Programming note: Today, Friday, Steyn will be ending the week back behind the Golden EIB Microphone for three hours of substitute-host-level Excellence In Broadcasting on America's Number One radio show beginning at 12 noon Eastern/9am Pacific. We hope you'll dial him up either via the iHeart Radio app or on one of over 600 stations across the fruited plain, such as our old friends at WNTK New Hampshire, where you can listen to the full show from anywhere on the planet right here.
On Thursday Mark joined his fellow Rush guest-host Ken Matthews on America's Number One radio show for further discussion of his thoughts on last night's Tucker about the wholesale destruction of our civilizational inheritance. Click above to listen.
You can find more from Ken's guest-hosting stint here.
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I love hearing Mark on Rush, but I miss Rush. Please, Mark, let him know we're praying for him. Thanks.
Is next step is changing the names of the District of Columbia and Columbia University, oh, and University of the District of Columbia? That'll keep the nut jobs in city councils and an academia board busy for a few weeks. They can put their money where their mouth is before going all BLack Lives Matter ballistic all the time on everyone else.
A great surprise appearance today, on the Rush Limbaugh Show, Mark, but a little bittersweet as it was a reminder we can never take Rush's presence for granted.
Several callers' remarks as well as yours just made me want to weep for our country. If these destructive acts do not cause weeping, it may be because people have learned to be numb to the pain.
Mary from Portland really summed it up for me. People feel quite helpless to do anything as they watch these anarchists/insurgents destroy public and private property. My thoughts kept going back to the theme of having a hill to die on. Saving our nations' monuments would be my first pick. What will it take to make preserving and protecting them across the country in every jurisdiction high on the list of what our property taxes fund? It's hard to believe we would have to even have such a discussion. Whatever happened to the slogan: Do No Harm!
I was in high school while we were shoulder deep in the Reagan Revolution. Our liberal, but tremendous, English Lit teacher included "1984" as part of the curriculum, probably his favorite book. That year in our class, it was the most dissected and analyzed book we were assigned. Back then it was a favorite among the liberal elite as they treated it as a therapeutic for the conservative wave that swept the U.S. in particular and the West in general. Liberals at that time equated Conservative Inc. with Big Brother. Studying the book didn't bother those of us who had a conservative bent. We understood the muse for Orwell was the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the state of how things were in Russia following it. We loved studying Orwell.
This has always confounded me. Orwell is clearly - CLEARLY!! - writing about tyranny from the left and not the right. Yet they just blow right past that as if an ideology that by definition seeks to limit government power could ever create an Owellian world. It's maddening.
Regarding the kente cloth fiasco, it isn't simply a matter of Nancy or Chuck's ignorance of the Ashanti people. I really couldn't fault them for that since my Ashanti knowledge is a little light as well. The point is that these two didn't come up with this stunt on their own, it came from a political consultant. Ditto for Mitt Romney marching with BLM. Our political leaders don't have the wit to come up with their own stupid stunts. They rely on equally ignorant political consultants to dream them up. Which is why Donald Trump is President and why I still have hope for this November.
"He's a member of my club in Montreal. . .." So, I searched for Men;'s Clubs in Montreal and got a list of strip clubs, or "gentlemen clubs". Which of these do you and Brian belong to Mark? For a second I thought it might be the Mark Steyn Club, Montreal Branch.
Wow. Mark is on fire on Rush today.
Rats! Missed it.
Couple of early thoughts: after Lady Antebellum's prostration, has anyone done a wellness check on The Dixie Chicks?
Steven Payne: may we nominate you to tally the cancellations of Robert Byrd in WV? There must be dozens of opportunities, so I'll expect you'll be busy.
As for "NPR ballet critic", don't be so snide about the only media job you've never held.
The Dixie Chicks have had no discernible vital signs for sometime, Josh.
Couple more: With certain excitable sorts already sticking dynamite down their pants (Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab) and running around with edged weapons (a machete is pretty much a short-handled scythe), who are the Looney Tunes? I can't be the only one who wonders how Elmer Fudd's particular speech impediment would sound in full battle cry attesting to the greatness of God. (Use your imagination.)
Also, when Joe Biden swims into the shallows of reality (or however you put it), is he naked?
"Shhhhhh, be vewwy vewwy quiet, I'm out viwtuwe signawing."
Now THAT is funny as hell. Thank you for brightening my evening.
Re: caller bringing up the history of the West African Ashanti tribe, why would anyone presume that Nancy and Chuck are unaware of who the Ashanti were and what they did? I don't presume that. They may full well know all about Ashanti history and its role in the European and Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Wow, Mark is on fire on the radio and it is only 40 minutes into the show! Keep it up as it is both informative and entertaining,
After reading the comment thread yesterday about the new republic of CHAZ I think the best solution is for Trump to keep his powder dry and let BLM and Anitifa hang themselves. It is great for everybody get to see a preview of the utopia that these groups represent. Also as an added bonus it let's the people of Seattle know that their votes have consequences and as my mother often told me they have made their bed and now they are going to have to lie in it. Same goes for all the Democrat controlled cities.
I had the same thought. Let's see for how long the Democrats are willing to host this "block party" — which is what the mayor of Seattle called the armed takeover of the center of her city.
How can the Democrats support CHAZ since it has borders and guards with guns at the border? That is immoral.
Maybe, someone can candidate Biden if will be recognizing the nation of CHAZ should he win the election? Who would his ambassador choice be?
Samantha Power ... or maybe one of the former mayors of Baltimore.
What I find most hypocritical about these cancel culture folks is that one of their chants is "This is what democracy looks like." Yet, they refuse to submit their calls for tearing down statues and erasing the past to an actual vote of the people. That is not democracy - it is mob rule.
When you cannot compete in the arena of ideas, the only remaining course of action is violence.
Mark has been absolutely right in calling out the Republican politicians for refusing to fight back against the cancel culture crowd and the defund police movement. You could win the argument against the latter by asking these folks why they advocate a policy which will kill people. Because as the progressives have said during every budget battle, cutting any money from the budget will lead to children starving and old people dying.
Au contraire Michael, the rabble is indeed correct in stating that this is what democracy look like. Democracy was anathema to the framers of the United States as they knew from their classical education that democracy equals mob rule. That is why one individual executive can veto legislation. That is why one dissenting individual on a criminal trial jury can hold up a verdict. Much was done by the framers to put a check on democracy. Most of what ails the west was voted into place by majority or plurality.
Unfortunately, we are way past the point of being able to reason with the rabble to convince them to vote and support our positions. How do we in the US compete in the arena of ideas when the Democratic Party has almost an absolute control of the culture?
Many years ago I was having lunch in the conference room with the receptionist of the company we worked for. All of a sudden she starts asking me all sorts of questions about history. She wanted to know, among many other things, when cars and planes were invented. She knew almost nothing of the past. She was struggling to have perspective on human existence and could't find any. My wife and I were homeschooling our children and it was astonishing to see how utterly mis-educated this poor girl was. She wasn't full of any malice about anything, but her hunger to know about the past was more than she could stand anymore. You could sense the ache of this vacuum she was feeling in her life. It was a very poignant moment. It is serious child abuse for the education system and parents to strip their children of knowledge and understanding like this. The malevolence of a leftist world knows no bounds.
"Orwellian" is probably the second-most used adjective in circulation today, after "Nazi" and its branches "fascist" and "Hitlerian". If the jackboot fits...
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
That's Ingsoc Party dogma from 1984, but no less wise or true for that. Mark described the snowflakes (more like acid raindrops) of today as "hyper present tense", and Orwell explains why, even if they think Orwell is the name of the autonomous commune in Oregon. If you control the moment, you control the past AND the future. Even an unshaven Grievance Studies major with bad breath and b.o. (no fool she) can see the value of that temporal high ground. The rubble of fallen statuary seals the tunnels of history and understanding. No one need ask (and had better not ask) how slavery came to America, or about the history of slavery throughout the world up to, ironically, the present day. Because RACIST! Columbus? Just one sailor among many during a unique age of exploration and discovery? Try Archie Bunker with a funny hat and a Chico Marx accent. Ignorance of the past is a standard, not optional, feature; if they've read any history, it's Howard Zinn's "People's History". We on the Right used to tease John Kerry for his reliance on "nuance". This generation has no use for it. If they had to guess, they'd say Nuance is Beyoncé's sister.
The history taught in K-12 curriculum is the agreed upon Narrative that tells the story that society wants the young to know so they can join society. History is always more complex, written by the victors and by the group that wrote the textbook, et al. Western Civilization allowed the not-very-good students to become teachers (math is hard, etc.) and now we see the Marxist Narrative being taught the children doesn't match our We Are A Free, Virtuous and Prosperous Society Narrative we like to imagine ourselves to be.We are reaping what we have sown. At this point, ignorance is our friend.
BTW, Beyoncé is sooo last decade.
Your summation of the goal for K-12 is right on point. And it's why I don't see how this disaster can be stopped. The left has total dominion over the education industry, and it would take decades to regain that ground. The battle will have long since been lost before then. Maybe we can break off a part of this country and start again.
This madness has even reached small town Eastern Ontario where activists want to change the name of Russell because the town was named after a colonialist who didn't want to abolish slavery. All these name changes cost money during a crisis besides erasing history.
Meanwhile I imagine gun sales in the U.S. must be going through the roof with all this mayhem and projected defunding of police.
Re: gun sales going through the roof.
The number I saw was 8 million sold in May. But that may be just the number of background checks processed. I know of some people with decent sized collections who have parted with some to friends and family. So the number of newly-armed citizens may be greater than the number of firearms sold.
Of course many of us who were already armed have added to our gun safes. Ammunition sales are robust according to my local vendor.
NICS background checks for March, April, and May 2020 were highest in history for each of those months. The 8 million number in May is not correct. April and May combined were nearly 8 million.
March 2020, while we were locked down nationally, there were 3,740,688 background checks processed.
Those are background checks, not firearms purchased. Guns sold would be a larger number.
It seems we need guns in the UK too.
We are a heavily armed society no doubt. But who is really going to fire shots when The State comes calling? The mob is one thing, but the mob has the state's tacit approval in all of this, and The State is doing the heavy lifting when it's needed. We may end up being the most heavily armed population in history to give up without a shot being fired.