Althouse: "Today, we mourn...."

December 1, 2016

"Today, we mourn...."

I saw that at Facebook, shared by my son John.

66 comments:

SF said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/1/16, 5:47 AM
SF said...: This was part of a long stream of these on Twitter this week.; 12/1/16, 5:48 AM
CJ said...: Consider that Justin Trudeau is 6'2". Fidel Castro was 6'3". Pierre Trudeau was 5'9". Margot Trudeau is 5'7". There's a 95% confidence interval that a male child of Pierre and Margot would be between 5'11" and 5'7".

Justin Trudeau may not be Castro's son (although he looks an awful lot like him https://i.sli.mg/iIgnwO.png, and it explains a lot about Justin's admiration for the dictatorial lunatic), but based on the genetics of height, it's very unlikely that Justin is actually Pierre's son.; 12/1/16, 6:02 AM
Humperdink said...: Every constituency in Canada needs representation. Trudeau represents the adolescent wing.; 12/1/16, 6:15 AM
MadisonMan said...: Those #trudeaueulogies are awesome.

I have a special fondness for things that mock idiotic politicians, which is all of them.; 12/1/16, 6:22 AM
David Begley said...: But will he or his party lose an election? Will his government fall over this? I doubt it.

He rejected one pipeline due to the global warming theory. It would be nice to see Justin pay a price.; 12/1/16, 6:36 AM
Paco Wové said...: What's with the red thing on his head?; 12/1/16, 6:37 AM
Greg said...: This won't affect him since everyone already knew he's an idiot. His pay to play scam with Chinese might hurt him. Donations from foreign sources to the Trudeau Foundation went from zero before his election, to millions per year since.; 12/1/16, 6:44 AM
h said...: Paco Wové said...
What's with the red thing on his head?

Answer: He was entering a Steven van Zandt look-alike contest.; 12/1/16, 6:52 AM
J. Farmer said...: “Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.”

-John Derbyshire; 12/1/16, 6:54 AM
Jaq said...: Lay off him, he's grieving for his father!

Not only does the above link provide amazing side by side pictures of Castro and the "dreamy" Canadian PM, but it also includes pictures of P.E. Trudeau's wife hanging all over Castro. I loved this quote:

Margaret Trudeau said she visited Castro at his hotel before the funeral to welcome him on behalf of the family.

I don't know. Before you write it off, you should look at the pictures, picture after picture.; 12/1/16, 6:55 AM
Jaq said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/1/16, 7:07 AM
Paco Wové said...: So, Justin Trudeau's political secret weapon is his swarthy Latin charm?; 12/1/16, 7:21 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: He actually does look like Castro.; 12/1/16, 7:28 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Look -- this going to sound crazy, but when Cuba's commie government falls apart, rather than make Cuba the 51st state, or a frenemy like Mexico, why not make Cuba a province of Canada?
The US has lots of nice, warm places to live. The Florida keys, Hawaii, American Samoa, even parts of Southern Texas.
But Canada is a deep freeze. Newfoundland ain't Maui.
The more tropical parts of the US are suffering a slow-motion invasion of ice backs.
Give them Cuba.; 12/1/16, 7:47 AM
traditionalguy said...: It helps to remember that Hispanic America and Canadian America both share one big political stance. They both hate the USA and they always have. Andrew Jackson's victorious America still has them afraid of the Colossus to the north or to the south.; 12/1/16, 7:51 AM
tcrosse said...: Give them Cuba.
Great idea. Teach the Cubans French.; 12/1/16, 7:55 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: Trudeau is your typical leftist idiot. But, sadly, he has a lot of power over people in Canada. At least for the next 4 or so years. Vote him out!; 12/1/16, 7:57 AM
Comanche Voter said...: Must be something in the water; North American national leaders have been beclowning themselves for the last few years.; 12/1/16, 7:58 AM
Sydney said...: Hmmm. A real life Children of the Revolution?; 12/1/16, 8:22 AM
J. Farmer said...: Castro's Cuba is really just the inverse of Pinochet's Chile. People tend to become experts of nuance when it involves whitewashing the crimes of those they view as somehow on their side. When Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud died in 2015, the British government ordered flags to be flown at half-staff. Obama cut his trip to India short in order to attend the late king's funeral. Can the American public ever grow up and realize that international relations are mostly concerned with power and often have very little to do with abstract concepts like freedom, democracy, and human rights (whatever those are).; 12/1/16, 8:25 AM
Ron said...: Our Dumb Century, a book of Onion "front pages" said about Hitler's suicide "if we only knew how much he was hurting inside"; 12/1/16, 8:25 AM
madAsHell said...: What's with the red thing on his head?

It's a dick durban.; 12/1/16, 8:26 AM
Sebastian said...: The ridicule is all well and good, but Trudeau expresses what progs really think and most are immune to challenge.; 12/1/16, 8:30 AM
J. Farmer said...: Mike Godwin was obviously onto something 25 years ago when he penned his law, but I think even he would be impressed by the seemingly endless public appetite for Hitler comparisons. For some people, it will simply always be Munich in 1938.; 12/1/16, 8:40 AM
mockturtle said...: Sebastian, the progs don't realize how much they would have sympathized with Hitler--and how much they have in common with him.; 12/1/16, 9:03 AM
Titus said...: Trudeau is hot and the headpiece makes him look hotter. It would be hotter if he was shirtless.; 12/1/16, 9:21 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Hot but stupid.; 12/1/16, 9:28 AM
Static Ping said...: J. Farmer, what you are saying is true. Diplomacy is war by other means. War has always meant tolerating dubious allies because you need said allies to accomplish other goals deemed more important. It's nothing new. History is replete with two powers fighting together to defeat a third power, followed by the two powers turning on each other since the only reason they were allied was to get rid of the third power. I could be discussing WWII or Alexander's succession wars or the Greek alliance against Persia or the Roman/Visigoth pact against the Huns or the Poles and its neighbors alternating between fighting and allying with each other or any of thousands of other examples. Those alliances often require doing things distasteful. Short-term distaste can be justified for long-term gain.

That said it does take a special sort of diplomacy to go out of the way to praise an enemy who has done many objectively terrible things when said praise reaps no particular benefit whatsoever.; 12/1/16, 9:50 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Can the American public ever grow up and realize that international relations are mostly concerned with power and often have very little to do with abstract concepts like freedom, democracy, and human rights (whatever those are)."

J. Farmer, you're wrong: Internatinal relations are neither "mostly concerned with power" nor do "often have very little to do with abstract concepts like freedom, democracy, and human rights...."

Rather, international relations are always and only concerned with power, and they never have anything to do with freedom, democracy, or human rights.; 12/1/16, 10:30 AM
Bill said...: He's definitely Pierre's son - same eyes.; 12/1/16, 10:31 AM
Robert Cook said...: "...the progs don't realize how much they would have sympathized with Hitler...."

Hmmm. While Hitler was alive and active it was another cohort who sympathized with him:
They weren't "progs".

There were others of more prominence.

Another prominent American, and ancestor to two even more prominent Americans, who was, uh, "sympathetic" to Hitler.; 12/1/16, 10:39 AM
Jaq said...: To be fair, fascism was new at the time, a blend of nationalism and socialism, and like Communism 50 years prior, people didn't know the evil that it generally led to, and capitalism is certainly not perfect. It's the people who support fascism and communism after they have been revealed to be the cancers on humanity that they have are the ones to be despised.

Fascism and communism are fraternal twins, and fascists and communists have been trying to drag us into their little quarrel forever. They are like the religious fundamentalists who cannot conceive of a person who does not "deep down" believe in God. Communists who do not believe in the "invisible hand" that drives so much economic activity laugh at the religious man who does not believe in "natural selection" and the origin of the species.; 12/1/16, 10:47 AM
Jaq said...: If there was no truth to the "invisible hand," we would all be wearing Google Glasses because extremely rich and extremely powerful people thought we should. The "invisible hand" is what kept marijuana from disappearing, and why prohibition failed.; 12/1/16, 10:50 AM
mockturtle said...: Cookie, you are looking too deeply into the political issues. The fact that Hitler was an animal lover and a vegan would have been enough to endear him to many snowflakes and buttercups of today's left. After all, they embrace LBGTQ people while, at the same time, defending the dog-hating, homophobic Muslims. There is no logic to their ideology--only a knee-jerk hatred for everything American and Christian.

I am well aware of many figures in the US and the UK who supported Hitler and the Nazis. But you do know, do you not, that Stalin killed more of his own people than did Hitler? And that the Soviets infiltrated many of our educational institutions in the 40's? We can learn a great deal about what to avoid from all totalitarian leaders. Everyone should read, at least, both The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and The Gulag Archipelago. They should be required reading in school, IMO.; 12/1/16, 10:55 AM
Robert Cook said...: To clarify my point: I do not deny that leftists can support authoritarians or become authoritarian. Authoritarianism--the drive to become authoritarian and the drive to desire an authority to follow--are inherent aspects of human nature. Persons of all political or ideological backgrounds are susceptible to it. There are and have been right-wing tyrannies and left-wing tyrannies. My point is simply to refute those who seem to want to believe or appear to assert that, by definition, no right-wing party or government can become dictatorial, or that, by definition, all dictatorships are leftist. This, of course, is the whole thrust of the absurd latter-day attempts to paint Hitler and the Nazis as socialists.; 12/1/16, 11:02 AM
Robert Cook said...: In fact, I believe that most dictatorships mostly dispense with any real adherence to any political ideology, and are really about the will to power of the persons who establish the dictatorships. Claims to political ideology in such societies really serve only to provide a justification, a patina of reason, to the exercise of power by those who crave to have it and who successfully scheme to achieve it.; 12/1/16, 11:06 AM
mikee said...: Any party or government that is not limited in power by protections for individual rights not only can, but will, become dictatorial. That leftists by definition abjure individual rights for the collective gives them a big head start on being dictatorial, one from which they cannot often, if ever, retreat.

Modern day US right wing politics is essentially a fight FOR individual rights against the authority of the state, so we have that going for us, which is nice.; 12/1/16, 11:07 AM
Josephbleau said...: Joseph Kennedy, father of the "greatest Democratic president ever" was a Nazi supporter who was an evil anti-semite and fired by Roosevelt for his pre-war stunts. But Bushe's grandaddy was worse of course.; 12/1/16, 11:11 AM
mockturtle said...: Claims to political ideology in such societies really serve only to provide a justification, a patina of reason, to the exercise of power by those who crave to have it and who successfully scheme to achieve it.

I agree, Cookie. And to achieve it, they must first create the chaos that makes it necessary. I'm sure we both agree that we must all be vigilant in maintaining our Constitutional freedoms ahead of 'peace and safety'.; 12/1/16, 11:13 AM
Qwinn said...: "Castro's Cuba is just the inverse of Pinochet's Chile."

Well, sure! If you just ignore that he eventually (once the crisis passed) held free elections, voluntarily stepped down, and his rule led to economic prosperity for Chile. Oh, he also didn't amass massive personal wealth like Castro did. Other than that, yep, just like looking in a mirror!; 12/1/16, 11:14 AM
Robert Cook said...: "That leftists by definition abjure individual rights...."

Sez who?; 12/1/16, 11:14 AM
mockturtle said...: Mikee rightly observes: That leftists by definition abjure individual rights for the collective gives them a big head start on being dictatorial, one from which they cannot often, if ever, retreat.

Exactly! I had this very argument many years ago with a close friend who, though American, was living in Sweden. She insisted that the 'good of the whole' always supersedes the rights of the individual. Of course, I pointed out the many reasons our country was founded and on what principles but she wasn't deterred.; 12/1/16, 11:20 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Modern day US right wing politics is essentially a fight FOR individual rights against the authority of the state...."

This is why "modern day US right wing politics" has supported "the authority of the state" to prohibit "the individual rights" of blacks to vote or enjoy equal rights or for gays to wed. Right.; 12/1/16, 11:21 AM
Darrell said...: After that Studio 54 picture with a knickerless Maggie, everyone know where he's coming from.; 12/1/16, 11:29 AM
Darrell said...: Ids to buy cough syrup, no ID to vote. Cookie for town idiot.; 12/1/16, 11:30 AM
n.n said...: Actually, it was left-wing politics (e.g. burning Christian crosses) that oppressed blacks and supported, selective exclusion ("="), institutional racism and sexism ([class] "diversity"), and advocated for abortion of life unworthy of life. An extreme Atheism (i.e. narcissistic faith) combined with left-wing ideology or quasi-religion ("Pro-Choice") with minority-oriented economics bent on establishment of monopolies and monopolistic practices. And, for over a century, a "peace"-mongering and immigration "reform" mentality.; 12/1/16, 11:33 AM
Robert Cook said...: "I had this very argument many years ago with a close friend who, though American, was living in Sweden. She insisted that the 'good of the whole' always supersedes the rights of the individual."

Well, when things get down to the existential nitty gritty of survival, this is true. In our own society, during times of crisis, individual liberties have been curtailed. No individuals can survive if the whole society of individuals perishes. But, in times where immediate peril to the whole does not require restrictions on individual prerogative, maximizing individual liberty--while simultaneously inculcating a respect among individuals for accepting and adhering to social behavior which furthers group stability, a tricky balancing act--makes for a better life for each individual, and thus, for the whole.; 12/1/16, 11:35 AM
Robert Cook said...: @ n.n.

Oh, please. The cross-burners of the KKK were not left-wingers. The rest of your post is unintelligible.; 12/1/16, 11:37 AM
mockturtle said...: I do agree that 'in times of crisis' liberties must sometimes be curtailed. But all too often, the 'crisis' is fomented by the group wanting power. This is why we must be suspicious of real or, especially, media-enhanced [or even media-created] disorder.; 12/1/16, 11:55 AM
Static Ping said...: Part of the problem with this discussion is "left" and "right" mean different things in different countries and at different times. Can there be right-wing totalitarian states? Sure, by a certain definition of "right." A right-wing monarchist could find ground there. A right-wing religious fundamentalist could certainly find ground there.

In the United States, the mainstream right-wing (as opposed to the KKK fringes and the like), even the bulk of the religious parts, is invested in protecting the Constitution and, by extension, Rule of Law. The Constitution is by its very nature a limited government document, at least on the national level, and is very explicit about individual rights. It is difficult to build a totalitarian government based on such fundamentals since totalitarian governments typically need a large central government so as to directly control as many power bases as possible. To get to the totalitarian stage or even the authoritarian stage requires rejection of basic tenets of mainstream USA right-wing ideology to the point that the actors can no longer be considered true mainstream right-wing as it is currently defined. This is not a problem with the mainstream left-wing as its beliefs in a living constitution and large government dovetail nicely, if not necessarily requiring it.

Also, the fact that a group lobbies for a particular individual right does not mean they believe in individual rights in general. There is a big difference between supporting individual rights on an ideological level and supporting something that you want. Supporting SSM as a Constitutional right and believing that religious institutions that fail to get on board should be shuttered and its clergy imprisoned are consistent political views, but they are not at all the beliefs of someone who cares about individual rights.; 12/1/16, 12:11 PM
Static Ping said...: As to the Nazis being left-wing, they called themselves "socialists" so there is that. Their actual economic policy was some combination of socialism and crony capitalism which would definitely put it to the left of vanilla capitalism, assuming vanilla capitalism is the standard of right-wing. As to their governing philosophy, the party dictatorship certainly has absolute monarchist themes, which is right-wing, but there's a lot of the "progressive" concept of the government (AKA smart people!) managing everyone's lives. (Admittedly, the concept that the government will take the burden of deciding things for the unwashed masses is an old one that can apply to many different political flavors, scientific progress was the theme of the time.) The anti-semitism and other oppressions again fall into a gray area. It is both an old tradition going back well over a thousand years, but fed at the time by eugenics and more progressive science about perfecting human beings which was definitely left-wing. Fascism in general and Nazis in particular are a very muddled thing when trying to pin it on the left-right axis.

Of course, the real reason that the Nazis are considered right-wing is because they were fighting the communists. If the communists are left-wing then the fascists have to right-wing, at least according to Stalin's propaganda machine. The Nazis are not right-wing. At best they are totalitarian centrists.; 12/1/16, 12:27 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Robert Cook wrote:
" . . . maximizing individual liberty--while simultaneously inculcating a respect among individuals for accepting and adhering to social behavior which furthers group stability . . ."
What happens when society's leaders are either wrong about what behaviors further group stability, or are cynically pursuing policies that are designed to enrich them, but which they say are designed to further group stability?
Lifeboat politics favor totalitarians.
"Never let a crisis go to waste."
Rahm Emmanuel justified his words by saying that in context they referred to the "energy crisis" of 1973-74, but in my view, that makes the quote more damning. Emmanuel was talking about using a crisis-de-jour to enhance and expand government power. Emmanuel believes that the politicians of 1973-74 could have used the crisis atmosphere to solve the problem of America's dependence on oil imports. This is not claim that can be substantiated.; 12/1/16, 12:34 PM
mccullough said...: Trudeau, like Merkel, is an ignorant idealist. But Trudeau's idealism is harmless. Merkel's idealism is ruining Germany.; 12/1/16, 1:58 PM
mockturtle said...: Yes, Cookie, the Klan was started by the Democratic Party. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Historian Eric Foner observed:

In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy. Its purposes were political, but political in the broadest sense, for it sought to affect power relations, both public and private, throughout Southern society. It aimed to reverse the interlocking changes sweeping over the South during Reconstruction: to destroy the Republican party's infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life.[58]; 12/1/16, 2:05 PM
Bilwick said...: Re the Derbyshire quote given by "J. Farmer" above, it reminds me of some anti-war protester interviewed on the street by a reporter, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. The reporter asked her, whatever the pros and cons of the American invasion, wasn't she at all concerned about Saddam's many victims? She replied, "The only thing I care about dictators is whether they provide free health care to their people." No kidding. I am not making that up. But you can see her point: you're probably going to need good health care if you survive a session in the rape room or the torture chamber.

I often wonder how many people Fidel, Che, Ho and other heroes of the Left have to kill and imprison before the usual gang of Useful Idiots finally decide they've been defending murderous tyrants. Think of Pete Seeger, a Communist then a fellow traveler, who only in his last years said that maybe that Stalin guy was pretty bad after all. What ton of bricks finally had to hit Seeger in the head before he came to that conclusion?; 12/1/16, 2:07 PM
mockturtle said...: My brother named his son 'Che'. 'Nuff said.; 12/1/16, 2:20 PM
Static Ping said...: The Klan is definitely an offshoot of the Democratic Party at the time. Whether the Democratic Party would be considered left-wing or right-wing when the Klan was formed is not exactly clear, may have varied depending on geographic location, and perhaps is meaningless by today's standards. If you look at the Republican Party at the time the goals were to preserve the Union (conservative) and eliminate slavery (a radical change to broad swaths of society that caused a war). Then we get into the entire "classic liberal" debate and so forth and so on.; 12/1/16, 2:50 PM
Robert Cook said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/1/16, 2:54 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Yes, Cookie, the Klan was started by the Democratic Party."

No one, least of all me, disputes that. But the Democratic Party does not equal "left-wing." Sheesh! This is elementary.

While the Democrats have in latter decades come to be seen as "liberal," (i.e., less hostile to minorities and workers and the poor than Republicans), this is often more illusory than true. (And, once 'pon a time, in my own lifetime, both parties had their "liberal" and "conservative" wings.) However, to the degree it is true that Democrats are (more) "liberal" than the Republicans, this was not true of the southern Democrats who founded the KKK, or their descendants in later eras. They were democrats largely in order not to be Republicans, the party of Lincoln, who was their great enemy.; 12/1/16, 2:55 PM
Robert Cook said...: In fact, the quote you provide by Eric Foner impeaches any suggestion the Southern Democrats were "left-wing" in his statement that they represented "the planter class and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy."; 12/1/16, 2:58 PM
Robert Cook said...: "What happens when society's leaders are either wrong about what behaviors further group stability, or are cynically pursuing policies that are designed to enrich them, but which they say are designed to further group stability?"

1. Behaviors that further group stability are such things as: not breaking the law, not stealing from or lying to or defrauding others, not assaulting or killing others, not vandalizing the property of others, etc. You know, normal civic behavior, as enshrined in the laws of most societies, all meant to encourage cooperative rather than combative behavior among the members of the shared society, and to produce peaceful and stable social conditions within the society.

2. If your hypothetical occurred, the people can (if it is their power) vote the bastards out, or, as the Founders of this nation did, adopt more emphatic means.; 12/1/16, 3:07 PM
mockturtle said...: So, which are you, Cookie? Left-wing or Democrat?; 12/1/16, 5:00 PM
n.n said...: Robert Cook:

The KKK were prototypically American left-wing ideologues. They were [class] diversitists. They denied individual dignity. They may not have been fully Pro-Choice, but they were sufficiently so to classify them with contemporary left-wing ideologues.

As for the rest of the comment, it merely states Democratic principles excluding the euphemisms they adopted to calm the cognitive dissonance. Perhaps that's why its meaning eludes your understanding.; 12/1/16, 6:10 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Qwinn:

Well, sure! If you just ignore that he eventually (once the crisis passed) held free elections, voluntarily stepped down, and his rule led to economic prosperity for Chile. Oh, he also didn't amass massive personal wealth like Castro did. Other than that, yep, just like looking in a mirror!

My point was not to compare the nature of the two regimes but to compare the way are treated by the left and by the right. As my second sentence made clear: "People tend to become experts of nuance when it involves whitewashing the crimes of those they view as somehow on their side." Because Washington generally approved of Pinochet's neoliberal economic agenda and anti-communist stance, they were willing to tolerate the torture and assassination apparatus that helped sustain his regime.; 12/1/16, 7:47 PM
mikee said...: Torture and assassinations by the Pinochet regime were not performed to sustain his regime. They were performed to suppress the exceedingly active and nearly successful communist insurgency ongoing in Chile. Self defense is a human right. Self defense by the state is often horrible to watch, but the result of Pinochet's actions was that Chile did not become another Cuba.

Somehow the active attempt by the Soviets to spread communist totalitarianism worldwide escapes the memories of almost everyone who looks at what people did to avoid it.; 12/2/16, 12:22 PM