The Dish

A young reader argues that the media still doesn’t get it:

I’m a passionate Ron Paul supporter, as are very many people approximately my age. I don’t have a landline telephone, I’m not a registered Republican and I get practically all of my news from “alternative” resources (such as your blog).  People like me are not on the pollsters’ radar.  As some in the political analysis field have begun to suspect, traditional polling methods are blind to technology driven structural changes in political participation/awareness.  Assuming the online support translates into real efforts to get out the vote, Dr. Paul is a stealthy but real contender.

Another thing worth noting is, I belong to a Ron Paul group on Face Book, the college-networking site. The membership rate of growth has been astounding; I joined a few weeks ago when we numbered a little over 2,000; now we’re at 12,000 and climbing.  I can tell you with confidence that Face Book has been the central hub of the Ron Paul online Blitz with outgrowths and initiatives such as students4paul.com and Republican Caucus Storm. Here’s a small example of how serious we are:

The largest Barack Obama group on Face Book has over 300,000 members. Ron Paul’s 12,000 sound like small potatoes in comparison…at first glance. Our group just finished meeting a $12,008 fundraising goal within 5 days of its inception (the deadline was 6/30). 5 days. Obama’s group of 300K also has a fundraiser and has raised $17,000 — since the founding of the group! That’s well over 90 days.  Publicly displayed records show that Obama’s group had about 700 contributors (which is a .2% participation rate).  Ron Paul’s group has approx 12,300 members at present and met our target with 155 contributors (1% participation rate).  The average donation was $50.  Remember, we’re all college students or recently graduated.  Mathematically speaking, Dr. Paul’s group raised money at a rate of 20 cents per person, per day to meet its goal, while Obama’s group can only muster .06 cents (6/100ths of a cent) pp. pd.  Mathematically, Ron Paul’s supporters are 333 times more passionate (in terms of dollars donated) about their candidate than Obama’s.  This is because Obama’s appeal is mostly superficial.

Additionally, there is a significant difference in the quality and substance of political discussion between the respective membership populations.  Paul’s supporters come from all over the political landscape and are almost universally intelligent; I’ve gotten into debates over economic methodology and arguments over a priori epistemology, discussed the economic incidence of a national sales tax based on elasticity of demand, the noxious history of central banking, and speculation on what a non-interventionist foreign policy would mean for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Amazingly, there is no discernable “group-think”, only independent minds’ coming together under the banner of liberty.  By contrast, Obama’s message boards are populated with regurgitations of his website boilerplate, swipes at other candidates and gushing screeds about how great he is, (admittedly, we have some of that too), how much “hope” he inspires, how he’ll “change” things, because he’s the “future” and various other platitudinal, saccharine adulations. (oh, and “buttsecks").  Also, even with his celebrity and exposure, Obama’s group is bleeding members by the day, while we’ve been growing healthily.

So in closing Andrew, I believe Ron Paul is a major Dark Horse.  With 70% of the public against propping up the clusterf**k of Iraq (one of if not the top issue in America), he’s the only Republican on the same page.  You and I know that all it takes is a small group of impassioned individuals to change the world.

Whatever the merits and demerits of Ron Paul’s candidacy, it has revived interest in many conservative ideas in ways not seen in any other candidacies. We may be about to enter a liberal age. So it’s good to see someone keeping the torch alight for the next generation.

He was a member of the Baker-Hamilton endeavor but didn’t show up for a single meeting. He was too busy raking in millions in speaking fees, exploiting his 9/11 moment. It’s a useful indicator of both his priorities and his complete inarticulacy over foreign policy today. He hasn’t got a clue what to do in Iraq. And if the choice was between serving his country in its most serious foreign policy crisis in a generation … or making over $10 million on a speaking tour, we know where Rudy stands.

Literally this time. Norman Podhoretz makes the case for bombing Iran.

Derb finds a website devoted to conservative defenses of scientific research against the Christianist assault:

Darwin Central, incidentally, is a new pro-science conservative advocacy site and meeting place. We’re about 25% scientists and/or scientifically-trained professionals and 75% laypeople (I’m one of the latter), all of whom share a love of science, and grave concerns about where the country is heading, both in terms of rising scientific illiteracy and the bizarre anti-science sentiment in too many corners of the right, and how it is in consequence allowing the far left to remerge by claiming the mantle of science and reason for itself.

Meanwhile, the "conservative" movement continues on its suicidal fusion with fundamentalist Christianity. Here’s how Andy Shlafly’s "Conservapedia" describes one period in pre-history:

Take the Pleistocene Epoch. Most scientists know it as the ice age and date it back at least 1.6 million years. But Conservapedia calls it "a theorized period of time" — a theory contradicted, according to the entry, by "multiple lines of evidence" indicating that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, as described in the Book of Genesis.

Jesus and Darwin wept.

New York, New York, 2.15 pm.

For an interactive gallery of Dish readers’ window views across the world, click here.

Cliff May misses the point.

Marc Ambinder sums it up:

Let’s take stock of the major developments in PY 2007 – that’s Political Year 2007. There are really only two.

One is – Sen. Barack Obama tried, but has so far failed, to knock Hillary Clinton off her pedestal.

The other is: Sen. John McCain has been knocked off his pedestal. A different iteration of this dynamic has Rudy Giuliani replacing McCain as the frontrunner, but you’d have to account for the fact that Giuliani is down 10 from his early spring average.

The rest is really noise.

And yet Marc also reports that Obama will likely raise $28 – $35 million in the second quarter, compared to Clinton’s $26 – $28 million. And she’s already calling on Bill to campaign in Iowa over July 4. Sure, he hasn’t knocked her off her pedestal. But she’s the prodigious front-runner with the Clinton name and the Democratic establishment behind her. He’s a freshman senator from Illinois. And it’s June. McCain, however, is obviously in severe trouble. The dreadful prospect of a Romney-Clinton general election is still out there – alive and well. My view? The only way the Republicans can win the White House next year is if Hillary wins the Democratic nomination.

The Supreme Court Justice cites Jack Bauer and the Hollywood torture show "24" as relevant background for constitutional jurisprudence:

"Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.
"Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. "Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so.

"So the question is really whether we believe in these absolutes. And ought we believe in these absolutes."

Earth to Justice Scalia: Jack Bauer does not exist. But the assumption that he does can lead to a lot of unusual places:

"I don’t care about holding people. I really don’t," Judge Scalia said.

Even if a real terrorist who suffered mistreatment is released because of complaints of abuse, Judge Scalia said, the interruption to the terrorist’s plot would have ensured "in Los Angeles everyone is safe." During a break from the panel, Judge Scalia specifically mentioned the segment in Season 2 when Jack Bauer finally figures out how to break the die-hard terrorist intent on nuking L.A. The real genius, the judge said, is that this is primarily done with mental leverage. "There’s a great scene where he told a guy that he was going to have his family killed," Judge Scalia said. "They had it on closed circuit television – and it was all staged. … They really didn’t kill the family."

But they pretended to. Am I supposed not to feel shock at this stuff any more? This celebration of lawlessness is not conservative. It’s something much more radical.

"A population armed to the teeth and long in the throes of disorder can’t be pacified by outsiders," – Fouad Ajami on the Palestinians.

Ajami nonetheless favors an indefinite occupation of Iraq, a society with more weaponry, more historical disorder and much more oil revenues to finance civil warfare than Palestine. Why the double standard? Just asking.

From a conservative constantly being called a liberal:

"My wife and I had this discussion over the weekend. As I told her, I think my "left-wing" positions on abortion, end-of-life matters, and gay rights actually make me more "right wing," more Republican, than those who would use the blunt force of government to dictate the most personal choices any of us will ever make."

I know the feeling.