the Hyacinth Girl

So as the days and nights since the marathon bombings have worn on, I’ve thought more and more about hudna, the strategic truce employed by the jihad in order to regroup and lull the enemy into complacency. In the age of political correctness, it is so easy to deny reality. And in the age of the 24 hour news cycle, it is easy to forget what happened 2 days ago.

Truth is often uncomfortable.

I pray this is not the beginning of something larger and more sustained than we’ve ever seen, for I’m not sure I trust the West as a whole to face a threat like that dealt with daily by the Israelis. We are soft and spoiled, and tend to give up easily.

In the local news, an “expert” was claiming that the marathon bombers were nothing more than the “Dylan Klebolds” of Chechnya, and not actual terrorists. On KFI, the LA station we get down here in San Diego, the late night hosts were coming to the conclusion that the youngest bomber was nothing but a follower trying to impress his big brother, and should maybe be looked at in a more lenient light. Or something.

Do we have so much invested in the fantasy of the end of Islamist terrorism that we will so readily dismiss reality? Our stupidity will get us killed. We will “coexist” all the way to the grave. Our society, already decaying, is ripe for collapse if we refuse to look at all the options, even the politically incorrect ones.

I wish I were tired, but I am not at the moment. So I’ll just lay here, waiting. For what? The end?

Maybe.

First of all, wtf people? My previous post was rife with typos. You had almost a month to mock me for them, you know.

Secondly, if you believe your government is capable of 9/11 and Boston, why the hell are you still here? Don’t get me wrong; governments are awful things, but if ours is killing its own to push political agendas, we’ve got to end it. That’s armed revolt time, not time to smoke a bowl and watch the Daily Show. Our decline is steep, but we have not reached that point yet.

Not yet.

Though we don’t know who is responsible as of yet, ask Israel how it feels to have carnage visit even the most mundane of activities on a regular basis. Everything is a target, and we will never be able to lock down a country of this size. We may very well be looking at our future.

None of which eases the pain, shock and horror being experienced by those at the marathon. Martin Richard, the same age as my child, waiting for his dad at the finish line, was doing nothing to merit the fate meted out to him by unknown actors. His sister lost her leg. His mother has undergone brain surgery and his father is left to pick up the pieces. Martin’s has been the most visible face, but we’re all victims. Not because we may be inconvenienced by increased “security” measures, but because as death becomes more commonplace in our daily lives, we lose parts of ourselves and become more like shell-shocked survivors of an endless war.

So let’s find the bastards responsible for this and string ‘em up. And let’s string up ever subsequent piece of excrement that decides that their mission is to arbitrarily end the lives of innocents. No public trials for enemy combatants, and if you want to make this country your battlefield, bring it.

Of course, I’m not optimistic that our country has the stomach to endure a prolonged confrontation on our soil, (not that I want it!). If it inhibits their watching of Dancing With the Stars — I know I pick on DWTS incessantly, but it’s so damn stupid — then it is nothing but an inconvenience.

En masse, Americans disappoint me. Fortunately, life has prepared me for disappointment.

I have exactly no time for pundits — conservative or otherwise — talking popular culture today. What with Rush misinterpreting Beyoncé and Hannity talking Honey Boo Boo,  I feel fit to stroke out. I know, I know — Rush maintains that he was merely repeating a misinterpretation of Beyoncé’s stupid new song as part of his “low information voter outreach” or whatever, but it was so incredibly stupid and annoying, I turned the radio off. I listen to Rush almost everyday, and as much sentimental affinity as I have for him, his pop culture commentary is like listening to your dad attempting to remain culturally relevant. I don’t have to do that, because my dad isn’t worried about appearing “cool,” but you know what I mean.

Why do we do this to ourselves? The only pop culture commentary I can handle from right or left is Mark Steyn’s, and do you know what his secret is? He wears sous and pocket squares and spontaneously breaks or into show tunes and doesn’t give a f*ck if you think he’s cool. But he’s relevant because he pays attention to the undercurrents of culture, not the surface trappings. He knows what it all means without getting bogged down in the pointless particulars. And I’m not trying to turn this into some Steyn asskissing festival, because that ship has sailed; I’m just trying to put into words that nebulous knack for getting pop culture commentary right. Remaining “relevant” isn’t the goal. Interpreting the smoke signals should be.

Now, Rush doesn’t seem to think he’s trying to remain relevant, and perhaps everyone is reading it wrong. I’m not even concerned worth that. It’s the overarching belief on the right in general that we can somehow regain pop culture when we never entered the fight. Winning the culture war was never about making concessions to relativism, it was about standing diem against it, while still exhibiting grace and acceptance, something neither show has done. Multiculturalism and moral relativism are two of the most intolerant, intellectually lazy and oppressive mindsets foisted onto Western culture as a whole. And we have done nothing on the right to counter that. And now that it seems apparent that we have lost the culture war, the right scrambles to water down the core message of conservatism or make fart jokes and talk about Beyoncé, who seems to be a little worried about remaining relevant herself.

It’s not a younger tone or fave we need. Honestly, I’m not sure what we need. I’m of the mind that we have lost, and that we should attempt to make our decline as uncomfortable as possible for its architects. I know that’s an awful place to be, but what hope can you have in a country that elected Obama twice? I mean, Carter only got one term. I think that by opting or of the culture war, conservatism allowed this country to become a place where 35 year olds are still in college, living off the government, having kids occasionally and patting themselves on the back for being so much more tolerant than those racist, homophobic, sexist, anti-intellectual flat earthers on the right. Sadly — almost comically, really — my peers can’t see that they are but the latest standard bearers for a centuries-old philosophy that has brought nothing but death and decline everywhere it has been implemented.

But we — conservatives — gave up on entertainment, art, music, and literature, abandoning the things that historically shape culture without much of a fight. And then we complain about it and offer up feeble,  “Christian rock” caliber alternatives when it becomes apparent that the game is lost.

You don’t regain that kind of ground by “articulating your message” more clearly. We’ve got 40 or 50 years of decline, of the  infantilization of successive generations of potential adults to deal with. Telling them that they’re going to have to start paying for their own condoms and taking responsibility for themselves isn’t going to cut it.

Do you know what to do? Yeah, me either. I’m just planning on holding the architects accountable and making this decline as uncomfortable as possible. That’s really all I know how to do.

Writers are terrifically competitive and narcissistic creatures. Don’t ever mistake mutual admiration for friendship. I made that mistake once and won’t do it again. No hard feelings; I’m a writer too.

I don’t know about the wisdom in marketing a dentist with the claim that, “if it can be done in your mouth, [doctor's name] can do it and has been doing it for the last 25 years.” When I listen to this commercial, I don’t want to go to that dentist. I want to go to TJ’s dental corridor before I go to that guy. I don’t really want him doing anything in my mouth.

So I’m listening to AM radio, obviously. I don’t like this guy I’m listening to, but he annoys me the least of the programming that’s on at this time. The topic is CPAC, of course, and however much this guy annoys me, I’m down with his anti-Jeb Bush rant.

All these talking heads are saying what I’ve been saying for a long time now, which is not to build myself up into something I’m not, but to do a print version of the “I told you so” dance. The GOP establishment has conceded the argument to the Left for so long, and so completely, I’m not sure they can accept that Republicans outside of the Beltway are anything but inbred rubes that believe the earth is flat and Obama is the antichrist. They accepted the Left’s caricature because people like Jeb and apparently the editorial staff of National Review have believed it all along. How can you expect NRO to think differently when you need to have a college degree to be a receptionist? A degree means you’re smart, correct? There’s no way anyone could know how to answer phones or take messages or organize office supplies without their Art History degree. (I am referring to a job paying the HQ had posted a few years ago. Apparently, people like me who ain’t got no money cain’t be trusted with them fancy phones off theirs. Or near the talent.)

I again reiterate my disgust with any and all “establishments,” those lazy, decadent, self-important boobs that seem to cropup at the end of a civilization. I’m not anti-intellectual, I’m anti-establishment. I’m anti-reductionist however subtle my betters think they are being.

But ultimately, I’m against wasting my time spring into the void, which is essentially what I am doing at this point.

Forgive me for not paying attention to CPAC; I’m so burnt out on politics in general, I decided not to give a crap about a conservative PAC that invited Donald Trump to be a keynote speaker. I hadn’t realized, however, that GOProud was not invited. I don’t know why this surprises me, but it does. I’m sorry, but I’m more concerned about the thousands of illegal alien felons released by Barry in order to make us all pay for the sequester he proposed than the fact that some conservatives are gay and want to talk about it at a conservative event. Honestly, from the GOProud people I’ve talked to, it’s not about being gay and conservative, it’s about being conservative and not hiding that one is gay. I think there’s a big difference between the two.

Now, I’ve got no feelings one way or the other about Chris Christie. I don’t really care about Chris Christie, but if the organizers thinks Donald Trump is CPAC material, Chris Christie sure as hell is. I think the snub is petty and stupid, but people this deeply involved in politics are petty and stupid as a rule. The GOProud snub bothers me on a much deeper level. I’ve got gay friends that are terrified to go to church, even though they really want to — not because they’re afraid that God will smite them or that they won’t “be able” to be gay anymore, but because they can’t handle being rejected one more time by people they actually have a lot in common with. I see the same kind of thing with gay conservatives and the GOP proper. But these kids at GOProud, they’re just going for it, pushing in where they aren’t “wanted” because they share the same political values as the rest of us “normals.” (Come on, you know full well you aren’t normal. Ain’t no body normal.) I’d much rather have a true constitutional conservative who happens to be gay on my side than Donald Trump. Or John McCain, for that matter.

Liberals treat people like stereotypes; we shouldn’t do the same. You don’t have to like homosexuality or gay marriage to be decent to a conservative who happens to be gay. Because, regardless of what you may hear, gay conservatives are not part of some big gay conspiracy to pervert us, the last bastions of normalcy or something.

Whatever. Don’t take any of this to mean that I’m some relativist RINO squish like the NRO kids have turned out to be. (Jeb Bush? Really?) I just don’t think that anyone should be excluded from the conservative movement based on something as private as sexual orientation.

I love how we’re all victims of fatness now. I saw in the news that there was a study done to find out why lesbians are disproportionately “afflicted” by the “obesity epidemic” while gay males are disproportionately unafflicted. First of all, why does it matter? And secondly, the way the social engineers modify our popular vernacular is eerie.

How can being fat be an epidemic? It isn’t a disease. It isn’t contagious. We can’t be the victims of everything.

Honestly, our culture is wearing me out. There are so many, many things wrong with everything that I can’t possibly be expected to run my house and the critters in it and catalog the malignant and tragic absurdity that is this modern life at the same time. But I want to. And that is my great sorrow and burden.

This entire stupid world will be the death of me.