Richard Fernandez over at The Belmont Club has an essay in which he absolutely knocks it out of the park. Not only is the essay on point, The thoughtful and knowledgeable discussion in the comments is excellent, as it always is over there, and well worth your attention. Here is the conclusion.
Though 3801 Lancaster Street seemed to stand on a major Philadelphia street in the apparent blaze of day its doorways were really guarded by a spell that guaranteed that no one inquired into what happened within because everyone knew what was happening already. A knowledge not only that infanticide was practiced within but that most of us, in small or big ways, had tacitly given our imprimatur to it.
For the House guarded one secret that has not been touched upon in the cultural debate. That the real purpose of abortion is to make it impossible, once we have acceded to it, to object to anything else.
To understand 3801 Lancaster street maybe we should go back to Moloch rather than to the system of industrial execution that flourished 70 years ago. "Child sacrifice — "the ritualistic killing of children in order to please, propitiate or force a god or supernatural beings" was long practiced by the Incas, Aztec, many cultures in the Middle East, North Africa and in pagan Europe. The question is: why? What was its purpose that Moloch should be worshipped thus in his many names?
One theory is that child sacrifice was a sacramental device used to kill what we used to call "God" Himself. Moloch's problem was how to get everyone to belong to him and to no other. His answer was to arrange a radical crossing over, an extreme commitment, a journey beyond the pale so shocking that to embark upon it was to go beyond point of no return. There was no going back to God after that. And once you had offered your child to Moloch there was no point refusing him anything else.
And that is the reason why there can be no truce on these issues. Any society that is so compromised at the core would no longer be a the United States of America, no matter if we do achieve fiscal responsibility.
The trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell is popping up all over the place – except the MSM – and they're being called on it. Walter Russell Meade notes that the people are speaking, and it now appears that the MSM is might just be forced to listen, and report what it wants to hide.
Much of the speculation has been about why so many news outlets ignored the story. But perhaps the real story here is the way the trial became a national story without the help of the MSM—and arguably even despite its best efforts to ignore the trial. In the last century, there were a few central news gatekeepers who controlled what stories Americans heard. The internet and social media have changed all that; the people have swept aside the gatekeepers and ripped the gates from their hinges.
The MSM is no longer in control; anyone and everyone now has the tools to call the media out and if the story is hot and compelling enough (and the trial of an accused multiple baby killer passes that test with ease), it will force itself into the national conversation.
Good indeed. The conventional wisdom tells us that you can't beat the MSM because they control the narrative and there's no way to break in. Even buying another media outlet would simply result in the MSM isolating it and rendering it virtually useless. But it appears that, as has been predicted by various pundits elsewhere, alternative media has opened up a new front in the culture wars. One which the armies of the Left have yet to successfully counter. Which is not to say that they don't use these same weapons effectively, they do. What has changed is that they can no longer control it.
Please, may I have more?
'Course that goes for his buddies in the Socialist Democratic Party too.
Gerard Vanderleun has posted a lovely and inflammatory rant over at American Digest which I thoroughly enjoyed, probably because it is highly politically incorrect (and contains 'adult' language (really, adult language is so juvenile, I don't know why they call it adult.)).
Obama acts more like an African or Eastern potentate than an American. For these cultures there can be no such thing as excessively ostentatious displays of power and wealth.
This guy gets it. Why can't we?
In addition, while hiring has been very weak during the recovery, the number of people who have dropped out of the labor force entirely has exploded by 7.3 million since June 2009, an IBD analysis of BLS data show. Some aged into retirement, but most either signed up for disability, stayed in school, moved back in with parents, or just quit looking for a job. The participation in the labor force [is now 63.8%, down from 65.7% in June 2009] as a percentage is the lowest it's been in the history of this country.
The number of people with jobs is still nearly 5 million below its pre-recession peak.
That's the gist of it. There are a few more nuggets in there, and the kicker at the end, which will likely surprise you, it did me.