Deceptive Appearances

   Yesterday's top story should have actually been the story that General Michael Flynn apparently met with Pennsylvania Islamofascist Fethullah Gülen.  The entire reason that Flynn was popular with the Trump people was his tough talk against radical Islam.  So it was shocking that in actuality, Flynn was meeting with the person most responsible for the desecularization of Turkey.  Gülen was originally part of the clique surrounding the military government of Turkey in the 1980s.  Back then, radical Islam was seen as an antidote to Marxist impulses in Turkish society.  (Kinda like Afghanistan?)
    Appearances are deceiving, and the supporters of O.B. are often not what they claim to be.  In his column from today, Jonah Goldberg diagnoses the paranoid everymanism of the Orange Blatherskite supporters.  Goldberg writes:
          On the right, a new version of prolier than thou is the new hotness.  Steve 
           Bannon is a multimillionaire former Goldman Sachs globalist who made 
           much of his fortune in Hollywood.  But his new racket--no less of a 
            racket for bein sincere--is to make himself the Joan of Arc to the 
           Trumpen proletariat.  He sells people--many no doubt decent--on
           the idea that there is a Great and Powerful Oz behind the curtain
            keeping them down, thwarting their dreams and denying them their
            destiny.  The Republican Establishment is whatever Bannon or 
            Sean Hannity (another multimillionaire who wears his 
            Budweiser on his sleeve) needs it to be.  It is simeotaneously oppressively
             powerful, blocking Donald Trump's "agenda" at every turn, and out-
             rageously weak, full of Quislings refusing to fight the cultural Marxists
             and George Soros's army of social-justice ninjas.  And because so many 
             people believe this tripe, everyone in the Establishment pretends they
             are against it.  They are like aristocrats of the old order donning
             workman's clothes to avoid the revolutionary mobs.  All of this only
              makes Bannon's life easier and the Establishment more pathetic. When
              no one will defend or deny the existence of your strawman, it's easy
              to win a debate.  Nothing proves the need for intensifying the witch 
              hunt more than the witches' ability to evade capture.
      Estase used to talk about the Primrose League.  He once thought that the average Republican politician was a squishy moderate who avoided social issues like the plague.  In comparison to the ethnically-obsessed Trumpsters and the alt-Right scumbags, the Primrose League looks damn good right now.

The Court Party

        Two internet stories present themselves regarding the 60th anniversary of the Selma march.  The first is that the NYT edits George W. Bush out of the photograph of present-day commemorators.  The second is that Mediaite calls out John Boehner and Mitch McConnell for not attending.  Now the obvious conclusion is that if the New York Times edits out Republicans attending Selma, there is no point in Crying John and The Turtle attending anyway.
         The penetrating commentary will be that it is pointless for Boehner and McConnell to pretend to care about liberty while they allow Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to run roughshod over them.  Loretta Lynch, even worse than Eric Holder, is almost certain to be confirmed as AG.  When exactly is the esteemed John Boehner to act as though budget decisions are actually in his hands (as they are)?
          In Illinois, our only Republican Senator, Mark Kirk, is more concerned with gay marriage than with keeping the leftist extremists out of the Federal judiciary.  My congressman, Aaron Schock, says that Apple Computer informed him how important amnesty is.  Then he sends out fundraising letters where he pretends that he opposes amnesty.  And all the while, Congressman Schock has spent millions decorating his offices to look like "Downton Abbey!"  No better analogy for these Republicans exists than the Court Party Whigs, like Robert Walpole, so comfortable with their ministerial privilege that they forgot what Whigs typically believed.

A Pro-Life Whig Manifesto

       The Republican Party, as represented as such characters such as Sci-Fi Bruce Rauner, seems to be becoming transmogrified into a group of amoral Ayn Randians.  Unwilling to address any social issue as being the road to ruin, the only thing the Randians care about is "smaller government."  Not honest government, not parlimentary democracy, not a civil society, just "smaller" government.  The only thing this new brand of libertarian Republicans care about is money.  This is mine.  Don't touch it.  Get a job.
         One sign that the Randians are taking over is the obsession with disability (SSI) recipients.  While there has been a swelling of SSI recipients in the last few years, it has become an article of faith with the Randians that nobody legitimately receives disability.  Even if you are a quadraplegic, you are a leach on society if you recieve SSI.  To use Paul Ryan's unlovely phrase, such people are takers who steal from makers.  This Manichean duality of people who are unworthy and people who are worthy is a staple of talk radio, which is really odd, because when George W. Bush was president, recieving SSI was not the mark of a parasite.  Maybe this is one reason why talk radio is dying, the recreational activity of choice for people who think they are excellent human beings because they make a lot of money.
           Don't get me wrong.  I'm not endorsing the nihilistic left.  I'm just pointing out how nihilistic the Randians are.  Pro-aborts who think everyone who recieves social benefits are scum have as little moral compass as modern liberals.  Unfortunately, the Primrose League, or establishment Republicans, are just this sort of person.
           It would be Estase's position that being pro-life goes hand in hand with a realization that some persons will need social benefits.  When a family has the integrity and honor to bring a child with Down's Syndrome into the world, this human person should not anticipate a life of homelessness and squalor.  A Down's patient is a valuable person, not just a taker.  Does the Republican party want a T-4 program to eliminate everyone who might not make a lot of money?  Is the highest value of Republicanism stinginess?  The Irishman these people need to keep in mind is Edmund Burke, not Ronald Reagan.  The talk radio community pretends to exemplify conservative thought, but they actually are ignoring one of Burke's most important principles:  stinginess has longer-range costs that are not forseeable in the present.  Another Burkean principle ignored by the Randians is that for men to love their country, their country should be lovely.  A lovely country does not kill its weak and poor.  A lovely country does not call the poor "takers."

The Spanish Civil War and the Illinois Governor's Race

       Sweet child in time/You'll see the light/Lines drawn between/Good and bad
       The Spanish Civil War was a battle between two evil ideologies--Soviet Communism as represented by the Republicans, and Fascism, as represented by the Nationalists under Franco.  The Republicans were nun-raping, priest-murdering savages.  The Nationalists were Jew-murdering thugs.  Neither side were worth a damn, and if Estase had been alive, he would have hoped each side would kill off the other.  It reminds me of what Reagan said of the Iran-Iraq war:  "It's a real shame both sides can't lose this war."

       Fast forward to 2012.  Real conservatives Bill Brady and Kurt Dillard are trounched by upstart Rahm Emmanuel confidant and Disturbin' Dick Durbin supporter Bruce Rauner.  (See my previous post, "Sci-Fi Bruce Rauner.")  Not only is Rauner pro-abortion, he promises to remake the Illinois GOP in his own image.  The Illinois GOP was always heavy in Primrose Leaguers, but Rauner intends to make values voters unwelcome in Illinois Republican politics.  So, while voting for Pat Quinn means voting for more financial ruin for the state, voting for Bruce Rauner means pro-lifers will have no place in state GOP politics.  So, in other words, it is the Spanish Civil War all over again.  It is one set of evil men against another set of evil men.  Enjoy, Illinoisans.

You better close your eyes, bow your head/Wait for the ricochet

Lair of the Primrose League

       Missouri is the home of Representative Mike Lair, who donned a tinfoil hat to ridicule Common Core opponents.  Common Core is a pro-abort propaganda tool.  It is based on unproven educational theories.  (Remember look/see from the 70s?  Anyone want to repeat that mistake?)  One of its big supporters is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which, no coincidence, is pro-abortion.    Common Core is the means by which Bill Ayres style leftists will take control over future generations. 
      I don't know about Mike Lair's voting record, and I don't live in Missouri.  I suspect Mike Lair is a Primrose Leaguer, and that he thinks anything that socons and Tea Partiers don't like must be a good thing.

Primrose League v. Steve King

Karl Rove's American Crossroads is starting something it calls the Conservative Victory Project.  Petasus tip to RightScoop.  The Conservative Victory Project, or as Estase would call it, the Socially Liberal Republican Victory Project, has picked as their first target Iowa Congressman Steve King, who committed the unforgivable sin of crossing Rove by supporting Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin. 

Karl Rove is the physical embodiment of what Estase calls the Primrose League, the amoral wing of the Republican Party.  Primrose Leaguers want candidates who run only on economics.  The Primrose League bristles at the suggestion of running on social issues, especially abortion.  As dumb as Todd Akin's theories about conception and rape were, those were not really what the Primrose League objected to, but Akin's conviction that abortion is wrong.  Not impolite, not unpopular, but wrong.  As a matter of fact, Primrose Leaguers don't like the idea of right and wrong in general.  They are often Hegelians, in the sense that winning is more important than morality.  Hegelians at the end of the day are often Machiavellians as well.  And here you have Karl Rove, the Bush Machiavelli.  He sees himself as the sachem, dictating to the bumpkins on how they need to run for office.  It's Karl's party, not yours!  Rove has ruled Steve King can't win, so who are you mere mortals to question him?

The Scapegoats

The Primrose League is trying to disavow social conservatives again.  Riehl World View has a piece about how social conservatives need to figure out which side they're on.  This is a disingenuous statement;  social conservatives know damn well which side they're on.  Either it's Republicans or a party that is openly contemptuous of people of faith.  Either it's Republicans or people who want to force Catholics to bankroll contraception.  I could go on, but you get the point.  The real issue is that the Primrose League knows social conservatives have no where else to go.  This is the reason why they think they are an embarrassment, the country cousins whose votes they need, but whom they wish to disavow and blame for their image problems.  So when an idiot like Todd Akin puts his foot in it, this gives the Primrose League a fit.  They would rather run on pure economic policy, which is rather different than the attitude of Democrats.  Democrats love NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and all the rest of the culture of death.  When the abortion industry is embarrassed, the Democrats don't abandon them the way the Primrose League wants to jettison social conservatives.  So as abominable as the Democratic Party is in what it aims to do, they at least have more loyalty to their own than Republicans show their own.  Maybe Akin should step out of the way, but Republicans are almost buying into the idea the Democrats are fostering that Akin is somehow typical of social conservatives.  It isn't surprising that liberals would think social conservatives are bumpkins, but it is rather disturbing when the Primrose League thinks so.

Reading the Riot Act About Burke

The following is from The House of Commons in the Eighteenth Century by P.D.G. Thomas (Oxford, 1971):

His{Hartley} rising always operated like a Dinner Bell. One day, that he had thus wearied out the Patience of his Audience, having nearly cleared out a very full House which was reduced from three hundred to about eighty persons, half asleep;  just at a time when he was expected to close, he unexpectedly moved that the Riot Act should be read, as a document necessary to elucidate, or to prove some of his foregoing assertions.  Burke, who sat close by him. . . laid hold of Hartley by the coat, "The Riot Act! my dear friend, the Riot Act!  To what purpose!  Don't you see that the mob is already completely dispersed?"(p221)

That Burke was a natural target for interruptions can be seen from Wraxall's pen-portrait of him in action:  'Burke constantly wore spectacles.  His enunciation was vehement, rapid, and never checked by any Embarrassment:  for his Ideas outran his Powers of Utterance, and he drew from an exhaustless Source.  But his Irish Accent, which was as strong as if he had never quitted the Banks of the Shannon, diminished to the Ear, the enchanting Effect of his Eloquence on the Mind.  The dazzling oratory of Edmund Burke, adorned with metaphors and similes, makes magnificent prose:  but it must often have been incomprehensible to a large part of his audience.  He spoke too long as well as too fast, and it was part of his practice to speak late in debates.  He lacked the personal or social stature to command respect.  His views were often predictable, and usually unpopular with the majority of members present.  Attempts to stop him were therefore frequent, and sometimes mentioned by Burke himself.  On 10 December 1770 he made this comment during his speech:  'I must address myself to some gentlemen, and I will do it with humility, that they have a disposition, when any gentleman gets up, they don't choose to hear speak, to endeavor the best they can, to drown him with noise, and clamour.  I never knew it was formed into a regular system till today.' Later in the same session Burke reported to Rockingham that on 13 February 1771 he had 'waited for the general reply, until after twelve;  a detachment of Macaronies endeavored to prevent me from speaking, but they did not succeed.'  During his speech Burke remarked, 'I am very glad that the House is full;  but there is another point not so easy to gain--a patient attendance, a very full and patient House.'  Even age and experience did not give Burke immunity from such treatment.  Carl Moritz noted this incident during a speech by him on 9 July 1782 in praise of the recently deceased Lord Rockingham:  'As he did not meet with sufficient attention, and heard much talking and many murmors, he said, with much vehemence and a sense of injured merit, "this is not treatment for so old a Member of Parliament as I am, and I will be heard!"  On which there was immediately a most profound silence.(p225-226).

Edmund Burke was not always popular with his contemporaries, and it is nearly certain that the superficial over at Fox News would have zero use for an Edmund Burke today.

The Primrose League Versus Palin

This blog is not written in mindless adoration of Sarah Palin, as she has done things I don't particularly approve of, such as supporting pro-abort Republicans.  It is, however meant to comment on the adversarial attitude of George Will and Charles Krauthammer towards her.  I used to really respect George Will as an educated conservative.  During the years of Bush 43, I started to realize that Will has not liked any actual conservative politician in my lifetime.  Will did not like Reagan.  Will did not like Bush 43.  Will did like William Weld, who was so far to the left he scarcely deserved to be called a Republican at all.  George Will continues to write for Newsweek, which has devolved into a leftist propaganda organ.  (Remember their cover, which declared "We are all socialists now?"  And the hit pieces they have done on Palin?  Time is no better, with their smear on Benedict XVI.)

Krauthammer is somewhat better, but Estase remembers a letter full of bile Charlie wrote the venerable William F. Buckley that was reprinted in the latter's Right Reason.  Krauthammer seems to be the voice of RINO respectability, and like Will, a Republican that the Joe Kleins and Eric Autermans can feel comfortable with.

The combination of Will and Krauthammer are the modern equivalent of the Disraeli cult who called themselves the Primrose League.  Palin is not my idea of a perfect statesman, but the likes of Will and Krauthammer have no constructive alternative.