29 thoughts on ““Balderdash””

  1. My favorite non word-mincing Senator is Ted Cruz.

    But the MSM is going to criticize everything he says or does. Because they are racist . . . against Canadians!

  2. Problem is that so far the word from guys like paul and cruz are heard only inside the conservative bubble.

    1. That Senator Cruz fellow is getting under people’s skin, especially among the right-thinking people at MSNBC who believe Mr. Hagel to be qualified to be Defense Secretary. That is a form of being heard.

          2. The reference to Canada is

            1) that whereas Mr. Rafael “Ted” Cruz is identified with being ethnic Cuban, his “Rodina” is Canada (for the association and linguistically impaired, a Russian word popularized by Clancy’s Hunt for Red October meaning “land of one’s birth”, where the root rodi means birth and the word rod means labor)

            2) we make a big deal about the people immigrating legally or illegally from Latin countries, but a lot of people come here from Canada,

            3) there are a lot of Canadians among us who “pass” for US-ians — Alex Trebek, Dan Ackroyd, William Shatner, Peter Jennings — who only give themselves up by rounding some vowels, the indignant defense of Canada as being culturally distinct, and the occasional slipup of ending a sentence with “eh?”

            4) the naive view in the US that everyone in Canada is of the white race of some vague Scots heritage where they round their vowels, get indignant about the cultural distinctions of Canada, believe that whether a person comes from Calgary or Toronto makes any difference, and end every sentence with “eh?”

            5) as the “birthers” are hopping up and down about Mr. Obama’s birth circumstances, you would think that Mr. Cruz being born in Canada to a U.S. Mom and Cuban imigrant Dad who fought for Castro are now widely know among the “politically hip”, or at least among the sort who toss around the phrase “echo chamber”,

            6) Wisconsin has a lot of people here of French “voyageur” and part First Nations (Canada speak for “Native American”) heritage who “pass” for Canadian when they venture, yes, southward into Canada (check a map),

            7) and finally (last but not least) the need for the term US-ians so as to not get people from Canada going with the term “American.”

            8) oh, and one more thing, as this is an aerospace blog, did you know that Canadians were the first people to put a man-on-the-Moon? If you don’t, you haven’t gotten the full measure of Canadian national pride, so Google the story of the CF-105 Avro Aero jet.

            That Senator Cruz is a rising star among Repubicans, a birth-Canadian no less, and that Canada has apparently taken a sharp Right turn under Mr. Harper, this open up all kinds of opportunity for satire and wit. There are the stereotypes of being from Texas, the Desi Arnez bandmaster, the Fidel Castro revolutionary, and the America First stereotypes of about being Cuban, and I can take my life experiences from the ice skating world and from graduate school to popularize a new set of comic stereotype of being Canadian. What opportunity!

            I was so looking forward to being a celebrity of the Liberal-Left for making Canada jokes, but humor is all about context and your audience being clued in, and when folks of that leaning feel the need to heckle me on Joe McCarthy having represented Wisconsin, well, that career opportunity is going nowhere fast.

          3. Paul,

            Especially given that many folks have forgotten who Tail-Gunner Joe was given it was decades ago and I have no way of knowing if you knew.

            But being from Wisconsin you would since he is still a local hero in Appleton. Also having spent many summers on my grandfather’s farm in Stevens Point I am well aware you need to travel south to go into Canada, after driving north to go through Michigan although as you probably Wisconsin originally had a border with Canada that was taken away from it.

            Yes, after the U.S. government forced Canada to scrape the Arrow in favor of the Boeing Bomarc and McDonnel Voodooes the frustrated engineers gave up and joined NASA.

            As for Mr. Cruz’s eligibility for President, that will depend on if he ever runs, but its good that you acknowledge that as long as one parent was a legal citizen of the U.S. it doesn’t matter which nation he was born in which seems to be the main foundation of the birther opposition to President Obama, that his Mother was in Kenya and not Hawaii for some reason…

      2. “That is a form of being heard.”

        Yes but Cruz’ message is being warped by MSNBC. And any reply to the MSNBC attack is yet one more case of a reply not being seen by anyone outside the choir.

        This is why Obama goes on shows like The View – a whole class of voters watch that who do not read conservative web pages gets to hear a message that goes, essentially, unanswered.

        1. Gregg,

          Exactly. Because there are more than three TV networks, plus the Internet, folks simply pick the news that reflects their views with the result being a classic example of group think on a nationwide scale.

          1. I guess we are safe on Rand’s fine Web site as anyone who feel secure in their views will find them trolled . . . er, I mean challenged!

          2. Paul,

            Actually that is a good example of the mindset of group think, demonizing anyone who isn’t 100% in agreement with the group. In the old America individuals were encouraged to “look under the hood” to see what the facts were and think for themselves, which probably explains a lot about where we are as a nation.

            BTW Thanks for proving my point so well 🙂

          3. I am far from 100% in agreement with the group on Rand’s fine Web site. I have received my share of ribbing for some of my expressed rants (comments along the line of “Squirrel!” when I departed from the Party Line on voting rights), but I cannot ever say that I have been treated with anything remotely with what anyone justifiably could be called demonizing.

            As to my quip on there being a fine line between trolling and offering sincere dissent, the response to same proves the point that a person doesn’t know the meaning of the word demonizing.

            Try putting yourself in the shoes of a commentator expressing in all sincerity a contrary opinion on some of the liberal-left or “Climate Change” Web sites and consider how long the folks will countenance the “give and take” you are offering?

            But if there is one mild criticism I have directed at Rand’s site, it is not that contrary views are not presented here, it is that contrary views are served up with snark and lame smiley faces. In the manner that Carl Pham had long delivered reasoned and deeply thoughtful expressions of Conservative/Libertarian points of view that were refreshingly independent and free from rote talking points, I have long talked about having a Liberal voice around here of the same quality.

          4. Perhaps you don’t see referring to someone with a different opinion as a troll is demonizing them, but I do. As the Great Bugs Bunny would say to Yosemite Sam – “them iz fightin’ words” 🙂

            As for liberal commentary, don’t expect me to provide it as I am a Reagan Republican. I just seem like a liberal here because Rand and so many of his followers are so far to the right of President Reagan.

          5. Perhaps you don’t see that being offended by my remarks is evidence of humorlessness spectrum disorder (HSD)?

          6. Ted Cruz is from Canada, Joe McCarthy was from Wisconsin, as if I needed to be told (with it widely known that I live in Wisconsin, and I am given a link to Senator McCarthy’s biography in all earnestness), “Paul, Joe McCarthy was from Wisconsin, read this link.”

            Canada, Wisconsin, distinction without a difference? Not for sufferers of HSD.

          7. Another symptom of HSD is taking every remark as directed at you (the HSD sufferer).

            The comment was made that Rand’s fine Web site is an “echo chamber”, which is a slander because a spectrum of opinions is expressed here, to which I quiped that this place has its “trolls . . . er I mean expressions of challenging viewpoints!”

            There are many people expressing contrary viewpoints, and I was only challenging your view that this place is an echo chamber. What makes you think that I was calling you a troll?

            An no, I am not expecting you to provide the informed, inciteful, intellectually challenging and also stimulating liberal point off view I had been asking for . . .

          8. Paul,

            So? I live in Nevada, yet many folks here don’t realize that Senator McCarran, although a Democrat, was Senator McCarthy’s “partner” in pursuing the communists that were hiding in every government office. Besides, as I noted most folks today haven’t heard of either one.

          10. Rand,

            IF you were familiar with history you would know that wasn’t the issue and is a red herring.

            The issue was the tactics he used in his hunt for communists in government which basically threw the Constitution under the bus. It created an atmosphere that drove many innocent foreigners out of the country and help to create the space program China has today.

            That is why the Senate censure him, because of the unamerica way he went about it. Or do you, supposedly a libertarian, believe its OK for the government to consider someone guilty until they prove beyond doubt they are innocent?

  4. Like father, like son. We need effective weapons to burst that conservative bubble. They demonize ‘Faux News’ but they can’t stop everything. Breitbart went to them. I don’t think there is any other way.

  5. I am glad someone finally pointed out that several of the things Obama threatened to cut are not funded by the federal government. Why doesn’t the media expose his lack of knowledge about the most basic mechanisms that run our country?

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