Notes from the Other Side

Via Whiskey Fire, here's a jaw dropper Jonah Goldburg posted yesterday at the National Review blog The Corner.

A friend sends this quote of the day along:

Your debate with Beinart made me remember this great Evelyn Waugh quote. It'd be interesting to hear a Ron Paul acolyte respond to this point:

"It is in the nature of civilization that it must be in constant conflict with barbarism. Very few empires have been the result of a deliberate ambition. They have grown, inevitably, because it has been found necessary to expand in order to preserve what is already held. The French had to annex Algiers because it was the only way in which the Mediterranean could be made safe from pirates. Empire moves in a series of 'incidents,' and these 'incidents' mean that it is impossible for a country to live in isolation. Barbarism means constant provocation."

From "We Can Applaud Italy" (1935), in The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh.

(And no, your eyes aren't deceiving you. Jonah gave us an indented quote inside an indented quote, with the quote marks around the second indented quote just for good measure.)

In case dates aren't your strong point, Evelyn Waugh would've been applauding Italy in 1935 for Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia shortly before World War II. But just so nobody got the wrong idea, at some point after he posted this, Jonah added the following:

Update: Just for the record, the above post does not, in fact, constitute an endorsement of Waugh's applause for Italy. I just thought the quote was interesting.

In plain English, that update could also read: "Although I don't necessarily approve of Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia, fascists do sometimes have good ideas."

While I was unadvisedly browsing around The Corner, I also stumbled over a post by Kathryn Jean Lopez that quoted Rush Limbaugh in praise of Fred Thompson. No, don't worry, I'm not going to subject you to the whole thing, but it did include this little gem: "Conservatives don't want to use the government to empower themselves. They want to get government out of the way to empower other people." So the whole point of the Bush administration's push to new heights of authoritarian executive power is to empower other people. Thanks for the clarification, Rush.

As if all this wasn't enough to let me know I was in the wrong place, K-Lo also posted a video of James Taylor on Sesame Street. From what I understand, JT probably doesn't appreciate the association, either, but that's still major strikes against them.