Levin Reviewed

June 12th, 2009 at 5:15 am by David Frum | 152 Comments |

I promised last week to read and review Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny. A little tardy, but here it is. Just follow this link over to the Bookshelf.

152 responses so far

1 Dr. Tesla // Jun 11, 2009 at 3:12 pm

I have criticized Frum’s “visions” of the GOP numerous times.

His notion that the GOP can just throw the social conservatives under the bus in addition to supporting higher taxes and win is absurd. That would put all 50 states into play for the Democrats. It’s those social conservatives and supporters of tax cuts in the South that kept Gore and Kerry out of the White House.

Most of what Frum does is just ad hominem attack Limbaugh, Levin, Hannity, Beck and other popular conservatives. He took cheap shots at Bush for profit although he failed to sell many books. As Thomas Sowell pointed out, Frum and other “moderates” dont’ want to debate Limbaugh’s ideas, they just want to ridicule him on his weight, past drug addiction and “tangled marital history”. If Frum is going to play the holier than thou moralist when criticizing Limbaugh for his “tone”, it seems he rather undermines his own case by insulting Rush personally and sticking his nose itno Rush’s private life.

Frum has no evidence that Limbaugh and conservative talk radio drives “moderates” to go vote for liberal Democrats. He just projects his own hate of Limbaugh and Levin and others onto “moderates” and we are to take it on faith that he ’s right. As I pointed out before, the American people didn’t seem to have much of a problem with Clinton’s sexual harrasment of women, or Obama’s associations with a racist hatemonger “preacher” or a former unrepentent terrorist or that shady outfit ACORN, so I hardly think Rush and conservative talk radio is “forcing” moderates to vote Democrat, as Frum asserts here. That is just idiotic, just as his statement that the media was in the tank for Bush in 2000. The guy is just clueless.

Levin’s book is a lot more readable than Hayek’s. Your average reader is going to have a tough time following Hayek as his writing style had a lot of “run-on” sentences, in my view. Levin is a lot more concise and thus will reach more people who are not “intellectuals”.
2 ChristianMiller // Jun 11, 2009 at 3:14 pm

There were two comments here before Tesla, Where did they go? Barker and someone else.
3 ChristianMiller // Jun 11, 2009 at 3:18 pm

This, for such a longwinded review is almost completely devoid of substance. Certainly one must be clever to avoid debating ideas while at the same time being so dismissive of a massive bestseller. Frum here does not take on Levin on his philosophy – not at all. He even tries to attach a psychology to the book where there is none. For examples of where and how Levin gets it wrong, Frum picks on a couple of trivial points.

Even then, I fail to see where Levin is wrong on what happens once freedom is lost. He said “rarely” does it return. Then Frum cites several examples like Germany (the GDR?) and Chechoslovakia who both need a strong USA as a catalyst for their return to freedom after half a century. If indeed the loss of freedom happens in the US who will be there 50 years from now, and who wants to live under a GDR like tyranny in the meantime? It is an odd quibble. It doesn’t seem to matter to Frum to lose our liberty – we’ll get it back in 50 years or so, probably, so don’t bother with this airless book.

“The mood now is: dont bother us with details. Stick to the lofty generalizations.”

That would be Frum’s view of our view. Frum is a policy wonk and he wants to solve problems, that is what he does. This is precisely why so few want to follow Frum rearranging deck chairs on the ship of State being steered toward a soft tyranny. “Oh, but how ’bout that new government program those Republicans got through Congress?! What a doozie!!! No child left behind – we’re all saved now. The farm bill!! More laws!! We love it, David keep those new policies and laws coming solving all our problems!

And Frum is indeed aware of this mood among folks like us and he simply ignores it as though it is trivial. He dismisses it. It really smacks of elitism . According to Frum, we need to simply elect more statist Republicans who will take our country down the backroads to tyranny rather than the Interstate the Dems prefer. As long as a few good policy ideas are passed and Republicans are highly regarded and free of “purists” as Frum often calls them, everything will be just fine.

Frum claims conservatives are for, in his words “A more restrictionist immigration policy.” Excuse me, Mr Frum this is highly misleading and I’m sure you know it. You are not stupid. I think what you want to say for the sake of accuracy is conservatives want our borders and our existing immigration laws enforced. This is not at all the same as “A more restrictionist immigration policy.”

Mr Frum knows that official US policy is that people need to obtain a visa and a work permit and proceed through the legal immigration channels. I wonder if someone complained about prison escapees whether Frum would interpret this as advocating for tougher crime laws and not a plea for enforcement of them?

More later.
4 Dr. Tesla // Jun 11, 2009 at 3:24 pm

Franco,

The other columns are over on the right hand side under the picture of Levin’s book. This crappy website wouldn’t let me post there, but it would let me here.
5 Dr. Tesla // Jun 11, 2009 at 3:28 pm

I thought it was funny that he asserted Ann Coulter books were an exciting read. He hates Ann Coulter and I can’t see him liking Coulter’s writing style as he so concern about the “tone”. I would think Levin’s “tone” in his book would be more to his liking.

It appears Levin just can please Frum no matter what he does or what his “tone” is. If you listen to their exchange on Levin’s show, you understand why….Levin carved up Frum like a Thanksgiving turkey. Taking Frum’s review of Levin’s book seriously would be like taking Al Franken’s opinoin of Limbaugh seriously. THere’s too much hate there for Frum to be objective.
6 ChristianMiller // Jun 11, 2009 at 3:43 pm

Thanks Tesla, I magnified this site so it is off my screen. I thought it was strange too that Frum cited Coulter in that way. You are right, he hates Coulter. Actually I have bought a few of her and other books and I wasn’t that satisfied. Levin’s book isn’t a concoction of witticisms and soundbytes like Coulter’s are. As much as I like Coulter I want a bit more substance from a book.

So often people couch their insults in compliments and it is underhanded tactic. Still, I’m adopting it myself. “Certainly one must be clever to avoid debating ideas while at the same time being so dismissive of a massive bestseller.” See how I called him clever while eviscerating him? Isn’t that swift? And I didn’t even go to Yale (it is Yale isn’t it?) Wherever…

And did you get the “shrewd” jibe? Levin calculated shrewdly from his bunker how to sell a bunch of neanderthals 700,000 books. If only Frum could rise to Levin’s level of shrewd.
7 Dr. Tesla // Jun 11, 2009 at 3:56 pm

I think Coulter provides plently of substance. I think she targets younger people…humor is the most effective persuasion on young people….that’s how I got hooked on Rush when I was 19. I can see how some people don’t like her style but I like any satire of Democrats as you just don’t see it much in print or outside of talk radio.

Frum’s Moderate Manifesto only sold like 100 copies. I think Nancy Pelosi’s book did better. Frum is funny because he sees himself as an intellectual but there doesn’t seem to be many people out there that agree with his self-perception.
8 Baghdad_Bob // Jun 11, 2009 at 5:07 pm

I’ve never even heard of any of these books. Somewhere a village is in search of its idiot. God is dead! Yes! I said it! God is dead! And you, YOU KILLED HIM ! ! !
9 barker13 // Jun 11, 2009 at 9:03 pm

David,

For what it’s worth… I’m presently reading “The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization.” (*WINK*)

I’m sure I’ll get to Levin’s book eventually and when I do… I’ll share my thoughts.

BILL

* BTW… while I see your point concerning the ebb and fall of the tide of liberty from society to society, nation to nation, specific snapshot in time compared to past or future, clearly Levin’s point is that it’s better not to lose liberties in the first place… better not to have to (hopefully) regain lost liberties because regaining them – even assuming the path is relatively smooth – still requires risk and effort and the years of lost liberty can never be regained by those who lost them.

** Same deal with the sunset provision Levin calls for. Sure, I can see how it would be a waste of time and effort in many cases, but everything is a balance and I believe on balance more good would be served than ill.
10 mlindroo // Jun 12, 2009 at 6:39 am

Franco wrote:

> I fail to see where Levin is wrong on what happens
> once freedom is lost. He said “rarely” does it return.
> Then Frum cites several examples like Germany (the
> GDR?) and Chechoslovakia who both need a strong
> USA as a catalyst for their return to freedom after half
> a century. If indeed the loss of freedom happens in the
> US who will be there 50 years from now, and who
> wants to live under a GDR like tyranny in the
> meantime? It is an odd quibble. It doesn’t seem to
> matter to Frum to lose our liberty – we’ll get it back in
> 50 years or so, probably, so don’t bother with this
> airless book.

(Stunned silence)

Do you REALLY think Obama/Reid/Pelosi will create a society like the former German Democratic Republic..?

To me this is every bit as absurd as claiming GW Bush will turn the United States into a “christianist” fundamentalist theocracy along the lines of Iran.

MARCU$
11 mlindroo // Jun 12, 2009 at 7:43 am

Dr.Tesla wrote:

> As I pointed out before, the American people didn’t
> seem to have much of a problem with Clinton’s sexual
> harrasment of women, or Obama’s associations with
> a racist hatemonger “preacher” or a former
> unrepentent terrorist or that shady outfit ACORN, so I
> hardly think Rush and conservative talk radio is
> “forcing” moderates to vote Democrat, as Frum
> asserts here.

Maybe the average American cares less about sexual infidelity or extreme rhetoric on the Left since the Democrats’ policies regarding social security, health care etc. and other pocketbook issues are quite popular with voters, no? The GOP was able to compensate for it by running on law & order issues at home as well as in the area of foreign policy, but this has grown increasingly harder since the end of the Cold War.
—-
Another important point: Obama’s “problem” essentially was about guilt by association rather than about himself. On a personal level in front of the TV cameras, he oozes moderation and even-handedness (Bill Clinton also looked and sounded great next to Newt Gingrich & co.).

I think one could make the point that Obama’s policies are anything but “moderate”, but (unlike the big stars of talk radio on the Right) he certainly does not sound like an extremist hater. So I would argue that Limbaugh, Levin & co. are not helping much right now. The GOP needs someone like Ronald Reagan (=the PERSON, not necessarily the exact same policies which is what Levin wants anyway), i.e. an attractive spokesman for conservative causes … someone who can persuade swing voters and fence sitters rather than angrily preach to the already converted.

MARCU$
12 FRANKCOLLATT // Jun 12, 2009 at 8:19 am

LIBERTY and TYRANNY By MARK LEVIN is the BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ!! I have purchased over 200 copies to pass out to my friends and even some of my enemies. “David Frum” is just the type of individual that needs to read, and re-read this book. IF you read David Frum’s comments, they are hypocritical: “It is in its way an ambitious book, an attempt to offer a major political statement. Levin is not a stupid man, and Liberty and Tyranny is not a stupid book. What it is, unfortunately, is an airless and isolated book, an exercise in pure ideology radically quarantined from the life around it. It is a book for people on the defensive against contemporary society Liberty and Tyranny reveals the intellectual and psychological origins of the ferocious rage Levin broadcasts on his program.” I doubt David Frum would have anything good to say about our Founding Fathers, the U.S. Constitution, The Bill of Rights, or Conservatism in general. David Frum is a confused individual, serving as a prime example of a man pursuing a journalistic skill with a left-wing radicalized liberal agenda. Perhaps David Frum was indoctrinated by the likes of NANCY PELOSI, HARRY REID, and BARNEY FRANKS. I give David Frum no respect, or regard because he is a simpleton, a cynic that becomes confused with the mere blowing of the wind. David Frum, LIBERTY and TYRANNY is beyond your scope of comprehension, or ability to understand. Maybe you should take up gardening, or working at your local Wal-Mart, journalism or blogging doesn’t suit you well. Respectfully, FRANK COLLATT
13 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 8:24 am

I hear people on Limbaugh’s show say all the time that he converted them, persuaded them to be conservatives. Maybe they are all just plants? I dont’t hink Frum has brought anybody into the Republican party by constantly bashing the conservative base…that seems to be rather counterproductive if you want to expand the party.

I think it’s comical to assert Limbaugh is angry simply because he has an opinion that you don’t share, and it’s also comical that you just assume all moderates hate Limbaugh and conservative talk radio. It seems by defaut, moderates would not all be on the same page, and some moderates would like Rush while others did not. It’s funny to me how you and Frum types keep asserting that moderates will always run to the warm embrace of Democrats because a person on the radio is simply a conservative, no matter how “polarizing” those Democrats are, or how in want of character they are, such as in Obama, Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and John Edwards, just to name a few.
14 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 8:42 am

David Frum is the new David Brock, but he’s only gone half the way. It is my wish to see David Frum have the full meltdown like David Brock. The fact that he considers the Huffington Post a realiable source of information means he is about 80% the way there.

I’d also like to see David Frum debate the David Frum of 8-10 years ago that, to my understanding, opposed gay marriage with a passion. How did he flip flip on that issue in such a relatively short amount of time, and come to be as passionate for gay marriage as he was against it. Gay marriage isn’t even something I even think about much, but it’s one of Frum’s biggest things now. I don’t quite understand an ostensibly straight male’s obsession with gays being allowed to marry. WIth serious issues like terrorism, gas prices, the economy, the ethics of abortion, etc out there, why a straight man would be so obsessed with the “plight” of gay people seems kind of funny to me.

He also likes to assert gay marriage is a contentious topic but it’s slapped down every election cycle in every state, even liberal ones like California, not exactly the bible belt and home of social conservativism. It seems to me it’s one of the less contentious topics in America, it’s just probabably more important to the types of people that live in the liberal bubbles of DC or NYC.
15 mlindroo // Jun 12, 2009 at 9:05 am

Dr.Tesla wrote:
> I hear people on Limbaugh’s show say all the time that
> he converted them, persuaded them to be
> conservatives. Maybe they are all just plants?

(Sigh)
No, but “individual testimony” like this is subjective and largely useless since Rush has a huge fan base and every now and then SOMEONE who describes him/herself as a converted conservative ought to call in.
—
If Rush were an actual asset, conservatism ought to be in a stronger position now than twenty years ago when he launched his career, right? I think he has been an effective voice in the Deep South and that’s the area which caused the great GOP landslide in 1994. But the fact is the GOP has been losing support in nearly every other area from 1992 onwards. The the number of GOP seats in the House and Senate from election to election, and you’ll discover that since 1994 the trend has generally been a bad one (2002-04 was an aberration due to the Iraq war). And the Presidential elections since 1992 indicate falling GOP support although the party’s popularity in the South tended to mask the decline until about 2006.
—
Do Rush Limbaugh & co. scare away other demographics? I think there is solid evidence for this claim, e.g. opinion polls such as this one –

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2009/03/11/democratic-poll-rush-limbaugh-is-a-drag-on-the-republican-party.html

MARCU$
16 grimbleGrumble // Jun 12, 2009 at 9:20 am

It’s pretty dispiriting to see conservatives reduced to name-calling, insults, and innuendo rather than discussing substance and actual ideas for clawing our way out the shellhole Obama and Pelosi have us pinned down in. One of the (very many) problems with the internet is that substantive conversations and measured debate lose out to hysterical screaming and conspiracy theories. This is both left and right. Thank you MARCU$ for taking the time to introduce some facts and actual thinking amid all the poo-flinging in this thread. The tent is collapsing, and unless we put forward some ideas and some leaders of substance and promise i.e. not Sarah Palin, we’re going nowhere. The incoherent and hate-filled rantings of Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin are not bringing people into the tent. This is a fact. Yes they have their supporters, but the main they’re doing is pushing mostly like-minded people out.
17 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 9:23 am

I think Rush played a large part in the Republicans winning back Congress for the first time in like 50 years in 1994 and for essentially underming Clinton’s agenda of nationalizing healthcare.

Since probably at least 1/3rd of the people voting for Obama did so b/c he is black and/or is young and up on that internet, I find it laughable how anybody can assign blame to Rush for Obama’s big win over the hapless maverick mccain.

Limbaugh wasn’t on the ballot….moderate Republicanism was.

The Republican party wins a majority of voting distrists throughout the country…it’s not a “southern party”, as you liberals like to assert (you do this because you know southern equates to racist in a lot of peoples mind).

Have you not ever seen the map of voting districts that voted for Bush and those that voted for Gore? It’s almost all red outside the major urban areas where the ultra rich and ultra poor live, which is essentially most of the Democrat base. The Democrat party really doesn’t appeal to a diversity of people on a regional level…they just dominate in the major urban areas with large numbers of people.
18 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 9:28 am

How can you prove that Rush or Levin lose 2 votes for every vote that they gain?

Moreover, why do you think it’s Rush’s and Levin’s responsiblity to get Republican politicians election…dont’ they have to take personal responsbility for that?

What proof do you have that people flock to vote Democrat because of Rush and Levin? You stated it was a fact? Could I not easily say that people flocked to vote for Bush twice b/c of people like Bill Maher and Keith Olberman? How did the Republicans win back the Congress in 1994 if Rush is so polarizing as you claim? How did Bush Sr beat Dukasis, how did Bush win twice? Did moderates just finally hear about Rush this election cycle?
19 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 9:32 am

Why can’t liberals stop whining and obsessing about Rush and Levin if he’s such a drag on the Republican party? Seems like you would want to keep him talking and you wouldn’t be so eager for Republicans to throw him under the bus. He is easilly the most effective piercing critic of Obama, and even liberals recognize the truth, even though they detest it.
20 grimbleGrumble // Jun 12, 2009 at 9:40 am

No, Rush is not on the ballot. He is an entertainer out to get listeners and headlines. But this is about winning elections. Rush and Levin are not discussing the issues — no, the issue — that matters to voters now: the economy. We don’t abandon principles to get our leaders elected, but we don’t belittle the American people and call them losers and try to play down the crisis we’re in. Rush didn’t lose us the election. But he’s not doing anything to help us win the next one. And no, it’s not his responsibility, nor is it any private citizen’s. What is our duty is to recognize and support politicians who can win over the undecided.

Because, are we really worried, as Levin is, that Obama is going to turn our country into a socialist dictatorship? This is preposterous and makes us look silly. Isn’t the danger rather that we have no major figures out there arguing about the entitlements, nationalization, and mountains of debt in a reasonable way? We don’t need to be polite in the public sphere or take the debate on anyone else’s terms, but we have to at least make sense and talk about the issues the 80% of the country that is unaffiliated care about. Which, as I said before, boils down to the economy and their children’s futures.
21 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 9:50 am

Rush’s job isn’t about winning elections, and I haven’t seen him belittle anybody litle David Letterman belittled Sarah Palin and her daughter. Jon Stewart is always smearing conservatives. Bill Maher expressed his wish that Cheney die while overseas, and I don’t hear anybody whining about them among the left. You have liberals actually defending Letterman calling Palin a slut and “joking” that her 14 year old daughter was getting knocked up by a baseball player. I noted that Frum had nothing about that on his website, and he’s been on Bill Maher’s show and other leftwing shows that Rush could never equal in being “hateful”.

I’m worried that Obama’s spending way too much, that he’s nationalizing parts of the private sector like the auto industry and banks, that he wants to nationalize healthcare, that he’s going to have to jack up my taxes to pay for all this. I worried that this man is extremely naive if not sympathetic to the Islamic anti-America world view. In his own words in one of his book, he rejected the radical beliefs of the Nation of Islam because he thought it was not effective, and “not out of sentiment”. That’s a stunning admission. He’s also said he would “side with the Muslims shoudl the political winds shift in ugly direction”, whatever the hell that means.

Then I note that he is going soft on Iran even saying they have a legit claim to nuclear technology, while at the same time he takes a hard line against Israel even after saying America can’t force it’s views on other countries.

The fact that you are pretending to be a conservative or Republican is laughable, if you see nothing disturbing in Obama’s policies and his approach to governnance. I never seen a president fire a company’s CEO before…he did just that with GM. If that’s not government overreaching, what the hell is?
22 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 9:53 am

Rush and levin don’t talk about the economy and “our children’s” future? I think that is almost the bulk of the content of there shows! Unemployment is nearly 10% and you are still blasting Limbaugh rather than criticizing the Obama adminstration for anything.
23 KL7212 // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:21 am

“I hear people on Limbaugh’s show say all the time that he converted them, persuaded them to be conservatives. Maybe they are all just plants?”

Though I wouldn’t put it past Rush to use plants, I think its more likely that inbound calls to his show are heavily filtered and self-selecting.
24 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:24 am

Heh.

Maybe Rush should take more calls from angry liberals like Frum that want to call him fat, a drug addict, and get into his “tangled marital history”. That would be exciting radio.
25 Brutus1776 // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:32 am

“Maybe Rush should take more calls from angry liberals like Frum that want to call him fat, a drug addict, and get into his “tangled marital history”. That would be exciting radio. ”

Dear no! Did you hear when Frum called into Levin’s radio show? I think after it was all said and done, I just felt sad. It’s like when parents fight…

Last thing we need is sound clips of Conservatives bickering so that the media can air them and make us look like we are dead in the water. What we need, is for Conservatives to get in a room with a keg, spend the evening sipping and ripping and hashing out the differences. Worked back in college
26 KL7212 // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:37 am

No one doubts that Mark Levin is an intelligent, well educated and highly accomplished man. But he’s preaching to the choir and laughing all the way to the bank. For Levin and Rush and people like them the Republican Party is secondary to selling books, Arbitron ratings and making money.

Now, as a capitalist, I have no problem with this at all. But as a disaffected Republican, I find it troubling that talk radio hosts have become the loudest and most visible spokesmen for so many in the party and the conservative movement.
27 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:40 am

I thought Levin was more polite than he needed to be with Frum. Frum likes to run his mouth and put people down personally….I’d like to see him talk trash to Rush or other conservatives in person. He’s a big man only behind a computer.
28 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:42 am

What’s wrong with having conservatives that “preach to the choir”. It’s rather obvious leftwingers are not going to like what he has to say, so he couldnt’ be successful as a conservative talk show host by saying things liberals want to hear.

This notion that Rush and other conservatives need to engage in a form of self censorship to pander to “moderates” is absurd and it’s not goign to persuade anybody to be a conservative, which is kind of the point. Rush and Levin believe in cosnervativism, not opportunistic pandering to different groups so that GOP can win elections, as Frum thinks is a great idea.
29 sw // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:44 am

Defending Levin by pointing to the nasties on the other side is nothing more than the old “everybody does it” whine. That argument does not seem valid to me. Levin is unlistenable, a dentist drill without anaesthesia, and frankly I think he really enjoys hurting people (or thinking he does). Brutus is correct. As I keep saying, infighting is perversity personified, a guaranteed sure-fire way to render opposition to that Thing in the White House fragmented and irrelevant. Obama has got to go; but we can’t make it happen by sniping at each other. Why is Levin even worthy of a discussion? Does anybody actually believe the “best-seller” claims about his alleged book? “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure” – Mark Twain.
30 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:44 am

If you dont like Rush, dont’ listen to him. Don’t see anybody forcing you or anybody to listen to conservative talk radio. Don’t see what the big deal is. I think you are extremely uptight if Rush and Levin bother you that much though, and maybe you need to loosen up a tad and get a sense of humor. That’s just me.
31 KL7212 // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:45 am

I think Levin’s radio persona is a dreadful bore. His whiny, nasally voice can best be described as a combination of fingernails on the blackboard and the death squeals of animals as they are hit by tractor trailers and locomotives.
32 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:46 am

Levin’s got a pretty damn big audience if he’s “unlistenable”, not to mention the #1 book for like 9 out of 10 weeks.

You liberals obviously think Levin is worth of discussion and you never go 5 seconds without bringing up Rush and Levin and attacking them. I’d personally rather talk about the issues.
33 KL7212 // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:47 am

“Rush and Levin believe in cosnervativism, not opportunistic pandering to different groups so that GOP can win elections, as Frum thinks is a great idea.”

No, Doc Telsa.

Rush and Levin believe in Rush and Levin. They’re media personalities, not spokesmen.
34 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:47 am

I think NPR is a “dreadful bore” to use your “I think I’m an intellectual” language.

So I dont listen to NPR….that’s what you neeed to listen to…..you act as though Levin and Rush are forced on you. You have the freedom to listen to something else on the radio, excerise it. This incessant bitching about Rush and Levin is the whining.
35 KL7212 // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:50 am

Denied the ratings bonanza of a 2nd Clinton Presidency, I think Rush and Levin are rooting for Obama in secret.
36 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:51 am

KL, you dont believe in yourself?

It seems to me that you wish to control Rush and Levin.

I’m not a big fan of control freaks.

I don’t think Rush or Levin ever claimed to be official spokesmen for the GOP, nor I doubt they would want that job as the GOP blows right now.

If another moderate type like McCain gets nominated by the GOP, I foresee a 3rd party conservatve running in 2012.
37 KL7212 // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:52 am

“It seems to me that you wish to control Rush and Levin.”

No. I couldn’t care less about controlling either man. I’m just stating my opinion.
38 KL7212 // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:54 am

“If another moderate type like McCain…”.

A lifetime ACU rating in the mid-80’s doesn’t make one a “moderate”.
39 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:56 am

Okay, so what you do you propose we do about Rush and Levin? Tar and feather them? Make the ride the rail? Draw and quarter them?

What constructive action do you propose based on your belief that Rush and Levin are the devil along with foosball? Saying you hate Rush and Levin over and over isn’t all that constructive, and in fact, it is whining.
40 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:58 am

A man that opposed the Bush tax cuts, supported amnesty, thinks waterboarding is torture, is a global warming nut, supported the horrible campaign finance reform bill that had an anti-freedom of speech portiton to it, etc, is not a conservative.

MCCain may have been a conservative back during Reconstruction but not the past 10 years.
41 KL7212 // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:59 am

LOL! Like your idols, you’re putting words in my mouth.

Maybe you should get a talk show, Dr. Tesla.

I never said Rush or Levin was the devil. I just said that a damaged political party shouldn’t lean on them so much. They don’t have your best interests at stake.
42 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 11:01 am

I think it’s funny when liberals tell me who has my best interests at stake and who does not.

I’ll be deciding that for myself.

I listen to Rush because he presents a conservative view on the news in an entertaining way. I enjoy satire aimed at liberals like you, so listenting to him IS in my best interest, because it’s good to laugh.
43 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 11:03 am

Full disclosure, Rush haters….I’m listening to Rush Limbaugh right now.

W’hahahahahaha.

He’s been slapping around your hero David Letterman last half hour.
44 grimbleGrumble // Jun 12, 2009 at 11:44 am

Enjoy, listening to Rush, Tesla. Maybe it will keep you from polluting serious discussions with your tedious dittoism. There will be no 3rd party in this country. How about fixing the party we have rather than threatening to abandon it if it doesn’t meet Rush’s standards of purity?

Levin talks about our children’s future? Really? Seems to me he is obsessed with “tyranny” while real discussions of the rising costs of being a middle-class American go on without him. Obama is taking the money out of your kid’s piggy banks while Rush whines about David Letterman. How productive is that?

The media isn’t fair? No kidding. But when have you seen Rush debate leftists other than bullying confused callers from the comfort of his own studio? We need conservatives like Frum on TV and online engaging in the discourse unaffiliated Americans still pay attention to. Frum’s not concerned with a cult of personality like Rush and Levin. He’s too busy trying to help his party get in shape to be a serious contender in the next election cycle. I’ll stick to that goal rather than whining about late night talk show hosts not being fair to Gov. Palin.
45 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 11:55 am

Regarding your notion that there will be no 3rd party in this country is to ignore the fact that the REpublican party split off from the Whig party that no longer exists.

If you liberal moderates that want to hijack the Party think you going to get the conservative base, you got another thing coming, guy.

Frum can go wherever he wants. I’m not advocating he shut up as he seems to advocate with Levin and Rush. If the guy was persuasive, the force of his own ideas and personality would not require him to constantly harp on other popular people to get any attention.

I see no evidence anybody thinks they need him for anything though. Not sure how Frum has done anything for the party unless ad hominem attacks on Limbaugh and Levin helps build a party. Seems like he has a desire to tear it down and rebuild it around his own personal views. As I have pointed out numerous times now, moderate Republican lose. Reagan won two landslides…Frum wants to to the left, the opposite of Reagan. I think that pretty much underscores the lack of common sense the man has.

Not sure why it’s whining for Rush to talk about something in the news, which is Letterman’s insult of Palin.

Grimble, why don’t you go get your own radio talk show host if you could do it so much better? Good luck getting an audience, you whiny little liberal.
46 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Crap, Limbaugh’s off the air…….I don’t know what to think now.
47 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 12:45 pm

Rush is to me like Teleprompter is to Obama. I’m lost without him.
48 WillyP // Jun 12, 2009 at 12:54 pm

Reading these comments one fact emerges: the majority of people commenting on this site side with Levin over Frum. Is that pretty clear, Mr. Frum, and the rest of the misnamed New Majority? You are in the minority.
49 Brutus1776 // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:00 pm

Well I will have to preface this with: yes, I went and waited in line at the Barnes and Noble in Tysons to meet Mr. Levin (*Bring it On Gesture with Head Down* go ahead, jeer and hoot and ask him to sign my book (for myself, some family, and my college professor who turned me into an Aristotilean Conservative). I have to say, I was taken aback by his mild manor and soft-spokenness in person, especially considering that I do in fact listen to him every time I go running (I find it good motivation). That being said, I made the comment about his and Frums exchange not but a little over a week prior, and he pretty simply told me that Rush was his friend, and Frum attacked Rush; therefore, he defended Rush. I could understand it as somewhat of a personal loyalty thing. Nonetheless, Levin does antagonize Frum and others by shifting the political compass and lumping neocons and liberals together by simply referring to both as Neo-Statists.
As for the book; it is understandable that people on NM will have found it intellectually Light in the loafers. To give Levin a benefit of the doubt, I think he was compiling his manuscript with the intention of having people who were not as engaged in politics as those of us who frequent these boards being the primary consumers. He did manage to lay out a brief description of the tenets and intellectual ground-shakers that helped create what became a movement. Hell, he tied Leo Strauss The City and Man in while including Burkes Reflections and so fourth. As I mentioned though, many of us here are keen on the intellectual ground on which we have built our own ideological or political frameworks. So reading this book might have reiterated or elaborated, but it did not introduce; which Frum mentioned pointedly.
L&T seemed on par with Rep. Ron Pauls Revolution: a Manifesto to a degree. Small, light reads really, except that Dr. Pauls prescience on the course of economic events that were to transpire was noteworthy. Then again, as a friend pointed out, LaRouche had been making the same economic arguments for years as well. I responded by pointing out blind squirrels find nuts from time to time.
A major point of contention for many here, it seems, is the mention of lost liberties. I think either Frum takes this a bit far in how he read into it, or Levin was being overdramatic if he meant to be interpreted in that way. I interpreted his warning to be a less erudite echoing of Tocquevilles same warning on the slow encroachment of soft despotism. Levins points on the comments made when Social Security and MediCare were passed as further fodder for the idea behind securing voting blocs through government programs. Remember Song of the South by Alabama, with the Daddy being a Veteran Southern Democrat who worked for the TVA and Mr. Roosevelt was gonna save us all? So hey, it was a light summer reading, and I think it would be good for high schoolers to read in juxtaposition with some of the stuff they are taught in schools. My two cents Happy Friday!
50 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:11 pm

I have a hard time believing you had any kind of lenghty discussion with Mr. Levin at the Tyson’s bookstore as I was there, and there were so many people there that he didn’t have time to talk to anybody. People were lined uup like 2 miles outside the mall when I got here at 10 in the morning.

Levin doesn’t lump “neocons” and liberals together. He doesn’t personally use the word neocon that I’ve seen or heard.

In the first couple of paragraphs, Levin states cleary that the point of the books is not to introduce new ideas but rather to describe how he personally defines conservativism in the context of liberty vs tryanny. I think Frum’s criticism of it not offerring anything “new” is kind of grasping at straws because that was not Levin’s mission in his own words in the book.

We can just as easily lodge Frum’s claim that Levin lives in some kind of political bubble right back at Frum, as it is appears that he around liberals almost exclusively and seems to have a desire to please liberals. He’s kind of stuck on this whole moderate thign now so it will be interesting what Frum says when another Reagan conservative wins, with or without the Republican party.
51 WillyP // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:21 pm

“Neocons” aren’t liberals. Aside from being code word in some circles for “Jews,” they’re basically disaffected Communist radicals from the 50s and 60s.
There’s no need to split ideological hairs. Conservatives come in all stripes but rally around certain principles. The point is that Frum is simply not a conservative. At best he’s a Democrat, or Statist, lite, who has no idea how to win an election. Wasn’t he way up there in Giuliani’s campaign? That went well.
52 Brutus1776 // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:23 pm

Well, Dr. Tesla, I did not say it was lengthy, he said it while signing my 5 books (5 was the limit if you remember) so I think my statement, and his quick rebuttle, could have transpired fairly quickly. Also, you got there at 1000, I was there at 0800 with Starbucks in hand and the bracelet so we could traverse the mall. But I will let you make your assumptions as you will, though I will then continue to assume yours are steeped in jealousy because I talked to him

I believe, as he makes a comment about a William Kristol column, and then quickly engages in defining a “neo-Statist,” we are to assume he is mentioning Neocons by not mentioning Neocons correct? Neocons are criticised for being “Big Government Conservatives” right? If he was not doing that, then why “neo-Statist” and not just “the liberals”? Honestly, I hope you don’t answer, as I am ready to run away to a happy hour here shortly. And I think you should as well, you have been busy on these board today Doctor!
53 Bulldoglover100 // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:37 pm

WillyP…what silly NeoCon group is paying you to blog these days? ROTFLMAO Frum must be making some of those racist pretty angry if they are now paying to have people sneak into sites and say things such as “Frum at best is a Democrat” LOL Really? You guys must be running scared and the pee must be runnng down your legs as you type.
GO FRUM and rescue the GOP from the magots.
54 WillyP // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:46 pm

Bulldoglover: It will be us rescuing you, and not the other way around. What does rascism have to do with anything? Non sequitur.

Sigh… none of this surprises me much. Your intellect is about on par with your leader’s. Try not to love your bulldog too much now.
55 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:55 pm

Brutus,

There is no jealousy, but I was there and I decided not to stand in line for hours since I would not be able to talk to him much at all. I had not anitcipated a crowd that big.

You did rather make it sound like you had a fairly lengthy conversation with him, and you come across as somebody who wants people to think he’s important.

I would have to re-read his book, but I don’t think he asserts that Kristol is a statist. I think he asserts the moderate Republicans help enable statists to acquire the power that they want by essentially be useful idiots.
56 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:58 pm

It’s hard to believe he was on Guiliana’s campaign… as far as I know, Guiliana and Rush are pretty good friends. Guiliana has been on Rush’s show a good bit.

Guiliana could have won so easily if he just been the complete package. He would kicked Obama’s ass if he had been conservative on social issues.
57 WillyP // Jun 12, 2009 at 1:59 pm

Dr., chalk it up to bad counseling
58 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:01 pm

Guiliana’s campaign strategery was probably the most idiotic ever. Do even try in the first few states and put it all on winning Florida?

Frum probably did come up with that.
59 WillyP // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:03 pm

I’m outta here, but it’s gotta be pretty devastating for a guy to operate a website that functions primarily as a forum for other people to mock and ridicule his own opinions.
60 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:06 pm

I think two things need to change about our elections.

They need to do away with this staging of state primaries at different times…the top 2 in Iowa and NH usually end up being seen as the frontrunners and people tend to choose b/t those two.

They also need to have a primary runoff. I don’t think McCain wins in a runoff with Romney or Thompson. I think Romney and Thompson took votes away from each other.
61 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:07 pm

Willy,

Actually most of the people in here are liberals. They are just not here right now. This thread is going to skyrocket when they get home from their factory jobs.

I never see any “moderates” on here though. That’s the amusing thing. It’s either Rush/Levin fans like me or Obamabots.
62 sinz54 // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:21 pm

Dr. Tesla sez: “As I have pointed out numerous times now, moderate Republican lose. Reagan won two landslides”

You’re cherry-picking two data points.

Let’s see:

Eisenhower won two terms.
Nixon won two terms.
Bush 41 won one term.
Bush 43 won two terms.

And at the time, they all ran on moderate or center-right platforms.

From this data, it looks like Reagan was the exception, not the rule. He was the *only* doctrinaire conservative Republican President out of 5 postwar Republican presidents.
63 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:28 pm

Actually Bush 41 won because he was Reagan’s VP. WHen it turned out he was a liberal on domestic issues, ie he raised taxes after saying he was not, he got bounced. Clinton only won 42% of the vote that year, so no mandate for your socialism as you no doubt believe.

Eisenhower won because he was a military hero, and the Republican party prior to Reagan was really pretty much where Frum wants it to go. We tried the moderate military hero thing with McCain. Oops.

Bush ran as a conservative in both his campaigns, and for the most part in his first term he was fairly conservative. He obviously went off the rails like his dad when he started supporting amnesty and never vetoed the Congress’s bloated budgets. His unpopularity is linked to those two issues where he took the liberal side.

Reagan ran two massive landslides. That’s right, he was the exception, and the question is why do Republicans want to run away from what worked with Reagan. It worked to get Dubya elected twice.
64 sinz54 // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:28 pm

WillyP claims: “the majority of people commenting on this site side with Levin over Frum.”

Naturally. All of Levin’s fans are rushing to his defense. The rest of us have never read Levin, never listened to Levin, and couldn’t care less about Levin. So we have nothing to say about Levin.

So it’s a rather one-sided discussion.

I wasn’t even participating in this discussion thread, because I know nothing of Levin. But when I lurked in here, I saw so many falsehoods in other areas being said here that I thought I would set the record straight.
65 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:32 pm

Nobody is really pro-Frum though here. The people that agree with him on the REpublican party are just Obama bots like sinz who are just anti-Rush and conservative talk radio.
66 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:38 pm

I feel kind of bad for Frum because he really don’t have a political home. He’s not an economic conservative (he supports higher income tax and a carbon tax) or a social conservative (he is a abortion and gay marriage zealot). So he doesn’t have much in common with most of the Republican party voters. But, the Democrats are doves on national security, and Frum is hawkiwsh on national security, and he says he is against big government spending, so doesn’t seem like Democrats are for him either. I’d say he probably fits in most with Liberterians except the are very opposed to the Iraq war and generally support a dovish foreing policy. So he’s kind of screwed. Looks like he’s just going to have to man up and vote for one of the parties rather than have the unrealistic expectations that the GOP has to modify to appease him and a few others.
67 ottovbvs // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:39 pm

Dr. Tesla
wrote 2 minutes ago”Nobody is really pro-Frum though here. The people that agree with him on the REpublican party are just Obama bots like sinz who are just anti-Rush and conservative talk radio”

……Actually I agree with him half the time…..His light bulb has come on and he’s realized he and the rest of the party elite have conjured up a demon who has taken over (don’t go near a mirror Tesla). He’s now trying to get the demon back below stairs without much success. The other half he reverts to type and classic neocon positions on Israel, immigration reform etc float to the surface.
68 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 2:43 pm

Otto,

Do you think he went to a mental hospital prior to his conversion to liberalism like David Brock?

Or do we conservatives need to keep poking fun at him until he does? Obama will pick up the tab for his pychiatric care with our tax dollars, to boot. Everybody wins.
69 ottovbvs // Jun 12, 2009 at 3:17 pm

Dr. Tesla
wrote 25 minutes agoOtto,

Do you think he went to a mental hospital prior to his conversion to liberalism like David Brock?

….Whose David Brock?……As for Frum he’s a fully paid up member of the Republican elite and will alway have two eggs for breakfast, whereas you on the other hand.

….Mind you the elite of the GOP are screwed for at two more election cycles at least until this fever works its way through the system…..It could be much longer given that the basic shape of the political landscape makes much more sense than it did between 1960 and 1980….All the conservatives are basically where they should be and the the liberals are in their natural home…….Ultimately if it goes on long enough those that make their living in politics like Frum could go Democrat
70 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 3:22 pm

Otto,

You are not going to commit suicide when Obama loses in 2012, are you?

I can see you Obama cultists commiting mass suicide much like the characters in that goofy movie The Happening if the Messiah should lose the election to a mere mortal, and a Republican one at that.
71 Bulldoglover100 // Jun 12, 2009 at 3:24 pm

Gosh lets see……we really messed up the last 8 years and it cost our the House.Senate and the Presidency….and now we keep screaming and throwing round so many lies we have become the joke of late night T.V….and who thinks this is working to get us back into a position to fix some of the problems in this county? Oh that’s right only those who keep their blood pumping through the online arguments.
you guys and tit and tat all day but David Frum? Is at least putting issues out there and looking for answers. Real ones not the ones being tossed out by some of the total idiots we have voted in to represent our party. I mean look at how bad it really is when we ave Dick Cheney back in the spotlight! HE GOT US WHERE WE ARE TODAY!!! IN THE TOILET!!! LOL and now people want to dig reagan up and prop him up like he is going to help us now??? really? The world has passed reagan by and apparently many missed that fact…The dems didn’t and they clobbered us using the internet.
72 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 3:26 pm

See, them Democrats are up on that there internet…that’s why the REpublicans lost to them. I knew it!
73 ottovbvs // Jun 12, 2009 at 3:45 pm

Dr. Tesla
wrote 21 minutes ago

…….In your dreams Tesla
74 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 3:55 pm

I just watched the video of Palin on the Today show with Letterman….she utterly destroyed that guy. I’d be surprised if he is able to sustain his ratings unless liberal women aren’t the feminists we were all todl they are .
75 ottovbvs // Jun 12, 2009 at 4:03 pm

Dr. Tesla
wrote 7 minutes agoI just watched the video of Palin on the Today show with Letterman….she utterly destroyed that guy

…..In your dreams Tesla
76 InTheMiddle12 // Jun 12, 2009 at 5:16 pm

How anyone takes Palin serious scares me more about the state of the American intellect than anything.

Barely coherent, denying she slandered Letterman insinuating he’s a child perpetrator. And before I get flamed, I thought his original joke was inappropriate and he should have apologized.

But Palin’s attempt to make this a story shows more about her desperation for national coverage. I’ve still yet to hear her speak a coherent policy beyond these lofty sounds bites that are driven to ‘inspire’ the base but offer, when you look at them, nothing.

I encourage the GOP to keep Governor Palin front and center. Between Sarah, Rush, Dick and Newt, the Democrats would like nothing more than ideologues who completely turn off the moderates that decide elections.
77 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 5:29 pm

InTHeMiddle makes the point that I’ve been making…David Letterman liberal types in the media do not turn off moderates, so it’s logical to conclude that moderates really aren’t that moderate if they are only offended by conservative entertainers by not by liberal entertainers.

I cannot imagine being an apologist for Letterman on this issue. He is sick making a joke about a girl being raped by a baseball player. The insult was unfair to A-Rod as well.
78 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 5:34 pm

I think what Lettermans said is actually worse than what Imus said, so hopefully he will get the boot too.

I know that I wouldn’t want my daughter around that creep.
79 FRANKCOLLATT // Jun 12, 2009 at 7:06 pm

Elective Decisions
The Undeniable Genius Of Mark Levin

It cannot be overstated that Mark R. Levin is a genius. It is clearly undeniable. For those that listen to his daily radio program, it is crystal clear, and he is largely responsible for raising the IQs of his listeners. If were lucky, we have someone come along that defines conservatism, its principles, making the ideology easy to comprehend for all to read. Liberty & Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto is exactly just that kind of book. It has clearly defined conservatism for everyone that reads the book. Its content is far above the current standard of books in the market today. This explains exactly why its been on the New York Times bestseller list for ten out of eleven weeks, and exactly why Mark R. Levin is an undeniable genius. For anyone that doesnt know, writing a bookespecially a nonfiction bookis a painstaking process. First, the research alone is an almost insurmountable task. Secondly, there are rewrites done before going to the editing process. Then theres the actual editing process that is time consuming and daunting. And finally, the book heads to a galley phase before it goes to print, on which the author must review it again. Writing a book is an agonizing process that is done because the author has something to say. It is important to understand thisso that anyone that purchases Liberty & Tyranny: A Conservative Manifestocan appreciate the effort put forth, as well as the time involved before going to print. Remembering this is important, because all the while, events are constantly changing around the author. So, in essence, the author must be ahead of his time. And this is where the genius of Mark Levin lies. He is truly ahead of his time.

Elective Decisions thanks Mark R. Levin for his work in conservatism, his genius and his dedication to America, its cause and the American people.

THIS IS AN APPROPRIATE COMMENT DAVID FRUM, I HOPE YOU LEARN FROM IT, FOR I WISH TO ASSIST YOU IN ACCEPTING AND LEARNING ABOUT TRUE CONSERVATISM, AND THE GREAT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!
80 grimbleGrumble // Jun 12, 2009 at 8:41 pm

All right, lemmings and dittoheads, follow Rush and Levin into electoral oblivion. Just don’t drag the Republican party with you. Start an extremist 3rd party full of vigilantes, Bible-beaters, and media conspiracy theorists, and best of luck to you. We’ll miss all you crazies (but not really).
81 Dr. Tesla // Jun 12, 2009 at 9:08 pm

You can have the Republican party….good luck winning anything without those “Bible beaters”, you anti-Christian bigots. You guys have a lot of hate in your hearts. The conservative base needs to start a new party that represents them.

This is a special message for David Frum. Rush Limbaugh raises a lot of money for cancer research, specifically lymphoma and leukiamia research every year, and he also matches whatever his listeners contribute for the year. I had Hodgkin’s lymphoma two years ago, and due to the generoistiy of Limbaugh and thousands of others, Hodgkins’s is nearly 100% curarable today. So when you go after this man in the leftwing rag Newsweek, when you do a hit piece on that man who has done more good for society than you ever had, you deserve to be slammed and called out for it. You of course could not mention Rush’s generosity in both contributions to cancer research or his contributions and promotion of a charity for the families of soldiers and cops that been killed. You had to demonize him and you had to leave this out. You also have to leave out Mark Levin’s eefforts to end animal cruelty. You don’t want people to have a clear understanding of these men because you are this petty bitter little guy that wants to “matter”. You could matter just by being a nicer human being and helping people out around you…you seem to just want the attention and fame though, and you have utterly failed in that objective.
82 WillyP // Jun 12, 2009 at 10:24 pm

Let’s clarify for the Frum followers:
Where does Mr. Frum stand on global warming legislation? How is this not, as Mark describes, ecoMarxism? How do you effectively nationalize all energy production, the food for all other industries, and not call yourself a socialist? Answer that one, Frummies. We conservative won’t get an answer because these moronic moderates are too obsessed with pleasing their liberal masters in the media.

I lived in Canada for four years. Frum isn’t even a Canadian Conservative. He’s a Canadian Liberal. If I wasn’t so sure of his dull-headedness I’d suspect he was a plant from up north. But no, he’s clearly just a dolt. This entire enterprise is a waste of time, and I feel bad (slightly) indulging my ability, largely attributable to Mr. Levin, to “squash the moderates like grapes.”

Dr. Tesla, I like your moniker. Nikola, unlike Frum, is an unrecognized genius. I’ll leave this thread to you mop up the stealth liberal mess.
83 ChristianMiller // Jun 13, 2009 at 6:10 am

(continued)
For example the gay marriage issue is very new. 15 years ago there was no talk of it on either side. There was talk only of civil unions in the mainstream political sphere. Now people are considered and publicly labeled “homophobic” if they are against this very strange new wish some on the left want to implement. I say strange because there is no history in millennia of homosexuals in every culture expressing this desire no matter how remote. There is little or no writing in thousands of years in any language expressing this desire.

Another example, “hispanics” are now a race. Once they are redefined by the left as a race, they can revive all the racial civil rights battles that divide the electorate.

It matters not on whit how moderate Republicans are on race, gays, immigration, you name it. Republicans are always depicted as bigots, and in every possible negative way.And moderate isn’t the right word either. You can either believe people are individuals or they are not. There is no way to mix this distinction without being philosophically entwined with the racialist tribal view. This is precisely what affirmative action does. It tries to reward/punish on the basis of race while professing there can be no differences. This is Inherently hypocritical. Once the philosophical underpinnings of an argument is removed the debate merely becomes about the degree and implementation of fundamentally statist policies that infringe on individual rights to enhance collective rights.

Frum wants to remove (somehow – he doesn’t say) the obvious targets, ostensibly to take this cudgel away from them. Yet leftists always find new targets to demonize. It is obvious to any thoughtful informed person. Yet Frum locked inside his beltway elitism believes them and is embarrassed.

He believes he must distance himself to be taken seriously by Democrats and so-called centrists. In fact all they are doing is manipulating him for their ends.
84 ottovbvs // Jun 13, 2009 at 6:11 am

WillyP
10:24 PM
“I feel bad (slightly) indulging my ability, largely attributable to Mr. Levin, to “squash the moderates like grapes.”

…..The only grapes being squashed at the moment are conservative ones
85 ChristianMiller // Jun 13, 2009 at 6:13 am

To add to WillyP and Tesla,

“All right, lemmings and dittoheads, follow Rush and Levin into electoral oblivion. Just don’t drag the Republican party with you.”

This displays a profound ignorance of not only politics but of human behavior, and the belief in this meme is rampant on this site.

Us “dittoheads” as you call us, have no power over the Republican party. If we withhold our votes from certain Republicans they will lose or win. The Republican party then has a choice, change its overall stances to try to attract more votes, or go merrily on its way into success or failure without these votes. In short the party can only try its best to take the pulse and react. The party can’t decide to exclude voters who are conservative, it can’t exclude candidates who are conservative from running in Republican primaries. It is not causal; it can only react.
If these votes are just a loud minority within the party, well then, no loss for Republicans right?

The party can’t exclude membership which some moderates writing columns here imply. It is as though they can’t bring themselves to vote for any Republican who also gets some votes from “dittoheads”, while then actually voting for the alternative, despite their professed ideological qualms, voting casually alongside committed Marxists, racialists and assorted bigots on the other side. And these are the folks who call US purists!

Next ,we come to more evidence that something is amiss. Most, if not all the professed moderates here (about 5 or 6) have on their side obvious leftists who come here professing some very questionable reasons in trying to help the Republican party gain electoral advantage. What does that tell you?

The leftists posting here fear conservatism. They would rather go against squishy Republicans. Ignore their pleas that they just want civil discourse, perhaps there are some real moderates here who want that, but the leftist is lying when he says that. The leftist wants Republicans – really anyone to the right of him no matter how proximate – to lose.

In fact, leftists need enemies to win, and they are effectively forced to demonize their enemies to advance their cause. They have painted themselves into a corner. They have no choice but to demonize, villify, demean and mock their opponents no matter what their principles. They have demonstrated this time and again. Moderate republicans are defined as extremists. All that is needed for the lefties is to move farther left to maintain the distance, and by sheer relativism they re-define newly moderated Republican positions as “extreme”. There is no absolute standard for these people. They also call themselves “progressives”, they are “in progress” as it were. The political landscape is moving (mostly thanks to them) but they act as though it is static.
86 sinz54 // Jun 13, 2009 at 7:12 am

WillyP asks: “Where does Mr. Frum stand on global warming legislation? How is this not, as Mark describes, ecoMarxism? How do you effectively nationalize all energy production”

As an admirer of Frum, I’ll be happy to answer your question. It’s a long answer, but what you asked wasn’t a simple question:

The free market works when there is fair pricing of all the goods involved in the transactions. Normally, you price an item based on its future value (taking into account depreciation). For example, you must know that if you mess up your home, you are lowering its resale value. That’s why you take care of your home and make it presentable–to keep its value for future owners. And when buying a car, you shouldn’t pay as much for a model of car that will depreciate heavily–because its future resale value will be less.

Now: Ever since Man first appeared on this planet, we’ve been dumping our wastes into the atmosphere as if it’s infinite and free for the taking. And science has now proven that this is false. The price of using our atmosphere for industrial purposes is NOT zero. There’s a cost. The atmosphere can depreciate like any other industrial resource.

We already had one such problem 20 years ago, with holes in the ozone layer over the poles being caused by the halocarbons we were dumping into it from spray cans and fire extinguishers and so on. Right there, that’s an existence proof that human-caused activities can damage our atmosphere on a global scale. So the world’s governments combined to limit halocarbon use–and now the polar hole in the ozone layer is slowly shrinking. But it will take 40 more years for it to go back to normal.

What is the best answer for dealing with dangerous effluents like these?

Milton Friedman, who was no liberal, suggested that for each type of effluent we dump into the atmosphere, the government should impose an effluent tax. The tax can be set at whatever level it takes to both discourage the production of more effluent, and to pay for the cost of cleanup.

In the case of greenhouse gases contributing to global warming, the right answer is a carbon tax. Just levy the tax at the gasoline pump, along with the other taxes built into gasoline. That way consumers can see with their own eyes how much THEY are contributing personally to global warming. And gradually raise that tax to make greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuels less competitive with nuclear, solar, wind, and hydropower. Raising the tax also encourages efficiency and conservation.

That requires no nationalization, no “socialism.” All private companies remain private. It simply puts a FAIR PRICE on the atmosphere of our planet. It forces us all to consider the Earth as our home–with nonzero price–and to not mess it up so that future generations–future homeowners–will have a home they can live with.

Hope this helps.
87 sinz54 // Jun 13, 2009 at 7:24 am

Franco sez: “The party can’t exclude membership which some moderates writing columns here imply.”

No. BUT: Right now the evangelicals in particular, and the “dittoheads” too, are highly organized, vocal, and militant. They dominate the party caucuses and the party primaries–because they’re highly motivated to go there. The moderate and Independent voters aren’t particularly interested in walking into these GOP forums because they know from the start they’ll be viewed with suspicion. If you and Dr. Tesla were in a GOP caucus, and I walked in there, I doubt you’re going to say to me “Welcome, sinz54! Glad you could join us.” You’ll probably either have nothing to do with me, or call me out: “There goes one of those Frum RINOs!”

And therefore, I’m not going to bother. I have no motivation to save the GOP from itself.

What Frum is trying to do, is restore that “ecological niche” to the GOP in which moderates and even liberals used to be welcomed. As more of them participate in the GOP (rather than waiting till Election Day), the GOP can become more receptive to the moderates who deserted the GOP in 2006 and 2008.
88 petty boozshwa // Jun 13, 2009 at 8:12 am

I like Frum a lot. When he blogged at NatRev he was one of my first searches, along with Mikey Kaus and Andrew Tobias – blogs I recommend highly. I have to say I’m a little disappointed in his topic selection so far here at NM – I wish we could have the old Frum back. I did appreciate this review, but would like to pose a few questions/comments to be considered by the commentariat and the noble Frum himself, at some point. Like the Humphrey Bogart character in The Caine Mutiny, Frum seems fixated on his minor triumph in his earlier days. I’m referring to his public service in derailing Harriet Miers’ Supreme Court nomination. Now far too much of his energy seems to be devoted to counting coup against Sarah Palin, Limbaugh, Levin, etc. rather than focusing on those issues that could unite the conservative movement. Why not write about Democrat foot dragging on E-verify – a program of de minimus cost, as effective as ATM machines or PayPal – an effort that could have an enormous impact on our illegal alien problem and would have the fringe benefit of exposing tens of thousands of child support scofflaws. Too boring? Why not some sunlight on the Dem/lib interest groups that are terrified of the light of day exposing this outrage? Why not some commentary on the California public employees retiring at age 50 with a $499.600 pension. [I guess half a million a year would have looked unseemly.] No discussion of labor union malfeasance bringing down our keystone manufacturing industry, no discussion on the impact of gerrymandering on our future prospects, way too much palaver on worthwhile Canadian initiatives. Maybe the blog could have a suggestion box for topics that interest those of us motivated enough to comment.
89 ChristianMiller // Jun 13, 2009 at 8:17 am

sinz “The moderate and Independent voters aren’t particularly interested in walking into these GOP forums because they know from the start they’ll be viewed with suspicion.”

Oh, and we conservatives who are here at a moderate forum aren’t viewed with suspicion and even revulsion? Ha!

And of course you know you are tacitly admitting that moderates don’t care as much. The reason they don’t care as much is they see no threat from the left. They are ideologically ignorant, not ideologically open. If they R candidate is too old or seen as not their type, they casually vote for the other guy – no big deal, and then THEY want to somehow chart the course for the Republican party?
Christal Wright and sinz are saying in effect, they won’t enter the room of the Republican caucus until us ‘dittoheads” leave. Meanwhile they willingly vote against their own interests.

Moderates are too scared to fight Democrats and too weak ideologically to fight conservatives. They flounder around and whine, not truly knowing what they believe they just want to be able to join some exclusive club that will never exist anywhere but their own fantasies.
90 Dr. Tesla // Jun 13, 2009 at 8:45 am

What I think is funny is how these liberals and “moderates” have this expectation that conservatives “welcome” them to the party. I didn’t know we had to kiss your ass for voting for a party we support. That seems to be that Crystal lady’s opinion as well.

I dont’ think anybody in the conservative base is not going to want your vote if you had decided to vote for a traditional conservative Republican party. That would be rather stupid on our part.

The fact is sinz isn’t even close to being a moderate. He’s a leftwinger, and no amount of pandering and transforming the Republican party into Democrat-lite is going to get him to vote Republican.
91 ChristianMiller // Jun 13, 2009 at 8:54 am

Back to the actual review…. Frum knows that there is an ideological debate within the Republican party between conservatives and moderates (despite his self-label as a conservative) and yet he debates NOT ONE of Levin’s philosophical ideas.

He ignores all of them and blithely dismisses them. Frum declares:”Liberty and Tyranny does not assert an arresting or unusual idea. In fact, I doubt that even the most virginal newcomer to conservatism will find in this book an unfamiliar concept or idea.” So, if this sentence is true, Frum is admitting Levin’s concepts are not particularly radical or new and are NOT outside mainstream conservatism. Frum doubts “that even the most virginal newcomer to conservatism will find in this book an unfamiliar concept or idea.” What a delicious irony. Frum claims the mantle of conservatism yet wants a newer version of it. Okaaay…

However this assertion that Levin’s book will not inform virginal newcomers to conservatism isn’t true anyway. There are a lot of people who need these ideas presented in an integrated manner, and on this Levin succeeds fabulously. Levin also succeeds in detangling the partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans and speaks in a broader overview, really what the world-views are and where the differences lay between those who want more Government control and those who revere the sanctity of the individual regardless of party affiliation. Levin reveals to us why so many Republicans are not conservative and why. He calls them statists who also like State control and explains how this hurts all of us.

Frum cites several trivial policy matters and says,
“But Levin has little interest in practical politics.” That’s right David. He isn’t, at least in this particular book. Frum wants to shift the debate onto policy and practical matters because he can’t debate the broader issues these issues – that Frum tacitly admits are in effect settled – that are dividing us.

Even though Frum knows the argument is about the forest, he insists on focusing on the trees.
92 ChristianMiller // Jun 13, 2009 at 8:58 am

Tesla “The fact is sinz isn’t even close to being a moderate. He’s a leftwinger,…”

Sinz is a she, does that help explain a few things? Politics as seduction perhaps? Lie to me… lie to me..
93 WillyP // Jun 13, 2009 at 9:04 am

sinz: The science of anthropogenic global warming is highly questionable. Do a Google search (start with S. Fred Singer) and inform yourself. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and work out the economic schemes of the reformers. What would a carbon tax do, in effect, and why is it rightly called socialism?

Aside from the infeasible renewable energy sources, every method of energy production requires the emission of carbon (dioxide). Moreover, industries use power to produce goods. A carbon tax will tax every conceivable human activity. It will grant enormous power over industry to government.

Socialism need not be formal control over the means of production. People who do not like using the word dont seem to comprehend that a government that can dictate the terms of production, dictate quotas of production, dictate methods of production, and dictate prices is in effect socialist. Von Mises makes this point over and over again throughout his writing, but there is no need to read Human Action to understand. Just read what I wrote a few times and use your brain. Is that condescending? Consider the review in question.
94 ChristianMiller // Jun 13, 2009 at 9:11 am

Hey, Chrystal, you are so pretty ..and smart, of course. We welcome you into our party. How should we dress to attract you, to win you. Shave? Sure. Buy you dinner? Will do. This is probably how most men act around Chrystal, who can blame her for projecting her world into the realm of politics. She is used to withholding favors to dictating behavior as nearly all women are trained to do. Attractive women are used to these methods working quite well.

If we Neanderthals all shave and talk nicely she may consider lying down with us. It is merely a matter of association not principles of ideas.

They are social not intellectual creatures. This is not exclusive to women however. Frum is like them as well with his critique of Levin’s style and his views that Levin operates in isolation and such. It is the same social ideal – that we ALL need to get together and agree in a civil manner take in what everyone thinks and believes no matter how wrong and moderate and conform our views.
95 Dr. Tesla // Jun 13, 2009 at 9:28 am

Maybe the Republican party needs to set up Butt-Kissing booths at the election sites, and everytime a Crystal type comes up and says she is a moderate that plans to vote for the Republican as long as she is “welcomed”, a Republican in the booth can swiftly plant a kiss on one of her cheeks to secure her vote and the election.

It’s funny to me how self important people are about their one vote…sinz and Crystal act like if they don’t vote Republican, the Republican party just can’t win. They seem to see themselves as the Kevin Costner character in the goofy movie Swing Voter where the result of the election rests on his one vote and the two parties are pandering to him to get it.
96 Dr. Tesla // Jun 13, 2009 at 9:59 am

I just saw this article and I’d thought I share it. It’s kind of funny.

Gays decry Obama’s stand on gay marriage case
By LINDA DEUTSCH and LISA LEFF 15 hours ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) Gay rights groups expressed dismay with the Obama administration Friday over its championing of the Defense of Marriage Act, a law the president pledged to try to repeal while on the campaign trail.

The government filed a motion late Thursday to dismiss the case of Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer, who are challenging the 1996 federal act. The law prevents couples in states that recognize same-sex unions from securing Social Security spousal benefits, filing joint taxes and other federal rights of marriage.

U.S. Department of Justice lawyers argued that the act known informally as DOMA is constitutional and contended that awarding federal marriage benefits to gays would infringe on the rights of taxpayers in the 30 states that specifically prohibit same-sex marriages.

“The president made very explicit and emphatic campaign promises that he opposes DOMA and would provide leadership calling on Congress to repeal it,” said Jennifer Pizer, marriage project director for Lambda Legal. “This brief is not consistent with that promise.”
97 palomino70 // Jun 13, 2009 at 3:47 pm

Franco
8:58 AM
Tesla “The fact is sinz isn’t even close to being a moderate. He’s a leftwinger,…”

“Sinz is a she, does that help explain a few things? Politics as seduction perhaps? Lie to me… lie to me..”

Classy, Franco. That’ll bring the dames back to the party.
98 palomino70 // Jun 13, 2009 at 3:48 pm

Franco
9:11 AM
Hey, Chrystal, you are so pretty ..and smart, of course. Franco: “We welcome you into our party. How should we dress to attract you, to win you. Shave? Sure. Buy you dinner? Will do. This is probably how most men act around Chrystal, who can blame her for projecting her world into the realm of politics. She is used to withholding favors to dictating behavior as nearly all women are trained to do. Attractive women are used to these methods working quite well.”

Franco, dude, you need to get laid.
99 sinz54 // Jun 13, 2009 at 5:15 pm

WillyP: A carbon tax is called “socialism” as a buzzword by those who refuse to accept that the Government has any role in preserving the environment whatsoever. And who can’t seem to understand that when a natural resource is priced as free for the taking (as the atmosphere has been priced since the dawn of human civilization), that’s an invitation to waste it, despoil it, and make it unusable by future generations who aren’t yet here to bid on it.

Let me repeat: In his book “Free to Choose,” Milton Friedman *advocated* effluent taxes as the most efficient way to deal with industrial pollution of all types.
100 Dr. Tesla // Jun 13, 2009 at 5:55 pm

For the open minded moderates in here, you may want to reconsider this notion CO2 is going to kill us all and thus we need to pay higher utility bills via the carbon tax to stop it:

Where’s global warming?
By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / March 8, 2009

Half the country was experiencing its mildest winter in years, with no sign of snow in many Northern states. Most of the Great Lakes were ice-free. Not a single Canadian province had had a white Christmas. There was a new study discussing a mysterious surge in global temperatures – a warming trend more intense than computer models had predicted. Other scientists admitted that, because of a bug in satellite sensors, they had been vastly overestimating the extent of Arctic sea ice.

If all that were happening on the climate-change front, do you think you’d be hearing about it on the news? Seeing it on Page 1 of your daily paper? Would politicians be exclaiming that global warming was even more of a crisis than they’d thought? Would environmentalists be skewering global-warming “deniers” for clinging to their skepticism despite the growing case against it?

No doubt.

But it isn’t such hints of a planetary warming trend that have been piling up in profusion lately. Just the opposite.

The United States has shivered through an unusually severe winter, with snow falling in such unlikely destinations as New Orleans, Las Vegas, Alabama, and Georgia. On Dec. 25, every Canadian province woke up to a white Christmas, something that hadn’t happened in 37 years. Earlier this year, Europe was gripped by such a killing cold wave that trains were shut down in the French Riviera and chimpanzees in the Rome Zoo had to be plied with hot tea. Last week, satellite data showed three of the Great Lakes – Erie, Superior, and Huron – almost completely frozen over. In Washington, D.C., what was supposed to be a massive rally against global warming was upstaged by the heaviest snowfall of the season, which paralyzed the capital.

Meanwhile, the National Snow and Ice Data Center has acknowledged that due to a satellite sensor malfunction, it had been underestimating the extent of Arctic sea ice by 193,000 square miles – an area the size of Spain. In a new study, University of Wisconsin researchers Kyle Swanson and Anastasios Tsonis conclude that global warming could be going into a decades-long remission. The current global cooling “is nothing like anything we’ve seen since 1950,” Swanson told Discovery News. Yes, global cooling: 2008 was the coolest year of the past decade – global temperatures have not exceeded the record high measured in 1998, notwithstanding the carbon-dioxide that human beings continue to pump into the atmosphere.

None of this proves conclusively that a period of planetary cooling is irrevocably underway, or that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are not the main driver of global temperatures, or that concerns about a hotter world are overblown. Individual weather episodes, it always bears repeating, are not the same as broad climate trends.

But considering how much attention would have been lavished on a comparable run of hot weather or on a warming trend that was plainly accelerating, shouldn’t the recent cold phenomena and the absence of any global warming during the past 10 years be getting a little more notice? Isn’t it possible that the most apocalyptic voices of global-warming alarmism might not be the only ones worth listening to?
101 Dr. Tesla // Jun 13, 2009 at 5:56 pm

Colunn Continued:

There is no shame in conceding that science still has a long way to go before it fully understands the immense complexity of the Earth’s ever-changing climate(s). It would be shameful not to concede it. The climate models on which so much global-warming alarmism rests “do not begin to describe the real world that we live in,” says Freeman Dyson, the eminent physicist and futurist. “The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand.”

But for many people, the science of climate change is not nearly as important as the religion of climate change. When Al Gore insisted yet again at a conference last Thursday that there can be no debate about global warming, he was speaking not with the authority of a man of science, but with the closed-minded dogmatism of a religious zealot. Dogma and zealotry have their virtues, no doubt. But if we want to understand where global warming has gone, those aren’t the tools we need.
102 Dr. Tesla // Jun 13, 2009 at 10:24 pm

Here’s a review of Frum’s review from MikeP on the NY Young Republican Blog:

I write these comments as a long time listener and fan of Mark Levin. For anyone interested in learning about the nature of government, or the State, there are few who are as learned, articulate, and entertaining as Levin, who is a first rate litigator, communicator, and teacher. Any close listener recognizes the erudition and thought behind what Frum calls ferocious rage; or what listeners and normal humans might call passion. While I cannot speak for Levin I will come to his defense: a myopic review such as Frums, seemingly substantive, breaks down after critical thought.

First off, the title of the book could not be more accurate. Some of the self-styled sophisticates in Republican circles might cringe at what they consider a gross simplification of what is, in reality, political complexity. But were Fascism and Communism so different for the citizens trapped under the machinations of their fanatical leaders? Does it really matter to the individual whether mob-like syndicalism or unchallengeable bureaucratization direct economic policy? In the end these are details; descriptions of the channels of power from which one man or one party directs incontestable rule. Both are tyrannical, and I very much doubt Americans would choose either over traditional American liberty. To the contrary of Frum, this blunt description is arresting because it is true.

Next, it should be no consolation to Mr. Frums readers that he picked the likes of the Germans and Poles to refute Levins claim that liberty once lost is rarely recovered. Yes, perhaps Levin should have added a qualifier to his proposition: that it is rarely recovered without great suffering. But few people would look at the experience of these two nations in the 20th century, under Hitlerism and Stalinism, and see models of government we should emulate. Thanks, but Id rather not endure that extensive a reclamation process here in America.
103 Dr. Tesla // Jun 13, 2009 at 10:25 pm

His review continued:

Much of the review is dedicated to the notion that conservatives have little interest in practical politics, but long for simplified and idealistic arguments (and personalities) that make them feel good. This might come as a surprise to the ostensibly monkish Frum, but voters are people, too. There is little hope for electoral victory based on statistical readouts of current trends that offer no coherent and organizing philosophy. People do no follow pollsters they follow leaders. Sarah Palin, looked down on by the ranks of Frum as parochial, is the movements most popular leader. Could it be that people can identify with her, trust her, see conviction in her professed beliefs? (I know its hard for Frum to stomach the idea of a party that is pro-life and opposes gay marriage, but frankly what do you expect from the son of a Canadian journalist?) Maybe this attraction to people and ideas is also why Levins book has been #1 on the NYT bestsellers list nine out of ten weeks? Nobody in their right mind looks to build a popular movement based on legislative tinkering. Finally, Im sure that Levin, a former member of Reagans cabinet, could write a statistic-heavy, Frum-like book, but then again, who would read it?

On Levins economic analysis, Frum criticizes Levin for citing the Federal Reserves low interest rates as a catalyst for the unsustainable boom. By way of this remark and the shallow remarks on handouts that follow, Frum has exposed himself as an economic ignoramus who does not understand political economy or monetary policy. His entire analysis is incoherent. For example, Frum states Then Fed chairman Alan Greenspan refrained from doing so because his libertarian instincts recoiled from the suggestion that he as a government official should decide that asset prices had risen too high. Chairman Greenspans libertarian instincts were already gone when he slashed interest rates to 1%. If Frum is curious, he should read Hayeks works beyond the popular The Road to Serfdom, and learn what flooding the banks with fake credit does to capital structure. Further, one wonders what Frum thinks of the Feds actions over the last year as our dollar finds itself dangerously close to demise. (There is more silliness that deserves retort, such as the crafty insinuation that Levin favors a more restrictive immigration policy when in fact what he demands is control over the southern border.)
104 Dr. Tesla // Jun 13, 2009 at 10:28 pm

And he closes:

A few closing thoughts. In 50 years, when the history of the present era is being written, Frum might be footnoted as being the Great Anti-Popularist. He has, after all, consistently demeaned the most popular conservative politician, Sarah Palin, and slandered the leader of the movement, Rush Limbaugh. That embarrassment of a Newsweek article will rightly be judged as carping from a petulant and largely ignored GOP fringer whose primary mission seems to be enforcing burdensome self-censorship rules on outspoken conservatives who refuse to surrender the language. After he is finished misrepresenting the free market, blushing at traditional social values, and adopting a Clinton-esque political correctness, Mr. Frum might consider reading the works of his AEI colleague Michael Novak for a rectification of his beliefs.
105 sinz54 // Jun 14, 2009 at 6:58 am

Dr. Tesla: “New Majority” is not a scientific journal. And neither one of us is a climatologist.

Scientific questions (is there an ozone hole? is the climate warming? is an Earth-crossing asteroid going to hit our planet?) are to be resolved by scientists using the tools of science–experiment, peer review, repeatability of results. Scientific questions are not a proper subject for *political* debate by political columnists like Jacoby, or politicians like Al Gore. Science isn’t resolved by debates in the public arena.

We can only go by the best that science has to offer. And right now, the reality of global warming has been affirmed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Meteorological Society–as well as their counterparts in other Western countries.

That’s good enough for me to support taking action. What kind of action is a POLICY issue, one that is a fit subject for debate. But denying global warming by cherry-picking the one or two dissenters, just because they tell you want you want to hear, is not.

Science, as you know, is always a work in progress. But it’s a very bad bet to sit on one’s laurels and hope for some revolutionary breakthrough that will prove over 99% of the world’s climatologists wrong. Because if that never happens, and all those climatologists are right, and YOU are wrong, then future generations will damn us forever.

Let me remind you: We spent trillions of dollars on national defense, because we didn’t want to take the *chance* that the USSR would nuke us the moment they thought they had the opportunity. Bush invaded Iraq, because as Rumsfeld said, they didn’t want to accept even a 1% *chance* that Saddam would give WMD to terrorists. And many passengers purchase flight insurance when they fly, even though the chance of being killed in an aircraft accident is only about 0.0001 %.

It is therefore inconsistent to wait until the reality of global warming is a virtual certainty before acting. We didn’t do that before.
106 ottovbvs // Jun 14, 2009 at 7:02 am

These books (and I include similar tomes from the left) are so banal. They are basically written to reinforce the opinions of true believers like Tesla, which is basically also why Fox News exists. They seldom say anything new or insightful but trot out the usual bromides and are often poorly written in the bargain. Essentially they are sheep shearing operations. There exists a certain demographic that laps this stuff up and will pay hard currency for the pleasure. That’s one of the things about America, it’s so big and diverse you can start a new religion or found a new political movement and they’ll find someone to follow their banner. The folks like Tesla don’t realize he’s a demographic stat in the publisher’s marketing department but that’s the reality. Tesla has an infinite appetite for this junk as his interminable posts demonstrate so Levin and his publishers satisfy it for cash.
107 Dr. Tesla // Jun 14, 2009 at 8:40 am

sinz,

You are an environmental extremist.

This lie that you put out there that there is “only 1 or 2 dissentters” on global warming just reinforces the point that the skeptics make…you don’t want to have to debate global warming on the merits, so you have to make it seem “nobody disagrees”. If you really believe “only 1 or 2″ scientists disagree with the theory of man-made global warming, you are admitting you are uninformed as hell on the issue. 31,000 scientists signed one petition alone stating their skepticism of the global warming theory. That’s a lot of scientists that disagree just to sign one petition.

I don’t think tax policy should be held hostage by enviromental extremists and global warming alarmists like yourself. I don’t want to pay higher taxes and utility bills so you can “feel good” about saving a planet that doesn’t need saving.

As far as spending tax revenue on the military, I think that is a constitutional duty of the federal government. I dont’ think the government demands tax revenue be allocated to “save the planet” from CO2 emissions ie spend taxpayers money based on faulty junk science pushed by envirnomental alarmists. They have never established a correleation b/t global temperature and CO2 emissions, and the article that I posted even shows that the last 10 years have seen a coooling trend despite CO2 still being pumped into the atmosphere by man. You have no answer for that, so you resort to the “99%” of scientists believe in man-made global warming.
108 Dr. Tesla // Jun 14, 2009 at 8:51 am

I love how otto plays “moderate” when he or she thinks it’s convenient as a debate tactic to put me down personally. This is the same “moderate” that attempts to politicize the Holocaust shooting and make the baseless claim that the shooter was a “right wing extremist” despite evidence that he was a socialist and neo-con hater and a 9-11 truther.

I have not watched Fox News in years, although I see nothing wrong with Fox News. Even if it slants to the right, it would be the only news network that does so, while the rest slant hard to the left. There does need to be at least one network that asks Democrats some tough questions and gives Republicans a fair shake. I know you think that’s un-American, but tough luck. You can’t control what others watch, no matter how much I know you would like to do so.

I think to describe Mr. Levin’s book as “junk” is laughable. You act as though he is Howard Stern or something and just puts out some smut. Levin’s book is not poorly written (you have not read the book so it’s funny that you assert this).

So what is the point of all your whining about Mr. Levin’s book? What do you suggest we do about Mr. Levin’s book? Should it be censored? Should we have Levin book burnings?

I don’t see conservatives whining about liberal books out there….I’m not afraid of your socialist ideas because they don’t hold up in the arena of ideas.
109 barker13 // Jun 14, 2009 at 9:42 am

Re: Franco; 8:58 AM –

“Sinz is a she…”

It’s funny… (*GRIN*)… for whatever reason, I think of Sinz as a man – mid to late 50’s – a bit overweight, balding.

As Franco points out, however, Sinz is indeed a woman. And yes… this shows at times in terms of… er… attitude.

Now don’t take any of this as an attack on Sinz – it’s not. It’s simply an observation. Another observation (and I’m curious if anyone else shares my suspicion) is that every once in awhile it appears there are two distinct Sinz posters – one reasonable and almost pedantic, the other aggressive and far more of a red meat conservative.

Hey… maybe it’s just the spit on domestic (soft) vs. foreign policy (more hawish, more nationalistic) that I’m seeing, but I’ll note it nevertheless.

Re: Dr. Tesla; wrote 39 minutes ago –

“Sinz, you are an environmental extremist.”

Well… I wouldn’t put it that way. I’d say that Sinz is a true believer, part of the “Global Warming” as “religious” tenant.

By this I mean her “faith” skews her willingness – nay, her ability – to absorb and respond to facts that conflict with her beliefs. It’s clear Sinz looks upon the overall issue as a moral crusade to a large degree with “the good guys” desperately fighting to “save the planet” with “the bad guys” (anyone who questions the whys, wherefores, and results of climate change and how to deal with these) standing in the way of “progress.”

(Hmm… yes… Sinz is a “Progessive” in many respects.)

Re: Dr. Tesla; wrote 28 minutes ago –

“I love how otto plays “moderate” when he or she thinks it’s convenient as a debate tactic…”

Yep. Fair observation. While Otto can be reasonable, it’s the exception rather than the rule.

Again… don’t misunderstand… my “attack” isn’t focused on Otto the person but on Otto the extreme partisan. (And he is.) (*SHRUG*)

BILL
110 behonest // Jun 14, 2009 at 11:05 am

And the question is how many books did you sell and help educate us? We the people who have not listened and watched over the past 30 years the politicians and the liberal media that have bit by bit drip by drip convinced us of their dribble. If we don’t wake up now, we will not recoginize this country.
We must all take responsibility and also teach our children resonsibility.
I stand by Mark Levin he is a great one. I have not seen too many salute our military,police firemen and EMTs
I keep on my desk top the picture of Obama not saluting our flag to remind me of RIGHT and WRONG.
Dee Smith Mesa, Az
111 sinz54 // Jun 14, 2009 at 4:19 pm

barker13 sez: “Hey… maybe it’s just the spit on domestic (soft) vs. foreign policy (more hawkish, more nationalistic) that I’m seeing, but I’ll note it nevertheless.”

You are correct.
I’m a “Rudy Giuliani” type Republican–moderate on domestic issues, leans right on economic issues, and absolutely hard-line in the defense of America against terrorists and all enemies of our land, foreign and domestic.

But I’m having fun reading all these guesses as to my physical appearance.

I have my own guesses about the folks here. I’ll just keep those to myself.
112 Dr. Tesla // Jun 14, 2009 at 5:46 pm

Sinz is hard left on both economic and social issues. She’s so radical that she has the delusion that was she believes is “moderate”. She’s for abortion, gay marriage, higher taxes, carbon taxes, global warming regulations, etc. That’s not a moderate. That’s a leftist. Why are leftists so confused about what they are, or so insecure about it? I don’t get it.
113 Dr. Tesla // Jun 14, 2009 at 5:47 pm

Sinz voted for Obama who is hard left on social issues, hard left on economic issues, and hard left on national security and foreign policy. But she’s a moderate.
114 Dr. Tesla // Jun 14, 2009 at 6:20 pm

Here’s what sinz had to say on the Holocaust museum killer thread:

sinz54
6/11/2009
7:15 AMFranco: “Wondering” about Obama’s birth certificate is a position that is out of the conservative mainstream. Even RedState.com, who despise Obama and his policies, have stopped all discussion of that and other such topics. They want to confront Obama on the issues and on his management of the government, NOT on his eligibility.

And I suggest to David Frum that he stop all such discussions here as well.

So our heroine sinz thinks it’s a “thought crime”, so to speak, to even wonder about Obama’s birth certificate. She even proposes that Frum end all such discussions about the birth certificate.

This sounds like an Obama support that wants to censor anything that she personally thinks isn’t true about Obama. I’m not saying there is anythign to the birth certificate thing, but this comment of sinz just struck me as being very anti-freedom of spech and something you expect a leftwing fascist to say.
115 Brutus1776 // Jun 15, 2009 at 5:38 am

Barker13: “Sinz is a she…”

It’s funny… (*GRIN*)… for whatever reason, I think of Sinz as a man – mid to late 50’s – a bit overweight, balding.

Whoa, whoa, whoa; we must address the important subjects on this board with an appropriate zeal: sinz is a girl? ?

If anyone imagined me with a purple mohawk, myriad piercings, in my early 20s with a “Rise Against” shirt one. Spot on

I find it interesting, as I have considered myself a fairly staunch Conservative (hell, well I am) and I had found some of Dr. Tesla’s earlier posts having paralleled my own thoughts. Now though, Dr. Tesla’s ‘rambo-style’ has made it difficult for me to find… him?… (see now I’m just all thrown off because of sinz) palatable. In the same breath, I also find an abundance of left-leaning people on this sight that for some reason or another, have fun throwing rocks at our hornet’s nest (though lucky for them, all these moderates don’t seem to have stingers I see many of the moderates’ points about the importance of how the Conservative “agenda” or principles are articulated.
116 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 6:10 am

Not sure how I have a “Rambo style”. I’m just stating my opinion just like everybody else on here. I’m not shooting people up as far as I can tell. I am flogging people with my tight logic, if that’s what you mean.

You can personally insult me all you want, but that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong.

I’m about substance, not style.
117 Brutus1776 // Jun 15, 2009 at 6:20 am

Not really going for ‘personal insult,’ more of a constructive criticism.
118 barker13 // Jun 15, 2009 at 6:22 am

Re: Brutus1776; wrote 27 minutes ago –

“If anyone imagined me with a purple mohawk, myriad piercings, in my early 20s with a “Rise Against” shirt one. Spot on ”

Nope. (*GRIN*) I pictured you 40-something, suit and tie.

Re: Sinz54; 4:19 PM –

“I’m a “Rudy Giuliani” type Republican…”

But here’s the irony, Sinz… so was I. Rudy was my candidate too. (*SHRUG*)

Yet I’m also a Forbes guy, a Buchanan guy, a Dobbs guy, a Becks guy, a Gingrich guy, a Palin guy, a Sanford guy…

“But I’m having fun reading all these guesses as to my physical appearance.”

Yeah. Me too! (*WINK*)

“I have my own guesses about the folks here. I’ll just keep those to myself.”

(*GRIN*) My photo can be found at my blog: usalyright.blogspot.com

BILL
119 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 6:30 am

You’d have to define what “Rambo style” means, and you did clearly mean it as an insult.

I have a little constructive criticism for you…don’t personally attack people…it doesn’t advance your liberal dogma.
120 barker13 // Jun 15, 2009 at 6:41 am

Re: Dr. Tesla, wrote 12 minutes ago –

Tes. Dude. You’re of course free to reject and and all advice, but Brutus – like me – is basically simpatico with you in broad ideological terms. He’s no more “the enemy” than I am. Brutus certainly wasn’t “insulting” you.

(*SHRUG*)

“I am flogging people with my tight logic…”

Yeah. Sometimes. And when you’re right, you’re right – as you more often than not indeed are.

(*SMILE*)

Hey… as one guy whose “style” tends to garner blow-back to another… you might wanna pay attention to the critiques thrown your way by fellow conservatives.

(*SHRUG*)

With me… you pissed me off by deliberately distorting my points. I consider that out of bounds – “cheating” if you will. While I’m certainly with you on “substance over style,” for good or ill I’ve got huge hang-ups concerning what I consider integrity vs. er… anything less.

Anyway… I’m butting out now… but keep in mind that the reason I’m bothering to address the issue of… er… you… is because it’s in my best “ideological interest” for you to come across as reasonable, intellectually honest, and persuasive.

(*SHRUG*)

BILL
121 Brutus1776 // Jun 15, 2009 at 6:43 am

Doctor, by Rambo style, I simply meant that you have a tendency to attack the people doing the talking, and not so much the merit of their words. It seemed to me like you do a lot of ‘liberal’ name calling and throwing around slanders, case in point, your recent response. I felt like you disregard much of what people have written, and find one line you disagree with and build their argument upon that line of disagreement, and then slander them. I just don’t see you building a consensus, even with people on the same side of the Ideological spectrum as you. More like your eyes are closed and you’re firing your M-60 at everyone. Rambo-style.

As per my “Conservatism.” Well, as Mr. Krauthammer said, “I’ll let my writing speak for itself.” You can find it at the Midwest Political Science Association.

Valle!
122 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 7:05 am

I didn’t know the word liberal was a slander.

Some people are liberals, and the ones that I identify are liberals. It’s not my fault that they or you are insecure about being identified accurately on their political idealogy. I’m not ashamed or insulted if you call me a conservative so I’m curious why a liberal would consider that a smear. The word is in the dictionary for a reason, and it’s not a smear. I think the person in question is dishonest when she claims that she is a moderate…nothing that I have seen her post is moderate, especially on social and economic issues. She did vote for Obama…that’s not a moderate in my view.

I can just as easily accuse you of using a Rambo sytle in your attack on me. You want to play this holier than thou game…I understand that, but you are not judge and jury.

As far as I know, I have not called you a liberal. I dont’ remember talking to you before, so I’m rather curious as to why you responding to a charge that I did not make about you specifically (as far as I know).

You did personally attack me with your “Rambo style” mischaracterization of me, so you may want to take your own advice.
123 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 7:12 am

Barker,

Again, he did attack me when he said that I was engaging in some kind of Rambo style in here. To deny this is to be a bit smarmy.

He then follows it up with this aburd claim that calling somebody a liberal is a smear. Even if I was wrong about it, and sinz was a conservative or “moderate”, it’s not a smear. Liberals are political idealogues, and I critize their beliefs and their distortions and mischaracterizations and smears of conservatives.

Barker, I think you overreacted to my rather mild criticism of your remark that Israel has to listen to us because we gave them money. America has no right to tell a democracy what to do, and since they cannot force us to give them money, there is no obligation on their part to do whatever we say. You did seem to suggest that by giving Israel money we more or less had bought the right to boss them around. You made a point of criticizing me for my criticism of Obama for arrogantly, in my view, telling Israels what is acceptable regarding the setttlements.
124 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 7:21 am

Brutus,

I dont’ see the moderates on this website trying to build a consensus.

It seems to be an attack after attack on the conservative base, starting with Frum all the way down to the most obscure columnist on here. I don’t see how that builds a “conservativism” that can win again. I am assuming that Frum’s strategy for a new majority includes keeping the conservative base, and to constantly insult them and the people that they like, to include Rush, Hannity, Levin, Palin, Beck, etc, does not seem like the logical way to build a Republican party that can win again…he seems to be alienating the conservative base more than anything, and I’m not quite sure how he’s going to build a new majority that can beat Obama by dissing tradiational conservatives. I think conservatives over at National review and other places have made this exact point. As John Adams said, it’s easier to tear down than to build something new. Frum seems mostly interested in tearing down the GOP and transforming it to match his own beliefs, even though he is a minority in the GOP.

I also want to point out that it’s my impression that a majority of moderates were against the Iraq war and Bush’s “hawkish” foreign policy in general. Frum supported the Iraq war and a “hawkish” foreign policy if I’m not mistaken, yet he pretends to speak for all moderates that may vote for Republican if only they do this or that. Is Frum willing to give up his “hawkish” views on national security and foreign policy so as to obtain the votes of moderates that oppose that approach?

I don’t think so.

I hope that wasn’t too Rambo of me.
125 sinz54 // Jun 15, 2009 at 7:45 am

Dr. Tesla:
I agree with you.

New Majority, under David Frum, seems to be spending more time attacking both Obama *and* the GOP base, than in defining just what his more moderate “winning” brand of conservatism would look like.

David Frum, if you’re reading this: We already know what separates you from Rush Limbaugh and from Obama. But what do YOU want to see happen in America? What are the New Majority proposals for Afghanistan, North Korea, health care, immigration, economic stimulus, etc.? Do you support the proposals from the Heritage Foundation? Or from the American Enterprise Institute? Or do you have your own ideas?

Gradually, New Majority has fallen into the same pit as the GOP base: It’s doing much more attacking, than proposing.

And I, who came to New Majority the very day it was launched, am greatly disappointed.
126 sinz54 // Jun 15, 2009 at 7:50 am

Dr. Tesla:
I think that David Frum has failed to define some basic principles AND policies that all conservatives can sign up to. To build a “New Majority” of all types of conservatives, they will all have to agree about *something*, should they ever win an election again and need to run the government again.

For example, I think you would find that on national security, you and I would have a great deal in common.
127 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 8:01 am

sinz,

I think he wants you to buy his book to find out how he proposes to beat Obama without the conservative base.

And as I pointed out, it’s my impression most moderates were against the Iraq war and Bush’s foreign policy in general.

So is Frum willing to give up his hawkish stance on foreign policy to win over the majority of moderates?

He also asserts that the majority of moderates support gay marriage, but the majority of Americans oppose every election, even in liberal states like California.

Also, a new poll showed a majority of Americans oppose abortion. Frum, of course, was quick to dismiss that, because it doesn’t fit his template.
128 midcon // Jun 15, 2009 at 8:02 am

sinz, I have observed that many of the posters vs the authors actually are spending effort to propose rather simply oppose. Though most of the articles Frum and company contribute don’t do this, I am encouraged by the fact that many of the posters here provide insightful analysis, thoughts, and ideas regarding issues such as health care, immigration, and national security.

Further, there are some posters here who I feel would make excellent contributors – regardless of whether I agree with them, because they have done their reasearch, formulated their arguments and present them in a logical and rational manner.
129 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 8:04 am

I don’t think the GOP does much attacking at all, especially of Obama. They are afraid to death of being called racist for simply criticizing a black president’s policies.

Show me a Democrat party that doesn’t attack Republicans. Obama specificaly targeted Rush a few months ago, although that backfired on him with Rush’s audience growing even bigger.
130 barker13 // Jun 15, 2009 at 9:19 am

Re: Dr. Tesla; 7:12 AM –

“Barker, again, he did attack me when he said that I was engaging in some kind of Rambo style in here.”

Hey Brutus… ya know what my nightmare is? That “Tesla” is actually Mark Levin!

(*CHUCKLE*)

Barker,

“To deny this is to be a bit smarmy.”

“Smarmy…???” Surely you jest…?!?! “Servile…?” Moi? “Ingratiating…?” (Hmm… let’s get a reading from Sinz on that one!)

(*GRIN*)

Anyway… (*SHRUG*)

Re: Sinz54; 7:45 AM –

“New Majority, under David Frum, seems to be spending more time attacking both Obama *and* the GOP base…”

Tes. He grates on me at times. You… (*SIGH*)… you just drive me nuts with the passive/aggressive routine.

Over on the “Yes James Von Brunn Was Right Wing” thread you’re basically APPLAUDING the position taken by Silber (and by Frum I’m guessing) that ultimately we need to tar the “Right Wing” with the actions of a nut.

Jeez, Sinz… nothing personal, but I “get” where Tes is coming from; trying to figure out where you’re coming from just leads to headaches.

I mean… it’s like I wrote yesterday… sometimes it’s like there’s two of “you” posting. (*SHRUG*)

Now… as to Frum… we ALL seem to key in on similar basic critiques.

Anyway… carry on!

(*WINK*)

BILL
131 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 9:29 am

I’ll take any comparison to me to Levin as a compliment.

Barker, what’s up with your (CHUCKLE) (SHRUG) and other other implied actions. Your writing style is extremely odd and kooky and contrived.

Can you not just communicate like a normal human being with all the emoting? Thanks.
132 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 9:32 am

I meant to say WITHOUT all the emoting.

I note that you still have not explained how I mischaracterized your comments on Israel basically be our puppet since we gave them our money, which seems to be the source of the hostility that you show me.

I do note that you called me an extremist on the thread where I made that criticism, despite the fact you have also said that you agree with on most everything I say. Define irony.
133 barker13 // Jun 15, 2009 at 10:59 am

Re: Dr. Tesla; 9:29 AM –

Tes. Again… if the “emoting” is so offensive to you… why emulate it…???

I can’t seem to find the post where you threw in a “smirk” to one of your own posts. Still, you know and I know that you did. Right…???

Also… while I at least break it up, here’re examples of YOU relying upon the same basic concept:

Define irony.
I’ll take any comparison to me to Levin as a compliment.
I don’t think so.
(as far as I know).

And on and on and on and on…

(*SNORT*)

Anyway… all this noted… it’s clear your obsession with my “style” is more a reaction to being called out (effectively) than to any real objection to any of my “shrugs” or “chuckles.”

The sad thing about you, Tes, is that you refuse to accept well-meaning and quite frankly right on target advice from those trying to help you sound less of a parody and more of a rational conservative.

Anyway… (*SHRUG*)

BILL
134 barker13 // Jun 15, 2009 at 11:05 am

Re: Dr. Tesla; 9:32 AM –

By the way, Tes… ARE YOU LEVIN…???

Are you Mark Levin or perhaps the person who runs this site: http://marklevinfan.com/?page_id=4521 ?

Hey… to be clear… if you really are Mark Levin then I’m disappointed and distressed.

Are you anyone any of us would be familiar with besides from this blog?

Anywhere else we can find your writings… your blogging history?

Just curious.

BILL
135 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 11:19 am

If you want to believe I’m Mark Levin or some Levin fan, go for it. You can’t prove it, and I see no reason why I should disprove it. I don’t quite understand why you think this is some kind of effective insult.

I’m over at Fark most of the time when I cyber-politic, driving all the liberal college kids crazy. Go into the politics forum and ask them if they have seen Rush_Limbaugh_Sent_Me in there, and report back to me on what they say. That screenname is more effective than even I predicted at flushing out angry leftwingers.

My sentence structure isn’t distracting as yours is, and I said smirk one time. You seem kind of defensive about this, but you do have a contrived writing style. It’s kind of formulaic.

Again, you still don’t have a clarification on what you meant by your comment about Israel. I think that I interepreted you accurately, that you meant Israel essentially has to do what we tell them…you even insisted this was just common sense….because we gave them some money. You attacked me personally when I just disagreed, rather mildly, with that assertion. I will be glad to apologize if I interpreted you wrong, but it’s not the big deal that you made it.

As far as your pretentious lecturing of how I should conduct myself, I already have a wife and don’t need another. One is more than enough.
136 barker13 // Jun 15, 2009 at 12:10 pm

Re: Dr. Tesla; wrote 15 minutes ago –

“If you want to believe I’m Mark Levin or some Levin fan, go for it.”

Any reason you won’t just answer the question…? For example, a simple “no” would do. (*SHRUG*)

“I don’t quite understand why you think this is some kind of effective insult. “

Again with the “:)” huh? You don’t see the irony, huh? (*SNORT*)

By the way, my remarks about you perhaps being Levin should be read as a compliment to Levin – that is assuming you’re not him. (*WINK*)

“I’m over at Fark most of the time…

Just fark’n around… (*GRIN*) OK. Thanks for answering. I’d never even heard of “Fark” till just now. Sounds too “busy” for my tastes, but to each his own.

“Go into the politics forum and ask them if they have seen Rush_Limbaugh_Sent_Me in there, and report back to me on what they say.”

Ahh… you’re one of those guys with multiple screen names and identities. (*SHRUG*)

“My sentence structure isn’t distracting as yours is…”

Perhaps… but your actual writing style is far more obnoxious, annoying, and uncivil. Beyond that, as I keep trying to get you to understand, when you deliberately distort the views of others and otherwise act in an intellectually dishonest fashion… well… it destroys your credibility. As a (roughly speaking) fellow conservative, I don’t want your credibility destroyed.

“I said smirk one time.”

(*SMIRK*) Com’on, Tes… even you realize that’s weak. If the style is so odious to you… why resort to it even once?

Be honest… you weren’t riffing off anything I had wrote. You weren’t adding YOUR “smirk” as a way of making fun of my usage of the technique. Nope. You were emulating what you claim to disdain.

Oh… and again… since you’re obsessed with “style”… allow me to point out that in just this one single post you use “:)” in 60% of your paragraph structure.

(*SHRUG*)

“…you still don’t have a clarification on what you meant by your comment about Israel,,,”

So you say… (*SHRUG*)… but as is far too often the case, you’re simply throwing out the false charge. My comments were and are quite clear and unambiguous.

“…you meant Israel essentially has to do what we tell them…”

(*SIGH*) Tes. We’ve gone over this. Are you hoping to convince yourself or others? If the former… you may want to schedule an appointment with a shrink… if the later… good luck. (*SNORT*) (*CHUCKLE*)

“As far as your pretentious lecturing…”

(*HUGE FRIGG’N GRIN*)

Guilty as charged! Now on that one you’ve got me fair and square.

See, Tes… this is a key difference between you and me, bud; I recognize my weaknesses (or rather where I can legitimately be criticized and where my style ruffles feathers) whereas you… er… seeming don’t.

I’m condescending. Sue me! But I’m condescending because… er… I’m usually right. (*WINK*) Thing is… when someone proves me wrong… I’m the first to thank them and do a Homer Simpsonesque “D’uh!”

Anyway, Tes, a bit more humility… a bit more tact… that’s my advice. And coming from ME… for a guy with my style and personality to be busting on you… (*SNORT*)… you’d be wise to at least give my critiques more consideration and less knee-jerk denial.

Anyway… if you want the last word… go ahead. It’s back to substance for me! (*WINK*)

BILL
137 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 12:21 pm

You are a blowhard.

(*SHRUG*)

DR TESLA
138 ctsa // Jun 15, 2009 at 1:24 pm

Frum, you have no clue what is going on. You are damn sure no conservative and we reject your lefty ideals. How do you like that?
139 sinz54 // Jun 15, 2009 at 2:04 pm

Dr. Tesla: In 1972, an even bigger majority of Americans opposed abortion than today. Yet the 1972 GOP Platform, on which Nixon ran successfully, at least tried to acknowledge differing points of view, even within the party. And unlike the 2008 Platform, the 1972 Platform didn’t take a hard-right stance by calling for a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution. It was pro-life without being strident or dismissive of other points of view.

I’m willing to bet you that even some pro-life Americans are disturbed by putting an amendment into the Constitution that deals not with the machinery of the Federal Government, or with civil liberties as does the Bill of Rights–but with a restriction on the personal behavior of female citizens.

You can be against abortion and be against the Human Life Amendment too. There are other ways to reduce the number of abortions in America.
140 Brutus1776 // Jun 15, 2009 at 2:08 pm

Dr. Tesla: I dont’ see the moderates on this website trying to build a consensus.

I don’t recall mentioning that only the moderates here were doing the consensus building. Just that you flagrant attacks on everyone wasn’t.

Barker13: Hey Brutus… ya know what my nightmare is? That “Tesla” is actually Mark Levin!

While, unlike DrTesla, I met Mark Levin, Dr Tesla is no Mark Levin Though, the similarities are astonishing, with the “get off the phone ya big dope!” Actually, I find the Doctor more Savage-esque. Of course, Dr Tes doesn’t believe me regarding my encounter, but what does he know, he never made the line wrapping around the B&N…

Tesla: As far as I know, I have not called you a liberal. I dont’ remember talking to you before, so I’m rather curious as to why you responding to a charge that I did not make about you specifically (as far as I know).
and then…
I have a little constructive criticism for you…don’t personally attack people…it doesn’t advance your liberal dogma.
and then… you go on to defend having classified me as a liberal saying “it wasn’t a slander” and yadda yadda.

Damn boy, talk about getting “flogged”

Isn’t it a felony to impersonate a Doctor?
141 sinz54 // Jun 15, 2009 at 2:10 pm

barker13: Maybe you didn’t read my post in the Von Brunn discussion, so here it is again:

“Leftists like our own ‘ottovbvs’ here are trying to paint all conservatives as somehow responsible for having ‘created a climate’ that encouraged this Von Brunn character.
“But the ultra-right-wing extremists tend to live in a cocoon of their own. I’ve read their claptrap. They think virtually all mass media (yes, even Fox News) is Jew controlled. The notion that Von Brunn somehow got “inspiration” from Bill O’Reilly or Mark Levin is absurd.”

Does that help?

The reason why you’re having such trouble with my views, is that I am *NOT* a doctrinaire right-winger all the way across the board. I do *NOT* endorse every ounce of the 2008 GOP Platform.

On foreign policy, I can be quite hawkish. On national security and national defense, ditto. On economics, I *lean* right, but not so far that I believe that laissez-faire economics could possibly work.

But on social policy, I have a live-and-let-live attitude. I’m not going to insist to tens of millions of American women that the fetus they’re carrying deserves Fourteenth Amendment rights, hence if they have a miscarriage they’re going to prison for involuntary manslaughter. I’m just not going to do that.
142 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 2:26 pm

Brutus is angry that I merely observed at the Levin book signing that he didn’t have time to talk to people because there were so many people.

Brutus made the claim that he had a lengthy conversation with Levin, in which he gently chided Levin for his slapdown of Frum on the radio.

Although I did not wait in line, one did not have to wait in line to see Levin in the bookstore. I stood about 15 feet away from him in the bookstore as he was signing books. This is how I know he didn’t have time to talk much, and this is why I decided not to wait in line for 2 hours.

Brutus, you chose to attack me…I assumed you were a liberal and I did not particularly pay attention to what else you had say. I just responded to your attack that I am some kind of Rambo in here.

That’s offfensive because I’m more like The Terminator.

I’m not sure how quoting Krauthaumer (spelling?) proves you are a conservative. He’s liberal on social issues, and he seems to swoon over Obama at times, often embarrassingly so. If he’s Obama’s biggest critic, as one leftwing rag asserted, the conservative movement is dead.
143 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 2:29 pm

Reagan conservativism is the only Republican party that has defeated Democrats easily.

Reagan was unapologetically against abortion.

I’m a Reagan conservative. You keep going back to Nixon, who was very liberal on domestic issues, to include supporting price caps, which is just a gross ignorance of basic economics.
144 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 3:18 pm

Bad new for Frum and his merry band of moderates.

GALLUP: ‘Conservatives’ Are Single-Largest Ideological Group…
145 barker13 // Jun 15, 2009 at 3:33 pm

Re: Brutus1776; wrote 57 minutes ago –

“While, unlike DrTesla, I met Mark Levin, Dr Tesla is no Mark Levin “

Yep. That was my point. (It seemed to go over his head.) (*SIGH*)

“Though, the similarities are astonishing, with the “get off the phone ya big dope!”"

YEAH…! That’s what I was picking up on! (*GRIN*)

“Actually, I find the Doctor more Savage-esque.”

Hmm… can’t really agree nor disagree since I so rarely listen to Savage.

All this said, as with Levin, Tes just goes overboard with the schtick… at least as far as my tastes are concerned.

While I do indeed disagree with Tes on “policy” matters and even questions of fact (I don’t believe Brunn is a Leftist any more than I believe he’s a Right winger; he’s just a nut) from time to time, overall he’s on the “right” side of most debates broadly speaking. It’s just his style and tactics that turn me off. (And to be fair, other’s have made the same complaint concerning my style and tone.)

Re: Sinz54; wrote 54 minutes ago –

“Maybe you didn’t read my post in the Von Brunn discussion…”

You could be right. I may not have been up to date on all your posts, or, perhaps I simply misinterpreted something you wrote or in skimming it misread what you actually wrote. If so… beg pardon. (*SMILE*)

“Leftists like our own ‘ottovbvs’ here are trying to paint all conservatives as somehow responsible for having ‘created a climate’ that encouraged this Von Brunn character.”

Agreed. (And as you’ve no doubt gathered, I don’t have much time for Otto; he’s comic relief, rarely anything more.) (*SHRUG*)

“But the ultra-right-wing extremists tend to live in a cocoon of their own. I’ve read their claptrap. They think virtually all mass media (yes, even Fox News) is Jew controlled.”

On this one we may be talking past each other.

My “problem” with your statement (if it truly can be called a “problem”) has to do with this new construction of “ultra Right wing” that you’ve come up with.

To me once we get to “extremists,” we’re no longer talking “Left” nor “Right” in terms of viable and legitimate ideological definitions of players.

To me these “ultra Right wing extremists” you identify are no more a branch of “conservatism” than are suicide/homcide bombers of school buses representing a branch of “Islam.”

Am I making myself clear?

“The notion that Von Brunn somehow got “inspiration” from Bill O’Reilly or Mark Levin is absurd.”

Agreed. Just as the notion that say… Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad murdered Private William Long because of some message Cindy Sheehan or whoever supposedly threw out into the media… would be, could be, and should be looked upon as absurd.

Sinz. We seem to be fairly simpatico here. (*WINK*)

“The reason why you’re having such trouble with my views, is that I am *NOT* a doctrinaire right-winger all the way across the board.”

(*SNORT*) Sinz. Take a breath. Sit down. Consider…

NEITHER AM I BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION A DOCTRINAIRE RIGHT WINGER…!

(*GRIN*) (*SHAKING MY HEAD IN AMUSEMENT*)

Nope… (*GUFFAW*)… that’s not it, Sinz.

“I do *NOT* endorse every ounce of the 2008 GOP Platform.”

Well (with a nod towards Republican Progessivism) bully for you, Sinz!

(*CRACKING UP*) (I amuse myself so!)

Neither did I, Sinz… so what’s your point…???

* To be continued…

BILL
146 Dr. Tesla // Jun 15, 2009 at 3:43 pm

I don’t like Savage. IF he was considered the head of the conservative movement rather than Rush, Frum would have a point.
147 barker13 // Jun 15, 2009 at 3:53 pm

Re: Sinz54; 2:10 PM –

“On foreign policy, I can be quite hawkish. On national security and national defense, ditto.”

See… I don’t know what that means.

(*SHRUG*)

“Hawkish” like Bush… or “Hawkish” like Buchanan?

“Hawkish” as in viewing the U.S. President as effectively war authorizer as and war maker in line with modern distortions of the Separation of Powers doctrine or “Hawkish” like I consider myself “Hawkish,” as a Constitutionalist.

“Hawkish” in terms of supporting an American Empire/Protectorate as in Bush, Biden, McCain, and Obama or “Hawkish” as in George Washington’s Fairwell Address? (*SMILE*)

Anyway… you don’t have to answer every question there; I’m simply putting ‘em down to make the point that even when we try to “funnel down” regarding the “meaning” of “conservatism,” it’s rarely cut and dry.

“On economics, I *lean* right, but not so far that I believe that laissez-faire economics could possibly work.”

Again… sounds reasonable as a sentence… as a policy such declarations require a bit more fleshing out.

Me? I was against “Bush socialism” and I’m against “Obama socialism.”

And yes… I’m putting “socialism” in quotes to indicate that the word itself is open to debate point by point, policy by policy, but that it’s shorthand for government bailouts, etc.

(Fair enough, Sinz…???)

“But on social policy, I have a live-and-let-live attitude.”

As do I myself. Note, I identify myself as a “Libertarian Leaning Conservative.”

But then again… don’t you basically disdain Ron Paul? Don’t you basically disdain Libertarians…? (This one may require a bit of clarification from you, Sinz.)

Me…??? I’m a big Ron Paul fan. (*SHRUG*) Does it mean I walk in ideological and policy lockstep with him… no. Does it mean I have no questions nor concerns regarding both him and especially “guilt by association” charges brought against him periodically? No. I do. It’s just that all in all Ron Paul has always come across to me as being more honorable and more “right” (as in both “correct” and “Conservative”) than most in the political arena or even the arena of ideas.

“I’m not going to insist to tens of millions of American women that the fetus they’re carrying deserves Fourteenth Amendment rights…”

Nor am I; not at conception; not through the first trimester; perhaps not as a set in stone rule of thumb through the second trimester. The third trimester… it’s a baby. It’s a life. The only real “balance” question I see coming into play is if it’s a direct medical case of the life of the mother vs. the life of the baby.

“…hence if they have a miscarriage they’re going to prison for involuntary manslaughter.”

Where the HECK did that come from…?!?!

Seriously… Sinz… it’s like someone just threw a switch which cut off all reasonable, rational thought.

I mean… jeez… at least if you had used the old “arrested for having an abortion” I’d consider you on the sane side of the border, but to throw in miscarriages…?!?!

(*SIGH*)

Anyway… gotta run! We’ll pick this up later!

BILL
148 FRANKCOLLATT // Jun 15, 2009 at 7:54 pm

Elective DecisionsThe Satire Of Chris Davis
Is Mark R. Levin The Constitutional Engine Of Conservatism?

From childhood to adulthood, I was a liberal. I believed in all of those classic clichs that liberals believe in. I had no other knowledge of America, and was not taught to believe otherwise. I never exhibited the hatred of America, nor was I near the level of insanity of todays liberals.

So, I took a tour in the U.S. Army, and when I got out, my perception of America had changed. I wasnt liberal, but I was certainly no conservative either. And then one day, I accidentally flipped the channel, turning on Rush Limbaugh The Television Show, and from there all remaining liberalism was excised slowly.

Rush Limbaugh had made me aware of an America I never knew existed. I didnt learn it at home or in school, but I did learn it from the radio every day. However, I was still not as knowledgeable on the U.S. Constitution. There were so many unanswered questions regarding the Founding Fathers and the originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Then, six years ago, I discovered Mark Levin. I had seen him on television periodically, but I hadnt tuned into his daily radio program.

I was able to stream him online from 77WABC out of New York. Now, hes nationally syndicated and millions of people can listen to him. There, I began to learn the finer points of Constitutional law that only Mark Levin can deliver. He was giving me an education of which I had never had.

I really began to understand the Founding Fathers interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. All thanks to Mark Levin. He has been a force for more than thirty years in conservatism, serving under the Reagan administration, now the President of the Landmark Legal Foundation, and offering advice to Rush Limbaugh on the finer points of the U.S. Constitution. He also battles liberalism through his articles, books and daily radio program.

He should clearly be named 2009 Man of the Year by Human Events, because he has become a champion for America, and he gives all that he has in defense of this great country. He has become the Constitutional engine of conservatism.

Thank you Mark R. Levin for all that youve done, all that you do, and all that you will do to advance the cause of conservatism in America. You are a true inspiration to many people, and Iamong thousands of Americanshave you to thank for keeping us sane during these insane times.

There’s Hope For Your Too, DAVID FRUM
149 FRANKCOLLATT // Jun 15, 2009 at 8:05 pm

Elective DecisionsThe Satire Of Chris Davis
Is Mark R. Levin The Constitutional Engine Of Conservatism?

From childhood to adulthood, I was a liberal. I believed in all of those classic clichs that liberals believe in. I had no other knowledge of America, and was not taught to believe otherwise. I never exhibited the hatred of America, nor was I near the level of insanity of todays liberals.

So, I took a tour in the U.S. Army, and when I got out, my perception of America had changed. I wasnt liberal, but I was certainly no conservative either. And then one day, I accidentally flipped the channel, turning on Rush Limbaugh The Television Show, and from there all remaining liberalism was excised slowly.

Rush Limbaugh had made me aware of an America I never knew existed. I didnt learn it at home or in school, but I did learn it from the radio every day. However, I was still not as knowledgeable on the U.S. Constitution. There were so many unanswered questions regarding the Founding Fathers and the originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Then, six years ago, I discovered Mark Levin. I had seen him on television periodically, but I hadnt tuned into his daily radio program.

I was able to stream him online from 77WABC out of New York. Now, hes nationally syndicated and millions of people can listen to him. There, I began to learn the finer points of Constitutional law that only Mark Levin can deliver. He was giving me an education of which I had never had.

I really began to understand the Founding Fathers interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. All thanks to Mark Levin. He has been a force for more than thirty years in conservatism, serving under the Reagan administration, now the President of the Landmark Legal Foundation, and offering advice to Rush Limbaugh on the finer points of the U.S. Constitution. He also battles liberalism through his articles, books and daily radio program.

He should clearly be named 2009 Man of the Year by Human Events, because he has become a champion for America, and he gives all that he has in defense of this great country. He has become the Constitutional engine of conservatism.

Thank you Mark R. Levin for all that youve done, all that you do, and all that you will do to advance the cause of conservatism in America. You are a true inspiration to many people, and Iamong thousands of Americanshave you to thank for keeping us sane during these insane times.

There’s Hope For Your Too, DAVID FRUM
150 sinz54 // Jun 16, 2009 at 11:28 am

barker13: Here is more detail on my views:

I do NOT believe in launching pre-emptive wars against foreign regimes, based just on suppositions about the regimes’ possible intentions. So much for the Iraq War. The only scenarios in which pre-emption might make sense are: a) The pre-emption is limited and short-duration with a clear exit strategy (e.g., Clinton’s “Operation Desert Fox” against Iraq); or b) we have clear intelligence that the enemy attack is imminent (say if our satellites pick up North Korean nuclear missiles ready to fire at our allies).

But once we are attacked (as we were at Pearl Harbor and on 9-11), I believe in fighting to win. I am not a fan of nation-building or “hearts and minds” type limited wars. Rubble doesn’t cause trouble.

I am not squeamish about civilian casualties. Freedom isn’t free. It costs blood. Let’s just make sure it’s the enemy’s blood and not ours.

On economics, I am NOT a libertarian. I accept that the Federal Government has a legitimate role to play as the “shock absorber of last resort” to keep the U.S. economy from crashing or soaring into hyperinflation. Milton Friedman, who was no Keynesian, was nevertheless a fan of the FDIC for just this purpose. What he said, and what I agree with, is that the side effects of bigger government (bureaucracy, stifling of initiative, tax burdens, staglfation, etc.) have to be balanced against the externalities of a free market (pollution, global warming, disruptions to society caused by economic upheavals, etc.). It’s not a simple problem, and it doesn’t yet have a simple solution. We just have to work it out as we go along.

Once you put a Human Life Amendment into the Constitution, it has equal force with any other Amendment. That means the potential implications are vast. The Constitution is no place to put “feel good” measures to appease the base but otherwise won’t ever be implemented. Once it’s in the Constitution, a pregnant woman could be severely punished for anything that goes wrong with the fetus. If the fetus is truly entitled to Fourteenth Amendment rights, and is born with a birth defect owing to smoking or substance abuse by the mother, she could be sentenced to Federal penitentiary for child abuse (which the Human Life Amendment would make a Federal crime).

I disdain Ron Paul because his economic libertarianism has not worked. (The U.S. implemented mixed-economy measures for good reasons, not because we all went temporarily insane back then.) I also disdain him because of his foreign-policy isolationism and blame-America attitude, which goes beyond anything Obama ever said. And I disdain him because of the crowd he ran with. He schmoozed the paranoid Truthers, for example.

Hope this helps.
151 barker13 // Jun 16, 2009 at 2:11 pm

Re: Sinz54; 11:28 AM –

Let’s pat each other on the back for having the tenacity to keep returning to “page 2.)

(*WINK*)

“…9-11…”

We weren’t attacked by a nation state. Not directly. Oh, I applauded then and applaud now Bush’s swift retaliation against the Taliban and our invasion which drove them from power, but in most respects 9/11 has very little in common with Pearl Harbor.

“Rubble doesn’t cause trouble.”

Actually it does when we as a nation insist on “rebuilding” what we ourselves turned into rubble.

As much as I dislike Powell, his adage “you break it, you own it” was right on target.

“I am not squeamish about civilian casualties.”

I am. Not to say I won’t accept “collateral damage” in my name… just saying I take the responsibility for these decisions very seriously as should those who issue the orders.

“On economics, I am NOT a libertarian. I accept that the Federal Government has a legitimate role to play as the “shock absorber of last resort” to keep the U.S. economy from crashing or soaring into hyperinflation. Milton Friedman, who was no Keynesian, was nevertheless a fan of the FDIC for just this purpose.”

You seem to use the term “libertarian” in the extreme meaning of the word. There’s a reason I refer to myself as “libertarian leaning.”

Now what are you saying in connecting the FDIC to prevention of hyperinflation…??? (*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)

(*SIGH*) Any reason you refused to get specific, Sinz? Here… let me help you out:

Were you in favor of the Bush/RINO Congress stimulus checks of his first term? (I wasn’t.) (The Dems were.)

Were you in favor of the Bush/Pelosi/Reid stimulus package of Bush’s second term. (I wasn’t.) (RINOs were.)

Were you in favor of the Bush/Pelosi/Reid bailouts of 2008? (I wasn’t.) (The Dems were.) (Many RINOs were.)

Were you in favor of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid “stimulus” bill? (I wasn’t.) (GOP reps by and large weren’t.)

Were you in favor of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid “stimulus” checks to Social Security recipients this year? (I wasn’t.) (Not sure how most GOP reps voted.)

See the intellectual consistency here, Sinz? How’bout you? Where have you stood case by case?

* To be continued…

BILL
152 barker13 // Jun 16, 2009 at 2:12 pm

* Continuing…

“Once you put a Human Life Amendment into the Constitution…”

As you may recall, I’m not in favor of a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution defining “protected” life (with “unique individual rights”) kicking in at conception.

“The Constitution is no place to put “feel good” measures to appease the base…”

As I’ve noted before, for all your evident self-regard and self-identification as an open minded tolerant social moderate, you’re actually quite hostile to religious faith which differs from your own ethical/moral beliefs as is shown by your unwillingness to accept that to those who truly believe that “human life” begins at conception, defending this human life is as much an ethical duty as would be defending your life from those who might one day deem your dialysis treatments incompatible with “reasonable limits” on healthcare expenditures at some point.

Sinz. It’s quite clear you have a visceral dislike for the “Religious Right.”

Now I have problems with the “Religious Left” (i.e. Liberation Theology), but I still acknowledge that even if I disagree with “their” side on issues (take the immigration debate for example) I’ll take their position as sincere and heartfelt. In other words, I’m able to have empathy for those I disagree with. (*SHRUG*)

“Once it’s in the Constitution, a pregnant woman could be severely punished for anything that goes wrong with the fetus.”

*** FOLKS. See bottom 7 lines of my 3:53 pm post of yesterday.

*** Sinz. To reiterate… you’re going off the deep end. You’re argument is so silly, so off the wall… it’s like you took a break between paragraphs to smoke some crack and drop some acid. NO ONE is going to criminalize miscarriages – unless of course it’s pretty obvious the “miscarriage” was deliberately caused – i.e. it was an abortion.

“I disdain Ron Paul because his economic libertarianism has not worked.”

What are you TALKING about…??? (Someone remind me… exactly when was Paul President? When was he Chairman of the Fed, Secretary of the Treasury? When was he Speaker of the House or Majority Leader of the Senate? When was “Pauls economic libertarianism” tried…???)

“The U.S. implemented mixed-economy measures for good reasons, not because we all went temporarily insane back then.”

Back WHEN…?!?! (Are you referring to the ’30’s and ’40’s?)

Sinz… it’s been a long slippery slope. We’d have to discuss SPECIFICS. Feel free… (*SHRUG*)

“I also disdain [Paul] because of his foreign-policy isolationism and blame-America attitude…”

Nonsense on both counts. What you refer to as “isolationism” I call the classic American ideal and beyond that… self-interest. As to his “blame-America attitude”… he calls ‘em as he sees ‘em. What… averting our eyes from reality with make the reality different…?

Anyway… for what it’s worth I do appreciate your clarifying your views. Keep it up! Bottom line… while we often disagree… we often agree. (*SHRUG*) Let’s view the glass as half full, shall we?

(*GRIN*)

BILL