Curtis Dahlgren
ANWAR, "glo-BULL WAR-ming," Battleground states, and "civility"
By Curtis Dahlgren
"Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today." — Sen. Lindsay Graham
TAKE THE BLM, THE LBM, AND MLB, PLEASE. Major League Baseball salaries are getting so ridiculous that they make Mickey Mantle's look like slavery. The Bureau of Land "Management" is so out of control that it seems to be trying to take the entire West out of private ownership and/or public uses. The LBM (Lefty Bankrupt Media) is trying to hijack Reagan's mantle and throw it over the shoulders of Pres. Oboma (though some would rather just burn Reagan's mantle along with the flag and the 50s).
Take columnist Gene Lyons of the Arky Democrat-Gazette, please. In a local paper (2-11-11) — under the headline "Why did GOP honor Reagan?" — Lyons says:
"Reagan's genius as a politician was that he repackaged the comforting daydreams of the 1950s. Not the 50s as they were . . . but as depicted in TV sitcoms like 'Ozzie and Harriet,' 'Leave it to Beaver,' and 'The Andy Griffith Show.'"
You forgot "Happy Days," idiot! I wonder how old Mr. Lyons is? Another Paul Greenberg he'll never be with writing such as that.
The show was called "Happy Days" for a reason, you know. I grew up on a family dairy farm in the 40s and 50s before the government screwed that up too! Many of us survived the 1950s in spite of the USDA (not because of it). The purpose of price "supports," subsidies, and government loans wasn't to "save the family farm" but to drive as many of us as possible out of business (to produce cheap "surplus" food for the rest of the country).
It was in 1960 that my professors gave me my first glimpse of mega factory farming. They said that to stay in that business you would have to get continually bigger, so I got out of that business as fast as I could.
Some of the trend toward bigger farms was natural and inevitable, but government "meddling" certainly got us to mega-farming sooner than was necessary. Social problems grew in multiples of the proportion of the population that moved from the country to the cities. As William Cowper put it, "God made the country, and man made the town."
Gene Lyons says, "Playing the president, Reagan essentially recapitulated the Robert Young role in 'Father Knows Best' — firm but fair, and unfailingly optimistic . . . " DUH. What was your first clue, Gene?
Lyons quotes some blogger who complains that Reagan "saved Social Security" by raising taxes for it instead of privatizing it. HUH? Had Reagan even thought about privatizing Social Security, the Left would have gone postal on him!
Sorry about the violent metaphor, but I trust you get the point. Or can't I say "get the point" in the New Age of Aquarian Civility? Can actors still say "break a leg"? Is it lawful to still say "Knock yourself out"? Is it acceptable or appropriate to say "If you want to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs"? Could we get in deep doo-doo for using the circle-slash emblem — as in NO smoking signs (too close to a "crosshairs")? I have a "NO Bama" bumper sticker with a slash through the "O" in no, but maybe should remove it from pickup truck. Wouldn't want to offend anyone, because there are big bucks in being "offended" — and that's a one-way street (conservatives can't call the pot black).
Speaking of 'big bucks,' we Yoopers can't figure out why the Left keeps making fun of Sarah Palin's hunting. I just found an old MAD magazine (May 2010) and on page 7 is a little piece called "Celebrity Cause of Death Betting Odds — SARAH PALIN," that includes the following:
- Shot, gutted and field dressed by an extremely evolved moose (3 to 1)
- Strangled to death by McCain staffer she slandered (5 to 1)
- Murdered by a confused Tina Fey stalker (16 to 1)
- Fatal ink poisoning from writing speech notes on hand (45 to 1)
- Just decides to quit living (even money) [in your dreams, I say!]
BTW, MAD magazine is one of the things that came out of the 1950s. I look at it on rare occasions, but I do like satire — especially equal-opportunity satire (the Left forgets that without a germ of truth, there's no humor). But in the same issue and on the same page of MAD is another item: "Signs of a Growing Gun Problem in the NBA":
- When a game announcer says "He shoots!" he has to clarify exactly what he means now.
- Before approaching the free-throw shot line, players must first pass through a metal detector.
- Refs who eject players are immediately entered into the Witness Protection program [etc] . .
And you ought to see the cover of that issue. Instead of TIME's cover with President Reagan hugging Oboma, the May '10 MAD has a picture of Alfred E. Neumann in a T-shirt that used to read "I love Obama" but has been altered to read "I loved Obama."
You can say "Reagan was just an actor" all you want, but he could talk without a teleprompter. How do you think he accomplished so much if "he knew so little." Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. If he seemed "distant" to some people, maybe he was lost in thought, eh? Yes, he was "firm but fair" like Robert Young, but he wasn't just playing a President on TV; it was "for reals" as they say.
If the Left thinks it can get its "message" out with "marketing and packaging," they must be oblivious to the fact that conservative Dems and Independents are so sick of political correctness we could puke. We have had it up to our vestigial gills. Packaging falsehoods as facts through "Spin" is not a very "civil" thing to do.
We're not trying to turn back the clock; we're trying to turn the ship around before it goes aground. Reagan did it once and maybe it's not to late for us!
Let's compare some "great" Liberal quotations with some others by great writers!
"They talk about me like a dog [Jimi]." — Barak O.
Reagan: "There you go again [Jimmie]."
"This is the moment the earth began to heal." — Barak O.
Reagan: "Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying."
"Hope and change." — Barak O.
Reagan: "Let us resolve that young Americans will always find there is a city of hope in a country that is free . . . let us resolve they will say of our day and our generation, we did keep the faith with our God, that we did act worthy of ourselves, we did protect and pass on lovingly that shining city on a hill."
"If Republicans win [Congress], it's going to be hand-to-hand combat." — Barak O.
Reagan: "[Liberalism] has nothing more to say, nothing to add to the debate. It has spent its intellectual capital, such as it was — and it has done its deeds."
"We are watching history unfold." — Barak O.
Reagan: "I urge you to beware the temptation of pride — the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and . . thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong."
"He has a thin-skinned and authoritative personal style and is an emperor with no clothes." — Barak O. (of French Pres. Sarkozy)
Reagan: "Before I refuse to take your questions, I have a statement to make." [smile]
"We are all patriots." — Barak O.
Reagan: "The only place socialism works is in heaven, where they don't need it, and hell, where they already have it."
"We must tone down the rhetoric." — Barak O.
Orwell: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
"We must not jump to conclusions." — Barak O.
Jefferson: "The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to [freedom of religion and press, etc]. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone to try the services of those we trust."
"Islam made great contributions to math and science." — Barak O.
Jefferson: "The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which [the clergy] have enveloped it, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and freest expansion of the human mind."
"We're not going to have you burdening the health care system." — Barak O.
Reagan: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."
"I campaigned in all 57 states." — Barak O.
Reagan: ["When I was born, there were only 47 states (Arizona was admitted to the Union 99 years ago yesterday, February 14, 1914)."]
"We have three branches of government — the House, the Senate, and the White House." — Sen. Schumer
Gibbon: "The principles of a free constitution are irretrievably lost, when the legislative power is nominated [or dominated] by the executive."
"Spread the wealth around." — Barak O.
Reagan: "How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." — Henry Kissinger
Reagan: "We must preserve the noble promise of the American dream for every man, woman, and child in this land. That promise was not created by America. It was given as a gift from a loving God."
"Dreams of my father." — Barak O.
Reagan: "America is too great for small dreams."
"Winning the future." — Barak O.
Me: "WTF?"
© Curtis Dahlgren
February 15, 2011
"Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today." — Sen. Lindsay Graham
TAKE THE BLM, THE LBM, AND MLB, PLEASE. Major League Baseball salaries are getting so ridiculous that they make Mickey Mantle's look like slavery. The Bureau of Land "Management" is so out of control that it seems to be trying to take the entire West out of private ownership and/or public uses. The LBM (Lefty Bankrupt Media) is trying to hijack Reagan's mantle and throw it over the shoulders of Pres. Oboma (though some would rather just burn Reagan's mantle along with the flag and the 50s).
Take columnist Gene Lyons of the Arky Democrat-Gazette, please. In a local paper (2-11-11) — under the headline "Why did GOP honor Reagan?" — Lyons says:
"Reagan's genius as a politician was that he repackaged the comforting daydreams of the 1950s. Not the 50s as they were . . . but as depicted in TV sitcoms like 'Ozzie and Harriet,' 'Leave it to Beaver,' and 'The Andy Griffith Show.'"
You forgot "Happy Days," idiot! I wonder how old Mr. Lyons is? Another Paul Greenberg he'll never be with writing such as that.
The show was called "Happy Days" for a reason, you know. I grew up on a family dairy farm in the 40s and 50s before the government screwed that up too! Many of us survived the 1950s in spite of the USDA (not because of it). The purpose of price "supports," subsidies, and government loans wasn't to "save the family farm" but to drive as many of us as possible out of business (to produce cheap "surplus" food for the rest of the country).
It was in 1960 that my professors gave me my first glimpse of mega factory farming. They said that to stay in that business you would have to get continually bigger, so I got out of that business as fast as I could.
Some of the trend toward bigger farms was natural and inevitable, but government "meddling" certainly got us to mega-farming sooner than was necessary. Social problems grew in multiples of the proportion of the population that moved from the country to the cities. As William Cowper put it, "God made the country, and man made the town."
Gene Lyons says, "Playing the president, Reagan essentially recapitulated the Robert Young role in 'Father Knows Best' — firm but fair, and unfailingly optimistic . . . " DUH. What was your first clue, Gene?
Lyons quotes some blogger who complains that Reagan "saved Social Security" by raising taxes for it instead of privatizing it. HUH? Had Reagan even thought about privatizing Social Security, the Left would have gone postal on him!
Sorry about the violent metaphor, but I trust you get the point. Or can't I say "get the point" in the New Age of Aquarian Civility? Can actors still say "break a leg"? Is it lawful to still say "Knock yourself out"? Is it acceptable or appropriate to say "If you want to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs"? Could we get in deep doo-doo for using the circle-slash emblem — as in NO smoking signs (too close to a "crosshairs")? I have a "NO Bama" bumper sticker with a slash through the "O" in no, but maybe should remove it from pickup truck. Wouldn't want to offend anyone, because there are big bucks in being "offended" — and that's a one-way street (conservatives can't call the pot black).
Speaking of 'big bucks,' we Yoopers can't figure out why the Left keeps making fun of Sarah Palin's hunting. I just found an old MAD magazine (May 2010) and on page 7 is a little piece called "Celebrity Cause of Death Betting Odds — SARAH PALIN," that includes the following:
- Shot, gutted and field dressed by an extremely evolved moose (3 to 1)
- Strangled to death by McCain staffer she slandered (5 to 1)
- Murdered by a confused Tina Fey stalker (16 to 1)
- Fatal ink poisoning from writing speech notes on hand (45 to 1)
- Just decides to quit living (even money) [in your dreams, I say!]
BTW, MAD magazine is one of the things that came out of the 1950s. I look at it on rare occasions, but I do like satire — especially equal-opportunity satire (the Left forgets that without a germ of truth, there's no humor). But in the same issue and on the same page of MAD is another item: "Signs of a Growing Gun Problem in the NBA":
- When a game announcer says "He shoots!" he has to clarify exactly what he means now.
- Before approaching the free-throw shot line, players must first pass through a metal detector.
- Refs who eject players are immediately entered into the Witness Protection program [etc] . .
And you ought to see the cover of that issue. Instead of TIME's cover with President Reagan hugging Oboma, the May '10 MAD has a picture of Alfred E. Neumann in a T-shirt that used to read "I love Obama" but has been altered to read "I loved Obama."
You can say "Reagan was just an actor" all you want, but he could talk without a teleprompter. How do you think he accomplished so much if "he knew so little." Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. If he seemed "distant" to some people, maybe he was lost in thought, eh? Yes, he was "firm but fair" like Robert Young, but he wasn't just playing a President on TV; it was "for reals" as they say.
If the Left thinks it can get its "message" out with "marketing and packaging," they must be oblivious to the fact that conservative Dems and Independents are so sick of political correctness we could puke. We have had it up to our vestigial gills. Packaging falsehoods as facts through "Spin" is not a very "civil" thing to do.
We're not trying to turn back the clock; we're trying to turn the ship around before it goes aground. Reagan did it once and maybe it's not to late for us!
Let's compare some "great" Liberal quotations with some others by great writers!
"They talk about me like a dog [Jimi]." — Barak O.
Reagan: "There you go again [Jimmie]."
"This is the moment the earth began to heal." — Barak O.
Reagan: "Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying."
"Hope and change." — Barak O.
Reagan: "Let us resolve that young Americans will always find there is a city of hope in a country that is free . . . let us resolve they will say of our day and our generation, we did keep the faith with our God, that we did act worthy of ourselves, we did protect and pass on lovingly that shining city on a hill."
"If Republicans win [Congress], it's going to be hand-to-hand combat." — Barak O.
Reagan: "[Liberalism] has nothing more to say, nothing to add to the debate. It has spent its intellectual capital, such as it was — and it has done its deeds."
"We are watching history unfold." — Barak O.
Reagan: "I urge you to beware the temptation of pride — the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and . . thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong."
"He has a thin-skinned and authoritative personal style and is an emperor with no clothes." — Barak O. (of French Pres. Sarkozy)
Reagan: "Before I refuse to take your questions, I have a statement to make." [smile]
"We are all patriots." — Barak O.
Reagan: "The only place socialism works is in heaven, where they don't need it, and hell, where they already have it."
"We must tone down the rhetoric." — Barak O.
Orwell: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
"We must not jump to conclusions." — Barak O.
Jefferson: "The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to [freedom of religion and press, etc]. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone to try the services of those we trust."
"Islam made great contributions to math and science." — Barak O.
Jefferson: "The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which [the clergy] have enveloped it, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and freest expansion of the human mind."
"We're not going to have you burdening the health care system." — Barak O.
Reagan: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."
"I campaigned in all 57 states." — Barak O.
Reagan: ["When I was born, there were only 47 states (Arizona was admitted to the Union 99 years ago yesterday, February 14, 1914)."]
"We have three branches of government — the House, the Senate, and the White House." — Sen. Schumer
Gibbon: "The principles of a free constitution are irretrievably lost, when the legislative power is nominated [or dominated] by the executive."
"Spread the wealth around." — Barak O.
Reagan: "How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." — Henry Kissinger
Reagan: "We must preserve the noble promise of the American dream for every man, woman, and child in this land. That promise was not created by America. It was given as a gift from a loving God."
"Dreams of my father." — Barak O.
Reagan: "America is too great for small dreams."
"Winning the future." — Barak O.
Me: "WTF?"
© Curtis Dahlgren
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