone for every [other Republican] candidate.’” But that’s as far as Ms. Coulter’s philosophical integrity went.

3) In fairness, and unlike almost all other Republican candidates, Reagan had the ability to brilliantly enunciate the principles of liberty. Judging from his soaring rhetoric about our (small “r”) republican liberties, Reagan understood these freedoms both viscerally and intellectually. This goes to the Gipper’s innate intelligence, which is forever disputed by the pinko pukes on the left. Intelligence why? Because the argument from liberty is a rational argument; the argument for collectivism an emotional one.

4) In some measure, Ronald Reagan’s affinity for freedom in words but not deeds bolsters another of Jack Kerwick’s brutally honest observations. This one pertains to the “inexcusable” nature of any “ignorance of the immensity of our national government, say, and ignorance of the sheer powerlessness of any one person or even group of persons to scale it back to so much as a shadow of its counterpart from the eighteenth century. …”

Diagnosed With … Gun Incompatibility Disorder

GUNS, Individual Rights, Pseudoscience, Psychiatry, Regulation

Scarcely had the cowardly attack on kids in Newtown, Con., transpired than forces on the left and right began clamoring to restrain “predisposed” individuals before they transgressed.

Any sweeping prior-restraint legal efforts will have “unintended” consequences. Since undesirable outcomes will follow such laws as night follows day—one wonders why they’re considered “unintended” or unforeseeable.

Expect a reduction in the use of counseling services among gun owners. If he thinks that his doctor is likely to pass on information about his mental state to federal or state authorities, how likely is a gun owner to seek help for psychological/marital/familial problems?

Not very likely.

The Psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), the Rosetta Stone of the profession, has grown since its inception in the 1950s from 60 categories of abnormal behavior to over 410 diagnostic labels and counting. Many of the disorders described in it are more about trend and niche than science.

In the late 1990s, I told readers of my Calgary Herald column about one Dr. John Ratey, a Harvard associate professor and a well-respected, prominent psychiatrist, who claimed, in his 1997 book Shadow Syndromes, that quirky behaviors were actually mild mental illnesses resulting from brain dysfunction.

The lout who is appropriately obsequious with the boss because he knows where his bread is buttered, but who is less dainty with the wife, even thumping her occasionally, would be a candidate for compassion. He is after all doing battle with what Dr. Ratey terms “Intermittent Rage Disorder”. And the dad who dotes on his children while they are with him, but fails to mail them child support money as soon as they are out of sight, is simply afflicted with “Environmental Dependency Disorder”: He remembers his kids only when they are around. Is there proof for these sub-rosa disease categories? None whatsoever, although this has not prevented Ratey and many like him from coating their pronouncements with a patina of scientific respectability—and then cashing in.

Given the tenuous ties between psychiatry and science, how likely is it that “evidence” for new diagnoses will be marshaled in order to keep more people from being able to defend their lives and loved ones with guns?

Very likely.

Piers Morgan Preaching Treason From Perch @ CNN (Pinko Pukes Abound Among Foxettes)

Britain, Celebrity, Constitution, Free Speech, GUNS, IMMIGRATION, Individual Rights, libertarianism, Liberty, Media, Natural Law, Political Philosophy, Private Property, Propaganda

From where I’m perched, Piers Morgan is guilty of preaching treason from his perch @ CNN—and not because he is devoting his time to undermining the US Constitution. For “all vestiges of natural justice in the Constitution lie buried under the rubble of legislation and statute.” Rather, Piers is a traitor for using his perch at CNN to advocate against the people’s natural right to defend their sacred lives.

More crucially, Piers is not guilty of preaching treason for preaching against the government, or the dead-letter Constitution. The more men so preach, be it on the left or the right—the merrier. Treason, in my book, is an act against The People’s natural rights to life, liberty and property (later today I will explain to the perplexed why the right of self-defense is an extension and a prerequisite of the right to life).

What Piers is doing is preaching treason against The People.

But is not the agitation for the violation of individual rights an act of free speech? In libertarian law—the only universally just law—there is no free speech without private property. You can’t deliver a disquisition in my living room without my explicit permission, as owner of the abode. But from your property, you may preach whatever is in your heart: hate, love, violence, etc.

Is Piers preaching treason from private property (CNN)? Probably. Is asking for his deportation, as some Americans are, a use of force, or just an exercise of free speech, to counter Piers’ true hate speech? Is deportation a use of force? Besides being a royal pillock, Piers Morgan is an immigrant from the UK.

You can see why the penalty some of our countrymen seek for Piers may be disputed by libertarains.

Ultimately, what Morgan is doing is reprehensible. The man disgusts me.

On a positive note: I started this blog yesterday, prompted by the site of the pillock Piers’ blockhead on my TV screen, interviewing a retarded PhD from “the crap country of Britain.”

Much to my delight, my husband sent me a petition calling for Piers’ deportation on the White House’s publicly supported website. It’s worse than useless, and may be disputed in libertarian law, but it warms the cockles of this heart.

UPDATE (Dec. 24): “Oh, how we suffer for the female suffrage! I once vowed to ‘give up my vote if that would guarantee that all women were denied the vote.'”

There is no shortage of pinko pukes on Fox News, especially among the women folk. “Anyone who wants a gun must go through state training and a certification process over a number of months,” writes Elizabeth MacDonald (whom I quite liked), “if not a year, similar to what police officers go through. That process would include a deep-dive background check. All gun sales or exchanges must be registered with states and towns.”

Megyn Kelly and her cretinous colleagues (I guess viewers were meant to focus on Kelly’s stripy bottom. The rest of the segment was senseless):

Lead me to the vomitorium.

The Managerial State’s Media and Medical Lapdogs

GUNS, Individual Rights, Propaganda, Pseudo-intellectualism, Pseudoscience, Psychiatry, Regulation, The Zeitgeist

I had feared that the reaction to this week’s column on the pornography of public grief, now on LewRockwell.com, would be as angry as the reaction to my “Bullied ‘Jail Bus’ Lady: Fearful Fatty, Not A Hero.” Was I in for a happy surprise!

The letters have been overwhelmingly full of gratitude and relief for my having expressed what readers were thinking.

Here is a smattering:

Sent: Friday, December 21, 2012 10:42 AM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: RE: The pornography of public grief

You are a Modern Prophet. You have identified the real affliction that humanity is either willingly blind to, or naively blinkered.

Regards,
JT

Friday, December 21, 2012 1:42 PM
To: ‘imercer@wnd.com’
Subject: Public Grief!

All I can say about your article on public grief is…”AMEN”. … Thanks for your articles. I have always appreciated them, I should have said so before this.

JB, Texas

Friday, December 21, 2012 4:28 PM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: The pornography of public grief

Very good piece.

Interested in you book “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa”

Having lived in SA for five months.

John

Friday, December 21, 2012 4:38 PM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: EXCELLENT!!! (THE PORNOGRAPHY OF PUBLIC GRIEF)

Hello Ilana,
It has been several years since we exchanged emails, and it has been some time since I’ve caught back up with your intellectually masterful musings.

Your piece said what I, and I think many others, have been thinking since the awful news broke last week. And nobody has said it better than you with this:
“At the root of it all is the rejection of the existence of unadulterated evil. Rather than accept the reality of evil – s–t happens, live with it and be prepared to proceed against it – misconduct has been medicalized.”

Thank you so very much for your strength to stay true to your moral and intellectual compass.

Wishing you peace and prosperity,

CB, OH

Friday, December 21, 2012 10:00 PM
To: ilana@ilanamercer.com
Subject: Thank you

Your article brought clarity to me of the feeling I have had about the circus and exploitation of the grieving process of the families and friends of the victims. The national media avoids the issues, use any excuse not to make news and create entertainment ghoulish at the least.
Sincerely,
HS

*************

Needless to say, the media as master of ceremonies is sustaining the puke factor. And the ostensible defenders of our sacred right to defend our lives are looking like clobbered seals on ice floes.