Ball Diamond Ball

Reflecting on the Dallas terrorist attack on civil order, I am hopeful of the response yet wary of the outcome.

Everyone will be very restrained for at least 48 hours.

Then the cries will come against white racism and the need to disarm as if nothing had happened that was extraordinary.

It was extraordinary. The politics of victimhood are not free. The politics of division are not free. Multiculturalism is a disaster.

Do we want one nation or tribes?

The ante on the 2016 election just went up.

Folks, this is something about populism I posted on Ricochet–I started thinking about what some of the members were saying there–what’s at stake seems to me to concern the Reagan coalition, how it is falling apart, & what may be done & expected to happen in future. The discussion brought out two important lines of inquiry. (1) The discussion of the electorate, which concentrated on what’s changed such that the party & a crucial part of the electorate are now enemies. (2) The discussion of the principles of the Reagan coalition, which turned on whether the old fiscal conservatism-social conservatism-national security conservatism can bring together constituencies & connect voters to politicians any more.

This distinction between talking about the electorate & talking about the ideology could also be looked … Continue reading →

I write from a Starbucks in Japan, on a tiny little Amazon Kindle Fire 7 tablet.  I purchased a ZAGG auto-fit keyboard, which works great.  I am connecting through my iPhone, so that I don’t teach my Fire a bunch of bad habits on wi-fi hotspots.
I will add pictures to this post.
I now have a magnificent mini-office set-up; a peripheral office made up entirely of peripherals.
I husked an old Case Logic CD carrier by taking the CD-page insert out of it.  That was easy — just hinge the “book covers” backwards and wiggle the plastic page roots out of the covers.  Try it, and you’ll know exactly what I mean.
This CD case has a medium pocket on front, which was … Continue reading →

For years we have had the liberal/conservative, red state/blue state party/independent, mushy middle and the fabulous group of utter precious folk, the celebrated ‘undecided voters’ , who after being bombarded for a year with information, propaganda and screaming just cannot decide until they walk into the voting booth.

We used to have a word for that last group…. Oh yes. Idiots.

All this allowed the media, people with small intellect but perfect hair and teeth who could read teleprompters to act as if they had political experience.

I believe this world is fragmenting, and may never have really existed.

I wonder if the group here at BDB sees a similar change?

My experience tells me we are entering a world of left behinds versus elites and elite servants.

… Continue reading →

I mentioned in the recent joke thread that I’d love to see sharks with lasers in space.

Here’s RealClearSomethingorother publishing a Hudson Institute–I recommend it!–report. The style is ridiculous. This is how serious people talk… But the point is, there are people saying, we need space-based interceptors & lasers! Here, here!

Let’s do this for Teddy Kennedy!

I’ve a few questions: Does anyone think it’s ever going to be possible to create a new department in the Pentagon, for space war? Why not?

What do you folks know or suspect about the departments? I’ve a Marine friend who tells me Navy sees it as their job to strangle the Marines bureaucratically.

Does anyone have any idea what the military classes of America think about war in … Continue reading →

I spent Saturday enjoying the company of my Daughter, Son In Law and my three grand daughters on a drive through Whidbey Island north of their home.

We all respected the truce over the schism in the family between the rabble and the elites. Son In Law is neutral, but Daughter, Scientist by day and writer for conservative publications by night
has been flummoxed by the wrongness of the predictions by her colleagues on the Trump phenomenon.

I feel her pain, the world she was learning may be a Titanic, and dear old Dad is rooting for the icebergs.

We kept it civil , but the Brexit events just had to be mentioned.

It is going to be a long slog.

I came home and doubled down … Continue reading →

http://www.duffelblog.com/2016/06/semperfuxit/

SemperFuxit: Marine Corps votes to exit Dept. of the Navy

QUANTICO, Va. — In a move military analysts call “simply stunning,” the Marine Corps voted in a referendum Friday to leave the Department of the Navy, forming a separate branch tentatively named Men’s Department of the Navy. Defense contractor stocks closed sharply down in the wake of the historic vote.

The results were close, with 51.9 percent voting to leave and 48.1 percent voting to remain. Exit polling data showed the vote split along demographic lines with a slight majority of officers and all Marines from Texas voting to leave. More enlisted favored remaining, especially those with four or more dependents.

The hotly contested vote over what became known as “SemperFuxit” followed months of debate and campaigning … Continue reading →

We shall see what Indiana brings, but so far all have been convinced Cruz is going down in serious flames. Even were he to win, one has to wonder just how one is going to unhorse Trump.

The more important question is who the heck are we. Toquiville was amazed by Americans and found them to be different from the rest of the world. Perhaps one can distill the singular characteristic as equality – real equality. Before the law and in society.

Today that doesn’t seem the case. ?What has happened to us. This premise is tackled by Charles Murray in his book, Coming Apart. He contends that the upper-middle-class has walled itself off and become cocooned and self propogating. His data consists of looking at the living … Continue reading →

Folks, I’m about to watch the new Jeff Nichols movie, Midnight special, so this is a chance to give you a reminder of movies conservatives should watch.

By the way, the Batman v. Superman movie is pretty good & very American. I feel for the director, because I resemble his case: Trying to give popular spectacles intellectual & moral dignity in a world where the people who are pretentious about learning show their vulgarity by not finding insight in popular stuff & the people who enjoy popular spectacles concur that the things they enjoy are mindless. Few people are willing to say that criticism of popular spectacles should include an attempt to understand their intentions & some knowledge of the clever stuff they have to say. But the … Continue reading →

Published (though someone edited out the &s) on The Postmodern Conservative blog!