NEW VOICE COLUMN UP

about Chuck Hagel's nomination and his investigation by citizen journalists. A hilarious amount of it seems to be about mischievously making points by which no normal person would be swayed -- cf. Robert Stacy McCain: "Hagel nomination and Left's dilemma: Do they hate Israel more than they love gays?" har har, as well as "By Any Means Necessary," "they bring a knife, you bring a gun," "The Chicago Way," "If that vicious bastard Andrew Sullivan supports Hagel, this is reason enough for any patriotic American to oppose the Hagel nomination," and -- here's real berserker logic for you -- "the conservative strategy must be aimed at making that 'win' as damaging as possible to the reputation of the Democratic Party," etc. I'm beginning to think McCain's a mole. But who would pay him?

TRY THIS SIMPLE TEST.

Hi. Do you live in America? Ever had a job there? Good. Let me show you something that The Anchoress wrote about why the minimum wage is evil:

Prior to minimum wage laws, a smart employer knew that he could not keep good employees without paying them their worth. Once employers were told what they “must” pay, however, it created a baseline that mentally (and perhaps emotionally) narrowed, rather than broadened an employers sense of what wage was fair or deserved. In fact “fair” and “deserved” went out the window. If all a businessman (or woman) had to do was make sure a minimum wage was being paid, what did fairness or merit have to do with anything?

And that sort of thinking, born of the good-intentions of our own government — is how we get to the reality of a 20-year employee making $8.25 an hour, and having to live a pretty hardscrabble life.

OK, people who've worked for actual bosses, and observed first-hand why they do and don't give raises -- does your assessment suggest to you that employers pay as little as they can get away with because that increases their profit margins? Or does your experience suggest that they pay as little as they can get away with because the government inflicted upon them "a baseline that mentally (and perhaps emotionally) narrowed, rather than broadened an employers sense of what wage was fair or deserved"?

If the former, congratulations, you're a normal human being living in the actual world. If the latter, congratulations, you may have a job as a conservative columnist.

SQUARE PEG.

Victor Davis Hanson goes on for more than 4,200 words about how everybody loves you if you're "hip" -- which in his lexicon is just another word for "liberal" -- and it's just not fair. One of his dozens of examples:

Would Google have had more trouble for all its outsourcing and overseas tax avoidance had it been named American Internet, Inc., or if its founders had grown up together as good ol’ boys in Mobile, Alabama, who still had a nagging propensity for putting patriotic slogans under the Google logo when the browser pops up each morning? Imagine waking and hitting the American Internet, Inc. logo — and then reading “Live free or die” before your search. (How odd that liberals — e.g., “the medium is the message” — always lectured us about advertising-driven false demand, and then became past masters of deceptive branding.)

I thought that's what Bing was for.

The odd thing is, Hanson never seems to grasp how these alleged hip people and things  -- he includes Starbucks, Jay-Z, "Snoop Dogg," Al Gore, and Katie Couric, believe it or not -- acquired whatever cachet they have. Since he hates them, the explanation can include nothing of what they offer the public, which severely limits his options.

Midway through he comes upon an answer that's at least plausible --

Could not Wal-Mart put memorable lines from Shakespeare on its plastic bags, or a Greek hexameter from Homer, or sell vitamin water called Sophos, Kalos, or Logos, or pipe in John Lennon’s “Imagine”?

You're getting warm, Doc -- marketing might have something to do with it. But Wal-Mart has a marketing budget, too, and it eschews Shakespeare for Low Low Prices. I don't hear them crying that they're misunderstood, and I sure don't hear them crying poor.

Alas, this explanation would cost Hanson his opportunity for self-pity, so he avoids it, and retreats thus:

Hip: borrowing became “stimulus”; entitlements, “investments”; and paying it all back became “paying your fair share.” In Obama’s case, he is not just black, but black with an exotic name and a liberal ideology, unlike a Clarence Thomas, who is most unhip...

I predict the first "hip" thing Hanson will adopt will be emo.

IT'S OUR OWN STORY EXACTLY! HE BOLD AS A HAWK, SHE SOFT AS THE DAWN.

Acculturated is a new dispenser of culture war ordnance that yells "WHY POP CULTURE MATTERS" from the masthead.  Connoisseurs of the genre will find it a little bit Culture 11 and a little bit Speculative Rightwing Ladymags The Perfesser Wants Created.

One thing the Acculturati like to talk about is Downton Abbey. (Here's a thing where Emily Esfahani Smith twits Simon Schama for calling it "snobbery by the bucketful." "The scenes take place in and out of a manor inhabited by tony aristocrats," sniffs Smith. "Its appeal is aesthetic. As an art history professor, Schama should know this." I'm pretty sure she's not kidding.)

And in case you thought Jonah Goldberg had farted the last word on the subject, get this: Ashley McGuire lets us know up front that she's sophisticated and Has Agency --

I’m no dummy. My last order from Amazon included The Feminine Mystique, Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, and Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics.

-- But she watches crummy TV shows. Why? Not merely to relax; that'd be common.

I simply think that I (like my fellow educated female consumers of garbage television) am looking for intrigue. Intrigue that gives us something to talk about. Something to think about. A framework to ponder our sex. 

Television is a sort of social barometer, and as women we are particularly inclined to take the temperature of our society and it how it views us and treats us.

Those days when you were a kid and imagined TV shows really spoke to you and your generation? That's why you have this coming to you -- McGuire pondering her sex:

It’s a sort of lifeline to any woman drowning in the thick waters of modern culture... 

Indeed, the show evokes wholly contrary thoughts about womanhood and feminism. As I watch the show, I find myself fighting between two selves. One side of me hardly envies the women of the era, when marriage was a woman’s only ticket in life, when the corset still grasped the fashion industry, when one make-out session with an exotic boy could ruin your prospects for life. 

But then one side of me envies the women of Downton ever so slightly. Envies the thought of my husband referring to me as “her ladyship.”

In previous sub-generations, ladies who didn't want to live in Dallas might yet have envied the women of Southfork and dreamed of falling under the spell of courtly if amoral J.R. Ewing. But when the show was over and the Asti Spumante drained, I don't think their fantasies spurred them to social analysis like this:

Are we happy with where we are? Do we demand enough of men? Do we demand enough of ourselves? Can we do better than table flipping in Jersey or ten plastic surgeries? Are we really that much better off today, or are today’s television shows any indication that there is still much work to be done?...

The women of Downton want driving lessons, they want jobs, they want the vote. But are there things from that era that we have thrown away that might have had value?...

If only we had cars and servants with crisp aprons! Clearly society has failed us.

Did respect for a woman’s reputation keep men in check and protect ourselves from winding up like Ethel, pregnant and scared? Did good-old-fashioned esteem for women raise the odds of winding up like Anna and Mary, wives who had been thoroughly woo’ed by good men?    

We'll never know now; there's no time machine to whisk us back to the days when women were thoroughly woo'ed and could do without that spinster's toy, the Vote. Ah well; there's still a little Red Bicyclette left, and a page where one can send eloquent essay-length distress signals that Ross Douthat may pick up. In the words of Martin Mull: It's not that great and it's late and once again, honey, you lose.

ANNALS OF THE CULTURE WARS: A VERY SPECIAL JONAH GOLDBERG EDITION.

The Pantload on Downton Abbey:

I do wonder what the left, particularly the British left, thinks of the show. For starters, one of the chief villains is gay.

We can stop right there; you could make a parlor game out of guessing Goldberg's other insights ("the whole point of the show is to sympathize with the landed gentry," "the one fairly radical lefty in the show... remains something of a bore," etc). The thing that defies imagination is: What does he think is going on? Is he trying to using conservative hanky code to find if Abbey's producers would like to provide the entertainment on the next NR Sadcruise? Or is he laying the groundwork for the case that, when the history of early 21st Century conservatism is written, Julian Fellowes will be the Goldwater of the Kulturkampf? (After all, as Goldberg's colleague Jay Nordlinger noticed years ago, Fellowes once complimented America. Maybe he's a mole in the commie arts community, and can be recruited to make movies with Bill Whittle.)

Oh, one more thing, from the aesthetic part of Goldberg's episode review:

Indeed, the whole show felt bizarrely cut up, like they had to put it together at the last minute.

At last he's talking about something he understands. [Farrrt.]

A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

I think National Review's trying a rethink:

"Meant to be together forever" -- sounds like a Bieber joint, yes? This Jesus cover boy, Christopher West, goes in for the usual Anti Sex League ordnance -- he counsels "infinite bliss" over rim jobs, and asks leading questions like "can’t we see that such a notion of choice is actually the negation of freedom?" But he has a softer, daisy-strewing  side, too, and rhapsodizes that "art is the language of the heart." Kathryn J. Lopez asks him if there's any art around now that he likes; he replies,

I’m not an art critic. I can only speak to what moves me personally. And I’d have to say that today, in the specific sense of right now, I am stunned by the artistry expressed in the movie adaptation of the musical Les Misérables. I saw it three times in its first week of release. Treat yourself and go see this movie.

Roger Scruton he ain't. Instead of having to beg change all the time ("National Review is not a non-profit — we are just not profitable"), NR should just convert to a pictoral format a la Tiger Beat.

UPDATE. Commenter Montag2 directs us to this intriguing 2009 item at the Catholic News Agency:  "Christopher West’s ideas on sexuality ignore ‘tremendous dangers,’ Alice von Hildebrand says." Excerpt:

The news segment showed [West] calling for Catholics to complete “what the sexual revolution began.” He also described “very profound” historical connections between Hugh Hefner and Pope John Paul II. 

West spoke to CNA on Friday, claiming the report somewhat sensationalized his views. He also denied several characterizations conveyed by the news story, explaining that he believed Hefner to be right in rejecting “the disease of Puritanism” but radically wrong in beginning the “pornographic revolution.” 

He had told ABC that Hefner had a "yearning," an "ache" and a "longing" for love, union and intimacy.

Well, clearly Hef's a fan of marriage. I expect after this scare West went and sinned no more, or he'd never have gotten close to K-Lo's inbox. True, he's responsible for provocative titles like The Love That Satisfies, but the Theology of the Body Institute West serves as a "research fellow" seems to have no hot tubs or encounter rooms. Still, his theology stirs some controversy -- for example, there was

the argument between Dr. Scott Hahn and Christopher West on the set of “Franciscan University Presents” which turned Dr. Hahn into a “closet critic” of West and his theology after West disagreed with Hahn when Hahn said the proper response if he was to see his colleague's naked wife's would be to turn his eyes away.

 His colleague's naked wife's what, I'd like to know. Maybe it was something innocent, like a tax-exempt contribution.

UPDATE 2. Oh wait, they explain further down:

... [Dr. Scott Hahn] told West that if he were to see a friend’s wife [the friend being fellow panellist Dr. Regis Martin] naked, it would be his responsibility to look away. West responded, ‘No, it would be to not lust.’ [Hahn] and West took turns repeating themselves until the moderator called for a break in the program.

You gotta admit, it beats This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Also from that same report: "James J. Simons, who by his own admission listened to West over 100 times... argued that it is right to baptize people naked in front of an entire church so everyone can see them and it is right for women to read in church topless." Next time a conservative starts going off about wacky liberal arts courses, I'll bring this up.

UPDATE 3. "And, as if on cue," comments Alexander von Humbug, "Sullivan quotes West approvingly." Looks like there's a big PR push for West among the sort of people who would like him, and I wonder why, as they could disseminate the book as effectively by just handing out copies at David Brooks' parties. It's not like normal people will ever give a shit.

IT'S GOOD FOR YOU.

My old friend Martin Downs, M.P.H. Dartmouth, has embarked on a very interesting project:  "a full picture of sexual health in the United States" based on an index of 26 measures of sexual health. (Full report here.) The fun part of the project is the resulting Sexual Health Rankings™, which finds Vermont, Connecticut, and New Hampshire the most sexually healthy states, and Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas the least healthy. Lots of opportunity for mean regionalist jokes there!

But it's also a sign of where public health's going in general, and how it breaks against cultural tides. The indicators include the expected relative incidence of STDs and rape but, taking off from the World Health Organization's idea of sexual health as "not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity," but also "a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence," they also consider access to contraception and abortion, sex education in schools, gender equality (partly measured by "proportion of seats held by women in state legislatures"), and "sexual satisfaction" measured by the "proxy indicators" of percent of population married or partnered, and general good health ("numerous studies show that self-reported health is positively associated with sexual satisfaction, and that worse self-reported health is a strong predictor of sexual dysfunction").

You may quibble with some of the metrics; I'm not sure how well you can track sexual satisfaction in the aggregate, short of a Masters and Johnson version of Nielsen Ratings or a test panel made of these. But I like the idea of defining sexual health more humanely than would, say, medical authorities at an Army induction center. Old-fashioned as I am, I still tend to think of public health as reactive, eradicating abnormalities clearly identified as disease -- as in, hmm, people in this village are dying of cholera, let's see if we can stop it. But in some communities, the appearance of such agents of death was once so commonplace as to be considered the norm; it's only when somebody began to think that it didn't have to be that way, and that it could be changed by something other than prayers and mumbo-jumbo, that human health progressed.

Now we see folks turning this approach to conditions no one considered public health issues before -- obesity, for example. Because our general fatty-fat-fatness doesn't look like cholera, and can't be fixed by replacing the town water pump, we are slow to identify it as disease. There's also a better reason: Because the nobs then might determine that we must be saved from ourselves, and try to keep us from having eating barbecue potato chips and onion dip because we must not know what we're doing to ourselves.  Lord knows I've felt resistance myself in the face of Mayor Bloomberg's nannying on the soda tax and all that.

Maybe the problem there is that we're Americans, and everything having to do with pleasure confuses us. Maybe we stuff ourselves with junk because we're missing something in our lives, and our leaders try to take these palliatives away from us without any genuine concern for us except as cogs in their machine and reflections of their own enlightenment, and offer us nothing in return except good citizenship medals.

But with this sex thing I don't see a downside. Gender equality?  Access to women's health services? "Pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence"?  That doesn't sound like health nazidom to me. Maybe that's because it's about giving access to more choices instead of fewer, and normalizing pleasure instead of restricting it. In any event, I'd sure rather have that than a healthy snack.

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the alleged end of the culture war. Both rightwingers and leftwingers have suggested it's done, but I say this is America, where no grift stops until it runs out of suckers -- and this one's not even close to running out.

I should mention that the white-flag-waver with whom I started the column, Matt K. Lewis, has in a follow-up hedged on his original claim that "The culture war is over, and conservatives lost." Now he thinks there's a chance. Among his proof points:

The good news for cultural conservatives is that a new generation, aided by new technology, might finally conspire to change things. Young conservatives like R.J. Moeller — the man who brought comedian Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager together — are dedicating their lives to ideas and culture, not overt partisanship.

Apart from creating the headline lounge act in Hell, this is what Moeller's about.  I'm sure he can get people to pay him for it, but it hardly seems like a way to win hearts and minds.

UPDATE. In comments Spaghetti Lee has an angle:

I think the overtly churchy, you're-going-to-hell culture warriors are going to fade out, honestly. Who the hell is going to replace Pat Robertson or Maggie Gallagher when they bite the big one? I think we're going to see/are already seeing a rise in its more insidious cousin, the libertarian conservatives who are too hip and cool and with it for things like making sure 90% of the country actually has livable incomes and that the air and water supplies aren't full of poison...

He numbers among them the Randroid priest who can talk to kids.

HOW'RE YOU GONNA KEEP 'EM DOWN ON THE FARM AFTER THEY'VE SEEN THE FARM?

Some guy at Ace of Spades is excited about Atlas Van Lines' map of what states have more mover-outers and what states have more mover-inners:

Frankly, I'm surprised that CA and MI are treading water on that chart but then again it is only one source and does not indicate what type of people are moving in and out (i.e. producers or takers).

The idea (or "narrative," as these dinks like to put it) is that big bad blue states are bleeding "producer" population, and soon will be overtaken by Workers' Paradises like North Dakota. Similarly, Some Other Guy at RedState headlines his story about another mover's poll (United Van Lines'), "Unchanged: Americans Are Still Fleeing High-Tax, Forced-Unionism States With Good Reason," followed by lots of hurp-durp about lousy blue states boy won't they be sorry.

Well, it's always instructive to do what rightblogger readers are unlikely to do, and click the links. At the United Van Lines site:

I'll be durned -- Americans are flocking to Washington, D.C., even though such geniuses as Ole Perfesser Instapundit, Nick Gillespie and David Brooks were just telling us it's the moocher capital of the evil Hunger Games empire.

And the United Van Lines item the RedState link takes you to is sub-headed, "Washington D.C. the Most Popular Destination During the Election Year." Guess America's really Obama-depraved after all!

Don't worry -- it looks like there'll be plenty of room in DickCheneyland for them all to Go Galt in.

I LOST IT AT THE MOVIES.

Roger L. Simon, the Citizen Kane of Pajamas Media (if the Inquirer had quickly turned into a pennysaver), saw some Chinese people at a high-end outlet mall in Cabezon, California.  The Man Who Was Moses Wine is on the case:

A large number, possibly a majority, of the shoppers there are the privileged scions of the Communist Party. Their parents and grandparents are the ones who played along and did their best not to make waves, even cooperated, throughout the mass murders of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Now, they and their kids are reaping the harvest of their modern state capitalist system that still flies under the banner of communism, a false flag operation if ever there was one. Ironies abound, and those same ironies provide a snapshot of what constitutes “leftism” in our own culture.

Ironies indeed, except Simon seems not to have asked himself why the Chinese have all that money. Hint: They got a lot of it from us, and not all in the days of Comrade Obama, neither.

Anyway Simon is not really concerned with foreigners but with the domestic terrorists called liberals:

Leftism has devolved into a kind of scam run not only on others but also on the self. Leftists are brilliant at convincing themselves of their own altruism and then broadcasting it to the public, thus providing cover for the most conventionally greedy and selfish behaviors. We see that in our society all the time: the quondam Marxists of Hollywood, the media, and the academy blathering on about economic equality while living lives the Medici could not have dreamed of.

Son of a buck -- there's money in this? You bastards have been holding out on me! I've been writing for the Village Voice for years -- surely I have carloads of Moscow gold coming!

Relatively unbridled capitalism has always been the best way out of this, the best way to true social mobility, but our nomenklatura doesn’t want to admit this because it might threaten them and their perquisites. It would blow their cover.

I dunno -- the Crash of '08 gave pretty good cover all by itself to the idea of "unbridled capitalism" as a panacea.

I suspect those Chinese shoppers knew this better than anyone, having lived through a similar experience ratcheted up to the nth degree. Although I was too polite to do it, I wanted to question them. I would have loved to know what they say to each other in the privacy of their own homes, not that they would be likely to tell me.

Unfairly deprived of my communist lottery winnings as I have been, I would have paid cash money to see Simon grilling the "Chinese shoppers." You, chop chop! You mamasan and papasan, they wash the brains, yes? In my country this call irony! Obama, him big commie, yes? 

But there was something to learn from watching them. I felt like a detective and it made me think of Roman Polanski and Robert Towne’s Chinatown.

A detective who doesn't want to ask questions to which he doesn't already have the answers. But he's still got the fedora, and the hangdog grace of a lone wolf:

I also thought of myself, of the way I was when I was a leftist. Yes, I drove a Porsche then (a used one). And had a house in the Hollywood Hills. And ate at gourmet restaurants. And there were plenty like me. I was part of a class. I felt safe and protected for many years, though finally I just left it. I couldn’t stand the hypocrisy anymore. Or maybe I just lost the ability to convince myself of my own altruism.

You might imagine Simon is eating off a hot plate in a rooming house with his integrity to keep him warm. But he's still a player, in fact more of one than before: His last film, A Better Life, was well-reviewed by the pinkos he disdains as lying nomenklatura. But keep that under your hat -- if a fella's gonna keep his place in modern conservatism, he's got to hold onto his victim status.

Whatever the case, when it comes to the truth about leftism, it’s about the cover it gives. Or, as Bob Towne put it: “It’s Chinatown.”

Actually it's Hollywood; like modern conservatism, a land of dreams. Except people are buying what Hollywood sells.

OOGA TO THE OOGITY-BOOGA.

neo-neocon started out with a fairly standard rightwing plaint about the big bad liberals:

It’s not just the heady victory of the moment that’s motivating them, it’s their conviction that it’s clear sailing from here on that empowers the left to openly up the ante and signal their next steps in establishing and capitalizing on their hegemony. No need to hide anymore when there’s nothing the right can do about it.

Then suddenly sproinnggg! out of nowhere:

In some ways the anti-white-man rhetoric that has become standard and acceptable lately is the worst sign of all. If the term “hate speech” has a meaning, it most definitely would apply to a great deal of what has been said recently about that despised group. Those who are first to shriek “racism” and “sexism” when criticism is launched against a group defined as oppressed (blacks, women) are turning the tables and dissing white men with impunity. It is both hypocritical and vile, and especially offensive when cloaked in the sanctimony of those on the left who believe they occupy the moral high ground (that would be everyone on the left).

Huh? neo-neocon doesn't explain what the hell she's talking about, so I had to trace back through a link to Victor Davis Hanson she'd left, perhaps inadvertently, as a clue to find out where she caught the fever.

Near as I can tell, this is it: That guy who criticized the Constitution in the New York Times called the Founding Fathers "a group of white propertied men" who "thought it was fine to own slaves." (I like the Constitution fine myself but yeah, obviously they were what he said they were.) Well, Hanson takes exception, but instead of arguing a case he just links the Constitution critic's sentiments to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, for reason unshared with his readers:

I can see Seidman’s vision now: Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi decides that semi-automatic handguns, not cheap Hollywood violence or sick video games, empower the insane to kill, and, presto, their 'considered judgment' and favored 'particular course of action' trump the archaic and evil wisdom of 'white propertied men.'

And that's about it, unless there's a coded reference or an acrostic or something in there that I missed.

Hanson's fit is weird enough, but the way neo-neocon got "everyone on the left" and "dissing white men with impunity" out of it -- that's just surreal. And then there's Ole Perfessor Glenn Reynolds' endorsement of it:

The Obama presidency has certainly been clarifying. Which is probably why gun sales are up.

To recap, some nut thought a professor's smack talk about the Founders owning slaves had something to do with Reid and Pelosi; this stimulated another nut to rage about the left's alleged insults to whitey; and this stimulated a third nut to cite Obama and cheer the rise in gun purchases. It's like a game of Telephone in an insane asylum.

Earlier today I was mildly disappointed that Commentary's new "What Is the Future of Conservatism in the Wake of the 2012 Election? A Symposium" was subscriber-only. But now I feel like I just read it for free.

UPDATE. "The white man has been oppressed ever since Django was unchained," explains Halloween Jack in comments. wjts and others point out that Hanson is once again complaining that someone stole equipment from his property and, once again, suggests the theft has something darkly to do with Obama. Soon these guys will be communicating entirely by dog-whistle: "Someone made off with my entrenching tool last night..." "OOGA BOOGA DEFEND WHITEY!"

HOW THE NUTTY HAVE FALLEN.

One of the original Tea Party spielers, Patrick Michael Leahy, was telling Americans in the week before the 2012 Presidential election that

in key swing states, the vaunted Obama ground game is being out-worked and out-organized by a loosely knit coalition of volunteer grassroots activists (both local and out-of-state), traditional conservative organizations like Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, and the local and national Republican establishment...

With so many grassroots activists going door-to-door in swing states around the country, it's not surprising that optimism among conservatives for a Romney victory on November 6 are high.

Proving that professional bullshit artists are always in demand, here's Leahy today, claiming that the Tea Party's as powerful as ever and anyone who says different is double Alinsky Sociamalist:

Consider, for instance, the spontaneous outpouring of public support for Chick-Fil-et in August, and September's National Empty Chair Day phenomenon. Those strong sentiments have not suddenly disappeared. They remain fixed in the hearts and minds of millions of tea party activists around the country as we enter 2013.

Tell me, is there a degree below Pyrrhic victory? If not maybe we should name it after Leahy.

Even better is the follow-up. "There's polling evidence to consider as well," says Leahy. And that polling evidence shows the Tea Party rushing to join the Know-Nothings and the Anti-Masonic Party on history's D-list. But Leahy tastes the lemonade: "The 21% of the 128 million Americans who voted in 2012 and support the tea party," he offers, "still comprise a very large segment of the population --more than 26 million activists." 30% disapprove, true, but they're not activists -- merely moochers, too busy spending their government assistance checks to go hollering in tricorners, which is the key to victory.

Since this equity is clearly pissed out, we should start placing bets on the new niche brand they'll bring out in the next few elections. Five bucks says it'll involve a new kind of patriotism.

ANNALS OF THE CULTURE WARS, CONT.

John Daly, published by media scold Bernard Goldberg, wants "Conservatives To Use Pop-Culture Messaging." The awkward wording is no mistake; Daly doesn't know what culture is; he seems to think of it as some kind of weapon that'll work for him if only he can wrestle it away from his opponent.

If you doubt me, here's his pitch:

Imagine a series of television commercials, in the format of public service announcements, featuring actor Vince Vaughn. I’m using Vaughn as an example because he’s one of the few, outed fiscal conservatives in Hollywood. He’s also an immediately identifiable celebrity who audiences have an affection for. In his trademark comedic, dapper style, Vaughn throws out some metaphorical explanation of how screwed up our nation’s spending problem is, and how that problem affects each and every one of us. The presentation should be simple, but it should also get across a point that people can relate to – much like the Apple vs Microsoft commercials from a few years ago, or the “this is your brain on drugs” campaign from the 1980s. The series could expand to cover over-regulation, over-taxation, and more. They should be aired not on cable news networks, but during some of the popular, prime-time reality shows.

Better still is his follow-up after the client gives him that "Springtime for Hitler" stare:

It’s the clueless, unprincipled vote that conservatives can no longer afford to concede to the Democratic party when it comes to elections. These people are sway-able, and they’re prime for a wake-up call. Dumbing down the conservative message through the pop-culture world may just be the way of doing it.

Dumb ideas aimed at people you don't respect: A winning formula. Especially if --

...if wealthy, conservative donors truly want to make a difference in public perception and support, they might want to consider backing such a shift rather than just the politicians themselves.

-- the goal is not so much to change minds as to cadge change.

MORE ANNALS OF THE CULTURE WARS.

While you're ringing in the new year with champagne and revelry, conservatives are hard at work in  their basement warrens, fashioning a new cultural offensive to lure the proles back in.

Some go the old-fashioned route, declaring victory because all the top movies are rightwing. At TownHall, John Hanlon reviews conservative film victories of 2012.  Lincoln, for example, "showed the Republican president as the grand leader that he was -- fighting against unscrupulous Democrats who wanted slavery to continue, despite the injustice inherent in the practice." Just like today! Also, in The Avengers "two of its story’s main protagonists represent deeply-held conservative beliefs" -- that is, Captain America "believes in old-fashioned values and longs for a simpler time," and Iron Man Tony Stark "isn’t afraid of his own money and doesn’t begrudge himself the luxuries that he has earned through his hard work and dedication," whereas Loki wants a high capital gains tax and free healthcare for all.

With that,  The Dark Knight Rises' "inherent criticism of the Occupy Wall Street movement," and The Hunger Games "Orwellian and disturbing version of an all-powerful government that will be hard to forget," the cineplexes are telling truths the MSM dare not utter. The next step is to have early voting in movie theaters, maybe by getting ushers to collect ballots like they used to collect donations for the Will Rogers Institute.

Crisap at Conservative New Ager goes further, proclaiming Les Miserables "a movie for conservatives." Sure, its impoverished heroes band together to support the 1832 Paris Uprising, but that doesn't make them communards: Jean Valjean, for example, is a "successful businessman who not only created a whole industry in a town, bringing it out of poverty and into an economic renaissance, but who also out of Christian charity... creates hospitals and schools for the poor.  In a day and age when lesser writers like Dickens would just recycle the terrible image of the robber baron, Hugo gave us a noble businessman as an example of what others should be."  He's pretty much Mitt Romney with a rich tenor voice. "And dare we forget," adds Crisap, "that much of the second half of the story is taken up by an uprising by Republican revolutionaries, seeking a return to law and not the capricious whims of a king." See, they're Republicans, just like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, proving that "if a modern day liberal went back to see him, Hugo would try to slap the stupid out of the Occupy trash." With Zola standing nearby yelling "Lemme at him," no doubt.

Meanwhile at Pajamaland, Bill Whittle answers a viewer question, "What aspect of the culture, movies music books etc., do you think holds the best hope for conservatism?" with this:

I think it's video games. I think it's video games. I think things like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor and so on which basically glorify our military, glorifies 'em for the reasons they should be glorified, . I've been playing video games since high school, junior high, where we played a Star Trek game on a printer... these first-person shooters get better and better and better, and nowadays you get into these first-person shooters and it gives you pretty immersive idea of what it is our guys actually have to go through, minus the actual terror and blood and all that other stuff. And the ability to respawn is a nice thing, I'm sure a lot of guys out in the field like that respawn idea a lot...

For two weeks the NRA's been telling us video games inspire people to shoot up schools, and now here's Whittle telling us they actually make people honor the military and vote Republican. Maybe he's trying to make some kind of point about sublimation.

JON SWIFT ROUNDUP'S POSTED.

Batocchio, bless him, has done the usual bang-up job with the annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup of top blog posts by your favorite fellow travelers. I found it a great opportunity to revisit writers I never get to read because I'm too busy reading idiots. I've looked at a bunch of the recent entrants and they're excellent. (I especially recommend Lance Mannion's essay on Asperger's; I used to think that I had it, but now I'm quite sure that I'm just an asshole.)  Pick a link, any link, they're all winners.

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, CRY, CRY AGAIN.

Victor Davis Hanson's on his plinth again, crying "Vanitas!" while the dry ice swirls:

Obama once had mused that he wished to be the mirror image of Ronald Reagan — successfully coaxing America to the left as the folksy Reagan had to the right. Instead, 2012 taught us that a calculating Obama is more a canny Richard Nixon, who likewise used any means necessary to be reelected on the premise that his rival would be even worse. But we know what eventually happened to the triumphant, pre-Watergate Nixon after November 1972; what will be the second-term wages of Obama’s winning ugly?

Impeachment? Sure, why not -- it's not like they can beat him in elections.

But what would be the MacGuffin? This week at WorldNetDaily:

As many news sites and pundits break down the biggest stories of 2012, one story too big to miss has been resurrected by the website TeaParty.org, a story at least one national pundit believes could send Barack Obama to prison. 

The tea-party site posted a Glenn Beck video from October in which the TV and radio host insisted a case for treason could be built against President Obama for his role in the attack of Sept. 11, 2012, in which armed Libyans captured and killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others at an American diplomatic mission in Benghazi...

A two-month-old Glenn Beck rant. But wait -- WND has more! In another article they say Obama could be impeached for invading Syria -- and Charlie Rangel's on board! Actually Rangel has made common cause with Republican Congressman Walter Jones to warn the President off an intervention, which WND interprets as "NEW IMPEACHMENT THREAT, WITH DEMOCRAT 'INVOLVED.'"

Playing Lafayette to their Founding Fathers is Lyndon LaRouche. Now it's a coalition!

Much as I'd enjoy it, I don't think they're serious. At Forbes Larry Bell tips their hand:

Before I carry this any farther, let me be clear that I believe any chances that President Obama will be impeached range somewhere between nil and none. That ain’t going to happen to the historic first American black president…THE ONE…most particularly when his party controls the Senate and his fast and furious friend is his attorney general. But just for argument’s sake, let’s imagine that these conditions were different, and on top of that, he had ill winds of the liberal media blowing in his face rather than friendly breezes at his back. And what if he wasn’t “cool”…instead, being someone like Nixon, who was the un-coolest guy in almost any crowd?...

So this impeachment thing is going to be like everything else in wingnut world these days: Another excuse to piss and moan about how unfair it all is. Pretty soon they'll be telling us that Obama should have been assassinated by now, but that damned liberal Secret Service keeps protecting him.

GALT 2.0.

We got another Go-Galt guy, this one named Will Spencer, who tells us that "clearly, 'Going Galt' does not mean the same thing to all people. Going Galt is a very individual expression." That's for sure -- we've seen folks Go Galt by leaving lousy tips, by alerting local merchants that they planned to "buy nothing – other than vacations out of the country – until the president exits," by quitting smoking, etc. Or at least talking about doing it.

I had despaired they'd ever get serious about it. Spencer, though, has an impressively meticulous list of tactics, which he has divided into four sections.

It takes awhile to pick up speed. Under "Earn Less Taxable Income," Spencer lists actions I assumed entrepreneurs/hustlers would already have been doing, Galt or no Galt -- "Relocate to a state which charges lower or no income taxes," "Contribute the maximum allowable amount to an IRA," etc. Under "Reduce Expenses and Pay Less Sales Tax," his tips would not be out of place in The Dollar Stretcher -- "Repair and reuse when possible instead of buying replacements," "Buy over the Internet when possible, to avoid sales taxes," etc.

So far so Horatio Alger. Then we get to section three, "Prepare for the Collapse." "Stockpile water, food, and ammunition to prepare for coming shortages" and "Fortify your home to protect your family against looters" are among Spencer's suggestions. A little crazy, but still within the normal conservative spectrum -- after all, even the big-time rightbloggers love to play at disaster preparedness.

But the tide turns in section four, "Civil Disobedience":

This is where things get serious. This isn’t just trying to escape from a corrupt society and let it collapse; many of these steps involve making active decisions and taking risks that could negatively affect your personal liberty. Nonetheless, many people feel that the hope of living in a truly free world is worth the risk.

Tremble, tyrants, at what Will Spencer has in store for you:

• Comply with government orders as slowly as possible. 

• Fill out government forms incompletely and illegibly.

• Pay all taxes and fines at the last possible legal moment.

• Make it difficult for the government to enforce all unconstitutional or immoral laws.

• As a juror, exercise your right to nullify unconstitutional or immoral laws.

• Take multiple copies of all printed government forms to increase their costs.

• Take a job with the government, and then don’t do it.

• Boycott government propaganda outlets such as PBS and NPR.

• Get your money invested offshore while it is still safe and legal to do so.

So next time some guy at the DMV fills in his license application with scribbles, then winks at you; or sneakily takes a whole stack of change of address forms from the post office; or takes a government job and, unlike any other civil servant you've ever seen, goofs off -- then you'll know the revolution is afoot. This time for sure!

UPDATE. Comments  are choice, as usual. Spaghetti Lee nominates further Civil Disobedience tips like "Address all government forms with pseudonyms 'Mike Hunt' and 'Dick Hertz'" and "Inform all government officials that you are rubber and they are glue." hells littlest angel suggests the Galt-goers "get sushi and not pay." And Jeffrey_Kramer has written a stirring Go Galt anthem:

I dreamed I saw John Galt last night
A-watchin' my TV
Says I, “So when's this strike of yours?”
“I'm on it now,” says he. 

I said “And how will sitting here
Bring down this tyranny?”
Said John, “I slay the MSM
By watching Hannity! 

“O John,” I said, “Our tax will rise,
How will you make a stink?”
“I'll write out all my forms,” John said
“With funny-looking ink.” 

“But will you pay this evil tax,
This higher marginal rate?”
“I'll pay it,” John said with a grin,
“But maybe minutes late.” 

“But John, what if the Kenyan sends
us all to FEMA camps?”
“I'll slow the trains of death,” said John
“By using two-cent stamps.” 

Then I woke up, but still I knew --
I'd take it to the bank --
Whatever came, John would be there
To cry and piss and wank.

GOD AND SINNERS RECONCILED.

Most of you have seen it, but if you haven't, this is the real thing:



All honor to Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol -- the recent replay of which was sadly truncated to remove the theatrical framing device. (Did NBC think revealing it to be a stage production starring trouper Quincy Magoo would limit its appeal? Maybe they worried somebody would find the fun over Magoo's blindness offensive.) And there are things to like in many other versions.

But this production with Alastair Sim is in a ripe melodramatic style that I imagine Dickens would have appreciated. It is decidedly not modern. Michael Holdern's Marley's Ghost is eerie as much for his Delsarte presentation as for his predicament -- moaning, keening, "Lon Chaney big." (He even presses the back of his wrist to his forehead and he's not kidding.)  The lower- and middle-class characters are perfect expressions of type, individuated only by the ingenuity of the actors, who have this sort of thing down cold.  And Sim is for me the only Scrooge. His style is big, too, but so is his insight: That Scrooge is at bottom a terribly frightened man whose unsociability and hardness were formed as defenses against pain. He spends half the film in abject terror and dejection. In some versions Scrooge seems to be educated by his Spirits, with some shocks thrown in to underline the lesson, but Sim is emotionally flayed by his, and the Scrooge that's revealed is wonderfully child-like ("I'm as light as a feather! I'm as giddy as a schoolboy!"); in fact, he's sort of a jokester. (The little fright he gives Mrs. Dilber by ruffling his hair on the staircase is one of many sublime moments.) This is redemption through repentance, and appropriate for the feast of Christ.

If that's not your style, there's always Kurtzman. Or have both -- what the hell, we embrace multitudes. Merry Christmas!

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP

-- reviewing 2012 rightblogger highlights. Your typical holiday special: Some familiar bits, some new material, and a happy ending. Enjoy!

UPDATE. While looking cartoons to break up the column I came across this:

I don't remember being able to bring loaded guns aboard commercial airliners even before 9/11. This gun-grabber conspiracy goes deeper than I thought.

YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE.

It is something to see Ole Perfesser Instapundit go for plausible deniability:

I DIDN’T SEE THE PRESS CONFERENCE, but reader Theo X. Rojo writes: “I’m very proud of my membership in the NRA as a ‘Life Member.’ I thought Mr. LaPierre hit it out of the park today.”

Maybe before he can endorse it, he has to watch Kindergarden Cop and see how it all works out.

The weirdest bit, though, is this:

UPDATE: Jeffrey Goldberg: “Reporters on my Twitter feed seem to hate the NRA more than anything else, ever.” I think there’s a race/class angle to that.

Race/class angle? Does he think most journalists are black? Not bloody likely. Or does he think his opponents have been mongrelized?

If you're wondering why our moderate Republican President is doing so well in the polls, look no further.