The Romney Victory Fund is now …. offering dinner with GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Celebrity Apprentice television star Donald Trump. … Persons who donate $3 or more to the fund will have their names placed in a raffle. … The winner will be invited to the Romney-Trump dinner event in Las Vegas. … As an added attraction, Newt Gingrich will be dining with Romney and Trump.

What could be more deliriously delightful?

If one prison guard beats you twenty times a day while the other guards beat you fifty times a day, then you’ll certainly prefer the first guard to the others – but should you be grateful to him? Or should you jump at the chance to switch to a guard who beats you only ten times a day? All the examples of things for which Saverin “owes” the u.s. are respects in which u.s. laws are less oppressive than the laws of many other countries. Being less oppressed is like being beaten less often.

Gratitude is an appropriate response to receiving a favour or a privilege. Freedom is a right, not a privilege; demanding that people be “grateful” for not having their freedom violated so much is morally obscene. In any case, the freedom that Saverin enjoyed in this country was the result not of the government (which would happily expand to totalitarian dimensions if it could) or of the ruling class (ditto), but of many generations of citizens working to restrain both. So asking Saverin to feel grateful to the government, and surrender his money to it, is like asking a patient to be grateful to a virus because, thanks to inoculations, he doesn’t suffer too badly from it.

Jingoistic, hyper-nationalist rants like Manjoo’s are incompatible with the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Governments owe allegiance to their citizens, not vice versa.

Oh, wonderful.

The United States was nearly destroyed last month.

Thankfully, alert public servants intervened to avert America’s destruction; like Gandalf facing down the Balrog they cried “you … shall not … pass!” – and sent Boris and Natasha scurrying back to their sinister overseas nation.

Oh, and Marilyn Monroe’s remains are safe also.

Dum dum dum da dum dum, I feel free ….

Dawn Kamin, who owns an optometry office in Germantown, Tennessee, received a notice that flying the American flag outside her office is a violation of the complex’s bylaws. … According to a letter sent to Dr. Kamin by the business condominium group that owns her building, she must take down the flag by Aug. 22 or face the consequences – fines and paying for the cost to remove the flag and staff.

What our soldiers do for us

“I have family in the military and we have really become aware of our freedoms and what our soldiers do for us,” she said. [You are permitted to gag here.] – RTL “It’s not tacky. It’s just out of respect for our military and the wonderful country that we have the privilege of living in.” …

Patriotic Americans are not the enemy! WE MUST POUND CONGRESS until they pass legislation that will protect Americans from encroachment on our Fourth Amendment rights and protections!

So in other words, however much conservatives may like to talk about private property rights, as soon as those rights come into conflict with the myths and symbols of the Federal imperialist leviathan demigod (which I’m sure is all one word in German), property rights get thrown under the bus.

(But wait, Roderick – do the condo owners have legitimate title to their complex under natural law? Well, I don’t know. But clearly no such questions are troubling the senders of these alerts.)

(And speaking of German, if Dawn Kamin is so patriotic, why is she living in Germantown? Wasn’t Americantown good enough for her?)

The only bearable part is the bit where they’re ripping off the Peter Gunn theme.

“I’m appalled and outraged. What the BBC are doing is stealing Scotland’s heritage. It is a kick in the teeth to one of our most iconic industries.”

Before you click, try to guess what monstrous crime the BCC has committed.

The Chinese government is banning tv shows about time travel because they treat “serious history in a frivolous way.”

But wait, there’s more. The powers that be are also training their sights on shows featuring “fantasy,” “mythical stories,” “bizarre plots,” “absurd techniques,” “feudal superstitions,” “fatalism,” “reincarnation,” “ambiguous moral lessons,” and “lack of positive thinking.”

  
– all I can think is: “you’re such a professional, you always have your lunch money ready for the school bully ahead of time.”