Brand Loyalty

James Miller this morning tosses his two cents in this homosexual marriage, and Sullivan picked up on it this morning as well. No shock that Miller is against it and that Sullivan is for it, (Being homosexual)

Miller compares marriage and civil unions as brand names. Says he:

Brand name analysis proves that civil unions for gay couples can’t fully substitute for marriage. If you started a fast-food restaurant, it would be easier to call your place McDonald’s than to use some new unknown brand name. Sure, in time you could build up this new brand to become as locally well-respected as McDonald’s name, but for the near future at least, you’re better off going with the existing brand.

Sullivan reponds:

Miller says the critical question is whether expanding marriage to include gays will “dilute” the brand. I think it will strengthen it by making it universal.

Not so fast. Let’s extend this hypothetical a bit.

Would MacDonalds respond with your thinking, Andy, or would they file a damage suit? They would of course do the latter, pointing out that the people stealing the MacDonalds name, are trying to push their product as something it was not, and claim that doing so caused the real MacDonalds chain damage, wouldn’t they?

I’ve said it before; on most things he gets it right.  But his reason leaves him when this subject comes up.

You could certainly get that impression from this story. It’s been verified, by the way.

I come from a broadcast background of many years. I’m used to having mikes cameras, and techs around keeping it humming. I don’t fluster under those conditions having been exposed to it from my teenage years.

Most folks, however, have not had that kind of exposure. So, I wonder how can any ‘reality’ show be ‘reality’ when the subject has a lens shoved in his face 24*7?

Gee. Talk about picking a freindly venue.
Personally, I’d LOVE to get someone of the style of Sean Hannity to grill THAT turkey.

Progess you’re not hearing about.
Wonder why?

Don Lambro over at the only real newspaper in Washington DC explains.

Bruce Bartlett has written an excellent bit on the subject, which should dismiss any liberal arguments about how the rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes… if liberals were driven by facts.

Mona Charen echoes my thoughts on Scalia.Since Those comments are in the archive, I’ll drag out a line of it. I said:

“Scalia’s anger is because of judges who are not judges, but rather are acting as “passionate advocates”. Ginzburg comes to mind as a prime example, as does, alas, Day-O’Connor.”

So, Mona says:

“….his wrath grows out of frustration for a majority that consistently refuses to restrain its overmastering desire to become a legislature — no, a super-legislature, since Supreme Court decisions on constitutional questions cannot be overridden except by constitutional amendment.”

Well, there IS time and a second hearing for overturning such things. What, after all, was Brown, but an overturning of Plessy? For that matter, what is Lawrence vs. Texas other than an overturing of Bowers v Hardwick?

Are we now to assume that the Constitution doesn’t matter?

By the way; Add to your “Required Reading” for the summer, Mona’s book, “Useful Idiots”.
I’m finding it very worthwhile.

If we are to take the appearence of the Twits at a senate Hearing the other day, seriously, we must assume that the Chicks think they have a constitutional right to have their records played on the radio; that they have a right to demand that private corporations play their songs and then pay the Twits for doing so.

What the Twits and for that matter most leftists fail to understand is that the stations that refused to play their recordings were responding to the PUBLIC.

So, are we now going to have the Senate Commerce Comittee dictating programming policy, starting with what music shall and shall not be played? Do you really not suppose Talk Radio is next?

We’ll speak more about this, this weekend.
We’ll also speak of the Intimidation tactics used by John McCain on Lew Dickey of Cumulus media..  a guy I used to work for, and have some respect for.
Frankly, I’m a bit annoyed Lew didn’t respond with some more backbone, but one can understand why.

Well, he claims he’s standing by his comments, or so reports USELESS TOADY.

Question, though is; Is Baker so fearless on this issue because he’s got balls, or because he knows he’s not going to be taken to task, not being the same color that The Greel, Campanis and Rocker are?

Another two just yesterday.

I gather from the reports I’m seeing, that we’re getting a LOT of information from the guys we catch… to the point where the hiding places for the WMD’s the left is still screaming about, will be found. I wonder what they’re going to do when that happens?

Lose elections, if the Republicans play it right…

If there was ever a story that that questioned the concept of giving up on life, this is it.

“It’s easier for most Latin guys and it’s easier for most minority people because most of us come from heat. You don’t find too many brothers in New Hampshire and Maine and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. … We were brought over here for the heat, right? Isn’t that history? Weren’t we brought over because we could take the heat?”

So says Cubs manager Dusty Baker.

Now consider; if a white manager had uttered those words, he’d get trounced.
Think I’m kidding?

Consider John Rocker.
Consider Campanis
Consider Jimmy The Greek

Why is the press not all over Baker?

You KNOW why.

Useless Toady posted a hit piece today on Mr. Justice Antonin Scalia.

The article says:

Writing for the majority in a landmark decision supporting gay civil rights, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that the European Court of Human Rights and other foreign courts have affirmed the ”rights of homosexual adults to engage in intimate, consensual conduct.”

Never before had the Supreme Court’s majority cited a foreign legal precedent in such a big case.

the article explains Scalia’s position this way, in part:

”The views of other nations, however enlightened the justices of this court may think them to be, cannot be imposed upon Americans through the Constitution.” Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia in his dissent.

Scalia’s right here, I think. The justices are charged with applying our constitution, not the rulings of foreign courts.
Of course it’s a rather slippery way to grant foreign powers jurisdiction within our borders and our culture… a good deal of whom would like to see us fall.

In an article in the Austin American-Statesman Steve forbes admits today he misjudged then-fellow- candidate George W. Bush. Says the article:

“He’s done extremely well,” Forbes said. “We got a good tax cut through. The Federal Reserve is behaving. I think the foreign policy situation will clear up by year end as we root out those terrorists in Iraq. And the economy is starting to show signs of a new life.”

“He inherited a bad situation and is turning it around,” Forbes said. “I will be backing him enthusiastically” for re-election.

Forbes has come up several notches today.

David Limbaugh shows us more wisdom than most with his first words in his most recent column:

How ironic that when a movie producer takes artistic license with historical events, he is lionized as artistic, creative and brilliant, but when another takes special care to be true to the real-life story, he is vilified.

Saywhat you will as regards Mel Gobson’s PASSION as a concept, as a project and so on.  But let’s be honest enough to say that at least part of the vilification is directed at being true to Christianity.

Limbaugh himself apparently sees this clearly enough to write:

The moral is that if you want the popular culture to laud your work on Christ, make sure it either depicts Him as a homosexual or as an everyday sinner with no particular redeeming value (literally). In our anti-Christian culture, the blasphemous “The Last Temptation of Christ” is celebrated, and “The Passion” is condemned.

And ins’t that also true about so much of our lives today? Another slightly more famous Limbaugh says on another topic:

“The latest liberal hissy fit is over three words: ‘Bring ’em on.’ The president uses three words to rally the troops, and that’s a problem. But the libs can say anything they want to demoralize the troops; that’s their patriotic duty.”

There is so much in the way of examples of this double standard so as to be laughable to try and insert more of them into this blog. I’m sure each of you reading could come up with a dozen or so right off the top of your heads.

Who, I ask, are we allowing ourselves to be driven by, societally speaking?  Some push-back has already started, but it’s not really found a full voice, yet. Isn’t it time we reacted?

Think about this today, and leave me some feedback.