Conservative College Students Attend Leadership Conference

Congratulations to the Independent for publishing this very fair and informative article about the "other side." Santa Barbara is completely controlled by a political machine -- the Progressive Democrats. Thus it is even more important to let those who preach diversity know that theirs' are not the only views allowed.

I hope the Independent will similarly publish some alternative stories about the impact of illegal immigration and lack of assimilation on our community, and not just function as the mouthpiece of PUEBLO and La Raza.

As the Newspress dissolves into irrelevance, the Independent gets better.
Good and fair article here.
And excellent job on the fire coverage!

Thirty years ago, the conservative movement began organizing think tanks and foundations to mold and financially support young conservatives, to build and expand conservative thought, and most of all to deeply embed it in the political culture by developing an army of richly supported media-savvy figures: TV talking heads, newspaper columnists, radio hosts etc.

They have succeeded enormously. Today, the great majority of political thinkers interviewed on TV come from these conservative institutions, which include the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution and so on. The great majority of political radio and television talk show hosts are conservatives as well. And the difference in the assumptions in the political debate is astonishing:

In JFK's time, the mainstream assumption was that in 30 years we would evolve into a social democracy along European lines. Instead, in 30 years a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, espoused positions well to the right of Richard Nixon's, and the Republican Congress was so extreme and ideologically rigid that they literally shut down the government rather than reach a compromise on the budget. And that has, in general, been the pattern: the left runs scared and accepts the right's definitions of the debate, as a so-called Democratic Congress did for Bush; and the right employs scorched-earth tactics from the halls of power to the popular discussion (hence Sean Hannity calling Bush's recession Obama's fault before Obama has even taken office, etc.)

The Right will always be better funded than the Left, because the Right's economic agenda boils down to protecting and expanding corporate power, and corporate power is where the money is. So when the organized Right says it intends to do something, you'd best figure that they mean it, and have the money to do it.

Here, the speaker said the Right intends to colonize popular culture the same way they colonized political culture. Don't doubt it. It may again take 30 years, but they're patient.

Has Obama's flood of small online donors, which did reverse the money advantage this time, changed the game permanently? Only if they can move beyond supporting a single candidate and start building left-wing think tanks to change the terms of the debate for generations to come, as the Right has done. That's a lot easier for the Right, when a tycoon (Mellon Scaife, Koch etc.) can drop $100 million every few months like buying a box of crackers, than when the left has to try to build it out of $10 contributions...

LOL, ROFL !!!!

At least these intellectual bubble buster wannabes visited Santa Barbara and left a lot of cash before they left.
For that, they always are welcome and encouraged.

Good luck with winning elections to those "mosquito abatement districts"!! In California they are all appointed positions. But just what would be a "conservative" policy agenda for a mosquito management (Special) District?
More application of pesticides regardless of how sick the non-consentual population became? Deficit budget spending? Hiding government proceedings from the public?

"Congratulations to the Independent for publishing this very fair and informative article about the "other side." Santa Barbara is completely controlled by a political machine -- the Progressive Democrats."

And in spite of this it's still overpriced, overcrowded, and the homeless live in the shadows of fear.

"And in spite of this it's still overpriced, overcrowded, and the homeless live in the shadows of fear."

Yes it's a cesspit of liberal homosexuals here. You can do us a favor and leave if you hate it so much. Maybe you'll find a more hospitable environment in the wonderful suburbs of Dallas, Tx. That's right billclausen, you too can enjoy smog-infested republican Jesus-loving goodness with no planning commissions and beautiful unending suburban growth. Plus it's cheap with no pesky government wanting to control growth. Why stay in a place that irritates you? Texas(minus Austin) is waiting for people just like you.

I welcome the coverage of the conservatives' confab in SB, but this comment section would not be fair and balanced if it didn't remark that Prager is a racist, homophobe and phony ethicist, who had the gall to say about Congressman Keith Ellison, a Muslim who took his ceremonial (unofficial) oath of office with his hand on the Koran, that by doing so Ellison "would "be doing more damage to the unity of America and to the value system that has formed this country than the terrorists of 9-11." This shows how little Prager truly understands the American value system. Perhaps predictably if tiresome in its outrageousness, Prager compared Ellison's use of his holy scripture with the use of Hitler's "Mein Kampf". What blatherskite! Even the Anti-Defamation League condemned Prager for this statement. (See http://www.adl.org/presrele/dirab_41/493... ).

So SBpuppet, do you have any solutions for the problems I mention or just insults and telling me to get out of town? Here's your chance: Step up to the plate.

Despite what may be my better judgment, I have to add my two cents' worth.

This past Spring I helped teach a course at UCSB, and got a copy of the Daily Nexus most Tuesdays and Thursdays. There was a "College Republican" leader who had a regular column on one of those days. His idea of informed, intellectual political discourse was to call anyone with whom he disagreed a "douchebag."

I also saw one of their T-shirts, along the lines of, "Work with us now, or work for us later." Sounds kind of Bolshevik, doesn't it?

I sometimes despair for the future of our democratic republic, until I remember that these squawking heads are a shrinking, shrivelling minority whose opinions appear in print and on the air greatly disproportionate to their numbers, veracity, and popular support. This is due to immense funding as detailed by a prior commenter, a tortured sense of editorial "balance," and just plain bullying, which factors into the "balance" point.

With Republicans who used to seek guidance from intellectuals like William F. Buckley Jr now hitching their wagons to anti-intellectuals like Palin and Prager, the future is indeed looking bright--for liberals.

The report above includes the following statement: "Prager, who referred to liberal cable news commentator Keith Olbermann as "the worst person in the world..." Unfortunately, the reporter got it exactly backward. It was Olbermann who named Dennis Prager "the worst person in the world," on the October 29, 2008 edition of his MSNBC program "Countdown."

Here's the transcript of the relevant segment (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27457680/):

"But tonight's worst person in the world, right wing radio yakker Dennis Prager speaking to a crowd at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis insisting there is a left-wing conspiracy to create a 'grand edifice of lies about America.' One of those lies, that we believe in equality. Quoting again, equality which is the primary value of the left, is a European value, not an American value. The French Revolution said liberty, fraternity, equality, the American Revolution said life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Where are you from buddy?

The actual quote from the Constitution you just read, ours, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Also there was this one, 'we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are equal.' That's from the American Declaration of Independence, read it. Dennis Prager, apparently educated by Frenchmen is tonight's worst person in the world."

Olbermann's understanding and therefore his analysis of Dennis' remarks is shallow and incomplete. Dennis often points out the tension between liberty and equality, and the fact that policies designed to increase one of the two necessarily diminishes the other. Between the two, American values increasing liberty, which means while we ideally retain equality of all before the law, and equality of opportunity for all, we don't promote equality of result.

Too bad Olbermann won't go on Dennis' show to discuss it (he was invited) or have Dennis on his show to clarify. As Dennis also often points out, truth is not the greatest value for the left.