Another reason why I link to www.jerrypournelle.com
This will probably offend Cacciaguida, The Young Fogey, and DarwinCatholic, but possibly not Dad29. But, unlike liberal Episcopalians, they can take both a joke, and a point.
How can you tell if a conservative is pro- or anti-Miers? Based on my conversations with conservative friends this week, here's a good rule of thumb. Ask the conservative to define the following words or phrases and see what he says.
"Blackberry"
Anti-Miers: A handheld device that allows you to get e-mail and access the Internet. The biggest problem is when the battery runs low. You solve the problem by carrying a charger.
Pro-Miers: A delicious berry that you find in the woods. The biggest problem is that bears love them too. You solve that problem by carrying a .44 Magnum.
"Friends"
Anti-Miers: A popular TV show that looked at cultural and sexual mores.
Pro-Miers: People you invite over to your house
"$20 Snifter of Cognac"
Anti-Miers: Not a bad price for a great brandy at a nice bar.
Pro-Miers: An outrageous price for a drink. Where we people live, you can get a two-pound T-bone steak dinner and a drink for $20.
"Meet the Press"
Anti-Miers: Must-see TV.
Pro-Miers: We are too busy going to church. Besides, who really cares what they say?
"December"
Anti-Miers: A period of increased cultural sensitivity when you have to wish people a "Happy Holiday" instead of "Merry Christmas" for fear of offending them.
Pro-Miers: Merry Christmas!
"A List"
Anti-Miers: The type of party you want to be invited to.
Pro-Miers: What you don't want to get from your wife on Saturday morning.
"Assault Weapons"
Anti-Miers: A class of weapons that anti-Miers conservatives use in their legal arguments concerning the meaning and extent of the Second Amendment. Although anti Miers conservatives favor the ownership of assault weapons, they probably have never touched or fired one.
Pro-Miers: A nice varmint gun, although it doesn't have enough range or accuracy to shoot wary prairie dogs. They aren't as good as Dad's old M1 Garand.
"Democracy"
Anti-Miers: A Broadway play.
Pro-Miers: One of the things that makes America great.
"Antonin Scalia"
Anti-Miers: A brilliant legal scholar with libertarian tendencies. A good Supreme Court justice.
Pro-Miers: Who? Oh, the guy who hunts with the vice president and belongs to a gun club in Virginia. A good Supreme Court justice.
"The Buzz"
Anti-Miers: What "everybody who is anybody" is talking about.
Pro-Miers: What hornets, bees, wasps and yellow jackets do.
"Hunting"
Anti-Miers: A method for thinning wildlife populations that allows a rural American tradition to continue.
Pro-Miers: A chance to get together with some friends on a weekend and have a good time. We never let the hunting get in the way of having fun, however.
"Cowboy"
Anti-Miers: A metaphor for the American tendency to act aggressively. What makes America a great power.
Pro-Miers: The guy we see at the diner, who works on a ranch or travels the rodeo circuit. A term that is rarely applied, and when it is, is a compliment.
"John Deere"
Anti-Miers: A riding lawn mower.
Pro-Miers: A tractor.
"Paris Hilton"
Anti-Miers: A cultural icon.
Pro-Miers: A hotel in France. Although I wouldn't know, because why would I want to go to Paris on vacation when I can go camping?
"Big Bore"
Anti-Miers: A person who corners you at an A List cocktail party.
Pro-Miers: A rifle that you need for hunting elephant or cape buffalo.
posted by Bernard Brandt at 9:41 PM
8 Comments:
Well, if valid, this list signals a profound upending of the American conservative movement. For decades, the grassroots have been MORE ideological, the elites LESS so. Now you're suggesting it's the opposite.
I watch with a certain detachment, b/c my cultural reflexes are generally what people would call "elite" (I identify with all the "anti-Miers" answers in this post). But my reasons for despising Miers are not that she's not elite enough -- I'be be positively glad to see that Yale-Harvard-Stanford stranglehold on the Court broken -- but that she's (a) not conservative enough, and (b) not smart enough. In that order, though smarts are important too.
I have a feeling that if you nailed a prairie dog with an M1 it would explode. A modern assault rifle round like the .223 might actually be a much better idea...
:-)
Getting the little bastards to explode is the whole point of the exercise. It's almost as much fun as putting a gremlin in the microwave (I was going to say "hamster", but I decided I didn't want PETA to get mediaeval on my sorry backside).
Seriously though, my uncle Joe came over for my mother's 75th birthday, and he tends to have a bad influence on my sense of humor. After all, you may be able to take the boy out of Oklahoma, but you'll never be able to take the "okie" out of the boy.
And on a more serious note, I would tend to agree that according to what is coming out about Meirs, it is looking more and more clear that she has neither the juristic skills, nor the smarts, to qualify for the job. [whether she is conservative enough is another question. I'd be satisfied if she were able even to question the positivist legal philosophy that is so current these days.]
It's just that some of the elitist BS which is issuing from the mouths of the likes of Ann Coulter either makes me want to spew, or to lap gin from the cat bowl.
You're arguing from a false premise. Ann Coulter went to Cornell. That's nothing to get elitist about. For what it's worth, I blogged about this point myself.
Dear Mrs. Dashwood:
Thank you for your kind entry, and for your endeavor at correction of such a sorry soul as myself.
Nonetheless, I fear that you may be in error as regards my proceeding from a false premise.
If I may be permitted to present the enthymeme of my thought in this regard, Mr. Coulter stated words to the effect (on Hannity & Colmes on FNC) that she believed that anyone who didn't graduate from an Ivy League college had no business on the Supreme Court. You have informed me that Ms. Coulter graduated from Cornell University. As I recall, while Cornell is the youngest member of the Ivy League, it is still a member. (See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League).
From all this, I believe that I can both logically and validly conclude that Ms. Coulter expressed an elitist and snobbish opinion in the matter, one for which she has a personal interest.
This is rather a pity, because I have thought that otherwise, she was (and perhaps still is) a reasonable and articulate individual.
That said, I must agree with you and your husband, Cacciaguida, that based on the evidence, it is becoming clearer by the day that HEM is not qualified to become a member of the Supreme Court.
And that said, may I have your permission to link your weblog, Mommentary to my links section? As a result of your comment, I've taken the liberty of reading it, and there is some really fine writing there.
How nice of you to ask. Certainly, do link to Mommentary if you like.
I was being a little bit snarky about Cornell, the only Ivy which offers degrees in Home Economics and Hotel Management. I'm from New York, and was very tired of the general view that Cornell was the best school in the universe. I used it for my safety school.
But if the little critters explode, I can't hang their little stuffed heads on my wall as proof of my manly exploits...
If Coulter is running around saying only Ivy League grads should be on the SCOTUS, I'll certainly agree that's silly and intemperate. (To be honestly, that's how I'd describe most of Coulter's writing that I've read...) Heck, one of my own favorites for the slot, Janice Rodgers Brown, went to UCLA, which I would assume is just as far off the Ivy League as SMU.
I think the source of disappointment for most conservatives upset by the appointment is not where Miers graduated from, but rather that she's not a noted conservative legal thinker.
SUNY Ithaca, widely called Cornell, is the dodgiest "member" of the League. Only it's College of Arts and Sciences is technically a member, yet students at its other schools -- including the famous School of Hotel Management -- are allowed to play on its football team.
In fairness, however, other Cornell alumni include Gerard Bradley and Judge Edith Jones.
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