November 2010 redux; Avengers

View 723 Wednesday, May 09, 2012

A great deal has happened in the past couple of days. The by-elections Tuesday were significant, and a repeat of the pattern of the November 2010 elections. A convict in Texas gets 41% of the vote in a Democratic presidential primary election — http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57430719-503544/4-in-10-choose-convict-over-obama-in-w.va-primary/ . The Tea Party and the Club for Growth bring down Republican Senator Lugar, one of the Republican establishment. The governor of Wisconsin, running unopposed for the Republican nomination in his union-organized recall election has gathered more votes than the two Democratic nominees running to be his opposition in the recall. All across the country the news is bad for Democrats, and not very good for establishment Republicans. The electorate that turned out to vote was pretty conservative – including many Democrats.

Of course President Obama will win next November if the conservatives do not turn out to turn him out. Sitting back and cursing Romney for being a part of the Republican Establishment will pretty well insure four more years of Mr. Obama; and given the president’s proclivity for appointing czars, officers unknown to the Constitution, the republic isn’t likely to survive. Yes, I know – that seems a rather obscure thing to base the fall of the republic on. Appointment of officers not confirmed by the Senate. But think on it, and think on why the Convention of 1787 made the confirmation of officers of the United States a necessary part of the federal government process. For those who don’t know, this confirmation extends down to the lowest ranking commissioned officers in the armed forces. That is more or less ceremonial now in so far as it affects ensigns and lieutenants, but it’s fairly vital when it comes to flag ranks. Think on it. It is and was intended to be a definite limitation on executive power.

As to Mr. Romney, I will have more to say on this over the summer, but I do want to point out that of those considered part of the Republican Establishment, he would be my choice. The primary American virtues are deference to religion – perhaps not quite what the Romans insisted on as pietas, but close enough; industriousness; family loyalty; and adherence to community values. Those, I would say, are also the primary virtues of practicing Mormons, and from what I can see, Romney is more Mormon than Establishment. He is also a firm believer in state’s rights, and limitation of federal power. One may not care for Romney-care as implemented in Massachusetts, but Romney has never said that you should: he has held from the beginning that the federal government doesn’t have the constitutional power to implement anything like that. At one time he may have been an advocate of the Romney-care system for other states, but as experience grows in how it has worked out, we hear less of that.

Now this, I put it to you, is precisely the conservative view of such matters. The States have the right and power to try experiments that are forbidden to the Federal government.

Moreover it’s interesting to hear what Mr. Romney says were his reasons for favoring compulsory health insurance: he says, and although I have no evidence I have no reason not to believe him, that the number of people in the state who didn’t have some form of health insurance was very small – and they were getting it anyway, without paying; the health care law was a way to make them contribute something toward the insurance they were as a matter of practice already enjoying. Put that way I’s still oppose it, but note that it isn’t being sold as an entitlement: it’s being sold as a requirement that you pay for something you are as a practical matter already getting.

My point is that of those in the Republican establishment, I see none closer to traditional American views than Mr. Romney, and much of what he says makes sense. And he is far more likely to restore every day government to the kind of limits the Framers intended than Mr. Obama who, with his czars, and ‘recess appointments’ made when the Senate is not in recess, and a health care bill passed at the last dying moments of a lame duck Congress using arcane procedures, has changed the relationship of the Executive and Legislative branches of government.

And who knows, Romney may actually rid us of bunny inspectors.

The story is even better if Romney wins with a big turnout of conservative voters who also elect conservatives to other levels of office, state and local. He’s not stupid. He can hear that message loud and clear. As all of us should have heard the massage in the votes yesterday.

I was going to write more, but at 1530 Niven came over to pick up Roberta and me, and we went off to a theater where we were joined by Larry’s nephew and family to watch The Avengers.

Great fun. Those who are Marvel Comics fans will love it. Those who aren’t familiar with the Marvel universe might want to look up a few of the characters, but you don’t really have to. You can roll with the flow. It probably helps to understand that Black Widow and Hawkeye (the archer) were lovers, and it certainly helps to have seen the two Iron Man movies, but it’s still a rollicking good adventure with oodles of spectacular special effects. If you hate action adventure movies you’ll hate this one, but then you already know that.

Gwyneth Paltrow is one of my favorite actresses – I particularly liked her performance as Sylvia Plath in what I think is a very underrated film – and she has managed to do something that a lot of ingénues don’t manage, to find a part that isn’t character acting after their ingénue career ends. She has made Pepper Potts into a believable character, a capable and mature woman, still quite attractive and who doesn’t neglect her appearance, but who doesn’t live off her looks. She isn’t a major action character (In one of the Marvel universes she certainly is) but she has a substantial role even so.

Scarlett Johansson has a major part as an action adventure heroine with near superpowers. She is said to have done most of her own stunt work.

I didn’t find any of the men’s performances outstanding although Downey does his usual job of making Iron Man believable, and Tom Hiddleston is quite good as Loki.

It’s a long movie. I thought it perhaps too long, but I’m not sure what I’d cut. The action never stops. I found a few of the plot changes too abrupt (too little preparation) but Niven and my wife hadn’t noticed them until I brought it up, so I’m probably too analytical for this kind of film. Try it, you’ll like it.

Roland had this to add, and I agree:

Avengers.

I thought it was fantastic. I loved the Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Captain America movies (my one quibble with the Captain America movie was that for some reason, the producers of the film didn’t want to show him fighting actual *Nazis*), I liked the Thor movie – but I thought that Avengers was greater than the sum of its parts.

Yes, Robert Downey, Jr. is always superb and makes Tony Stark believable – but Chris Evans stole the show with his all-American maturity, stolidity, and just general overall *goodness*. I’ve always liked tortured antihero types (which probably says a lot about my own character flaws, heh), but Evans’ Captain America as a wholesome, uncomplicated, good guy is a breath of fresh air in both the Captain America and the Avengers movies. I’m shocked that his line in Avengers about religion, "There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that," made it through the Holitburo, but I guess they figured that it would also appeal to Muslims, so they let it slide.

Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner was pretty good, too, IMHO.

Roland Dobbins

Agreed. I wrote that late after we got back from the theater and dinner.