A refresher course for all natural-born Americans, and Americans in spirit. (5 minutes)
If you’ve never heard of the conflict between liberty and equality, this is a must-see. Very important.
(H/T The Chicago Bench)
This is the funniest thing I have seen all week! (H/T Pugnacious Irishman)
There’s a little grown-up content at the end, there, so watch out!
And this one was sent to me by commenter ECM:
I found that YouTube version of the video on the Heritage Foundation blog.
Scott Ott of Scrappleface.com wrote a hilarious satire of Obama voters for the Washington Examiner.
Excerpt:
While opinion polls indicate a growing concern among Americans that their new president has no coherent plan to reverse the nation’s economic woes, and lacks the principled conviction to boldly address crises in Iran, North Korea and the Middle East, still a majority say they love “the idea of an Obama presidency.”
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that 56 percent still of approve of President Barack Obama “as a theoretical concept,” even as support for his handling of the economy and foreign policy has slipped in recent days.
…In an unrelated poll, 79 percent of women said they would “continue to date a hot guy with a great car even if he made me pay his way into the movies and I lived in constant fear that his reckless driving was going to get me killed.”
My God, Scott has talent. If you feel that the people who voted for Obama made a mistake, and you want to make fun of them, this is your article. You will laugh, and then you will cry.
Scott is actually on fire this week:
These are all very funny posts.
Frank J. Fleming of IMAO.us has a post up at Pajamas Media:
Excerpt:
Okay, liberals, I have a radical idea I want to run by you: the Iranian government is bad and worthy of some of your outrage.
Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy. Iran is not a beauty queen speaking out against gay marriage, or Sarah Palin. Why in the world would you want to direct any scorn towards a brutal theocracy seeking nuclear weapons? It’s not obvious, but let me explain.
The second page is even funnier than the first! I wish Frank was still writing “filthy lies” about Glenn Reynolds and his puppy-blending habit. That was really funny! Maybe I should try that. I could write a filthy lie about Richard Dawkins, claiming he’s really a secret Southern Baptist, who just loves to sing praise hymns. I could photoshop some fake evidence of Dawkins with his hands raised and eyes closed in church. I think that would work!
Happy Friday!
This article is long! You will have to print it out and read it in little bits. It took me 15 minutes to read!
The title is “How Will Conservatism Become Credible Again?”. Paul Ryan is one of the “ideas” conservatives in the Congress. His job is to think up new bills and initiatives that reflect conservative ideals.
Let’s learn about America
Here, he talks about how the conservative vision of government values liberty and personal responsibility over equality of outcomes and “social justice”:
Nowhere was the Western tradition epitomized more memorably than in the Declaration of Independence. By “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” all human beings are created equal…not in height, or skills, or knowledge, or color, or other nonessentials…but equal in certain inalienable rights – to live, to be free, and to fulfill their best individual potential, including the right to the “material” such as property needed to do this. Each individual is unique and possesses rights and dignity. There are no group or collective rights in the Declaration. Nor does basic human equality imply “equal result.” It means “equal opportunity”: every person has a right not to be prevented from pursuing happiness, from developing his or her potential. The results should differ from one to another because “justice” or “fairness” gives each individual what each has earned or merited.
The great conservative purpose of government is to secure these natural rights under popular consent. Protecting every person’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness should be the great and only mission of legitimate government.
He talks about how the Constitution’s purpose is to enable prosperity through free market capitalism:
The authors of the Constitution surrounded economic freedom with a multitude of guarantees: freedom of contract against government interference… private property rights… patents and copyrights…standard weights, measures, and monetary values…punishment of counterfeits…freedom under law for interstate and foreign commerce…enforcement of agreements in law courts… uniform bankruptcy laws, and other protections.
They promoted Smithian free markets to produce resources for strong military defenses and to keep America free of economic dependency on other nations. But they also expected commercial life to encourage certain moral qualities: personal responsibility to work, save, create businesses, hire employees, pay off their debts, earn the rewards of merited effort, moderate appetites, practice honesty and justice in business dealings, self-discipline, industriousness, timeliness, plus trust and confidence in other persons.
And he talks about how America is a country where social conservatives and fiscal conservatives should be united:
A “libertarian” who wants limited government should embrace the means to his freedom: thriving mediating institutions that create the moral preconditions for economic markets and choice. A “social issues” conservative with a zeal for righteousness should insist on a free market economy to supply the material needs for families, schools, and churches that inspire moral and spiritual life. In a nutshell, the notion of separating the social from the economic issues is a false choice. They stem from the same root.
Did you know that Republicans believe in the right to life, the sanctity of marriage and the public expression of faith? These values were present at our founding, and Republicans hold to them because they are American values.
Since America’s first political principles establish a high but limited mission of securing the natural rights of all, conservatives should expect government to fulfill that entire mission…by enforcing every human being’s natural right to life, which is the first clause of the social compact that formed America, the Declaration of Independence.
A credible conservatism will also seek to secure the privileged legal status of marriage. The traditional family must be protected as the indispensable mediating institution for developing the moral qualities of a free people.
A credible conservatism will resist the purging of faith from the public square. It will make public space for the practice of faith because belief is a central pillar of a free and prosperous society. Nor can government welfare programs substitute for the faith-based love that unites citizens in free bonds of charity and compassion.
Recommended for my readers from at home, or abroad, who need a refresher on the vision of conservatism… or a breath of fresh air from the fetid leftist gasses emanating from the White House.
More articles on conservatism from the New Ledger are here.
We haven’t forgotten our principles.
WINTERY KNIGHT 