UPDATE II: Clint Eastwood Keeps it Local, Lively and … Liberty-Oriented

Democracy, Film, Hollywood, Human Accomplishment, IMMIGRATION, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Political Correctness, Private Property, Propaganda

If it were Yoko Onanism who jousted in public with a (symbolic) empty chair, the left would call it performance art.

Clint Eastwood is not a member of the pack animals on the left. For this reason, he has become the focus of terribly unkind cuts, following the “12-minute discourse” he delivered at the Republican National Convention.

In response to the rabid responses to his Empty Chair routine—and characteristically—Eastwood spoke first not to the country’s moron menagerie, but to a local, award-winning, libertarian-leaning newspaper, The Carmel Pine Cone.

Seceding from the palsied haters is classic Clint Eastwood.

More interesting than the rather quotidian details Eastwood furnished in the interview is the background of the TCPC’s editor. PAUL MILLER was clearly entrenched in the establishment (CBS and NBC), before breaking away to focus on “the [local] struggle between property rights and environmental regulations, the machinations of the California Coastal Commission, and on the epidemic of ADA lawsuits against small businesses.”

The vaunted vote Miller has exposed too for the farce it is “in a series of reports, ‘Voter Fraud: Simple as 1, 2, 3,’ [which] involved registering a fictitious person to vote. That story was featured on the CBS News program, ’60 Minutes,’ on November 1, 1998.”

Yes, there are a LOT of people here in the US who vote for a living—for dibs on the livelihood of those who work for a living—a topic CBS will not be exploring anytime soon, and certainly not before the election.

Anyhow, to hate Clint Eastwood is to hate the best of America. I begrudge Eastwood only two things: The first is “Invictus,” a “reverential biopic” about the sainted Nelson Mandela.

The second is that he made too few Dirty Harry films.

UPDATE: Readers can be fabulous. Writes “RandHaf” under “Top Comments,” following Yoko’s Onanism:

wtf is wrong with this cunt
RandHaf 2 weeks ago 27

Why, wasn’t she giving voice to modern-day ennui?

UPDATE I (Sept. 9): Gran Torino is hackneyed rubbish. I had never intended to watch it. It came on today, and I, well, sat. What schmaltz.

Eastwood is also guilty of making on-screen love to Meryl Creep, but that I most certainly did skip. (I never watch chick flicks.)

UPDATE II (9/10): Gran Torino is packed with PC cliches, which, quite stupidly, seem to confirm the un-PC, unmentioned truths, such as what do-or-die diversity does to neighborhoods and neighborliness.

And worse: No wonder older, white men can’t get work! Have all you older white men considered how the protagonist is portrayed in this film?! Why, he has to die for his sins before gaining the respect he deserved from the get-go.

The only realistic lesson once can take away from Gran Torino, a horridly PC effort, is that you don’t owe your relatives a dime if they treat you like dirt. I liked that message (because I’m generally a sucker).

UPDATED: Orgy Of Sentimentality Finally OVER!

Democrats, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intelligence, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Propaganda, Reason

“Faking It” was a gem of a book published in 1999, if I am not mistaken. Its thesis was that ours is a society whose every facet is permeated with phony sentimentality, and with the elevation in every sphere of “feeling, image and spontaneity,” over “reason, reality and restraint.” The fraud and the poseur have the run of our institutions and cultural products!

And, as was evident from the 2012 Democratic National Convention that has finally ended, things have only gotten worse.

Granted, the Republicans might be “the drag queens of politics,” and should not be trusted until they repent, in earnest and in action.

It goes without saying, moreover, that the men and women who took to the podium at the RNC did not talk Austrian economics. They did, however, mix it up with economist Milton Friedman, so to speak.

In other words, Republican representatives—irrespective of their invariable and inevitable political treachery—do still evince some intellectual familiarity with the natural principles of the economic order, something that was utterly absent from the sensibilities expressed by the repulsive Democrats, decamping from Charlotte tonight.

In the introduction to F.A. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom,” Friedman put his finger on the backdrop to the growth of collectivism: “The argument for collectivism is simple if false; it is an immediate emotional argument. The argument for individualism is subtle and sophisticated; it is an indirect rational argument.”

Of course the NPR-cited Fact Checker found no errors of fact in Michelle Obama’s endless emoting. How can emotions be graded for factual content? There were no facts that mattered in the First Lady’s remarks!

In well-functioning people, the intellect is not separated from the affect (i.e. the emotional). They are integrated. When people are rational, they observe reality as it is, and are more likely to be concerned with justice and avoid misplacing compassion.

What we witnessed at the 2012 DNC was a mud-slide of sentimentality, unmoored from reason or reality, and backed by the might of voracious electoral majorities.

UPDATE: Apologies to readers on Facebook who said I got too wordy. My fault. I had to “medicate” to watch BHO and the other offal. I will get back to my solitary glass of wine a day now that the orgy is over.

The ‘Vagina Monologues’ Revival

Democrats, Feminism, Gender, Reason, War, Welfare

The current column, “The ‘Vagina Monologues’ Revival,” is now on WND.COM (with a different title):

“Remember the ‘Vagina Monologues,’ a stage performance that premiered in 1996, in which an orifice took center stage?

The playwright responsible for these soliloquies from down under was Eve Ensler. Ms. Ensler had insisted that the survival of womanhood hung on encouraging a vulgar dialogue with and about “this much mumbled-about body part.”

The 2012 Democratic National Convention underway has the feel of a “Vagina Monologues” revival.

With exceptions.

The weepy women dominating the event prove that Democratic distaff has come a long way since Ensler’s troupe took to the stage to pan priapus. No longer content to converse with an orifice in the confines of the theatre, these women want to force the conversation on the entire country, in dissembling, devious ways. …

… Speaking of a sovereign disregard for the truth, Bill Clinton—the only white man at the Charlotte Convention Center—wowed the women (Y chromosome comment above obtains here too), in an address that sent chills up Chris Matthews’ rutting leg. …

… For pudding, there was Sandra Fluke (which explains why NBC chose to end the second day of the convention with NFL football). The vagina-centric activist is regarded as another arrow in the Democratic quiver.

Sandra demands that Sugar Daddy Sam compel Americans who toil in the insurance industry to provide her with contraceptives.

It would appear that Georgetown Law School had not read the lady her constitutional, natural rights. Fluke has every right to work to purchase her own Trojans (or is it Trivora?) She has no right to rope other Americans into supplying her with these prophylactics. …”

The complete column is “The ‘Vagina Monologues’ Revival,” now on WND (with a different title).

Also available from WND or from Amazon is the prophetic “Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid.”

Read the editorial reviews.

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Glenn Beck: Name ‘N Shame Your Airborne Abuser (On That Crap Carrier)

Business, Etiquette, Free Markets, Israel, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

Glenn Beck has chronicled in detail the ghastly treatment he received, over the Labor Day weekend, while dining at a New-York establishment, and on board an American Airlines flight. There, an airborne pollutant in the form of a flighty waiter—who claimed to have served in the IDF—served Glenn worse than one would a stray dog in a pound.

Beck, as usual, reverted to sermon-style sanctimony where he called on Jesus for strength and grace.

Give me a break!

First, doesn’t Glenn fly first class? Any flight attendant who treats his first-class customers as Glenn was treated is a liability to the business, however poor its practices (and it is clear from this episode that American Airlines is a crap carrier. That’s been my experience with them).

Expose this IDF waiter, Glenn.

Show the runt responsible some Old-Testament justice, not New-Testament forgiveness. You’re not going to change a poorly raised retard. Teach him responsibility; teach him where his bread is buttered.

Glenn’s a wealthy, charitable, self-made man. He doesn’t have to take this.