Last week Japan was hit by earthquake, tsunami,
and volcano. As the country tries to come back from
this series of disasters, donations are pouring in from world citizens.
Rightbloggers are doing their part, too. They're using the catastrophe
as a teachable moment to explain that Obama sucks, global warming
doesn't exist, and what America needs now is more nuclear power plants.
We wish to state up front that we didn't find rightbloggers doing
the kind of karmic-payback-for-Pearl-Harbor nonsense reported here. That's not counting Republican Faith Chat ("IT'S NOT AS THOUGH GOD
HASN'T WARNED THE JAPS!"), The Good Kentuckian ("Well, maybe THAT is the real
reason Jesus punished Japan: Jesus hates socialism and big
government!"), and other sites that we're telling ourselves must be
parodies.
At the hour of Japan's need, the more devout among the brethren turned
to the comfort of religion. "Christians - Believers - BE WARNED,"
advised Pastor Lee at Conservative Patriot. "The earth has
shifted on its axis; time is affected; Japan has moved 8 feet and
experienced a drastic change in its coastline..."
Plus Egypt, Libya, etc. "I do not wish to be seen as a scare manger,"
said the pastor, "but I am firmly convinced that the dangers of
destruction are at hand. Factually MEGA earthquakes are predicted in the
U.S. within the month of March...this very year! Read my posting and
see what experts say!" (We think he means this, inspired by a story in the European Union Times, which isn't the most reliable source in the world.)
"I am one of God's Watchmen," the pastor then informed us. "I know of
many of His Watchmen and we are of one accord. You, yes YOU must be
prepared for at any moment you may be called upon by others for their
very earthly existence." God, it's worse than anyone thought! We -- Oh,
wait, someone tells us we can relax, the pastor is just talking about
Jesus.
No rightblogger political discussion is complete without explanations as
to how Obama is to blame and/or inept. At Andrew Breitbart's Big Peace,
Charles C. Johnson proposed some "Lessons for
Obama," hearkening back to a previous Japanese earthquake and President
Calvin Coolidge, a conservative hero frequently lauded by the brethren for his
ultra-small-government Administration.
"The left often dismisses Calvin Coolidge for not being activist enough
in forcing Americans to submit to their favorite charity -- government,"
said Johnson. "But when it came to real charity... Coolidge acted
decisively."
disaster on the watch of the Kenyan Pretender.
Coolidge
Another
asked Americans to donate money to relieve the earthquake-stricken
Japanese in 1923, rather than using ill-gotten tax receipts as Obama has done. But it wasn't a totally
small-government outreach: Instead of just mailing the money to Japan
and then taking a nap, Coolidge sent the U.S. Navy, which was funded by
the U.S. Treasury rather than by citizen donations. Also, the Navy and
the U.S. Army contributed supplies of their own.
What lessons then should Obama take from Coolidge? "...in scuttling the
Navy in recent years," said Johnson, "Obama does the world a great
disservice." Johnson then praised Coolidge's decision to pour more of
the people's money into cruisers and aircraft carriers. "We rightly
gripe about how our allies are offloading the cost of the world's
security onto our backs," Johnson closes, "but if it were not for us,
who would answer the call?"
So, Obama errs in not practicing the muscular Big Government activism of
Calvin Coolidge. The poor guy can't win.
Also, "President Useless Decides to Golf While Japan
Burns," "Our president just voted 'present.' This is a disgrace beyond compare," etc.
Some rightbloggers were inspired by the carnage and destruction to
flights of poesy. For example, Pajamas Media's Richard Fernandez composed an Ode to Godzilla: "If
America was Godzilla, has the scaly beast fallen on hard times?" he
wrote. "Or has it simply been eaten or replaced by an even greater
monster: Tyrannosaurus Debt?" He also quoted Yeats, which offered
momentary relief.
We're also not sure what to make of the intramural squabble between the Libertarian Patriot and the Wall Street Journal,
which paper Libertarian Patriot said "seems to suggest that Japan's
floundering economy could see benefit in the destruction... Certainly it
is in poor taste to even broach this subject but this is how Keynesians
think; steal from the masses and use the proceeds to fund government
projects... progressives always look for some silver lining in a tragedy
as a way to expand their big government, socialistic beliefs." Wait --
Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is Keynesian and
progressive? When did this happen? Readers, please advise.
Some certified rightbloggers were also accused of wrongspeak. "Stacy
McCain and Matt Drudge decided to found their new grassroots
organization, 'Citizens for Nuclear Hysteria and Higher-Priced
Electricity,' lamented Little Miss Attila. "Because who cares about the
future, when you can get internet traffic now?"
As you may have guessed, Little Miss Attila was referring to the nuclear reactor issues that emerged as Japan's
plants reeled from the quake. (We guess she thinks the future would be
better off if we kept our mouths shut about these things.)
At this writing there is some disagreement as to how bad the nuclear situation
really is, and we certainly hope the optimists are right.
In any case, the constant repetition of words like "meltdown" and
"radioactive steam" probably alarmed people, and rightbloggers wanted to
make it clear that even if a Japanese reactor melted down to the center
of the earth, that would be no reason to abandon the conservative dream
of more nuclear plants in the United States.
"As Japan continues to deal with an unimaginably strong earthquake and
then a devastating tsunami caused by that quake," said Neil Stevens of RedState, "I hope nobody takes
those special circumstances and tries to argue against clean, effective
power generation technology in the general case."
couldn't happen again. The Ukraine is no longer communist!
My
Of course it
Pet Jawa looked on the bright side: "..even in a plausible worst
case scenario a meltdown here probably wouldn't be nearly as bad as
Chernobyl." Well, that's a relief.
The Fukushima No. 1 reactor was only in "subcritical" mode, reported Flopping Aces, though "some media have been
reporting the same news, but with a more hysterical tabloid headline,
'3000 flee Japan's nuclear RED ALERT.' (That headline was from Rupert Murdoch's The Sun in
London. Jeez, maybe Murdoch has gone lefty on us!)
Anyway, Flopping Aces was concerned that "politics and energy agenda has
begun to enter the picture," and wanted their readers to know that
"nuclear power is clean, also affordable, and if Japan can demonstrate
containment and success - even in such an earthquake volatile region of
the world - then abandoning this type of energy using fear tactics is
simply despicable," which we're sure they meant in a totally
non-political way.
"Obviously, as one cruises around the Liberal-o-sphere, this means that
all nuclear power is bad and that it should all be stopped, and,
instead, we can go with wind and solar for all our power," speculated Stop The ACLU. "...of course, I wonder how those
methods would have stood up with an earthquake and tsunami knocking them
down, breaking the wind turbines and solar panels, covering them with
water, and flooding the storage batteries." Then there'd be a solar
meltdown, and it would be the fault of you liberals!
"I still say nuclear energy needs to be strongly promoted here in the
states," said Jeff Godlstein of Protein Wisdom. "And I suspect we
can use what we learn from Japan to better the containment and cooling
technology." And if we open more nuclear plants here, we can have many
more such learning experiences, and at first hand.
"Might as well say goodbye to any new nuke plants in the US in the
immediate future," sighed Baron Von Ottomatic of Wizbang. But he found a
silver lining: "Of course, even the greenies aren't too fond of the
alternatives," referring to some people's discomfort with wind turbines.
Then he joked about "Lady Obama's Your Kid's Too Fat thing," and
ethanol.
Another thing rightbloggers want you to understand is that so-called
climate change had nothing to do with these disasters, nor with any
others.
Christopher Mims had quoted Bill McGuire of
University College London and David Pyle of Oxford on the possible
connection between climate change and tsunamis. He wound up amending and
explaining his text ("The intent of this piece isn't to attribute
today's tragedy to climate change") after the angry denunciations
started rolling in.
The Lonely Conservative explained what was wrong
with Mims' article: "The writer failed to mention that climate alarmism
is big business," he wrote. "Of course they aren't going to let a
disaster go to waste, there's money to be made." (Also: "Let's not
forget George Soros." And finally, "How shameful to try to profit off a
disaster that's brought about so much pain and suffering.")
Don Surber took a scientific approach, saying people
who connected global catastrophes with climate change were "mentally
ill." Among his other data: "This is nutty. These frauds have no idea of
what they are talking about. The Earth isn't held together by layers of
ice that work like duct tape. Goodness are they dumb." QED!
"In fact, this is not the first time earthquakes have been blamed by the
Shamanistic, Magical-Thinking Left on the all-purpose Zeus-substitute
of global warming," said Ace of Spades, taking his customary theological
perspective.
And so as Japan battled the elements, rightbloggers stood firewatch over
whatever of their cherished beliefs might be challenged by events.
Their responses were rapid and revealing. When Brad Friedman,
for example, noticed that modern Republicans are against the kind of
government regulations that made sure Japanese skyscrapers were built to
stand up to disasters like this, Jammie Wearing Fool sprang into action. "Idiot
Lefty Blogger: Republicans Don't Want Quake-Proof Buildings or
Something," he roared, and reminded readers that Ronald Reagan had
established a Governor's Earthquake Council for California in 1972 --
proof, if further were needed, that Big-Gummint Reagan could never get
the Republican Presidential nomination today, thanks to people like
this.
