The Western Chauvinist

Was Jesus Anti-Eunuch?

2011-06-24T10:58:00.004-06:00

Circumcision, Marriage and a God-Ordered Universe: Why the Right Should Never, EVER, Align With the Left on Social Issues

What I'm about to express may seem like a theological argument. It is really the background for the political positions I hold, which I believe are well-aligned with the live-and-let-live conservatives and libertarians on the right, even though we may not share anything in common theologically. I'm going to give an orthodox religious view, in my case Roman Catholic, on the timely and controversial issues of circumcision, which the Left in San Francisco is working to prohibit, and marriage, which the Left nationally would like to redefine to include same-sex partners.

These issues are two of the battlefronts of the cultural war the Left is waging on the orthodox religious, with only the life issues drawing more blood – literally. I contend that in a highly advanced Western society based upon Judeo-Christian values and exceedingly tolerant of homosexuals, the attempts by the Left to order the universe according to its image of perfection is not about tolerance and social equity. It's about coercion and thought control, which are the hallmarks of the totalitarian temptation to which the Left routinely succumbs.

Before I give the orthodox explanations for the practices of circumcision and opposite-sex marriage, let me say I'm very understanding of people's view, on the left and the right, that these traditions are antiquated, if not barbaric, given I spent the first two-thirds of my adult life as an atheist liberal. I only ask that we remember the cultures which formed these ideas are the progenitors of the society in which we are very fortunate to live. And I ask, if we think of ourselves as being on the right, to please remember our commitment to defend the right of orthodox believers to hold these beliefs, whether we ourselves share them or not.

Orthodox Jews and Christians believe the Torah and the Bible, respectively, are the authoritative word of God. They believe God made a covenant, an unbreakable promise, with His people. The Abrahamic Covenant is in three parts: The Land Promise (Mosaic Covenant); the Kingdom Promise (Davidic Covenant); the Promise of a Worldwide Blessing (Christians believe this was fulfilled in Jesus Christ).

These covenants are manifested in multiple signs:

The Sabbath observance commanded to the first holy couple, Adam and Eve (Gen. 1-3);
The rainbow as a sign to the first holy family, Noah's, of God's promise not to flood the Earth again (Gen. 9);
Circumcision as a sign of God's covenant with Abraham at the establishment of the one holy tribe of Israel (Gen. 15, 17, 22);
The Ten Commandments given as The Law to Moses at the establishment of the one holy nation of Israel (Ex. 24, Deut. 29);
The Temple at the establishment of the one holy kingdom at the time of David (2 Sam. 7);
Finally, for Christians, the one holy catholic and apostolic church established by Jesus (Mk. 14).

Without putting you through a nine month Bible study, I hope it is apparent how essential, foundational really, are the signs of God's promises. Marriage is the first relationship established by God. Circumcision is the price of entrance into God's family. Orthodox religious believe God ordered the universe in this way for His purposes.

You may be wondering, why circumcision? It was the practice of the Hebrews at the time of Abraham to seal an important contract, a marriage covenant, for example, with a blood sacrifice. The families joining in the covenant would split sacrificial animals from nose to tail and lay the pieces on either side of a pathway, which was then traversed by the patriarchs of each family to signify the seriousness of the promise being made. If either party broke the covenant, it would be as the sacrificial animals – bloody and dead.

Circumcision is a splitting of the flesh. God made a three-part covenant with Abraham and commanded that the sign of that covenant be forever carried by the men of Israel. To not circumcise one's son would be to break the covenant with God, or to not have the child enter the holy contract at all. It's asking too much of an orthodox Jew to forgo the practice. Prohibiting circumcision is a direct assault on religious freedom.

On the other hand, same sex marriage is an indirect assault on religious freedom, but an assault nevertheless, because rather than a prohibition of religious practice, it is an attempt to co-opt an institution the orthodox religious view as instituted by God. For this argument, I refer you to Matthew Chapter 19, which is Jesus' teaching on marriage.

By this point in the narrative, the Pharisees want Jesus dead. They set a trap by asking him if a man may divorce his wife for any cause whatever. Jesus responds,

“Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” (Mt 19:4-6)

There are several layers of importance in these verses. First, Jesus is quoting from Genesis at the establishment of the institution of marriage by God. Second, he is referring to the natural order and procreative nature established by God. And third, he is affirming the covenant nature of marriage and how divorce was not part of God's original intent.

The Pharisees then ask why Moses gave a command allowing for divorce. Jesus refers again to God's intent at the original establishment of the institution of marriage, he explains that the Hebrews were excepted because of the hardness of their hearts, and he presses the point home by saying anyone who divorces and remarries is guilty of adultery, a violation of one of the Ten Commandments. At this point, his own disciples are concerned about the seriousness of the covenant and suggest it is better not to marry at all. And this is where Jesus' teaching gets really interesting for our purposes. He says,

“Not all can accept [this] word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.” (Mt 19:12)

The notes of my study-Bible say that Jesus is talking about eunuchs in this verse, but he was speaking before the idea that homosexuals might want to marry was even conceivable. His teaching could easily be universally applied to anyone who is incapable of entering a procreative sacramental marriage. But, what about infertile couples, you ask? I think intent counts in this case. Very few infertile couples enter marriage knowing they're infertile, and certainly none did during Jesus' time. The vast majority enter marriage having accepted “this word”.

Same-sex marriage is a social innovation promoted by the Left. This, alone, should make anyone on the right wary. In a Judeo-Christian society where homosexuals are not only not ostracized or abused, tortured and murdered like, say, in Arab Muslim societies, but are our neighbors, friends and family and have access to most of the same legal protections as heterosexuals, if pursued through powers of attorney and such, tolerance is not the issue. What gays want through same-sex marriage is approval. Tolerance is a behavior, but approval is a belief. Advocates of same-sex marriage don't want us to change our society's behavior toward gays. They want us to change our thinking. If you understand the orthodox explanations I gave above, you'll understand why orthodox religious people consider same-sex marriage coercive. Freedom of conscience is at stake.

I predict there will be dire consequences to tampering with the foundational cultural institutions of our society, even if these innovations “don't affect my marriage” – a specious and narcissistic argument, at best. Already Catholic adoption agencies are being driven out of business because they refuse to adopt to gay couples. Here's a question for the social equity crowd. If an adoption agency has two couples contending for the same child and, all else being equal, one couple is gay and the other is straight, should the agency be allowed to discriminate on the part of the mixed gender couple? Why or why not?

When same sex marriage is considered as equal in every way to male/female marriages, what happens in state-run education? Do the teachers read Johnny Has Two Daddies or One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue Dads to the class as an exercise in “tolerance”? I'll take my children out of public school on that day, because this is a perversion of my religion. If, that is, the Left hasn't already outlawed home-schooling.

When same sex marriage is established on the well-intentioned vision of a universe ordered by man, will priests and ministers be free to teach from Matthew 19? Will they be allowed to teach a God-ordered universe? Don't scoff. Ministers in western European countries are facing prosecution for such things. Hate speech, as Mark Steyn well knows.

If conservatives agree that life is a series of trade-offs, what will we be trading for blowing apart the standards for marriage which Jesus taught? Do homosexual couples teach a standard to their children? Do they want their children to have heterosexual relationships or are all relationships equal? If even we on the right can't agree to fight to preserve the ideal of covenant marriage, I'm pretty sure we'll find out.

Imagining God and Christopher Hitchens

2010-12-26T21:13:00.010-07:00

Somehow I can't bring myself to believe my dog imagines me on all fours running for the food bowl at 5:00 pm every day or tearing out the patio door to chase a squirrel. However, I am delighted by the thought of my Pembroke Welsh corgi reclining in a tufted leather chair dressed in a paisley smoking jacket, reading glasses poised jauntily at the end of his long nose, with a pipe in one paw and a copy of G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy in the other. Christopher Hitchens prefers to believe that this human-animal distinction – this ability to imagine – is an accident of mutation over eons of evolution. What, exactly, is adaptive about my Alistair Cooke corgi fantasy, I can't, well... imagine.

I believe this distinction is explained by our Creator God who imagined and spoke us into being. We, not other animals, are made in God's image and likeness and therefore, we have this ability to imagine and, as such, are often capable of reflecting God's creative enterprise. Thus, an Alistair Cooke corgi nearly out of nothing.

I love Christopher Hitchens and I'm not just saying that to establish my Christian bona fides. I really do. What I see in him is a righteous indignation about the suffering of innocents. I deeply admire his commitment and passion to his cause. He's willing to get his nose bloodied over it and even put his own life in danger. I find this very attractive and heroic. It doesn't hurt that Hitchens has one of the sharpest minds of our era and is a master of the English language too.

Where Hitchens fails, however, is pride (it's always the pride, isn't it?) in his ability to reason. He cannot imagine how a good God could allow such abject misery and suffering in the world. And therefore, he rejects the very notion of God.

The Christian response to the paradox of a God who desires mercy and yet allows evil into the world is often answered by “evil is allowed to enter to reveal the glory of God.” This isn't the most intellectually satisfying response, is it? The best I can do is the old Jewish saying, “if I understood God, I would be him.” Both are inadequate to a man who rests all his understanding of the world on evolution and reason.

I like to imagine an omnipotent corporeal God with a restraining hand on Christopher Hitchens' forehead while the lesser, still beloved and magnificent creation, Hitchens, flails away with all the indignation he feels at injustice in the world, trying to land one good blow to make his point. If I can feel this way about a man I've never met and with whom I have profound philosophical disagreements, imagine how much more the Father, who sent his only Son to die for us all, must love and cherish such a man.

And so, I pray, Lord, if it be your will, please save Hitchens from his pride and his sickness. After this lifelong struggle, let his hand come to rest on Yours so that he may know Your Presence and make him an example, like St. Paul, of the good that is possible when we imagine You.

The Well-Deserved Bad Reputation of Good Intentions

2010-10-22T08:11:00.014-06:00

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

The original aphorism seems to have been, “Hell [itself] is paved with good intentions,” which is often attributed to St. Bernard of Clairveux, a doctor of the Church. Isn't it fascinating that in this formulation, good intentions aren't so much along the route one takes to Hell, but a sign that one is already there?

I once told a campus missionary she should avoid “God-talk” if she wants to be understood by the youth she aims to convert. Now I'm going to illustrate the point by explaining the problem with good intentions in a way only some in my audience will fully understand.

God, in the person of Jesus Christ, calls us to empty ourselves or die to oneself to make ourselves hospitable vessels for the Holy Spirit to indwell. We are to minimize the Ego, but being fallen humans, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for us to eliminate Ego altogether. However, when we succeed at hosting the Holy Spirit, good fruits are in abundance – with no regard whatever to our intentions.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life. “Period. End of issue.” - to borrow a phrase from my second-favorite Jew, Dennis Prager.

Practicing Christians are now dismissed. Lesson over. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

Do dee do dee do... “oh, watch out there - you dropped your pencil!”

“See you same time next week. Don't forget your assignment!...”

“Test in two weeks.” Do dee dum dee do...

I now resume explaining, while limiting the “God-talk,” for the unbelievers. Please take your seats.

Let's analogize using the “virtue bank account” or “VBA.” The VBA is like the Hotel California (you can check out, but you can never leave) in that you really only want to make deposits. If you withdraw from your VBA, you are behaving in un-virtuous (in God-talk, “sinful”) ways. It is like the Hotel California in one other way... it is a death-trap.

See, tracking the balance of your VBA is all about YOU. It is about your virtue and your self-regard and your status among your peers. It has very little to do with actual goodness - for the love of God! Good intentions are its currency. And this particular currency is worth-less. Not worthless, but worth less than good results (fruitfulness in God-talk).

Example One. Let's say you worked for the government advising the president in a time of terrible economic hardship for the country. And let's say you had the idea to devise a system which would provide financial security for retirees. Let's call your plan Social Security. The plan would have workers pay into the system over their lifetime of work and then make withdrawals upon retirement. Theoretically, most people would end up withdrawing about as much as they deposited and any overages would be covered by revenue paid in by current workers. This seems to work when the ratio of workers to retirees is six or seven to one. Not so much when the ratio gets down to two to one or lower. Good intentions? In abundance! Unsustainable? You betcha! In God-talk, we'd call this plan a “false-promise.” For our purposes, let's call it a Ponzi scheme.

Example Two. Let's say you worked for the government advising the president in a time of terrible economic hardship for the country. And let's say you had the idea to devise a system which would provide health care for everyone... Oh, wait. We've already done this one... let's see, um – massive sovereign debt and unfunded liabilities... check, false promises... Ponzi scheme... check, check, increased suffering of innocents... check... net evil... check.

Example Two Redux. Let's say you want to do your part to care for the environment. In God-talk, this is called stewardship. Good intention? Check. You're convinced that recycling is a commonsense way to decrease the demand on limited resources. You decide to diligently recycle your newspapers to save the trees (Is recycling utter rubbish?)! What if the net effect of your recycling actually uses more non-renewable energy resources (oil) than the resources it saves (renewable trees)? What if transportation energy to haul your papers to the recycling plant and manufacturing energy to transform your waste paper into something usable is less efficient than the transportation and production of the newspaper in the first place? This is hypothetical, because frankly, I don't know the truth, but neither does anyone else. But, for the sake of argument, lets say the net effect of your good intention is increasing demand for and consumption of non-renewable fuel, the production of which has been limited locally in a heavily environmentally regulated and decent society (the U.S.) by the activities of well-intentioned environmentalists, effectively increasing demand and consumption of fuel from despotic environmentally disastrous societies such as in the Middle East, Sudan and Russia, for example. Good intentions... meet road to Hell.

Example Three. This is subtler yet. Let's say you are an elderly parent on a modest fixed income. You live relatively comfortably in your own home, but the financial stresses of paying your bills and shelling out every month for your expensive prescription drugs keep you on edge. You don't make long-distance calls to your kids despite your desperate loneliness because you're afraid you can't afford the expense. You worry about putting five bucks in the grandkids' birthday cards. So, your adult children agree among themselves to each make a modest deposit to your bank account every month to ease your anxieties. You make an unsolicited promise to them that you're spending as little of the money as possible so they'll all get something back when you die. You're making deposits in your VBA.

Unfortunately, your kids still aren't getting calls from you and you're still desperately lonely. You're still worried about the prescription drug costs and even refuse to fill some prescriptions because you can live without the medications although you'd be more comfortable with them. Your kids hesitate to call you because they hear the same complaints from you as before... and the repeated promise of “return” on their investment upon your death. Your deposits into your VBA have accrued exclusively to you and contributed exactly nothing to the good on their accounts. They would rather have their parent be serene, content and grateful for their show of concern than have their parent dead and receive a portion of the inheritance which came at the expense of their parent's happiness and well-being. You have stolen their virtue.

The previous case is the best example of good intentions gone awry. A priest once told me, “your life is not about you.” “Well,” an unbeliever might ask, “if it isn't about me, what is it about?” This is harder to answer without some serious God-talk. Perhaps, for the unbeliever, the best answer is, your life is about the truth. The truth is, as an elderly parent, you should receive your children's' charity with grace, and then pay the grace forward by delighting in the gifts. Let your children accrue something worthwhile to their own VBAs as well as contribute to your happiness.

The truth is, you'd contribute more to the well-being of the environment by picking up litter when you see it (a good moral test for any action is to ask, “what if everyone did this?”) and insisting on local oil drilling (Ethical Oil, by Ezra Levant) and nuclear energy production than recycling your newspaper.

The truth is, neither you nor anyone else in the electorate should put your faith in or vote for politicians making false promises. You will not be spared struggle and pain by the federal government, or if you are, like the early recipients of Social Security, your consolation will ultimately come at great cost to people utterly innocent of the decision to implement an unsustainable Ponzi scheme, who will have paid into the system the better part of their working lives, who will receive nothing when the scheme becomes insolvent. Your secure retirement came from stealing other people's future. Sometimes, the truth hurts.

The answer to “what is my life all about?” is more succinct for the believer. My life is about The Truth. The Way. And The Life. Sounds simplistic, but as we've seen, it isn't. The “my life is not about me” Ethos is big and expansive and life-affirming. It is actually the “my life is all about me” Ethos and the fixation with one's VBA which is narrow, niggling and soul-killing.

Am I suggesting, because of my disregard for the VBA, we shouldn't practice the virtues – prudence, justice, courage, restraint, faith, hope and charity? Not at all. I am saying the type of virtue which accrues by pride in our good intentions into our VBA is counterfeit. Satan has a counterfeit for every aspect of God's Kingdom and this is no exception. When your life is all about you, Satan has lured you into a death-trap. In contrast, when you make your life about reflecting the love and mercy of Jesus (or if you prefer, the small-t truth), you are truly poor in spirit (humble) and will be received into the Heavenly Banquet (produce truly good results). You'll probably even get a taste of happiness here on Earth.

I see our time is up. Class dismissed.

For extra credit, watch the following video of Andrew Klavan and his dog, Virtue, on illegal immigration, titled, Imagine There's No Border. If you were paying attention, you already know where this road is going...

The Audacity of Dopes

2010-09-17T18:32:00.016-06:00

Source: federalbudget.com

Here's a Tea Party proposal... how much money would we save, that is, the American taxpayers who fund this monstrosity, along with our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will be paying off the Chinese forever... if we eliminated whole departments, agencies, bureaus from our midst. This is going to be fun!

Start big - the Department of Health and Human Services. Has HHS improved your health or that of anyone you know? Have you received any "services" from it lately? Consider it cut.

Projected savings: $800,000,000,000

There! Doesn't that feel good? We've already shaved two-thirds off of this years projected deficit. I know this budget probably includes Medicare/Medicaid, but don't you believe if we addressed these expenses locally in a truly free market system, the costs would go down and we could serve our people more efficiently? Also, after Sebelius' little fascist stunt, I say kill HHS. Kill it dead.

Next is the Department of Defense. Notice DOD is already scheduled for reduction in 2010? I'm feeling generous here, since national defense is one of the main reasons government exists. And we know the rest of the West has pretty much opted out of the enforcement game, with a slight nod to Britain and Australia for their previous support. We should also acknowledge the Religion of Peace (ROP) is making it more obvious every day it's at war with western civilization. No cuts.

Next biggest are Social Security entitlements and the Treasury (including interest payments) which we can't even touch at the moment. No savings... yet.

For reasons mentioned previously (see function of government and ROP), we also can't mess too much with Veteran's Affairs or the Department of Homeland Security.

But now we can address those niggling annoyances which also happen to be antithetical to limited constitutional government:

Department of Agriculture: $150,000,000,000

Department of Education: $110,000,000,000

Office of Personnel Management: $70,000,000,000

Department of Labor (notice the huge increase this year and last!): $210,000,000,000

Housing and Urban Development: $60,000,000,000

Department of Energy: $40,000,000,000

Subtotal: $640,000,000,000

Add this to our HHS cut and now we're making some serious progress on our national debt:

800 billion + 640 billion = 1,440 billion

1,440 billion - 1,200 billion (projected deficit) = 240 billion we can put toward the debt.

I'm skipping over the Department of Justice and the Judicial Branch as, again, they're primary functions of government. Also, NASA. NASA is a pet I'd like to keep. Something like a goldfish in this zoo full of bloated government functions. Besides, every great country needs space toys.

International Assistance Programs: $35,000,000,000

Other Independent Agencies (major cuts by Obama here): $20,000,000,000

Department of Interior: $25,000,000,000

Environmental Protection Agency: $25,000,000,000

Department of Commerce: $25,000,000,000

Subtotal: $130,000,000,000

What about the Department of State, you say? Again, another primary function of government. I'm also keeping the Corps of Engineers. I have a soft spot for engineers. They actually make things and make things work. Same for the National Science Foundation, although if science continues to be used by the Left for political purposes, I'm whacking it too. That leaves the Executive Office of the President, which we'll take care of in 2012 and the Legislative Branch which we're working over this year.

GRAND TOTAL SAVINGS: $1,570,000,000,000

Can you believe how much money the feds take from you and borrow for this stuff?

There is nothing quite as satisfying as taking control of one's budget. I need a cigarette.

The Subspecies and Origin of the Leftist

2010-09-14T17:30:00.017-06:00

It is clearer to me every day that my enemy and the enemy of western civilization is leftist ideology. It really is evil. Or, if you're uncomfortable with strong words like “evil,” let's say leftism is opposed to good. It is destructive to the happiness of the individual and tears at the roots of society, while promoting itself as having a virtuous concern for the common good.

Here's an example:

We live in such a morally confused and intellectually dimmed world, I feel compelled to explain up-front that I don't hate everyone on the Left, just leftist ideology. I mainly made friends with leftists in my youth because I was one. Some of them are still my friends even though I've moved on ideologically. And yet, as an example of how intellectually damaging the Left is, if you asked for my friends' private opinions of me, they probably would say I am “narrow” and “fixed” in my conservatism. Interesting – no?

There is a frustrating opacity one experiences in trying to relate to a leftist. I have devised categories – subspecies, if you will, which help explain the lack of transparency they exhibit: the “shallow” leftist, the “committed” leftist and the “vampire” leftist.

The Shallow Leftist

First, as Thomas Sowell has described, many leftists are subject to stage-one thinking. They tend to neglect the question, “and then what happens?” This makes their reasoning, if we care to call it that, very shallow. Perhaps “obtuse” or “his ideas are as intellectually interesting as a piece of dry white toast” would be more descriptive, but for ease of use, let's stay with “shallow.” You can't really penetrate the shallow leftists' thinking, because, well... they're not... thinking, that is.

The Committed Leftist

Second, sometimes the disconnectedness one experiences with the Left is because they are ideologically committed and know you would disapprove if they revealed their thinking. This is what we're seeing in the White House now. They have become as God and any doubts they ever have about the efficacy or morality of their plans is soon dispelled by Ego and Hubris. We don't have access to their reasoning because they know, if the public understands what they're all about, they will never be entrusted with the authority to accomplish it. Watching Obama's economic policy play out is like being at a seminar where the professor's theories are soon discovered to be horse puckey and the room is gradually emptying out while the professor “stays the course.” He's going to go to the bitter end whether the students like it or not, because, by god (he, himself), he knows what's good for them and they're going to take this medicine if it kills ~~them~~!- I mean him... I think.

The Vampire Leftist

But the first two categories are not nearly as disturbing as this last one. This is the one which keeps me up at night... with a crucifix, a vial of holy water and a garlic necklace. There is a large portion of people on the Left comprised of good, intelligent and accomplished people who suffer what Gerard Vanderleun has dubbed the “Twilight effect.” I have called them vampires. I use the term reluctantly and with all the love of neighbor and desolation I feel at the mortal wound inflicted on them by leftist ideology. Perhaps immortal wound is more accurate, because, like the poor, the Left will always be with us it seems, no matter how many times the ideology proves to culminate in destruction and cruelty.

The vampire leftists are simply incapable of seeing themselves no matter how often or how compassionately you hold up the mirror to them. I know one or two “shallow” leftists; I know one or two “committed” leftists; but the vast majority of leftists I know personally, fall into the “vampire” category. And it is this spiritual blindness I find so horrifying. It isn't that they haven't reasoned through the issues... or that they have, but they don't want us to know what they've concluded... it is that they deny to you, and worse, to themselves, having come to the positions they hold as true.

I find having described these categories of leftists very helpful for clarity. But in addition, I think I've had an insight into the psychological/spiritual origins of such people... or, to rip-off Darwin:

The Origin of the Leftist

Leftist ideology teaches that the moral code is within (the heart, the “evolved” ability to reason) and explains moral failings without (the parents or society). This is the opposite of the conservative believer or, using the better term coined by Chesterton, the happy pessimist, who seeks his moral code externally (God and the Bible, traditional moral codes “evolved” over millennia) and explains his moral failings internally (Original Sin, his imperfections). The happy pessimist believes human nature contains dark aspects and is immutable, which makes him seek a power higher than himself for moral guidance and/or compels him to struggle against his own demons before seeking to impose his ideas of social justice externally. Admittedly, this worked better when our society held Judeo-Christian values more homogeneously.

Of course, there are as many jerks and buffoons on the Right as there are on the Left. And, there are wonderfully good people on the Left as well as the Right. But – and this is really the crux of the matter - leftist ideology tends to convince people of their own victimhood or the victimhood of the Lefts' favored minorities (what, Mormons aren't a minority?), which tends to make the recipients of victim status self-indulgent,self-pitying, narcissistic, dependent and unhappy. This is how individuals are ruined and whole segments of society are destroyed – the black family, for example. Individual leftists who have survived the onslaught have done so because they tend to personally live by conservative principles, while preaching, teaching and imposing leftist ideology on everyone else.

In case the problem with victimhood isn't glaringly obvious, let me suggest it destroys human dignity. The victim mentality makes one less attractive to a potential spouse or friends because there is nothing quite as unappealing as self-pity. Believing you're a victim also shackles you to your present circumstances and makes you less likely to struggle for self-improvement. Why bother when The Man (the Other, whatever group or structure is the oppressor) is responsible for all your woes? Nah – to improve your lot, you should agitate – or community organize – to make sure everyone else treats you better.

Leftism appeals to two of the baser human instincts as well. The first is the desire to remain childlike – to be coddled and made safe and not to have to buy your own health insurance until you're twenty-six. The second is an appeal to one's moral vanity: since I am a good person and I mean well, it shouldn't count against me that my ideology is so destructive to the good... and if you do count it against me, it just proves you are an evil greedy hateful conservative oppressor! Let's call this the “I'm ok... you're evil!” mentality.

How to deal with the Left? I'm tempted to advise, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it,” (Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals), even though it goes against my Christian ethic. I do believe we have done too little “targeting” of the Left when we're arguing with the shallow or vampire leftists. Obama's support for infanticide in his opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act would have disqualified him with almost every decent person I know – had they known it. Therefore, my first suggestion is, name it; identify it. Don't keep quiet about what you recognize. In the case of the shallow leftist, I would just love them and cajole them. Maybe open the door a peek occasionally on the view they're missing. The vampire leftist is a difficult case because of the self-delusion involved. I think we have to pray for these people. It is a psycho-spiritual problem best left to God to fix. And finally, the committed leftist... these we have to fight, because, given the chance, they'll murder us.

Readings for the Roman Catholic Liturgy
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Reading 1
Wisdom 9:13-18b
Who can know God's counsel,
or who can conceive what the LORD intends?
For the deliberations of mortals are timid,
and unsure are our plans.
For the corruptible body burdens the soul
and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind that has many concerns.
And scarce do we guess the things on earth,
and what is within our grasp we find with difficulty;
but when things are in heaven, who can search them out?
Or who ever knew your counsel, except you had given wisdom
and sent your holy spirit from on high?
And thus were the paths of those on earth made straight.

Reading 2

A reading from St. Paul's letter to Philemon
I, Paul, an old man,
and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus,
urge you on behalf of my child Onesimus,
whose father I have become in my imprisonment;
I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.
I should have liked to retain him for myself,
so that he might serve me on your behalf
in my imprisonment for the gospel,
but I did not want to do anything without your consent,
so that the good you do might not be forced but voluntary.
Perhaps this is why he was away from you for a while,
that you might have him back forever,
no longer as a slave
but more than a slave, a brother,
beloved especially to me, but even more so to you,
as a man and in the Lord.
So if you regard me as a partner, welcome him as you would me.

Gospel: Luke 14: 25-33
Great crowds were traveling with Jesus,
and he turned and addressed them,
"If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
Which of you wishing to construct a tower
does not first sit down and calculate the cost
to see if there is enough for its completion?
Otherwise, after laying the foundation
and finding himself unable to finish the work
the onlookers should laugh at him and say,
'This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.'
Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down
and decide whether with ten thousand troops
he can successfully oppose another king
advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops?
But if not, while he is still far away,
he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.
In the same way,
anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions
cannot be my disciple."

Gay Marriage? Yield * No * Quarter

2010-08-26T10:25:00.016-06:00

Don't Support Gay Marriage? Fine...

... Bookworm's asking this:

My question for those opposed to gay conservatives who support conservatism on the most important political issue of the day is this: Can you afford to get into a divisive fight over what is, temporarily at least, a less significant issue than saving our entire country from frighteningly potential internal economic collapse and external terrorist and military attack? --Bookworm Room ｻ The blessings of gay conservatives

This is from the sidebar at the creative controversial conservative blog American Digest, by Gerard Vanderleun.

I have argued here and elsewhere that there are two fascist ideologies threatening western civilization and the American society which has been at its apex for at least a century: Leftism and Islamism. Sometimes I feel I'm part of a very small army trying to hold it all together with sealing wax and sticky tape. We're battling these two enemies who currently hold much of the "high" ground and who are armed with the power of the state, the media, the judiciary and box-cutters. And about half of my side is blinded in the battle by a handful of self-interest tossed in their faces. Right now, my side is losing badly. In war, there can always be an abrupt change of fortune (November 2?), but I'm very pessimistic over the long-haul. (Thomas Sowell talks about Dismantling America here)

I'm finished being bullied on “gay marriage.” I will not concede that we who fight to preserve traditional marriage are gay-haters and I won't cede “marriage” to the Left for it to manipulate out of all meaning and existence. If gay conservatives are threatening to quit the battle, to switch sides over this – then sayonara, Baby. Join the Left. See how that works out for us.

It would be easier on me, but I don't give-in to my children when they're being their narcissistic ungrateful little selves either, because I know it won't make them better people or better members of society. This battle IS NOT ABOUT gays! This is about the fascist Left and mind-control! If we conservatives don't get that the LIE that “gender distinctions are an artifact” and the LIE that “men and women play the same role in marriage” and the LIE that “Johnny is just as fortunate, all else being equal, to have two daddies or two mommies as he would be to have a daddy and a mommy” are the roots of our civilizational destruction - then the fight really is OVER! The greatest evil always begins with such LIES... or to quote Leviathan, "You will not die!" If gay conservatives don't understand that, they might as well vacate the battlefield.

And there's another whole ocean of hurt swirling up into this storm. This “gay marriage” movement is anti-religious and specifically anti-traditional orthodox religions – you know - the kinds conservatives tend to practice. The Bible, particularly the Five Books of Moses, has a sweeping theme of anti-paganism. God commands his people not to sacrifice their children to Moloch (abortion, anyone?), not to tattoo themselves, not to eat, dress or worship like the pagans and yes, not to practice homosexuality as it was practiced in an ancient world filled with pederasty and perversion. Well. There really is nothing new under the sun.

The Bible is also full of smiting by God of both the pagans and his own people who disobey. Huh, wonder what happens when a preacher, priest or rabbi even reads this history to his congregation, let alone refuses to marry a gay couple? Hate crime, anyone? Hello, McFly?! Are we prepared to see our religious leaders go to PRISON? Think it can't happen here? It is already happening in other western societies.

And yes, I'm so pissed off, I'm going to go there. This is another, less obvious form of the fascist Left's antisemitism. I'm not Jewish, but I have a deep regard for the ethical system of Judaism which lies at the foundation of Christianity and western civilization. And male/female marriage is arguably “the” social institution which makes western civilization possible. Any compelling state interest there???

What don't gay marriage advocates get about having standards and ideals, which maybe even 99.9% of the population are incapable of achieving? Would they not even wish to teach their own children to desire the complementarity of male/female unions? Will any of us be free to teach our children the male/female ideal?? If you aren't cut out for male/female marriage, then fine. Don't have one. I bear my own cross and won't think any less of you.

To gay conservatives who want to marry – GET OVER YOURSELVES! It isn't about you. Yes, it is “discriminatory” just the way we discriminate against a brother and sister who are "in love" and wish to marry or how we discriminate against Mormons and (gasp!) the Left's favored allies, Muslims, who wish to practice polygamy. Yes, it is somewhat tragic and unfair that you DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT to everything heterosexuals have. Wahahha! Quit your whining! Unlike elsewhere in the world, you live in a society so tolerant, so liberal, so generous, you not only don't have to worry about being executed or generally shunned by your fellow citizens, you can have almost all the legal protections of straight couples under civil unions. And I'll even fight with you to make sure you have them all. But you * can't * have * marriage *. As I tell my kids... take your Vitamin “N” (No!).

You can choose to be miserable under such a system or you can choose to be GRATEFUL and go on with your happy lives largely left alone by a vast majority of people who don't GIVE A RAT what you do in your bedroom.

Conservatives of every stripe should be about free conscience. Even if gays “win” by destroying the definition of marriage, a large majority of people will never be convinced that the relationship they have with each other is “marriage.” You can't control people's beliefs or thoughts, no matter how Orwellian the system. You can only destroy those whom you oppose. Welcome to 1984... or maybe even more apropos - welcome to Babylon.

Obama: Muslim or Christian?

2010-08-24T11:33:00.017-06:00

There is no way Barack Obama is a Muslim and I can prove it. He isn't Christian either and I can prove that too. The evidence I'm about to present has nothing to do with where he was born, or the fact that his father was Muslim and therefore he's an apostate subject to execution if not Muslim, or the rumor that he wasn't baptized in Wright's church because, unlike every other denomination of normative Christianity, Wright's United Trinity Church of Christ doesn't require baptism “in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” for membership. And yet, I believe the evidence is obvious and irrefutable. I make the claim that in order for Obama to be either Muslim or Christian, he would have to believe in God - in a higher power to whom he will be held to account - and his position on abortion is incompatible with belief in God.

My assertion is that he's an atheist. Another first for The One... is there no end? He is our first atheist president. The Europeans see this as a major historical milestone for the U.S. because now we're finally as enlightened as they in this regard. My atheist British friends recently explained this to me.

My evidence for his atheism comes from an August 19, 2008 article by Rich Lowry on NRO (Barack Obama, Abortion Extremist):

In 2000, Congress took up legislation to make it clear that infants born alive after abortions are persons under the law. The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League opposed the bill as an assault on Roe, but it passed the House 380-15. Back in the Illinois state Senate in 2001, Obama spoke out against and voted “present” — effectively “no” — on a similar bill, aligning himself with the tiny pro-abortion rump of 15 congressmen.

In 2002, Congress considered the legislation again, this time adding a “neutrality clause” specifying that it didn’t affect Roe one way or another. The bill passed without any dissenting votes in the House or the Senate and was signed into law. In 2003 in Illinois, Obama still opposed a state version of the law. He long claimed that he voted against it because it didn’t have the same “neutrality clause” as the federal version. But the National Right to Life Committee has unearthed documents showing that the Illinois bill was amended to include such a clause, and Obama voted to kill it anyway.

"Obama voted to kill it." Let's be clear on what we're talking about here. In a late-term abortion, the child's body is usually extracted feet-first through, in this case, the ironically-named “birth”-canal, but the head is intentionally left in said "birth"-canal to receive the abortionist's brain-sucking tool and, most importantly, to protect the abortionist from murder charges. If this procedure goes horribly "wrong" and the child escapes the "birth"-canal intact - that is, with its brains still in its head - what to do?

To the average person, and by this I mean the vast majority of even congress-critters, apart from fifteen of them, depending on how you look at it, the child has unintentionally and instantly become a "person" with all constitutional (and some of us would also add "human") rights attendant. But, to Barack Obama, that small person experiencing its first breaths under the bright lights of the abortionists operating room is a deadly threat to a woman's “right to choose.” What to do?

"Obama voted to kill it." Before ever having to answer questions about his “paygrade,” Obama did everything possible during his term in the Illinois legislature to make sure that little person receives no succor. It is Obama's position that the baby should be left unattended to die. Not held. Not comforted. Not fed. Not named. No mercy. No hope. All because the child had the audacity to be born alive.

My grandmother was one of the sweetest merriest gentlest women you'd ever have the good fortune to meet. She was a nurse and at one time played piano in the local silent movie theater. She once picked up a songbird which had struck the window and she deftly snapped its little neck. It was a shock to my sister who witnessed the moment and was only understood by her as mercy many many years later. Not even this kind of humanity - not as much as to a songbird - would Barack Obama offer to the little human survivor.

No, Barack Obama is not Muslim. Nor is he Christian. He's an atheist. I know it the way I know the sun will come up tomorrow.

"Obama voted to kill it." God forgive him... or not. Thy will be done.

Define Capricious

2010-06-21T17:47:00.057-06:00

ca*pri*cious

adj.

Characterized by or subject to whim; impulsive and unpredictable. See synonyms at arbitrary.

Adj. 1. capricious - changeable; "a capricious summer breeze"; "freakish weather"

freakish

unpredictable - not capable of being foretold

2. capricious - determined by chance or impulse or whim rather than by necessity or reason; "a capricious refusal"; "authoritarian rulers are frequently capricious"; "the victim of whimsical persecutions"

whimsical, impulsive

arbitrary- based on or subject to individual discretion or preference or sometimes impulse or caprice; "an arbitrary decision"; "the arbitrary rule of a dictator"' "an arbitrary penalty"

Sound familiar? What the heck... let's review:

1. After the 2008 election, there were calls by many on the Left for President Bush and his administration to step aside and let the Obama administration take over during the financial crisis prior to the constitutionally mandated date of January 20th (20th Amendment). The constitutional date for presidential inaugurations has been so revered in American history that prior to the 1933 date change to the 20th Amendment from March 4 to January 20, only four exceptions were made. These four presidents delivered their inaugural addresses on March 5th because March 4th fell on a Sunday. Respect for the date was only superseded by respect for the Sabbath. Times have changed.

2. Three days after entering office President Obama overturns the Mexico City Policy which prohibited the use of American taxpayer funds for abortion services overseas. He does this against the will and consent of a majority of Americans.

3. On February 4th, Obama announces pay caps of $500,000 for executives of companies receiving TARP money. Interior Secretary Salazar cancels 77 leases to oil and gas companies made by the Bush administration, while letting 39 stand. The authority for the executive to determine private enterprise executive compensation limits and to arbitrarily cancel contracts is enumerated in which part of the constitution? Don't answer that.

4. On February 21st, Obama's DOJ affirms the Bush administration's position that enemy detainees in Afghanistan do not have the right to use U.S. courts to contest their detention. On November 13, Attorney General Holder announces that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried in downtown Manhattan within several weeks. He does this against the will and consent of a majority of Americans. In a rare show of sensitivity to public opinion there has been no announcement as to when and where KSM will be tried, but apparently it won't be in Manhattan. May we suggest GITMO, which is yet to be closed as Obama repeatedly promised during the campaign?

5. March 30th, Obama announces restructuring ultimatums for Chrysler and

General Motors effectively taking government control of two of the Big Three auto

firms. Obama fires the chairman and CEO of GM. In the restructuring deal, the

UAW ends up with a majority share of Chrysler (55%), making the term "secured"

creditor meaningless and once again shattering the very idea of constitutional

protection of contracts. The transactions are effected using capital infusions from

TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) slush funds as leverage to coerce reluctant banks. He does this against the will and consent of a majority of Americans.

6. April 5th, Obama gives a speech in Prague touting unilateral nuclear

disarmament for America and her allies. This, while rogue states such as North

Korea and Iran have been shown to have nuclear ambitions and the intent to

threaten their neighbors and/or sell their deadly wares to terrorists. His

unilateral disarmament policy is naive and dangerous and against the will and

consent of a majority of Americans, not to mention it is in direct conflict with

his role as president.

Those are some of the major events for 2009. In 2010 thus far, we've seen...

7. The comprehensive health care bill passed by the Senate is "deemed" passed by the House

using a procedure previously reserved for budget items. After at least 54

speeches by the president, lots of back room deals and severe arm twisting, the

measure is more unpopular with Americans than ever. It becomes law against the will and consent of a majority of Americans.

8. After Arizona passes a law intended to allow state police to enforce

immigration laws the federal government won't, the Obama administration

announces that immigration officials won't process illegal immigrants picked up

under the new law. This raises three main issues: 1) The president doesn't

acknowledge the concept of equal standing before the law. 2) The president

doesn't to plan to faithfully preserve, protect and defend the Constitution as he

promised in the oath of office. 3) The president doesn't care that a large

majority of Americans support the Arizona law and want the borders secured

before any immigration laws pass. He punishes Arizona against the will and consent of a majority of Americans.

9. In an event little noted by the mainstream media, Congress fails to write a

budget for 2011. It isn't that they missed passing a budget by the April 15

deadline, which they did, but that they didn't even bother to write one. The

budget is non-binding, but has serious implications as to the political will of

Congress to tax and spend responsibly. We, the taxpayers, should insist the

holders-of-the-purse-strings not only face the awful truth of the budget mess by

writing a budget... we should insist Congress live or die by a balanced budget.

10. In response to the oil spill devastating the Gulf of Mexico, Obama has

extorted $20 billion out of BP for another of his many slush funds (TARP,

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and now this). At least these

funds won't come from the taxpayers' pockets, but we should all be alarmed that

our president is so capricious as to utterly ignore due process and the rule of law.

We should also note he has an open hostility for free enterprise which suggests,

if America weren't so bullied by political correctness, we could openly call our

president a socialist. And if "progressives" weren't so intellectually dishonest in

pursuit of their aims, they would openly admit it.

When the government stops governing with the consent of the people, it is

tyrannical. When the government is capricious in the extreme, disregarding the

rule of law, confiscating property, imposing punishments on those who would

adhere to the rule of law, using extra-legal if not unconstitutional procedures to

jam down its agenda and picking winners and losers in contractual disputes, it is

contemptible even if the ends are as glorious as it intends. Such a government

is abusive, dangerous and illegitimate and must be opposed by every person

wishing to remain free.

God bless America! And to borrow my brother's tag line... buy more ammo!

Anyone, said T.S. Eliot, could carve a goose, were it not for the bones. And anyone could govern as boldly as his whims decreed, were it not for the skeletal structure that keeps civil society civil -- the rule of law. The Obama administration is bold. It also is careless regarding constitutional values and is acquiring a tincture of lawlessness. [...] The administration's central activity -- the political allocation of wealth and opportunity -- is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption. - George F. Will, Tincture of Lawlessness: Obama's Overreaching Economic Policies, May 14, 2009, The Washington Post

The Political Correctness Bomb or: How I Learned to Love the Lie

2010-06-07T18:54:00.010-06:00

My political awareness started in the early 70s during the Vietnam War and Watergate. What did I learn from these pivotal events in American life? From the Vietnam War, I learned that America was a loser. I learned that lots of veterans were druggies and those were the good ones, because at least they were high while America perpetrated this grave injustice on the innocent Vietnamese people who just wanted to be left alone. The others had hearts of darkness capable of, how did John Kerry put it? Oh yeah,

they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

And this was all due to a primitive paranoia on the part of Republicans about their bogeyman – communism. Never mind that JFK took America into the conflict. It was those stupid conservatives who saw a communist under every rock and believed in some freaky “domino” theory about the spread of communism in Asia. Pheh!

After America won the war (see An American Amnesia) and lost the peace due to the Democratic congress de-funding the South Vietnamese government it had pledged to support in the peace agreement, what did I think about the subsequent killing fields and communist genocide in Southeast Asia? What genocide? Boat people? I didn't know anything about boat people until I met one in engineering school in the late 1980s.

Do liberals ever ask themselves what the difference is between Nazis and communists? Answer: Nazis kill Jews first and then anyone else who gets in their way. Communists kill anyone who gets in their way. Lots and lots of people. No matter. When you're a liberal, it isn't about the truth. It's about smug self-righteousness.

WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER!

COEXIST

SUPPORT THE TROOPS Bring them home!

What about Watergate? Oh yeah – Watergate was a liberal's political orgasm. It was affirmation of all I thought (using the term loosely) about evil conservatives and their war mongering, greedy, corrupt, bigoted ideology. Tricky Dick was the poster boy for Republicanism until Reagan displaced him with his stupid “evil empire” saber rattling, not to mention Iran Contra. What about Nixon's disastrous socialist experiment with wage and price controls? Further evidence that the dream can only be fulfilled by the “right” people. Barack Obama, anyone?

Liberals are in love with their virtue. It is a deep narcissism, which I'm hoping God will forgive in me since I was young at the time and who isn't narcissistic in their youth? Liberal intoxication with their virtue is so profound, their minds are impenetrable to facts and reality. The sin this engenders and the room it makes for evil to flourish is so destructive, the liberal survival mechanism is an extreme cognitive dissonance which would make the text books – if psychology academics weren't so subject to it themselves.

So, to my liberal friends – love the lie. It is keeping your head from exploding!

Political correctness is the bully's way to keep you from voicing truths inconvenient to the Left's narrative. - Western Chauvinist.

Melanie Phillips, author of The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle Over God, Truth and Power spoke the following on The Dennis Prager Show, June 7, 2010.
“Well, um, the book arose out of a puzzle, where I... I had come to the conclusion that over a very wide range of issues, black was being presented as white, truth was being presented as lies and vice versa, justice was being muddled up with injustice, right not being told from wrong. Um, and I set out to try to... to work out what on earth was going on and I came to the conclusion that in the west, the intelligentsia, the left-wing intelligentsia has simply departed from reason.”

“But, the other great difference [between the UK and the USA] is this... that, although there are many many ordinary people in Britain who still know right from wrong, truth from lies and so on... and one of the points I'm making in my book is that the phenomenon I'm talking about... flight from reason, is confined to the intelligentsia. Nevertheless, there is much more hope that in America this can be fought off, because in America the great mass of people are still pretty God-fearing. … In those parts of the west that have become godless has grown up the belief that to follow the precepts and the beliefs of the Hebrew Bible and the Christianity that was built on top of it, which underpin our civilization... that if you believe in those things, say the intelligentsia in Britain, you are basically irrational. You are basically a credulous fool who believe a load of superstitious mumbo jumbo. And it's my argument that, in fact, those beliefs in the Hebrew Bible and the Christianity that was built on top of it, underpin the things that all of us, including secular folks hold dear. The idea of equality between human beings fashioned equally in the image of God; the idea of equality for women; the idea of freedom of speech; the idea of individual liberty; the idea of social justice; and above all, the notion of reason. These are things that are actually underpinned and given to us by the... by the Bible.” - Phillips describes herself as a secular Jew.

The secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage. - Thucydides

“The free enterprise system is about human flourishing. The happiest people are those who earn their success, whatever the amount of money they earn.” - Arthur Brooks, author of The Battle: How the Fight Between FREE ENTERPRISE and BIG GOVERNMENT Will Shape America's Future.

More Kipling

2010-05-08T19:45:00.007-06:00

If Kipling's wisdom keeps bobbing up in my web surfing, you'll soon believe this is a poetry blog! I discovered this in the comments section of Bill Whittle's piece entitled Tribes. If you have any insight into some of the more difficult lines of the following poem, I'd love to have a discussion in the comments.

The Sons of Martha

The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.
They say to mountains, 'Be ye removed'. They say to the lesser floods, 'Be dry'.
Under their rods are the rocks reproved - they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit - then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware.
They finger death at their gloves' end where they piece and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into his terrible stall,
And hale him forth like a haltered steer, and goad and turn him till evenfall.
To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matter hidden - under the earthline their altars are;
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again at a city drouth.
They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to leave their work when they damn-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand.
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's days may be long in the land.
Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat:
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that:
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their common need.
And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed - they know the angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet - they hear the Word - they see how truly the Promise Runs:
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons.

Rudyard Kipling

Tea Party Values

2010-02-16T19:05:00.004-07:00

One more before I go...

I'm fasting from the internet during Lent. But before I retreat from the e-world I just have to make an observation about American character and the Tea Party movement.

Americans want to take care of themselves and their families. We believe in the dignity of work. We're also very compassionate and realize how lucky we are to live in this country, so we're very generous with the remains of our earnings by caring for those less fortunate, which includes pretty much everyone outside the western world and some within it. We've come to expect ingratitude for our efforts, but it doesn't stop us from doing the right thing. I think this is both because of our religiosity and our deep gratitude for being the lucky ones. These values are in contrast to much of the developed west where people expect the state to take care of them and others and are therefore most concerned with an easy life and on which beach they'll have their next holiday.

These American values are what make us a center-right country. When Thomas Frank goes looking for Republican bogeymen in the Tea Party movement (The Tea Party Movement is No 'Great Awakening' - WSJ), or when Evan Bayh says the government is failing to help Americans lead the best possible lives, they show their ignorance of these essentials of American character. We believe the best government is that which least interferes with our ability to care for ourselves and others – as individuals. In America – the individual has the freedom to be a Giant. This is not true in the social democracies of Europe and other westernized countries. The state is the giant and the individual is therefore made small. "The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen." - Dennis Prager

This is what the Tea Party movement is about. It really is an offshoot of the first American Revolution. “Don't tread on me.”

Reagan said it best: "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

Here's one more parting thought of my own...

Political corruption is not the product of campaign donations – it is the product of the power to confiscate and spend the taxpayer's money on one's political cronies and pet projects. This is what necessitates the smallest weakest government possible.

God bless America and her Tea Party Patriots.

It Spilled!

2010-01-22T18:45:00.004-07:00

“It spilled” or its sibling phrase, “it broke,” is something we've all heard before, because even if one doesn't become a parent, we all started out as children. Listen to Democrats after the Massachusetts election of Scott Brown and that's what you hear... “it spilled.” Let's play “house” then. I get to be the mommy.

Mommy: “Who spilled it, darling?”

Child: “It isn't my fault – Martha Coakley was an awful candidate.”

Wait... silly me! To make this more realistic we have to use progressive-speak:

Child: “She was a &*%#ing %*$@ of a candidate, Mommy!”

Mommy: “You know I love you just the way you are, darling, but if you continue using words like that, you'll go blind. It's a settled scientific fact. Just ask the world renowned "science" expert Al Gore.”

Speaking of Gore...

Mommy: “Why did it spill, darling?”

Child: “It was a baaaad climate, Mommy.”

Mommy: “Really? What made the climate so bad?”

Child: “See, uh, 'cause the people were mad – yeah, that's it – the people were weally weally mad that the univewsal health caiwah that Massachusetts gives 'em isn't being given to aaall Amewicans by the fedewal govenment yet. It's not faiwah! Yeah – that's it.”

Mommy: “So, the people voted for the guy who said he'd be the 41st vote against Obamacare, because the people of Massachusetts wanted Obamacare for everyone to happen faster?”

Child: “Yeah – well, no... well maybe some of 'em did! 'Sides – you know people are weally upset about not having enough jobs... an'.. an' aaall those pwoblems come from the last eight yeawahs when the government stopped weguwating businesses.”

Mommy: OK, you little pr***! Do I have to explain the entire free-market system and economic bubbles created by easy money policies of the fed and congress??...........

Oh wait. I guess mommy shouldn't talk that way.

Until these leftist bliss-ninnies take responsibility for their failures, you should HOPE for exactly none of them to CHANGE!

One Person CAN Make a Difference

2010-01-07T13:39:00.003-07:00

Well, well, well... I just got a call from the manager of my local Sam's Club. It turns out he got my letter within a letter from corporate. He seems like a decent guy and I hope he didn't get in too much trouble. Wouldn't you just love to see corporate's cover letter? I'd also like to see any communications between the executives at Costco - not that I think my letter had enough impact to affect the religious convictions of that crowd.

However, I would like to credit Sam's for their response thus far. Not long after I sent, via snail-mail, six copies of my letter to the six executives of Sam's and Costco, I had occasion to visit Sam's again. I have no idea if anything can be credited to my letter other than today's phone call, but I noticed there were people patrolling the aisles cleaning up emptied palettes and making sure the product presentation was neat. It is also the first time ever there was someone at the checkout helping unload my cart and speeding the process. I was there again yesterday and managed to pick up everything on my list. Their customer service could still use a little snap-to, which the manager seemed receptive to hearing and the facility still seems a little tired, which the manager also seemed to realize, but I have hope that improvements can and will be made.

I think the lesson here is, speak up! When competition and the profit motive are involved, people will listen.

Dear Senator -fill in the blank-

2009-12-18T08:24:00.003-07:00

Dear Senator -fill in the blank-

This Christmas Eve,

as you cast your vote,

you need only remember one thing.

You serve at the pleasure of the people

- not the president.

A Letter to Sam's Club

2009-11-30T20:49:00.003-07:00

December 1, 2009

Sam's Club
President and CEO Brian Cornell
608 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716

Dear Mr. Cornell:

I'm baaack! I haven't been a regular Sam's shopper for, oh... at least several years. Pretty much immediately after the Costco opened right over the hill from my home. Yeah, Costco has everything going for it. It is more conveniently located for me; it has lots of yummy delicious products, many of which your store doesn't carry or does, but with lesser quality; it is a newer, less run-down building with better product presentation; and perhaps, most importantly, Costco always has managers at the check-out making sure the lines don't get too long. They staff each check-out with a cashier and what used to be called a “bag-boy,” making the wait consistently under five minutes. When is the last time a Sam's shopper could say that, if ever?

At this point you may be wondering what brings me back to Sam's? It turns out you and Costco are a lot like the Republicans and Democrats right now. It isn't that you (or the Republicans) have done anything to attract me or my support... it is simply that Costco (or the Democrats) turns out to be a worse choice. You see, they published their November volume of “The Costco Connection” magazine with a surprisingly sinister picture of Al Gore on the cover – article by Al within, promoting his new book: Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.

I've been irritated for years with the both of you for not selling incandescent light bulbs. Having been a global warming skeptic from the beginning, I found it insulting that the places where I like to shop “in-bulk” and where I pay for a membership to shop “in-bulk”, I couldn't “bulk-up” my incandescent light bulb supply before the AGW hysterics outlaw them in 2014. Luckily Wal-mart sells them cheap. While you all are huddled shivering in your organically grown cotton blankets trying to read Our Choice by the buzzy blue light of your compact fluorescent bulbs, I'll be enjoying Man's Search for Meaning next to the warmth and light of my good old fashioned incandescents. I don't need a computer model to predict which of us will be enjoying life more.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a free-market capitalist through and through. I believe deeply in Costco's right to sell Gore's book and I'm betting Sam's will sell it too. I also believe Gore has the right to enrich himself by selling as many of his fear-mongering, manipulative and fraudulent books as possible to as many of the gullible who will buy them. I also believe deeply in freedom of religion, so I don't wish to keep Costco or anyone else from believing in discredited “science.” The problem comes when Gore, in collusion with Costco's marketing machinations, gets to promote destructive policies which directly affect me and the country I love ... like Cap and Trade, Gore's carbon indulgence dream come true... and the banning of incandescent light bulbs. That's when I choose to exercise my free-market right to cancel my Costco membership.

If you'll indulge me a moment longer, I'd like to offer a little constructive criticism. You can learn something from Costco about managing your check-outs. The best managers with whom I've worked were the ones “on the floor.” They knew what was happening at every moment and could make corrections real-time. You need to implement a policy like this. There are also several products I'd like to recommend to you: Del Monte canned apricots in jars (they're pretty on the shelf and delicious to eat); Jack's Special salsa; pea pods – not the carrot, broccoli, pea pod mix you currently offer; smaller packages of ground turkey (2.5 pound packages require the buyer to re-package for freezing); similarly, whole boneless skinless chicken breasts packaged individually, but sold in bundles of eight or ten; artisan bread; and finally, and most emphatically, milk chocolate covered almonds. Also, I was in a Sam's recently to buy Cheese Nips for my kid's church social and every box was crushed as if the palette had been dropped. Your product presentation is shabby, to put it bluntly. Fix it.

Sure, I've learned I can live without these things. But, I'm a Sam's Club member – why should I have to?

Sincerely,

Western Chauvinist

P.S. I can establish my credibility by proving I stopped shopping at Costco immediately upon receiving their Gore magazine, even before the AGW conspiracy was exposed by the whistle-blower who leaked the Hadley CRU emails and computer code.

P.P.S Do you offer a finder's fee for my having discovered a market-niche for Sam's? Of the six or eight women I've shared this with, they all thanked me because they were considering joining Costco and will now continue shopping at Sam's.

P.P.P.S This doesn't excuse you from improving your store. I've learned I can live without Costco, so I know I can live without Sam's.

Copy:

Sam's Club
Ignacio Perez-Lizaur, EVP Operations
Liz Kirkwood, SVP Finance

Costco
Jeffry Brotman, Chairman
James Sinegal, President and CEO
Richard DiCerchio, SEVP and COO
999 Lake Drive
Issaquah, WA 98027

One A Disciple of Voldemort, The Other of Mao?

2009-10-19T09:43:00.006-06:00

Has anyone else noticed the similarities between representatives of evil and people working in the White House? Check out Barty Crouch, Jr., minion of Lord Voldemort (Harry Potter's arch-nemesis in case you didn't know), who exhibits some disturbing outward manifestations of his inner evil.

Here's another look at Barty's Dark Mark:

Now, watch Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, speaking at a prep-school graduation ceremony in June as presented by Glenn Beck.

Notice anything flicking - I mean, striking? Maybe someone should check Dunn's forearm. Oh wait, I think I've found it...

My apologies for jerking around your refined sensibilities between this and the previous post. I'm struggling myself to keep my eyes wide open in these freaky frightening times.

Happy Halloween?

Gods of the Copybook Headings

2009-09-19T07:42:00.008-06:00

A now for something new to this blog... a Rudyard Kipling poem, linked by Anonymous in the comments on The Facts of Life are Conservative. Poetry is usually the domain of my sister at Looking Up, but this one seems so appropos to the times and the conservative FOL, I just had to share it. Thank you, Anonymous.

Gods of the Copybook Headings - Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will bum,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

In Remembrance

2009-09-11T09:50:00.005-06:00

I've been reading the prose and poetry and watching the videos from 9/11/2001. It makes me remember that day – that beautiful hideous fall day when I was nurturing life and sickened by death. I was in early pregnancy with my youngest daughter. Her sister was three and at Montessori school that morning. When I picked her up early, her teacher asked me if I was right with God. I answered her honestly that I didn't have a relationship with Him.

That was eight years ago and He is at the center of my life now. My faith rings True for me. It is so TRUE, sometimes I can hardly bear the clamour. One commenter wrote about “hate” not being “justice” and how forgiveness and repentance are the answer. Not for me – not always. His faith is hollow in my opinion. My faith holds apparent contradictions as true and my life experience validates that truth.

Love and suffering are inextricable.

We are made in God's divine image and fallen.

Our love of God (good) necessitates our hatred of evil.

I hate the evil bastards who were the destroyers that day and I believe God gave them a non-stop direct flight to hell. I don't believe it because my heart tells me so, but because our sacred scripture does.

"You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.” Exodus 20:7

He tells us He won't forgive those who commit evil in His name. He doesn't ask us to be the lamb to lie down for the lion. He asks us to take up our cross. Carrying the cross entails suffering in love, loving in forgiveness, gratitude in suffering and sometimes... sometimes even hating in righteousness. Let's roll.

The Facts of Life are Conservative

2009-09-03T13:23:00.011-06:00

"The facts of life are conservative." - Margaret Thatcher

Whenever I hear that, I have a gut sense it is true, but I've been unable to explain why. The following is my attempt at clarity and argument.

Usually when we speak of the facts of life (FOL), we're talking about sex. Shhh...you know, explaining procreative sex to a pre-adolescent child. And as any good liberal knows, that isn't something one should entrust to conservatives! No, that's strictly a task for liberal establishment education. So, how can the FOL have any relationship to conservatism?

#1. Behavior has consequences.

The behavior may feel good, like sex, but it doesn't necessarily do good. Take the welfare state for instance. Liberals claim a monopoly on compassion. They want the state to help the poor and educate the ignorant and save the planet, blah, blah, blah. But, where the nanny state has prevailed, liberal policies have destroyed the character and culture of the people. For example, liberals couldn't have damaged black families in America any more than if they had set fire to their homes. Rising rates of out-of-wedlock births, abortions, black-on-black crime, incarceration, hip hop misogyny and more can all be attributed to liberal compassion. Compassion is the rationale for the reduction of standards applied to liberalism's victim groups. With friends like that...

Here's a consequence for you. The American value system, based on Judeo-Christian values of human worth and liberty, has created the most prosperous, freedom-loving, generous and moral nation the world has ever known. Just look at those white stars and crosses carpeting northern France as an example of American morality and generosity. But liberals don't promote American values. In many cases they oppose them. They want to take God off the coinage and are passionate about equality, which is inherently in tension with America's founding value of liberty. Culturally, we're reaping what liberals have sown because, out of their compassion, they try to mitigate against natural consequences and therefore fail to improve society or individuals.

#2. Life is not fair.

It isn't. And no amount of progressive government is going to fix it. This comes as a shock to the collectivists who read the Declaration of Independence ("...all men are created equal...") and think it calls for material equality. God creates us unequal, though all are of infinite worth as made in God's image. The two are apparent contradictions which our faith holds as simultaneously true. It is what the deist Thomas Jefferson meant, as Marxism hadn't been invented yet.

I can hear the liberal retort now. "But, life should be fair and we should do everything we can to make it so." There are two major arguments against this. The first is, in the process of being "fair" to one person, we almost always are unjust to someone else. For example, the Ricci case in which a white dyslexic firefighter studied hard and spent his money on tutoring and other aids to pass the test for promotion. He passed, but because no black candidates did, the city denied his promotion out of fear of lawsuits. The argument on behalf of the black candidates is that they tend to come from poor neighborhoods with inadequate schools. That isn't fair (and it can also be blamed on progressive governance), but it is also unjust to deny Ricci the promotion he earned. We're never going to fix injustice in the world with more injustice.

The second argument against "doing everything we can" is it is government's role is to secure our God-given liberties, not to equalize the outcomes. The black firefighters were free to have chosen Ricci's route - to have studied hard and sought help, but apparently they didn't as none of them passed the test.

At one time, this all would have been common sense, which leads to the third FOL.

#3. Common sense is indispensable

The indispensability of common sense shouldn't require explanation - it should be - um... common sense. Without it, people tend to act stupidly... even ivy league educated intellectuals. Perhaps, especially ivy league educated intellectuals. Foolishness is the product dispensed with most university diplomas. "I got my BA in Womens' Studies"; "I earned my Masters in Social Work"; "I have a degree in Environmental Architecture." Just fill in the blank with "Foolishness"and then try to get a job which doesn't include counting members of a frog species... in a swamp... at night. As college enrollments increase - common sense becomes increasingly uncommon.

There are enough examples of the lack of common sense these days to fill a large book. Examples of stupidity range from a family story about the hotel clerk who knocked on the door to a newlywed couple's suite at 2:00 a.m because she had mistakenly given them the wrong suite - to the current administration believing a debt crisis can be solved by spending trillions of borrowed dollars.

I confess, I feel my own common sense is impaired. Our society is like the proverbial frog in a pot of warm water and I admit, I'm having trouble determining when to jump. Of course, a large part of the problem is there is no obvious country of choice for a safe liberty-loving landing.

#4. There's no such thing as a free lunch -Milton Friedman.

Oh yeah... this is the one. This is the fact of life which completely baffles the Left. All together now... EVERYTHING HAS A COST! It is both a fact of life and codified in the conservation laws of physics.

I knew some granola hippie types who got turned onto a newfangled Scandinavian burial technique involving plastic bags and some sort of gas. It was supposed to be environmentally correct. I asked them, "Where does the gas come from?" After a few moments of awkward silence, we laughed it off and they decided their fall-back position was to try to get a permit to be buried in their compost pile instead.

The "no free lunch" FOL is essential to wisdom. It spans everything we know or are able to know about life from the most mundane to the most transcendent. It is timeless. It is Biblical. From Genesis, it is the lesson that the price for disobedience to God is death. For Adam, it is having to scratch sustenance out of unyielding earth rather than picking low-hanging fruit from trees in the Garden. For Eve, it is pain in childbirth. From the New Testament, the lesson is Christ the Redeemer. We do not have to live in condemnation anymore because Jesus went to the Cross and paid the Price for us. Amen!

And yet, listen to progressives. Some people believe - or pretend to believe - in "free" health care and "free" wind or solar energy and "free" college tuition... What they refuse to acknowledge is that the productive people working to provide "free" everything to everyone are going to stop being productive at some point and hop on the dole-wagon. And then everyone will pay the price. The Left is enamored with the idea of “sustainability.” Try this bumper sticker on them... Socialism is Unsustainable!

#5. Human nature is fallen.

This is probably the bottom line. The dark side of human nature is mean, greedy, controlling, lustful, lazy and selfish. It makes us want something for nothing. When we give into our dark nature, it makes us want everything for nothing. And progressive government is the serpent with the apple. Progressivism promises perfectibility at a bargain basement price. We can be as gods if we just eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. It is all so easy and our eyes will be opened.

Sure, there have been many millions of people who have transcended their basest human nature. Among the greatest were the Founding Fathers who recognized that, because man is fallen, no man can be entrusted with the unconstrained power of government over free citizens. They knew that man and society are not perfectible and so the role of government is necessarily limited to protecting individual liberty. This is the essence of the conservative facts of life.

To recap:

#1. Behavior has consequences (and attempts to mitigate against them are ultimately cruel),

#2. Life is not fair (and nothing tried by progressive government makes it so),

#3. Common sense is indispensible (and increasingly uncommon),

#4. There is no such thing as a free lunch (ever - period),

#5. Human nature is fallen (which necessitates the weakest government possible while maintaining the rule of law and the sovereignty of free citizens).

Fail!

2009-08-19T13:17:00.002-06:00

All you need to know about Obamacare:

The proliferation of Obama’s gaffes and non sequiturs on health care has exceeded the allowable limit. He has failed repeatedly to explain how the government will provide more (health care) for less (money). He has failed to explain why increased demand for medical services without a concomitant increase in supply won’t lead to rationing by government bureaucrats as opposed to the market. And he has failed to explain why a Medicare-like model is desirable when Medicare itself is going broke.
The public is left with one of two unsettling conclusions: Either the president doesn’t understand the health-insurance reform plans working their way through Congress, or he understands both the plans and the implications and is being untruthful about the impact.
Neither option is good; ignorance is clearly preferable to the alternative.

Read all of "Obama Goes Postal" by Caroline Baum here.

Animal Piety

2009-08-12T17:48:00.010-06:00

There is often a confluence of events I feel is inadequately explained by random chance. I've had such a week recently. It started on Dennis Prager's Ultimate Issues Hour, when he discussed the insignificance of intention. There is an idea in Judaism related to intention called the “yetzer” or urge. Jews believe we each have a good yetzer and a bad yetzer which exist simultaneously in us at all times. The simple example Prager gave was the cheesecake temptation. The good yetzer tells you not to eat it because it's bad for you while the bad yetzer says – “life is short, eat dessert first.”.

Prager told the story of visiting a friend's father, who was a rabbi, for some personal advice. The rabbi told him, “At my age, I have my bad yetzer pretty much under control. It's my good yetzer which gets me into trouble.” In other words, it doesn't really matter if your intentions are good or bad if the resulting fruit is rotten. You still get judged on the fruit. Therefore, wisdom is the ability to discern what will produce the good fruit, regardless of your intention.

Prager had a show later in the week in which he debunked the cliché, “the ends do not justify the means”. His argument was that about half the time the only way to justify the means is the good ends they produce. He gave the example of using a bazooka to rid a house of cockroaches (unjustified) versus ridding a house of terrorists (justified). And he used the real-world example of the atomic bombing of Japan to end WWII. Dennis took a call from a Catholic woman with a masters in theology arguing that evil means are always unjustified whatever the ends, based on Church teaching of the conditions for sin (evil in nature, knowledge of it, consent to it). She even told Prager that the means of the Polish Catholic woman (Irena), who slept with a married Nazi to save the lives of twelve Jews hidden in the basement, were evil. That is animal – or unholy - piety.

I'm not a scholar of Judaism, so I'm working out my own definition here. If we place human behavior on a spectrum from unholy (animal, primitive, common) to holy (godly, transcendent, set-apart), then animal piety is behavior (or belief) which preserves one's moral virtue at another's expense. I think imposing virtue on others, by force, also falls under animal piety. Examples would be: an unwillingness to kill an intruder to protect one's family from rape and murder; pacifism in the face of evil because war requires killing; redistribution of wealth to the poor by government force rather than voluntary charity; endorsing the noble lie (man made global warming is going to destroy the planet) to force some perceived virtue (going green) on others; the desire (and intent) to prosecute CIA interrogators for pouring water on the faces of murderous terrorists. In these difficult interesting times, the animal is running wild.

Unfortunately, some very prominent Catholics seem to be practicing animal piety. Actually, the most prominent Catholic, Pope Benedict XVI, makes statements which could be construed as promoting it in his latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth). At one point he says, “there is urgent need of a true world political authority...” to address the social justice issues. Let's hope he's referring to the Second Coming of Christ! This section of the encyclical is alarming in its utopianism. But, I suppose if the Church isn't directing our thoughts to an ideal of human relationships, it doesn't have much to say about anything. I'm not trying to bash or defend the pope's writings as I have only read some excerpts and commentary. I am concerned though that utopianism coming from the pope encourages fierce animal piety in others.

Take, for example, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who explains “Without a Doubt, Why Barack Obama Represents American Catholics better than the pope does.” Townsend is a potent agent on behalf of Obama's effort to re-brand the Catholic Church. She seems to be arguing that liberalism is what American Catholics practice, in which case, she is correct. Barack Obama better represents liberals than the pope. She is pleased that the Church supports unions, regulation of capitalist excesses, environmentalism and political activism (one must assume she's not thrilled about activism of the right-to-lifers). But the Church is wrong about women (especially in the clergy), gays, pro-choice Catholics' right to communion and birth control. It's all in the polls “... 54 percent of American Catholics find gay relationships to be morally acceptable, according to a 2009 Gallup poll.” Why, didn't 54% of Catholics vote for Obama in the last election?

Townsend is a typically petulant leftist. You can almost picture her “I want what I want and I want it now!” foot-stomping tantrum. I'm not going to take the space to specifically refute all her talking points. However, to claim that liberals are more pious than the pope, who leads the only institution on earth which proclaims the dignity of the human being from pre-birth (contra contraception, embryonic destruction for stem cell research and abortion) to natural death is the epitome of moral preening. To believe in Ms. Townsend's world view, one must believe that women priests, openly gay relationships with full blessings of the Church and state, full-throated Church support of abortion and Catholics who endorse it, and free love with free contraception and free of consequences would be better for the common good than the Magisterium's considered positions of two millennia. I can think of a few arguments against her, augmented by the facts of world history, but fine. Let's say she's right. Now she must answer why she continues to belong to a religion she finds so unjust. And how her piety doesn't hurt human beings and the uniquely Judeo-Christian social constructs from which she has benefited her entire life.

And then we have Fr. Richard Schiblin. He wrote an article for the Liguorian entitled, “Church Teaching and the Economic Crisis: Where Do We Go From Here?” If you go read it, pack your duct tape. It is an anti-capitalist screed full of false statements and foolishness, such as “Capitalism has been the cause of excessive suffering, injustices, and fratricidal conflicts whose effects still persist.” No, Father Schiblin, capitalism is the system in which “the poor” have cell-phones and flat-screen TVs on which they may watch over 500 satellite channels while choosing not to buy health insurance because they qualify for “free” health care under Medicaid. Their health care is financed by the middle class who have a wine refrigerator as standard equipment under the counter of their newly remodeled kitchens. It is the system which, while not being entirely fair (only Al Gore and a few dozen other elites can afford a private jet), has the most people in human history living comfortably and as close to “liberty and justice for all” as has ever been achieved in the real world. But, never mind. The Obama government, with which I'm pretty certain Father Schiblin is well pleased, will forcibly ensure that no one is able to keep “for his exclusive use what he does not need when others lack necessities.” Well – except for Al Gore. He'll get to keep his jet because he needs it to go warn the world about global warming. Oh, and the system you advocate, Fr. Schiblin? That system is responsible for over 100,000,000 murders in the 20th century alone. Fr. Schiblin isn't just guilty of animal piety – he shows a deeply unattractive ingratitude for the blessings of liberty.

It seems one aspect of animal piety is an unreasoning animal ignorance of that which is plainly true. Capitalism, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, is the worst system of economics around – apart from all the others. Perhaps Father Schiblin has a whole new system in mind. However, what he advocates sounds a whole lot like the old collectivism invented by Marx and applied by godless butchers like Stalin, Mao, Castro and Chavez. Bill Buckley hoped, with the death of the Soviet Union, we had reached the end of history, but it appears the animal pious among us keep resurrecting the powerful State to try to do what is expressly the work of the Body of Christ. It is tragic that any layperson should have to explain this to a priest. Such is the nature of animal piety.

King Julian

2009-07-23T21:51:00.043-06:00

About Me

King Julian,
beloved leader and gifted ~~whistler~~ speaker, ~~Lord~~ President of the ~~lemurs~~ U.S.

Age: 48
Gender: Male
Astrological Sign: Leo
Zodiac Year: Ox
Industry: Chicago Style Politics
Occupation: Supreme Leader
Location: ~~Madagascar~~ Kenya: Indonesia: United States

Interests

* Ruling the world
* Saul Alinsky
* statism
* Me
* unconstrained power
* the Living Constitution
* did I mention Me?
* public speaking
* professional whistling
* have you heard about Me?
* ~~gardening~~ (no, no - that's Michelle)

Favorite Movies

* Catch Me if You Can
* Fly Me to the Moon
* Madagascar
* Madagascar: Escape ~~from~~ 2 Africa
* Me and Marx
* Promise Me This
* Anyone but Me
* Rescue Me

Favorite Restaurant

* Mimi's Cafe (because it is all about Me Me - not you you)

Favorite Books

* Dreams ~~of Me~~ from My Father, by Me
* The Audacity of Me Hope, by Me
* Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky

Favorite Quotes by Me

"Hurry everybody, before we regain our senses."

"Let me be clear. I don't have all the facts."

"Please feel free to bask in my glow."

"I am the one you've been waiting for. I am the change you seek."

"It's me, King Julian. Which of you is attracted to me?"

"After much deep and profound brain things inside my head - I have decided to rule the world!"

"Yes, I can!"

"Let me be clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel's."

"Wait, I have a plan. I've devised a cunning test to see if the U.S. can survive Me."

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong."

"C'mon everybody, let's go talk to the tyrants."

"Why can't I just eat my waffle?"

"The gods eat the sacrifice. They are grateful. They give me the water, then I give it to you! {Does it work?} No. I mean yes. Well, Rahm?"

"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

"Oh, suddenly throwing a giraffe into a volcano to make water is crazy!"

"I don't know why the sacrifice didn't work. The science seems so solid."

"Bring me my nuts on a silver platter."

"Sorry - do you mind going back? This is first class. It's nothing personal it's just that I'm better than you."

"Whatever happened to the separation of the classes?" {I'm sure this whole democracy thing was just a fad. - Rahm}

"Soon we will put my excellent plan into action. All we have to do is wait until they are deep in their sleep... HOW LONG IS THIS GOING TO TAKE?!"

Winnowing

2009-05-19T09:34:00.002-06:00

It is a beautiful word, isn't it? Say it out loud. “Winnowing.” The act of separating the grain from the chaff, wherein the fruits of labor are sifted from the waste. The harvest is gathered and purified giving sustenance now and seeds for the next season. Gathered. Separated. Purified. A person unfamiliar with the term would never guess the underlying struggle, even violence, from the sound of the word: winnowing.

I haven't studied prophecy as some of my friends have. I'm such a baby Christian, my sword is more like a jabbing toothpick at this point – annoying, not dangerous. However, I know the prophets speak God's truth, especially to those who would rather not hear it. The truth we don't want to hear, perhaps particularly in the Christian churches, is God is winnowing.

This isn't just about faith. I find more and more that faith and politics intersect: the 2008 election, the economic crisis, the Notre Dame scandal, the “torture” debate, same-sex marriage, stem-cell research, abortion, environmentalism, nuclear proliferation, Israel, terrorism, and on and on. The wind is blowing. Where do you sift out? Do you have the weight to fall with the other ripe, fruitful, life-sustaining grain? Or are you carried away on the wind because you are simply too enlightened a person to land in the heap?

I recently had an opinion published in the local Catholic paper. It has been a humbling experience. My opinion was heartfelt and impassioned, but I exploited a man's article to make my point and exaggerated my certainty to leave no room for argument. I still think the foundation of my opinion was correct – you must choose sides and should do so in good faith, not out of moral vanity - but my method wasn't very Christian. I regret.

And oddly, in that regret, I find substance. Living a Christian life is nothing if not struggle. If, in every interchange of significance, you're asking yourself, “what would Jesus do?”, your life isn't easy. You have many failures in a single day! And you find yourself praying for the Holy Spirit to just “possess me, man!” I need some serious help here.

Yet that constant self-assessment against such a high standard must eventually teach us something. I think it gives us heft. Why is Notre Dame honoring Barack Obama so scandalous to us? It is because the Church must stand for something separate from the culture that elected and celebrates the most anti-life president this country has ever known. Why do we think the previous administration did the right thing when it water-boarded three terrorists? Because it saved thousands of innocent lives. Would I be willing to perform water-boarding on a terrorist and risk the wrath of God? It is a moral struggle I'm willing to take-up for the sake of protecting innocent lives. Yes. And “yes” to giving gays all the dignity they deserve as human beings made in God's image while keeping marriage separate for one man and one woman. And “yes,” bury nuclear waste in my backyard! And “yes” support and defend the only nation in the Mideast where freedom of speech and religion prevail and all people are equal under the law – Israel – even if it means bombing Iran. Winnowing. Are you ripe with the weight of your ideas? Have you engaged in the struggle with morality and therefore, with God? Have you considered and reconsidered? Or do you hold a position mainly because it supports the lightness of your being?

Living in Denial - Or - Don't Worry, Be Happy!

2009-04-22T21:51:00.021-06:00

You know how we live most of our lives in denial of death? Most of us have entirely accepted the idea of our mortality intellectually. But, we don't spend any significant amount of time thinking about it because part of us knows it will ruin our lives, right here, right now. I think this state of denial is a gift from God and who am I to turn it down? Since reverting to Catholicism, I've got some of that weird "at peace with death" thing going on, but that's a discussion for another time.

What I'd like to address now is something strange I've experienced since Obama became president. I'm not talking about since he was elected. I think I actually had a decent grip on reality at that point. I was resigned to the fact and still hoped, with lots of skepticism, he might surprise those of us who were convinced he was a hard-left radical with no proven leadership ability. It's confirmed - I was right to be skeptical. But, this is different. What I'm experiencing now is a post-inaugural defense mechanism.

My sister says she keeps thinking she's going to wake up from this nightmare. I can relate, but I realize now my state of mind is something more like how I handle death - or more accurately - how I live as if death isn't my ultimate end. Intellectually, I know our president is a sanctimonious poseur. And I also know we'll be lucky if the effects of who he is are merely devastating and not globally catastrophic. But, psychologically, my mind refuses to deal with the fact that this man goes into the Oval Office everyday when he's home from his latest apology tour and "rules the world!" I just don't go there. Yes - I read the news and listen to the arguments on talk radio. But, the only way I maintain my sanity is by processing this presidency as if it were an extended season of The West Wing. The Obamas live on a set which strongly resembles the White House. It simply can't be the same space recently occupied by the manifestly decent Bush family and before them some of the great leaders of our great and beloved nation. The Obamas travel the world meeting heads of state in the way Queen Elizabeth serves as a figurehead for Great Britain. It is all a very pleasant visual (for some), but without significance. There is an unreality to it and that's just fine with me. I'll deal with it when I absolutely have to - like death. Until then STUFF... IT... IN... THAT... BOX! And whatever you do - don't let it out. It could ruin your life.

P.S. The only time I experience a breakdown is when I consider what a betrayal his election is to our military. Aaaargh!

New World Order

2009-04-22T11:55:00.002-06:00

Just had to share this from Canada's National Post. It made me laugh - out loud.

All the 9/11 terrorists, of course, entered the United States directly from overseas. The notion that some arrived via Canada is a myth that briefly popped up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and was then quickly debunked.

Informed of her error, Ms. Napolitano blustered: "I can't talk to that. I can talk about the future. And here's the future. The future is we have borders."

Just what does that mean, exactly?

Perhaps Ms. Napolitano isn't in on The Plan. She doesn't know her job protecting the borders is temporary, pending the One World Order lead by our Dear Leader, The One. Get it, Janet? The One.

Psst. Don't tell the Canadians. They seem a little tetchy about it.

Response to Reporting on Your Tea Party

2009-04-16T20:26:00.003-06:00

I sent the following to my local paper, but I figure it probably applies to reporting on the tea parties nationwide. Feel free to copy anything you'd like to say to your local paper. I doubt any of them will be put into print, which is why I'm posting it here. Names have been changed to protect... me.

Thank you for your “report”, and I use the term loosely, on the local tea party rally Mr. Smith. We now know where you stand: firmly beside record deficit spending, which I'm guessing you decried during the Bush administration. How about a little perspective from inside the rally?

I was there and I saw two large “Don't Tread on Me” banners, not nearly enough to “outnumber” the American flags, one of which I acquired on my way into the park from people handing them out. Yes – there was talk of “righteous anger”, but contrary to the implication of your “report”, this was the most self-controlled, even good-humored, “angry” mob you'll ever see. When I was looking, the local police had their backs to us, suggesting they were more concerned about disruption from outside the tea party than from within it. The attendees were from every age group, with the majority being middle-aged, middle class Americans like me. Clearly, many of them had taken a break from work to attend as indicated by their business attire. Many others were, like me, representing our families who could not attend because they were at work and school.

Your suggestion that we were there to “rail against stimulus spending, budget deficits, mortgage relief and efforts to right the banking system” is creatively worded. You've learned well at the feet of the master, President Obama. Set-up that straw man and then bash it to pieces. Conservatives – or those of us “on the red end of the political spectrum” (more creative wording) - don't believe the government should do nothing in response to the financial crisis. We believe a tax holiday for individuals and small businesses would be incredibly stimulative. We don't believe individuals or corporations or governments overcome a debt crisis by going trillions of dollars into debt. Do you? We believe in consequences for bad behavior and poor decision-making and therefore, yes, we are against “mortgage relief” (taxpayer bailouts). We see two possible choices in the effort to “right the banking system”. First, relieve the banks of their toxic assets (which might, eventually, lead to a return on the taxpayers investment as it did for the RTC). Second, let the banks fail (which is bad for shareholders, but not so bad for taxpayers and depositors insured by the FDIC). The Obama administration is choosing to do neither. His plan is to prop up these zombie banks (not my original creative language) with taxpayer money for as long as... is there an end game? How does that plan sit with you and your children and your grandchildren? I admit, it makes me angry.

The huge cheer for JFK's “Ask not what your country can do for you...” quote wasn't despite him being a Democrat. It was because Obama is the anti-JFK: “Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you.” And don't try to shut us up with the race card. We'd love to have more, as the local black politician said “Americans who happen to be black” and JFK Democrats join us in this fight for our country's future. It's your future too, Mr. Smith.

Shame on the editorial staff for letting Mr. Smith's blatantly biased “reporting” be printed anywhere other than the opinion page.

2009-03-28T22:37:00.004-06:00

This is my president.

This is my Savior.

One of them is wrong on Life.

The Other gets to judge.

Choose your side.

Secular Humanists against Innocent Humans

2009-03-28T09:48:00.009-06:00

How else do you explain Obama's embryonic stem cell research decision wherein human embryos, or as The Anchoress calls them, “lives less obvious”, become the enemy? I just want someone who agrees with Obama's decision to explain why this is necessary given:

Bush's policy did NOT prohibit privately funded embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), it simply limited federal funding to pre-existing stem cell lines. Bush was actually the first president to order federal funding for human ESCR. In fact, Obama de-funded research on alternatives to ESCR.
While there have been NO therapies developed from embryonic stem cells, there have been 72 therapies - which are actually helping patients right now - developed from adult stem cells or umbilical cord stem cells. The “promise” of ESCR doesn't seem to be panning out.
Technologies allowing stem cells to be developed from adult cells have made the destruction of “lives less obvious” gratuitous even if you don't find the practice morally repugnant. And, what did our president say about “respecting” the opinion of those who do? He will say anything.
If ESCR is so promising, private companies would be eager to finance the research, which they're not. Besides, Californians have already committed six-billion tax dollars to the effort, including cloning.

The only answer seems to be that embryos – and even older in-utero children – are the enemy. Enemies to be destroyed at every opportunity – in the petri dish, in the womb and up to and including infanticide in the form of partial-birth abortion. The argument that only government can afford to fund projects leading to “miracle cures” is becoming – ahem – more difficult defend with each new trillion dollar “stimulus” package. I don't think the feds can afford the paper our money is printed on anymore. And I can name plenty of innovations and cures that weren't funded by the feds. Did you know the research leading to the polio vaccine was funded by the private charity, the March of Dimes?

Tookie Williams viciously murdered a Korean family - but, but (whine) he wrote children's books in prison!

While we're critiquing secular humanists for their anti-human positions, how about their sympathy for killers of all persuasions – terrorists and murderers? I hear the lawyers arguing for “fair” trials within the American judicial system for the Guantanamo “detainees”. We need to send 900 million dollars to Gaza to “rebuild” Hamas? Because common sense tells us that even if we don't send the money directly to Hamas, the fact that they won't need to fund repairs to roads, schools and hospitals means they'll have, oh, approximately 10 million to rebuild “defensive” tunnels they can use to import 890 million dollars worth of rocket parts. And what's with the candle-light vigils for murderers about to be executed? And now New Mexico and soon Colorado are overturning their death-penalty laws. The sympathy is always for the murderers, never for the maimed and murdered.

Or how about the humanists advocacy of population control for the purposes of saving the planet? “For whom?” one is tempted to ask. People are pollution. Haven't you heard? For any youngsters who need convincing, just have them watch Wall-E or read the Dr. Seuss rip-off “The Wumps”. Even the Barbie movies offer the new enlightenment. Barbie's new 'Thumbelina' is a morality tale about stopping a factory from being built to save Thumbelina's people (non-humans). Break out the magic unicorns! The only human progress humanists are interested in is human progress toward extinction.

And thanks for all the utopian dreams in complete denial of the human condition and the related policies which strangle the life out of the ambition and human endeavor of formerly free people. Don't you see, it's the “vision thing”? It's all in the Vision, man.

BAM! THWACK! KAPOW!

2009-03-25T18:00:00.005-06:00

More strikes against the American republic by Democrats today:

U.S. to blame for much of Mexico violence: Clinton
(Reuters)

As if violence perpetrated by Mexican drug cartels isn't because Mexico is a failed state run by corrupt politicians and their enforcers. Mexico can't or won't even keep large portions of it's population from migrating to America to find work. Only the dying American economy can do that! Oh, and you won't miss the rationale in the article for the coming massive federal gun control. Apparently the cartels having taken to terrorist style beheadings - using smuggled guns, night-vision goggles and body armor?

Dollar dips on Gheitner's 'loose talk'
(Financial Times)
Here's an idea! Let's "reduce our reliance" on Gheitner to be able to head up the Treasury and fire his "grad student" a**! He should take his boss' advice and not say anything until he knows something about it.

Clinton: N. Korea Plan to Fire Missile 'Provocative'
(FoxNews)
While the North Koreans are loading up the launch site, Hillary says, "This provocative action in violation of the U.N. mandate will not go unnoticed and there will be consequences." I'm sure she's drafting a strongly worded letter as she speaks! And you know, the North Koreans are weally weally afwaid of Pwesident ("missile defense an unproven technology") Obama and Hillawy. I'm sure Dear Leader doesn't want to displease the Dear One.

As always, don't forget. Democrats love America just as much as you do!

Today's Body Blows

2009-03-24T20:00:00.009-06:00

As in - what have the Obama administration and Democrats hit the American Republic with today.

U.S. Seeks Expanded Power to Seize Firms
(Washington Post)
But no, no - Obama isn't a socialist! Pah! You conservatives are just a bunch of Nazi fascist, homophobic, sexist, blood-thirsty, imperialist, intolerant name-callers!

U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers
(Reuters)
Gee - think there's any conflict of interest in the government propping up news agencies responsible for reporting on the government? Actually, this may not be as bad as it sounds. It would be more honest if most newspapers operated under the same rules as NPR. They wouldn't have to keep up this absurd pretense of objectivity.

EPA Raises Heat on Emissions Debate
(The Wall Street Journal)
That's right. The EPA is recommending the government regulate CO2 as a pollutant. That's the same CO2 you release into the atmosphere every time you exhale. Hm. The new green bumper sticker: People are pollution!

Oh. And don't forget. Democrats love America just as much as you do!

The Lost Presidency of Barack Obama

2009-03-20T09:47:00.005-06:00

It is tragic really. I know it is early to be making such a claim. But, the missed opportunities and lost potential are so disheartening.

Let's do a little John Lennon imagining...

Imagine if, during the transition phase, Obama's team laid out a plan to address the banking crisis. Let's say they planned a way to get the banks' toxic assets off the books. I'm not an economist, but I've heard and read several speaking on this as key to stabilizing the banking industry. I'm not saying the economy wouldn't have taken a dive. I'm saying a restoration of confidence by virtue of a plan to address the heart of the problem might have made the dive shallower and shorter term.

Imagine if, rather than allowing the widely despised demagogues Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to devise a spending package having almost nothing to do with stimulating productivity and economic growth, Obama's team had proposed a package including a tax holiday and supportive of small businesses. And then imagine the bipartisanship!

Imagine Obama proposing a quick-response regulatory agency which would have the job of assessing innovative financial instruments and advising Congress. Contrary to the claim Democrats love to make about this crisis being the fault of Republican deregulation, the real problem is virtually no regulation on new-fangled loan instruments devised by, shall we say, “creative” bankers. As the joke among economists goes, “a good regulator is only one crisis behind”.

Imagine if Obama had warmly welcomed Gordon Brown and kept the protocols of past presidents when greeting one of our strongest allies. How about a celebratory state dinner? How about gifts that were thoughtful? How about keeping the bust of Winston Churchill in a still prominent place if Obama didn't want it in the Oval Office? How about some graciousness – let alone common decency. Giving a nearly blind man a box of DVDs incompatible with British DVD players is appalling.

Imagine a president standing up to our long-term enemies in Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria and China? How about securing Poland from Russian tanks rolling across her plains? How about working with the Chinese to convince them of their self-interest in containing and eventually dismantling the North Korean concentration camp, rather than begging them to continue funding our ever expanding debt? How about loudly proclaiming our permanent alliance with Israel and warning anyone who messes with her that they will feel the full force of American wrath?

Imagine a president restraining his impulse to fix the environment, education and health care until the financial sector stabilizes, rather than “taking advantage of the crisis.”

Well. I guess we can imagine anything, but in this case, we're imagining a Republican president. Not Barack Hussein Obama.

The New Greed Problem?

2009-03-04T08:48:00.003-07:00

I touched on greed versus self-interest in my post about Confidence and Objective Moral Standards, but Sheldon Richman is much more thorough in his piece The Goal is Freedom: All About Greed at the Foundation for Economic Education. And his commenter William Reed provides great clarity:

I have what I believe is a working definition of greed. It is sort of a Taoist definition. A Yin-Yang sort of phenomenon which is largely dependent upon one’s personal prosperity vantage point.

When someone who has more than you wants more, they’re greedy.
When someone who has less than you wants more, they’re ambitious.
The two phenomena are actually one.

As was brutally and irrefutably proved in the USSR, when you try to socialize your way out of greed, you inevitably end up destroying ambition into the bargain.

I love Mr. Baird’s definition of greed as pursuit of self-interest through involuntary exchange. As noted by George Washington, “…Government is force!…” What a fertile environment for this type of exchange!

The greed/ambition yin/yang phenomenon may be visualized as a magnet in the shape of a coin. Heads is the positive side, in this case ambition. Tails is the negative side, or greed.

The difficulty arises when governments, over-privileged due to duped voters or oppressed peasants, is granted a sufficiency of power to attempt to separate greed from ambition in order to dispose of greed, while leaving ambition to thrive. As any student of physics can tell you, no matter how finely you slice our imaginary coin, every resulting slice will still have both a positive and a negative pole. But they sliced away with abandon in the good ol’ USSR, resulting in an ever weaker market force, until finally, greed and ambition had been decimated to such an extent as to be utterly ineffective as a wealth creator in what remained of the market. Ultimately the only meaningful expression of greed remained in the political apparatus, where greed for political control destroyed millions of lives. In a free market greed loses its bestiality, as described by Mr. Richman. In an all-powerful government it is given free rein. In any event, it is, as Mr. Richman so eloquently states, an inseparable, eternal characteristic of human nature. It may be largely tamed by a free market, but can never be excised from humanity. If it finds expression in our government, exercising powers beyond those expressly enumerated by our constitution, may God help us.

//William Reed
27 February 2009 at 10:36 pm

Paying Taxes is Patriotic...

2009-03-03T18:31:00.003-07:00

Our vice president (Joe Biden for the majority of Obama voters who don't know) told us so.

Finally! Conservatives can legitimately claim liberals aren't patriotic - by their own standard. See Obama's list of nominees/appointees who don't pay "their fair share of taxes":

Timothy Gheitner - Treasury Secretary
Nancy Killefer - Performance Czar (withdrawn)
Tom Daschle - Director of Health and Human Services (withdrawn)
Hilda Solis - Labor Secretary
Ron Kirk - U.S. Trade Representative (pending)

Did I miss anyone? I'll keep a space open for future appointments/updates. No wonder Democrats don't mind raising taxes on the rich - only rich Republicans pay them.

Oh yeah - Charlie Rangel (D - NY) - Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the tax code. Lovely.

Obama Thanks Jews for Their Votes

2009-02-26T21:42:00.017-07:00

Now, mach schnell -
*GET* UNDER* THE* BUS!!

U.S. plans $900 million pledge for Gaza (Reuters)

Jewish Leaders Blast Clinton
Over Israel Criticism

Hillary Pressuring Israel To Speed Up Aid To Gaza (CBS)

And we thought it was bad when Democrats made blacks ride in the back of the bus.

Update:

Saudi Advocate to Run the
National Intelligence Council?

That's right. Chas Freeman is going to be editing the president's intelligence briefings. Let's throw the Chinese dissidents under the bus too, 'cause Freeman thinks the Red Chinese government was too restrained at Tiananmen.

The "Honey, I Got a Bargain" Defense

2009-02-26T12:00:00.004-07:00

Look what you've done, you shameless shopaholic women! You've taught Obama's budget chief the "I Got a Bargain" defense. "I saved you so much money at the outlet stores today, Darling."

Policy shift will avert $9 trillion deficit-Orszag

Here's the "money" line:

"All told we are showing $2.7 trillion in costs in this budget that were excluded from previous budgets and I think that is a mark of the honesty and responsibility contained in this document," (Reuters)

I've come to realize we all, as individuals, at some point have to decide who we trust. The world is simply too big and complex to discern every truth for yourself. So, who do you trust for "honesty and responsibility"? President ("I'm not for Big Government") Obama and his minions, who seem to come up with a bigger lie every day, or someone like Alan Keyes.

Another knee-slapper!

2009-02-23T14:00:00.004-07:00

Obama Taps Biden to Oversee Stimulus Package Implementation

"The fact that I'm asking my vice president to personally lead this effort shows how important it is for our country and future to get this right," he said.

Is he talking about this guy?

That's not fair, you say? OK - here's the picture FoxNews put up with the story.

Feel better?

He Says Without Irony...

2009-02-21T20:54:00.004-07:00

I've decided to start laughing at the Obama Amateur Hour Variety Show. We dissenters have no control, nothing really to fight back with except prayer and our 2010 vote. So, here tonight's entry for best joke of the day. Imagine our straight-man-in-chief, saying, less than a week after he signed the Piracy Act of 2009 (version 1) into law...

... he is determined to "get exploding deficits under control" and said his budget request is "sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don't, and restoring fiscal discipline." (Washington Post)

Ahh ...[wipes tear from eye] that's a good one! BTW, his plan includes letting the Bush tax cuts lapse so that capital gains and "the wealthy" take a hit. He's also talking about raising corporate tax rates. Now, there are some proven methods of stimulating job creation for ya'! Oh, Barry... you card! Of course "killing" Iraqis and Afghanis by reducing our discretionary spending on the War on Terror is not going to be a euphemism for making them laugh really hard, but whatever.

Break out the hammer and nails boys! Barry's going to try out every progressive theory in his first 100 days and we may finally be able to bury useful idiocy for good! He may take America with him, but at least we can have a good laugh before we go.

On Confidence and Objective Moral Standards

2009-02-21T10:41:00.010-07:00

We hear a lot these days about restoring confidence to the markets. President Obama isn't making this easy with all his catastrophic talk. I mean that in both ways – talk of catastrophe and the catastrophic results in the markets and many American psyches every time he opens his mouth. But I think the problem is much bigger than the progressive agenda he and the Democrats are hurriedly implementing during the president's honeymoon. It is what they have already succeeded in doing to objective moral standards in this country – namely - eliminating them.

First, I need to explain what I mean by objective moral standards. I'm talking biblical values here. I mean the system of ethics characterized in Judaism and further revealed in Christianity by the love and self-sacrifice of Jesus. America, as a Judeo-Christian culture, has lived most of its history with a social order based on the Bible as the word of God. Not subjective. Not what each person feels in his/her heart is right or wrong. Rather, what the Bible tells us God will use as a measure to decide our eternal destination. This is essential to understanding the American character as distinguished from other Western cultures in the last century. Unlike the rest of the West, we didn't lose sight of our ultimate accountability to God. That is, until the ascendancy of the Left in the 1960s.

Since then, the rightness or goodness of behavior has become completely subjective. Each person gets to decide for himself what feels right. And the more tolerant one is has become the measure of one's goodness. So, for instance, to take a stand against public expressions of sexual deviance or even in favor of traditional values has become a moral flaw in character. And even worse, adherence to progressive values is almost compulsory for our young people. Since the Left took control of the education establishment, the media, the judiciary and now the government, what kid can stand for Judeo-Christian values against the onslaught of scorn and derision of his intolerance, which is the modern moral equivalent of mortal sin?

So, how does this relate to confidence? Confidence in our markets, our institutions – our human relationships is a matter of trust. It has a lot to do with predictability. Can I predict how you will respond in a given situation and on what basis will I make my prediction? One thing I never predicted was the arguments against free market capitalism because of this newly discovered dark facet of human nature called greed. I've even heard conservatives nodding and yupping about “greed on Wall Street”. To which I say – one man's greed is another man's self interest. Surely I'm not the only conservative who understood capitalism to operate on a foundation of enlightened self-interest. As a worker, my goal is to exploit my employer by getting the most possible pay for my efforts. As an employer, my goal is to get the most effort from my employees for as little pay and benefits as the labor market allows. We all know the game and therefore trust that the outcome will be fair. We can predict behavior because we know everyone in the game is playing by the rules of self-interest. There is an underlying honesty in free market capitalism.

Until the government arbitrarily changes the rules.

Govt: Yes, you banks have been doing fine making money by loaning money, but we think you might be red-lining certain racial groups [as if it isn't in banks' self-interest to earn interest off of “certain racial groups'” money], so you're going to have to loan money to people who wouldn't otherwise meet your standards of risk. Stop verifying their income and employment and raise the debt to earnings ratios you've imposed on the borrowers or we'll see to it you get sued for discrimination!

Banks: OK – we'll increase our risk as you request [demand/threaten], but we want some way to offset this risk that runs against our self-interest. So, you better find a way for us to sell-off these risky loans [to Fannie and Freddie which are conveniently backed by taxpayer guarantees] and make damn sure somebody wants to buy them [against their own self-interest].

Fan/Fred/SEC [or whichever govt. entity]: We'll bundle some good loans with some bad ones and slap a triple-A rating on them and sell them to some investors [dupes] because the risk to their self-interest will be lowered [less apparent].

Ta da! Government diddles with the free market self-interest driven system and WHAMO! Nobody can trust in anything anymore. See DJIA ticker since Obama's inauguration here.

The predictability of our social order lies in tatters too. Who would have thought even ten years ago that gays would be fighting for same-sex marriage – and would be winning the fight by judicial fiat? Who knew environmentalism would be the new religion taught in schools starting in kindergarten? Who would have believed, when political correctness argued for civility in our discourse, it would end up doing such a disservice to truth, thereby decreasing the value of truth? I wasn't pleased by the election of Barack Obama in November, but I hoped he wouldn't be as bad at governing as conservatives predicted or as good as progressives hoped. Who would have guessed, that in just a month, he would offend or worry our allies, suck up to our enemies and trash the markets with his socialist economic policies? Do any of his friends have confidence in his ability to lead this nation? I think the only one with any confidence left in Obama is Obama himself. God help us.

Do we go forth with confidence? If we had anything left to believe in, that might be possible. But progressives have convinced a majority to “believe in yourself” and without objective moral standards, that really means "believe in nothing". Progressives win. America loses confidence and so much more.

Buy the Numbers?

2009-02-14T16:18:00.009-07:00

OK – do this little exercise yourself if you don't trust me.

$787,000,000,000 / 306,000,000 people = $2,571.90 per person

That's the so-called stimulus package divided by roughly the number of people the US census bureau estimates right now – so, let's round our result to $2,600 per person. I'm afraid the Republicans are right. That just isn't much of a stimulus. But wait! That's debt per person – right? After all, we're not getting a check in the mail and if we did we'd still have to repay it eventually. Oh, maybe some of us will directly benefit from the Great O'Spendulus, aka the “American Recovery and Reinvestment (ARR) Act of 2009”. For instance, those people qualifying for government assistance in weatherizing their homes. Now, there's a role for the federal government the founders overlooked!

So, here's my proposal to correct the problem. The government buys a Walmart gift card for every man, woman and child in the United States with the generous sum of $2,500 attached. Mine is a modest proposal, so I rounded down a little to save us all some debt. Why Walmart? Well, Wally World is already socialist in nature – limited choices at “fair” prices. And, you can buy almost anything there. Seniors can get their drugs... the kids can buy a variety of toys... liberals will find all their favorite Obama authored books and Bruce Springsteen CDs... conservatives can stock up on guns and ammo... why, if it is a superstore, the spendthrifts among us can even get food there! And think how stimulative it would be! Every manufacturer with products at Walmart would see revenues go through the roof. Toy makers, tire and hardware manufacturers, plant and food growers, drug makers... you name it! Jobs, jobs, jobs and not just at Walmart or whatever alphabet soup of government make-work programs Obama's team is yet to reveal. I'm a genius!

Seriously though, this is my evidence that Obama doesn't want economic recovery. It took me less than ten minutes and less than a page to develop this idea that truly would be stimulative and less expensive than what the Democrats just did to this country in the so-called stimulus package. In just under a month, more than a 1,000 pages and some 787 billion dollars of debt, the Obama administration has planted our collective feet firmly on the road to serfdom.

Why? I think there are many reasons. Perhaps first, because he can (as in “Si, se puede” or “Yes, we can”). He is a great deceiver – maybe The Great Deceiver. Did you hear what he said at the press conference about economists agreeing the New Deal type intervention was necessary?

“Most economists, almost unanimously, recognize that even if philosophically you're wary of government intervening in the economy, when you have the kind of problem we have right now -- what started on Wall Street goes to Main Street, suddenly businesses can't get credit, they start carrying back their investment, they start laying off workers, workers start pulling back in terms of spending -- when you have that situation, that government is an important element of introducing some additional demand into the economy. We stand to lose about $1 trillion worth of demand this year and another trillion next year. And what that means is you've got this gaping hole in the economy. “

Economists almost unanimously recognize that FDR's New Deal was a disaster which deepened and prolonged the Depression. Politicians argue for government introducing demand into the economy – economists argue for government unfettering the free market to let failing corporations fail and strong one's innovate, to increase efficiencies and let prices fluctuate according to nature's law of supply and demand. FDR's own treasury secretary, economist Henry Morgenthau Jr. spoke before Congress in 1939 and said,

"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot."

But Obama is smooth and articulate. I bet he had 54% of the people listening convinced.

He also said, “What got us into this mess is banks taking enormous, wild risks with other people’s money...” Here's a case of deception by not telling the whole truth. The government – specifically Democrats – instituted government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which, because they were backed with taxpayer's money (“other people's”), took enormous wild risks on bad loans. They did not originate them (they bought them and sold securities based on them), but the banks that did were responding to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which threatened them with anti-discrimination lawsuits if they didn't lend to high risk cases - as if all money isn't green. And who imposed the CRA? Democrats in government. Now, there's also the securities rating problem where GSEs trying to mitigate their risk by selling securities which bundled good loans with bad ones, managed to get their securities rated triple-A. I don't know who was responsible for allowing this part of the problem, but whether Republican or Democrat, I'm 99.99% sure government had something to do with it. But Barry would have us believe it is all the “banks” and “Wall Street” who are irresponsible and therefore, responsible. B.S.!

Other reasons why our new president doesn't care about economic recovery:

- more government dependency = greater Democrat power and influence

- moral vanity and sanctimony = I'm so good and right, historical facts don't matter.

I don't think I need to elaborate on these last two.

Do you think there's any significance to the fact that Democrats passed the ARR Act (which I will henceforth call the Piracy Act of 2009) on Friday the 13^th? Buy the numbers? You and your kids and your grandkids just did. $787,000,000,000 worth. Plus interest.

SOS Hillary Clinton!

2009-01-15T10:57:00.007-07:00

Has anyone else noticed how bad Hillary Clinton looks lately? It was this picture that made me think she's going downhill.

Now, I'm not a Hillary fan, but I thought she was looking pretty good during the campaign. Is there something about the job of Secretary of State that does this to Democratic women? Seriously. Look:

I used a flattering picture of Madaleine Albright for the sake of comparison. Blond, high cheekbones, nice smile, strong chin. But this may be what Hillary is in for if she takes the job:

Run, Hillary, run!! You can still be president! Don't do this to yourself!

Just a Few Thoughts the Morning After

2008-11-05T09:59:00.003-07:00

To black Americans - Welcome home. I truly hope you feel completely a part of your country now. We'll all be better for it.

To the Left - you of the unconstrained vision - This is your shot at utopia. You have it all - the federal government, the media, the education establishment and the judicial system. No excuses now. We'll all be watching to see if you really can do it better than your comrades in Europe, Canada and elsewhere.

To the Obama administration - Not all criticism is racism. Live with it.

God bless America.

Dear Friend and Barak Obama Supporter,

2008-10-27T19:22:00.040-06:00

Thank you for your email with the link to Colin Powell's endorsement of Barak Obama.

Here we find common ground. Like Colin Powell and you, I too believe Obama is a transformational figure. I fear how he would change America though, given his dark vision of the "fundamental flaw" in our constitution regarding our government's missing authority to redistribute the wealth. This essay at American Thinker details his alliance with leftist ideology:

Yet, no one to my knowledge has yet connected all the dots between Barack Obama and the Radical Left. When seen together, the influences on Obama's life comprise a who's who of the radical leftist movement, and it becomes painfully apparent that not only is Obama a willing participant in that movement, he has spent most of his adult life deeply immersed in it.

I believe you have the best of intentions in your desire to emulate the socialist countries of western Europe, your highest goal being equality. However, I hope we can agree, factually, that “equality” is not the value that brought America to this pinnacle of prosperity and freedom. As a conservative, I wish to “conserve” what America has achieved and I believe you and Obama wish to “progress” beyond it. Is that fair enough? One might say, you want to dance with a new guy at the prom and I want to dance with the guy who 'brung' me.

This is why charges of “anti-Americanism” and “un-American” are brought by conservatives. I don't believe you are unpatriotic and I challenge you to quote one mainstream Republican politician who has leveled that charge. We believe you love America in the abstract – what it could be. We also believe your vision for what it could be is a Marxist utopia. This is why pictures of Bill Ayers standing on the American flag and stating he and the Weathermen only regret they “didn't do enough” in the way of bombing American institutions don't strike you as anti-American. Bill Ayers just wants a better America – right? You have seen these pictures and read or heard these words, haven't you? Or are they only available on alternative “right-wing” media?

We conservatives love America for its founding principle of Liberty. This freedom is what makes the American Dream possible for the likes of Joe the plumber and, yes, even Sarah Palin. Americans have not traditionally been awed by expertise and college credentials – by intellectualism. In fact, Matthew Arnold, a British poet and culture critic said, "If there be a discipline in which the Americans are wanting, it is the discipline of awe and respect." To which Mark Twain, the target of his criticism replied, "A discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberty."

The inscription is from Leviticus (25:10):

"Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all of the inhabitants thereof."

You will answer we don't love liberty enough to protect a woman's “right to choose”. Again, I find common ground with Obama, who said in his eloquent professorial manner at the Saddleback Forum that abortion is a moral issue. “Gee, thanks for enlightening us, Senator." Yes – and moral values are codified in our laws. You support a man who, when in doubt (after all, it is “above his pay grade” to say when human rights accrue to a fetus), prefers to place absolutely no limits on the practice of abortion, including denying legal protections to a viable fetus who happens to survive an abortion attempt. Did you know that – or, again, is this information only made available to those who seek out conservative opinion? Don't try to weasel this one with Obama campaign talking points. I have too much inform ation at my disposal about his actual record.

You, on the other hand, would happily sacrifice everyday liberties for what you believe would be a more virtuous society. Given the chance, you will outlaw trans fats (NYC), high fructose corn syrup and compel all farmers to grow organic. No smoking – ever, unless you meet the state's standards for medical marijuana use. I suppose you will make another exception for Presidente Obama's cigarette smoking. We'll all be living under the sterile blue light and happy little hum of energy efficient fluorescent light bulbs and the state will monitor and remotely control our thermostat settings (tried in California). The feds decided long ago how much water should be allowed to flush through our toilets – the unintended consequence being multiple flushings required to eliminate our elimination.

These losses of liberty are nuisances compared to what the Democrats have promised will be at the top of their agenda next session. In true fascist fashion, they will silence the opposition by re-instituting the Orwellian-named “Fairness Doctrine”. Um – freedom of speech an American value, anyone? And second, they will eliminate the secret ballot in unionization voting via the deceptively named “Employee Free Choice Act”. Even George McGovern opposes this. But, I understand – the goal of equality is so preeminent, so absolutely fabulous – any means of achieving it is worth it. Up is down. Right is left. Black is white. The Christians with whom you live and work are bigoted, intolerant, hateful warmongers and Barak Obama is a healer and is wise beyond his years. George Bush is the “worst president ever” despite seven years of unexpected national security and an amazing post-9-11 economic recovery and the Democrats have supremacy on the economic issues despite instituting government sponsored entities (GSEs) run by Democrats and their political allies into the ground and opposing any regulation that might impinge on their ability to feel good about loaning money to people who can't pay it back.

FFA? Future Fascists of America rally on their
way to early voting at Colorado College.

You see only fundamentalist Christians and anthropogenic global warming (AGW) as threats to civilization. We see Christian values as the foundation on which this great nation was built. And we believe America is the greatest national force for good the world has ever known. We actually believe this is indisputable. We see AGW as another manufactured crisis used by your side to justify state control of the commanding heights of the economy on the road to your Marxist utopia. Often when you or your candidate describe America, we simply don't recognize the place. Not that we think it is perfect – we just see it as a whole lot better than you do. This is also why we don't have an urgent need for radical “change”.

However, we also have two threats to civilization we fear. We see Islamic fascism as this century's biggest threat to western civilization together with, frankly, your suicidal tendencies. You and Senator Obama believe, through the force of his personality (another interesting correlation with previous fascist regimes), we can reason with our enemies. Really – to understand the nightmare we conservatives are envisioning, you should read Lee Harris' “Suicide of Reason”. Professor Harris is a man of the left – a gay man with a long-term partner – and a member of the intellectual elite. He so clearly identifies what we see – that Western civilization has fostered the “rational actor” - us soft, pampered, affluent people acting in our “enlightened self-interest”. You on the left expect everyone to behave rationally, while we conservatives and the Islamists themselves recognize that they are “tribal” actors living by the rules of the jungle, the first of which is – there are no rules. While you're fighting for the “right” of gays to marry and scrupulously monitoring your carbon footprint – we see our common enemy advancing on us with his scimitar poised to lop off our heads. And that is what is making us crazy! It is one thing for you to be suicidal – it is another for you to take us down with you!

We acknowledge the good that has been done by various movements originating on the left. The civil rights movement really has succeeded at eliminating institutional racism in America. There are still racists to be sure, but racism has become socially unacceptable - unless you're Jeremiah Wright. When I was a kid, I played in creeks with orange foam floating over the ripples and the Cuyahoga River really did burn – more than once. The environmental movement succeeded admirably in cleaning up the air and water. I also happen to believe prosperity is a huge factor as people of affluence don't like to live in effluence. But if you want to see polluted environs, check out those workers' paradises! Even the socialists in France and Britain do not enjoy the air and water quality we have here (you don't want to know what they drop on the train tracks in France!). Feminism made it possible for me to pursue an engineering degree in a class that was half women twenty-five years after my sister was denied entry to a dermatology specialty after completing medical school as one of very few women allowed in the program.

But, what we recognize, which you seem to overlook, is how these movements have radicalized. Feminism is all about the right to abort your offspring. Did you know between a third and a half of black babies suffer this fate in our country? Talk about racial genocide! Civil rights now take the form of reparations and grievance studies, which Obama promotes as one of his education policies. We Ohioans have family stories that include great grandfathers and great uncles marching off with Sherman's army to fight and die for black Americans' freedom. If we pay reparations, do we then get to start classes in grievance? I admit, I am deeply aggrieved by affluent black Americans about to become president and first lady being ungrateful for the blood spilled on behalf of them and their ancestors. Is there anything as unattractive as ingratitude for the ultimate sacrifice? Environmentalism is now used as a tool to punish “evil” capitalist corporations that have made American prosperity possible. If you manage to kill Walmart, it is the poor you claim to champion who will suffer. Environmentalists have already killed millions in Africa with their anti-DDT absolutism. All hail the pristine environment in which mosquitoes and eagles thrive and humans die!

I also want to mention the other radical movement - secularism. America has developed as the most highly advanced country with a secular government and religious society. You seem to fear the rise of a Christian theocracy despite having lived in a Christian culture your entire American life and having succeeded in influencing both Christianity and the culture more than the other way around. With the breakdown of authority in the 60s and the rise of the therapeutic culture, churches have responded by eliminating God as judge and have made Him everyone's best friend. And really, you can't open the paper or turn on the TV and believe the religious right has influenced the culture much, can you? Yet, you seem to chafe under the religious influences in our society. George Bush believing he will be held to account is no comfort to you. But, Barak Obama's professions of faith cultivated for twenty years in a radical racist church don't disturb you. Could it be you doubt his sincerity?

We do believe a non-denominational prayer in schools, like the ones said back when we were united by common values, really never hurt anyone. “God bless our parents, our teachers, our school and our country” just doesn't seem all that threatening when you consider the other cultural influences our kids are experiencing. You seem to think MTV good, prayer in school bad. We also believe you promote anti-Biblical values. Your tax policy of taking from the worker to give to the non-worker promotes sloth, ingratitude and covetousness. As the economist Arthur Laffer said, “don't be surprised if you end up with a lot more people not working”. In Jewish law, even the person living on charity is supposed to tithe 10%. Do you believe there is any wisdom in that? We get really fried when you want to confiscate our hard won earnings to support everyone's sexual sin. Sure, in a free society, you have every right to get knocked-up. We just don't want to have to pay for your birth control to prevent it, your Viagra to help it along or your abortion when you “succeed”. In a flier I received from NARAL in support of Obama, they call these “reproductive rights”. Oy vey, the emanations and penumbra!

As David Horowitz says, you are so “intoxicated with your virtue”, you can't or won't admit the harm your utopianism has done in the world. Do you really believe the rise in government dependence has made people happier or better citizens? And yet you promote more. Do you really believe America is a “mean” and ungenerous place? Why does the world look to us then when people suffer tsunamis and earthquakes and yes – even cruel dictatorships like Sadam Hussein's? And how will the Europeans and the UN who are so desirous of an Obama win respond to these crisis when President Obama weakens our military and chokes our economic engine with confiscatory taxes? Have you ever heard about “the tragedy of the commons”? Unfortunately, it was an argument made for population control, which may end up being the only success the left ever fully achieves. But it very clearly illustrates why socialism leads to rationing. Once the Democrats achieve their dream of socialized medicine in America, where are the Canadians going to go for timely and high quality health care? Their system works great until you get sick, but somehow America's liberals will just do a better job of it I guess.

Low-tech lynching of uppity conservative
Christian, Sarah Palin, in California

Your side sees Sarah Palin as an object of scorn and derision at best and an immoral unenlightened Bambi-killing, book-banning, Bible-thumping troglodyte married to an incestuous, testosterone-poisoned hillbilly at worst. We see her as one of us – an exceptionally decent, hard-working, righteous-living self-made one of us. Yet – we are the ones accused of hate-mongering. As my sister says... interesting times. Indeed, Big Brother.

Float at Obama rally in Denver 10/26/08

At this point, you're either uncomfortable with some of the truths encountered here, or you think I've lost my frigging mind. Honestly, no one would be happier than I to discover I'm suffering paranoid delusions. No one. I also don't believe I'm going to change your mind as I'm sure you are as committed to your world-view as I am to mine. I used to share your view, so I guess it is possible to change. For now though, we both believe we have Truth on our side. So it is. Now that I've had my say, at least we have some clarity and we can both be authentic in our relationship.

I'm obviously not praying for an Obama win. However, I am praying that, if he wins, it is by a convincing margin. God forbid it would be a few thousand votes here and there. If that happens, I will suspect the election was decided by the drunks and drug addicts taken off the city streets of my home state by ACORN to register and vote on the same day (Democrats only, thank you) , or the Howard Stern show interviewees who support Obama because he is pro-life and selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. I might become bitter. I pray, “Please Lord, don't let it be a Mickey Mouse margin.”

Believers in the Bubble

2008-10-14T17:18:00.012-06:00

There is an astonishing capacity among humans, perhaps especially among pampered affluent Westerners, to believe in infinitely expanding boundaries of just about everything good. In contemporary language – the bubble. This is true despite all the bubble remains littering our recent economic past... the dot-com bubble, the real-estate bubble, the credit bubble.

I believe we're about to see our civilization's bubble go the way of the others. Oh – maybe not in the next four years of the Obama administration. Maybe it will take another hundred years. Let us pray. But, fully half of the country either doesn't know how exceptional and fragile this nation is, or believes that it will continue forever no matter how it is “changed”.

My evidence for this is to look at Western Civilization in decline in Europe. The Europeans are committing demographic suicide and importing Muslims to "do the work Europeans won't do". The modern enlightened ward of the state in Europe can not be bothered to reproduce. He believes the only moral code that matters is the one within his enlightened brain, so even if he did reproduce, he wouldn't succeed much at transmitting his values to his progeny as they would probably believe the same about themselves.

Now, what do the enlightened Obama voters envision for America? Why, to be more like Western Europe of course! The success of their Marxist revolution (and this will be undeniable in an Obama/Reid/Pelosi era) will "change" America into a more secular, socialist, effeminate, welfare state resembling - France, Britain, Spain? It doesn't matter - it won't be America as we have known it.

I live in a city with several military institutions. I see real men - American men - in uniform on the streets every day. They exude masculinity - a certain muscular confidence and aggression that is both a little scary and mostly comforting in the thought of their role as protectors. In the ideal world of the left, these men will be unnecessary, will be neutered and enveloped in the loving arms of the state.

I will miss them. The world will miss us as we were before the promised "change".

Six Step Survival Strategy

2008-10-08T12:48:00.005-06:00

Big Media (HT: American Thinker) has finally done it. It has been close the last two presidential elections, but Big Media, George Soros, MoveOn and Hollywood have finally pulled it off. They've obscured the facts about their cipher candidate and foisted the weak choice on Republicans. Yeah – I still think Giuliani would beat Obama like a drum. But Big Media cleverly applied the divide and conquer strategy to Rudy and our friends in the evangelical movement fell for it. I'll write about what I think the psychological factors are behind this later, but for now, brace yourselves – we're about to get CHANGE... Good. And. Hard.

Here's my plan for surviving the next two years. Yes, I mean two years until Congress changes hands again. I'm very optimistic about this. If I'm wrong, I'll deal with that two years from now.

1. Pray every day giving thanks for your friends and family and the natural beauty around us (my condolences to those living in the big cities). Gratitude makes you a happier person and therefore more people will want to be with you, making you happier still. In engineering this is called a positive feedback loop, but in this case its a good thing (not so much in engineering).

2. Don't allow despair to even get a foot in the door. Bill Buckley once said, speaking on the death of his wife, that despair is a mortal sin. I agree – it is soul killing and diminishes your ability to be grateful (see my first point).

3. Keep up your friendships with Obama voters. These people tend to be charming, intelligent and fun. And if you don't occasionally expose them to conservative thought, who will? Set ground rules though. Stick to one topic at a time. No name calling. Derision and scorn are not arguments for your side. One of Dennis Prager's many mottoes is “I prefer clarity to agreement”. I think that is a great attitude to take into a debate - “let's discover where we disagree”.

4. Don't expect to change your friends' minds. Disappointment is sure to follow. Be satisfied with clarity.5. Don't let derangement set in, as we've seen happen to so many of our liberal friends. If you start sounding like Naomi Wolfe (George Bush is halfway through the 10 steps to a fascist dictatorship!) or that guy on the corner wearing the sandwich board that says “THE END IS NEAR”, people will believe you're nuts. Even if you might be right, credibility may be the only thing you can really maintain in this world, and you can't keep it by predicting the future. Neither Naomi Wolfe nor you know. Although, I admit I believe Wolfe is especially clueless.

6. Give credit where it is due. Bill Clinton has spoken honestly about the Fannie/Freddie mess being the responsibility of Democrats in Congress resisting regulation. Give him credit. George McGovern is making TV ads for the Employee Freedom Action Committee to fight Democratic legislation that would eliminate the secret ballot in unionization voting. CNN did an honest piece on Obama's alliance with Ayers (don't ever call it an association again. See Thomas Sowell). Camille Paglia, a reliable truth teller (although surprisingly blinkered in what she wants to do with it), says some astonishing things in defense of Sarah Palin and attacking liberals and feminism. These instances of responsible behavior on the part of liberals need to be acknowledged and encouraged. And frankly, I find it comforting that even some Democrats seem to be having an “uh-oh” feeling. Giving credit will also increase your credibility.

Someone once said “hope is gratitude for the future”. If we can live by that, we'll all be better for it.

Brain Candidates Versus Mind Candidates

2008-10-08T11:35:00.015-06:00

I assert that some candidates appeal more to the brain and some more to the mind. I also believe liberals are generally “brain-voters” and conservatives are generally “mind-voters”. The brain is the more primitive part of cognition associated with feelings. For example, “I like the cookie” - Hammy the squirrel from Over the Hedge. The mind is higher order thinking that generally resists the brain. For example, “I would like that cookie, but I see it has a little mold on it, which might cause me to become sick and if I consume it, it will contribute empty calories to my daily intake causing me to gain unwanted weight”.

Brain Candidate:

Brain voter: "But, I like the Cookie"

Mind Candidate:

Mind voter: "I see the appeal of the Cookie, but I'm going with the old beat-up guy because he's better for me and my country. I'm choosing Castor oil over the Cookie."

Now, some candidates have cross-over appeal and they generally win elections by landslides. You can have your Castor oil and your cookie too!

----------------------------------Update----------------------------------------

For some brain voters, clearly voting with their brains is an evolutionary(?) step up.

Losing the Culture War

2008-09-30T11:33:00.004-06:00

If you had to guess, what would you say was the subject of the above picture? I'll make it easy with multiple choice:

a) Is it an artsy class picture of hip high schoolers?

b) Is it an anti-smoking pitch?

c) How about the latest “boy” band?

Aw – you noticed the speakers in the background and the guy on the right holding drumsticks. But you're still wrong!

This is a “back to savings” (you know – like, back to school, Dude) advertisement for young men's clothing from a respectable department store. Does clothing still make the man? If so, what are these supposed high schoolers made of with their long tresses, facial hair and tattoos? I don't even want to think about the unseen piercings (made you think about it, didn't I?).

I'll be called a throw-back – a primitive – for this kind of critique, but here goes. Did you know there's a biblical prohibition of tattoos? Someone with more time or more biblically versed than I can provide the chapter and verse. You'll ask, “What is the significance to today's life? That is so before last millennium!”

Here it is. Most Americans – even Americans of faith – have no idea where they come from. What makes an American an American or a Christian a Christian or a Jew a Jew? Greater minds than mine (Natan Sharansky, Victor Davis Hanson, Dennis Prager, et al) have noticed there's a war on identity going on, but I'll add my voice to the chorus.

The biblical prohibition against tattoos was, like Judaism in general and Christianity by extension, a reaction to the decadent cultures Jews rejected for ethical monotheism. Judeo/Christian values reject the death culture of ancient Egypt, the sexual deviance, in the form of pederasty and homosexuality, among ancient Arab and Greek cultures, and yes – even the tattooing of the ancients. But, you wouldn't know it even at my Catholic parish where recently the mother and godmother of a baby being baptized sported tattoos between their shoulder blades. I suppose I should be grateful the young couple was having their baby baptized into the faith. And yet...

How can a culture be sustained when the values that got us here are no longer recognized by most people – even the people that claim some allegiance to the institutions that represent those values? How can a Catholic profess to be a Catholic and vote for Obama, who not only defends infanticide in the form of partial birth abortion, but argued against legislation that would protect infants who miraculously survive an abortion from death by neglect. The fight for human dignity is fundamental to being Catholic (recommended viewing: Archbishop Chaput on Uncommon Knowledge). And yet, Catholics are voting for Obama – I know this is happening because it is happening in my own family.

How can a Jew claim to be a Jew and vote for Obama or any liberal when those liberals cancel Sarah Palin's appearance at a protest rally against Ahmadinejad because they are more opposed to Palin than they are the genocidal impulses of Iran's leader?

And finally, will America still be America when President Obama turns us in the direction of secular humanist socialist Europe? He will grow the dependent class. He will stop projecting American power in a misguided attempt to have America loved by the rest of the world. He will promote irresponsibility in the name of compassion as with this subprime mortgage mess. And this grand experiment in liberty will die a redistributive death because of liberal “intoxication with their virtue” (David Horowitz). Expect greater human suffering and death to follow America's demise, but to the true believing liberal, it will be worth it because at least there will be fewer of us human pollutants producing CO².

Here are Natan Sharansky's words in his interview with Dennis Prager:

“Identity and freedom are not enemies. To the contrary, they must be allies. That if you don't have strong identity, you will not be able/capable to defend your freedom. Identity without freedom becomes totalitarian/fundamentalist. But, freedom without identity is decadent, is weak, is meaningless and that's why I'm against that great dream of John Lennon: imagine the world without religions, without nations; the world where there is nothing to die for. If there is nothing to die for, you will not be able to defend your freedom.”

Mark Twain for McCain/Palin

2008-09-04T12:24:00.002-06:00

How do I know? Believe it or not, I read it in Time magazine while at the dentist. Here's a quote from the article:

In the 1880s the british poet and culture critic Matthew Arnold paid two visits to the U.S. to observe the native customs. Eventually he set down his impressions in a book, Civilization in the United States. On the whole, he didn't think there was much. For one thing, he was troubled by the way Americans appeared to lack any capacity for reverence toward superior men. "If there be a discipline in which the Americans are wanting," he pronounced, "it is the discipline of awe and respect."

Arnold was directing this criticism at America's love of funny men, particularly Twain, who he said was "so attractive to the Philistine." Twain had a classic response: "A discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberty." Time says this was Twain's way of saying "Go stuff your awe." And that is exactly what Sarah Palin said to the elitist American Left last night. Ronald Reagan isn't the only one smiling.

McCain/Palin 2008

A Couple of Laughs

2008-07-24T13:50:00.005-06:00

I just had to share a couple items that made me laugh.

Did you hear the one from the Enquirer about John Edwards meeting with his mistress and love child at a hotel? OK - I don't get my news from and I'm not a fan of the tabloids, but the piece linked on Drudge about catching Edwards "in the act" was pretty convincing. Sounds like there were lots of witnesses and he didn't handle it well. Well Slate published a piece asking why the story wasn't getting MSM press attention, especially compared to the Larry Craig bathroom shenanigans, and here is the conclusion of the author:

Or are they observing a double standard that says homo-hypocrisy is indefensible but that hetero-hypocrisy deserves an automatic bye?

When I read the words "double standard" in the subtitle of the Slate piece, I thought, wow, Slate is really coming around if they can be honest about this. Boy was I wrong! No, the difference in coverage of Edwards and Craig isn't that one is a Republican and the other a Democrat former presidential candidate who also happens to be on Obamessiah's short list for VP. NO! It's homophobia in the press! Riiiiight.

And this other is a real beauty from NPR (thanks to American Digest). NPR is profiling an extended family in Ohio that is out of work and lacking transportation to help them get work. Apparently without any sense of irony, the NPR piece falls under the title "Feeling the Economic Pinch; Struggling in Ohio as the Economy Tightens". That isn't the only pinching and tightening these poor folks are feeling! As Vanderleun says, "obviously this works better as radio".

Seriously though, this is an iconic image for what government dependency in America looks like. These people didn't start eating starchy diets when the price of gas and food went up.

Impervious to reason…

2007-10-16T08:39:00.001-06:00

When it comes to matters of faith, I am. Even if Darwinists found every missing branch in the human evolutionary tree, I would still believe evolution from bacterium to Beethoven was the work of God. I believe God used Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt and then gave him the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai. If an empty arc were discovered, I'd still believe it. I believe Jesus was God incarnate, died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead and ascended bodily into heaven. If archaeologists found a tomb containing what they believed were the bones of Jesus, I would adamantly believe they were wrong.

But, none of my religious beliefs is damaging to others in my life or to society at large. To the contrary, strong arguments can be made that these widely shared religious beliefs are not just beneficial to me and my society, but essential for a virtuous and purposeful human existence. If only the same could be said of the irrational Left.

Think of all the irrational beliefs the Left holds:

Men and women are essentially the same;
Secularism is vital for sustainable civil society;
Socialism is a better system than capitalism;
Women are happier in pursuit of meaningful careers;
Higher tax rates lead to higher revenues;
Earth is destined for catastrophic man-made climate change;
Peace is the dividend paid out for unending diplomacy;
Universal health coverage means better health care.

I know the list could go on and on. The point is – everything listed above is disprovable by facts, knowledge of history or common sense.

If you are either a man or woman (and hopefully you are), the first Leftist belief on my list is disproved by life experience. It also happens to be disproved by science of the brain.

Secularism has been the well-spring of the vilest totalitarianism of the 20th century (Nazi Germany, the Soviet Gulag, Red China, Korea, etc…). True, the greatest threat to civilization in the 21st century is Islamofacism, but this doesn't disprove the history of the 20th century. And the Left doesn't even believe Isamofacism is an existential threat to civilization.

Socialism is crumbling everywhere it has been tried (even Sweden is lowering its tax rates and reducing welfare benefits). The French and Germans are moving to the right politically in an attempt to undo the damage socialism has done to the fabric of their societies.

My personal experience tells me women are happier in pursuit of meaning (not necessarily a meaningful career). The fact that women are depressed at roughly twice the rate of men, despite all their liberation, indicates women have been sold a lie by feminism.

Lower tax rates lead to higher tax revenue (Kennedy, Reagan and Bush tax cuts prove it – see Laffer curve).

The correlation between CO2 levels and increases in temperature does not indicate causation. From the data, it is unclear whether CO2 rise causes temperature rise, or the reverse. Something is amiss in the global warming models; the hysterical Left has predicted an ice age as recently as the 1970s (see Newsweek). Kyoto and other Gorian attempts to change the weather will destroy the prosperity of the world and do nothing for the health of the planet.

Unending diplomacy has lead to war time and again (think Chamberlain and WWII, even the Iraq war and especially Israel). Peace is the dividend paid to the victors of war – or if the opponent happens to be a Judeo-Christian nation with a free-press – it is paid to the righteous of a peaceful resistance campaign (think India over Britain).

The British are now pulling their own teeth and the Canadians regularly fly south to get timely health care. Not to mention the rate of cancer survival is by far the best in the United States and Britain has a rate comparable to Poland, despite spending three times as much money. Medicine socialized, people die (to the rhythm of "Bush lied, people died", which is itself a lie).

So, we appear to be a species in need of irrational beliefs. You get to choose – the benign and even beneficial irrationality of Judeo-Christian beliefs – or the truly harmful and even deadly irrationality of the Left.

Disagreeing with My Friends

2007-10-08T20:34:00.000-06:00

I've recently been in an email dispute with one of the leaders of the values voters (I'll maintain his anonymity as I haven't asked his permission to publish this) on the third party option being promoted by James Dobson. Let me say I am strongly pro-life and generally respect and admire Dr. Dobson's work. But, I find the position of these "pro-family" leaders to be, to use Krauthammer's term, "moral vanity" at its worst. Don't read on if you're fighting depression. Here's my correspondence:

I couldn’t disagree more with you and James Dobson on this issue. Let’s be intellectually honest. This “consensus” of pro-family leaders is aimed at Rudy Giuliani. And the problem lies in this statement by James Dobson:

"The other approach, which I find problematic, is to choose a candidate according to the likelihood of electoral success or failure. Polls don't measure right and wrong; voting according to the possibility of winning or losing can lead directly to the compromise of one's principles."

The political process is all about compromise. Your purist ideology will inevitably lead to a Supreme Court loaded with Hillary Clinton’s judicial picks, which would doom this country to decades more of the clearly immoral, not to mention unconstitutional, Roe v. Wade. Where Giuliani’s picks would be in the mold of Sam Alito, John Roberts and Clarence Thomas and would, in all likelihood, overturn this hideous decision. If you want to save babies and traditional values in America, clearly the only choice for values voters is the Republican candidate – whoever he is. Please stop this madness.
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Western,
I appreciate your thoughtful comments. And I receive them in the spirit given.

Let me be clear, I am rarely criticized for being too ‘purist.’ To the contrary, we often get criticism for giving too much consideration to the political realities. To clarify my statement: my comments were not directed at Rudy Guiliani. Certainly anyone reading my comments will know that Rudy is supportive of abortion rights and is the frontrunner at present. But insert another name and my statements stand. I recognize as well that Rudy is not as radical as Hillary Clinton when it comes to abortion rights. But because he believes it is a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion without government restriction, the effect of his stance will keep the status quo in place which to date has led to the destruction of over 40 million lives.

The point of my comments is not “destroy Rudy.” The reality is this: pro-life voters will either hesitate or sit out the election. If a pro-life, third-party candidate emerges (Alan Keyes, for example, has publicly entertained the idea), many pro-life voters will vote for that person. A poll released today by Rasmussen (click here to see it) has 27% of Republican voters saying that they would do just that. No matter what we think of Guiliani as Mayor of New York or how electable he seems, there will be a mass of pro-life/pro-family voters who will not be motivated. Third-party candidate or no, that’s a bad situation.

Lastly, keep in mind, it is very important to hold every candidate accountable to the issues we hold dear. Without this sort of pressure being placed on them, their tendency is to compromise. Picking winners rarely leads to picking leaders. The GOP picked a “winner” in 1976, but many of us stood for Ronald Reagan that year. If we had not stood for the guy who had the “least chance to win” but the most chance to carry our values forward, we wouldn’t have had a Ronald Reagan presidency in 1980. That’s the indisputable fact. And it’s a lesson we must consider as the presidential primary process goes forward for 2008.
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I think you misrepresent my statement about this “pro-family” leadership position and Giuliani’s position on abortion. I accused you and other pro-family leaders precisely of throwing the election to the Democrats in order to stand by your principles (as was done in the country’s disastrous decision for Carter in 1976), which you seem to admit in your reply. It is an exaggerated statement for you to claim Reagan’s success in 1980 was due to your support of him at Ford’s expense (the GOP sensibly picked the incumbent president as the candidate and unfortunately Ford paid the price for Nixon’s corruption). Your statement is highly disputable – I credit the ineptitude of the Carter administration with Reagan’s electoral success in 1980. And the difference here is, the Supreme Court, whose membership is the only practical influence the president has and is our only hope for overturning the abomination that is Roe v. Wade, is at a tipping point. It has a conservative minority with somewhere between 4 and 6 (mostly liberal) positions to be filled in the next presidential term. Now, you and the leadership with whom you formed this consensus WILL be accountable if Hillary Clinton (who is indisputably supportive of abortion rights) gets to throw the court firmly back into the abortion camp for decades to come. This IS factual and indisputable and I find your and Dr. Dobson’s position tragically short-sighted.

Rudy Giuliani has said he is personally repelled by abortion, but takes a federalist position on “the right to choose”. Meaning, he would let the states decide rather than having the Supreme Court impose this fictional “right” from the federal level. This is tantamount to saying that he would prefer Roe v. Wade to be overturned (he may have actually said it explicitly – as many pro-choice lawyers have based on the unconstitutionality of the law). And he has explicitly stated that he would choose strict constructionist judges in the mold of Alito, Thomas, Roberts and Scalia. You may not believe him, but having read about his leadership record as a prosecutor and mayor and the decency and integrity with which he treats those he leads, I do.

I did not accuse you of trying to “destroy Rudy”. I accused you of destroying the “good” in pursuit of the “ideal”. And if you call for us pro-lifers to sit out the election or vote for a “minor” candidate, that is precisely what you will do. For anyone interested in saving babies, traditional marriage and other conservative pro-family values in America, the choice is clear. Vote Republican in ’08. I pray you, Dr. Dobson and others in this movement will use your leadership position wisely to influence that 27% to pursue the good – even if it calls for compromise.
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Western,
We'll have to disagree. One point: Reagan would never have been in a place to pick up the pieces of the Carter administration without 1976. And remember, Ford lost because he did not connect with the Reagan base. True, RR graciously asked everyone to vote GOP, but Values Voters voted for Carter in droves because of his claims to Christian faith even though he was not in the least aligned with their values. Guiliani could very well cause the same thing to happen for Hillary (she is pushing her Christian faith as well though less than Carter did). Thus, I believe the conclusion I came to in my email yesterday to be accurate. One other point: you said in your reply, "Rudy Giuliani has said he is personally repelled by abortion, but takes a federalist position on "the right to choose". With all due respect, that is John Kerry's position as well. And I believe they would both handle issues like the Mexico City Policy and other abortion funding issues the same. Honest people might disagree on this, but I am not willing to take that chance. But, that having been said, Rudy isn't even the nominee yet. And someone else in the field could very well represent our values. The issue is, why are we not focused on that fact and standing by our principles in regard to all the candidates at this moment. Blessings. No hard feelings though disagreement may remain.

Notice how he doesn't go near the Supreme Court appointment issue? I'm hoping this is because he's trying to influence the primary results, but plans to come through in the general for the Republican candidate. I'm not holding my breath though.

Ahem! You Read It Here First

2007-08-11T08:39:00.000-06:00

Someone else is finally talking about milk prices. Breitbart has a piece titled Milk Prices Rise to Record Highs. It emphasizes the increased demand in the Chinese market, but I find that curious as Asians are notoriously lactose-intolerant (or is that an urban myth?). It mentions the biofuel relationship to feed prices about 2/3 of the way into the article. And as I predicted, gasoline is now cheaper per gallon than milk in our area.

Got Milk, VDH?

2007-06-30T11:59:00.001-06:00

Have you noticed what is happening with milk prices? If you've got kids, this is a bigger concern than gasoline prices, although, as it turns out, it is directly related. Up until just a few days ago, the cheapest milk we could get was at the local convenience store for $2.50/gallon. This was even cheaper than Walmart. Now, the convenience store price is $3/gallon and Walmart is $3.38/gallon. Organic milk prices have always been high ($5/gallon at Target a couple years ago), but now they're outrageous (Walmart's price is over $7/gallon). And you thought gas was expensive!

I have it on good authority from my nephew in the business that farmers are storing their corn waiting for the prices to go up as a result of ethanol legislation. So, now consumers are not only paying more at the pump, but apparently the corn shortage has driven up the cost of feeding dairy cows. This is what happens when environmentalists and the government diddle with the free-market.

Victor Davis Hanson explains the relationship between fuel and food with his usual brilliance in "The Impending Food Fight".

The Primary Problem with Public Education

2007-06-30T10:01:00.002-06:00

My position on public education has evolved in a shocking direction – shocking even to me. I now advocate abolishing the Department of Education and dismantling the public education system.

I used to be a huge supporter of public education. It seems so obvious in theory. Let's educate as many children as possible to benefit them individually and to benefit society as a whole. Using taxpayer funds to provide that education makes sense since the whole society benefits.

But, the problem is, the greatest achievement of the public school system, the production of good and loyal citizens for the melting pot, is no longer happening. Public schools used to unify the country by teaching commonly held American values. Sure, reading, writing and arithmetic were taught – but there was something more that I suspect was consistent from school to school across the country. Portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln hung in every classroom. The flag was prominently displayed. The teachers and administrators imparted a love of country and pride in the ideals of America to students. The founding principles of "all men created equal", of the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", of the "American trinity" (Prager's term) - "liberty", "in God we trust" and "e pluribus Unum" - were points of pride. Blacks didn't want to be "Africanized" – they wanted full and active participation in the American dream. No one questioned whether it was good to be an American. We all knew we – our country – were something special.

The opposite is true today in the public schools. The culture and values to which I refer above are now known as "white culture" – or even worse – "white Christian culture". The schools are in the business of Balkanizing the students. "Let's see – you're black, so you belong in this group; you're Latino, so you belong over here; you're gay, so go over there; you're white and Christian, so you go way over there where you're ideas can't hurt anyone." When my older siblings were in elementary school, the day started with a prayer and the pledge of allegiance. When I went to elementary school, the day started with the pledge. Today, the prayer is unthinkable and the pledge is controversial. This is the "secular humanism" taught in public schools. Don't believe that religion isn't taught. The schools are preachers of the modern liberal faith in multiculturalism, environmentalism, moral relativism, anti-imperialism (as if this is what America is about!) and what I call racialism (race consciousness). They are essentially Democrat party indoctrination camps.

Multiculturalism and moral relativism have led to labeling and categorizing by race, language, sexual orientation, etc… This is even more evident at the college level, where many universities have separate student unions, sororities, fraternities and even separate graduation ceremonies for black and white students. And this "diversity" is promoted as not just a good thing, but essential to the full learning experience.

This is why I'm for destroying the public education system. I believe it is beyond repair and that the damage it is doing to the fabric of our country is way beyond any good it might do by teaching the three "R's". I'm not sure I have a solution, but perhaps public funding should be provided to parents to let them choose a private institution. I admit I fear some of the ideologically driven schools that might crop up (like madrassas), but I believe many more kids would be taught American values through private schools than the current public school system. This is the unfortunate result of the Left's take-over of the education establishment.

I know Chesterton says if you love an idea, you work toward it; you don't change the idea when the going gets tough. I've decided I love the idea of my country too much to tolerate the public education system anymore.

How about a little Chesterton?

2007-06-04T13:35:00.000-06:00

Chesterton on the press:

"So again, we have almost up to the last instant trusted the newspapers as organs of public opinion. Just recently some of us have seen (not slowly, but with a start) [published in 1908! - w.c.] that they are obviously nothing of the kind. They are, by the nature of the case the hobbies of a few rich men… There is no fear that a modern king will attempt to override the constitution; it is more likely that he will ignore the constitution and work behind its back; he will take no advantage of his kingly power; it is more likely that he will take advantage of his kingly powerlessness, of the fact that he is free from criticism and publicity."

Thankfully, we have the "New Media" to criticize and shine a light on the MSM. For example, I heard Joe Klein on Hugh Hewitt yesterday calling Victor Davis Hansen, Bernard Lewis and others "silly" and "absurd" on the Iraq War and Middle East situation. Whew! Let me just say I have never – ever – heard more arrogance and foolishness on the part of a single person. Of course, if the Democrats have their way, talk radio will be silenced through the Fairness Doctrine and we'll never have to listen to the likes of Joe Klein again. If you're for freedom of speech, you're not a Democrat. And if you're part of the MSM, you're not a Republican.

Here is Chesterton on the anti-democratic democrats (or Democrats):

"I have listened to scientific men (and there are still scientific men not opposed to democracy) saying that if we give the poor healthier conditions vice and wrong will disappear. I have listened to them with a horrible attention, with a hideous fascination… If these happy democrats could prove their case, they would strike democracy dead. If the poor are thus utterly demoralized, it may or may not be practical to raise them. But it is certainly quite practical to disfranchise them."

Doesn't this remind you of the excuses given for Islamic terrorists? They're from these poor and oppressed cultures, and therefore not held to the same moral standards as the rest of us. And doesn't it also make clear the ugly elitism that the Left has concerning the American voter? I remember my attitude (which was widely reflected on the Left) when Reagan was elected: Americans are a bunch of buffoons to vote for that idiot actor; clearly they don't know what is in their own best interest! It has been quite a humbling lesson for me to realize that the common American was much wiser than I, who voted for Carter! Liberal elites believe they have all the answers that commoners just can't comprehend. So, just leave the important stuff to the ruling elite in the government (assuming you'll elect Democrats) and we'll create Utopia. The rich will give their money
to the poor (through the tax code) and the poor will show their gratitude by re-electing Democrats!

And finally, Chesterton on why Christianity gets democracy right:

"The mere machinery of voting is not democracy, though at present it is not easy to effect any simpler democratic method. But even the machinery of voting is profoundly Christian in this practical sense – that it is an attempt to get at the opinion of those who would be too modest to offer it. It is a mystical adventure; it is specially trusting those who do not trust themselves. That enigma is strictly peculiar to Christendom… But there is something psychologically Christian about the idea of seeking for the opinion of the obscure rather than taking the obvious course of accepting the opinion of the prominent."

I'll be the first to admit that I wish fewer Americans voted every time I hear the turn-out complaints. I believe that a turn-out over 70% occurs either shortly before a civil war or immediately after a dictatorial coup. The candidate races aren't my concern so much, but the issues and unintended consequences (concerning taxes and distribution) are so complicated that I don't consider myself "educated and informed" enough to decide (even though I think I pay more attention than 90% of the population) . This is why I generally vote against any new initiatives, unless the idea is to reduce the government. But, as far as who is voting, I'd still much rather have the "common man" casting votes over university professors and students, media elites, Hollywood stars and the Ninth Circuit court of appeals. In this I agree with Chesterton: there is much more wisdom in "common sense" than elite opinion.

Truth and Consequences

2007-05-16T12:59:00.000-06:00

There is such a spirit of deception on the part of the mainstream media and the Left. Why don't our politicians address it? Why can't one Republican say that the Democrat desire to raise taxes on the rich will have the consequence of lowering the federal government's intake of money (revenue)? And if George Bush raised spending in every department of the federal government (by anywhere from 6% to 60%), what do you think a Democrat will do? So, the Democrat's plan is to spend more and reduce revenue. How does that work for ya'?

The Left keeps screaming that education is way under-funded in this country – so start there. OK – Washington DC has one of the highest per student expenditures in the country (average $10 k/year nationally) and is at or near the bottom of student performance. We've proven time and again that money isn't the answer and that is all the Democrats can suggest. Yeah – vote for them!

The Democrats aren't even honest enough to acknowledge that they have changed their minds about the Iraq War because the going is tough. Isn't there a 527 out there that can collect the audio/video of Bill and Hill, Edwards, Kerry, Reid, et al giving exactly the same reasons the administration gave for going to war? It was Clinton that started the policy of regime change in Iraq. Do the Democrats have no ideas on which they are willing to follow-through? And why can't Republicans get the message out there?

And what if we walked away from Iraq? Let's pretend that there wouldn't be a bloodbath. Can the Democrats and the Left at least admit that the jihadists would be celebrating their victory? So, what motivates the Democrats to advocate for America to lose this war? I can think of only one reason apart from treason. They believe this loss would permanently adhere to Bush and the GOP. So, they're basing their foreign policy on what will gain them politically – no matter what the damage to the United States. Repulsive.

I'm writing this as the Republicans hold their second debate, so I'm praying that this is all moot now. Hopefully our candidates are getting out the message. The Democrats preach covetousness (tax the rich) to get you to vote for them. They bear false witness against their opponents and even the American people; institutional racism is dead in America and only the Left uses race as a political ploy. And perhaps worst of all – their hunger for power is so overwhelming that they would betray the Iraqi people, the American troops and America itself. How can anyone, in good conscience, vote for the Democrats?

A Convert's Lament

2007-01-18T14:20:00.000-07:00

I just finished Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" and feel compelled to write about the painful consequence of my political and religious conversion. I feel I have discovered some great truths – and having done so, I have joined a group for whom many feel contempt, if not hatred.

To quote Chesterton:

"All those vague theosophical minds for whom the universe is an immense melting-pot are exactly the minds which shrink instinctively from that earthquake saying of our Gospels, which declare that the Son of God came not with peace but with a sundering sword. The saying rings entirely true even considered as what it obviously is; the statement that any man who preaches real-love is bound to beget hate. It is as true of democratic fraternity as a divine love; sham love ends in compromise and common philosophy; but real love has always ended in bloodshed."

That pretty well sums up the current state of our nation's politics and our world's values, doesn't it? Sundered.

The split is painfully apparent every time I pick up the newspaper or listen to talk radio; it is even more acute at social occasions and discussions with friends. So, here is my post-mortem on a recent conversation.

I have a friend who is searching and feels she must abandon the Democrat party over its hostility to family values. She says she can't be a Republican because of the environmental issues. But, our conversation leads me to believe it is much more than that. I was sharing with her that I was very much to the left politically until recently, at which point our discussion was joined by another women with whom I was unfamiliar. She was obviously hostile to conservatives as she asked me "how conservative are you?" To which I answered, "I'm a committed conservative." I don't know how it even came up but the both of them turned to me and said "There were no WMDs." They said this with an absolutism that was frankly shocking. I turned to address my friend and said "What about the photos of the gassed villages in Kurdistan?" She responded "Those photos were doctored". I said, "But those photos were from long before the Iraq war and that gas was a WMD". To which the other woman responded "That was mustard gas that lots of people have and we don't go after them."

Where to begin?! Let me first say, I was cynical enough about our government that I claimed from the very start of the war that we would "find" WMDs! I honestly thought that the Bush administration had emphasized the WMD issue enough that the CIA would plant the WMDs in Iraq if none were found so that America's image would be salvaged. The fact that we haven’t found any (not entirely an accurate statement) has been evidence to me of the Bush administration's honesty and integrity. But, not evidence enough to my friend and clearly not to anyone to the left of her. If the government could (and would dare) doctor photos of mass killings, why would it not plant WMDs to save itself from such enormous controversy at a historic moment?

It became apparent to me that we weren't talking about WMD and the Iraq war. Why are we still debating what got us into the war in the first place? My friend and the other woman were telling me what they think of Republicans and conservatives in general and what they believe about the Bush administration in particular. This will be a familiar litany to most of us who have any exposure to the mainstream culture. Republicans are liars, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic, racist, and religious zealots. Ouch.

That hurts personally, not because it is true, but because I just finished telling my friend that I used to be on the left. I was one of you. That buys you nothing with the dogmatic left. Repeat the litany and you don't have to debate the issues. I've decided the next time I get into one of these senseless debates, my response is going to be "If we can't agree on the facts, we have nothing to discuss." In other words, you're calling me a liar and I can't get past that with you.

Here's one more name that the left would like to attribute to us conservatives. We're "close-minded". I find that one really laughable, given my complete conversion. Who is more open-minded, the one who has been a lifelong Democrat or the one who changed from a leftist ideology to a conservative one?

I have been seeking the truth and found it only after considering that I might have been wrong and that people of the past and present might have something to teach me. I've learned that I don't have to follow others off the cliff to find wisdom, but I also don't have to start with only my own ideas. I don't feel that my liberal friends are evil – just wrong. I wish they could say the same of me, but I am unwilling to deny the truth to rejoin the immense melting-pot to which Chesterton refers.

Advocacy Education

2006-11-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

Advocacy Education is what public schools are all about. Sure, reading, writing and arithmetic are taught. What's changed since my time in primary school is the schools are no longer teaching traditional American values. We could call this the "multiculturalism dividend".

Since liberals took control of the education establishment, our schools stopped emphasizing God, country and family – God forbid! No, we wouldn't want to express the values of faith, national pride and married man/woman/child families! That would be superstitious, xenophobic and homophobic. How intolerant!

Nope. Now your character is assessed on your positions on the issues. Are you anti-smoking? Do you recycle? Are you terrified about global warming and man's effect on nature in general? Are you a citizen of the world? These are the criteria for how you will be judged by the school faculty and your peers. If you advocate the right positions, you're a good person. If not – well – you need re-education.

Here's just a small example. My daughter came home from second grade lamenting the endangered status of wolves in America. Her dad and I tried to explain that, while wolves were only recently re-introduced in Wyoming, they're plentiful in Canada and therefore, not truly endangered.

As westerners, this issue hits close to home. I read the comments posted by visitors and locals to the natural history museum in Cody, Wyoming, on the subject of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone. This was before the wolves were well-established and I went into the debate on the side of "restoring the balance" of predator and prey. After reading the concern of the locals for the safety of their children, pets and livestock, I changed my mind.

If the locals were advocating the eradication of an already established species, I'd have more trouble defending their position. But, the wolves have been gone a long time and the people have been established just as long. Also, the wolves seem to be prospering in their remote and isolated habitat in Canada. So, because some liberals have this utopian vision of nature (not to mention the Endangered Species Act to help them litigate), people in the vicinity of Yellowstone now have dangerous predators lurking in their backyards. This is an absurd and abusive use of government power. One might even say "totalitarian". And is an example of why liberalism in its current form is so dangerous.

My kid is being taught that people are bad and wolves are good. There is really no nuance on the subject. The wolves are already making their way to Colorado, where we live, and there is a buzz about reintroducing the grizzly here. I have an opinion on that, but it wouldn't pass muster at the local public school! How do you think New Yorkers would respond to grizzlies in Central Park? That's absurd, right? Exactly my point.

So the ABCs have become:

A is for Anti-smoking
B is for Balkanize by race, gender and religion
C is for Conservatives are mean and stupid.

No wonder so many of us are running for the doors looking for another choice. Thank God for our charter school (and I can say that there). But, is there any hope for a public school system that teaches values diametrically opposed to those of about half the population? And what good is this advocacy education doing our society?

Public Standards versus Private Behavior

2006-10-04T20:28:00.000-06:00

In the city where I live, there has been some controversy generated by a tolerance campaign started by a gay advocacy group. I was discussing it with my sister, with whom I agree 99% of the time, and said I would like to see homosexuality go back into the closet. She admitted she is soft on the issue and was put off by my use of the term "deviant" because of the negative connotations.

If you are gay and you're still reading, I appreciate your open-mindedness and the opportunity to explain myself better than I did to my sister. I believe it is possible to be compassionate in the private and have public standards that are not tolerant of expressions of sexuality of either the hetero- or homo-sexual sort. I don't want gays to go back in the closet in fear – rather I want them in the closet out of modesty and discretion as is my own heterosexuality. True, I wear a wedding ring, but otherwise there is no public display of what is happening (or not) in my bedroom.

Do I believe homosexuality is immoral? No, not in the strictest sense. I have known gays who were undeniably born gay and I have known gays (lesbians) who understandably chose to be homosexual due to some horrific interactions with the opposite sex. I have been friends with both sorts and have great compassion for them. However, I'm pretty sure the lifestyle is unhealthy (physically and otherwise) and that they wouldn't wish their experience on anyone else, especially any offspring.

So, what am I advocating for public standards? I think society benefits most from the ideal of man/woman marriage and childrearing. I don't think it is good for us to know what Jim McGreevy was doing while his wife was recovering from a C-section. I don't think it is good for young girls to be hyper-sexualized with Bratz dolls and revealing clothing. I don't think it is funny for John Stewart to ask Dennis Miller if he would rather "do" Hannity or Colmes. Our public standards of decency have been dumbed so far down that our only criterion for judging whether or not people qualify for marriage is whether or not they love each other. So, do polygamists qualify as long as they love each other? Plenty of men can love more than one woman and vice versa. What about incest? If you think this is a stretch you should research the case of the brother and sister in Illinois trying to escape prosecution with this argument.

I use the term "deviant" because it is descriptive. I don't mean to hurt homosexuals with the term. I just don't know of a better way to describe the tragedy that is homosexuality. I have my own in-born and learned flaws, but I thank God that I do not have the burden that homosexuals bear. Like alcoholism or personality disorders, homosexuality is tragic for the individual and the family that loves them. Let's validate each other's humanity (not necessarily our private behavior) while advocating the highest public standards.

Meet America at IHOP

2006-04-30T22:09:00.000-06:00

My girls have been begging to go to IHOP for their NEW stuffed French Toast. So, this all started with a successful American-style marketing scheme. But, since I’d gone to mass Saturday night and we might be able to beat the morning church rush, I thought “what the heck”.

The only IHOP I knew of in town has been here since when I came as a kid – let’s just says its decades old. I was thinking it would be run down and greasy spoonish, in a not so great neighborhood, so I got on MAP Quest to try to find a newer one. There were two others farther away and I didn’t know exactly where they were, so I decided to take a chance on the one I knew.

Here’s where things get good. We wait five minutes, thinking it is going to be 20 because the restaurant is jam packed and only has 20 tables in the front section. It is a long narrow projection where the booths are set up in a U configuration; that is, booths around the edges and booths in the middle; all booths facing into the U shaped aisle. The first thing I notice is how polite and friendly the elderly wall-eyed waitress is who is serving us. It seems most of the waitresses are old-pros, which explains the short wait. I like that. The décor is bright cream painted walls with accents of red silk geraniums hanging from the ceiling. I like that, too. Not pretentious, but pretty in an old-fashioned way.

The waitress is chatty with the tables around us, but in an unobtrusive way. A couple of young black men at the booth across from us were joined by three young black women and were having to squeeze in to find room. Our waitress quipped over her shoulder “I hope you all know each other?” They laughed and carried on their amusing conversation.

I then noticed her speaking Spanish to the table of two women behind us. None of these women (including the waitress) looked particularly Latina to me, but there they were speaking Spanish.

And then I started a little census looking around the room: There was a youngish attractive black man reading the paper on the other side of our booth; I noticed a young couple looking like they’d been to the prom last nights because her hair was still made-up; There were two inter-racial couples over fifty: a black woman married to a white man; an Asian man married to a Latina woman; A young white family with three boys and a girl; Another table of young white men with tattoos and piercings wearing black and adorning their ears with Ipods; and, of course, the young group of black friends enjoying themselves at the booth across the way. The rest were predominately white of mixed ages – one little boy a Down’s child.

And then it hit me! Eureka! I found America at the International House of Pancakes! Not the bitter backstabbing racially religiously Balkanized America the Left sees. This was a room full of strangers behaving with civility and good humor toward one another. This is the America I imagined and found. Here in a predominately conservative white Christian community I found a place where we can all just get along. Don’t believe the America bashers! This is a great country with mostly wonderful people. Get out – rub elbows - and have some really good pancakes too!

Tom Wolfe, an American Patriot

2006-03-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal published an interview with Tom Wolfe this weekend. Here’s a sample:

"I really love this country. I just marvel at how good it is, and obviously it's the simple principle of freedom. . . . Intellectually this is the system where people tend to experiment more and their experiments are indulged. Whatever we're doing I think we've done it extremely, extremely, extremely well." Silence. "These are terrible things to be saying if you want to have any standing in the intellectual world."

Amazing that Jay Bennish and Ward Churchill would have a happier meeting of the minds with the intellectual elite than Tom Wolfe, isn’t it?

Wolfe is a true patriot who manages to make legitimate and searing criticisms of his country. He has a “death-clamp on the American Zeitgeist” and so can honestly expose the repulsiveness of the celebrity culture (“Bonfire of the Vanities”) and the hyper-sexualization of college campuses (“I Am Charlotte Simmons”). He says:

"I Am Charlotte Simmons," particularly in its notice of the coarse sexuality governing campus life, is a book a liberal would never write, as corroborated in the many negative reviews: "'Oh, big deal, they're having sex in college, yawn, yawn, what a surprise,'" as Mr. Wolfe puts it. "I do not disallow the possibility that they just didn't like it," he continues, but he was frankly taken aback by those who took it "as a counterrevolutionary attack on the sexual revolution. . . . Then it really dawned on me that so many people are proud of the sexual revolution, you know, 'We freed ourselves from those damned religious people and this Puritanism.'" "At least in the story," he pains to note, all this "has a very deleterious affect on a very innocent albeit egotistical girl -- and that's I think what's there." Sign of the times, I suppose, when you're considered conservative for exploring the very real consequences of cultural change.

Isn’t it refreshing to hear a criticism of America that has nothing to do with Enron, Halliburton, CO2 emissions, racism and imperialism? And I find it so much more credible coming from someone who has a deep and abiding love for his country:

"I also believe in the United States. I think this is the greatest nation that ever existed, still is. It's really the only really democratic country in the world. Find me one country, just one country in the entire world that would let a foreign people -- different culture, different language, and in many cases different color than the majority of the native stock -- take over politically an entire metropolitan area in less than one generation. I'm talking about the Cubans in Miami . . ."

I doubt that Mr. Wolfe would label himself conservative, but the following certainly exiles him from the liberal camp:

George Bush's appeal, for Mr. Wolfe, was owing to his "great decisiveness and willingness to fight." But as to "this business of my having done the unthinkable and voted for George Bush, I would say, now look, I voted for George Bush but so did 62,040,609 other Americans. Now what does that make them? Of course, they want to say -- 'Fools like you!' . . . But then they catch themselves, 'Wait a minute, I can't go around saying that the majority of the American people are fools, idiots, bumblers, hicks.' So they just kind of dodge that question. And so many of them are so caught up in this kind of metropolitan intellectual atmosphere that they simply don't go across the Hudson River. They literally do not set foot in the United States. We live in New York in one of the two parenthesis states. They're usually called blue states -- they're not blue states, the states on the coast. They're parenthesis states -- the entire country lies in between."

He also has this to say about the internet: "Using the Internet is the modern form of knitting," he continues. "It's something to do with idle hands. When you knitted, though, you actually had something to show for it at the end. So on that note, I’m off to do something productive! Blog on – if you dare!

Tidbits

2006-03-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

When I was a lefty, I thought conservatives concerned about Soviet expansion who saw commies under every rock were conspiracy theorist wackos akin to flat earthers and fluoride hysterics. Now I think lefties are conspiracy theorist wackos who see “big oil” and “Walocaust” as the underlying motivation for everything, including the liberation of millions in Afghanistan and Iraq. When lefties worry over American imperialism, they’re really worried about a Wal-Mart being built in downtown Baghdad. Scary!

Do you know the Jewish interpretation (according to Dennis Prager) of the commandment: “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain”? The Hebrew translation is “Thou shalt not carry the name…” which Jews believe means that you should never commit acts of evil in God’s name. I wonder how the Islamists interpret it.

Did you read Peggy Noonan’s piece about the Oscars and George Clooney? She really nailed it! George got a little information (very little) about the McCarthy era from the media (or friends who got their information from the media) and made a movie based on it. It turns out George’s viewpoint on the subject is naïve, simplistic and stupid. Imagine that! Good night, good luck, good riddance!

How ‘bout that “port scandal”? I was really outraged when I heard we were selling our ports to the UAE. Since then, I’ve learned a little and even though I still know very little, apparently I know more than most congressmen. For instance, I now know that foreigners don’t own our ports, but mostly foreign owned companies run operations at our ports, including the communist Chinese. We were probably at greater risk of having terrorists infiltrate the British owned company that sold to the UAE than we would have been with UAE ownership. Have you seen some of the protests in Britain over the cartoons? I’ve also learned that the UAE has been a good ally since September 11 and even has made Dubai a port-of-call for our navy! This country is trying to modernize and liberalize and we just spit on it. This incident will be all the worse if anyone makes any political capital off of it.

Have you ever owned a beta (Siamese fighting fish)? They’re really inexpensive, interesting, low-maintenance pets. For about ten dollars you can get the whole set-up: vase, decorative rocks, plant, food and fish. We have two in separate bowls (they’ll kill each other in the same bowl) and like to watch them “fight” by putting the bowls next to each other. I like to get a “fish-eye” view by looking through one bowl into the other. No wonder they get all worked up! The distortion made by the bowl makes the other guy look huge!

When are we going to start bombing Iran? No – really. The suspense is getting to me. Despite the liberal characterizations of us as bloodthirsty warmongering idiots, I really was not happy to see the build-up to the Iraq war. I wasn’t at all sure we were doing the right thing and I didn’t want conservatives to have to suffer the political consequences. Now I fully support the war there and I know, intellectually and morally, that we are doing the right thing. But, this Iran deal is making me unhappy in a different way. We simply cannot – CANNOT – let Iran go nuclear. This just seems such a no-brainer to me and we now have staging positions all around Iran. Let’s get busy! It just seems way too close to too late.

Do not see “Doogal”. It is a weird kid’s film about a dog and his friends who try to save the world from a deep freeze brought about by the escape of an evil spring loaded wizard. Unfortunately, although the message is supposed to be about teamwork and friendship, it gets lost because the title character has no redeeming qualities (indeed, his fetish for candy brings on the whole crisis). Even his loyalty to his owner is self-serving. The producers seemed to try to salvage something for the adults by showing outtakes of the actors doing the voices during the credits. Since Whoopie Goldberg and Chevy Chase are among the “talents,” that pretty much drove the last nail in the coffin for me.

Do you know why Islamists believe they’re going to be given 73 virgins if they blow themselves up? It turns out Muslims have defined heaven as the place where they get to indulge in all the impure acts that are forbidden on earth. If they sacrifice themselves for Islam, they get lots of sex and can drink from the rivers of wine that flow in heaven. Stunning, isn’t it? It seems so ass-backward to us Westerners. But it explains a lot when you think about those young sexually repressed men who are taught that their bodies and all they naturally desire are impure. They are also chosen at birth by their families to be martyrs for the faith. These families actually celebrate their hideous deaths because it helps the rest of the family get to heaven! I learned this from a French film producer on Dennis Prager’s show. He has interviewed jailed Islamists who failed at suicide bombings and the families of successful suicide bombers. He’s made a documentary called “Suicide Killings” which is due out this summer.

Something else I learned on Dennis Prager’s show… did you know the story of Adam and Eve is really a powerful lesson on our need for each other? I certainly never thought of it this way until Dennis explained what an evangelical minister taught him. God saw Adam’s discontent and recognized that even He was not enough for Adam! Adam needed a human companion and so God provided Eve. Isn’t that a wonderful thought?! God knows we need each other and He provides!

God bless and keep blogging!

Cons of "Crunchy Cons"

2006-03-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

NRO's Jonah Goldberg has written a scathing review of "Crunchy Cons" by Rod Dreher. I've only read to page 14 of the book, but I'm pretty sure Jonah has nailed it! I'm a reformed granola lefty, so I recognized Dreher's characterization of conservatives (the conventional non-crunchy kind) as greedy materialists for the insult it is. I also know Dreher is right about ugly shoes being more comfortable and organic produce being yummier. But, as Goldberg asserts, footwear and grocery shopping habits do not a new movement make.

If Dreher is right about the Godless greedy materialist nature of conventional conservatism, how does he explain all the average and low-income Republican voters (by far the majority)? It drives Liberals nuts that these people "vote against their interests" (why don't they loot the treasury like us Liberals)! And what about the statistics that reveal charitable giving is markedly higher in the red states and particularly in the poor Bible-belt states of the South? What about the fact that Republican donations are primarily from small donors where Democrat donations are primarily from large corporate donors?

I'm afraid Dreher's narcissism has caused him to lose sight of what conventional conservatism is really about: “Classical liberals root their case for laissez-faire in the autonomy of the individual, the primacy of freedom, the faith that virtue not freely chosen isn't virtuous, and in a deeply religious conception of the individual conscience (another sorely missing voice in Rod's book is Michael Novak, the world's leading authority on the intersection of market economics and Catholicism).” Wearing comfy shoes and wanting to eat fresh organic produce doesn’t make you a Liberal. But, believing these acts are morally superior can sure lead you down the Leftist path.

The Western Chauvinist

Was Jesus Anti-Eunuch?

Imagining God and Christopher Hitchens

The Well-Deserved Bad Reputation of Good Intentions

The Audacity of Dopes

The Subspecies and Origin of the Leftist

Gay Marriage? Yield * No * Quarter

Obama: Muslim or Christian?

Define Capricious

The Political Correctness Bomb or: How I Learned to Love the Lie

More Kipling

The Sons of Martha

Tea Party Values

It Spilled!

One Person CAN Make a Difference

Dear Senator -fill in the blank-

A Letter to Sam's Club

One A Disciple of Voldemort, The Other of Mao?

Gods of the Copybook Headings

In Remembrance

The Facts of Life are Conservative

Fail!

Animal Piety

King Julian

Winnowing

Living in Denial - Or - Don't Worry, Be Happy!

New World Order

Response to Reporting on Your Tea Party

Secular Humanists against Innocent Humans

*BAM*! *THWACK*! *KAPOW*!

Today's Body Blows

The Lost Presidency of Barack Obama

The New Greed Problem?

Paying Taxes is Patriotic...

Obama Thanks Jews for Their Votes

U.S. plans $900 million pledge for Gaza (Reuters)

Jewish Leaders Blast Clinton

Over Israel Criticism

Hillary Pressuring Israel To Speed Up Aid To Gaza (CBS)

The "Honey, I Got a Bargain" Defense

Policy shift will avert $9 trillion deficit-Orszag

Another knee-slapper!

Obama Taps Biden to Oversee Stimulus Package Implementation

He Says Without Irony...

On Confidence and Objective Moral Standards

Buy the Numbers?

SOS Hillary Clinton!

Just a Few Thoughts the Morning After

Dear Friend and Barak Obama Supporter,

Believers in the Bubble

Six Step Survival Strategy

Brain Candidates Versus Mind Candidates

Losing the Culture War

Mark Twain for McCain/Palin

A Couple of Laughs

Impervious to reason…

Disagreeing with My Friends

Ahem! You Read It Here First

Got Milk, VDH?

The Primary Problem with Public Education

How about a little Chesterton?

Truth and Consequences

A Convert's Lament

Advocacy Education

Public Standards versus Private Behavior

Meet America at IHOP

Tom Wolfe, an American Patriot

Tidbits

Cons of "Crunchy Cons"

BAM! THWACK! KAPOW!