Baby Steps

It's been a discouraging time for conservatives lately, what with Western civilization collapsing around our ears and all. But if you look closely enough, you can always find a reason for hope. And Jonah Goldberg has found one, in a recent court decision supporting Second Amendment rights:

No, the real victory is that liberals are starting to accept the fact that the constitution has a meaning separate and distinct from what the most pliant liberal judge wants it to mean. Therefore, writes Wittes, "perhaps it’s time for gun-control supporters to come to grips with the fact that the (Second Amendment) actually means something ... For which reason, I hereby advance a modest proposal: Let’s repeal the damn thing." Wittes isn’t alone. A number of left-wing commentators have picked up the idea as well.

Personally, I would oppose repeal, and I have problems with many liberal arguments against the Second Amendment. But that liberals are willing to play by the rules is an enormous, monumental victory that transcends the particulars of the gun-control debate.

Lilekism of the Day

Coincidentally enough, from James Lileks, commenting on the possibility of Condi Rice running for vice president:

I no longer think it’ll be Rice, since there’s so much disenchantment over her State performance; she sank up to her waist in Peace Process quicksand, and the only reason she hasn’t sunk to her neck is because she’s standing on the shoulders of those who have been swallowed whole before. Besides, people are just sick of the Bush team in general. Then again, I’m starting to think that you could put Godzilla in charge of State, and in two months he’d be four feet tall, breathing perfume, and proposing a Tokyo-reconstruction loan program and a six-point program for getting Mothra to sit down with Gamera.

300

Is the success of the sword-and-sandal action flick 300 a sign that America is regaining it's martial spirit? David Kahane thinks so:

...the dirty little secret is, we used to write these movies all the time. Impossible odds. Quixotic causes. Death before surrender. Real all-American stuff, in which our heroes stood up for God and country and defending Princess Leia and getting back home to see their wives and children, with their shields or on them.

...

But then came psychiatrists and psychologists and Ritalin and global warming and racism and sexism and homophobia and the enlightened among us said the hell with John Wayne and Gary Cooper. Hollywood became one big Agatha Christie novel in the last chapter — you know, the one where the survivors of the homicidal maniac gather in the drawing room and realize: The killer must be one of us!

And then came September 11th and that was that. But now, I’m beginning to wonder.

Beginning to wonder if a $70-million opening weekend for a picture that was tracking at $40 million will get somebody’s attention. Beginning to wonder if a movie that has no stars, the look and feel of a video game, and the moral code of the U.S.M.C. might have something to say, even to audiences in New York and L.A.

As much as anything, the release of Star Wars in 1977 helped to usher in the Reagan Era, and put the dark, doomed malaise of the Nixon/Carter years behind us. It showed us a world with clear lines between good and evil where good was triumphant, and we all said, "Hey, I'd like to see that in this world."

Since Star Wars was a once-in-a-lifetime cultural phenomenon and I'm still on the same lifetime, I doubt that we'll see the same kind of thing from 300 (and I really doubt it'll be followed by another Reagan). But if people are going to see it, I hope that at least means we're still comfortable with good guys beating bad guys.

Richard Jeni

Holy crap, Richard Jeni shot himself:

Police found Jeni inside a West Hollywood home Saturday, after responding to a 9:50 a.m. emergency call. The caller, a woman whom officials did not identify, told the operator, "My boyfriend shot himself in the face," Los Angeles police said.

Jeni, whose real name was Richard John Colangelo, died less than an hour later at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The Los Angeles coroner's office said an autopsy is pending. Jeni's website lists his age as 45, four years younger than coroner's documents show.

That's a shame; he was a funny, funny guy.



And this made me think of Dennis Wolfberg, another great comedian we lost too soon (though in his case it was due to natural causes). Let's enjoy some of his YouTube immortality too.

News Flash - Gov't Provides Poor Service. Also, Water Wet, Ice Cold

Reason Magazine points out the lesson that we should -- but won't -- learn from the Walter Reed Army Hospital mess: If you let the government run the health care system, that's what it will look like.

Don'tVote.org

There are a lot of important decisions to be made on election day. It's a big responsibility. But if you're lucky, maybe you're not smart enough to bother with it. Take the test and find out.

Coulter and Rhetoric

Finally, a reaction to the Ann Coulter hoo-hah that's not an overreaction. Jeff Goldstein uses lots of big words that I may not understand, but I think we're basically on the same page:

Let me put this bluntly: having now seen the comments in context (including Coulter’s earlier commments in the same speech that staked a claim, from a conservative legal perspective, as pro-gay), I not only don't feel the need NOT to condemn Coulter, but I support what she said in principle.

I just think her execution was sub par. There were less loaded terms she might have chosen, but that doesn’t make her remark homophobic—nor is there any need, given the context, to distance oneself from them (unless, of course, one wishes to see certain words completely stricken from the lexicon—a gambit that never works, as the intent behind them is, like oil, fungible).

In the past, I've criticized this kind of policing of words on any number of occasions, from efforts to demonize "illegal alien" to "oriental" to the PC nonsense that is working its way through textbooks.

There is, not to put too fine a point on it, something remarkably arrogant about homosexual advocates (and their active and tacit defenders) thinking it is their "right" to take ownership of a word that has, with usage, taken on different valences.

And the answer to them should be, "no, you can't have it 'back,' because it was never really 'yours' to begin with."

A lot of people on the right felt the need to strongly denounce Coulter because they were afraid her words would be used as a bludgeon against the rest of us. They're right, of course, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to give her the whole torch-and-pitchfork treatment.

Nowadays, Politician X can't say "I like sunshine" without his opponents blast-faxing a press release that says, "Politician X doesn't care about the millions of hard-working Americans on the night shift!" So, the political landscape is lousy with people who avoid saying anything that might possibly be construed as offensive, by anyone, in this or any conceivable parallel universe.

Ann Coulter (quite intentionally) flies in the face of that mindset. I don't care how offensive people think she is; she is some welcome seasoning in a bland political gruel.

Comming Soon: Hamsters That Look Like Himmler

Proving once again that everything is on the internet, here's Cats That Look Like Hitler. Even the ones that don't look like Hitler still kind of remind me of him.

Fun Read of The Day (Besides The Rest of jaceonline, I Mean)

James Lileks goes off on a design professor with a bad case of utopian liberalitis. Enjoy!

This Just In: Sun Causes Warming

A scientist theorizes that maybe--just maybe--warming of the earth is caused by the sun. And National Geographic takes this fruitcake seriously.

Uncomfortable Questions

Was the destruction of the Death Star an inside job? Has an Imperial government cover-up pulled the Bantha pelt over our eyes? One website has the guts to ask the tough questions:

6) How could any pilot shoot a missile into a 2 meter-wide exhaust port, let alone a pilot with no formal training, whose only claim to fame was his ability to "bullseye womprats" on Tatooine? This shot, according to one pilot, would be "impossible, even for a computer." Yet, according to additional evidence, the pilot who allegedly fired the missile turned off his targeting computer when he was supposedly firing the shot that destroyed the Death Star. Why have these discrepancies never been investigated, let alone explained?

7) Why has their been no investigation into evidence that the droids who provided the rebels with the Death Star plans were once owned by none other than Lord Vader himself, and were found, conveniently, by the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, and who is also believed to be Lord Vader’s son? Evidence also shows that the droids were brought to one Ben Kenobi, who, records indicate, was Darth Vader’s teacher many years earlier! Are all these personal connections between the conspirators and a key figure in the Imperial government supposed to be coincidences?

What Would We Do Without Ann Coulter?

Does any of this sound familiar?: Ann Coulter makes a speech, says something inflammatory, and ignites a round of indignant outrage from the left and tsk-tsking from the right. Why, it's almost like Ann has this very sequence of events in mind when she speaks, hmmm?

Well, she did it again, and the responses were predictably schoolmarmish. In case you missed it, here's the offending line:

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word "faggot," so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.

You can guess how the liberal pundits responded, but they'd say the same things if Coulter didn't leave in her leave-in conditioner. On the other hand (or maybe the other side of the same hand), here are the non-liberal responses:

Kathryn Jean Lopez: "I agree Ann's unfunny joke speaks to and feeds into a hurtful bigotry and helps to caricature proponents of traditional marriage."

Peter Suderman: "Ann Coulter's CPAC remark about Edwards was despicable—completely out of bounds for civil political discourse. Like Kathryn said, it's not surprising coming from Coulter, but that doesn't make it any more tolerable."

Rudy Giuliani: "The comments were completely inappropriate and there should be no place for such name-calling in political debate."

Dean Barnett: "Idiotic. Disgusting. Stupid. Moronic."

Captain Ed: "Bottom line: Coulter's remark was indefensible."

Oh, shenanigans. If we didn't have our collective butt cheeks in such a clinch, we'd recognize this as a joke. And a finely crafted joke, at that. Notice how she never actually called anybody a "faggot," and only used the word in reference to the Isaiah Washington incident. Brilliant phrasing. Plus, she skewered both Edwards and the therapy culture with a single one-liner.

Now, was it below the belt? You betcha. But Coulter doesn't play by Marquis of Queensbury rules; she's a cage fighter. And she's a sharp self-promoter. She knew exactly how this would play and how much publicity she'd get out of it. Just look at that satisfied little head bob she gives at the end of her speech. That's a lady who just got her way.

What bothers me most about this is conservatives' pusillanimous mimicry of oft-offended liberals, huffing about how this or that is beyond the pale. In a more civilized time, anyone who was insulted by Coulter would insult her right back and get on with his life. Now we have to spend a week denouncing her and saying she shouldn't be allowed to speak in public. Aren't we supposed to be the ones against speech codes? But the victim mentality playbook has become the standard, and conservatives just accept it and play along. They should be thankful for Ann Coulter. What would they do if they didn't have her to distance themselves from?

Update: Sister Toldjah, no Coulter fan, makes an excellent point when she compares liberal outrage over this to their ho-hum response to much more poisonous attacks from the left.

Another update: And a big, ol' "Lighten Up" to The American Mind, which has published an open letter to CPAC denouncing Coulter and asking that she be banned from future conventions:

Denouncing Coulter is not enough. After her "raghead" remark in 2006 she took some heat. Yet she did not grow and learn. We should have been more forceful. This year she used a gay slur. What is next? If Senator Barack Obama is the de facto Democratic Presidential nominee next year will Coulter feel free to use a racial slur? How does that help conservatism?

Egads. Would I rather be associated with reckless bomb-throwers like Coulter or whiny prigs like this? Hmmm... thinking, thinking...

Yet another update: Two wrongs don't make a right, but for liberals who are all in a twist about this, Patterico has a catalog of plenty--and I mean plenty--of examples of liberal hate speech.