[Alia]

William Buckley quoting Belloc: "We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh, we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on these faces there is no smile."

Superb quote; and good 'minder.

[nuconvert]

Good ending

[westmichman]

Maher is a fool. The fool said in his heart "there is no God".

[westmichman]

It's too bad those large and awful faces couldn't scare some sense into that fool.

[RedRover]

On my large and awful face there is no smile either.

[perfect stranger]

This makes me ask why Buckley would waste his time commenting on a TV show, much less a show by such an obvious half-wit as Bill Maher.

[Eagles6]

Is this the gay Andrew Sullivan or is there another one?

[Intolerant in NJ]

"We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us; we laugh...so that's what made Clinton so popular......

[jordan8]

As I said before, what drove Bennett to say black babies was political correctness, he had to make the abortions black because "racism" is THE sin of the established religion that has taken the place of Christianity in the West, and the mores of that religion dominates all public debate.

[Alia]

Still pondering that quote from Belloc. This just in via email:

***
As many are aware, the French government recently announced a raise in its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The normal level is "General Arrogance", and the only two higher levels in France are "Surrender" and "Collaborate". The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability

It's not only the French that are on a heightened level of alert:

Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout loudly and excitedly" to "Elaborate military posturing". Two more levels remain, "Ineffective combat operations" and "Change sides".

The Germans also increased their alert state from "Disdain" to "Dress in uniform and sing marching songs". They have two higher levels: "Invade a neighbor" and "Lose".

The British are also feeling the pinch in relation to recent bombings and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved". Soon though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross". Londoners have not been "A Bit Cross" since the Blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to "Bloody Nuisance". The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the Great Fire of 1666.

[Constitution Day]

Excellent.

[DoctorMichael]

Maher = Town Idiot (......who will not be remembered 5 minutes after his little soapbox gets taken away from him)

I daresay Buckley will be remembered for quite some time.

Bump.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

re: Bill Maher.

[Sigh...]

We almost need a new taxonomical category to do justice to the absurdity
of the Bill Maher phenomenon.

How about "The Remedial Left"?

[DonnDe]

Maher's flow of logic reminds me of Animal House:


"But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals.

For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system?

And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general?

I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society?

Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America."