Thursday, June 29, 2006
She is SOOOO Right...
Ann Coulter gets to the point.
When is the rabble of leftist journal-scum going to fill us in on the secret intelligence of Al Qaeda (something they no doubt occasionally come by either directly or indirectly)? No, just like with the communists, anything they can do to protect the most horrid of authoritarian scum (including blatant falsification of "news")and harm family and friends in our own neighborhoods, all the better in promoting their "worldview."
If anyone keeps their subscription to some of these blatant supporters of the enemy in a time of war, they should be immediately given their own personal copy of the Koran and sent to their favorite theocratic Muslim dictatorial regime of choice.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
The Americans Who Hate America and Americans
"The New York Times at War With America."
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, ACLU, etc;
Question their motives!
Question their patriotism!
Question their sanity!
Which American or European city will be completely annihilated with deaths in the millions before enough people call these elitist clowns of treason and treachery on their arrogance, incompetence, and recklessness?
Mark Steyn on "redeploying" for the Democrats:
"...North Korea is a weak power: Its population is starving but it's about to "test" the latest variation on its aptly named No Dong missile. I mean "test" in the sense that I test my new shotgun by firing it through your kitchen window. They're going to launch it and see where it comes down -- maybe Tokyo, maybe San Diego; maybe they'll aim for Los Angeles but it'll fall in Vancouver. Hey, that's why we call it a "test," right?
The danger we face is not a Chinese superpower or an Islamist superpower: If it's a new boss, you learn the new rules and adjust as best you can. But the greater likelihood is of a world with no superpower at all in which unipolar geopolitics gives way to nonpolar geopolitics, a world without order in which pipsqueak thug states that can't feed their own people globalize their pathologies. There would be more stories like that one the other day about the three decapitated policemen whose heads were found in the Tijuana River. But Pelosi would carry on talking about college tuition as the world sinks into economic decline, arbitrary bombings and kidnappings, and the occasional nuking..."
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
The High Tech Wealth Gap, Another Leftist Whining Point
The following is a copy of a response I had given recently to a tech newsletter. Regarding concerns of a "digital gap" occurring between those who have and regularly use computer technology and those with "no access" to it:
Some of the (much maligned) "wealthy" have art collections too -- so. This is most definitely another "class warfare" issue. Every time I improve my status or store of goods, some "gap" occurs somewhere when compared to another person who hasn't yet raised the same notch or gained access to the same product. Again -- so. (In numerous instances, I'm on the other side of that "gap" as well -- so, again).
Most of the poor in the U.S. live better than kings of a hundred years ago. Over 95% of America's poor have color televisions – most of them having more than one (must have chose them over computers?).
As a former public school teacher I have to say that using computers in the classroom is greatly overrated and is often merely used as another -- costly -- gimmick to save the teacher from having to actually teach a subject they often aren't educated in themselves.
The computer and internet are fun, interesting, and useful. So are common radios. Soon everyone will have one and then find some other "gap" that defies intellectual's demands that talent, choices, and toys be "distributed equally."
The concept of free access to information would be useless in a society that enforced equal access to everything -- something that can only occur as an act of coercion.
The only real "gap" is the one in capacity for practical appraisal – and in that, the left continues to "fall behind."
Friday, June 23, 2006
Backyard Global Warming
Some may have seen this – desperate and comical -- attempt to keep the Global Warming media crusade relevant (brought to my attention at The Drudge Report).
I answered ABC News's questionnaire regarding "changes in my own backyard" caused by "Global Warming" with the following comments:
I've noticed during my life that it's sometimes really hot and at other times it's really cold. I've read about how ice once covered large portions of my home state, Ohio and how places that used to be jungles turned to dessert.
No doubt about it, climate keeps changing.
If only Al Gore and ABC News had been around to save us from that last ice age.
"We need a change" -- I mean, a NON-change.
With an average global increase in temperature of one degree over the last century (the greatest period of stasis occurring during the greatest surge in industrialism), it will be funny to see how well ABC News still manages to find plenty of nutcase stories from people who note just how serious this massive change has affected their backyards and neighborhoods.
The sobriety of some people's conclusions regarding climate are right up there with the sentiment that "things were much better a hundred years ago."
…sheep.
Some more brief comments regarding Ann Coulter's new book, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism. First, if they haven't yet repaired the link I've given to amazon.com's site, some "open-minded non-judgmental" leftist was able to hack the site and add a toilet paper roll to the "image" section [the "error" has now been corrected by amazon]. Classic left.
As stated before, this is an excellent book and there's no way one could begin to realize this by the media anti-hype given the book and its author.
There's an excellent chapter that quite accurately critiques the horrid scandal that is America's public school system.
As stated in prior posts, I'm not religious, and I must admit having pretty much accepted Darwinism as a reasonable scientific appraisal of the biological evolution of human existence. Coulter has definitely offered some additional insight into the matter that may challenge some people's thinking. Her knowledge of the issue is remarkable and her skill in presenting numerous facts in history and science is superb. I was particularly impressed with her insights into the history of eugenics and racism. I had been aware of left-wing politics' early history and close alliance with ideologies virtually identical to that of the Nazis and I'm glad that a best selling book is exposing this less than savory element to the phony elitists' philosophical origins.
If one removed the witty sarcasm (some are really funny), Coulter's book would be darn right scholarly.
This little book is successfully packed with information on science, history, philosophy, and the current intellectual/cultural deceptions of leftland.
Note particularly Coulter's writings on eugenics. They should make any true believer in the lefts' values cringe in embarrassment and shame.
Call them collectivists, socialists, or "liberals," the left have always been fascists at heart. The most "greedy" or "heartless" capitalist enterprise could never come close to the genuine "godlessness" and the brutal road of "good intentions" these devils have forced people to march down through history again and again.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Further Embellishments to My Previous Comments Regarding Ann Coulter's New Book
My full review, at amazon.com, of Ann Coulter's new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Coulter and Context
I had, several posts back, declared my intention of posting less frequently. Others who blog, particulary on political / social matters, certainly know how one's passions to comment on the days events can tax one's time.
Anyway, I'm going to try again to post less frequently. Not posting is always a vacation, or at least affords time for other follies in computerland (Music, Photography, etc.). I've got a million (well, okay, a lot of) comments I wish to eventually add to those posted at my Promethean Observer site as well and can hopefully begin that project if I dont' post regularly here but...
...another post, right now. I just have to briefly comment on Ann Coulter's new book (which I had noted in prior postings). I've got the books on CD version of it so her sarcasm comes out even better. The problem in reading about Coulter's books in the mainstream media is that one always gets the dramatic sound bites only and are left with the impression that she's just rambling "extreme ultra radical right wing hate speech" with witty skill. The wit and passion of Coulter's books -- this one in particualr -- is mere icing on the cake. This book is full of content. Her countroversial statements are insignificant compared to the power of what she unviels. The left is corrupt -- morally -- to the core. They've lied, cheated, decieved, and swindled America's citizens since the first self-righteous socialist busy body opened their mouth. You have no idea how deep and broad the fraud of leftland is.
Coulter's new book is not a "hate-filled far right wing" opinion "that should be banned." It's a fact filled, oragnized, and well-written description of modern day "liberalism" (leftism). The wit and sarcasm merely advance the points and add to the pleasure of reading it. Don't be fooled by the cherry-picked quotes being thrown about in the media and amongst talking heads. This lady knows her stuff and backs it well.
Read this book!
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
War, Terror, and Iran...
An absolutely excellent essay by Mark Steyn at City Journal regarding issues with Islam and Iran specifically. A bit long (about six pages) but some brilliant writing and common sense (if you side with free, open, and civilized society...and are not a Leftist).
Some notable excerpts below:
"...Four years into the 'war on terror,' the Bush administration has begun promoting a new formulation: 'the long war.' Not a reassuring name. In a short war, put your money on tanks and bombs—our strengths. In a long war, the better bet is will and manpower—their strengths, and our great weakness. Even a loser can win when he’s up against a defeatist. A big chunk of Western civilization, consciously or otherwise, has given the impression that it’s dying to surrender to somebody, anybody. Reasonably enough, Islam figures: Hey, why not us? If you add to the advantages of will and manpower a nuclear capability, the odds shift dramatically."
"What, after all, is the issue underpinning every little goofy incident in the news, from those Danish cartoons of Mohammed to recommendations for polygamy by official commissions in Canada to the banning of the English flag in English prisons because it’s an insensitive “crusader” emblem to the introduction of gender-segregated swimming sessions in municipal pools in Puget Sound? In a word, sovereignty. There is no god but Allah, and thus there is no jurisdiction but Allah’s. Ayatollah Khomeini saw himself not as the leader of a geographical polity but as a leader of a communal one: Islam. Once those urbane socialist émigrés were either dead or on the plane back to Paris, Iran’s nominally “temporal” government took the same view, too: its role is not merely to run national highway departments and education ministries but to advance the cause of Islam worldwide..."
"...With the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, a British subject, Tehran extended its contempt for sovereignty to claiming jurisdiction over the nationals of foreign states, passing sentence on them, and conscripting citizens of other countries to carry it out. Iran’s supreme leader instructed Muslims around the world to serve as executioners of the Islamic Republic—and they did, killing not Rushdie himself but his Japanese translator, and stabbing the Italian translator, and shooting the Italian publisher, and killing three dozen persons with no connection to the book when a mob burned down a hotel because of the presence of the novelist’s Turkish translator."
"Iran’s de facto head of state offered a multimillion-dollar bounty for a whack job on an obscure English novelist. And, as with the embassy siege, he got away with it."
"In the latest variation on Marx’s dictum, history repeats itself: first, the unreadable London literary novel; then, the Danish funny pages. But in the 17 years between the Rushdie fatwa and the cartoon jihad, what was supposedly a freakish one-off collision between Islam and the modern world has become routine. We now think it perfectly normal for Muslims to demand the tenets of their religion be applied to society at large: the government of Sweden, for example, has been zealously closing down websites that republish those Danish cartoons. As Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Khamenei, has said, “It is in our revolution’s interest, and an essential principle, that when we speak of Islamic objectives, we address all the Muslims of the world.' Or as a female Muslim demonstrator in Toronto put it: 'We won’t stop the protests until the world obeys Islamic law.”
"If that’s a little too ferocious, Kofi Annan framed it rather more soothingly: 'The offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad were first published in a European country which has recently acquired a significant Muslim population, and is not yet sure how to adjust to it.' "
"If you’ve also “recently acquired” a significant Muslim population and you’re not sure how to “adjust” to it, well, here’s the difference: back when my Belgian grandparents emigrated to Canada, the idea was that the immigrants assimilated to the host country. As Kofi and Co. see it, today the host country has to assimilate to the immigrants: if Islamic law forbids representations of the Prophet, then so must Danish law, and French law, and American law. Iran was the progenitor of this rapacious extraterritoriality, and, if we had understood it more clearly a generation ago, we might be in less danger of seeing large tracts of the developed world being subsumed by it today..."
"...What’s the difference between a hothead and a moderate? Well, the extremist Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be 'wiped off the map,' while the moderate Rafsanjani has declared that Israel is “the most hideous occurrence in history,” which the Muslim world “will vomit out from its midst” in one blast, because “a single atomic bomb has the power to completely destroy Israel, while an Israeli counter-strike can only cause partial damage to the Islamic world.” Evidently wiping Israel off the map seems to be one of those rare points of bipartisan consensus in Tehran, the Iranian equivalent of a prescription drug plan for seniors: we’re just arguing over the details."
"So the question is: Will they do it?"
"And the minute you have to ask, you know the answer. If, say, Norway or Ireland acquired nuclear weapons, we might regret the “proliferation,” but we wouldn’t have to contemplate mushroom clouds over neighboring states. In that sense, the civilized world has already lost: to enter into negotiations with a jurisdiction headed by a Holocaust-denying millenarian nut job is, in itself, an act of profound weakness—the first concession, regardless of what weaselly settlement might eventually emerge..."
"...Back when nuclear weapons were an elite club of five relatively sane world powers, your average Western progressive was convinced the planet was about to go ka-boom any minute. The mushroom cloud was one of the most familiar images in the culture, a recurring feature of novels and album covers and movie posters. There were bestselling dystopian picture books for children, in which the handful of survivors spent their last days walking in a nuclear winter wonderland. Now a state openly committed to the annihilation of a neighboring nation has nukes, and we shrug: Can’t be helped. Just the way things are. One hears sophisticated arguments that perhaps the best thing is to let everyone get ’em, and then no one will use them. And if Iran’s head of state happens to threaten to wipe Israel off the map, we should understand that this is a rhetorical stylistic device that’s part of the Persian oral narrative tradition, and it would be a grossly Eurocentric misinterpretation to take it literally..."
Remember, this is a well articulated point of view that you would not have likely been able to even find years ago when the left had a complete monopoly on news, "education," and entertainment. As it stands even now, people in countries like Germany will only find such viewpoints in popular venues by leaving popular venues for the internet.
Cheers to a more diverse and informative dialog and ...screw the New York Times, BBC, and Spiegel.
The Loving and Caring Heart of The State...
Leftists must be shocked. More sober minds can only say, "Duh! What the hell did you expect, stupid?"
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Up in the -- Warm -- Clouds with Al Gore...
A good concise summary of why some of us think Al Gore may not be a font of insight regarding "global cooling," "global warming," or "climate change" (or the whatever-works agenda niche):
"...The warming that fuels Mr. Gore's ardor today comes after decades of improved American environmental behavior. If there was a time when man's fumes belched into the air in shocking leaps, it would be from the 1940s through the early 1970s, as our industrial economy and our driving habits ballooned."
"What did the Earth do under that assault? It cooled, so much so that some scientists feared a global temperature drop that would endanger the world food supply. Since then, science has joined the other halls of academia that have been overrun by the left."
"Objectivity on this issue requires avoiding a basic logical flaw. In Latin, it is called post hoc ergo propter hoc -that is, just because B follows A does not mean B was caused by A."
"Global warming skeptics are often mocked if they lack science degrees. It is sad but true that a lab coat no longer guarantees that the wearer is even loyal to basic logic, much less complex science..."
Response Regarding the UN
I have no idea who this group is, but I received an e-mail from them asking me to print a response to my last posting. I haven't verified the stats given but they're certainly in the very believable range and the general theme of the writing is clearly anti-United Nations so I'm certainly okay with that.
Corruption and waste aside, the UN does not even remotely fulfil its role as a forum for disputes to be worked out fairly among democratic / free nations. Instead it has become (and has always been to some degree) a bureaucratic mélange of authoritarian states and socialist ideology. To say its basic sympathies are against free enterprise and the United States in particular would be a gross understatement.
Anyway…the e-mail I received in its entirety:
"Recently Mark Malloch Brown, the eloquent speaking number two at the
United Nations, said that "Middle America" did not know how the US is
constructively engaged with the UN because of UN detractors and too
much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping over too many years.
Friends, the UN deserves to be bashed and bashed hard. Please allow
us to give you a glimpse into how the United Nations is run:
Hirings and promotions routinely violate UN rules and revolve around
patronage and whom one knows rather than professional qualifications.
Poorly performing managers are simply moved into different management
slots while others are placed in senior positions only because of his
nationality.
Salaries for UN employees are free of taxes and come with six weeks
vacation, 11 holidays, 10 sick days that are used as vacation, plus 4
weeks of home leave, rental and housing grants to supplement an
already generous salary (we all make an average of $7,000-$10,000 a
month tax free), a pension at 8% of salary times years of service that
can be cashed out tax free, and educational subsidies for children of
UN employees. Many also participate in an "alternative work schedule"
in which they get every other Friday off. But don't even try to
apply. Your application will not be acknowledged nor will you ever
get invited for a job interview. You must know someone to work at the
UN.
Several of us have advanced degrees in management and have been
trained to manage large public organizations, yet we are blocked from
advancing by arrogant men in the 50s with no management training,
education, or experience - only sitting in their chairs because they
are friends with someone a higher position. We threaten them because
they know they are there based only on their connections.
And there is a profound lack of accountability within the UN regarding
resource allocation. Simple procurement that would normally take five
minutes using modern technology systems takes 2-3 months in the UN.
And many United Nations Development Program country offices pay "local
experts" outrageously high sums of money for products of dubious
quality. Such contracts would never be made by other international aid
agencies such as USAID that have much stronger internal controls and
oversight.
We are all familiar with outrageous examples of graft and corruption
within the UN system and yet time and again the scandal is covered up.
In fact, a recent article on internal management in the Financial
Times cited a UN-commissioned report released in 1994 that was
remarkably damning and yet, as the article noted, nothing has changed
which has led to this crisis in credibility of the UN.
Despite its dysfunctionality, if the UN were actually making a
difference, many would mutter to themselves but the UN deserves its
strongest bashing because of its profound inability to respond to
genocide, war, famine, natural disasters, and corruption.
Kofi Annan, current head of the United Nations who ironically lives in
a mansion in New York worth about $10 million, was head of
peacekeeping operations in 1994 in Rwanda when 800,000 people died. In
2004, he said "I believed at that time that I was doing my best"
despite that he held back UN troops from intervening to settle the
conflict and declined to provide more logistic and material support to
stop the slaughter. And don't forget that ten years ago thousands of
Bosnian Muslims were murdered by the Serb militias who were in a UN
protected 'safe haven' with hundreds of UN soldiers assigned to defend
them. Yet the UN stood by while the entire adult and teenage male
population was systematically butchered.
Kofi Annan was unable to stop mismanagement of the Oil-for-Food
Program that allowed Saddam Hussein's regime to embezzle $4.4 billion
through pricing irregularities and an additional $5.7 billion through
illegal oil smuggling. Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the
Swiss company Cotecna which won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil
for Food program.
Kofi Annan protected Ruud Lubbers, UN High Commissioner for Refugees,
against a report that found him guilty of sexual harassment by
declaring him innocent. This created a global protest against Annan,
resulting in Lubbers being forced to resign.
Kofi Annan accepted a $500,000 prize from the ruler of Dubai, courtesy
of a judges' panel rife with U.N. connections, one member of which
Annan then appointed to a high U.N. job (Annan was advised to take the
prize money by Malloch Brown who rents a home in Westchester County
from from his friend George Soros for $12,000 a month but can be
adequately covered by Brown's salary at $287,087).
Kofi Annan remains in power despite continuing sexual abuse scandals
by UN peacekeepers. A 2005 internal UN investigation found that sexual
abuse has been reported in at least five countries where UN
peacekeepers have been deployed including the Congo, Haiti, Burundi,
Cote d'Ivoire, and Liberia.
And Kofi Annan remains in power while genocide continues in Darfur,
while Zimbabwe tailspin into despotism, while up to a third of the
population of some African countries will die from AIDS, and while
corruption keeps the poorest countries in starkest poverty.
Kofi Annan and Mark Malloch Brown arrogantly ignore the fact that the
quality of life of several of us has come close to being destroyed by
the many bitter experiences we have experienced over the past decades.
Most who work for the UN are so used to its dysfunctionality that
they have NO idea how sick the organization is or they are unwilling
to come forward because UN labor laws and protections are abysmal.
And to add insult to injury, the newly created IOIS (the new
"independent" internal oversight panel established to "reform" the UN)
has been strong-armed by Malloch Brown and is not independent because
its budget comes directly from the UN, thus dissuading anyone from
within the UN from coming forward. Don't think that Malloch Brown is
an independent UN operative. Justin Leites – UNDP - was placed on
administrative leave to campaign for U.S. Presidential candidate John
Kerry - with MMB's approval.
And what really happened at UNDP? Why would Malloch Brown leave his
influential post as head of UNDP to spend a year defending the
scandals swirling around Kofi Annan and then announce that he would
resign when Kofi leaves at the end of this year? Duh! Because he
royally mismanaged UNDP! Everyone at UNDP knows this but is too
scared to share the details of what happened for fear of retaliation
by Brown. But ask UNDP Country Directors and UNDP Practice Managers
what happened under King Mark's reign and you will get a completely
different picture of his mismanagement skills and bombastic ways.
As the walls literally crumble down around them, those who work for
the UN and citizens who believe in the founding principles of the UN
have no understanding how bad it really is. Unfortunately, we
encourage young people who are seeking a career in international
affairs to avoid the United Nations at all costs. We wish there would
come a day when we would no longer make this recommendation.
Of course the senior leadership of the UN try to hide the profound
problems of the UN but shame on them for saying that Americans don't
know or understand how the US is engaged with the UN. If you and
everyone in Middle America truly understood what ails the UN, the US,
who funds $3.3 billion annually or 22% of the entire UN budget, would
shut off the money spigot. In sum, the UN should be shuttered,
allowing a brand new organization to emerge because the current UN is
broken beyond repair.
For more information, please contact Edward Patrick Flaherty at
info@iowatch.org who represents UN employees including our views here.
Written by a concerned group of current and former UN employees."
Monday, June 12, 2006
The UN-elected Chamber of Clowns, Fools, and Tyrants (but mostly stupid bureaucrats)
Neal Boortz summed it all up best:
"…The U.N., as a diplomatic tool, is completely worthless.
What is their track record? What wars have they stopped? What programs have they successfully managed? How about the Oil For Food program? Does that sound familiar, Mr. Deputy Secretary-General? He [Malloch Brown] also went on to make an interesting comment about how the U.N. is perceived in the rest of the country: "Much of the public discourse that reaches the U.S. heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News." This is just too good.
Here is the #2 man at the U.N....complaining about talk radio and Fox News. Why would he be doing that? Because those two media outlets hold the United Nations to account and don't give it a pass like the mainstream media does. U.N. Ambassador John Bolton called Malloch Brown's comments a grave mistake. Absolutely...because guess who is the #1 contributor to the U.N.? We are.
The fact is that the U.N. has been a third-world dominated anti-American organization since day one. It has proven itself to be next to useless in preventing conflicts, while its blue-helmeted "peace keepers" have proven themselves to be adequate rape machines. The U.N. complains about the treatment of terrorist detainees at Gitmo while ignoring slavery and genocide in the African Continent…"
If you already haven't seen this video clip of Ann Coulter's response to the professionally offended of leftland, click on this link at Boortz's site. Like I had stated in previous posts; she's brutally sarcastic…but spot on in her appraisals (her views on religion are irrelevant to me, personally). I'm so glad someone is forcefully calling the left on their hypocrisy, deceptions, and phony victimhood morality cover.
Friday, June 09, 2006
The Left Warms Up To – Certain – Men in Uniform
The following comments are in regard to an associated press article posted on the FOX News website:
I don't know about you but I've talked with enough leftists regarding their views on the military and their views on military personal in general and I don’t often get a lot of positive feedback regarding their perceptions of men and women who choose a dangerous profession with the express purpose of defending the safety and interests of their country.
The armed forces number in the hundreds of thousands. The media and talking heads have slowly come to the amazing realization that out of those great numbers there are a few who are Democrats, a few who are overtly left wing and probably a few who are far left wing – "Hooray, maybe some of those jar head fascist rednecks are okay after all."
Now that Cindy Sheehan has so poorly used her fifteen minutes of fame (the media tried their darndest to stretch it to twenty minutes), the "anti-war" crowd (meaning anti-Bush and, in some cases, anti-U.S.) needs a new noble voice from the other side to conjure the image of an "immoral and illegal" war. Enter; some stupid clown named Ehren Watada whose talking points against the war sound like a John Kerry campaign speech.
America doesn’t have a draft. The great people who volunteer to do dangerous work in the country's armed forces do so knowing full well the possibility that they will be sent into very dangerous situations. They also know that if that happens they won't get to pick and choose which war they will fight in or which one they will, instead, protest against before television cameras.
A soldier is ultimately like a police officer that deals with issues beyond their country's boarders. His or her job is not to decide which criminals they wish to confront or which are "legally" appropriate to confront. ("Hmmm, some people have been killed and now they're threatening to kill others, I know I've been sent to deal with it, but what are the legal issues here? Would it be morally right for me to eliminate the killers? I better tell my boss that I've got to talk to my lawyer before getting involved.")
The job description of a soldier is not the same as that of a florist or the plush semi-retirement of a college professor. 'Don’t like the possibility of violence? Don't sign up to be a police officer or soldier. That seems pretty simple.
This Watada Idiot has concluded that "…the war in Iraq is not only morally wrong but a horrible breach of American law." Wow! I'm impressed. While soldiers are sacrificing life and limb this guy's arriving at similar conclusions as those of many fourteen year old kids in public schools – what a hero!
Here's a reminder Ehren; the American military's job in Iraq has for some time now been to secure the country from Islamo-fascist thugs so it can develop an independent and democratic society. If you think that's an "immoral" goal, you're an idiot. Also, if you think just getting up now and leaving Iraq is going to result in something moral, you're beyond an idiot – you're just a typical garden variety leftist.
Oh and, by the way, regarding the wars "illegality." The entire United States congress voted for the action in Iraq. When given a chance to vote to pull out last year, all the whiners couldn’t bring themselves to actually vote to do such a stupid thing and instead voted to see it through – with more of the expected hell of conflict or otherwise.
Okay, you hate Bush. You're against the U.S. presence in Iraq. You'll be a great spokesperson for spineless weasels and authoritarian creeps around the globe. Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez will insure you're quoted on their country's news and, of course, the international media (not exactly a group of brave anything) will be at your feet keeping your "message" alive.
You are not only one sorry example of a soldier but an even sorrier example of a human being. You'll be a martyr to some no doubt but I'll be cheering when you're finally court-martialed.
p.s. Al-Zarqawi is dead. Another sad moment for Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, a brigade of spoiled actors, directors, and artiste's – and perhaps even Ehren Watada.
As for me? I'm thrilled. Good job. Get rid of the rest of the swine so average folks can finally settle down into average lives and brave volunteers can come home and live the life of comfort currently being lived by Ehren Watada.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
The "Mean-Spirited" Moniker
In my previous post I heaped adulation upon the first chapter of Ann Coulter's new book which I had read on line. Already, the "mean-spirited" defense of the left is in full swing, Coulter's most controversial comments being those made against an organized group of 9/11 widows. Out of context, this does indeed appear to be over the top. In context, her point was that the left has been using and milking the tragic position of themselves (when it applies) and others to advance their views while making such views off limits for debate. The group she insulted (true enough, she's loaded with pointed sarcasm) was indeed a group that had a specific political view and agenda -- going so far as to do Kerry campaign ads. Coulter's point is on the mark. I'm personally sick of the left's style of "debate" where their attacks are immediately followed by the construction of phony morality shields.
"Cindy Sheehan lost a son in Iraq, she's off limits."
"Sheehan is a far leftist friend of Hugo Chavez and has a public political agenda that the media adores. She'll do just fine for our use as a Jacobin PR idol...but don't even counter her view. She's off limits...as are the '9/11 widows' [there are lots of 9/11 widows who don't agree with the "9/11 widows"] and a host of other people who happen to have experienced tragedy and possess a passionate support for our view of the world. If they can milk their own tragedy to push our shared agenda, all the better." (these are my sarcastic quotes parodying these people's thinking).
Coulter's sarcasm and wit may be justly resented (although some context would be nice), but the issue she raises is a valid one. "We're victims, don't dare disagree with us" has gotten a bit old I'm afraid.
The Gods of Political Nonsense
Judging from the first chapter of Ann Coulter's new book, it's gonna be one excellent read.
I find myself increasingly defending traditional religion (not the kind that cuts people's heads off for the cause of "Jihad") because the religion I despise most -- Leftism -- has lumped traditional Western religion (e.g. Christianity) in with all the other stabilizing bourgeois things they hate. If you're "liberal" (I prefer the more accurate term, leftist) you'll despise this book more than any of Coulter's previous inquiries into the phony, decadent, and elitist world of leftland.
I'm no fan of religious commentary (I consider myself an agnostic…but really like gothic architecture). Quoting scripture doesn't impress me at all either, but Coulter is still very much dealing with the world of politics in this current book, cultural politics specifically. In "Godless...," it appears (again, I can only refer to what I've read in the first chapter linked above) that she's better than ever in firing off facts, anecdotes, and observations that will surely piss off more than a few Jacobins – religious or otherwise.
I have to admit, I'm not big on the abortion issue, evolution, gay marriage, or some of the other issues she raises, but the spineless, pampered, and arrogant clowns of leftland who have sought to impose their worldview regarding such issues, are certainly shown to be less than noble souls in the battle for elevating the human condition. It's not so much that their view is right or wrong but that no one dare hold an opposing view without thought police or media manipulators twisting an opposing stance into an affront to their supposed moral -- and pseudo-religious -- clarity.
I viewed Leftism as a religious stance from quite awhile back. My views were reinforced when studying the philosophy and early history of the German Nazi Party (nationalism aside, it was a full blown socialist sect by any honest appraisal). One can not listen to or argue points with anyone from an environmento-hippie to a wire-rimmed Chomskyite without noting a fervent religious obsession to their view that you too can be saved if you "open your mind up" and follow their commands for more taxes, rules, laws, and regulations over those simpletons who dare hold more traditional views on life and metaphysics.
In "Godless…" Coulter is her usual font of sarcasm and point blank humor. This will enrage many but suites me just fine. Anyone who reads this book and votes for a Democrat afterward is either knee deep in the delusions that trust fund allowances afford or clueless about the state of decay being fostered upon decent people who merely want to do things like raise families without the state, media, academia, and "entertainment" imposing the "virtues" of authoritarian-eco-femi-socialism.
Some of the many excellent passages below:
"…Blessed be the peacemakers who create a diverse, nonsexist working environment in paperless offices. Suspiciously, the Democrats’ idea of an energy policy never involves the creation of new energy. They want solar power, wind power, barley power. How about creating a new source of energy? Nuclear reactors do that with no risk of funding Arab terrorists or—more repellent to liberals—Big Oil Companies. But in a spasm of left-wing insanity in the seventies, nuclear power was curtailed in this country."
"Japan has nuclear power, France has nuclear power—almost all modern countries have nuclear power. But we had Jane Fonda in the movie The China Syndrome. Liberals are very picky about their admiration for Western Europe…"
"…And, I mention again, this was in the Soviet Union. Soviet engineers couldn’t make Jell-O. They’d show up at the World’s Fair and stare at a flush toilet like it was a rocket ship. They turned half of Germany into an inefficient manufacturing center. Do you know how hard that is? It’s like botching a train wreck. Of course the Soviets screwed up nuclear power! Instead of taking the environmentalist hamstrings off the muscular American economy—so we can split atoms, drill, mine, and strip—the Democrats want to preside over our state-managed descent into hell."
"Liberals want us to live like Swedes, with their genial, mediocre lives, ratcheting back our expectations, practicing fuel austerity, and sitting by the fire in a cardigan sweater like Jimmy Carter. If one posits that we have a fixed amount of energy and have to start rationing it, then we are dying as a species. The theory of vegetarianism is that Americans consume “too much” energy. It takes a lot of energy to grow corn to feed animals to feed us—so why don’t we become a bunch of grazing farmyard animals ourselves? We can eat grass and share our energy with the birds!..."
"…'Constitutional right' means 'Whatever Liberals Want.' Society cannot legislate what goes on 'in the bedroom.' But if we can’t legislate what goes on in the bedroom, why can’t I hide money from the IRS under my mattress?..."
"Instead of seeking wisdom, liberals desire to be seen as clever by being counterintuitive, crazy, and outré. They have an irreducible fascination with barbarism and will defend anything hateful—Tookie, Mumia, Saddam Hussein, Hedda Nussbaum, abortion, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, New York Times columnist Frank Rich. If Hitler hadn’t turned against their beloved Stalin, liberals would have stuck by him, too. Liberals defend unreason against reason and then call themselves rationalists. They are too important to be bothered by the things that frighten middle-class people worried about the equity in their homes. The truly pathetic liberals are the ones who aren’t rich but ape the belief structure of fabulously wealthy Hollywood leftists anyway. Like the bums who stood outside restaurants during the Depression with toothpicks in their mouths, they seem not to realize that the crucial part of being rich is that you have money, not attitudes."
"The whole panoply of nutty things liberals believe flows from their belief that man is just another animal. (And not just Kanye West—they’re talking about all men.) Only their core rejection of God can explain the bewildering array of liberal positions: We must save Tookie Williams, while slaughtering the unborn. We must eat natural foods, but the right to acquire disease in casual hookups is a holy ritual. We must halt human development so that the Furbish lousewort can be fruitful and multiply, but humans are multiplying too much and threatening the biosphere of the Furbish lousewort. Women are no different from men, but we need a library of laws and codes to protect women from sexual harassment. As Chesterson said, where we once had a few big rules, now we need an encyclopedia of little rules."
"Usually zealots can’t make money doing insane things. But liberals have the entire taxpayer-funded 'education' apparatus to support them. Public schools are what columnist Joe Sobran calls 'liberalism’s reproductive system.' In lieu of teaching Biblical truth, which—are you sitting down?—used to be the purpose of education, the government schools teach an “amalgam of liberalism, feminism, Darwinism, and the Playboy philosophy.” No longer content to ruin their own children, liberals insist on being subsidized by the taxpayer to ruin everyone else’s children, too. (Remember the good old days when bums and malcontents would ruin your children for free?)…"
"While any reference to Moses in the schools is strictly prohibited, school authorities can force minors to attend sexually explicit presentations on anal sex and condom use. In 1992, Chelmsford (Massachusetts) High School hired Suzi Landolphi to give a mandatory 'AIDS Awareness presentation' to the entire school, apparently designed to reach the one or two human beings on Planet Earth who hadn’t heard about AIDS."
"By her own account, Landolphi is the product of a broken family. She says her mother was an alcoholic who committed suicide, her father physically abused her, and she herself was a chronic bed wetter until age ten. Landolphi was a five-time loser at marriage. So she is definitely the sort of person most parents would want talking to their children about sex. Naturally, the Chelmsford High School administrators realized they had found an Aristotle in their midst."
"In her presentation, 'Hot, Sexy, and Safer,' Landolphi began by telling the teenagers—who were forced by school authorities to be there—'I can’t believe how many people came here to listen to someone talk about sex, instead of staying home and having it yourself.' In the dry legal language of the complaint later filed by parents of some of the students, Landolphi also 'used profane, lewd, and lascivious language to describe body parts and excretory functions,' including 'eighteen references to orgasms, six references to male genitals, and eight references to female genitals.' (And that was just while thanking the school principal for inviting her.) She asked students to show their 'orgasm faces' in front of a camera—which would certainly come in handy for any future on-camera careers in the adult film industry. She invited a male student on stage to lick a condom with her."
"After discussing anal sex, Landolphi remarked that one would be 'in deep sh—.' She told one male student he 'had a nice butt' and another that his baggy pants were 'erection wear.' This did not constitute sexual harassment under the law, because, like Bill Clinton, Landolphi supports abortion rights, one may assume. She concluded ninety minutes of this relentless vulgarity by asking a female student to place an oversized condom on the head of a male student and blow it up."
"Like most people who enjoy talking to strangers about sex, Miss Landolphi, to put it as charitably as possible, is physically repulsive in appearance. With a presentation that was about as erotic as phone sex with Andrea Dworkin—or actual sex with Andrea Dworkin, come to think of it—Landolphi may have inadvertently promoted abstinence among the student body by generating widespread aversion to the various activities she described."
"It’s no wonder Bible Belt, right-wing Christians get the greatest enjoyment out of sex (another scientific study hated by liberals)—they never have to endure listening to liberals talk about sex."
"Parents of Chelmsford students immediately brought suit alleging that by forcing their children to attend Landolphi’s presentation without prior notice, the school had violated their privacy right to direct the upbringing of their children. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit could find no such right in the 'living Constitution.' The 'right to privacy' refers to the right of unmarried couples to obtain contraception. It encompasses the right to kill an unborn baby. It means the right of men to sodomize one another. Where these parents got the idea that 'privacy' included their right to keep their children from being forced to make 'orgasm faces' in school was anybody’s guess."
"Tellingly, the federal appeals court also rejected the parents’ Free Exercise claim, questioning “whether the Free Exercise Clause even applies to public education.”
"Thus, the court declared a clearly visible Constitutional clause—not buried in the penumbras—officially inapplicable to government schools. (Perhaps what threw them off was the fact that the free exercise of religion—unlike abortion, gay marriage, and sodomy—is specifically mentioned in the Constitution. You can see how that would be confusing.) Allowing parents to interfere with their children’s education might impair the state’s efforts to indoctrinate children into the official state religion of promiscuity, recycling, and freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal."
"Colleges pick up where the public schools leave off, inculcating students in the religion of hating America and hating God. While college professors like the University of Colorado’s Ward Churchill act like on-the-edge radicals for calling American bond traders 'little Eichmanns,' professors are the most cosseted, pussified, subsidized group of people in the U.S. workforce. They have concocted a system to preemptively protect themselves for not doing their jobs, known as 'tenure.' They make a lot of money, have health plans that would make New York City municipal workers’ jaws drop, and work—at most—fifteen hours a week."
"…In 2003, reporters hounded British prime minister Tony Blair about whether he had prayed with George Bush—as if they were asking whether the world leaders had shot heroin together or shared a hooker. There was so much negative publicity over Blair praying with Bush that Blair’s handlers forbade him to attend church with Bush later that year. It’s hard to imagine an activity Bush and Blair could have shared that would have been more scandalous, short of taking an SUV to an all-men’s club that allowed cigar smoking..."
"…Democrats get on their high horses about evil corporations making obscene profits, but try pointing out to them that trial lawyers also make enormous profits suing corporations owned by people who make less than trial lawyers. They think you’re just being obtuse for not understanding that trial lawyers are doing God’s work.
Halliburton helps produce the oil and gasoline that keep us warm, feed us, allow us to travel, power our world, and so on. What do trial lawyers produce again?..."
A great many European readers who fancy themselves experts on the low-bred, red-necked, bible-thumping American (and who, typically, have never been to the U.S.) will, of course, not read or even have exposure to this book. In Euro-land, Stern, Spiegel, and Le Monde call the shots and most citizens swallow it whole and believe they're being "revolutionary" while doing so. Pity, they could use some common sense in their appraisals of what the "Church of Liberalism [Leftism]" has done and will continue to do to their own lives. But they're probably beyond repair. Americans can still wake up, demand some say in their children's instruction and continue their belief systems and values that some would dare chastise as "traditional" or – again –"low-bred, red-necked, and bible-thumping."
…An awesome opening chapter to what is likely to be a splendid book on the religion of self-serving moral arrogance and authoritarian obsession -- Leftism.
They may never "burn in hell" but they're certainly going to continue to try to make our lives here close to it…
…for the nobility of their cause no doubt.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Getting a Clue on The Religion of Peace
As it turns out, the recently captured Canadian terror planners weren't just planning to only kill random bystanders but were plotting ("allegedly") to attack Canada's parliament, take hostages, and behead the country's Prime Minister -- a Fascist-Muslim classic.
Of course, such plans and actions could be justified given Canada's extreme anti-Muslim actions and its vocal support of America (that's right, I'm joking).
I personally think it's bad enough when some demented religious nuts fly planes into buildings. Of course much of the hip neo-Comm spoiled brat scene wouldn't agree, so I'm gonna ask them to consider the fact that Fascist-Muslim terrorists have planned and often acted against, Spain, France, England, Bali, and much of the Muslim world itself.
So, keep on hating McDonalds or Bush or Hollywood movies, but at least get a clue regarding "The Religion of Peace" inc. and realize that your pampered lifestyle of cell phones and music downloads is someone's enemy (and target). They want YOU, your family, and friends dead, until the planet is bathed in the totalitarian slime of Muslim Fascism.
Get - A - Clue!
"Robbing Peter" to Pay for Your Stupid "Revolution"
"...As Fabian socialist playwright George Bernard Shaw rightly wrote, 'He who robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on Paul’s support.'..." An insightful statement quoted in a recent essay at FrontPageMagazine.com regarding Hugo Chavez's "Incredible Shrinking Revolution."
"...When you strip away the red from Hugo Chavez’s rhetoric and the dishonest propaganda glorifying him from the world’s left-wing press, the naked Chavez turns out to be little more than an old-fashioned Latin American military dictator like Pinochet, a prating megalomaniac Caudillo propped up mostly by secret police and stolen oil money. Even the New York Times, if only to save its own waning credibility, has begun to report Chavez’s defects and decline."
"Chavez 'is imposing a fascist dictatorship,' history professor and author Herma Marksman, who was Chavez’s mistress for 10 years during his first marriage, told The Times of London in May."
“ 'A totalitarian regime is coming because he doesn’t believe in democratic institutions. Hugo controls all the powers,' said Marksman. '[He] disguised himself as little Red Riding Hood and turned out to be the wolf…He’s the caudillo you have to say yes to. At the rate he’s going, his end can only be violent.'..."
I hope so. Remember, us pro-free market non-socialist types are "mean-spirited" toward statist autocrats.
Chavez is a serious annoyance. Okay, I can see how a bunch of poor people can get suckered into supporting -- temporarily -- a guy who promises to steal other people's money and give them a few crumbs while building his power base and military for his great ego clash with the powerful rich gringo state up north, but hasn't anybody been paying attention to history or even human psychology. Chavez and his "revolution" are textbook cases. Leftism on steroids always follows the same path. The phony whine about concern for the poor, photo ops with Potemkin hospitals and, of course, massive arms build ups to "defend" against claimed future attacks from Toys R Us (the U.S.).
When I had read that Chavez was considering a "referendum" (maybe Jimmy Carter can give his stamp of approval again!) to become President until the two-thousand thirty's I almost laughed at the predictability of it all. Is anybody awake on this...Hello!
The real comedy show on the whole Chavez thing is the predictable response from America's left -- Hollywood and like-minded pampered clones of dictator adulation. Oliver Stone, of course, is going to do a movie on the coup attempt against Chavez (I wonder if he'll note Chavez's own coup attempt to seize power before trying more conventional routes).
If you don't know them already, brush up on your histories of the French "Revolution," Russian "Revolution," and assorted Socialist "revolutions" of the past half century and you'll be startled to find the usual in Chavez's phony scheme to glorify himself in the name of "helping the poor."
Venezuela would certainly be better served by following all those "non-revolutionary" states that have now formed successful advanced economies from formerly poor and unequal ones (e.g. South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, to name a few).
In a previous post I made note of judging a state by its friends. The Venezuelan state (Chavez is becoming the State) is friends with almost every dictator and ruthless authoritarian regime on the planet, not to mention terrorist organizations and psychotic "leaders." But, remember, it isn't China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or Zimbabwe we should look poorly upon. It's the "evil Hegemon" of the north and its open system of government that should cause great fear. Just look at all those Mexicans and Canadians shaking in their boots during air raid drills.
The Marxist clown currently lording over Venezuela could cause some serious trouble for a lot of people down the road. In the end, he will have "helped" no one and "...his end can only be violent...”
Like I said before, I hope so.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Links and Stuff
For some time now this has been a semi-dormant blog with sporadic, random postings.
Over the last couple of weeks I've come across some stuff that definitely requires some exposure - for knowledge, humor, or at least to anger the clowns who consider their love of state authority a "rebellious" stance.
To begin with; An excellent little mini-video depicting the real nature of recent "[illegal] immigration" protests. Like so many well-organized protests in the past in the U.S., the usual suspects from Che inc. use the issue of the moment to whine the usual adoration for authoritarian socialism. They're either clueless regarding history and human behavior or their Freudian hatred for parental authority has spilled into the paradox regions of their brain to where they think being pro-totalitarian is somehow anti-authority. In any event, check out this awesome little video from On The Fence Films.
On a similar note. The main yellow-stream media, intentionally or otherwise, has gotten good at depicting these Marxist parades as somehow being "cross sections" of America. This blogsite has covered the issue with a classic example (hat tip to Brain-Terminal.com.)
"The Vision" (with political glaucoma).
It's odd that a standard leftist cultural belief -- that homosexuality is typically "inborn" (a stance I agree with) -- is not extrapolated into other areas of human behavior such as levels of competitiveness, self striving, independence, and a will to success. These "capitalist behaviors" have always been seen by leftists as "culturally conditioned" and behaviors that can easily be changed to produce the perfect compliant collectivist drone. Of course there is a difference between "cultural conditioning" and government edicts that force citizens into failure and self-destructive dependency. The usual nonsense; a "philosophy" that will serve the will of philosopher kings -- the moral heroes of self adulation:
"...Liberals have been driven to the desperate expedient of attributing this and other social pathology in today's ghettos to "a legacy of slavery" -- even though black children grew up with two parents more often under slavery than today."
"Blacks only a generation or two out of slavery also had higher rates of employment and lower rates of crime than today."...
"...One of the most telling examples of the social destructiveness of the left's welfare-state vision can be found among the white slum dwellers in Britain described in the brilliant and insightful book "Life at the Bottom" by Theodore Dalrymple."
"There it is not possible to blame social degeneracy on slavery, racism or any of the other things cited as causes of the behavior and consequences found among blacks in American slums. Yet the results are virtually identical, right down to children beating up classmates for trying to get an education..." More from Thomas Sowell.
More Jolly Times Ahead ; Courtesy of "the Religion of Peace" and Sympathies from the "Multicultural" Left :
"...Perhaps the most terrifying part of the book is the way Muslims are confidently planning to rule Europe and make it part of the caliphate. A popular Swedish t-shirt reads simply "2030 -- then we take over." With France still only 12% Muslim, the leading Parisian newspaper Le Monde seems to have already surrendered. In 2004, it praised France for "the fact of its having and accepting the role of the first Muslim country of Europe..."
"...And this growing problem is exasperated by a phenomenon unknown in America called "fetching" marriages. Muslim males use "family unification" laws to bring in illiterate females they've never met from their former country, and then marry them -- usually as uneducated teenagers. The young girls are then kept at home in a virtual prison where they reproduce wildly. These new citizens never learn the local languages or customs but they do qualify for vast welfare benefits and quickly produce more Islamist-oriented males and slave-like females, perpetuating the cycle all over again."
"The effect of all these Muslims on the lifestyles of Europeans is simply remarkable. Homophobia is way up, as is opposition to abortion and divorce. "Honor" killings are rampant as is female "circumcision." In many parts of Europe all women must wear a scarf covering their face lest they be deemed whores. By right, any Muslim or Muslim gang can rape any uncovered girl. Afterwards, the girl is properly killed by relatives to end the "shame" of her family..."
The Media is Still Having Trouble Identifying Muslim Terrorists as Muslim Terrorists :
"...Likewise the New York Times (thanks to all who sent this in) speaks about "Canadian residents" and hardly at all about their Islamic identity. It also quotes the McDonell "broad strata" business. The word "jihad" does not appear; Steven Chand's Muslim name is not given; the only way anyone would get an idea of what is going on here is from references to "Islamic extremists" and "Al-Qaeda," buried deep in the story."
The Times has never more richly deserved the "New Duranty Times" label. Imagine a 1938 story about Kristallnacht that spoke of "German youths" representing "broad strata" of society, and never once mentioning Hitler or National Socialism. There would have been no excuse then, and there is no excuse..."
From the Land of Torch Light Parades and Kristallnacht. Intellectuals just never seem to get a consistent grip on the idea of true authoritarianism. They'll applaud each other to no end for whining about the removal of a fascist dictator in Iraq but never seem to see the blood smeared over the pages of history in the name of their pathetic socialist "revolutions."
"...And what of the Cold War? Did the United States support Pinochet in an historic vacuum? It seems that Grass still hasn't noticed the difference between eastern and western Germany. It seems that he has forgotten the millions murdered by Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh. Grass belongs to a fading elitist class that still believes that Germany's Ostpolitik could have negotiated a merciless Communist regime into submission without the backing of American tanks, infantry and missiles. In reality, it was both the military and diplomatic efforts of the United States and its allies that ended Soviet absolutism following World War II. That said, there is no doubt that the United States involved itself with leaders who, in hindsight, it was wrong to support. But for Grass to ignore or omit the historic context of the Cold War is a ringing declaration of intellectual bankruptcy oft repeated by the far left."
"Sadly, Grass belongs to a class of Europeans who have themselves never lifted a finger for democracy or human freedom, yet feel obligated to criticize those who act, and sometimes fail, in the fight against fanaticism and dictatorship. These self-satisfied, smug armchair critics are so blinded by visions of moral superiority that they can't so much as acknowledge facts that don't conveniently fit into their worldview..."
Read the entire article at Davids Medienkritik.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Capitalism (and Common Sense Observation) vs. The State...
Government is basically a (big – really big) business monopoly that compels patronage and has no need or desire to serve its "customers."
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Euro-Disneyland Isn't Just an Amusement Park
Victor Davis Hanson is always intelligent, to the point, and on the mark:
...So in response to the errors of the past, Europeans systematically expanded the welfare state. They welcomed in immigrants. Politicians slashed defense spending, lowered the retirement age and cut the workweek. Voters demanded trade barriers to protect the public from the ravages of globalization. Either to enjoy the good life or to save the planet, couples forswore children.
But instead of utopia, unintended consequences ensued. Unemployment soared. Dismal economic growth, shrinking populations and a scarier world outside their borders followed...
Friday, June 02, 2006
Good Times, Ungrateful "Rebellion," and Returns to the Bad Old Days
There's nothing that can enrage a leftist more than a well-stated attack on their pathetic belief system by a highly educated and respected man -- who is also black. Aren't black people, like women, and other "marginalized groups," supposed to automatically follow the dictates and guidelines established by white, upper middle class leftist academics and intellectuals?
Thomas Sowell once again articulates some things that go beyond race and appeal to the increasingly rare attribute of common sense.
My own take on the issue addressed is laid out in the schematic below: