Well today turned out to be one that revolved around food and politics. At the same time. I was pleased to have lunch with a new libertarian friend of mine, Adam. (A new friend. I don’t know how long he’s been a libertarian.) I always enjoys those one-on-ones. The lunch begins without any sort of agenda, and an hour and a half later you find your conversation miles from its origination. Of course the hot topics right now among libertarians and conservatives involved state sovereignty resolutions, gun rights bills passed by the states, the tea parties, and things like the Bill of Federalism. Adam read the bill for the first time at the table and was completely enthralled with it. He brings up a strong, significant objection to it though: if we call a constitutional convention, does that not open the whole constitution up for modification? We’re apparently only a few states’ requests away from actually having a constitutional convention. (As I understand it, unless a state recalls its request, that request stands permanently. Thus, all requests for a constitutional convention since our nation’s founding have tallied up to almost meet the threshold.) And since most state legislatures, who would appoint the delegates, are left leaning… that could open us up to some disastrous modifications to the Constitution. Yikes. I’ll be interested to see what professor Barnett says in response to this.

Then tonight I met with Ken Marrero of Blue Collar Muse and several other bloggers to have dinner with state Senator Ken Yager from the 12th district which is a chunk of East Tennessee (back where I come from). It was quite informative, but even better was the opportunity to form a relationship with one of the folks who represents Tennesseans. He certainly seems to hold the constrained world view, and regardless of where I might disagree with him, this means I know we’re forming our opinions based on the same basic understanding of the world.

I also met Jarod Scott, a younger fella with some political aspirations for 2010. I’m not sure how much he’s publicly announced, so I’ll keep mum for now. But I like him.

I’ll write more on things like this later, but I wanted to take a light dip in the pool of political commentary before jumping back in. I’ve been so busy with the tea party efforts in middle tennessee lately, specifically with helping start up the non-profit Tennessee Tea Party, I haven’t had time to really ponder and pen my usual political drivel. Have no fear; I’m sure I’ll be back to churning out the same old useless garbage in no time.

And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.

I’d observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

Fantastic article on David Mamet’s conversion from accepting what’s been fed to him all the way to a thinking, informed conservative position. Amazing how that happens, isn’t it? (Notice how he’s speaking to the constrained view versus the unconstrained view.)

I’d just like to say, in response to President Obama’s comments on Leno, that I refuse to go head-to-head with my sister Rebekah, who has Down syndrome, since she has routinely shellacked me in the past. My presence in games of Scrabble where she is involved has taken a permanent hiatus as well. She’s a magician with those two letter words, you don’t even know.

Every disease that submits to a cure shall be cured: but we will not call blue yellow to please those who insist on still having jaundice, nor make a midden of the world’s garden for the sake of some who cannot abide the smell of roses.

- C. S. Lewis

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb willing to contest the majority decision.

- author unknown

The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.

- Margaret Thatcher

Nazi philosopher Gregor Strasser:

We are enemies, deadly enemies, of today’s capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, its unfair wage system, its immoral way of judging the worth of human beings in terms of their wealth and their money.

A half century’s slander: it isn’t conservatives who must answer for fascism. Read the whole thing.

(Yes, I was on a YouTube kick tonight.)

Does this mean their incessant commercials with a booming voice that heralds big volume discounts have come to an end as well? I hope so.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow’s milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.

What? This story is definitely 6 months and 9 days early.