Magnifisyncopathological

Actually, it's hard to find a coherent argument in The Undefended City.

Mr. Whittle (someone whose writing skills I once praised) uses the following language to describe John McCain and Sarah Palin:

And standing against all this hypnotic power — the power of the mythmakers in Hollywood, the power of the information peddlers in the media, the corrosive power of America-hating professors on every campus in America… against all that we find an old warrior — a paladin if ever there was one — an old, beat-up warhorse standing up in defense of his city one last time. And beside him: a wonder. A common person… just a regular mom who goes to work, does a difficult job with intelligence and energy and grace and every-day competence and then puts it away to go home and have dinner with the family.

Don't bother examining his article for rebuttals or refutations of the quite-serious case against the moral integrity of these two because it isn't there.

His entire point is to rile national defense and culture warrior types up.

Well, most of what I learned about Vietnam I learned from men like Oliver Stone. This self-loathing narcissist has repeatedly tried to inculcate in me a sense of despair and outrage at my own government, my own culture, my own people and ultimately myself. He tried to convince me — and he is a skillfull man — that my own government murdered my own President for political gain. I am told daily in those darkened temples that rogue CIA elements run a puppet government, that the real threat to the nation comes from the generals that defend it, or from the businessmen that provide the prosperity we take for granted.

I sit with others in darkened rooms, watching films like Redacted, Stop-Loss, and In the Valley of Elah, and see our brave young soldiers depicted as murderers, rapists, broken psychotics or ignorant dupes –visions foisted upon me by bitter and isolated millionaires such as Brian de Palma and Paul Haggis and all the rest.

It is tempting to reply that Mr. Whittle apparently thinks the United States Federal Government has always conducted its affairs with the highest degree of honor, competence, and effectiveness. However, I'm certain he's got examples ready at hand for how those other people were responsible for geez - duh - obvious state transgressions against the greater American good and it would devolve into a historicist pissing match.

No wonder they must be destroyed. Because — Sarah Palin especially — presents a mortal threat to these people who have determined over cocktails who the next President should be and who now clearly mean to grind into metal shards the transaxle of their credibility in order to get the result they must have. Truly, they are before our eyes destroying the machine they have built in order to get their victory. What the hell is so threatening to be worth that?

Is there a term for woefully ignorant of legitimate complaint? It would apply here in spades. It applies with a particular fierceness to Republicans bitching about Palin's treatment in the media.

Only this: the living proof that they are not needed. Not needed to govern, not needed to influence and guide, not needed to lecture us on our intellectual and moral failings which are visible only from the heights of Manhattan skyscrapers or the palaces up on Mulholland Drive. Not needed. We can do it — and do it better — without all of them.

He's hitting on something important here but because he's fucked up his first-person plural pronouns there's no way he understands the implications.

Ask the common people of all politics and persuasions aboard Flight 93 whether greatness and courage has deserted America. Through this magical crystal ball — the one we are using right now — we common people can speak to one another. And by reminding ourselves and those around us of who we are, where we came from, what we have achieved together and of the marvels we have yet to achieve, we may laugh in the face of despair and mock those people that think a man with an MBA from Harvard knows more about running a gas station than the man that actually runs the gas station.

An example is often used to illustrate a larger, more general principle. I challenge anyone to acknowledge the hidden principle in that last sentence and not come to the eventual conclusion that it rejects damn near everything the state does and has done since it was imposed on the people living here over two hundred years ago.

It is the small-town virtues of self-reliance, hard work, personal responsibility, and common-sense ingenuity — and not those of the preening cosmopolitans that gape at them in mixed contempt and bafflement — that have made us the inheritors of the most magnificent, noble, decent and free society ever to appear on this earth. This Western Civilization… this American City… has earned the right to greet each sunrise with a blast of silver trumpets that can bring down mountains.

Self-reliance...FAIL. That means the abolishment of all welfare, all subsidies, all unemployment assistance, all trade barriers, and the provision of all "public goods."

Hard work...FAIL. Compared to the work citizens must do in order to support them and their schemes, politicians' labor is an insult. We can toss out the laws and regulations standing in the way of entrepreneurs, capitalists, business owners, and innovators that blanket this country. It means ending the rotten thieving charade we call taxation.

Personal responsibility...FAIL. In addition to the logical conclusions a properly self-reliant society would experience, we can also chalk up the end of the war on drugs, all laws against consensual sexual acts, massive chunks of state and local law regulating our behavior, and so on.

Common-sense ingenuity...WHO KNOWS. At this point, I'm amazed there are still individuals out there who still bother to slog through the collectivist nonsense in order to produce.

Mr. Whittle thinks the two serial liars on the GOP ticket embody these values. Do you?