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JISHOU, HUNAN — Just days after Matthew Vadum of American Thinker proposed the dubious analogy that letting the poor vote was like giving crooks burglary tools, another brilliant mind pops up with similar cutting edge 18th century political ideas.
This time the mind in question belongs to John David Dyche, a Republican lawyer in Louisville, Kentucky. He wrote an opinion piece for the Courier-Journal entitled “Property rights crucial to voting rights.”
He begins with another dubious analogy — doctors this time, not second-story men.
Some bemoan Kentucky’s 10 percent voter turnout in recent primaries. But quantity hardly assures quality in making important choices.
If you had a serious disease would you open your treatment to everyone or confine it to a few specialists? A free society’s biggest decision is how it shall be governed. The Founders therefore placed prudent limits on participation in it.
After offhandedly suggesting that it was probably a good idea to let blacks and women vote, Dyche then takes us to the good old days when only the landed gentry could participate in politics or governance. You know, the situation that encouraged some demented landed gentry types to create an entirely new nation sometime around 1776.
Unlike Vadum, who draws his arguments from paranoia-scented thin air, Dyche dresses up his anti-democratic broadside with lots of quotes from historical figures — none of whom lived after the 1850s — with whom he happily agrees. Must be that law school training.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — David Barton is a loon, a dangerous loon.
I’ve blogged before about David Barton’s peculiar version of American history. He teaches that the USA was deliberately conceived as a Christian nation, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. Barton misquotes the Founding Fathers, twists and quotemines historical documents, and when all else fails outright lies about history to support his cockeyed ideas.
The Religious Right adores him. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who is vainly trying to be the presidential nominee of her party, invited Barton to teach the Constitution to newly minted Representatives. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who at one point was considering a presidential run, famously said:
`“I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced–forced at gunpoint no less–to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.”
The Atlantic Monthly had a lengthy analysis of Barton’s appeal and his peculiar methods of historical research. There is no doubt that Barton’s religious belief drives his interpretation of history, but what kind of beliefs does he have?
Here’s a clue. Right Wing Watch posted this excerpt of Barton’s appearance last year on televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s “In God We Trust” video series. Barton is talking about the need for Christians to get involved in public affairs.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — After writing the previous post, I came across a photo of Matthew Vadum, a blogger at American Thinker. He’s no fan of “ultra leftist” Leon Trotsky, it seems, but compare their photos. Is it me, or do they look alike?
 American Thinker (!?) blogger Matthew Vadum  Russian Thinker Leon Trotsky No wonders he knows Trotsky so well. Add Vadum to the list of suspected left-wingers. He’s a plant! A mole!
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JISHOU, HUNAN — A long time ago, only white, male property owners could vote. Then the property ownership rule was dropped, followed by the whites-only rule, followed by the men-only rule, followed by a reduction in the legal voting age to 18. So, in the USA, there is near universal suffrage, which most people would consider a really good thing.
Not Matthew Vadum of the oxymoronically named American Thinker blog. He believes we need to turn back the calendar a couple of centuries to those good old days when only rich white guys could vote. Or be President, I reckon.
Vadum says registering the poor to vote is un-American. Seriously. Because encouraging the poor to vote means they will vote for their own interests, unlike rich folk, who always vote for the poor’s interests.
Sayeth he:
Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?
Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery.
Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote.
Ah, Obama the Boogeyman again. Reading further, you will find that Vadum manages to also connect (a la Glenn Beck) ACORN, Leon Trotsky, Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney with this blight called universal suffrage.
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 Education begins in the home. Permanent link to this post (6 words, 2 images, estimated 1 secs reading time) Possibly related posts:
JISHOU, HUNAN — Yesterday morning, I left my flat to head downtown. Ahead of me, I saw a young guy crouching down to take photos of a bright green garden snake who had gotten very lost. Here’s the little fella:
I say he (or she, kinda hard to tell) was lost because there’s nothing but yards and yards of concrete up where I live, and he was having no luck scaling the wall.
Anyway, the photographer guy and I are admiring the snake when an older woman walks past and starts freaking out. As far as I know, she doesn’t live anywhere near me, but for some bizarre reason she homed in on this garden snake with the intent to do it in.
First, she tried whacking it with a stick she was carrying. We stopped her. Then she picked up a chunk of concrete, and tried to bash the snake with it, all the while fussing loudly in local language (not Chinese). We tried blocking her again, but she managed to heave the chunk in the snake’s general direction. No harm done. Her pitching arm is in Little League, and the snake was wisely sticking close to the wall.
The Chinese guy tried to calm the lady down or shoo her away, but she was determined to flatten that poor snake. We weren’t sure what the lady would do if we picked up the snake and threw him to safety. As hysterical as she was, she might have bashed one of us with the concrete chunk. Mostly, we just ran interference.
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JISHOU, HUNAN — I took a break from reading literature essays (18 down, 70 to go!) to peruse what constitutes news in the USA. Some people have their underwear in knots because New York (yay!) has made same-sex marriage legal.
One crazy lady, Linda Harvey, manages to connect New York’s Constitutional exercise of states’ rights (which conservatives normally champion) with an imaginary crusade by President Barack Obama to make every American fuck like bunnies. For example,
This “freedom” will include much more than a perpetual pansexual pagan party. It will, and already does, include libel, slander, intimidation, corruption of youth, revolt in congregations, suppression of parental rights, revision of language, disease, loss of employment and loss of life.
Oh, and did I mention public sex, the porn explosion and public nudity?
Welcome to entitlement sex.
Social Security is an entitlement — the government (so far, anyway) guarantees retirees a minimal income. Medicare is an entitlement — the government (so far, anyway) guarantees retirees minimal medical coverage. Medicaid is an entitlement — the government (so far, anyway) guarantees the poor minimal medical coverage.
If I understand Harvey correctly, she is suggesting the federal government is going to guarantee everyone a minimal amount of sex. Some congressmen are already getting more than their fair share (including those who work with both sides of the aisle, if you catch my drift), so it seems the federal government has already piloted this program among elected officials. Perhaps it started during the Clinton administration. Whatever the case, it seems only fair the rest of us benefit as well.
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