It’s been…nice.

This is why I’ve never been a Republican.

Arnold Kling (with whom, among many others, I talked last weekend at the Conservative Summit) has an interesting post, though I’m not sure I agree with the taxonomy. I’ve never thought of myself as a conservative, and still don’t, really, but I agree with most of the principles he lays out in what he calls an Ideological Affirmation Task Force Request for Comment, or IATF RFC.

[Update]

OK, for the clueless commenters who insist not only that I’m a conservative, but (even more foolishly and laughably, as though they can read the minds of the masses) that everyone agrees that I am, with the exception of me, I’m sure that they can confidently tell me my positions on:

• gay marriage
• gay civil unions
• whether homosexuals are born or made
• whether ID should be taught along with evolution in science classes
• human cloning
• whether abortion should be legal
• whether or not there’s a god
• pornography censorship
• blue laws
• drug legalization

In other words, people who mindlessly call me a conservative, or “right winger” cherry-pick their litmus paper types to only judge me on the issues that they choose to, in order to declare my “obvious” conservatism. That’s why I have zero respect for their opinions in such matters.

Arnold Kling (with whom, among many others, I talked last weekend at the Conservative Summit) has an interesting post, though I’m not sure I agree with the taxonomy. I’ve never thought of myself as a conservative, and still don’t, really, but I agree with most of the principles he lays out in what he calls an Ideological Affirmation Task Force Request for Comment, or IATF RFC.

[Update]

OK, for the clueless commenters who insist not only that I’m a conservative, but (even more foolishly and laughably, as though they can read the minds of the masses) that everyone agrees that I am, with the exception of me, I’m sure that they can confidently tell me my positions on:

• gay marriage
• gay civil unions
• whether homosexuals are born or made
• whether ID should be taught along with evolution in science classes
• human cloning
• whether abortion should be legal
• whether or not there’s a god
• pornography censorship
• blue laws
• drug legalization

In other words, people who mindlessly call me a conservative, or “right winger” cherry-pick their litmus paper types to only judge me on the issues that they choose to, in order to declare my “obvious” conservatism. That’s why I have zero respect for their opinions in such matters.

Arnold Kling (with whom, among many others, I talked last weekend at the Conservative Summit) has an interesting post, though I’m not sure I agree with the taxonomy. I’ve never thought of myself as a conservative, and still don’t, really, but I agree with most of the principles he lays out in what he calls an Ideological Affirmation Task Force Request for Comment, or IATF RFC.

[Update]

OK, for the clueless commenters who insist not only that I’m a conservative, but (even more foolishly and laughably, as though they can read the minds of the masses) that everyone agrees that I am, with the exception of me, I’m sure that they can confidently tell me my positions on:

• gay marriage
• gay civil unions
• whether homosexuals are born or made
• whether ID should be taught along with evolution in science classes
• human cloning
• whether abortion should be legal
• whether or not there’s a god
• pornography censorship
• blue laws
• drug legalization

In other words, people who mindlessly call me a conservative, or “right winger” cherry-pick their litmus paper types to only judge me on the issues that they choose to, in order to declare my “obvious” conservatism. That’s why I have zero respect for their opinions in such matters.

I’ve long believed that the left, and Democrats, contrary to popular myth, are much more racist than the right and Republicans. It is they, after all, who believe that blacks can’t make it without help from the government. Here’s an inadvertent demonstration of this paternalism and condescension, from Joe Biden:

Mr. Biden is equally skeptical

EUreaucrats can’t understand why people might want their national currencies back. Don’t they understand what’s good for them?

It’s apparently today. Greg Kaza has thoughts.

Jimmy Carter and the ghost of Begin.

Despite how lame Jerry Ford was, my vote for that man was the worst of my lifetime. And not just because it ruined my perfect record ever since of not voting for a Democrat for president.

Well, when the evil Republicans controlled the Hill, it was horrible, but now that the Dems have taken over Congress, everything is wonderful, as commenters noted, though nothing else has changed, and despite the fascist bible-thumper still in the White House.

Here’s the speech I’d like to hear tonight, but I’m sure I won’t. Eli Lake has some further thoughts on what the president should say, and the Dems, who want to eat their cake and have it, too:

Now there are good reasons as to why the Democrats are so incoherent about the war. Their foreign policy masks an uneasy alliance between the party’s anti-war left that resents and seeks to restrain American power, and Bush I “realists” who seek to define and wield the nation’s power as ruthlessly as possible. Call it the McGovern-Scowcroft pact. It’s based on disagreement about big questions on American hegemony and agreement on smaller ones, such as the United Nations, Israel, and the venality of neoconservatives.

Hence Secretary of State Baker today is more influential among congressional Democrats than Secretary of State Albright. The George W. Bush presidency is the only thing that can bring these two tribes together. Anti-war Democrats opposed what they saw as a preemptive war for oil, whereas the realist critics of the war opposed it because they couldn’t understand what Iraqi freedom had to do with our national interest. A war for oil is just the sort of thing realists say nations ought to be fighting.

I wish we had better choices.

That’s why Ron Rosenbaum likes Hillary. Mark Steyn, meanwhile, says yes, but that she’s mean to the wrong people:

My problem begins when Rosenbaum expands the proposition to argue that, in a field of Democrat wimps, Hill