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Yale law professor prefers not to be confused with the facts

"There are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?" we quoted Schopenhaer a few years back on "the informational 'cascades' of sheeplike belief formation that cause flat-earthers to crowd the cultural ether in every era," noting that "Al Gore's lie-laced Inconvenient Truth comes to mind." Above, the early morning light works its magic on the salt piles across the street.

I don’t know a single person who identifies with the Tea Party,” Yale law professor Dan Kahan admits, bemused by the results of his own study on "the relationship between science literacy and political ideology":

Tea party members know more science than non-Tea Partiers.

How could that be? Aren't Tea Partiers flat-earthers?:

"I fully expected…a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension,” Kahan wrote.

That's what comes of relying on the Tea-Party-demonizing Democrat Media Complex for information outside one's area of expertise:

“All my impressions come from watching cable tv — & I don’t watch Fox News very often — and reading the ‘paper’ (New York Times daily, plus a variety of politics-focused Internet sites like Huffington Post and POLITICO). I’m a little embarrassed, but mainly, I’m just glad that I no longer hold this particular mistaken view.”

We're glad, too, although the professor's lack of intellectual curiosity about the Tea Party in light of his new data is troubling, as are his reflexive acceptance and promulgation of the now seriously outdated AGW narrative:

While Kahan cautioned against thinking the results can be used to explain deep ideological fights over climate change and other politically relevant science…he said the results wouldn’t change his negative views of the Tea Party.

Don't confuse him with the facts!

Stand with Rand: Tea Party Turks and the filibuster heard 'round the world

"My Tea Party cup runneth over," we twittered Mark Tapscott this morning in appreciation of his bracing filibuster post "Is Rand Paul America's William Wallace or Robert the Bruce?" wherein the DC Examiner columnist compares the generational struggle between Young Turk Rand Paul and Old Bull John McCain to the conflict between Robert the Bruce and his don't-rock-the-boat father in the film "Braveheart."

"He has definitely energized the base in a way that it hasn't been energized in a long time," enthused Tea Party Express Chair Amy Kremer following Paul Rand's filibuster heard 'round the world (Wednesday night the hashtag #standwithrand was number one trending topic worldwide on Twitter). The DC Examiner's Susan Ferrechio explains:

Until Paul's appearance, the Tea Party's popularity appeared to be waning. Republican leaders pushed Tea Party lawmakers to the sidelines during budget negotiations with President Obama. After a very successful 2010 election, the Tea Party took a beating in the 2012 [national] contests. And pollsters found that fewer and fewer people were affiliating themselves with the movement.

But Paul's filibuster attracted huge support on social media sites, from conservatives and liberals, and some believe it could mark a comeback for the movement …

By night's end, 40,000 new followers had signed up for Paul's Twitter feed.

We were caught up in the euphoria Wednesday afternoon and into the evening as C-SPAN 2 live broadcast the junior Senator from Kentucky doing it "the old-fashioned way," holding forth on the senate floor— with a little help from his friends, including our own fave, Sen. Ted Cruz! — for just under 13 hours of spirited discourse. We loved Hugh Hewitt's take:

[Rand Paul] engaged the country in a serious discussion of first principles. You may not agree with him, but he did it. The Constitution was actually discussed on the Senate floor for more than a dozen hours. Incredible.

He put the president on the defensive, using the force of argument to penetrate the White House's standard operating procedure of never engaging its critics on a serious level. Eric Holder, the hapless AG, came away scorched.

Paul also took an old, old device and married it to the new communications technology, instantly generating hundreds of thousands of messages about him and his argument which spread across the Twitterverse and associated platforms at an astonishing speed …

Senators Cruz, Lee, and Rubio are the sort of skilled talkers that the other side does not have. 

In this metaphorical battle to retake the Shining City, Sir William Wallace's words on the eve of the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 resonate:

We come here with no peaceful intent, but ready for battle, determined to avenge our wrongs and set our country free."

Update: Why we love Twitter:

Sens. McCain and Graham appeared in the Senate gallery to criticize Rand Paul. #StandWIthRand twitter.com/ExJon/status/3…

— Jon Gabriel (@ExJon) March 7, 2013

Con-Man-in-Chief: Barack Obama's "masterful marketing of emotions"

"Stephen Colbert sent me an email, and Stephen Colbert is the young person's Oprah," the sophomorically witty young Obama voter above right — signalling membership in the tribe of cool! — answered The Blaze reporter Benny Johnson's question "What issues brought you out to vote today?"

"Was this election truly a rebuke of conservatism and its principles?  Or was it a function of the masterful marketing of emotions, niche issues and even revenge?" ponders The Blaze reporter Benny Johnson, who asked young voters waiting in line at a polling place in Boston's South End Tuesday "some simple questions concerning why they showed up today to perform their civic duty." While Karl Rove implodes and pundits examine the entrails of changing demographics vs white people who didn't show up at the polls vs the cold technical brilliance of President Obama's ground game to explain Mitt Romney's epic loss, Johnson goes directly to the source, where unself-aware cult members regurgitate the party line: 

The answers usually began with a declaration of unwavering support for the president. So what were the issues that animated them in the campaign? Their answers were largely couched in generalities, warm pockets of feel-good social "rights" issues, that sounded line-and-verse like Obama campaign talking points …

To any conservative wondering where they went astray this cycle, observe the religious-like conviction of the voters here when rattling off their liberal talking points. However, beyond the rhetoric, how much do these eager voters know about our American government?

Their answers are sobering. "I mean, I think we have to keep going in the direction we're going, forward," said one pretty young thing who had swallowed the Kool Aid. More anecdotal findings from Conservatives4Palin's Mel Maguire:

One of my teenage relatives has been telling me what her classmates are saying, and none of them has so much as a marginal grasp of the issues. Many of them supported Obama because he’s black, and others were convinced that Romney was going to make abortion and contraceptives illegal.  Many even said they wanted their parents to be able to keep collecting food stamps, and they believed Romney was going to end the program because he didn’t care about the poor. None of these things are true, but we now have Bill Maher comparing us all to Nazis.

Unlike the anti-statist Tea Party surge of the 2010 midterms, this time the Gramscian march through the institutions is the big winner. Like the Constitutionally-challenged voters cited by Johnson and Maguire above, the bright young leaders — and followers — of tomorrow, immersed in the politically correct, identity-politics matrix of academia, popular culture and the lamestream media, seem unaware of their having succumbed to the mind-numbing brainwashing perpetrated upon them by the Con-Man-in-Chief and his fellow travelers.

Update: Arnold Ahlert at Jewish World Review is on the same page:

If it can't be reduced to 140 characters for Twitter's sake, it no longer matters.

We must protest, however, that a well-written tweet can be a work of art in the "Less is more" sense.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Have yourself a merry little blogiversary: Now we are eight.

Little Kitteh, above, trips the light fantastic in our Christmas card, now in production. The message inside: "Let your heart be light." Next year all our troubles will be out of sight?

In celebration of our blog's eighth anniversary tomorrow, December 12, we proudly republish our very first post ever, "The tidings that dare not speak their name." It features our Christmas Card of that year, an image of the homestead festooned with the lights fantastic, and a fearless, politically incorrect challenge to those who would wilfully misrepresent the Establishment Clause of our Constitution's First Amendment. An early stirring of the Tea Party spirit that would rise up to disintermediate the powers that be via the internet?

"Chelsea-by-the-Sea at Christmastime"

December 12, 2003. We wish you a Merry Christmas!

As we wrote last year, that was it, a blogpost of exactly 68 characters that could hold its own today in the fast-moving, 140-or-fewer-characters world of the Twittersphere. We were delighted to note that Glenn Reynolds has more or less declared victory in the war this Army of Davids was waging back then:

I GUESS THE "WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS" HAS BEEN LOST, THEN: Obama lights the National Christmas Tree, says ‘Merry Christmas’ three times.

Not that there aren't still some air-headed holdouts.

Update: Bill Quick, The Daily Pundit — the fellow who named the blogosphere — sends "Best Wishes To An OG Blogger:

Happy Anniversary, Sissy!

You’ve made a difference!

Update II: Fun and funny Chris Muir of Day by Day in the comments:

We need wonderful writer young'uns like you! ;)

Sarah Palin: The Tea Party is real winner of the debate

"I was very pleased with this debate, and, you know, very excited about the validation of the Tea Party movement," Sarah Palin told Greta Van Susteren last night in a meaty analysis of the CNN/TeaPartyExpress debate that echoed our own take and set our woman-up, fight-like-a-girl heart on fire. Listen to full interview here.

While some of our favorite bloggers and columnists and talking heads debated the winners and losers of last night's CNN/TeaPartyExpress GOP primary debate, a shoot-to-where-it's-going, not-to-where-it's-been Sarah Palin disintermediated the usual premise of judging these contests. As she explained to Greta Van Susteren in a landmark "On the record" post-debate interview last night:

Here they hook up with a major news network, CNN — and more power to CNN for allowing that validation — of this grassroots Tea Party movement.

Participants from all over the nation being able, as a voice of "We the people," asking questions of these potential presidents …

The winner in this really, I believe, was the Tea Party movement.

"Greta, this is one of the reasons that many of us really love your show because you have been one on top of this issue from day one, talking about the fraud, the waste and the crony capitalism." From opposite ends of the political spectrum, the two women seem to have forged a sisterly bond through their shared mission to fight corruption wherever they may find it.

Palin and Van Susteren — the conservative Mama Grizzly and the liberal Fox News show host — may seem an odd pairing. A tough questioner, Van Susteren earned Palin's trust early on by giving her a fair hearing where others, even Fox libertarian Judge Napolitano, were buying — and promulgating — the "lamestream media's" Palin-is-Stupid narrative spin. Fortunately the Judge finally came to his senses.

 

"I'm not gonna let the media dictate when a drop-dead date should be," Palin answered Van Susteren's inevitable will-she-or-won't-she question:

In the meantime, I'm getting kind of a kick out of this, and I have to be honest with you. Getting a kick out of getting out there, giving a speech, making some statements about things that must be discussed, and then the very next day watching some of the candidates get out there and discuss what it was that we just talked about, like the corruption, the crony capitalism, the waste, the fraud … That perhaps is my role right now, is to get people talking about the issues that the American people deserve to hear discussed … I'm gonna keep doing that!

Mark America at US for Palin develops the theme in his must-read "Only One Republican is Shaping the Debate":

While it is true to say the Tea Party won the debate, it’s likewise clear that the themes Governor Palin has been discussing since 2008 are really the foundation of the ongoing Republican discussion.

See also Dana Loesch's insider's analysis "CNN Shows MSNBC How a Debate is Done."

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Cloven Not Crested.

Palin Undefeated: It's the crony capitalism, stupid!

This weekend Steve Bannon's Palin documentary ‘The Undefeated’ will be available On Demand and Pay-Per-View from a major cable or satellite company near you. We wrote about the movie — sight unseen — last June in "Palin Undefeated: 'A story of empowerment for modern women and their daughters.'" Now we can put our money where our mouth was, in the comfort of our own home. Above, sugar-and-spice Sarah (center) with her siblings.

Funny how incurious the "intellectually curious" hive mind of the left can be when it comes to all things Sarah Palin. The latest is a classic blinders-on, Journolist-talking-points-in-hand "review" of Steve Bannon's Palin Documentery "The Undefeated." (h/t Tim Graham of News Busters). Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday is the mouthpiece of this particular outpouring of Palin envy. A few excerpts and then our take:

Based on her modest demeanor and record of budget, energy and ethics reform in Alaska, it’s easy to see her appeal to McCain, who called Palin while she was at the Alaska State Fair to ask her to run for veep. What "The Undefeated" doesn’t explain — in addition to the title "Undefeated" when Palin was, actually, defeated in 2008 — is how a woman whose early career had been dedicated to transcending partisan politics became such a ferocious political warrior while on the stump. Instead, Bannon sets Palin up as a victim — of liberals, of establishment conservatives and of the "lamestream media" that his subject has become so skilled at manipulating (a talent the filmmaker strangely neglects to mention).

About that title, "The Undefeated." Ever heard of wordplay, Ms. Hornaday? Sarah Palin may have lost an election, but she fights like a girl! Disintermediating the powers that be, she picked herself up and got back in the race. The words of Sun Tzu come to mind:

To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

Then there's Hornaday's fixation with "trascending partisan politics." You see a lot of that from the left, presumably hoping to catch the eye — and poll-tested votes — of the mushy middle. How could a "non-partisan" Palin who rooted out corruption in her OWN PARTY become "such a ferocious political warrior while on the stump"? It's the crony capitalism, stupid. Real Clear Politics has the scoop:

In her speech at the bucolic National Balloon Classic field in Indianola [tomorrow], Palin will lean on loaded phrases like “crony capitalism” and “permanent political class” in laying out her view of the U.S. political system’s deep-rooted ills, according to a source close to Palin and familiar with the content of the speech.

And this from National Review:

“She will also talk, more broadly, about how she is not enamored of the political class, both Republicans and Democrats, who do not deserve to be elected if they only continue the status quo,” the source continues. “She will discuss corporate lobbyists, White House operatives, and others who enable the vested interests.” Many of the themes from her recent Facebook post, “Conquering the Storm,” will be mentioned.

Will she or won't she? Dan Riehl says "yes" on Twitter:

Overseas trip had to be Palin's last check box. She's getting in.

Disintermediate at will:

The former Alaska Governor is scheduled to attend the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, where she will speak alongside global economic leaders like Larry Summers and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The conference begins Oct. 11, the same day as the GOP primary debate hosted by Bloomberg in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Update: Doug Ross Larwyn's Lynx link.

Crossposted at Riehl World View and Cloven Not Crested.

"First Responders and Clergyfolk are not very important to the powerful and the enlightened"

"Join us and thousands of patriots at the AFDI/SIOA 911 Freedom Rally at Ground Zero on the afternoon of September 11th. We will have a priest and a rabbi for the invocation as part of our program (just as we did last year). Be there," writes our sister grizzly in arms Pamela Geller from the front lines of the battle to retake the Shining City. Above, our own photo of The Divine Miss G at Joe Lieberman's victory party back in November of 2006.

"Sissy Willis, are you trying to start a revolt? :-)" twitters Elizabeth Scalia aka The Anchoress in reponse to our response to her fightin' words this evening regarding NYC Mayor Bloomberg's smug pronouncement that no first responders nor religious are welcome at the Big Apple's 10th-anniversary observance of 9/11. Quoting one of her commenters, we twittered:

I say that the people who MATTER should organize a memorial of their own. Just show up.

It turns out our old friend Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs is way ahead of the curve (see caption above). To get ourselves and our readers up to speed on the issues, a few excerpts from Scalia's transcendent must-read rant, some more telling comments from her commenters and finally our own take. Here's Elizabeth:

First Responders and Clergyfolk are not very important to the powerful and the enlightened. They only protect us, rescue us, resuscitate us, console us, pray with us, bless us and bury us. And when they die doing it, well, one does feel terrible about it for a whole news cycle or two. And then one takes a private jet somewhere, and tries to forget …

I don’t know why I should be surprised. Priests and First Responders are, like our troops, front-line folk. They’re like heroes in the cowboy flicks; they ride in, shoulder the burden, help put things to rights, and then — while the elite get on with assuming their power and asserting their primacy — they recede into the background. Only the very few stick around to say ‘thank you’ and wave them off. Sometimes children ask them to come back, or to stay.

This from Dave in the comments got our tea-party juices flowing:

Hmmm; a public event that is not public? I submit a “what if?” question … What if off-duty FDNY and NYPD show up, in uniform? Or, further suppose that priests, members of religious orders and the faithful also show up? Let us even invite the religiously inclined of all faiths. What if the ironworkers, laborers, and those who provided volunteer services for weeks and months to the site workers came without the “proper” invitation? All of those would be hard to ignore. Even though I am a former firefighter, I am part of larger community of persons sustained by ritual, tradition and faith. I cannot imagine that persons of power, wealth and inflated egos could wish to exclude those who gave so much for all of us.

Then this from Mark L:

Well. You can tell it has been ten years, can’t you.

Reminds me of an old piece of doggerel about sailors and soldiers (who are much like first responders):

The sailor/soldier and God alike are adored
When danger’s at hand, and not before.
Once danger has passed both alike are requited:
God is forgotten and the sailor/soldier is slighted.

"Just show up. Be there. Americans have the freedom of assembly," wrote commenter Lee:

Assemble at Ground Zero: NYC first responders, first responders from elsewhere who came to help, people who were there and remember, people who lost a loved one, people who have not forgotten what happened. And clergy: ministers, priest, rabbis, etc.

Start the REAL memorial commemoration: not this idiot thing organized by people who work for the idiot Bloomberg. And make the REAL memorial the one that MATTERS. A grass roots effort to commemorate an important moment in our country’s recent history.

Reminds us of Rick Santelli's "Rant for the Ages" from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade back in February of 2009, a truth-to-power call for a new "Tea Party" in response to President Obama's redistributionist mortgage-bailout plan. For us the great awakening had begun with Sarah Palin's emergence onto the national stage in August of 2008, when we fell head over heels for the mama grizzly's fierce determination and authentic American voice long before the "lamestream media" moved in for the kill. We got our activist feet wet in the Tea Party gatherings of spring 2009, then earned our wings helping Scott Brown dislodge the democrat establishment from the "Kennedy Seat" in January of 2010. November 2010, now November 2012. It's not just the democrats. It's the Ruling Class of both parties, and we're learning how to fight like a girl!

Update: Instalanche! Thank you, Professor Reynolds.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Dear John Podhoretz: I love you, but

John Podhoretz's twitter avatar (above) is one of our favorites, beaming father with enchanting daughter. Hard not to love the guy, and we do, but hey. This is politics!

"So unless I agree with every word you say I'm not with 'we the people'? Elitist!" tweets the divine John Podhoretz, playing with our own tweet:

You aren't one of dem fuddy-duddy Codevilla rul'g class types, are you? I always thought you were on the side of "We the people."

We were responding to Podhoretz's own provocative tweet:

If Sarah Palin runs, Mitt Romney does the Snoopy dance of joy.

Arrggghhhh! No one is cleverer and cuddlier than Podhoretz, but does he realize how condescending such tweets are to grassroots tea partiers like us, for whom Romneycare has always been a craw sticker and Palin always an authentic voice in the wilderness who speaks to us with a servant's heart?

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

Whither goest thou? "Only a living thing can go against the stream"

 "Against the Tide" by Rob Colvin.

"Shorter NYT: Tea party is out of the mainstream because members are white, religious and socially conservative," twitter buddy Hale Razor writes re Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell's inadvertently self-revelatory New York Times op ed, "Crashing the Tea Party," a fact-challenged, politically correct dismissal of us and our fellow constitutional conservatives as "less popular than much maligned groups like 'atheists' and 'Muslims.'" A couple of paragraphs, and then some analysis:

GIVEN how much sway the Tea Party has among Republicans in Congress and those seeking the Republican presidential nomination, one might think the Tea Party is redefining mainstream American politics.

But in fact the Tea Party is increasingly swimming against the tide of public opinion: among most Americans, even before the furor over the debt limit, its brand was becoming toxic … Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right. 

Swimming against the tide, indeed. Redefining mainstream American politics is what the tea party has always been about, gentlemen, notwithstanding the last-gasp efforts of the powers that be like you and your fellow travelers in Sarah Palin's "lamestream media" to demonize us into oblivion. Can you say Tea Party terrorists? The Anchoress explains in her must-read review of Mark Steyn's After America: 

But Steyn is not writing solely about the social unrest and the hooliganism that so often comes with economic distress. After America warns that an over-regulated, bureaucracy-laden society, dissuaded from conceiving and achieving great things because too much has come between an idea and its execution, is a society dumbing down and numbing-up, growing not just stagnant, but inert, like Chesterton’s “dead thing” that “can go with the stream,” while “only a living thing can go against it.”

Oh, the irony that Harvard's Robert Putnam, author of the iconic "Bowling Alone," trapped in his tribal Pauline Kael bubble, is blind to what's right there before his eyes. As Hale Razor twittered:

Putnam sees social isolationism and decreasing church attendance, yet can't spot a nexus, while ripping social conservatives.

Putnam's "groundbreaking book based on vast data," published just over a decade ago before blogs and twitter and facebook and other social media reshaped and re-energized the public square, seems sadly set in amber today:

Putnam warns that our stock of social capital – the very fabric of our connections with each other, has plummeted, impoverishing our lives and communities.

Putnam draws on evidence including nearly 500,000 interviews over the last quarter century to show that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often. 

Signing fewer petitions and belonging to fewer organizations? That is so yesterday, Mr. Putnam. You and your co-author need to get out more. You shoulda interviewed people like ourselves before writing that New York Times relic. Tea Partay!

Update: Doug Ross of Larwyn's Linx links.

Update II: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link (to our crosspost at Dan's).

Crossposted at Riehl World View.

King or kingmaker, Sarah Palin's heart and mind will energize seekers of wisdom and truth

Sarah Palin and Herman Cain embrace at Iowa State Fair. "Have heard Herman Cain is warm and energizing in person. I fell for him way back when, used a quote in Tea Party sign," we twittered Ginny aka ginthegin this afternoon, quoting the man with a plan: "Stay inspired: We the people are still in charge." 

"King or kingmaker, her heart and mind will energize seekers of wisdom and truth," we twittered libertarian twitter friend Doug Mataconis this afternoon in response to his smiley-snarky challenge to our abiding faith in the Mama Grizzly who beckons us to "woman up" and "fight like a girl":

If you think Palin has any chance in a General Election, I want some of whatever drug you're trippin' on :)."

Even as Texas Governor Rick Perry upstaged the usual Iowa Straw Poll suspects with a rousing call to arms this afternoon — throwing his hat in the ring at the Red State Gathering of bloggers [!] in South Carolina and putting the democrat smear-mongers on high alert — Sarah Palin was playing hard to get. But not to worry. She's biding her time, disintermediating the powers that be with her usual flair, shooting to where it's going, not to where it's been. We loved this after-the-break teaser from CNN's Candy Crowley this evening in the aftermath of Michele Bachmann's winning the straw poll and write-in candidate Perry's outpolling Mitt, Newt, Jon and Thaddeus:

So what's Palin's goal? Why's she getting all the attention?

Dan Riehl explains:

Put aside the purely Republican primary politics of it for a moment. Also, I'm not endorsing her, or anyone at this point. But what happened in Iowa yesterday was electric, not just for any Palin faithful, but for many Conservatives and especially the media. For better, or worse, Sarah Palin has star power — whatever that is.

Palin has two critical qualities, unique in that they combine in her. Beholden to no one, without fear, or restraint, Palin articulates today's conservatism in a prudent, positive and cogent manner. More than that, the media, while much of it both loves and hates her, conveys her message to an audience far more broadly than they do for any other contemporary politician. 

It's the electricity, stupid? As we twittered Mary Katherine Ham this afternoon in response to her praise of Rick Perry's storytelling skills:

We need storytellers to tell our side of the story, capture the mushy middle's imagination with powerful memes and narratives.

Enter, stage right, Sarah Palin. King or kingmaker? Just like the Tea Party itself, she is recasting the terms of the debate. Will inattentive citizens finally notice the disconnect between the Palin-is-stupid narrative and what they can see with their own eyes? 

Update: Linked at Conservatives4Palin in the comments to a related post citing our buddy Smitty of The Other McCain, who writes:

I agree with Dan’s whole post, but a third point (maybe a variation on the first point) is that she has already borne the brunt of an unbridled propaganda assault without crumbling. The more the minions of the Progressive Cthulhu strike at her, the stronger she becomes, and the more openly craven and stupid they appear. She rises like a phoenix from their ashes.

Why the continued hesitation, then? She has more to gain by not explicitely declaring.

Update II: Doug Ross's Larwyn's Linx links.

Crossposted at Riehl World View.