In my youth, I did benefit from a great State program that tried to invigorate the arts... it took its cue from the High School of the Performing Arts, and created a kind of serious short-bus art and theater school for the gifted and talented. We had a whole abandoned elementary school to ourselves. On the art side, it modeled itself on a kind of atelier/apprentice arrangement, where a practicing artist taught in an intensive studio setting. We had total creative freedom, the finest supplies, and we showed our work periodically, and were able to sell it. So we got a taste of the art world from soup to nuts. And got to hobnob with some pretty seriously famous artists, who came to our shows, and talked to us.

Having the state through schools (or other state-sponsored programs) take part in developing talent seems like a good and useful thing. But as far as paying for specific output, that's another thing.

Unfortunately, society doesn't think of artists that way, really. Artists and other creative types aren't perceived as gainfully employed. That's a stigma that persists to this day.

Well, sure. Our society is set up to reward productivity and making money. Art is more "art for art's sake" unless it's commercial art, right? But implicit in the very existence of time and money spent on art is a very important question: What is life for? Is life only to be utilitarian or can it be something more? Is the be-all, end-all of your son or daughter to find a high-paying career, or instead to perhaps rise above the cattle-crowd and think deeper and higher thoughts? That is an inherent part of art. It's to be slightly on the outside and see things from a non-mundane perspective. That's surely at least one reason art is resisted. It's mere existence tends to show our own motives which are pretty dull and pedestrian much of the time. Art is an inherently holy act of sorts. It rejects the notion that all there is and that is important is to put food on the table, be a success, and pump out a lot of children. From a completely pragmatic, minimalist, and utilitarian Darwinian perspective, our lives are about nothing more than survival and reproduction, about having kids, earning lots of money, gaining vast prestige, and gaining an advantage over competitors. And how many lives are lived as bland, automatic, unconscious, and un-artful as that? Plenty. And the scary thing is, you can see the advantage of such a purely materialist orientation just in terms of surviving and thriving in the material world. It can be no accident why artists are so often poor. They are outside the mainstream of what drives the world to a large extent.

So art is one of those things that I think inherently requires an infusion and jump-start. If we're not to be laying in our own piss on dirt floors throwing feces at each other, we need to make an effort to live a bit more artfully, to surround ourselves with beautiful things and to perhaps even appreciate more than just money or power as having value. Supporting art classes in schools is a great way to do that. But to just write blank checks for the production of art via the government leads to problems, at least in our modern world. Patronage is obviously nothing new to art, but why not leave it to those who can do so and do so by choice? Art survived just fine as far as I know without massive government support of the finished product. But support for classes in public schools seems very appropriate, as does some support for art schools themselves. There are many things that can be cut before we cut those things. But there's no damn reason to support PBS, for instance. The variety of great public and cable channels shows that the idea that the free market can fill these needs is not just a theory. It works. It has supplied fantastic programming, and in a wide variety. The government doesn't need to become involved in producing content, but I see nothing wrong with it getting involved in helping to train general skills.

quote:

Art is more "art for art's sake" unless it's commercial art, right?

That's a pretty modern idea. And yet even "art for art's sake" is assigned a value, and a whole industry has grown up around its display, buying, and selling.

So I don't see the productivity of the fine art world being any different from that of the theatrical world, or film and tv, or the commercial art world. There's actually more money to be made in fine arts, if you look at the per-work prices of the most celebrated artists.

And yet, even bangers can sell their paintings at crafts and state fairs. And still people see artists as outsiders, people who sit back and collect free money for throwing paint.

There's even more respect for professional ATHLETES and their huge salaries, than there is for professional artists. When an artist gets hurt, they don't still get a paycheck like athletes do.

I think part of it is that the professions which people really LOVE to do, are seen as less serious than those where you slave away at a desk all day. Painting and sculpture, and other fine arts are almost seen as leisure activities rather than jobs.

In some cases, the same holds true for actors. Many people scoff at the huge salaries and celebrity that people get for simply playing make-believe. But top-tier artists seldom get the same celebrity and notoriety. With a couple of exceptions.

Anyway, I think FAR more kids are encouraged to become rappers or basketball players than they are artists. The myth of the starving artist is alive and well.

That's a pretty modern idea. And yet even "art for art's sake" is assigned a value, and a whole industry has grown up around its display, buying, and selling.

Do you think the art world tends to do what it can to promote this idea? I mean, I do find pleasure in art, but there must be more than just the love of brushstrokes going on when someone spends millions for some painting.

I think part of it is that the professions which people really LOVE to do, are seen as less serious than those where you slave away at a desk all day. Painting and sculpture, and other fine arts are almost seen as leisure activities rather than jobs.

As you said, a lot of people do make money at art. But isn't art in the same league as professional athletes, musicians, and actors? Only a few make it really big, although plenty can eek out a respectable living. Certainly there must be some love involved. I live in a big Navy town (and thank god for the Navy and our sailors), but no one is born wanting to work in a shipyard. It's what you do to get by. And although I suppose there are those who are thrilled with the idea of being dentists, doctors, or lawyers, I have to think that a large part of the calculation is getting into a professional that earns money and has a lot of prestige (not that dentists have all that much prestige). And certainly you have to have some built-in talents in order to be good at those things. But art just seems to exist on another plain to some extent. It's big business in terms of movies, plays, books, TV, music, etc. That's a big part of our lives consuming that stuff, and I do consider The Beatles and Lawrence of Arabia to be high forms of art. But then there's that huge swath of art such as painting and sculpturing that have a more specialized appeal. I confess I find it hard to appreciate the talent and art in some piece of pottery that I see in a museum. But arguably there is more creativity in that than in, say, the Transformers movie. One is noticed by almost no one. One is noticed by nearly everyone.

You've got to let the free market work. You can't force people to like art. And it's no use bemoaning popular tastes. But even popular tastes may come around to wanting something less vacuous than the Transformers. But there's so much more involved in art. I think it's obvious that art is highly subjective and its value is every-changing and inherently grounded in ego, status, and the desire to accumulate all those and wealth besides. And maybe the "starving artists" is the purity of purpose that art needs. It's the infusion of a type of piety that is needed lest the entire art world collapse into utter pretentiousness. Perhaps you need those people slaving away in obscurity for the love of art alone in order for art to truly be important and not just be a commodity of pretentiousness.

But top-tier artists seldom get the same celebrity and notoriety.

I think we should make up trading cards of the famous artists. They would have a little bio on the back, and on front would be a small portrait of them superimposed over one of their more famous works. "Collect the entire set!" We could make them into action figures. Maybe even endorsements. Wheaties. The breakfast of sculptors!

There's an interesting program on the History Channels that shows all the things made out of oil, including aspirin, contact lenses, tooth brushes, and all kinds of stuff. 35% of a barrel of oil goes to these kinds of products. It's a nice antidote to the ludicrous and hysterical demonization of oil by the left in this country.

I just watched the "World Peace" episode of Penn & Teller's "Bullshit"... I laughed through the whole thing. Not really because the quips were all that funny, but because all I could do was picture brother Brad watching this episode and his head exploding.

The show focused on various left wing peace groups like "Code Pink." Oh my sweet merciful tapdancing christ. You think you know how crazy these people are. Until they have a few minutes in front of the camera to prove it.

The red-shirted fag who was the spokesperson of another one of these groups was worth the price of admission. Basically a radical socialist. I mean, it was unbelievable. Again, Brad, you have to see this... I picture cocking my ear towards the west coast and hearing a distant sound like the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo when you do.

Isn't there any way you can find somebody with TIVO and cable to record a few bullshits for you?

but because all I could do was picture brother Brad watching this episode and his head exploding.

LOL. I gotta queue up some more Bullshit if they've got them.

My brother has Tivo. I'll see if his cable system has Bullshit. Don't get me wrong. I love Penn & Teller. I love them because they are truth-tellers for the most part. But they're a little late to the party. But I’m damn glad to have them at the party. I swear, I'm going to type in that whole friggin' chapter from brother Sowell's book. He really crystallizes and describes very well the Neville Chamberlain mindset. I mean, you know I'd fall on a grenade for Pinker. And Sowell is one of those few others who I am just so damned impressed with. So little bullshit. Right to the heart of things. Minds like steel traps and all that. And yet, guys like Penn & Teller can potentially have much more impact because they are hip. They don't have the baggage of being known as conservatives. To a lot of people, that turns their minds off right there. But truth is truth, and I think Penn & Teller deal in it in spades. But there's a lot of work to be done. It's taken quite a while to convince my own brothel that chiropracty (other than relaxation and the placebo effect) was a waste of time because there is no scientific evidence or theory supporting that industry. None. It's all pseudo-science.

quote:

Chiropractic was dreamed up in Davenport, Iowa, in 1895 by a guy named Daniel David Palmer. Unburdened by any formal medical training (not that medical training circa 1895 was always so great), Palmer was a devotee of phrenology, magnetic therapy, and other metaphysically inclined notions of the era, and he conceived of chiropractic as a "philosophy, art, and science" of healing. Its core premises: (1) the body is possessed of an "innate intelligence" that permits it, under ordinary circumstances, to repair itself as needed; (2) this innate intelligence is transmitted through the nervous system, and disease is usually caused by disruptions in the "nerve flow" resulting from "subluxation," or misalignment, of the vertebrae; therefore (3) pretty much any ailment — deafness, heart trouble, you name it — can be treated by manual adjustments to the spine. (Hence the chiro- part, from a Greek root meaning "hand"; practice means "practical," as opposed to theoretical.) Such an adjustment would typically consist of an abrupt push or pull on the back or neck, involving about the same range of movement as cracking your knuckles.

In other words, bullshit. We're so much better off without bullshit. Life is difficult enough to navigate without having to carry an industrial-grade shovel around with you all the time. But that is necessary. The left in this country is crazy. When I and others say they hate this country, evidence is something like this current situation where they are trying to hamstring the country from producing energy. This is appalling, or should be. But just like chiropracty, you hear the lies long enough, you sort of get used to them. They're no longer as shocking. So I think that's such a great title to the P&T series. "Bullshit" is just the word needed.

China is basically the model of where the left wants to take us. They are the good guys to people like Jane Fonda. China is about state control and coming up with all kinds of Orwellian reasons why that's a good thing. And for those with eyes to see, that's what Obama is all about. That's where Nancy Pelosi and her ilk wish to take this country. Me, I'm not so interested in the politics anymore as much as I am in the psychology of it all. I mean, these issues aren't that difficult. Want more energy? Then produce more. All the arguments coming from the left are just dodges for something else. Doesn't mean the right is right by contrast. They're rather weak and ineffectual at the moment which is one big reason these bastards are running amok like they are right now. Too many of them are afraid of becoming targets of criticism. Hell comes when everyone tries to be the last one eaten by the alligator. So few people (like Reagan) are willing to stand up to them. I mean, picture that. Look at how Russia is throwing it's weight around, being belligerent, and basically being evil. Flash back to the 80's when there were vast crowds of hugely vociferous Helsinki-rollers who were protesting Reagan's (and NATO's) decision to beef up their missile defenses to match the upgrades the Russians had done. When people like Dan Flynn and others say the left hates this country, they have reasons for saying that. There is a track record, including wackos like Code Pink. But a lot of these views have become mainstream. We see this in Obama's ascendancy. Really, it ain't that many leaps until we're basically a Red Chinese country. It could happen in as little as 30 years if no one fights back. We see how frail our Constitutional protections (such as the right to own guns) can be in the face of this persistent threat from the left. It's not Brad's fantasy. It's real. Those claiming otherwise are what Lenin called "useful idiots."

They're going to replay that wonderful History Channel Modern Marvels "Secrets of Oil" program either this Saturday (at 7 or 10), or next Saturday. I knew they used oil for a lot of things but had no idea they were doing all that. So you'll be able to see the many wonderful capitalist industries that Democrats and the left have been demonizing and trying to put out of business for years. Hostile-to-business makes one hostile to freedom. It also, by contrast and necessity, makes one friendly with state control as an alternative. The Olympics are giving us a wonderful exposition of what that's all about.

Krauthammer (the conservative lunatic) has a pretty good article on energy:

No Will To Drill: The Democrats Resist Logic — and Politics

quote:

The green fuels the Democrats insist we should be investing in are as yet uneconomical, speculative technologies, still far more expensive than extracted oil and natural gas. We could be decades away. And our economy is teetering. Why would you not drill to provide a steady supply of proven fuels for the next few decades as we make the huge technological and economic transition to renewable energy?


Congressional Democrats demand instead a clampdown on "speculators." The Democrats proposed this a month ago. In the meantime, "speculators" have driven the price down by $25 a barrel. Still want to stop them? In what universe do traders only bet on the price going up?


On Monday, Obama outlined a major plan with mandates and immense government investment in such things as electric cars and renewables. Fine, let's throw a few tens of billions at this and see what sticks. But success will require not just huge amounts of money. It will require equally huge amounts of time and luck.


On the other hand, drilling requires no government program, no newly created bureaucracy, no pie-in-the-sky technologies that no one has yet invented. It requires only one thing, only one act. Lift the moratorium. Private industry will do the rest. And far from draining the treasury, it will replenish it with direct taxes and with the indirect taxes from the thousands of non-subsidized new jobs created.

I think the greater point is in the headline, and Krauthammer doesn't really touch on that much, is the Democrats' willingness to take everyone else down in flames with them as they hold onto their narrow and illogical ideology like Branch Davidians in a flaming barn.

THe 3 A.M. Phone Call is Real
by Mona Charen

quote:

Hillary Clinton's best anti-Obama ad came to be known as the "3 a.m. phone call." It stoked voter worries that in the event of an international crisis, the first-term junior senator from Illinois might be out of his depth. On Aug. 8, the White House phone did ring, alerting President Bush that the Soviet Union, um, that is, Russia, had just sent columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers across the internationally recognized border of Georgia (formerly the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia), a tiny, democratic, America-friendly, Western-leaning country in the Caucasus mountains.


It was a near perfect laboratory test — the sort that real life rarely provides until it's too late — for how the two nominees for president would respond to an international emergency. (It also tested the current president — more on that in a moment.) Sen. Obama flunked. His first response was to urge restraint upon "both sides" — that is upon the rapist and the rape victim....

Sen. McCain's response was more muscular. He condemned Russia and urged her to "immediately and unconditionally cease ... military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory ... The consequences of Euro-Atlantic stability and security are grave." McCain urged the U.N. Security Council to meet on the matter, but strengthened the point by adding that the "US should immediately work with the E.U. and the OSCE to put diplomatic pressure on Russia to reverse this perilous course that it has chosen," and, "We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia's security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation." Later, McCain also urged that the U.S. convene "an emergency meeting of the G-7 foreign ministers" and offered the view that Russia was seeking more than the independence of South Ossetia, but was instead looking to overthrow the democratically elected government of Mikheil Saakashvili. His use of the term G-7 was significant, since it presaged his later call to throw Russia out of the group that has become the G-8. Noting that Georgia is home to the only oil pipeline that feeds Caspian oil to the west outside of Russian territory or control, he warned, "We must remind Russia's leaders that the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world require their respect for the values, stability and peace of that world."

Oh, and what the hell's wrong with Kobe Bryant? I think he just blew his chances for becoming Obama's running mate. Kobe isn't afraid to say he loves his country:

quote:

It's pretty moving to watch a pampered professional jock show more patriotism than the Democratic candidate for president, more pride in his country than the democratic candidate's wife, and more awareness of this country's opportunities than a liberal NBC announcer.

Kobe Bryant tells liberal NBC host that its OK to be patriotic and support your country.

Last night typical liberal tool and NBC announcer Chris Collinsworth interviewed Kobe Bryant of Team U.S.A. basketball's "Redeem Team."

Collinsworth asked Kobe about what it felt like when he first got his U.S.A. uniform, and how he felt about representing the United States of America...
And, is it really "cool" to be proud of your country today?

Collinsworth: Tell the story when you first got your USA uniform.

Kobe: Well I had goosebumps and I actually just looked at it for awhile. I just held it there and I laid it across my bed and I just stared at it for a few minutes; just because as a kid growing up this is the ultimate, ultimate in basketball.

Collinsworth: Where does the patriotism come from inside of you? Historically, what is it?

Kobe: Well, you know it’s just our country, it’s... we believe is the greatest country in the world. It has given us so many great opportunities, and it’s just a sense of pride that you have; that you say "You know what? Our country is the best!"

Collinsworth: Is that a ‘cool’ thing to say, in this day and age? That you love your country, and that you’re fighting for the red, white and blue? It seems sort of like a day gone by(?)

Kobe: No, it’s a cool thing for me to say. I feel great about it, and I’m not ashamed to say it. I mean, this is a tremendous honor.

Did anyone see the Saddleback symposium with Senators Hussein and McCain last weekend.

McCain kicked Senator Husseins ass so bad Camp Hussien is charging that McCain cheated.

One question they were asked was which supreme court justice would you have not nominated. Senator Hussein immediately said Clarence Thomas. Imagine that Hussein would have denied an afro-american a chance to serve on the highest court. Senator Hussein stumbled on his reason for not nominating Thomas was his lack of experience. Lack of experience there has never been any one in the history of this country with such a lack of experience to be the nominee for President from a major party than Senator Hussein.

Senator Hussein made a fool of himself on Saturday. He sounded like a stuttering moron. I thought he was supposed to be intelligent?

My liberal friends have been sending me an email with the link to the latest viral videos, entitled "The REAL McCain"... here's the site...

The latest one is about McCain the elitist and his ten homes. Juxtaposed with video of an emotional woman facing a foreclosure.

This is a classic example of the propagandist's art. And it does succeed in painting McCain as a worse elitist than even Obama, which is taking one's own weakness and projecting it onto your opponent. For things like marrying a rich wife, and making real estate investments.

But who's the real elitist?

Mr. Smith aside, to me, those who actually want to go to Washington to try to write laws to tell us all what we can and can't do are all sort of elitists. I mean, I think the profession of politics tends to attract the elitist types. And as long as those elitists are John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, you're alright. We should talk about what type of elitist.

quote:

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney summed it up best when he said McCain "simply doesn't understand the challenges America's working families are facing because he isn't remotely affected by them."

If I hear that phrase "working families" one more time -- from either party -- I think my neck veins are going to explode. Yes, like I really expect politicians to focus all their efforts on non-working families. And for the Democratic Party, who are the biggest instigators of policies that facilitate being a bum rather than working, they should talk. First off (and I admit to being dumb in this area, but am trying to learn some things about economics), I think I can trust one of the statistics that Thomas Sowell has mentioned in one of his books. Basically if you add up the truly rich and the truly poor in this country, their numbers are staggeringly small. Doesn't matter how much the Democratic Party gins up the numbers for it's own marketing campaign. (They claim every tax cut is for the "rich," and seem to think the whole country is on the verge of the poor house if not for them.) About 90% or more of the people are middle class. They're not poor and they're not rich. It's no surprise that you have to look beyond the political rhetoric to get to the facts, but I was somewhat mildly surprised at this one. But it's easy enough to fall to the false perceptions that we're inundated with.

On the Republican side of the ledger, I want my politicians to be rich. The richer the better because that not only shows they know how capitalism works (as well as that they know how to do real work), but it might make them just that much more independent. John McCain has ten luxury homes? I wish he had 20. But the hypocrisy of hypocrisies is this idea that the Democrats are just "one of the little guys." At least on the national scale, they tend to be as rich as Republicans, if not richer. But let's remember the example of the Founding Fathers. These men were not poor. And who wants to be governed by the least successful people? Unless one wishes to keep pounding the ideas of Marx and demonize those who have money, we should remember that the Founding Fathers were very successful men. And you would by and large expect the smartest, wisest, and hardest working people to make it to the top. Things have changed a little bit since those times. Most of those FF's were farmers, lawyers, or otherwise actively involved in making an honest living. But there are many dweebs in this day and age who dream of being a politician from the age of five. I think that's obscene. I truly do. One must first work for a living before telling everyone else how they're supposed to live their lives. We have far too many career politicians these days who, like Obama, have done little else than be an activist busy-body or a politician.

What counts is experience, integrity, and good ideas. I could care less if someone is rich or poor, although I see advantages in a politician being rich. And to keep demonizing people because of their success is Karl Marx talking, not Benjamin Franklin. Whether or not America will keep swallowing this noxious stuff is what I think this election is about. These bastard Democrats want nothing less than an entire cultural revolution. That's one reason their rhetoric is so inflated.

Actually, from the snippets I heard on Rush's and Medved's shows, I'm liking John McCain a little more than I did a month ago, although I'll need much more evidence that he's not just blowing conservative smoke up my ass. He is who he is, which is especially good regarding issues such as national defense where Obama proves himself to be a real rube.

which is taking one's own weakness and projecting it onto your opponent.

Yeah, a lot of projecting going on. I agree.

One question they were asked was which supreme court justice would you have not nominated. Senator Hussein immediately said Clarence Thomas.

One can certainly disagree about Supreme Court nominees and justices. The Democrats (and some Republicans) have nominated and confirmed some real fruit loops. But if you look past the Marxist rhetoric and liberal hysteria, Clarence Thomas has been a rock. Yes, of course, he's had the very bad taste to actually assume that the words in the Constitution are to be interpreted in the context of not only what words mean legally, but what the original intent of those words are. I still have to get around to reading Scalia's opinion regarding that recent DC 2nd Amendment case. But from what I've read, it sounds like Scalia shows how that all works. You look at the U.S. Constitution not as a document written by those who all along wanted it to be ignored and be as flexible as a rubber band, but who were trying to encode into law a very well thought out and logical political structure and philosophy. Only in this modern day do we fuss about what the meaning of the word "is" is. Those who say the Constitution is a "living document" want you to believe that its something that can be used to empower and legalize whatever the political fashion of the day is. That is not what the Founding Fathers intended, nor can we have the rule of law if its always at the whim of short-term cultural fetishes and fads.

Obviously I have not followed Thomas' Supreme Court opinions with a fine tooth comb. But I've read various of his articles and have seen him speak on TV a time or two. He seems like he has an extremely solid intellect. The problem is, according the PC, liberal, and Democratic dogma, if you're black you're not supposed to be a conservative. You're supposed to be fighting those bastards who we all know are for enslaving blacks, keeping them down, and keeping in place highly racist policies all over the country. And part of that fight means (because of the righteousness of your cause) that you can use any and all means to defeat these bastards, including screwing with the Constitution. If you're black and you're not a liberal reformer, you're a waste of a black, maybe even a traitor. I mean, do you suppose that Obama really found logical fault with various of Thomas' legal opinions? Or is it more likely that he dislikes Thomas, and all those who are like him, simply because Thomas isn't "one of us" and is therefore an impediment to yet another cultural revolution that another set of rubes want to foist on us? Wouldn't you suppose he'd be tickled pink (brown?) to have a black man sitting on the highest court in the land of the most powerful country in the world? Wouldn't that be a sign of true progress? I mean, say what you will about Thomas, but why should someone regret that we have a Supreme Court justice on the bench who plays careful with the Constitution instead of fast and loose? And if you oppose people such as this, what in the world is it that you want instituted, and what means and methods won't you stoop to using to achieve it? Is your ideology of such magnitude that you can't just be pleased with the quite weighty accomplishments of another black man? And, lastly, is Obama even qualified to pass judgment on Thomas? As one commentator or politician had put it, they've had leftovers in their refrigerator longer than Obama has been a Senator.

Apparently Jeremiah Wright, the guy who says "God damn America," is the kind of black that Obama thinks is the right kind. Clarence Thomas, a careful and strict constructionist in regards to our founding document (which I think is showing great respect for that document) isn't the right kind of black. But as Rush pointed out today on his show, Thomas is by far exactly the kind of black you'd want to root for, if you're into rooting for underdogs and people who have to overcome perhaps more than their share of obstacles. Obama had a privileged life, as did his wife. And according to this Wiki article:

quote:

Clarence Thomas was born in Pin Point, Georgia in a small Gullah-speaking community outside Savannah.[2] He learned to speak the Gullah languages as a child, but purposely sought to downplay the language in favor of assimilation into his English speaking class.[3] His father left his family when he was only two years old,[4] leaving his mother Leola Anderson to take care of the family. When Thomas was seven they went to live with his mother's father, Myers Anderson, in Savannah. He had a fuel oil business that also sold ice; Thomas often helped him make deliveries.

His grandfather believed in hard work and self-reliance and would counsel him to "never let the sun catch you in bed in the morning." In 1975, when Thomas read Race and Economics by economist Thomas Sowell, he found an intellectual foundation for this philosophy.[4] The book criticized social reforms by government and instead argued for individual action to overcome circumstances and adversity.

No, the problem with Thomas is not that his skin color isn't right (which was an old measure for segregating people). The problem is that his political color isn't right. But same result. No matter how hard Thomas may work, no matter what he may achieve, he's never going to be good enough in the eyes of those with leftist values. And if you're on the left, you have special rules for people depending on what their political color is. As David Horowitz and so many others have carefully documented, on a large percentage of the colleges and universities in America, if you don't hold the PC/liberal/leftist/Marxist point of view, you don't have the same rights. You don't have the same rights to speak. You don't have the same rights to be heard. You don't have the same protections for the speech you do speak which is precisely what "hate speech" laws are all about. It's the modern equivalent of "whites only" water fountains. And who can forget the public lynching they tried to put on Thomas during his conformation hearings? That was disgraceful. The party of diversity is not for any such thing. As someone wiser than me said, "diversity" to the PC types means everybody looking different but thinking the same.

Granted, I don't suppose Clarence is yet god's gift to the Supreme Court. But he's hardly the fool that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is. And from reading around the web, and from what I already know, his main sin seems to be his opposition to affirmative action. But no thinking person, especially after the disgraceful practice of slavery, should be for treating people differently merely because of the color of their skin. But that distinction now belongs to the left, and I can hardly damn Clarence Thomas for thinking that the policies and laws of the United States should not be applied differently depending on one's skin color. After all, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution states "no state shall… deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Things like that are impediments to those who want to do otherwise. Thomas' sin is in not perverting our most fundamental laws and principles for Marxist-based ideas of equality and justice. Thank god, if there is a god, for Clarence Thomas.

A better question, as far as I'm concerned, would have been what supreme court nominee that wasn't confirmed, would you appoint instantly if given the chance?

And if the answer wasn't Judge Robert Bork, I'd be suspicious of the politician's judgement.

That was a guy who not only should have sailed through confirmation, he should have been the chief justice.

I've been meaning to read his book "Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline." What a friggin' great title.

.
You think someone partisan enough to write a book with that title should be Chief Justice of the United States?

You think someone partisan enough to write a book with that title should be a judge in Small Claims Court?
.

Robert Bork is an American, free to have political views, and free to write a book about them. He is no longer a standing judge, and didn't write the book when he was a standing judge. And if you've listened to him during his confirmation hearings, or read their transcripts, I think you'll see that we missed out on a unique and amazing legal mind. One who was, in fact, not partisan from the bench... ever. His reverence for the Constitution was too strong. Prominent in his testimony was the idea of not "legislating from the bench"... a turn of phrase that's still in use today.

The idea of partisanship in a Supreme Court justice was repugnant to him, as it should be to everyone. Of course, that's exactly what most modern-day liberals seem to want.

The behavior of Edward Kennedy in those hearings is today still a black mark on his career. Though many liberals continue to congratulate him for it. It wasn't even civil. But I thought Bork handled himself wonderfully. There are not many intellects like his on the planet. Not many with as deep an understanding of the Constitution and the law. It seems to me, the more originalists we have on the Supreme Court, the better. Whether they are liberal or conservative in their politics. That's what TRUMPS their politics, and allows them to be effective jurists, because it forbids the injection of personal values into their interpretation.

I've been meaning to read his book "Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline." What a friggin' great title.

I don't know all that much about Robert Bork's legal mind, but he just doesn't seem to have been "Borked" at all. I mean, he's not an angry, bitter man from what I can tell from the many interviews I've seen him give. Me, I'd be trying to bring down these bastards until the last breath of life was in my body. You'd probably catch the last glimpse of me on the evening news; just a flash and a column of smoke as I walk into the DNC and set off my bomb vest. I mean, they really did a crummy job on him. Sometimes I cringe when Markle's Worst Nightmare keeps harping on Ted Kennedy. I'm not sure that even that guy deserves such treatment, even though he did leave Mary Jo to die a horrible and probably slow death while he slipped back home, put on dry clothes, went to bed, and in the morning walked out as if he was absolutely unaware that anything was amiss. Robert Bork's great sin is that he wasn't a liberal/leftist, plain and simple. Me, I don't feel the need to destroy people merely because they disagree with me. Fact is, often enough the other side has a part of the truth as well, even if they're too stupid to know it. And anyone with even a passing knowledge of history and human nature knows that it is the people who are the know-it-alls, who think they have all sides of the argument covered, are the people to be afraid of. Adams and Jefferson. Jefferson and Adams. I side more with Adams, of course, but Jefferson had his points. It's often the tension between the two that creates the brilliance. But to just do a number on Bork the way they did shows their hysterical, maniacal, fascist tendencies.

But as for the Constitution, we get into so much trouble when we ignore it (as we originally did when we allowed slavery) or pervert it later (try to ban guns when clearly their is a provision for owning them). If we wish to ban guns in this country, for instance, it is the right and proper procedure to amend the Constitution. But these back-door approaches that leftists try are dangerous because they pervert the rule of law itself. Granted, in any law there is a range of interpretation involved. This is the small truth that the disingenuous and power-mad left inflates to all this "living document" bullshit.

Okay, I think Markle may have motivated me sufficiently to read Bork's book. LOL. Still working my way through Sowell. But that could take years. So much to read, so little time. But, yeah, a great title for a book indeed.

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That's what TRUMPS their politics, and allows them to be effective jurists, because it forbids the injection of personal values into their interpretation.

And yet Scalia's opinions just drip with his personal values...along with snarls and insults toward anyone who disagrees with him.
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Personal values are inherent to the process. One of the values of a strict constructionist like Scalia is to not let their desire for some particular outcome override the legal details of the matter. (If you don't want people owning guns, for instance, then repeal or amend the 2nd Amendment.) I consider that to be a superior value to those who willingly distort the legal language and make it conform to their desired outcomes. The rule of law requires the former. Totalitarians love the latter. It gives them license to do anything, all because they merely desire it. We tried that approach for tens of thousands of years in human history, and it was a bloodbath.