Monday, January 17, 2011

Martin Luther King's Conservative Legacy

http://www.martinlutherking.org/
Heritage  "It is time for conservatives to lay claim to the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. King was no stalwart Conservative, yet his core beliefs, such as the power and necessity of faith-based association and self-government based on absolute truth and moral law, are profoundly conservative. Modern liberalism rejects these ideas, while conservatives place them at the center of their philosophy. Despite decades of its appropriation by liberals, King's message was fundamentally conservative."

Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King jr.
Peter Wehner  "On this holiday honoring his birth, it is worth reminding ourselves why Martin Luther King Jr. deserves the place he holds in the American imagination.
"Dr. King was — with Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln — our nation’s most effective advocate for the American ideal. How he became so is itself a fascinating story."

MLK, an American Hero-Laureate  "In America, the fact that Martin Luther King won the Nobel Peace Prize is not that big a deal. I dare say, relatively few know he won it. King was much bigger than the Nobel Peace Prize. Sometimes the prize makes the man. Sometimes the man enhances the prize. Throughout the world, however, the fact that King won the peace prize is, or was, a biggish deal. It increased his international reputation.

"He won in 1964, at age 35. At that time, he was the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The year before was the March on Washington, and the “I Have a Dream” speech. When the Nobel for King was announced, in October 1964, we were nearing the end of a presidential campaign: President Johnson vs. Senator Goldwater."

Also here:  and here:

Michael Moore, Jane Fonda, Kathy Griffin: Shameless Trifecta Exploit Tucson

Big Hollywood  "All three of these individuals are obnoxious in their own way. Moore is anti-American to the core. He’s not only a U.S. war protestor who hates capitalism, but also a supporter of things the American people at large consider to repugnant: things like the Ground Zero Mosque. (His support for the mosque runs so deep that he raised $50,000 so the little jihadists can build a monument to their terrorism.)
Jane Fonda
"Fonda is also infamous for protests of wars the United States has had to fight, particularly the Vietnam War and raq War: the latter she protested in 2005 and 2007. Moreover, in addition to protesting these wars, Fonda actually supported the North Vietnamese against the United States during the Vietnam War: she believed Ho Chi Minh could teach President Richard Nixon a thing or two.
Griffin, to her credit, actually supports the troops, but they have been known to boo her when she stands in front of them because of her obnoxious rants against Bristol Palin. Nevertheless, she has placed herself on par with Moore and Fonda via her seeming inability to address persons with whom she disagrees without going on a tirade (as when she referred to Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity as “idiots” and “liars,” said she hated them, and claimed both of them could “suck it”).

Wise Words on the Palin Obsession

Peter Wehner "Ross Douthat of the New York Times has written a very intelligent column on the very odd, and in some respects co-dependent, relationship between the media and Sarah Palin."....

          Scenes From a Marriage
"For their part, the media manage to be consistently unfair to the former Alaska governor — gossipy and hostile in their reportage, hysterical and condescending in their commentary — even as they follow her every move with a fascination bordering on obsession. (MSNBC, in particular, should just change its name to “Palin 24/7” and get it over with.) "....
"Palin, meanwhile, officially despises the “lamestream” media. But press coverage — good, bad, whatever — is clearly the oxygen she craves. She supposedly hates having her privacy invaded, yet her family keeps showing up on reality TV. She thinks the political class is clueless and out-of-touch, but she can’t resist responding to its every provocation."

Women in combat units- Oh! Hell! No!

Blackfive  "Combat soldiers adhere to a warrior ethos, but also to a code of chivalry. We don’t find it condescending to assume that most females need and even welcome that protection. In the civilian world, and even in the military, there are plenty of female sheepdogs and they do amazing things. But they work in completely different conditions than combat troops; female cops and firefighters go home when their shift is done. They don’t spoon together behind a couple of rocks on top of a mountain in GoatRopeistan trying not to freeze to death."
Related, if you think about it:
Jerry Holbert, Townhall

Tucson Tea Party Leader Releases Statement – Lashes Out at Pima County Sheriff’s Department

Gateway Pundit  "I spoke to Trent Humphries today. Trent is the leader of the Tucson Tea Party organization. On Saturday Trent was threatened to death by far left activist and unimpeachable voice of the left Eric Fuller at a taped ABC town hall meeting in Tucson. Fuller was heard screaming “whores” at the audience as he was dragged from the event and arrested. ABC and Christine Amanpour decided this was not newsworthy enough to show to their Sunday audience, after all, it was just a tea party conservative who was threatened with death."


Eric Allie, Townhall


Ramirez on current gas prices

How the media botched the explanation of how they botched their reporting

 Ethel C. Fenig, quoting columnist T.A. Grant (Frank?) from The New Republic:
How did many fine, otherwise fair-minded journalists allow their judgment to become so clouded?
"Whoops! The problem shows up immediately: basic premise wrong so mostly everything flowing from it will be wrong. Maybe theses journalists were fine to Grant but they were not "otherwise fair-minded" and seemed to have very little judgment. Diversity be damned, the default, normal position for journalists at most of the dominant media is liberal; anything else is considered a deviation. Babble about neutrality and objectivity and even fair-mindedness but study after study confirms this the lack of objectivity, lack of neutrality, inherent biases in all angles of reporting and the liberal/left tilt."

The Times Loses It; Sense and nonsense about Tucson.

Weekly Standard  "A reaction so disproportionate and immaterial to a news story by a news organization is indicative of trouble in the body politic​—​trouble almost as severe as that which the Times claims the Giffords shooting indicates. I worry that in the tremors and hysteria of the Times we’re seeing the sad end of liberalism." P.J. O'Rourke

P.J. O'Rourke: 'We are seeing the sad end of liberalism'  "The kind of classical liberalism that birthed the labor movement, gave impetus to civil rights, and tried to soften the hard edges of capitalism is dead. It died in the protest movement of the late 1960's when those hostile to the American experiment supplanted liberals like Humphrey and Jackson, replacing them with Barney Frank and Dennis Kucinich types. Bred for combat with the right and completely unaware - or unconcerned - about the effects of their radical policies, the New Left has driven us over a cliff."

Frederick Douglass’s Irrepressible Faith in America

PBS photo
Heritage  "Myers goes on to recount the story of how Douglass, who as a former slave initially sided with the abolitionists of the day in rejecting America and its Constitution “for supporting and perpetuating this monstrous system of injustice and blood,” eventually developed, through a careful study of the Founding, an “irrepressible faith in America.” In America’s dedication to principles of natural human rights set forth in the Declaration of Independence, Douglass found reason to love and identify with his country, despite the injustices that he and his people had suffered.
"Douglass’s uplifting journey from alienation to a “rationally grounded hopefulness” should embolden all those of us who believe in America and her dedication—shaky at times, but always eventually triumphant—to the natural equality of men."

William Lloyd Garrison
Frederick Douglass "Ever since he first met [William Lloyd] Garrison in 1841, the white abolitionist leader had been Douglass' mentor. But the views of Garrison and Douglass ultimately diverged. Garrison represented the radical end of the abolitionist spectrum. He denounced churches, political parties, even voting. He believed in the dissolution (break up) of the Union. He also believed that the U.S. Constitution was a pro-slavery document. After his tour of Europe and the establishment of his paper, Douglass' views began to change; he was becoming more of an independent thinker, more pragmatic. In 1851 Douglass announced at a meeting in Syracuse, New York, that he did not assume the Constitution was a pro-slavery document, and that it could even "be wielded in behalf of emancipation," especially where the federal government had exclusive jurisdiction. Douglass also did not advocate the dissolution of the Union, since it would isolate slaves in the South. This led to a bitter dispute between Garrison and Douglass that, despite the efforts of others such as Harriet Beecher Stowe to reconcile the two, would last into the Civil War. "
More here:

Shields Asks Krauthammer 'Did Palin Unintentionally Make the Story About Herself and Not Tucson?'

Newsbusters  "Mark Shields on Friday actually asked Charles Krauthammer if Sarah Palin unintentionally made last Saturday's shootings about herself and not the tragic event.
"Krauthammer not only set the substitute host of PBS's "Inside Washington" straight, but also called for an apology from all those that shamefully tied the former Alaska governor to this awful tragedy (video follows with transcript and commentary):"

Sunday, January 16, 2011

A Congress that reasserts its power

George F. Will  "Two years into Barack Obama's presidency, we now know what he meant about "hope" and "change" - he and other progressives hope to change our national character. Three weeks into his presidency, Newsweek, unhinged by adoration of him and allowing its wishes to father its thoughts, announced that "we are all socialists now" and that America "is moving toward a modern European state." The electorate emphatically disagreed and created the 112th Congress, with its exceptionally important agenda."