Month: November 2008

Commenter Sue at Just One Minute had this to say: I was reading something today that had quotes from the people of Alaska about Palin. One was a democrat who had liked her before she ran for VP. He didn’t realize her religious beliefs, her abortion beliefs, her belief that marriage was between a man…

While I don’t know whether Michigan is more beautiful as an overall state than Pennsylvania, the Ann Arbor area is really nice, and unlike the Philadelphia area, you don’t have to drive far to see nice countryside. The view from my driveway isn’t so bad either. That was taken as I got in my car…

Not to be a nag, but I updated my previous “building not a tent” post to include a link to Ilya Somin’s discussion of a (Social) Conservative-Libertarian alliance. Also I added a link to Jonah Goldberg’s post on the peripherally-related subject of conservative theory to my Prop 8 discussion. I want to return to the…

From the comments at Honest Government And Fiscal Responsibility by commenter auh2ogirl: The fact that prop 8 was voted through, as prop 2 was here in FL, was in large part due to the black and latino vote, yet Obama won FL and CA tells me that the time for candidates to be elected on…

I was having an ongoing discussion with a social conservative, Rick, at Just One Minute about the place for libertarians in the Republican Party. He doesn’t think there should be any place for them. So I said: And Rick, Goldwater was quite a libertarian. We need to put him down the memory hole. Yes? No…

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own…

Out Magazine editor Aaron Hicklin has a piece in the Guardian titled “The success of Proposition 8 in California was one negative consequence of Obama’s victory” and he goes into some detail discussing something that isn’t getting much play in the American press — that black voters (many of whom were voting in unprecedently large…

I have one of the most liberal comment policies in the blogosphere. No authentication or sign-in is required, and I almost never delete comments for offensiveness. (See these gems if you doubt me.) I have on rare occasions edited a comment when people have asked me to. But as I’ve said many times, this is…

The problem with social conservatism with respect to candidates winning elections is that it gets the monkeys screaming. That does not help win elections. Soothe the monkeys. Tell what you want to accomplish. 1. Clean out the corrupt – Start with our own house. 2. Fiscal responsibility 3. We don’t want to change your life…

You know. That looks to me like a McCain dirty trick. Bringing out the charge with barely enough time for Obama to respond.

The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air. So said Chuck Schumer, in remarks widely interpreted as a comparison between talk radio and pornography. While talk radio and pornography have little in common, that’s not the point. What’s being concealed by…

I’m a bit skeptical about the claim by Fox News that Sarah Palin “didn’t understand that Africa was a continent.” Actually, Fox’s Carl Cameron doesn’t accuse her of that directly; he claims he was told. By, uh, “folks.” His exact words: “Well I wish I could have told you back at the time, but all…

Commenter Sara at Just One Minute gives us this little gem. Well, the owner of the dry cleaners my d-i-l manages came in this morning and informed 3 of the workers that because of Obama’s election and the higher taxes he is facing as a result, 3 employees would be eliminated. He then let them…

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the…

Rather than start the day by criticizing the president elect, I thought I’d start by criticizing the criticism of the criticism. From Mitch Albom’s page 2 editorial in today’s Detroit Free Press: For nearly eight years, anyone who dared to criticize President George W. Bush risked being called unpatriotic. The people doing this name calling…

Eric makes the point in his post A building, not a tent, that economic conservatism is the cement that held the Republican party together. Commenter Bob Smith made a very interesting point that confirms that view. Another commenter asks a question: I don’t know exactly who is to blame for the disappeance of the cement…

In case there’s anyone who’s been asleep, Barack Obama has won the election. (At least, Fox has called it for him.) Now I can start hoping. (That he can turn out to be more moderate or even more libertarian than I thought.) At times like this, it’s comforting to remember that anything is possible. The…

One of the points I tried to make earlier on PJTV was that I think it’s a mistake to accelerate the dividing of the Republican Party into competing sides (or factions, wings, whatever you want to call them) by working towards a takeover of the party by one faction or another. I think it might…

Let’s see. I’ve been watching early returns trickle in slowly, and I feel like drinking (regardless of who wins). It doesn’t help my sobriety to see that Stephen Green is drunkblogging the results, but the final blow was what Glenn Reynolds said here: AFTER YOU’VE VOTED, knock back an Obama Mama or a Maverick Martini.…

Flipping through the channels, I just saw this Fox News exit poll report: 30% will be scared if McCain wins 23% will be scared if Obama wins They didn’t disclose the percentage of people who were scared to answer the poll. MORE: Here’s the excitement factor: 32% will be excited if Obama wins 12% will…