Intellectual Conservative Politics and Philosophy » Bob

Compulsory Education is Overrated – Yet Obama Wants to Make the Compulsion Complete

Bob — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:36:05 +0000

A look at the Whitehouse education web page indicates Obama plans to continue the leftist obsession with precisely equal educational outcomes, and create cradle-to-grave educational entitlements and increased pre-school conditioning.

To force another to do your bidding is enslavement, but to compel another to think as you think, feel as you feel, and bray as you bray [...]

Delusion Overtakes Reality: Delving into those Dangerous (Healthcare) Visions

Bob — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:07:33 +0000

Bob Stapler wakes up and finds himself needing serious medical attention in Obama-world.

I have been having one of those waking-dreams running through my head with frequent rewind. It is like some goal-post-moving soap-opera-cum-video-game so vile it becomes positively addictive. This fantasy-nightmare replays every time I hear fresh details of the proposed government-run healthcare system, each mention piling on [...]

Why is it So Hard Communicating With Liberals

Bob — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:46:35 +0000

Can't they speak plain English?

A couple of weeks back, I got into one of those debates with a liberal-in-law. You know the kind, the debate that goes nowhere because, although we are using the same exact words, we are not speaking the same language. We conservatives understand many political terms differently than liberals; which is to say: our [...]

New Deal Redux: Resurrecting the Myth of “The Great Man”

Bob — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:30:03 +0000

The modern-liberal confidence in FDR, the New Deal, and Keynesian economics is such an article of faith that fully four generations of Americans are still lured by its empty assurances and blind to its frauds.

For weeks, President Obama has been drawing Lincoln-esque comparisons to his style of leadership, but his acolytes have a [...]

What is the Energy Independence of Ethanol? – Or, is that Even the Right Question?

Bob — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 15:30:56 +0000

The debate over ethanol is far from over and has been clouded, in some cases deliberately, to favor a pro-ethanol policy.

Barack Obama made renewable energy (with ethanol its centerpiece) a plank of his campaign. McCain(and a good many Republicans) also touts renewable-energy, including ethanol, though emphasizing the need to drill first. Both men operate [...]

Parsing the Debate: A Brief Analysis of the Analysis

Bob — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:16:33 +0000

Debating the analysis.

Okay, the first debate is over and both sides are claiming victory. My experience, however, is first debates are not real deciders for the undecided. Undecided voters are mostly people who are disinclined to research candidates and looking for reasons to vote for one or the other. They are not, however, looking [...]

Absurdistan Weekend Update #11: Fatuously Fixing our Faulty Planet (or Weathering the Wobblies in Wonderland)

Bob — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:55:02 +0000

More Bob Stapler.

This week’s report veers wildly into the realm of science . . . sort of. It begins with a visit to my regular doctor regarding a back injury. My doc is a couple of years my junior, meaning we are roughly shaped by the same events and experiences. So, while making [...]

Absurdistan Weekend Update #10: Liberals Likely Looking to Lose

Bob — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:49:43 +0000

More Bob Stapler.

The New York Times is finding new ground for defeat in Afghanistan and helping stoke the fires of a panic. Dissatisfied with the failure to pull defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq, they are trying afresh in Afghanistan. According to the article, a major prison break represents “one [...]

Absurdistan Weekend Update #9: From Big-Foot to Flat-footed

Bob — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:44:44 +0000

Moscow Update

Bob — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:00:35 +0000

It is natural to think all that was oppressive in Russia under the Soviet Union was an expression only of communism, and that its modes of thinking would be swept away without it. But, what if that is only partly true and a good deal of what we perceive as behaviors ascribable to an ideology [...]