In an extended, but thoughtful, rant today on human sexuality, R.S. McCain questions our modern notion of sexual expression:

. . . with the Desire Is Destiny theory of sexuality, promulgated so relentlessly (first by Kinsey, then by Hugh Hefner, and then by damned near everybody) that we cannot think about sex in any other terms. What is overlooked is that this liberationist theory denies the power of human will and human choice. If we desire someone, the liberationist argument would have us believe, we must act on that desire or else suffer psychological trauma as a result of the (harmful) repression of our desire. The only “moral” standard by which any such pursuit may be judged is whether the resulting sexual encounter is between consenting adults.

Read the whole thing.  I don’t say that because I agree with everything Stacy has to say, but believe he has made an important contribution to the current debate begun when allegations were leveled against a certain presidential candidate’s spouse.  And, well, given his style, it’s always a delight to read his posts.  (Familiar with his puckish nature, I know that he seeks to engage rather than offend.)

We do have a choice.  And sometimes in refusing to act on our desires, we strengthen another bond, a bond which often helps secure our own happiness.  Frustrated desire does not necessarily make us miserable.

His critique of the modern notion of Desire as Destiny dovetails nicely with my thoughts on the fluidity of our sexuality.  Both of us take us issue with societal assumptions about sexuality.  He that we need indulge our every desire, I, that our sexual orientation is fixed.  For some of us, it may well be, but it’s important to keep an open mind about these things. (more…)

Our famously even-handed media have long subjected us to the myth of the long-suffering, noble Democrat, too decent a human being to engage the vile, mean-spirited Republican rabble who regularly make angry accusations and engage in dishonest discourse. If only these high-minded Dmocrats had fought back, lament the well-educated pundits reaching for their smelling salts, they would win more elections.

As Eric noted earlier today, the famously dispassionate Maureen Dowd is the latest liberal pundit to count Barack Obama among the number of Democrats who have seen their standing in the polls slip because they just aren’t as mean as their right-wing adversaries. Calling the president “conflict-averse” and fearing that with that Democrat, “there is always the danger of a relapse into the passive, we’re-all-reasonable-people style,” E. J. Dionne shared this view, relishing the emergence of a fighting Obama.

Guess the columnist missed all those group Eric mentioned and hadn’t been listening, say, to the president’s budget speech on April 13 or his debt speech on July 25.  He has engaged in some of the most divisive discourse of any U.S. President,  even this week on his taxpayer-funded campaign-style swing through the Midwest where he “he fired off his most intense criticism of Congress yet, warning lawmakers they will be defeated if they continue to obstruct his policies.”

Republicans have good reason to “obstruct” those policies.  Instead of turning to policies which work to create jobs, the Democrat is returning to those that failed.  In Cannon Falls, Minnesota, he indicated that despite the 2010 election and the mounting federal deficit, the “balanced” approach he favors means higher taxes and more government spending: (more…)

Only if her name is Michele Bachman or Sarah Palin.  CNN’s Political Unit is beside itself because Mrs. Bachmann flubbed Elvis’s birthday:

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann stepped all over Elvis Presley’s blue suede shoes while stumping Tuesday, when she mistakenly wished “The King” a “Happy Birthday.”

August 16 actually marks the 34th anniversary of Presley’s death.

A quick google search could reveal no evidence that CNN had not given similar coverage to then-candidate Obama’s contention that there were 58 states (he claimed he had been in 57 states with “one left to go. . . .“)

And I’m sure our readers can come up with other Obama gaffes that haven’t received the attention of Mrs. Bachmann’s various errors.

Albert Camus has long been one of my favorite writers.  Indeed, I quoted the Nobel Prize-winning author in my very first blog post (with the quotation reposted here).  While Camus always considered himself a “man of the left,” I have long called him “the first neo-conservative“.  He had always strongly opposed tyranny which he first witnessed in fascist societies, particularly under the Nazi occupation of Paris, but soon began to see not just in Communists societies, but also in leftist movements.

His opposition to Stalin and Stalinism earned him the scorn of his one-time allies in the French left, including Jean-Paul Sartre, an apologist throughout his life for Soviet tyranny — and a man who dressed up his own participation in the resistance to Nazism.

Sartre became increasingly jealous of Camus after their split, particularly since the Algeria-born Frenchman had produced a far broader range of work than had he. I’d often wondered if maybe Sartre had leaned on his friends in the KGB to dispose of the more talented writer. Camus died in a car accident on January 4, 1960.

Now, David Zincavage, based on an account in an Italian newspaper asks, “Did the KGB arrange the death of Nobel Prize winning writer Albert Camus in a car accident in 1960?”

An article which appeared in the Italian paper Corriere della Sera on August 1 quotes Eastern European scholar Giovanni Catelli, who discovered that the complete version of the Diary of Czech poet and translator Jan Zábrana contained a reference to the death of Albert Camus omitted from abridged French and Italian translations.

Read the whole thing.  Well, this story doesn’t support my speculation about Sartre, but does raise some interesting questions.

Remember, Albert Camus was one of the first prominent literary men of the left to publicly criticize Communist.  His outspoken critiques of the brutal system could cause more intellectuals to question their defense of the Soviet Union. (more…)

The only candidates I am seriously considering for the Republican nomination are individuals who have served as governor of a state. It’s more than having someone who has escaped the taint of Washington politics, coming to town as outsiders, not part of a system some former Senator calls “broken.”  (Funny how just after that Senator got a promotion, he didn’t find the city to be broken. Guess “our politics are only broken when “Obama isn’t doing so well.”)

A governor will have had experience both running a state government and working with an elected legislature.  In his first few months, the next president will have to work with the 113th Congress to repeal much of the bad legislation passed in the 111th while appointing individuals to the various federal agencies able to rescind or otherwise revise the anti-business regulations that have proliferated in the past two-and-half years (and yes, even before then).

That’s why the immediate past Minnesota governor was on my short list, now reduced to two of the announced candidates (as I hold out hope for one who has not announced).  Michael Barone pretty much summarizes why that good man did not do as well as he had hoped in the Ames Straw Poll this past weekend:

Pawlenty seems to have suffered the fate of a vanilla candidate, with a record generally acceptable to economic, cultural and national security conservatives, but unable to stir the enthusiasm necessary to win him first choice votes in a state in which his chances on paper seemed better than almost any place else. Pawlenty has many admirable qualities, and having observed him in Minnesota over the years I expected him to do better. . . . He has reason to feel that he has been thrust aside, in ways that almost no one predicted or foresaw, by two female candidates substantially less qualified for national office than he is. But no one is guaranteed a fair shot at the presidency.

Emphasis added.  Read the whole thing. Lamenting that “Pawlenty proved unable to maintain his campaign all the way to the Iowa caucuses next year“, Scott Johnson wonders if the accomplished former governor had the fire in the belly necessary to take on the incumbent: (more…)

Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has much in common with her Republican House colleague from Minnesota, Michele Bachmann.  Both were elected in years where their party did not do so well, the Democrat in 2004, the Republican in 2006.  And neither has accomplished much during her tenure in the House.

Yet, one major thing, beyond their political ideology distinguishes the two.  The Republican has a far more positive message.  The Democrat’s message is almost like a broken record, Republicans are extreme, they’re out of step, they’re on the fringe.  Democrats have solutions; they’re working to get America moving again and create jobs.

Only problem is she doesn’t readily specify those solutions.

Seems the Democrats brought her on, not to promote Democratic policies, but to attack Republican ones.  Bachmann, by contrast, can make a compelling case for small government principles.  It’s not just her charisma.

These two women help define the difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic as we move toward the 2012 election cycle.  It’s too bad that Mrs. Bachmann comes with a lot of baggage.  The appointment of Mrs. Wasserman Schultz suggests that Democrats don’t really have principles to champion — at least not principles they want to champion outside deep blue enclaves along the coasts, surrounding colleges and universities and on a few outposts in and around the Great Lakes.