Reflections: Turn Out the Lights...

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...the Party's Over.

Here's the bottom line:

In the end, starting out with a large field of candidates, the Republicans couldn't find even one that they themselves could support. The Democrats did.

In the end, William F. Buckley/Ronald Reagan conservatism has failed: it got its shot, and it didn't work. It didn't work. Conservatism has been standing athwart history, pissing down on it.

But the worst news for conservatism has been Sarah Palin. She was supposed to represent the Conservative Future. But she's crashed, and she's burning, and she can't get up. Bill Ayers is more popular.

Says John McCain: "C'mon, kid, pull my finger!"

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Reflections: An Analogy

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For some reason, as I was observing, via various blogs, the conflict going on in the Catholic world over the question of whether it is licit to vote for Barack "Baby Killer" Obama, the thought popped into my head that there is an analogy to be drawn between the saga of John and Sarah and the biblical story of Simon Magus and his consort Helene.

Here, as clipped from Wikipedia, is a capsualization of that story:

Justin Martyr (in his Apologies, and in a lost work against heresies, which Irenaeus used as his main source) and Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses) recount the myth of Simon and Helene. According to this myth, which was the center of Simonian religion, in the beginning God had his first thought, his Ennoia (see Sophia), which was female, and that thought was to create the angels. The First Thought then descended into the lower regions and created the angels. But the angels rebelled against her out of jealousy and created the world as her prison, imprisoning her in a female body. Thereafter, she was reincarnated many times, each time being shamed. Her many reincarnations included Helen of Troy; among others, and she finally was reincarnated as Helene, a slave and prostitute in the Phoenician city of Tyre. God then descended in the form of Simon Magus, to rescue his Ennoia. Having redeemed her from slavery, he travelled about with her, proclaiming himself to be God and her to be the Ennoia, promising that he would dissolve this world the angels had made, but that those who trusted in him and Helene could return with them to the higher regions.

Don't John McCain, with his god-like promises of the utter defeat of Evil on earth , and Sarah Palin as the embodiment of his Idea, suggest parallels to the story above?
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UPDATE (10/10/08): It is interesting that Kyle Cupp has now posted this reflection on Senator McCain's "religiosity" on his excellent blog, Postmodern Papist.
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Reflections: Geriatric Serenade

WILD THING

YOU MAKE MY HEART SING

YOU MAKE EVERYTHING

GROOO-VY!

C'MON, C'MON

WILD THING...

Reflections: OMG

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It's official: John McCain is senile.

He thinks he can see Spain from his house.

(Which one?)

He can't remember.
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Reflections: Too Much of a Good Thing

There is a massive irony lodged in the gut of the American political system. The political left, one of the chief characteristics of which is a constant, strident call for more democracy, has, in national elections over the past fifty years, been repeatedly defeated by the very democratic impulse that it strives to nurture.

Over and over again, Democratic candidates, their surrogates and supporters, as well as liberal elements of the media, have pointed out to the American public that the men being put forward as presidential candidates by the Republican Party were just not bright enough for the job. Those same candidates have responded with Aw, shucks--just plain folks campaigns that have largely been successful. Candidates such as Eisenhower, Reagan, and Bush 43, have all worked this gimmick successfully, even though the results of their presidencies have shown the liberal message to have been both truthful and predictive. And now (amazingly enough) even McCain, the multimillionaire consort of a beer distributorship heiress and the son and grandson of Navy Admirals, seems to be utilizing this tactic successfully against the true “man of the people,” Barack Obama.

Obama’s sin is to have--against all odds--succeeded. By accomplishing more than could ever have been predicted for the mixed-race son of a single mom, Obama has left Joe Sixpack, Joe Lunchbucket, and Billy Joe McShmoe behind, trapped in their addictions and their entertainments, their consequentially meaningless lives, and their unrewarding series of dead-end jobs; has left them--yes--clinging to their guns and their flat-earth version of religion. Ah’m jist as good as you are, they drawl—knowing full well, deep down inside, where that last bucket of KFC is lodged, generating suet and bowel gas, that they ain’t. Not really. But, by Gawd, they can vote for the man (or babe) who tells them that they are.

The problem, ironically, is too much democracy. The Founding Fathers knew the danger. We have clearly forgotten it.

Reflections: Night Sweats for Johnny Mac

Here is one worry with which Barack Obama does not need to cope as a result of choosing Joe Biden as his running mate. To wit:

It is Rodak’s 23rd Law of Popular Culture that:

Of any woman who has posed with a motorcycle, nekkid pitchers exist.

And further that:

Any such pitchers that exist will emerge to be posted on the web.

This is an age-old law -- much, much older than motorcycles. For instance, the lady whose lovely form adorns my previous post provides alluring proof of this Law of Nature. In her day, of course, there were not yet motorcycles upon which to pose. When she graced the earth with her beauty, the clue was provided by having had one’s portrait made riding a strong stallion astride, rather than sidesaddle. Posing in a state of nature was as certain follow as night the day.

Sleep well while you can, John McCain; the wheels of that Big Chopper, Fate, are inexorably turning.