FLASH: Dissent No Longer Highest Form Of Patriotism

With the People's Guardian refusing to report on unpersons - even MP ones - it looks like another whistleblower has had the boys round. Clearly, she has been exposing important state secrets, such as the fact our education system is comprehensively screwed.

Still, let's just think about what this says about the state of play. No one is claiming that Snuffy is factually wrong, so when her critics claim she's bringing the education system into disrepute, what they're really admitting is that any accurate portrayal of the British education system must, by definition, expose it to public opprobrium. That's quite an admission in the era of the 'best educated generation evah!'

Quote Of The Day

BBC Pioneers on the Damian Green arrest:

The Party's creed is "A Future Fair to All" and we want to use this event to remind all citizens that there is a fair chance in all their futures that this could happen to them if they become involved in anti-Party activities.

Timing!

OK, this is new. I thought the problem with open borders was letting lunatics into the country.

Hmmmm... what are the odds that this will be mentioned next time the BBC runs a story on the shocking revelation that British passport holders aren't always waved straight through US customs?

Of course, one question looms above all others: does Patrick Mercer think this raises questions too? How do we know these two weren't on their way to a wedding? Possibly bringing gun-shaped cakes?

Growing Rift Between Liberals And Reality

Hey, bloggers criticise the MSM, but if it wasn't for those guys, we'd never know the real victims of the Indian terror attacks are Eskimos.

Just kidding!

Actually, it turns out that Islamofascists slaughtering Infidels proves that Muslims are really huge victims. Again.

Still, you have to say he hits all the talking points like a battering ram.

Many British commentators have asked in surprise why India is being targeted.

No, only the stupid ones. They're the ones who really believe garbage like this:

In dragging its feet, the Indian state does nobody a greater disservice than Indian Muslims.

See? Muslims slaughter 4000 Infidels but they're still the real victims.

When there are no real suspects, arrests or trials, everyone becomes a suspect. Already an underclass, with low literacy rates, low incomes and poor representation in government jobs, Indian Muslims are increasingly alienated.

Yes, that's how oppressive Indian society is: if you're an uneducated fascist thug, you might struggle to land a job.

Hey, that's a feature not a bug.

Seriously. That's the sign of a healthy society. There should be negative consequences to spending your time banging your head on the floor five times a day and ranting about slaughtering the infidel. It's societal evolution in action.

Still, for the sake of Taseer's ridiculous argument, what does he think should happen? Should illiterates nevertheless be given government jobs, just to fill a quota? Should the Hindus be prevented from using up all the literacy? Or maybe the Indian Air Force should air drop some literacy into Muslim areas?

Nobody wants to listen to genuine grievances about poverty, illiteracy and unemployment in the face of a real threat to the country.

That's because they aren't 'genuine grievances' - they're the entirely predictable consequences of following the tenets of a depraved death cult. Terrorism isn't a side effect of Islamic poverty. Poverty is a side-effect of the type of culture that supports terrorism.

Sympathy Meter Stuck On Zero

Oh sure, the arrest of a Tory MP - and on such clearly loopy charges - certainly cranks up the political temperature, but Pearl Harbour this ain't.

Arrests on ludicrous grounds? Hey, at least they didn't arrest Green's mother on charges of being a tomato dealer.

Use of police to harass folks with the wrong opinions? Yes, that certainly rings a few bells.

And what has been the response of the Tories to all this?

No, not nothing. It's worse than that. The Tories might not have agreed with the left on the specifics (or, indeed, they might have) but they certainly bought into the underlying world view, that there are views so extreme that those who hold them don't deserve to have the same rights as everyone else.

It's the philosopher and the actress again. Remember that story? The philosopher offers an actress a million pounds if she'll sleep with him and she agrees. The philosopher then says 'well, how about ten pounds' and she says 'what do you think I am? A prostitute?', to which he replies 'oh sure, we've already determined that, now we're just quibbling about price'. The Tories have already climbed into bed with leftist thugs, everything else is detail.

So excuse me if I give the whole 'Day of Infamy' thing a miss.

Femiloons: Silent At Last

I've said it before, and doubtless I'll say it again, but if you want proof that the femiloons are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the left, check out their attitude to rape. These hags claim every man who ever lived is a potential, or indeed actual, rapist, but when it comes to actual predators..... [crickets]

Look at this for further evidence of this. The clue is in the news that victims of our societies' institutional paedophilophobia also enjoyed the benefits of our all-must-go-free system. That's always been the giant gaping hole in the femiloon's arguments. They have zero tolerance for violence against women, but what about violence against girls?

They'll get back to us on that one.

Hey, the public attitude to paedophilia really is 'zero tolerance', so why aren't the femiloons down with that struggle? Clue No 2 is their old slogan 'the personal is political'. They want to use crimes against women to indict the male of the species, but that's as far as it goes. They think rape is bad, but they can't really explain why. They're still fully paid up to the left's cult of indiscriminateness. Still allergic to the idea of moral absolutes. Sure, they don't like predators but, hey, it's not like they're conservatives, right?

Outrage D'Jour: Special 'Right To Know' Edition

Hey, remember how the BBC used to give banner coverage to any criticism of the Army by Andrew Wakefield, media whore and alleged coroner? Having a leftist hack carry out a witch hunt of the Army months after the fact is a vital part of our democracy, but investigating certain other bodies? Not so much:

In July, the BBC failed at a private hearing before Greater Suffolk coroner Dr Peter Dean to restrict the scope of the inquest. But he rejected their arguments, saying the inquiry would look into whether Miss Peyton felt pressure to take the job.

Your licence fee in action. The BBC must be the only media organisation in the world that spends most of its time trying to keep the public in the dark.

Today's Free Money Story

I'll start believing the government needs to raise taxes to fund ospitalsanskools just as soon as they stop wasting our cash on stuff like this.

Although it is hard not to admire the metaphorical significance of the government funding mass debation.

Polly Antoinette

Socialists, they're all about the people.

I'll leave it to the philosophers to decide who's the most obnoxious out of Polly and Lansley.

Electability!

In so far as the Nu Tory face cards keep disparaging the base as a bunch of retarded bumpkins who don't understand the intricacies of modern politics, that strategy would probably work better if they didn't keep coming out with lines like this.

Lansley's position would be moronic at the best of times, but right now, with the government trying to convince us it's a straight-up choice between Labour's plan to ritually burn eleventy squillion pounds as an offering to the economics gods, or doing absolutely nothing and having the Lord Humongus stop by, well, let's just say that this: SMART!.

The thing is that this is that Lansley is correct: a recession would be good - for people like him! What do the Nu Tories care about a recession? They're all loaded anyway. All it means is that it'll be easier for them to get a plumber.

This is where we came in. It's not the base that insular and parochial, it's the Tory Top Brass themselves. Lansley is telling us who they are. They're privileged, they're entitled and they don't give a toss about anyone else.

It's Like The Da Vinci Code Of Liberalism

I'm sure they'll treat this with their usual good humour and open mindedness!

It's Not About The Electability

One of the strangest arguments for conservatives voting Tory is the belief that all this Nu Tory gunk is just a cunning fraud, and on election day + 1 the Ayatollah Khameron and pals will switch from 'moderate' Dr Jekylls to ultra-con Mr Hydes.

At the best of times this would be a strange idea, at least in so far as they'll only vote for The Dave providing he's a dishonest weasel. But it's not just that. What about those parts of the country where the Tories already hold power and have held it for years? No concessions to electability required there, so surely a chance to preview how the Tories would govern nationally right?

Well, the first sets of data are in, and it's not looking good.

No Hunting Terrorists Without A Licence!

Surely they're just doing the job the British just won't do?

Three hours later, however, [Pakistani villagers] were woken by explosions in Khaisoor, as three Hellfire missiles from a Predator destroyed a mud-built bungalow in the village.

Inside, among the five people killed and six injured, were Rashid Rauf, the British militant alleged to have masterminded a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in 2006, and two senior Al-Qaeda comrades, Abu Nasr Al-Misri and Abu Zubair Al-Masri, according to Pakistani intelligence sources...

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP for Newark and former shadow security minister, said Rauf’s killing raised serious issues. “This raises the question of how much co-operation the British intelligence agencies provided in what is ultimately the execution of a British subject.

Guess Mercer learned his lesson after last time.

See, here we are back again with the central feature of Cameronism. In so far as The Dave's strategy is to dodge having to deal with tough issues by shrinking them down to the point of absurdity, it's no surprise that the Tories main contribution to a global war with deranged fanatics is to quibble about the paperwork.

Quote of the Century

Crivens! The MSM are shocked - shocked! - to find out that Islamofascists aren't down with the PC:

[EVAN] KOHLMANN: I think a better question is is that, is Zawahiri here taking a very dangerous step? Because, you know, Al-Qaeda itself has had problems with racism and bigotry within the ranks, and it was only about a decade and a half ago that Al-Qaeda was paying different salaries to its Arab members and its black African members. And the person administering that financial scheme, that payment scheme, is now the number three in charge of Al-Qaeda. He wasn't demoted, he wasn't punished for this, he was promoted. So I think the question is, is Al-Qaeda really in a position to be, you know, spouting off about the evils of racism when clearly they have as much problem with it as anybody else.

Yes, murder and mayhem is one thing, but discriminatory hiring practices? That's going just too far!

UPDATE:

Link Fixed!

They're Doing The Job British Sailors Just Won't Do

No Marxists Here!

Just like a certain, well-known broadcaster, if social workers aren't a bunch of agenda-driven leftist kooks, why exactly does the left keep closing ranks round them? How come PC Plod never qualifies for this 'not serious physical abuse' exemption liberals have just discovered? Or is it just restricted to deserving cases like pushers, terrorists and muggers, rather than toddlers?

All of which ignores the fact that the left's argument doesn't even stand up. Forget the nitpicking and the loopy Third Gunman hypothesising, the basic problem is contained in their argument that, sure, 'Baby P' got tortured a bit but, hey, that's how it is with the underclass. Yes, liberals, that's what we're saying: the same lunatics who will go to any lengths to harass Joe Public treat child abuse in designated victim groups as just part of the culture.

Ditto, the left claim that the only-mildly-abused Baby P would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for that meddling brother. In their preferred sequence of events, the brother popped up and killed the child before anyone in authority could react - sort of like the Pearl Harbour of child abuse cases. Who, ask the left, could guess a convicted paedophile would be a risk to children?

Well, just about everyone on the right actually.

It is the left - more specifically, the hipster element - that spends its time claiming that, sure, paedophilia is 'bad' but not in the sense of something you have to do anything about. In so far as a convicted paedophile was free to move into the same house as a young child with no one being any the wiser - which is the left's story in a nutshell - then this case pretty much confirms everything the right - and even many principled leftists - have been saying for years. Current doctrine for dealing with paedophiles is a national disgrace. It'd be great if this really means even the hipster are climbing on board the Reality Express, but coherency has never really been their thing.

Feral Liberals

First thing first: in so far as this piece of dreck is an overtly political attack on the British right, in what sense of the word does it count as 'charity'? Hey, maybe we'll take the left's call for higher taxes seriously once their own organisations stop claiming tax breaks on bogus grounds.

Good to see the left's still keeping to its usual standards of evidence too. 'Comments made on websites'. A-huh! This is Clue Number One right there. The left quotes stuff anonymous commentors say on websites, the right quotes stuff prominent leftists actually say in real life. Hell, find me anything on the right that's as hateful as this ad, to say nothing of the implicit racism and sexism in it.

Of course, this is Clue Two. The Yoof establishment has been under fire this past two weeks over the 'Baby P' fiasco. Meanwhile, the left fires back with warnings about pretendey pogroms. Actual sadistic torture and death presided over by liberals vs deranged fantasises about conservatives roaming the streets killing da yoof. Hmmmmmm.... guess we're going to need to go full auto if we're ever going to catch up with the social workers' kill rate.

UPDATE:

Good point from Dan in the comments. What's with all this 'demonising children'? Sure, we criticise some of them - spookily enough, the criminally-inclined ones - but as a group? Key metric: find a conservative who denounces all children the way mainstream liberals use isolated incidents of misconduct to indict every cop in the country.

Talking of which, as the folks at Coppersblog would no doubt ask rhetorically, which demographic is it that the feral youth are most likely to victimise? Exactly. If these freaks were really interested in the 'yoof' rather than in pushing dysfunction, they'd be crying out for more 'demonisation' of the violent and depraved.

The Right To Know!

Something to remember the next time the BBC justifies blowing the lid on security operations. Apparently, the public doesn't always have a 'right to know'!

Steyn D'Jour

Steyn on the culture war:

If the default mode of a society’s institutions is liberal, electing GOP legislators eventually accomplishes little more than letting a Republican driver take a turn steering the liberal bus. If Hollywood’s liberal, if the newspapers are liberal, if the pop stars are liberal, if the grade schools are liberal, if the very language is liberal to the point where all the nice words have been co-opted as a painless liberal sedative, a Republican legislature isn’t going to be a shining city on a hill so much as one of those atolls in the Maldives being incrementally swallowed by Al Gore’s rising sea levels.

Honest Liberal Detected

There's a film coming out celebrating a Christian extremist who waged war against a democratic government in the hope of imposing a dictatorship which would cleanse the country of immigrants.

Why, yes, it is set in Ulster. How'd you guess?

The humbug is so rancid that even a Guardian staffer can't take it any more.

Funnily enough, the response from the libtards in the comments seems to be lacking their famous nuance. As far as I make out, their two main lines of counter-argument are that the Daily Mail is bad, and David Cox is writing from a British perspective. All of which throws into sharp relief the state of the British left.

For a start, is there anything more 'Daily Mail' than whining about the Daily Mail? Seriously, they whine about it Every. Single. Time.

Then there's the whole thing about their constant whining every time someone calls them unpatriotic. Yes, I think if you go weak at the knees for a film based on every libel your nation's enemies have ever deployed, your patriotism may be kind of suspect.

On the other hand, at least this movie proves that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights isn't as universal as you might think. Consider that leftists are enraged by any allegation of mistreatment of self-confessed terrorists - no matter how dubious these allegations might be - but wanting to ethnically cleanse most of the people out of your country? A noble ambition, sir!

It's a simple fact that in Bobby Sands' Ireland Protestants would be ethnically cleansed, either overtly as in the early days of the Republic, or via the indirect route of oppressive Jim Crow laws. Until then, he and his pals were perfectly happy to kill them one at a time.

Then there's the Root of All Evil Mother Church. Leftists have spent years disparaging the Catholic Church for.... well, everything really, but now we have a case where Catholic priests really did help murder people for having the wrong religion and we have what must be the first sympathetic portrayal of a priest for years.

So much for principled atheism. It turns out that liberals are totally down with the church, just as long as it'll keep on with the good stuff, like helping terrorists, and ditch the extreme stuff, like opposing gay marriage.

But the final point is this: as Ross points out this piece of deranged racist lunacy is actually being funded by the UK. There's only two things that need be said about that. One is this: in so far as we're funding movies depicting fascist sociopaths as heroes, I'm not necessarily convinced that tax cuts will have to be at the expense of 'ospitalsanschools. Point two: in so far as this film is a hibernofascist pr0no - as evidenced by the Guardian comments thread - funded entirely by the very people whose murder it glamorises, what have eighty years of religious fundamentalism and racism done to the rancid republic? How comprehensively wrecked does your culture have to be to end up dependent on foreign imports of racism?

Climbié Effect Still In Effect

But of course! I guess Manchester decided that anything Haringey did, they could do better.

It's not like we haven't been here before. Actually, in so far as the mother appears to have been a fruit loop even prior to the murders, she probably qualified for a double diversity score. This is what happens when the Marxist paradigm of victimhood and oppression dominates your entire world view. After all, who are we to say that killing your two young sons is 'bad'?

I Killed 'Baby P'

...But I had help - from all of you for a start.

Yep, in a new low even for these freaks, it turns out that the reason why social workers left Baby P to die was all the people criticising social workers. Hmmmm... not so much chicken and egg, more chicken and roast dinner. Maybe they could try beating the system by not screwing up in the first place?

In so far as they're claiming that because people criticise social workers for seizing children on bogus grounds, social workers are reluctant to take kids into care even where the child has been tortured over a number of months, I say again: shouldn't supposed experts on raising kids sound a little less like they're fourteen years old themselves? Either that or go the whole way and accuse John Hemmings of being just like Hitler.

It's simply a fact that the same cult that uses junk science to persecute normal families keeps ignoring obvious cases of torture. Ditto - and again this may have passed our highly-trained social workers by - John Hemmings MP is supposed to hold public servants to account (the clue is in the letters after his name).

Still, consider what this says about the morals of the average social worker when their defence for leaving a child to die is that they feared mild criticism for rescuing him. Hey, sounds like exactly the people we can trust with unaccountable power, right?

Cameron Pouts, Whines, Backflips

The Tories have a new talking point: Gordon Brown is a beast for accusing Cameron of trying to politicise the 'Baby P' case just because he brought it up at Prime Minister's Questions.

A-huh!

But, as ever with the Ayatollah Khameron, let's not let the obvious absurdity obscure the deeper humbuggery. Under Cameron the Tories not only threw conservative critics of social workers under the bus, as they did so they signed onto every self-serving myth these lunatics have ever hidden behind.

Say, would it be too political to ask if Cameron knows what social workers 'really do'?

See, this is the central problem with Cameronism. This is why Gordon Brown's popularity rises as a result of his handling of his own recession. Say what you like about Brown's policies, but at least he gives the impression of having an overall vision. Cameron? Not so much.

Cameron has anti-gravitas, and so he relies on his ability to shrink issues down to his own level. It was somehow inevitable that a point about child protection would devolve into weird passive-aggressive posturing. There's no actual strategy there. Consider the sheer brass neck of his position. Seemingly in the blink of an eye, the Tories have gone from calling critics of social workers ignorant to demanding that the government trash the existing review structure they themselves signed on to, in favour of a witch hunt.

I'd have more confidence in Cameron's sudden conversion to the conservative cause if he could explain exactly where he was on the road to Damascus when he suddenly realised the right was right, after all. Absent that, I think we're perfectly entitled to decide that, for once, Brown called it exactly right.

'Cult'? What Cult?

Wacedemia plus the Obamamessiah? You know it's going to be good!

Quote Of The Day

Over-optimistic? Of course, but still funny:

Obama's ascension also creates another gargantuan irony. How can liberals sell American racism, class envy and unfairness when our new black president and his wife went to Ivy League schools, got high-paying jobs, became millionaires, bought a mansion, and are now moving to the White House? How unfair is that? Now, like a delicious O. Henry tale, Obama's spread-the-wealth campaign rendered itself moot by its own victory! America is officially a meritocracy. Obama's election has validated American conservatism.

So ... Wham!!!

That's the sound of my foot kicking the door shut on the era of white guilt. The rites have been muttered, the carcass lowered, dirt shoveled, and tombstone erected. Dead and buried.

It's Not Random

Looks like another stunning victory for social services.

As ever, I say that if the problem was merely that social workers were untrained/over-worked/retarded or whatever, these horror stories would occur pretty much at random. Ditto, with cases of social workers persecuting the innocent. On the contrary, the figures only tilt one way.

Social workers have totally assimilated the cultural Marxist view of the world as an endless battle between the oppressed and oppressors. Anybody who can make a plausible claim for victimhood, such as ethnic minorities, junkies, the deranged or just members in good standing of the underclass, are, by definition, victims. Meanwhile, everybody knows that the traditional family is by definition an abusive environment, especially if there's a danger of the children being exposed to Christianity.

The problem is not with the procedures, the IT or the training. The problem is Marxism and what it does to people: it provides moral cover to even the most hideous of behaviours. Social workers treat people as sock puppets in their little agitprop productions. Today Baby F stars in 'Smackheads Are People Too!' - best catch it while you can! Tomorrow it's Child E in 'Suburbia Is Every Bit As Depraved As Any Sink Estate'.

To return to an old theme, these atrocities happen as a direct result of the ideology reigning in social work departments. Change at the top isn't enough, the fanatics need to be driven out. This is why the culture war matters.

Today's 'Non-Cult' News

But wait... I thought every day was a holiday in the new era?

New Era Not Quite As Expected

I guess racism is now fabulous! It really is change you can believe in!

Two Further Perspectives On Disaster

Rush:

"The wizards of smart on our side want to attract a Wal-Mart voter over there, and a Joe the Plumber voter over here, but that's not how you win elections. You win elections with core principles, and you attract people to them because they work."

Ace:

I can't help but notice a lot of the "Republicans' most enamored of Obama, and most disgusted by Palin, are upper-class twits. Either by birth or by adoption of their culture.

I'm betting wallace and schmidt are, too.

A lot of this is pure class/cultural disgust at those boisterous,
declasse blue collar types.

Hey, Palin got shit done in Alaska. But blue collar morons are good
at fixin' shit, aren't they? As David Brooks noted, Obama can easily
cite Neibhur in conversation. (However you spell his name.) That's
the important thing, you know.

The lower classes DO. The upper classes ARE.

Yowser! A sneery bunch of elitist creeps thinking that they just need to come up with a supa-smart marketing strategy and the bumpkins in the base won't notice they're getting the shaft. It's weird, but somehow that sounds strangely familiar.....

More On Nihilism...

Interesting exchange in the comments to this post. TDK challenges me to come up with a positive vision for conservatism, but Northnorthwest beats me to it - I'm sure everyone's seen it already, but just in case, here it is again:

How about a regime of liberty protected by laws (and limited when the 'libertine' tendency causes discernible and concrete harm: not mere upset or offence.) Everything which is not specifically banned by Act of Parliament or ancient Common Law to be permitted.

The laws to be decided by freely-elected national institutions such as a British Parliament free of overseas management and overseas legislation of all sorts. The laws are to be enforced by judges steeped in the history of the English Common Law [and its Scottish equivalents] and statute law, and capable of discerning the difference between their own opinions and the actual practise of the laws of the land.

The lower house is to be moderated by an upper house which is largely free of electoral cycle pressures, and which amends, warns, and delays the Commons' bills in order to prevent panic-legislation and extremist populism [such as the Obama Democrats are likely to rush through in the 2 years before then next round of Congressional elections.] There should be with set procedures for national emergencies to circumvent some peacetime procedures and laws, but these to be temporary and regularly need to be renewed by the consent of Parliament - say every three months.

The widest possible variety and extent of private property ownership and property rights should be reinstituted, including and especially the ownership by parents of their share in a national education budget, and by all workers of their National Insurance payments, to be directed into health insurance and private pension planning in addition to what their employers might provide.

Compulsory worker's pension savings [ tax advantaged ]of 10% per annum, with tax advantages for more up to the limit of savings a person can make from earnings. This is intended to prevent the need/political demand 40 years on from adulthood for the taxpayers to 'do something' when libertines want to retire and can't quite find the cash...

All taxation to be on income [of all sorts including capital gains] at a single rate, with a generous lower limit. Death duties to be abolished.

Also a wise government would limit any financial help for parents at the third child to end the baby-breeding welfare underclass in a generation.
Subsistence benefits for the able should end after 3 months and workfare be provided at identical rates.

Disability/incapacity benefits to be awarded only on diagnosis of specified, definable illnesses, with treatment programmes mandatory with the intention of curing them and returning the patients to the workforce. Threats of suicide made by 'depressed' individuals in this case to be met with an appointment at the nearest hospice to be offered lethal drugs.

Abolish all moral and quality-of-life quangos and Ministries and return all government functions to a small and apolitical Civil Service - which you might return to once the Local Education Authorities hand over the last publicly-owned schools to the voucher - financed private school foundations.

Drugs, poverty, intoxication, insult or poor upbringing to be banned as mitigation for all crimes. Prisons should be run with the intention to incarcerate, to punish, and to reform only a distant third, but to be preceded by a steeply-graded non-custodial sentencing for first and second non-lethal offences, such as mandatory curfews and name-and-shaming in the criminals' neighbourhood for the first, and the pillory and possibly corporal punishment for second offences. Third strike and you're in: no exceptions.

Self-preservation to be upheld as the supreme legal right, with protection of others and property close seconds.

Dismantle the security apparatus and censorship laws of the 9/11 era, and fund properly staffed and numerous counter-spy services and employ overseas intelligence and subversion against terror-sponsoring regimes.

There; once that's done, freedom might actually mean something, as most folk would have enough cash and enough spare time to make decent lives for themselves and their families, with a reasonable chance that a large portion of their lives won't be stolen or spoiled by unlicensed criminals, tax men or regulators alike.

God save the Queen.

Hey, it works for me! I'd quibble with one or two things (coming soon...) but it does nicely make the point that there really is such a thing as conservative ideology after all.

Nihilistic: Don't Mean Nothing

Plenty of libertarians have already hammered Hazel Blears for her recent remarks on blogging and, more specifically, the underlying implication that nothing good can come of anything which operates independent of the state.

Still, as absurd and/or terrifying as Hazel Blears' speech is in terms of what it reveals about leftist attitudes to liberty, it was also ludicrous from a social conservative perspective. Consider the chutzpah of these people calling anyone else 'nihilistic'.

What would a nihilist say about patriotism? Would he support the unique culture and way of life of this island, or would he argue that 'Britain' is purely a geographical term?

How about the family? Would nihilists argue for the vital role of the family in our society, or would they claim that the traditional family is no better than any other random collection of individuals living in the same postcode?

How about art? Where would a nihilist stand on the question of whether or not some art is objectively better than others?

The modern left's world view is best summed up by millionaire hippy John Lennon's dirge 'Imagine' with its vision of a world stripped of meaning. And now they complain that the right is nihilistic?

Disintegration!

As far as recent events go, I think Ross puts it best.

In so far as the world's policeman has decided to lock himself in the station and smoke his way through the evidence locker, it looks like we're screwed. Still, let's see if we can grasp at a few straws while we wait for Mark Steyn's new book 'Some Parts Of New Hampshire Alone'.

First up, let's admit that the schadenfreude aspect is a guilty pleasure. Who isn't sick of US bloggers sneering at Euro-peons and their stoopid, socialist ways? Now the Land of the Free has become the Land of the Freebie, at least we won't have to hear any more from the 'Nuke Europe!' loonies.

Not that Europe doesn't deserve plenty of criticism. Whatever the obvious advantages of life under the US defence umbrella, it has been a powerful factor in Europe's descent into Po-Mo madness. Not only has it freed Europeans from the financial burden of defending themselves, it's freed them from the psychological aspect of it too. In effect, we have become a continent of scroungers, with all the pathologies that implies. Now, finally, it looks like Europe will have to take responsibility for its own survival.

In so far as this new world demands greater European cooperation on rebuilding our barely-present defences, that means the EU is in trouble. That might seem like a paradox, but it isn't really. When Eurocrats talk about an EU Army and the like, they talk about it as a natural outgrowth of the EU, complete with a Commissioner for Artillery, with a staff of 10 000 and offices in St Tropez. In other words, a method for pushing federalism rather than actually achieving anything. The times are too serious for that: we really do need to get something in the field ASAP and, as luck would have it, we already have an alternative model for the common defence in NATO - and all without the bureaucracy or the sleaze.

The EU apologists have always exploited a false duality: you've either accept Brussels and the Common European Paperclip, or you're a Little Englander/Frenchie/German/Czech.... ad infinitum. It's either some guy from Athens ruling on the bus timetables in Manchester, or you'll need to apply six months in advance for a visa to go on a booze cruise. NATO neatly debunks that theory. European troops can work together just fine, even while still maintaining their own doctrines and traditions.

It's not all grim. In so far as the US is retreating from the world, that's going to open up commercial opportunities for someone, why not a Europe that's finally having to stop sponging and start pulling its weight?

Then there's The Issue. Actually, I give it ten days until all the folks who demanded America elect Obama as the ultimate in slavery reparations suddenly decide America is still AmeriKKKa after all. The folks who invented 'institutional racism' aren't going to let a little thing like a black president derail the gravy train, but at least some of the conservative movements' alleged intellectuals might finally swallow a clue pill and realise there's no point 'reaching out' to these loonies. They're making a life and a living stirring up racial antagonism and the only way conservatives can possibly appease is to stop being conservative.

Similarly, in so far as liberalism depends at least in part on white guilt, that's going to be a tough sell with charmers like the Reverund Wrrrright stopping by the White House for afternoon tea. We might finally be seeing the end of the cultural cringe in which it's obligatory to claim all cultures are equal, except western culture which is the worst evah!

The coming freak show has the additional benefit of hopefully finishing off libertarianism as a political force. In so far as this position mainly consists of loftily denouncing right and left as, like, totally the same, maaaaan, its going to be tested to destruction in the next four years. Ditto, back home in a Europe facing up to the realities of the modern world, I don't expect whining about the vital importance of the right to smear your naked body with marmite and run down the high street will be a big seller.

It's going to take an exceptional leader to repair the damage from four years of these loonies in power, and fortunately it looks like the conservative movement has found one. After a reception that makes the Salem witch trials look restrained, the closest the left came to landing a glove on Sarah Palin was claiming that she was 'inexperienced'. Well, that problem will solve itself soon enough.

Note too that in amongst all these disasters, Proposition 8, an initiative blocking gay marriage, passed in California. Yep, that California! Hey, are we sure it's conservatism that's the problem, rather than, say, the appalling quality of conservative politicians?

Which brings me on to my next point. Considering John McCain's descent from principled maverick to senile demagogue, why are conservatives still supposed to be impressed by candidates who are popular with the MSM? McCain was an MSM pin-up just as long as he denounced the conservative movement, but as soon as he became a threat to the left, he was a shuffling embarrassment. Key point: any conservative can be hailed as a courageous truth teller for denouncing the right, but don't think the MSM will call them in the morning. Hopefully, the point will finally hit home with some conservatives.

The flip-side is the number of 'moderate conservatives' who hailed John McCain as the right choice, shortly before slithering over to the Obamamessiah's side. Again, I'm hoping the conservative movement's face cards will finally realise that there's no point trying to appeal to people who prefer the low-conservatism candidate, since sooner or later they'll switch to the candidate with no conservatism at all anyway.

Finally, let's return to the beginning. Specifically, what was really wrong with the ranters over at lgf and the like was this: America might indeed have been less socialist than Europe, but that reflected the hard work and commitment of past and present generations of the American right - it wasn't some God-given state of grace. Large parts of the American right forgot that, and now the US is U/S for at least four years. But whatever happens to America, the American ideal lives on, because it is a good one.

It's A Feature Not A Bug

I could have guessed what the answer would be when I saw that the charge was that they were 'out of touch with the best modern childcare techniques'.

Midfielders Of No Appearance?

"Young people."

Heh

Actually, some of us have been saying for years that liberalism is at its heart an ideology for people who can't deal with the law of consequences.

Question D'Jour

Who to believe? The professional or the sleaze who took years to find out he was in the wrong party?

Like I've said before, what is it about soldiering? The troops don't insist on writing long articles about how to put on a West End musical, set dangerous felons free or whine like a little girl, so why don't liberals show them the same courtesy?

Still, it is proof that all leftist arguments ultimate devolve down to sticking their fingers in their ears and singing loudly.