Comments on The Belmont Club,"When to smile, when to sneer"

wretchard,
(who pointed there are unpleasant repetitive tasks in life, like fighting the moral corrosion caused by tribalism and racism)
Now about that trash under the sink. I was hoping that somebody could explain that to me. My four footed friend is looking worried. Like it might be coming out to get him.

Being late to the party I hope I might repost some comments I made about Gates and BHO on LGF.
(Here on my previous blog entry.)

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One day John Kerry will pull the "Do you know who I am?" to jump a line and some guy will say "That's my wife" and cold cock him.

One day and it might be soon Barack Obama will pick up the phone to order a $100 hamburger and he will hear laughter in reply. People will simply stop listening to him. He depends on the assent of thousands of people he has expressed contempt for. The Secret Service, the military, the law enforcement community are not his naturally greatest supporters but they were not a priori hostile. Thousands of them voted for him and they are in fact disciplined socialist communities, whose members are inclined to believe that with proper leadership government can do things. The sign that the political establishment knows the end is coming might be if they induce Joe Biden to retire and replace him with some Democrat who could do the job.

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john lynch,
(who felt Officer Crowley should have just walked away)
No you are wrong on your facts and on the law. The police officer was responding to a complaint. He had a duty to determine if there was a break in. He had every right to be there. By impeding his investigation and failing to follow simple directions Mr Gates created a breach of the peace. He aggravated that situation by his abusive conduct. Until he properly identified himself it was the duty of the officer to treat Mr Gates as a possible burglar. Gates caused the problem. He has full ownership of it.

Do you want to live in a society where a man can beat his wife and then when a cop comes to the door yell at him that everything is fine and there will be no problem if the cop just goes away? That sounds like the path to a Middle-Eastern lawlessness in which Palestinians get to blow things up and also get to complain that the real problem is the beastly Israelis building a fence and having checkpoints to get in the way of the efforts to blow things up.

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Doug,
(who cited Peggy Noonan's critique of Obamacare)
If you get in a car I am driving you put on your seat belt. However I have said that I object to laws mandating people to wear seat belts and also to laws that force business owners to forbid smoking in private property. When I express these opinions the reply I often get is "We are entitled to tell people how to behave because if they get sick or injured it will cost the taxpayers money when people use the public hospitals." Public supported health care justifies an infinite level of regulation of public behavior.

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A few years ago I actually filed a complaint against a Police Officer for abusive misconduct. It was an extremely hot Summer day, about 102° and I walked my dog from one side of a 8 lane road to another using a subway entrance. There were almost no passengers present and there was a cop leaning in the shadows. When we returned from stopping at a Dry Cleaner he called me over and said the dog wasn't allowed there. His attitude was fairly unpleasant and when we got out of the station my beast got sick, which to me is a clear sign that it was stressed. Later I had to go through the station again and the cop was still there. I asked him to identify himself and he replied by writing me ticket. That struck me as abusive and retaliation so I filed a complaint. At the review board hearing the cop lied through his teeth and said that "upon further reflection he decided the original incident merited a ticket" that being a rote formula in these situations.

I always told my troops that if a member of the public (i.e. a Customer) demands to know who they are they should hold up their ID and point at their name tag and offer to bring the person to a Supervisor who can give the person a Comment/Complaint card. I didn't want them handing out the cards themselves because one got in the habit of mining the public for compliments in a way that I found abusive.

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Gates and Obama have both spent their lives avoiding situations in which a real Boss could evaluate their work and fire them. That has nothing to do with race directly. It is true that part of their method is to ensure that they have not been under the authority of strong managers, particularly strong managers of color. Both have found a path in University settings that short circuited the expected peer review quality control systems. America has thousands of black private sector supervisors and managers now who would toss these guys out on the street or threaten to break them in two if they talked rot and failed to deliver.

I wonder what Larry Summers thinks about all this?

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Big dogs don't bark. In Anglo-Saxon culture people with real authority are 1. technically competent at their jobs and, 2. other directed, that is not selfish in their pursuit of power. Once I told a class that if a Little Old Lady walked into a dealership while the President of General Motors was there and walked up to him as he was surrounded by other men in suits and asked "Excuse me. Are you a salesman? I am a poor widow and I was wondering which is the right car for me?" he would smile and focus on her. The rest of the conversation should go like this. First thing would say is "Yes of course I am a salesman." The second thing he would say is "Perhaps though my friend Mr Jones here is better acquainted with what we have in stock here today. Please take my card though and let me know if I can be of any help to you." This would be followed by Mr Jones, the franchise owner saying, "Thank you Ma'am please come with me I am certain that I can make you happy. Please excuse me Mr Smith (the President) I will get back to you soon."

Barbarians are always puzzled by the courtesy of people in authority in Anglo-saxon culture. They either mistake it for weakness or in a display of psychological projection they assume it to be a display of arrogance and dishonesty. The Barbarians then get to wallow in self pity and blame their intended victims when their aggressive plans fail to deliver.

Obama wrote in his book that he viewed civility as an act, a mask that he can put on to disarm white people and facilitate his advancement. For BHO the truth is predetermined and revealed to those who are more perceptive due to cultural and racial authenticity. Satomayor's "Wise Latina" resonates with him. He does not view courtesy as a means of facilitating communication to determine the truth and enable productive work to be performed to mutual benefit. He is a Barbarian.

Once at The Capital I saw a United States Congressman get stuck running the elevator for five minutes. He smiled at the tourists and was OK with it.

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buddy larsen,
(whose middle daughter is toying with Judaism)
It comes in 3 steps.
1. The secret handshake.
2. The secret of paying wholesale.
3. Never reveal to whiskey the secret of fabulously loud mouthed women.
The last is more powerful then The Terrible Secret of Space.

Actually the first time anyone walks into a Rabbi's office and asks about joining the Tribes he will say "What are you nuts?" and throw them out.