Council Winners
The Watcher's Council winners for this week have been posted.
The winner, to my utter surprise, was my own post, White House Rules. I've never been a fan of the Bushes, and I often find myself disgusted with this administration, which will surprise some of you since I don't often express it in public. As pitiful as this blog is as a public voice, my principles teach me to be deliberate and thoughtful in what I say in a global forum when my country is at war and my friends are risking their lives for it.
This was a time when I broke that silence. It also was a week I hadn't posted much worth remembering, so when I had to submit something, I chose this post. All of the Council members are staunch advocates of a Western resistance to Islamist terror and blackmail, and most of them more or less support the administration, so I didn't expect this post to go far.
The next-highest vote-getter was CDS -- Christianity Derangement Syndrome by Dr. Sanity. She defines the malady thus:
It always strikes me as odd when I hear people, including some Americans, proclaim the United States has become a conservative Christian "theocracy" since Reagan was elected. Hmmm, I remember 1980, when "pornography" was a brown-paper wrapped Penthouse kept under the counter in the 7-11 and Larry Flynt had to fight to stay out of jail. Nowadays, according to Google, 68 million searches including some variation of the word "porn" occur every day, and each one gets almost 94 million hits. Some theocracy.
Also getting votes were The Intellectual Dishonesty of the Open Borders Crowd by Right Wing Nut House, Are the Kurds a Steam Valve? by Gates of Vienna, Ahmadinejad's Letter ... a Call to Da'wa by Joshuapundit, and The Paper of Broken Record by New World Man.
Outside the Council, the winner was Republicans and the Flight of Opportunity by David Frum at Cato Unbound. It's a lament over the divorce of "small-government conservatism" and the modern GOP. The GOP will go on, but Frum suspects the movement itself has run its course.
Also getting votes outside the council were Recalling the Twelfth Imam by Confederate Yankee, The War We Are Fighting Needs a More Accurate Name by Dennis Prager, writing at Townhall.com, Captured AQ Documents: "Every Year Is Worse Than the Previous Year" by Captain's Quarters, Fisking the Islamophobes by Dean's World, and "I Was Nowhere Near There" by Maggie's Farm.
The winner, to my utter surprise, was my own post, White House Rules. I've never been a fan of the Bushes, and I often find myself disgusted with this administration, which will surprise some of you since I don't often express it in public. As pitiful as this blog is as a public voice, my principles teach me to be deliberate and thoughtful in what I say in a global forum when my country is at war and my friends are risking their lives for it.
This was a time when I broke that silence. It also was a week I hadn't posted much worth remembering, so when I had to submit something, I chose this post. All of the Council members are staunch advocates of a Western resistance to Islamist terror and blackmail, and most of them more or less support the administration, so I didn't expect this post to go far.
The next-highest vote-getter was CDS -- Christianity Derangement Syndrome by Dr. Sanity. She defines the malady thus:
"The excacerbation of acute and severe paranoia about the imminent imposition of a Christian theocracy in the U.S.; in an individual already suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome as a reaction to the very existence of (1) the Christian religion; (2) the practitioners of Christianity; and (3) symbols of Christianity anywhere within the culture; while simultaneously completely ignoring and dismissing any threat from the religious fanatics of Islam who repeatedly and clearly have stated that their goal is the imposition of a world-wide Islamic theocracy (or "Caliphate")."
It always strikes me as odd when I hear people, including some Americans, proclaim the United States has become a conservative Christian "theocracy" since Reagan was elected. Hmmm, I remember 1980, when "pornography" was a brown-paper wrapped Penthouse kept under the counter in the 7-11 and Larry Flynt had to fight to stay out of jail. Nowadays, according to Google, 68 million searches including some variation of the word "porn" occur every day, and each one gets almost 94 million hits. Some theocracy.
Also getting votes were The Intellectual Dishonesty of the Open Borders Crowd by Right Wing Nut House, Are the Kurds a Steam Valve? by Gates of Vienna, Ahmadinejad's Letter ... a Call to Da'wa by Joshuapundit, and The Paper of Broken Record by New World Man.
Outside the Council, the winner was Republicans and the Flight of Opportunity by David Frum at Cato Unbound. It's a lament over the divorce of "small-government conservatism" and the modern GOP. The GOP will go on, but Frum suspects the movement itself has run its course.
Sometimes intellectual movements are called to life to save their countries at a time of challenge—and then gradually fade away as their work is done, as the Whigs faded away in the 1850s or the Progressives after the First World War. It may be that the future of conservatism is to recognize that it belongs to the past.
Also getting votes outside the council were Recalling the Twelfth Imam by Confederate Yankee, The War We Are Fighting Needs a More Accurate Name by Dennis Prager, writing at Townhall.com, Captured AQ Documents: "Every Year Is Worse Than the Previous Year" by Captain's Quarters, Fisking the Islamophobes by Dean's World, and "I Was Nowhere Near There" by Maggie's Farm.
