Right Wing Nut House

Another Tatler post for you, this time on the paralyzing thought that the Arab revolution is about to break out in Saudi Arabia:

No, I’m not sex obsessed - lately anyway. It’s just that these last two blog posts just sort of happened.

This one is on The Tatler:

Confirmed: Men who leer at women’s chests are healthier

Not that most of us males need any encouragement.

Guys, listen up. A study says it is actually healthy to stare at a woman’s breasts.

Five-hundred men participated in the German study. Half were told to refrain from looking at breasts for five years, the other half were told to ogle them daily.

The study found the men who stared at breasts more often showed lower rates of heart problems, a lower resting heart rate and lower blood pressure.

The authors of the study recommend that men stare at breasts for 10 minutes a day.

First of all, I would question the sanity of those men who refrained from ogling bodacious ta-ta’s for 5 years. Five years? Whatever possessed those men to deny themselves one of life’s simple, albeit naughty pleasures? The money must have been spectacular.

Then again, is there a man out there who actually believes they honestly followed the parameters of the study? The poor guys probably got elevated blood pressure and a higher heart rate worrying about breaking the rules. Everytime some well-formed female passed them on the street, the fight to control their natural urge to ogle no doubt almost gave them a heart attack.

Imagine the lascivious joy of the other group, however. They had permission to do something that if most of us, if tried in broad daylight, would get us whopped upside the head by our wives. “Sorry honey, but in the name of science, sacrifices have to be made.” My Zsu-Zsu would not understand, nor would most women I imagine.

Don’t tell your wife, but you can lower your heart rate and blood pressure by walking 20 minutes a day. Not as fun, I’ll admit, as admiring nature’s handiwork on the female form, but at least you avoid the whop upside the head.

UPDATE:

Well, egg on the face has its pluses; you don’t have to go far to find breakfast in the morning.

From Snopes:

Watching busty females may indeed be good for a man’s health and add years to his life (by giving him something to look forward to, if nothing else), but men who want to make the case for engaging in this behavior to their wives or girlfriends will have to do so without relying on the imprimatur of the medical community. The article referred to above was not printed in The New England Journal of Medicine or any other major medical journal. It is, in fact, a slight reworking of a piece that has run on at least two occasions in that celebrated tabloid Fountain of Truth, the Weekly World News (13 May 1997 and 21 March 2000) and has escaped into the wild. Although the Weekly World News occasionally slips up and prints a true story, we suspect this one belongs in the “HOW TO TELL IF YOUR DOG WORSHIPS SATAN!” and “NEW REMOTE-CONTROL DEVICE GIVES WOMEN ORGASMS — AT UP TO 80 YARDS AWAY!” class.

One more example of “If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.”

Apologies for getting your hopes up, guys.

I sometimes surprise myself with my prurient attitudes. After all, my formative years were spent being terrorized by the Sisters of Mercy whose beliefs regarding human sexuality in pre-teens bordered on the pathological. Fundamentalist Muslims had nothing on the good sisters as far as separation of the sexes, and attitudes toward boy-girl romance is concerned, and the resulting fear of God they instilled in all of us about sex in general should have scarred me for life.

Thankfully, there was Playboy to save me. That, and the gradual realization that it wouldn’t fall off if I did it by myself, nor would a bolt of lightening strike me down if I tried to cop a feel from some particularly well-endowed high school hottie.

There were some anxious moments in college when my sexual inexperience and admitted hang ups about sex before marriage mystified the first few women I dated. But nature eventually triumphed - as did reason and rationality as I abandoned my Catholic faith - and I have been a happily, mal-adjusted, perpetual adolescent in my sexual attitudes just like any other red blooded American male since.

I don’t exactly possess the burning passion of the born again free love advocate, but I roll my eyes and look in askance when puritanism rears its ugly head to spoil everyone’s good time. Such is the case at Northwestern University where a popular professor’s Human Sexuality class were treated to an after-lecture bit of fun that made me wish I could go to college all over again:

Northwestern students and administrators are defending an explicit after-class demonstration involving a woman being publicly penetrated by a sex toy on stage in the popular Human Sexuality course last week.

The optional presentation last Monday, attended by about 120 students, featured a naked non-student woman being repeatedly sexually stimulated to the point of orgasm by the sex toy, referred to as a “fucksaw.” The device is essentially a motorized phallus.

The 600-person course, taught by psychology Prof. John Michael Bailey, is one of the largest at NU. The after-class events, which range from a question-and-answer session with swingers to a panel of convicted sex offenders, are a popular feature of the class. But they’re optional and none of the material is included on exams.

Last Wednesday, Bailey devoted six minutes of his lecture to addressing mounting controversy regarding the incident and articulating his educational intent. He told the class he feared the demonstration would impact the after-class events, which are sponsored by the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and he explained the educational purpose of the events.

“I think that these after-class events are quite valuable. Why? One reason is that I think it helps us understand sexual diversity,” he said, according to an audio file obtained by The Daily.

“Sticks and stones may break your bones, but watching naked people on stage doing pleasurable things will never hurt you,” he said to loud applause at the end of his speech.

Bailey declined to comment for this article due to class preparations that he said last until Friday.

Chicago sex tour guide Ken Melvoin-Berg, who operated the device, emphasized the instructional value of the hour-long session, which also included a question-and-answer period.

“Talking about it doesn’t always lend itself to this sort of thing,” Melvoin-Berg said. “We’re not just talking about it. We’re actually doing it.”

Reading this, I am struck by the fact that every single person who attended the “demonstration” could watch even more risque and explicit demonstrations of how the toy worked on the internet. Thousands of free sites devoted to the subject are available with a click of the mouse. The idea that this would be controversial is a little mystifying when you think about it.

Wisely, the administration ruled immediately that the after class demonstration was a question of academic freedom and they wouldn’t intervene. In fact, given that the lecture was completely voluntary and that students were warned several times before the demonstration began that it would be “intense,” one wonders what all the hub-bub is about.

The educational value of such a “demonstration” is, like all other experiences at college, up for debate. A case can be made that many college age women would benefit from seeing another women reach the “Big O” since about 10% of all women have never experienced it. There is also value for men and women to see how a loving couple shares such intimacy (although how “intimate” they can be while 200 pairs of eyes are on them might stretch the point a little). Also, given that most men believe that foreplay is a dirty word, the idea that seeing a couple share love and intimacy without sexual intercourse might be a boon to women.

If the purpose of the class was to discuss all aspects and mysteries regarding human sexuality, Bailey was well within the boundaries set by the curricula in arranging this voluntary demonstration. With 58% of women reporting dissatisfaction in their sex lives and 36% of men, a little information and live demonstration shouldn’t hurt in improving those figures.

The key, as the therapists tell us, to a satisfying sexual life is partner communication. If the demonstration did anything, it got the kids talking. Helping to remove the restraints in sexual communications is enough of a justification for this unusual “lecture” to be conducted on most college campuses.

As far as I can determine, there were no complaints registered by anyone about the demonstration, although the article mentions “offended parties.” The question then becomes why is it “controversial?” Even the representative of a Christian group on campus was blasé about it:

“Personally, I probably wouldn’t want to witness that, but a student can take or not take the course,” said Christine Woo, a member of NU’s Christians on Campus chapter. “It’s their choice.”

The chances are some NU parents heard about it and may have become upset. But given that attendance was entirely voluntary and that nothing discussed or seen would be subject to an exam, it would seem that anyone who objected to the demonstration either was unaware of the conditions or is uncomfortable with the idea of any sexual activity happening on campus.

Can’t wait for the video…

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show, one of the most popular conservative political talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, I welcome Jazz Shaw of Hot Air, American Thinker’s News Editor Ed Lasky, and AT contributor Elise Cooper for a discussion of public unions in America. We’ll also look at the budget maneuvering on Capitol Hill.

The show will air from 7:00 - 8:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.

Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

We are rightly proud of the accomplishments of western civilization over the past 500 years. We have not been perfect - not by a long shot. But gradually, western values and attitudes have permeated the planet, softening the rough edges of civilization, and providing a framework of law where the strong do not always ride roughshod over the weak.

Imperfect, but viable. Flawed, but as a practical matter, better than any alternative.

There is one glaring weakness from which the west suffers in particular that has been exposed time and time again over the last 70 years; our inability to deal with individuals who are determined to act outside the boundaries of “civilized” norms and commit acts of barbarism so profoundly disturbing that they shake our faith in our institutions and belief systems.

This is a consequence of being too civilized. When a Pol Pot, Idi Amin, or a Yakubu Gowon confront the west with the butchery of their own people, we are constrained in our response, stopping short of doing what is necessary to save the innocents from slaughter. It is not a lack of moral courage. Rather, it is the inability to do what is necessary to defeat the evil that is perpetrating such suffering.

It is our refusal to adopt the tactics and ruthlessness of evil in order to destroy it that makes us look weak and helpless in the face of such monumentally uncivilized behavior.

When confronted with evil — the real thing, not the exaggerated, partisan, politically motivated sort of “evil” that right and left believe emanates from their opponents — civilized man freezes like a deer in headlights and fails spectacularly in doing the things necessary to stop it.

It took truly barbaric tactics — including fire bombing German cities and leveling a great many French villages and towns — to defeat Adolf Hitler. Prior to the war, western governments realized in a vague way the threat posed by Hitler’s evil, but refused to lift a finger to stop him until it was far too late.

It took a barbaric weapon to defeat the evil Japanese militarists who literally raped their way across Asia in an orgy of slaughter. Prior to Pearl Harbor, the very cultured and decent Franklin Roosevelt refused to heed the admonitions of his own Japanese ambassador, Joseph Grew, about the threat posed to the world by the unholy alliance of the Imperial Army and corporate war mongers. It took one of the most decent men ever to serve as president - Harry Truman - to order the use of the most indecent weapon ever devised by man and end the militarist’s mad ambitions. We debate the morality of using that weapon and the tactics in Europe to this day.

Since the end of the Second World War, a procession of tin pot dictators, genocidal maniacs, coldly calculating mass murderers, and religious fanatics have marched across the world stage leaving a trail of blood and sorrow so massively beyond the scope of decent people’s understanding, that we failed to grasp the horror even while it was happening in front of our eyes. Pol Pot created a hell on earth in Cambodia and despite desperate cries for help from the lucky few who escaped the mass slaughter, western governments turned a deaf ear and stood by as the Communist butcher depopulated his own country.

The Rwandan genocide — 100 days of unspeakable bloodletting that took the lives of 800,000 Tutsi tribesmen — was known to the entire world and yet, debates raged for weeks at the United Nations whether the mass murder should be referred to “officially” as genocide. The US could have cut off radio broadcasts of the Hutu extremists who were egging on the gangs who were carrying out the killings but failed to do so because it might have violated international law.

Good, decent, civilized people stood by while 800,000 human beings were killed - many of them hacked to death by machete. Our own ingrained sense of civility and virtue prevented the kind of quick action that might have saved tens of thousands of lives.
The problem is obvious; in order to defeat that kind of evil, the tactics used by civilized people just don’t work. One must match evil for evil in order for civilization to win out in the end.

It has always been so. How could we have possibly intervened in Cambodia without causing enormous bloodshed of our own among civilians? The army, government, and population was in such close proximity that massive civilian casualties would have been unavoidable. Our intervention may also have triggered a much wider war with China coming to the aid of their ally. Pol Pot would have been gone, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Cambodians would have been saved, but because our notions of civilized warfare have grown to preclude that kind of mathematical judgment, the west failed to act and nearly 2 million Cambodians died.

Intervention in Rwanda would have been horribly messy. Many innocents would have lost their lives as well as those responsible for the massacres. The Hutu-led government would have almost certainly fought back which would have meant even more civilian casualties. The Tutsis would have resented not being able to take revenge on the Hutus, thus putting them at odds with their putative saviors. The conflict would have degenerated into a guerrilla war with both sides taking shots at the international force sent in to stop the violence. (A similar outcome might have been the case if we had intervened in the Sudan.)

Would it have turned out better than sitting by helplessly and doing nothing? This is a counterfactual where there isn’t enough historical evidence to say for certain either way. But our concern here is why we didn’t intervene. And the answer has to be, in part, that we don’t have it within us to fight evil by being as ruthless and cold hearted as the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity.

The first Gulf War ended after the “turkey shoot” along the Highway of Death horrified Colin Powell and George Bush Sr. to the point that they were concerned that slaughtering Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army would not only be detrimental to America’s image but was inhumane. If we had continued blasting the trapped Iraqis, the massacre of the Kurds in the north and Shias in the south could probably have been avoided, and Hussein himself might have been removed by the military. Our hand was stayed by many factors, but the specter of a bloody march to Baghdad and the prospect of urban warfare with many thousands of innocent Iraqis killed certainly played a decisive role in that decision.

Instead, we gave in to our civilized impulses and not only stopped our attacks, but agreed that the Iraqi military could fly helicopters in the no fly zone for “humanitarian” purposes. This led directly to the slaughter of tens of thousands of Kurds and Shias who revolted against Saddam’s rule.

The results of our overthrow of Saddam in 2003 speak for themselves in this regard. The positive good of getting rid of one of the 20th century’s truly evil tyrants is usually overlooked when an accounting of the human cost of the war is discussed.

Now the civilized world is once again faced with a situation where a madman in Libya is violating every tenet of civilized behavior that the west has worked tirelessly to spread from one end of the earth to the other. There is talk of “no fly zones,” arming the Libyan opposition, sanctions, and other, even less effective ideas to stop Muammar Qadaffi in his insane desire to hang on to power.

But direct military intervention appears to be off the table. The United Nations seems even more inept, more irrelevant at times like this. Not only is it impossible for the world body to make up its mind on even the gravest of threats to innocent people, their collective decisions are so watered down that by the time a consensus is reached, the action recommended is meaningless.

It is left, as it always is, to western governments to take meaningful action. For all intents and purposes, this means the burden falls squarely on the United States of America — the only nation militarily capable and possessing the moral courage to sacrifice its men and treasure in a cause not directly related to its interests. We import only a tiny amount of oil from Libya, nor do we have any trade to speak of with Qaddafi. If we sent in the Marines, it would clearly be an act of self-abnegation.

But we won’t send in the Marines, nor will any western government send a military force into Libya to save the people from their own government. The butcher’s bill would only rise precipitously as Qaddafi’s men would use civilians as human shields to protect themselves. We may indeed rid the world of Qaddafi if we resorted to military force. But at what cost? The minions of evil know well our weakness and play upon it relentlessly.

So the body count in Libya will continue to rise while the world flails about unable to bring itself to ape the tactics and behavior of the evil they are fighting. We may see this as “progress” in the sense that an overly sensitive attitude toward civilian deaths, international law, and the rules of war prevents us, in a grossly rudimentary way, from becoming what we are fighting.

But do the people getting gunned down in the streets of Tripoli see it that way? I wonder.

This article was originally posted on The Moderate Voice.

I posted this at PJ Tatler:

Even the left is wondering about the president’s Libyan response. From Leon Wieseltier writing at TNR:

“This violence must stop.” So President Obama declared the other day about the depravity in Tripoli. This “must” is a strange mixture of stridency and passivity. It is the deontic locution familiar from the editorial pages of newspapers, where people who have no power to change the course of events demand that events change their course. This “must” denotes an order, or a permission, or an obligation, or a wish, or a will. It does not denote a plan. It includes no implication, no expectation, of action. It is the rhetoric of futility: this infection must stop, this blizzard must stop, this madness must stop. But this infection, this blizzard, this madness, like this violence, will not stop, because its logic is to grow. It will stop only if it is stopped. Must the murder of his own people by this madman stop, Mr. President? Then stop it.

Nothing is ever as easy as it looks, and one can appreciate — if not agree — with the president’s dilemma. He was late to the condemnation chorus, largely (we are told) out of fear of what the Libyan madman might do to American citizens. The hostage crisis that paralyzed Jimmy Carter and the United States for more than a year is never far from any president’s mind in situations where there is a breakdown in civilization. The argument has been advanced that the president acted prudently by waiting until almost all Americans were clear of Libyan territory before issuing a strong statement condemning the bloodletting. This is correct — as far as it goes. Other western countries had citizens at risk but that didn’t prevent their governments from laying into the Libyan dictator for his shocking behavior.

Wieseltier wonders why the president is reluctant to use our power in this situation as well as other crisis of his presidency:

Why is Obama so disinclined to use the power at his disposal? His diffidence about humanitarian emergencies is one of the most mystifying features of his presidency, and one of its salient characteristics. These crises—in Tehran two years ago, in Cairo last month, in Tripoli now—produce in him a lame sort of lawyerliness. He lists the relevant rights and principles and then turns to procedural questions, like those consultations. The official alibi for Obama’s patience with Qaddafi’s atrocity is his concern for the Americans who are still stranded within Qaddafi’s reach; I was amused to learn from a friend that the spin out of the White House includes the suggestion that Obama’s restraint is actually the wisdom of the hostage negotiator. But Obama’s statement about Libya suggests another explanation for his slow pace. This was its climax: “So let me be clear. The change that is taking place across the region is being driven by the people of the region. This change doesn’t represent the work of the United States or any foreign power. It represents the aspirations of people who are seeking a better life.”

They are fighting authoritarianism, but he is fighting imperialism. Who in their right mind believes that this change does represent the work of the United States or any foreign power? To be sure, there are conspiracy theorists in the region who are not in their right mind, and will hold such an anti-American view; but this anti-Americanism is not an empirical matter. They will hate us whatever we do.

Lara Logan probably agrees.

There are two possible explanations for the president’s hesitancy; the first is that he does not believe that the application of American power is a positive good in most cases and refrains from intervening because it is against his principles. The second is that he can’t make up his mind.

A good case can be made for both reasons.

I think the key is Wieseltier’s use of the term “Lawerly” to describe Obama’s thinking; logical, well ordered, systematic, even reasonable. This serves the president well when making a decision regarding domestic policy.

But this approach is an unmitigated disaster in a crisis. The president seems content to draw out the decision making process in a foreign crisis when events are moving so quickly that he always seems to be behind the curve. JFK believed that if you are constantly reacting to events in a crisis, you have already lost. Anticipating and making quick decisions allows a president to get on top of events which gives him a better shot at controlling them.

Obama seems incapable or unwilling to go that route. That’s why the body count continues to mount in Libya while the president tries to decide how to stop it.

There are many on the right who make the argument that clowns like Glenn Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, and their ilk are, if not entertaining and usually right about Obama and the liberals, basically harmless. “No one believes they are ‘leaders” of the conservative movement,” goes part of the argument. The left wants to choose our leaders for us and define them while the MSM takes every nutty thing they say out of context. Besides, they “tell it like it is” about Obama — something the gutless GOP refuses to do.

There’s more along these lines but the gist is simple; these Cotton Candy Conservatives “tell the truth” about Obama and the liberals which is why the left is frantic to portray them as unbalanced lunatics, unhinged from objective reality, and dangerous to boot. If they weren’t effective, the left wouldn’t care about them.

As is common with the temper of the times, liberals do indeed exaggerate some of what these nincompoops utter on a daily basis. But to be honest, it’s a target rich environment. I’ve tried this myself so I know it can be done: I challenge anyone (with a reasonable hold on the real world) to click on Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, Glenn Beck, Randy Savage, or a half dozen other talk show hosts anywhere in the middle of their programs - it doesn’t matter - and not be blown away by the rank stupidity, the exaggeration, the hyperbole, the laughable idiocy of what they are talking about.
These people couldn’t find reality if it were stapled to their ass.

They are so far removed from reasonable, logical analysis that it begs the question: If Obama and the liberals are as bad, as unholy, as evil as they say, what are they doing sitting in a sound studio spouting about it? If the United States of America is truly in as much danger as Beck and his buds tell us every day, why not “water the tree of liberty” with a little blood? Where’s the revolution, guys? And you call yourselves “patriots?” Your nation is slipping into socialism and all you can do is rant about it?

Get off you fat butt Rush, pick up a gun, and help save us from this fate! C’mon, Glenn! You gathered a couple of hundred thousand citizens to engage in a little spiritual renewal. Why not send out a call for a real march on Washington - armed to the teeth and ready for bear.

“Don’t retreat, reload” indeed. What a load of crap. It appears you would much rather perform the latter rather than the former. Those Founders you talk about incessantly “pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” to give us a nation of liberty. What have you pledged except an increase in ad rates for your programs due to the phenomenal success you have in scaring the crap out of the bullet-headed cretins who listen every day to your unbalanced rants?

I’m calling you out for your cowardice. If things are truly as bad as you all say — if we are all doomed to a socialist/Marxist hell with government putting their foot on our necks, snatching our freedom from us, what in the name of our sainted ancestors are you doing sitting on the sidelines? The colonies went to war against the most powerful army and navy the world had seen to that point with a lot less provocation than you screech at your listeners every day, and the best you can do is ask people to get involved in a tea party?

If Obama is truly “trying to destroy America” you’re just going to sit there and do nothing while he does it? If you don’t have the stones to fight, why not use your celebrity and notoriety to call for revolution?

This is the exact same argument I used when loony lefties were screaming about “Bush the dictator.” If you truly believed that Bush was out to “shred the constitution,” what kind of American are you that you’d sit passively and do nothing to prevent it? The same over the top divorced from reality rhetoric, hyperbole, exaggerated warnings of danger, was coming from the left during the 8 years of the Bush administration that we now see transferred to the right with only changes in the principle’s names to differentiate this idiocy from what transpired previously.

More importantly, what are the real world consequences of this flight from objective reality? We get chilling crap like this:

A constituent at a town hall for Georgia Rep. Paul Broun drew laughter on Tuesday when asked, “Who is going to shoot Obama?” and the Republican didn’t come anywhere near condemning the question in his response.

“The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president,” Broun said, according to the Athens Banner-Herald. “We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president … who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.”

The congressmen is also a couple of shakes short of a finished martini:

Last month, Broun live-tweeted Obama’s State of the Union address and drew criticism for one in particular. “Mr. President, you don’t believe in the Constitution,” he wrote. “You believe in socialism.”

On the day after the speech, Broun told CBS News, “I stick by that tweet.”

“Everything he does is bigger government, more central control from Washington, D.C. That’s not what our founding fathers envisioned the government to be,” he said. “Mr. Obama believes in a big central government, where the federal government controls everything in our lives. That’s socialism. And so I stick by that tweet.”

You go ahead and “stick by that tweet,” Mr. Broun. It is a nice segue into explaining the danger that Beck et.al. represent to the republic generally, and conservatism particularly.

The nitwit who asked who was going to shoot Obama is only carrying the message being imparted by the Cotton Candy Conservatives to its logical extreme; things are so bad with the people in power that we must kill them or we are lost. It’s true that none of the talk show hosts or conservative celebrities have advocated committing acts of violence directly. They don’t have to. By painting such a bleak, hopeless, frightening picture of the near future under Obama and the Democrats, their listeners are programmed to feel helpless and small. The psychological impact is predictable. When the actions of Obama and the liberals are placed in such apocalyptic terms, the extreme solution begins to sound eminently practical and reasonable. Why not kill the bastard? If it will save America, that’s a small price to pay.

Peter Wehner on Beck specifically, but what he writes could apply to any of them:

It’s hard to tell how much of what Beck says is sincere and how much is for show. Whatever the case, and even taking into account the entire MSNBC lineup, Glenn Beck has become the most disturbing personality on cable television. One cannot watch him for any length of time without being struck by his affinity for conspiracies and for portraying himself as the great decoder of events. Political movements are not just wrong; they are infiltrated by a web of malevolent forces. Others see the shadows on the wall; Beck alone sees the men casting them. The danger when one paints the world in such conspiratorial terms is that it devalues the rational side of politics. It encourages a cast of mind that looks to expose enemies rather than to engage in arguments. Few things, after all, are as they appear.

Beyond that, of course, is the sense of impending doom, of the coming Apocalypse, of our world being on the edge of calamity. If taken seriously, this has the effect of creating fear, hopelessness, and feelings of helplessness.

It’s not the Cotton Candy Conservative’s “eliminationist rhetoric,” or goo-goo brained conspiracy mongering that’s a threat. It’s that people take their flights of fancy seriously enough that the fantastical can appear real; that what strikes normal people as balderdash is taken to heart by millions and millions of otherwise sane individuals.

That fellow who wondered who would shoot Obama is probably a nice guy, someone you’d never suspect of harboring such thoughts if you bumped into him at a party or other social situation. It’s that his view of objective reality has been so warped by the Becks of the world that they are willing to believe almost anything bad about anybody he is told to hate.

Asking a majority of conservatives to marginalize or denounce these purveyors of faux nightmares is futile. For many, it is a question of looking at the results of Obama’s policies and asking the simple minded question, “What else could it be but that he wants to destroy the country?” In other words, it’s not Obama’s wrongheaded policies that are the problem, but rather his obvious evil intent to inflict the results of those policies on the rest of us. From there, it’s a short distance to believing that the deliberate destruction of our economy and country have a dark and evil purpose; the president is a Marxist, or socialist, or a Mooooslim, and the horrible results we see of his policies are part of a nefarious plan to subjugate all of us.

For others, however, Beck and his cohorts cannot be denounced because they further careers, rouse the right to give money, volunteer for campaigns, and most importantly, vote. That ’s why so many GOP congressmen and senators refuse to say the Birthers are a bunch of loons, or that Limbaugh is a blowhard. The Cotton Candy Conservatives are just too valuable to the establishment to push too far away.

I don’t know what can be done. But I know that in perilous times, it doesn’t help conservatism to have such high profile fantasists purporting to give a conservative take on the world around them - especially when what they are promoting is a world view at odds with reality.

My latest offering is up at FrontPage.com and in it, I examine the incredible support being shown for Qaddafi by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and the relative silence of other Latin American leftists about the slaughter going on in Libya.

A sample:

The bloody horror being visited on his own country by Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi keeps getting more and more surreal as the days pass and the body count mounts. The dictator’s actions in so brutally cracking down on challenges to his 41-year rule have drawn the condemnation of almost the entire planet. Even President Obama finally bestirred himself to criticize the massacre of protesters. But there are those who just can’t bring themselves to side with unarmed demonstrators being mowed down by helicopter gunships and bombed into oblivion by modern jet fighters. While the rest of the civilized world are gagging at Qaddafi’s bloodlust, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega telephoned the Libyan leader to “express his solidarity” as this Washington Post article states.

The reason for the calls? Ortega says that Qadaffi, ‘”is again waging a great battle’ to defend the unity of his nation” and that ‘”it’s at difficult times that loyalty and resolve are put to the test.”‘ Ortega shouldn’t really worry about Qaddafi’s “resolve.” The despot’s thugs and mercenaries are demonstrating that quality every day when they break into homes armed with swords and hammers, hacking and bludgeoning people to death. And how much of a “battle” can it be if Qaddafi’s air force is bombing civilians in the streets? Ortega is unconcerned; he blames the Libyan people getting shot down in cold blood for their own predicament, saying “There is looting of businesses now, there is destruction. That is terrible.”

One can only marvel at Ortega’s train of logic that shows concern for looted businesses and destruction - caused at least partly by Libya’s own air force - but not for women and children jumping off of bridges to avoid African mercenaries who are massacring everyone in sight.

Ortega is not the only leftist Latin leader who has expressed, if not solidarity, then at least understanding of Qaddafi’s actions. The mummified Fidel Castro is taking a “wait and see” attitude toward events in Libya. In a column published Tuesday, Castro wrote, “You can agree or not with Gadhafi. The world has been invaded by all sorts of news … We have to wait the necessary time to know with rigor how much is fact or lie.”

Good advice from the master of propaganda and deceit. It appears that Castro is perfectly willing to wait and see if reports of mercenaries from Chad and Nigeria roaming the streets of Benghazi shooting unarmed people in the head are true or not. Evidently, video evidence is just not good enough.

Why is it leftist dictators and not right wing strongmen who sympathize outright or stay silent otherwise in the face of such extraordinary bloodletting? In the radical Marxist universe that these thugs live in, there is no moral framework of right and wrong, only what works. In that sense, they can dismiss 10,000 Libyans dying as long as the greater good is served by keeping Qaddafi in power.

Something a little different today. My latest is up at PJ Media and it’s pretty much of a full-throated rant against the Chicago Machine and its pretensions to democratic forms.

A sample:

I wouldn’t actually call it an “election.” That would suggest there was more than one side who would benefit by a victory.

The truth, as it usually is, was a little more prosaic: the city of Chicago chose another politician to head up the corrupt Machine that has dominated politics in the Windy City for nearly 80 years. Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel became the city’s 46th mayor and first Jewish leader. He succeeds Richard M. Daley who, together with his father Richard J. Daley, ruled the city, the county of Cook, and the state of Illinois for all but 14 of the last 55 years.

The Machine is also known as the “regular Democratic Party.” There is nothing “regular” about it. It is an obscene blight on the idea of representative government and republican principles. The 95% Democratic vote cast last night are the kind of numbers Soviet leaders used to get in their “elections.” Hugo Chavez doesn’t do as well in his rigged contests.

The fact of the matter is, Chicago is held in thrall to a one-party dictatorship as firmly ensconced in power as any banana republic dictator. The enforcement mechanism is not an army or secret police (although the Machine has been known to play rough on occasion), but rather a network of ward bosses, corrupt businessmen, the odd mobster, and those who owe their livelihood to the party in power. The uniting expedient behind the Machine is money — taxpayers’ money — that is fleeced in many ways, both old-fashioned and novel.

The current Machine replaced the fractured ethnic amalgam of rancorous factions from the 1920s that was not only corrupt, but under the thumb of brutal, murdering gangsters. At least the new Machine had the decency to keep the gangsters off of the city payroll — most of the time — while assigning them a lesser role in the city’s hierarchy. Today, “the Organization,” as the mob is called, stays quietly in the background, sticking their fingers in several legitimate pies while generally refraining from carrying out their wet work inside the city limits. Today, most Chicago gangsters die in their beds or in prison.

Once Emanuel has his hands on the levers of Machine power, he is, in effect and for all practical purposes, Mayor for Life. The Machine may not have quite the influence it once had in that the mayor will not be able to crack his whip and have 13 subservient congressmen doing the bidding of a Democratic president as Daley the Elder could claim. But when it comes to elections — local, state, or national — the Machine is supreme. A steady flow of patronage jobs, city contracts, and outright bribes maintains the loyalty of ward bosses and ward heelers alike.

It is fair to ask what are the consequences of this smothering of alternative ideas to address the challenges faced by the city? Failed schools, failed mass transit, failed crime prevention, failed economic opportunities, failed protection of neighborhoods, failed prudent use and protection of the taxpayer’s money…

Failed, failed, failed - a legacy of nearly 80 years of one party government. Citizens are cowed into submission. “Reformers” are co-opted or absorbed. The press - cynical to a pathological extreme - views the entire situation as a circus; entertainment, not a political tragedy. Reporters vie with each other to come up with the most amusing, the most shocking, the most world-weary tone to their stories and receive prizes for their abdication of media responsibility.

What saved Chicago in the past was a unique dynamism among its entrepreneur class. Starting a decent sized new business in Chicago is a minefield, requiring the services of a lawyer who can help the new business owner navigate through the labyrinthine maze of paperwork at city hall. Despite this, Chicago keeps re-inventing itself economically which has saved it from the fate suffered by Detroit and other dysfunctional cities.

But that energy is dissipating as most businesses are giving up and moving out of the city - and soon, the state - as taxes continue to skyrocket and the nuisances of activists and politicians make it near impossible to make a decent profit.

I am not given to ranting but watching the returns on Tuesday night made my blood boil. The Machine not only takes care of its own but actively seeks to keep opposing or alternative ideas from being discussed in an open electoral arena. The result is the continued steady decline of a once great city.

Democratic and Republican administrations over the years have failed to dislodge the Machine’s chokehold on democracy. In fact, the Machine could have just as easily been a Republican dominated outfit rather than the Democratic party apparatus it operates as today. Party labels are irrelevant when the democratic forms are short circuited as they are in Chicago.

It would be heartbreaking if it wasn’t so maddening.

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show, one of the most popular conservative political talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, I welcome Rich Baehr of the American Thinker, Vodkapundit Stephen Green, and Monica Showalter of IDB. We’ll look at events in Wisconsin and issues surrounding the labor controversy. We’ll also discuss the situation in Libya.

The show will air from 7:00 - 8:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.

Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.