Personally, I find it distressing, and somewhat juvenile, when people insert politics into what should be a neutral forum. Using art to make a political point is fine, but artists need to understand that there is a time and place for everything. A children's play in school is never the time or the place; when it happens there, it's indoctrination. The "adults" behind this should be ashamed. (Of course, they won't be).

Artists need to understand that people usually don't go to performances to have politics thrust in their faces. When Linda Ronstadt was fired in Las Vegas for introducing a political theme to her entertainment, that was appropriate. If people want a dose of politics, there are plenty of venues to get it. When people go to hear someone like Ms. Ronstadt, they go to hear singing, not politics.

A belief that you have carte blanche to inflict your politics on unsuspecting patrons at any time you feel the need to do so is nothing short of childish. Certainly the Right is guilty of this type of inappropriate behavior, but today most of this seems to be coming from the Left. My own theory is that many more people on the Left have failed to grow up. But who knows, I might be wrong.

A pretty good reason to vote for Bush as far as I'm concerned.

Well, here's an object lesson in how urban legends get spread.

If you look at the link to Cara/Jeremy's site, you'll see that "put your fear and anger into loathing Bush" is Jeremy's phrase, not something that was said during the show. In fact, Jeremy doesn't even explain how they drew that interpretation -- in his description of the show, Bush isn't even mentioned.

But filter whatever is in the show through Jeremy's overactive imagination, and Michael's sloppy reading comprehension, and -- presto! -- "put your fear and anger into loathing Bush" is now part of the script. I suppose, in this blog equivalent of "telephone," that's how it'll get passed on from here.

Congratulations, Michael, for another contribution to making the world just a little bit dumber.

Can our democracy survive this much hate?

Swopa: you'll see that "put your fear and anger into loathing Bush" is Jeremy's phrase, not something that was said during the show.

He put it in quote marks, Swopa. So I put it in quote marks. If it wasn't an actual quote, take it up with Jeremy. But how would you know? You were not there and neither was I.

Michael,

You're the one who's passing it off as a direct statement made from the stage.

Surely as someone who wants to be a professional writer, you understand the differing uses of quotation marks.

And surely you care enough about accuracy not to willfully pass something off as a direct statement when you have no clue whether it was or not.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong, and you neither know nor care about these things.

Swopa,

Do you think I should take the quotes out of my post and that Jeremy used the same quotes correctly? Make a case. You might be right. (I imagine Jeremy will come over here and settle it in any case.)

I wasn't there, and neither were you. So I placed the same words in quotes that Jeremy placed in quotes.

Surely as someone who wants to be a professional writer..

I am a professional writer. No pro is perfect, though, obviously. You have to convince me I made a mistake here if you want me to correct it. You haven't done that yet.

This is why I am center-right, not left, or even center-left.
The left seems to have lost its marbles. We used to think in
terms of "values" and "good and evil". We used to really know what
"evil" was. Now, the goofball wing of the left (not everyone, thankfully)
thinks that evil is someone who believes in "traditional values" and
thinks that we need to hate Southerners and anyone else who is not an atheist.
Religion and values are evil, because they cause us to disapprove of some behaviors,
when "there is no such thing as good and bad behavior" (they say, not me).

Thanks for the heads up about this garbage. We need to stop it (by voting Republican?).

Regards,

Jim Bender

http://anglo-dutch-wars.blogspot.com/

http://17th-centurynavwargaming.blogspot.com/

http://kentishknock.com/

http://anglodutchwarsblog.com/

http://dreadnought-cruisers.blogspot.com/

Jim,

Voting Republican will not stop that nonsense. Voting Democrat actually might, since the target of loony hatred would be out of the picture.

It's hard to bitch when you're the one doing the actual driving. I'm not saying this is reason enough all by itself to vote Democrat, it's just one of the many things I'm thinking about lately.

Michael,

To follow your logic, all religions other than Isalm should disappear altogether so the target, at least a major one, of Islamists will be out of the picture. Should I bring more corollaries like this one?

I thought this logic might be called an appeasement or a capitulation.

Michael,

Another thought, perhaps everybody should vote Barbie or Nader or whatever. Then both targets of hatred and contempt will be out of the picture.

Gee, one can get really creative with this logic.

Re: Swopa's comments about not trusting what's in quotes.

I must agree with her (him?). After all, Senator John Kerry is quoted in the Congressional Record as follows: "Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the President of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia.

"I have that memory, which is seared -- seared -- in me..."

Senator Kerry now claims he was not in Cambodia during the Christmas of 1968, in spite of his searing memories recorded in the Congressional Record. Just goes to show, you can't trust what's in quotes anymore.

Hey, Michael, regarding voting Democrat to stop the loony hatred. You know the loony Buchanan Right will just start whining again. You can't win, no matter who you vote for. Personally, I've decided to vote for the guy who's taking out the terrorists before we get attacked again, rather than for the guy who is promising to retaliate when we do get attacked again. It is a subtle difference I know, but one that's, in my opinion, worth at least 3,000 innocent lives.

Michael,

I like and respect you and your views but you are getting wacky with this thing. You do not support the victory of lunatics just so that they won't have the object of their hate to kick around anymore. That's like saying if all the Jews are gone, the Arabs will have no one to hate anymore. It is that ridiculous. Moreover, if the moonbats are like this out of power, what will they do in power? But that's not the point, the point is you are anti-apeasement when it comes to Islamo-fascism. You cannot logically be pro-apeasement of the lunatic-left. Again, you must get over your distaste for Republicanism as the rest of us have and do what's right. Only a stinging defeat will give the Democrat party a possibility of regaining its bearings.

This is stupid, sure. Call out this stupidity - please. But for those who think this is somehow indicative of the liberal viewpoint, they are simply mistaken.

As well, I'm not sure this was exactly said. Most likely some silly "leftish" appeasment,, but probably not the exact quotes.

Marek: I thought this logic might be called an appeasement or a capitulation.

The Democratic and Republican parties are not at war with each other. War has its own logic, not to be applied to everything else.

Many liberals lately are applying the logic of non-war to war, with unimpressive results. Beware the opposite mistake.

Remy: Hey, Michael, regarding voting Democrat to stop the loony hatred. You know the loony Buchanan Right will just start whining again. You can't win, no matter who you vote for.

Yeah, probably. They might be less destructive, though. Such people tend to have less influence in the schools and in the media. Imagine how differently the New York Times would spin the conflict with al-Sadr if a guy they liked were leading the charge against him. That's not something to be dismissed out of hand.

JC: But for those who think this is somehow indicative of the liberal viewpoint, they are simply mistaken.

I don't think this is the liberal viewpoint. I think it is one of the leftist viewpoints. My neighborhood is packed cheek to jowl with people who think this way.

But, you know, more than half of my friends are Kerry supporters, and none of them are anywhere near that stupid. So I appreciate your reality check, but I personally did not need it.

My neighbors do need a reality check, though, of a different sort.

Swopa,

hey, Bush is Hitler remember? The burden's on you, not Michael.

Actually, this wasn't for you, Michael. I take it for granted you don't believe that. But, since there were many posters who thought to opine in that direction, I thought I would make the implicit explicit.

My apologies this wasn't clearer.

There are loonies on Right and Left, but ANTI-AMERICANISM is almost exclusively on the Left. That certainly does not indict all people on the Left, but it should cause patriotic "liberals" to ask WHY anti-Ameircanism always wears leftist clothing (see BFSWM Michael Moore, Noam Numbskull Chomsky, etc).

I think it tells us something about what has happened to the soul of the Democrat Party since the 60s, as I have stated before.

This crap is not surprising. The National Education Assocation ( the largest teachers union) is nothing but an arm of the Democrat Party. The Left has a stranglehold on our entire education system, K-12 and the universities. The all cultures are equal-anti-capitalist-multicultural-blame the West for all the world's problems propaganda permeates the social studies curriculum in the public schools. As I recall, something like 25-30% of the convention delegates in Boston were teachers, right ?

Uhhuh. We need VOUCHERS

Hey Michael and company:

We just arrived home from Cape Cod. I was going to post a comment here with more detail, but it got quite long so I added it as an update to my post.

I'm to blame for the confusion. I used quotes ambiguously and omitted all the relevant details, and generally assumed people were reading my mind. But, if anything, it gets worse once you see the details, not better. Michael was absolutely right to represent the play as objectively attacking Bush. Read my update for more specificity.

Jeremy,

In your update you said you should have used hyphens instead of quote marks. I agree that would have been the best punctuation in this particular case. Thanks for clarifying! As you can see, I updated mine as well.

If the childish, cry-baby attitude of the Left when it's out of power gets votes, maybe we on the Right should engage in that behavior the next time we're out of power. . . . Caving in to the moonbats will only encourage them. The best thing that could happen to the Democrats is a Goldwater-style drubbing.

Our nation functions best when we have two robust parties that oppose each other with CONSTRUCTIVE criticisms. The Dems have been almost totally absent from the debate over THE most important issue facing the USA now, the WoT. A party that is AWOL from the debate when it counts doesn't deserve a chance at power. The Dems need to get their house in order before they can be trusted with leadership positions.

"I don't know if I'm willing to go there as he is, but I do understand where he's coming from. A Kerry Administration would not soothe the angst of the radical left; nothing much can. But it would give the mainstream Democrats something besides George W. Bush to worry about for a change. Something like, oh I don't know, terrorism perhaps."

If you reward them for their lunacy by electing who they want and casting out who they want, then you will encourage more lunacy in the future. They will know it works.

Don't do it, Mr. Totten.

Gerry: They will know it works.

Not necessarily.

The over-the-top Clinton-hatred ended when Bush went into office, but I doubt hardly anyone actually voted for Bush in order to put that to bed. Even so, I'm glad it was put to bed. It was toxic to our political culture and it filled me with disgust, even though I had little time for Clinton's bullshit myself.

Very very very few people are looking at this the way I do. Whichever of these two mooks I end up voting for, it will be for very different reasons than almost everyone else. I'm not figuring into anyone's equation here.

Ben: The best thing that could happen to the Democrats is a Goldwater-style drubbing.

Yes, I think that would do it, too.

Whoever wins this election, I hope they get a landslide, even if it's not the guy I vote for. That way whoever loses will have to suck it up and make adjustments that obviously will be necessary. If that includes me, then that includes me.

"[T]he one change I know a Kerry administration would bring, a change that I lust for, will be an end to the incessant whining, doom-saying, fear-mongering and general apocalyptic paranoia that has come to permeate "progressive" politics. For that reason alone, I will be up at the crack of down on election day eagerly voting for Mr. A.B.B."

Not a good enough reason to vote for someone who said in his acceptance speech, "If attacked, we will respond."

We need a CinC who isn't going to wait to be attacked.

Not to mention all the other things very wrong with Kerry.

"Imagine how differently the New York Times would spin the conflict with al-Sadr if a guy they liked were leading the charge against him."

Kerry isn't going to lead any charges - he's going to hand Iraq over to the UN (i.e. over to Iran) and pull out all the troops. He still sees everything through the lense of Vietnam , and his supporters want to vote him in for that reason. So he will figure out some weasely reason to abandon Iraq.

Good article about Kerry.

Tacitus had a nice long post about this last week, but Redstate.org is down right now.

You may quibble about some of Bush's decisions, but you knwo he's not going to give up and go home.

...it would give the mainstream Democrats something besides George W. Bush to worry about for a change. Something like, oh I don't know, terrorism perhaps.

....but this is assuming that mainstream Democrats have control of their party - a supposition I question. If Kerry were elected, would anything be done about terrorism?

The fact that we even have to ask this type of question is a perfect display of the lunacy that pervades much of today's left (this is not to say that the right is without lunacy, of course - it's just a different kind of lunacy). What does Kerry plan to do about terrorism? Does he have enough support within his party to do anything at all?

"Imagine how differently the New York Times would spin the conflict with al-Sadr if a guy they liked were leading the charge against him."

This is a good thing? It's an insult to decent folks and a (deserved) slander of the NY Times. Let the Times die in its own irrelevance, and let the "progressives" whine and moan. It is their nature and can't be bribed. If there is one pair of boots I am not going to lick, it is theirs.

Yehudit wrote my post.

Michael: Love your blog, you write well, but my God you are a window into the soul of a man reared liberal in the second half of the 1900's.

Deemphasize what you would LIKE. Concentrate on what you need. Try it. Make the leap.

Nine out of ten times we elect incompetent, unethical, or just plain deficient men into public office and the cost is measured in lost opportunities or wasted money. Really big screwups cause realignments...but still, most of the time, it's just stuff we read in the newspapers.

That is not the case today. This election will actually pivot on how many of us own up to our responsibilities as citizens, and how many of us just want things our way...regardless of what the world is doing around us.

You make your call. You really think that a landslide for Kerry will in some way inspire a pause for adult reflection among the handflapping moonbats who put Michael Moore in the presidential box at their convention?

In the time I've read your blog you have lamented the lack of a reasonable third party more than once. The rise of some...shit, some executor of power that acts like there is a real world out there. Have you actually looked at the legislative record of the last four years? I mean without leaping to the keys whenever one of your pet oxen were poked?

Please take a good look at who is running for what office, disable your stock labels and ask yourself which exisiting constituency MIGHT come close to generating the ideal you seek.

There's a whole boatload of work to be done before we can even afford to hope that we won't lose another thousand people in any random city on any given day. Are you willing to trade Bush the MBA w/staff for The Dread Pirate Kerry...who can't seem to articulate anything but participating in an unjust war as credentials?

The days of shrugging off non-performance in government are over. I hope. I wish. I never thought that a winning number of voters would line up behind a publicly acknowledged maggot like Bill Clinton, even at the end of history. We did, twice. Mr. Kerry is slightly less savory than Clinton yet he's the right template for media and people who still think it's just a game and we're in a shooting war...

Ah, c'live. Get past old habits. Act like this meant something a little bigger than just you.

Then vote.

Have a fine week.

In other words, give the junkie his crack. No thanks.

Thanks for confirming the model, HA.

Aaaaaargh! How about 'condensing' the model???

Today looks like a good day for hammer work vice keyboard. Enjoy.

"But it would give the mainstream Democrats something besides George W. Bush to worry about for a change. Something like, oh I don't know, terrorism perhaps."

I really wish I could believe that. I really wish I could believe in the tooth fairy, too.

That quote does make some sense. As it is now, anybody who hasn't drunk the Bush koolade has no input about terrorism etc. They can hope Bush does a good job or they can try to give somebody else a chance, or both.

And people who believe in Bush have no input on terrorism etc except to trust that Bush is doing a good job.

If you aren't convinced that Bush is doing adequately then you don't have much choice except try to get somebody else in who might start cleaning up the mess.