In last night's State of the Union address, President Obama took the opportunity to publicly berate the justices of the Supreme Court on national television because of their recent decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
The case centered around a law passed in 1907 that made corporate contributions to political campaigns illegal. While the law itself was not overturned because of this case, the decision rendered by the court pertained to an aspect of McCain-Feingold that prevented unions, corporations and similar entities from funding advertisements for or against candidates within a specified time frame prior to an election. McCain-Feingold did nothing to prevent the flow of money, as it only gave rise to 527 groups designed to circumvent the restrictions on money it claimed to limit. Instead, McCain-Feingold was designed around the idea of making it easier for incumbent, entrenched, career politicians to defend themselves in elections by making it more difficult for vested opponents to directly challenge their re-election through targeted commercial advertisements. This specific law is what was overturned.
The Constitution protects the individual right of free speech. Just like unions, corporations are owned by, invested in and directed by individual investors. While they are individuals, they are a collective of people with a shared purpose.
Corporations were designed around the individual - to legally protect them from unlimited liability and protect personal assets. That is why a single individual can form a corporation for precisely those reasons.
The Supreme Court had to decide if the government had the right to hinder the free speech of corporations and other businesses while simultaneously exempting other businesses entities from those very same laws. Now, there is no more giving free speech to some while denying it to others. They're all the same.
Here is why I favor this decision: Over the years I have watched smarmy, self-indulgent, race-baiting Marxist reprobates worm their way into political power and influence by attacking companies and the private sector through stereotypical blanket attacks. This company is racist. This company is sexist. This company makes too much money. This company's employees won't unionize. This company sells fattening food. This company uses too much energy. This company doesn't do enough for the environment. Does this sound at all familiar? It should, because you could spend all day going through the entire list of legitimate businesses in the US, and in some form or fashion - most will fall into that list of criteria in one way or the other. That is by design.
Somehow, liberals are under the impression that they are entitled to attack perfectly legal companies selling or offering perfectly legal products and services....hassle them in court, publicly protest them, smear their employees and attempt in as many ways possible to hurt the company's bottom line....but simultaneously say that the companies under such assaults are not entitled to fully defend themselves and stand up for themselves through whatever legal means they have at their disposal. Liberal politicians have repeatedly engaged in systematic attacks on the private sector by leveraging the power and unlimited financial resources of the government in an effort to hobble the ability of privately owned corporations to operate unhindered within the US.
A prime example:
Years ago, banks were allowed to individually set personal criteria as to who qualified for personal loans. Banks had a simple rule founded on thousands of years of common sense - If you didn't earn enough money or possess sufficient assets to offset the risk of a loan - you're weren't going to get it.
When liberal politicians in Washington started going after banks, the first thing the banks lost was their right to maintain the privacy over their loan criteria. Naturally, when they were forced to open their books - people gasped with faux shock at the obvious...poor people with low-paying jobs living in poor neighborhoods were unable to qualify for loans. That was common sense, but common sense meant nothing the moment the sharks smelled blood in the water.
Suddenly, banks were no longer lending institutions - they were merely racist institutions that needed to have more government regulation thrown at them. Banks were accused of denying loans to poor people because they were black, not because they were bad loan risks. Under increased regulation and constant public scrutiny and broad accusations of racism, banks and lending institutions buckled.
The result? The same filthy, greasy, race-baiting politicians used race as a wedge issue to win votes by channeling people's frustration about their economic plight...abetting in the creation of a flawed financial system designed around giving more loans to people who in any sane economic environment would have been told to go pound sand. Subsequently, these same vermin in Washington had the nerve to act surprised when these people defaulted on their loans en masse and was the core foundation of the recent loan scandal and financial collapse, as the loan-based securities that failed became worthless because the loans backing them became worthless.
Banks, like any other company, exist to remain in business by making a profit. No sane lending institution would ever knowingly give loans to people who cannot pay them back, and that is precisely what they were forced to do because of unethical political pressure brought to bear against them by reprobates like Barney Frank.
Consider the following alternative scenario: If the previous political speech-limiting laws for businesses enacted in 1907 not been in place, banks and every other manner of lending institution would have been capable of defending themselves, their business practices and taken on every single individual and organization who portrayed them as racists entities. They would have been able to take on every politician who also accused them of racism, and in turn would have been able to take out as much political commercial time as they could afford, and defend themselves even further by more funding of candidates who would not have enacted such economically stupid ideas.
Within the past year, President Obama and the rest of the liberals in the House and Senate have engaged in what I cannot describe as anything else but a full fledged, no-holds-barred attack on the entire private sector of the country. He has deliberately spent hundreds and hundreds of billions of yet-to-be-earned tax dollars growing the government run public sector and doing virtually nothing to encourage private sector growth. He is doing this because he believed that the huge budget deficits, loss of jobs and loss of job supplied medical benefits would force people to embrace government run healthcare and give up their liberties in exchange. All of this has been intentional.
As conservatives and Republicans currently do not have sufficient votes to ultimately stop anything the liberals in Washington hope to enact, this ruling was a God-send. People who are unemployed are powerless, with little opportunity on the horizon. People who are still working are bringing home less, paying more and are thoroughly disgusted that their tax burden is certain to increase because of the Presidents economic lunacy. They have little to spare in both financial and economic capital to fight anything, and Washington has made it all too clear that they aren't listening to our anger.
This ruling heralds the beginning of a crack in a door that liberals never wanted reopened. Imagine oil companies, publicly defiled for providing and refining a product we all use and need - taking out huge commercial time pointing the finger at every politician who used public sentiment to attack their business, or Walmart standing up for themselves during an election year by painting political detractors as uncaring criminals out to hurt the company providing good-paying jobs and affordable products to struggling families. Even cooler, imagine the entertainment industry in Las Vegas mobilizing a huge ad blitz against President Obama and Harry Reid as payback for their lost revenue from disparaging remarks made by the duo earlier last year against companies seeking to conduct business there. Those commercials would be priceless.
I don't support this ruling because I think that the business sector is perfect, far from it. I support it because the private sector needs to mobilize against the statists in power who are eager to make the ruination of capitalism another notch on their bedposts. It is worth the risk, because we already know that we don't want the alternative.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Friday, October 2, 2009
Our President was punked.
When I first heard that Chicago was vying for the Olympic games, I wasn't surprised given that President Obama was now in office. As the events unfolded and it came to light that the President and first lady were going to Copenhagen to give their "pitch" on Chicago's behalf, I'll admit I was less than convinced as to the genuine nature of the visit.
Politics is perception. One of the things I learned from watching then President Clinton was that image was the most valuable commodity any President can ever have. If one projects confidence, chooses their venues wisely and watches what they say - the ability to leverage the inherent power of the Presidency is almost assured. That being said, I looked at the Olympic committee's selection of Chicago for the 2016 Olympics as a forgone conclusion. After all - the idea that the President would go through the dog and pony show of trying to convince the committee to select Chicago without knowing ahead of time that it was "in the bag" wasn't plausible.
When I found out that Chicago was not only rejected in the first round, but was completely creamed in the vote count, I was shocked speechless.
Every President who has ever held office has had to deal with situations that cast him in a less than favorable light. However, the ramifications of this event are unheard of within the realm of Presidential politics. For a man who is holding what is arguably the most powerful political office in the entire world - the nature of how the events that unfolded today became known were undoubtedly among the most embarrassing, demoralizing and humiliating combination of circumstances ever.
There is no redeemable spin that can be placed on this disaster. Look at the following possibilities:
- If the President went through with his personal pitch for Chicago because he had been given personal assurances that it was a done deal, then this decision on the part of the Olympic committee was orchestrated - purely and deliberately fabricated for the express purpose of humiliating him. That means that he is perceived as weak and has earned no respect, which undermines the entire premise of his campaign which portrayed him as a world uniter who would bring respect to America..
- If the President did this not knowing whether or not his pitch was guaranteed to succeed, it means that he and his advisers are monumentally stupid - naive and incapable of appreciating the depth of damage that this fiasco would have on his image, credibility, stature and respect before the world.
- If the President was compelled to take this personal risk because he was under pressure from Mayor Daley, then it demonstrates that he does not appreciate the nature and importance of his office because he is willing to risk the credibility of both the office and himself in an effort to ensure political payback for favors he took during his tenure in the corrupt Chicago political machine.
- If the President volunteered himself of his own accord because he truly believed in the hype surrounding his mythical ability to persuade and charm people simply by the nature of his campaigns' fabricated image, then it demonstrates a level of naivete, hubris and megalomania that makes former President Clinton's ego look like a mere shadow in comparison.
People are already trying to spin this by the most imaginative means possible, such as suggesting that the entire Olympic bid was a ruse to give the President a chance to meet in secret with the war in Afghanistan's General McChrystal for a whopping 25 minutes. Newsweek asserted that losing the Olympic bid was good for the President because "...the Olympics are notorious for running massively over budget. The organizing committees are always rife with infighting and power games, as all manner of colorful cronies badger members to get their paws on some of those coveted Olympics dollars. Public support for the Olympics in Chicago itself was already lukewarm. Residents would have been facing seven years of disruptive construction and roadworks as their city raced to prepare itself. It’s a recipe for serious disgruntlement."
Let's not forget, of course - that racism was also a part in the IOC's decision. Hell, just ask Jimmy Carter!
People can shake, spin and try to finess this into a varitable cornacopia of theoretical positives, but the bottom line is this: Our President limped away from Copenhagen humiliated - a laughing stock and a joke. But it's not funny at all, because the joke's on us.
Politics is perception. One of the things I learned from watching then President Clinton was that image was the most valuable commodity any President can ever have. If one projects confidence, chooses their venues wisely and watches what they say - the ability to leverage the inherent power of the Presidency is almost assured. That being said, I looked at the Olympic committee's selection of Chicago for the 2016 Olympics as a forgone conclusion. After all - the idea that the President would go through the dog and pony show of trying to convince the committee to select Chicago without knowing ahead of time that it was "in the bag" wasn't plausible.
When I found out that Chicago was not only rejected in the first round, but was completely creamed in the vote count, I was shocked speechless.
Every President who has ever held office has had to deal with situations that cast him in a less than favorable light. However, the ramifications of this event are unheard of within the realm of Presidential politics. For a man who is holding what is arguably the most powerful political office in the entire world - the nature of how the events that unfolded today became known were undoubtedly among the most embarrassing, demoralizing and humiliating combination of circumstances ever.
There is no redeemable spin that can be placed on this disaster. Look at the following possibilities:
- If the President went through with his personal pitch for Chicago because he had been given personal assurances that it was a done deal, then this decision on the part of the Olympic committee was orchestrated - purely and deliberately fabricated for the express purpose of humiliating him. That means that he is perceived as weak and has earned no respect, which undermines the entire premise of his campaign which portrayed him as a world uniter who would bring respect to America..
- If the President did this not knowing whether or not his pitch was guaranteed to succeed, it means that he and his advisers are monumentally stupid - naive and incapable of appreciating the depth of damage that this fiasco would have on his image, credibility, stature and respect before the world.
- If the President was compelled to take this personal risk because he was under pressure from Mayor Daley, then it demonstrates that he does not appreciate the nature and importance of his office because he is willing to risk the credibility of both the office and himself in an effort to ensure political payback for favors he took during his tenure in the corrupt Chicago political machine.
- If the President volunteered himself of his own accord because he truly believed in the hype surrounding his mythical ability to persuade and charm people simply by the nature of his campaigns' fabricated image, then it demonstrates a level of naivete, hubris and megalomania that makes former President Clinton's ego look like a mere shadow in comparison.
People are already trying to spin this by the most imaginative means possible, such as suggesting that the entire Olympic bid was a ruse to give the President a chance to meet in secret with the war in Afghanistan's General McChrystal for a whopping 25 minutes. Newsweek asserted that losing the Olympic bid was good for the President because "...the Olympics are notorious for running massively over budget. The organizing committees are always rife with infighting and power games, as all manner of colorful cronies badger members to get their paws on some of those coveted Olympics dollars. Public support for the Olympics in Chicago itself was already lukewarm. Residents would have been facing seven years of disruptive construction and roadworks as their city raced to prepare itself. It’s a recipe for serious disgruntlement."
Let's not forget, of course - that racism was also a part in the IOC's decision. Hell, just ask Jimmy Carter!
People can shake, spin and try to finess this into a varitable cornacopia of theoretical positives, but the bottom line is this: Our President limped away from Copenhagen humiliated - a laughing stock and a joke. But it's not funny at all, because the joke's on us.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The Pastor and the POTUS
Recently, a Pastor named Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona made news again by repeating his wish that physical harm and death befall President Obama. When asked for specifics, he offered the following clarification:
“If you want to know how I’d like to see Obama die, I’d like him to die of natural causes,” said Anderson. “I don’t want him to be a martyr, we don’t need another holiday. I’d like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer.”
When I first read this, I could not help but marvel at how unbelievably brazen, foolish and naive a person has to be to think that their position as Pastor and a House of the Lord was an appropriate position or venue for that kind of opinion. I disliked Kennedy, and certainly do not think President Obama is doing a good job...but wish for his death? Of a horrific debilitating disease that strips you slowly of your mind and dignity? Not a chance.
I flat out believe that the Pastor is completely wrong to have - let alone express - that type of opinion, and certainly not in a forum that is supposed to be teaching about the principals of compassion and forgiveness set forth by Jesus Christ. President Obama does not deserve to have that kind of ill will pressed against him, regardless of his political affiliation or decisions.
It isn't difficult to figure out how we as a nation got to this point. Look at the past 8 years as an example:
When President Bush was in office there were books written regarding his assassination and even a movie created on the same subject. You also had plenty of people online openly coming out and promoting stories that dehumanized him, and there was no shortage of people who wished harm upon President Bush en-masse on a daily basis.
One could look up any current or archived blog and commentary on either the DailyKOS or democratunderground and find the most strung-out moonbats that have ever lived running around in circles fomenting the most lunatic-fringe hatred of the man, and they did it (and continue to do it) for 24 hours a day - every day - for 8 years straight. If a person who was unaware of the political workings of our world were to base their opinion of the former President solely by the content of either of the above two sources - they would swear that President Bush stood upon the fires of Mt. Doom and summoned Hurricane Katrina himself.
Think back and remember - What were the type of responses given to anyone who questioned any of the criticism or the personal nature of the extent of hate and personal animosity for him?
"This is a matter of Free Speech!" (OK, I can agree with that...)
"Dissent is patriotic" (Well...the Rosenbergs dissented to be sure, but patriotic they were not...)
"Nazis!" (...eh?)
The aggressor sets the rules in any fight. If the routine, outlandish nature of so many of the critiques of former President Bush made by the Left were not only acceptable, but were in fact patriotic, then the Left really has no business whatsoever getting their panties in a bunch over the rantings of one man when the very same unsavory nature of his message has been the very lifeblood of the democrat party. All of the hate, anger and outrage over the words of this one Pastor that they are now bemoaning was the very fuel that animated everything they did. It was hatred and anger that united them and allowed for the kind of political success that they were not even close to pulling off years before.
They are concerned that the words being spoken will incite violence? They should be. Welcome to the world conservatives live in every day. They're sitting out there worrying about what one man is saying? Try imagining what tens of thousands of people like him would look like online and you have what conservatives have to contend with. Hatred of President Bush has been liberals passion. Anger and outrage has been their sacraments, and now that their Messiah is running the show - the same dissent they practiced while prancing around calling it patriotic is now akin to "Hate Speech".
You reap what you sow.
For almost the entire length of both his terms, President Bush was assaulted and criticized for everything and anything he said, did, tried to do, wrote, expressed and even what others claimed he was thinking - and ANY attempt he made to defend himself was met with outrage over his "fascist" attempt to "silence" his critics. As time went on, he defended himself less and less, but none of that did anything to abate the torrent of criticism he received, and it certainly did nothing to assist in any ability to govern.
When personal hatred is allowed to act as the means to an end within the political arena, it doesn't just cause more problems by inciting violence or venom, it helps insulate and protect politicians from justifiable criticism.
How this works is simple: When personal attacks and insipid vitriol become the norm, the first thing it initially does is to cause the politician on the receiving end to become protected by supporters who instinctively close ranks around their candidate. This closes their minds to the remote possibility that the opposition might have a legitimate grievance, and they in turn lash out even stronger against their candidates adversaries. Because liberals attacked President Bush with such intensity, a large number of his supporters defended him even when they should not have, such as on his lack of fiscal discipline and refusal to enact immigration reform.
When this Pastor engages in this type of inexcusable attack, he is in fact giving President Obama a free pass on two fronts. First, because he immediately insulates the President from legitimate criticism regarding his policies - as it only reinforces the false notion that criticism of the President and hate speech are one in the same. Secondly, it only makes a bad situation worse, because when the bar is lowered - even someone of ill repute can come off looking reasonable.
“If you want to know how I’d like to see Obama die, I’d like him to die of natural causes,” said Anderson. “I don’t want him to be a martyr, we don’t need another holiday. I’d like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer.”
When I first read this, I could not help but marvel at how unbelievably brazen, foolish and naive a person has to be to think that their position as Pastor and a House of the Lord was an appropriate position or venue for that kind of opinion. I disliked Kennedy, and certainly do not think President Obama is doing a good job...but wish for his death? Of a horrific debilitating disease that strips you slowly of your mind and dignity? Not a chance.
I flat out believe that the Pastor is completely wrong to have - let alone express - that type of opinion, and certainly not in a forum that is supposed to be teaching about the principals of compassion and forgiveness set forth by Jesus Christ. President Obama does not deserve to have that kind of ill will pressed against him, regardless of his political affiliation or decisions.
It isn't difficult to figure out how we as a nation got to this point. Look at the past 8 years as an example:
When President Bush was in office there were books written regarding his assassination and even a movie created on the same subject. You also had plenty of people online openly coming out and promoting stories that dehumanized him, and there was no shortage of people who wished harm upon President Bush en-masse on a daily basis.
One could look up any current or archived blog and commentary on either the DailyKOS or democratunderground and find the most strung-out moonbats that have ever lived running around in circles fomenting the most lunatic-fringe hatred of the man, and they did it (and continue to do it) for 24 hours a day - every day - for 8 years straight. If a person who was unaware of the political workings of our world were to base their opinion of the former President solely by the content of either of the above two sources - they would swear that President Bush stood upon the fires of Mt. Doom and summoned Hurricane Katrina himself.
Think back and remember - What were the type of responses given to anyone who questioned any of the criticism or the personal nature of the extent of hate and personal animosity for him?
"This is a matter of Free Speech!" (OK, I can agree with that...)
"Dissent is patriotic" (Well...the Rosenbergs dissented to be sure, but patriotic they were not...)
"Nazis!" (...eh?)
The aggressor sets the rules in any fight. If the routine, outlandish nature of so many of the critiques of former President Bush made by the Left were not only acceptable, but were in fact patriotic, then the Left really has no business whatsoever getting their panties in a bunch over the rantings of one man when the very same unsavory nature of his message has been the very lifeblood of the democrat party. All of the hate, anger and outrage over the words of this one Pastor that they are now bemoaning was the very fuel that animated everything they did. It was hatred and anger that united them and allowed for the kind of political success that they were not even close to pulling off years before.
They are concerned that the words being spoken will incite violence? They should be. Welcome to the world conservatives live in every day. They're sitting out there worrying about what one man is saying? Try imagining what tens of thousands of people like him would look like online and you have what conservatives have to contend with. Hatred of President Bush has been liberals passion. Anger and outrage has been their sacraments, and now that their Messiah is running the show - the same dissent they practiced while prancing around calling it patriotic is now akin to "Hate Speech".
You reap what you sow.
For almost the entire length of both his terms, President Bush was assaulted and criticized for everything and anything he said, did, tried to do, wrote, expressed and even what others claimed he was thinking - and ANY attempt he made to defend himself was met with outrage over his "fascist" attempt to "silence" his critics. As time went on, he defended himself less and less, but none of that did anything to abate the torrent of criticism he received, and it certainly did nothing to assist in any ability to govern.
When personal hatred is allowed to act as the means to an end within the political arena, it doesn't just cause more problems by inciting violence or venom, it helps insulate and protect politicians from justifiable criticism.
How this works is simple: When personal attacks and insipid vitriol become the norm, the first thing it initially does is to cause the politician on the receiving end to become protected by supporters who instinctively close ranks around their candidate. This closes their minds to the remote possibility that the opposition might have a legitimate grievance, and they in turn lash out even stronger against their candidates adversaries. Because liberals attacked President Bush with such intensity, a large number of his supporters defended him even when they should not have, such as on his lack of fiscal discipline and refusal to enact immigration reform.
When this Pastor engages in this type of inexcusable attack, he is in fact giving President Obama a free pass on two fronts. First, because he immediately insulates the President from legitimate criticism regarding his policies - as it only reinforces the false notion that criticism of the President and hate speech are one in the same. Secondly, it only makes a bad situation worse, because when the bar is lowered - even someone of ill repute can come off looking reasonable.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Welcome Back, Carter
When Lech Walesa headed the Solidarity movement in Soviet besieged Poland, President Ronald Reagan had a choice: Support the Soviet backed domination of the Polish people or take a stand and support the voice of individual liberty, and in doing so potentially anger the Soviets. It was not a hard choice, and at the first opportunity he sided with Poland's Solidarity movement, drawing a line that stated in no uncertain terms where America stood.
Obama has now been witness to a similar historical event and given a golden opportunity to prove his critics wrong. However...he has let this terrific opportunity languish for too long and spoiled his chances of directly benefiting from it. When the "elections" in Iran took place and a sizable portion of the oppressed population took to the street, it gave him the perfect moment in time to come out in favor of genuine democracy and reform in the country which is responsible for more funding and personal acts of terrorism in the world. Iran - without equivocation - is at the heart of Islamic terrorism. He didn't take the opportunity to come down on the side of freedom. Instead, Obama initially opted to say that the United States was not going to interfere with the Iranian elections by injecting themselves into the debate. That statement had an expiration date of about one week. Now, the stance has changed by reaching out to the dictatorial leadership calling for nicer treatment of the demonstrators. From some of the footage I am seeing on TV, they aren't interested in listening.
The current Iranian government is hostile to the entire western world. The nuanced conventional wisdom that states that picking sides in their internal conflict can be a political risk is a fake argument. When you take a stand and voice support of the struggle for freedom and democracy in a country controlled by people who don't want to grant it - you win regardless of the outcome.
However - when you hold up your hands and instead opt to initially voice a vague, neutral Switzerland policy when presented with a choice between supporting the dictatorial status quo or young people wanting to reform their country for the better - it is a tremendous lost opportunity, because those people looking for support in the cause of freedom look at the US and genuinely want our support. It goes with the Compass theory: The US should first and always base their stances on the advancement of liberty over tyranny. From the Mullah's point of view, that initial wishy-washy response and subsequent attempt at a clarification only weakened Obama's hand.
For the record, I don't think Obama is out there wearing "I love Mullahs" tee-shirts. He will at some point discover that his changing stances on an issue will only erode any credibility he has left when he comes to the realization that support for liberty is a football he can't just punt to someone else.
When it comes to choosing and voicing support for individual liberty over tyranny -the choice should be easy and unwaveringly clear.
Obama has now been witness to a similar historical event and given a golden opportunity to prove his critics wrong. However...he has let this terrific opportunity languish for too long and spoiled his chances of directly benefiting from it. When the "elections" in Iran took place and a sizable portion of the oppressed population took to the street, it gave him the perfect moment in time to come out in favor of genuine democracy and reform in the country which is responsible for more funding and personal acts of terrorism in the world. Iran - without equivocation - is at the heart of Islamic terrorism. He didn't take the opportunity to come down on the side of freedom. Instead, Obama initially opted to say that the United States was not going to interfere with the Iranian elections by injecting themselves into the debate. That statement had an expiration date of about one week. Now, the stance has changed by reaching out to the dictatorial leadership calling for nicer treatment of the demonstrators. From some of the footage I am seeing on TV, they aren't interested in listening.
The current Iranian government is hostile to the entire western world. The nuanced conventional wisdom that states that picking sides in their internal conflict can be a political risk is a fake argument. When you take a stand and voice support of the struggle for freedom and democracy in a country controlled by people who don't want to grant it - you win regardless of the outcome.
However - when you hold up your hands and instead opt to initially voice a vague, neutral Switzerland policy when presented with a choice between supporting the dictatorial status quo or young people wanting to reform their country for the better - it is a tremendous lost opportunity, because those people looking for support in the cause of freedom look at the US and genuinely want our support. It goes with the Compass theory: The US should first and always base their stances on the advancement of liberty over tyranny. From the Mullah's point of view, that initial wishy-washy response and subsequent attempt at a clarification only weakened Obama's hand.
For the record, I don't think Obama is out there wearing "I love Mullahs" tee-shirts. He will at some point discover that his changing stances on an issue will only erode any credibility he has left when he comes to the realization that support for liberty is a football he can't just punt to someone else.
When it comes to choosing and voicing support for individual liberty over tyranny -the choice should be easy and unwaveringly clear.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
"I am Jack's complete lack of surprise..."
There are fundamental differences in ideology between liberals and conservatives. Note that when I mention differences, I am not speaking on a party level between Republican or Democrat. Arlen Specter used to be a democrat when he was the District Attorney of Philadelphia and switched parties when the political opportunities for Republicans were on the rise. Now that the political pendulum has swung the other way, he is doing the same thing in reverse.
Admittedly, Arlen Specter has been good on some issues from a conservative perspective, such as affirming our 2nd Amendment rights and supporting tough prison sentencing guidelines for violent criminals. However, where he differs with conservatives has been growing more and more over the years. Once you get to a situation where you are voting more with the political opposition and are constantly at odds both both your own own party and base of supporters, there comes a point where you have to ask if you're really in the party that you fit in best. When Senator Specter started getting a huge earful from his constituency about Amnesty for Illegals and huge increases in entitlement and bailout spending, his solution was to have his staff disconnect his own phone system once he had heard enough. He didn't give a shit what the people who voted him in expected - he was going to do whatever he wanted regardless of how much it went against the wishes of the supporters who had voted him in. In reflection, he asked himself "Why not?" After all, once it became obvious from the plethora of inside tracking polls that he wouldn't get re-elected, he knew that in this political environment that he could switch parties.
Specter's defection has prompted other weak Republicans - such as the ever increasingly-irritating Olympia Snowe - to opine with whiny sophistry about how Specter's defection could have been prevented if Republicans would learn how to reach out to moderates instead of driving them away. The very notion that Republican moderates have no place in their party is pure, 100% NONSENSE. Moderates like Specter have been around forever. McCain, Snowe, Chaffee, Jeffords...the list goes on. What has irritated conservatives is that these spineless, limp-wristed watered-down copies of Diet Democrat-Lite routinely would vote with democrats and undermine conservatives on key votes that were crucial to our political goals. Sorry, honey - don't piss down our legs and try to tell us it's raining.
I have read some stories online where liberals are struggling to figure out why Republicans like myself are so happy about this when all it does is further erode our political power. That would make sense to people who only choose to see things from within the context of a political perspective, but that would be missing the mark. The first reason is that when you don't have any real power and influence left as it is, losing more makes no difference. Considering Arlen's voting history on key issues that drove conservatives the most, having him in the party was far more irritating. What the second and truest reason is this: Conservatives have more respect for genuine liberals who act like liberals and believe in whatever liberals believe in than for Republicans like Specter, who - over the course of time - has screwed over his own base in the name of political expediency. If he wants to run with the liberals, I have no beef with it. What I do have a beef with is his unreliability and skulduggery as a representative of my state. Never knowing exactly where he stood reliably on key issues with his base was a pain in the ass.
Understand something: Political moderation has never made for good leadership. Ever. Leaders are decisive. They are confident. They have the ability to gather people up and project their vision into the masses. They inspire those that agree, and yes - royally piss off the people who disagree. What true believers in a true philosophically empowered political goal gain is respect - even begrudgingly so from their adversaries. None of those things are attained from political moderation. When democrats wanted to rebuild their party, they didn't do it by reaching out to Republicans. No - they did it by marginalizing or eliminating what few centrists managed to exist in their party to make it more ideologically left. As such, when more Republicans stopped acting like conservatives and did nothing but pander to the left and left-leaning centrist voters for years - look at what it got them. Liberals simply voted for the real thing and left-leaning centrist libertarians voted against them out of anger at their intellectually dishonest pandering. Case in point - ask John McCain what sucking up to the left for years got him when the rubber actually met the road. They threw his ass to the curb - because nobody likes someone who speaks out of both sides of his mouth.
Admittedly, Arlen Specter has been good on some issues from a conservative perspective, such as affirming our 2nd Amendment rights and supporting tough prison sentencing guidelines for violent criminals. However, where he differs with conservatives has been growing more and more over the years. Once you get to a situation where you are voting more with the political opposition and are constantly at odds both both your own own party and base of supporters, there comes a point where you have to ask if you're really in the party that you fit in best. When Senator Specter started getting a huge earful from his constituency about Amnesty for Illegals and huge increases in entitlement and bailout spending, his solution was to have his staff disconnect his own phone system once he had heard enough. He didn't give a shit what the people who voted him in expected - he was going to do whatever he wanted regardless of how much it went against the wishes of the supporters who had voted him in. In reflection, he asked himself "Why not?" After all, once it became obvious from the plethora of inside tracking polls that he wouldn't get re-elected, he knew that in this political environment that he could switch parties.
Specter's defection has prompted other weak Republicans - such as the ever increasingly-irritating Olympia Snowe - to opine with whiny sophistry about how Specter's defection could have been prevented if Republicans would learn how to reach out to moderates instead of driving them away. The very notion that Republican moderates have no place in their party is pure, 100% NONSENSE. Moderates like Specter have been around forever. McCain, Snowe, Chaffee, Jeffords...the list goes on. What has irritated conservatives is that these spineless, limp-wristed watered-down copies of Diet Democrat-Lite routinely would vote with democrats and undermine conservatives on key votes that were crucial to our political goals. Sorry, honey - don't piss down our legs and try to tell us it's raining.
I have read some stories online where liberals are struggling to figure out why Republicans like myself are so happy about this when all it does is further erode our political power. That would make sense to people who only choose to see things from within the context of a political perspective, but that would be missing the mark. The first reason is that when you don't have any real power and influence left as it is, losing more makes no difference. Considering Arlen's voting history on key issues that drove conservatives the most, having him in the party was far more irritating. What the second and truest reason is this: Conservatives have more respect for genuine liberals who act like liberals and believe in whatever liberals believe in than for Republicans like Specter, who - over the course of time - has screwed over his own base in the name of political expediency. If he wants to run with the liberals, I have no beef with it. What I do have a beef with is his unreliability and skulduggery as a representative of my state. Never knowing exactly where he stood reliably on key issues with his base was a pain in the ass.
Understand something: Political moderation has never made for good leadership. Ever. Leaders are decisive. They are confident. They have the ability to gather people up and project their vision into the masses. They inspire those that agree, and yes - royally piss off the people who disagree. What true believers in a true philosophically empowered political goal gain is respect - even begrudgingly so from their adversaries. None of those things are attained from political moderation. When democrats wanted to rebuild their party, they didn't do it by reaching out to Republicans. No - they did it by marginalizing or eliminating what few centrists managed to exist in their party to make it more ideologically left. As such, when more Republicans stopped acting like conservatives and did nothing but pander to the left and left-leaning centrist voters for years - look at what it got them. Liberals simply voted for the real thing and left-leaning centrist libertarians voted against them out of anger at their intellectually dishonest pandering. Case in point - ask John McCain what sucking up to the left for years got him when the rubber actually met the road. They threw his ass to the curb - because nobody likes someone who speaks out of both sides of his mouth.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The curious case of Beverly Giesbrecht
We hear all the time from terrorists about how we are to submit to Islam and turn away from the West. We are told by our friends on the left that if we just try to understand these people that we will build a bridge and heal the wounds of misunderstanding.
A woman named Beverly Giesbrecht did all of that. Giesbrecht, a Canadian citizen, decided to go against the West after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. She decided that she was not going to believe that the WTC was attacked by terrorists, but rather was a front story for a larger conspiracy. Naturally, she thought that the best way to learn the "truth" was to learn all things Islamic so that she could discern the "truth" from a balanced point of view. After setting out to attain this balance, she abandoned her Born-again Christian faith and converted to Islam. She abruptly changed her name to Khadija Abdul Qahaar and decided to follow Islam's laws, criticize President Bush, denigrate the United States and even started a website called Jihad Unspun - whose sole purpose is to spread Islamic propaganda and promote anti-Americanism. Despite doing all of this, the Taliban kidnapped her on November 13, 2008 in Pakistan. They are threatening to behead her in exchange for a $375,000 ransom.
Some have attempted to downplay the role of Islam in this case by trying to characterize this woman from the sympathetic viewpoint of her being someone that is a former alcoholic who suffers from mental illness. I could not agree more - it is called liberalism. Whenever a liberal tries to argue with you about how Islam is no different from any other religion - remember this scenario. We are not living in the Dark Ages. We are not trapped in a never-ending malaise of scientific hindrance or a lack of enlightenment. No, we are living in 21st century America - and we are expected to look at this woman’s history, actions and current plight with a mindful, sympathetic light that is supposed to should be shed on Islam? One would think that this woman’s' story would be the proverbial writing on the wall for those who choose to live with their heads in the sand when it comes recognizing Islamic terrorism for what it truly is.
I want you, for a moment - to imagine the impossible to comprehend sheer agony of feeling your own head being sawed off with a dull blade. You have been bound head to toe and cannot do anything to escape. The sound of the blade hacking and sawing through bone echoes in your own skull. You try to scream and instead let loose gurgled squealing and wheezing. In your panic, you violently struggle, urinating and defecating all over yourself. Then you experience the sick motion of disembodiment and as oblivion begins to sink in, you experience the brief horror of seeing your own headless corpse when the filthy animal that just beheaded you holds your head up as a trophy. Then, your face goes stupid - and it is all over.
This woman is most likely going to experience the horror above because she was stupid enough to hate her own civilized, western culture and that of the United States. She was seduced by an evil lie. The lie in question is the absurd belief that moral relativism can be used to justify any type of heinous behavior or belief simply by implying that everyone is entitled to the opinion they have based solely on their own point of view. This idiot so believed that terrorist animals had a right to their opinions and actions that she decided to convert to Islam in an effort to see their sick world view, thinking that this would make her a better person. Brilliant!
Anyone...and I do mean anyone - who either trusts, defends or attempts to rationalize the actions of these filthy animals suffers from a mental disorder. They are the lowest common denominator humanity has ever produced. Let this be a lesson to be learned by everyone: When you dance with the Devil - the Devil does not change - the Devil changes you.
A woman named Beverly Giesbrecht did all of that. Giesbrecht, a Canadian citizen, decided to go against the West after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. She decided that she was not going to believe that the WTC was attacked by terrorists, but rather was a front story for a larger conspiracy. Naturally, she thought that the best way to learn the "truth" was to learn all things Islamic so that she could discern the "truth" from a balanced point of view. After setting out to attain this balance, she abandoned her Born-again Christian faith and converted to Islam. She abruptly changed her name to Khadija Abdul Qahaar and decided to follow Islam's laws, criticize President Bush, denigrate the United States and even started a website called Jihad Unspun - whose sole purpose is to spread Islamic propaganda and promote anti-Americanism. Despite doing all of this, the Taliban kidnapped her on November 13, 2008 in Pakistan. They are threatening to behead her in exchange for a $375,000 ransom.
Some have attempted to downplay the role of Islam in this case by trying to characterize this woman from the sympathetic viewpoint of her being someone that is a former alcoholic who suffers from mental illness. I could not agree more - it is called liberalism. Whenever a liberal tries to argue with you about how Islam is no different from any other religion - remember this scenario. We are not living in the Dark Ages. We are not trapped in a never-ending malaise of scientific hindrance or a lack of enlightenment. No, we are living in 21st century America - and we are expected to look at this woman’s history, actions and current plight with a mindful, sympathetic light that is supposed to should be shed on Islam? One would think that this woman’s' story would be the proverbial writing on the wall for those who choose to live with their heads in the sand when it comes recognizing Islamic terrorism for what it truly is.
I want you, for a moment - to imagine the impossible to comprehend sheer agony of feeling your own head being sawed off with a dull blade. You have been bound head to toe and cannot do anything to escape. The sound of the blade hacking and sawing through bone echoes in your own skull. You try to scream and instead let loose gurgled squealing and wheezing. In your panic, you violently struggle, urinating and defecating all over yourself. Then you experience the sick motion of disembodiment and as oblivion begins to sink in, you experience the brief horror of seeing your own headless corpse when the filthy animal that just beheaded you holds your head up as a trophy. Then, your face goes stupid - and it is all over.
This woman is most likely going to experience the horror above because she was stupid enough to hate her own civilized, western culture and that of the United States. She was seduced by an evil lie. The lie in question is the absurd belief that moral relativism can be used to justify any type of heinous behavior or belief simply by implying that everyone is entitled to the opinion they have based solely on their own point of view. This idiot so believed that terrorist animals had a right to their opinions and actions that she decided to convert to Islam in an effort to see their sick world view, thinking that this would make her a better person. Brilliant!
Anyone...and I do mean anyone - who either trusts, defends or attempts to rationalize the actions of these filthy animals suffers from a mental disorder. They are the lowest common denominator humanity has ever produced. Let this be a lesson to be learned by everyone: When you dance with the Devil - the Devil does not change - the Devil changes you.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
God and Evolution
I am not someone who has ever taken the Creation story literally. Yet, I have always found it rather dubious how angry and obnoxious some scientists get when they are even challenged on the veracity of certain specifics of their beliefs or theories. In the case of the arguments between Intelligent Design vs Evolution, some of the most die-hard advocates pushing the edge regarding their attempt to find something irreducibly complex that cannot come about because of random chance are not people who are biblical scholars. They are, in fact, scientists who are just as educated and passionate about their theories as anyone else would be, they are just pursuing their attempt to find answers elsewhere. Evolution alone, by their beliefs, cannot account for or answer many of the basic questions people have regarding life and it's origins. Those that pursue I.D. are guilty of committing a scientific sin, their biggest sin being that in the eyes of other scientists, they are attempting to use science itself to question evolution. In reality, what they are doing is starting off with a theory and are attempting to prove it. Scientifically, Darwinism and it's most ardent secular supporters should have nothing to fear.
As I see it, evolution versus a belief in a Creator are simply not at odds with one another. Evolution on many levels makes absolutely logical sense (the strongest survive and procreate). Mutations are common and observable. Survival of the fittest is part of all life. If you want to see evolution in action, go to any beach and see who the beautiful girls are hanging out with, they do not just "randomly" gravitate towards just anybody. Science however, for all of the good it has produced in attempting to explain some of mysteries of our world, is incapable of answering the serious philosophical questions that have been echoed since the dawn of man.
I have looked at the argument that has been made that I.D. cannot be proven, therefore it cannot be science, compete with science or argue with science. This flies in the face of common sense because at one point, every scientific fact was an unknown. Every fact or principle discovered since was the result of having a theory and attempting to prove it. Scientific fact was built on it's pursuit based on reason, passion and prior knowledge from previous discoveries. What we have observed in this world regarding living things is the result of an evolutionary process, but evolution is incapable of explaining everything about what life is, or how it started from nothing. It can theorize like anything else, but proof to that bugger of a question has been nagging mankind since the beginning, and every discovery since has only led to more questions that science is not capable of answering.
For example, if you were to find, disassemble and go over the details of the parts that make up a high-end Mercedes, their individual purpose in creating a more complex object could be derived and made sense of. If, however, someone were to say that the car was randomly created or the result of chance, that person would be considered ridiculous. On the same level, a single-celled organism is not just a black-boxed mystery made of "globs of stuff". It's complexity would easily surpass a lot of the machines we use from day to day, and none of those machines are even capable of antonymous movement, self-sustaining consumption or reproduction. While a car is much different from a cell because a car is most certainly not alive, I draw my comparison based on the fact that a single celled organism AND that car did not exist at one point. Yes, they are both complex. Yes, the cell is more complex and can autonomously do things the car cannot because it is living. My question, how the hell did something like a cell come from non-living things and somehow become more than the sum of its parts? If I ever found the car as it exists now naturally (assuming I lived in a world where cars didn't exist), no one in their right mind would ever assume that it was a result of Natural Law.
Some people have expressed frustration and downright anger at me in the past for using the words "random" or "chance" when discussing such matters. Their reason was because the more I would deem any result of incremental steps leading to an evolutionary divergence as a random event (even random mutation), the more it would make the person I was discussing this with more and more uncomfortable because truly random events are not a plausible scientific building blocks for discussing an orderly and repeatable scientific process. To those people I would suggest this: Don't get hung up on the use of the words chance or random. Just do what scientists have done elsewhere by expressing them in more colorful euphemisms - such as saying 'mutation', 'alteration', 'modification', 'permutation' or 'variation'. Or my favorite...'Luck'. Yes, if I drop something gravity pulls it. If I break an egg I cannot pick it up and have it whole again. Those are observable laws. My question, how did those perfectly balanced and precise laws come from nothing?
The Big Bang theory believes that before the the universe existed, the sum of all matter was contained in a single, focused singularity that suddenly exploded. Prior to the universe existing...what we know as matter and energy were far different than they are perceived as now. All of the natural laws of nature that we know of and attempt to comprehend...from the physical to mathematical - simply did not exist. What also did not exist was life.
Some theories claim that life is an inevitable part of the existence of the universe, but when you delve into how complex the structure of DNA is, how synchronized and perfectly placed those pieces of the puzzle are, it is not an unreasonable thing to question how something that can arise from chaotic chance. I am a software engineer, and I can assure you of several things: First, a blank slate (such as a finite -state machine such as a computer or a pre-life universe) has no order or innate intelligence behind it. Second, any and all parts within would have to bend to the will of constraints imposed by the limitations of it's creation, meaning that both a computer and the universe can not do anything beyond either the will of it's user or the limits imposed on the nature of it's design.
Any software engineer knows right up front that when it comes to creating orderly, sustainable, reusable and practical source code - there are NO free features. Anything that encompasses what a program can do, how it interacts with information or when, where and why it executes any instruction is completely beholden to the logical constraints placed on it by the developer. Hence, a program can never make a mistake; it is doing exactly what it was designed to do (intentionally or unintentionally).
Consider the following: No matter how good the developer is, he is going to make mistakes. Any mistake, no matter how trivial - can hamper or completely ruin the viability of a program. He is going to have to go back and fix them.
Now imagine telling a developer that they had to create a program with the same amount of complexity of the most simplest of DNA structures for the most simple of lifeforms...with all of the future adaptobility of that program being planned ahead of time in it's design...except they had to get it right the first time and they only got one shot to get it perfect from the beginning. Also imagine that if the developer made a mistake, he didn't get a chance to start against from scratch - the task would go to a totally different person, and those same rules were passed on infinitum.
The odds of one person creating something so massively complex and antonymous without a single error or miscalculation would be mathematically impossible, but we are all expected to believe that life started out in such a manner when DNA spontaneously created itself from random poteins and amino acids combining to form the first DNA helix.
Human beings are intelligent, crafty and practical. Our sense of discovery, determination and imagination have surpassed anything that has ever existed on this planet. Despite everything we have going for us, we cannot (even with the use of all scientific knowledge and machines to assist us) create biological life from nothing, even the most simple of lifeforms. It's not that we're stupid or don't have good ideas. We can create things that mimic life, but unlike true life forms - anything we attempt to mimic is confined and constrained by the parameters of how we interpret life or define what life is. Random creation, if we are going to use that as our model - has no such limitations.
These are the things that have made me convinced that there is a God.
If I were to demand here and now under the penalty of death to every scientist in the world that they give me proof that life existed outside of our planet, every scientist would be dead, because no such proof exists. Yet, I believe it exists anyway. My reason is because since life exists on our planet, it would have a wonderful opportunity to exist elsewhere. On that note, look at the people who participate in purely scientific endeavors like the S.E.T.I. project. These poor souls have absolutely nothing going in their favor. They search, look and listen intently for any sign of life outside our planet despite the overwhelming odds that make the likelihood of any such discovery a fool's hope. They are treated as abused mascots by the scientific community because all of their work has not produced anything tangible. Their work is constantly under-funded and under-appreciated. They are also overworked and underpaid. In an ultimate example of irony - everything they do is based on the exact same principle that is the hallmark of all religious beliefs: Faith.
The belief in a Creator has been with mankind for as long as recorded history, and despite thousands and thousands of years of agonizingly slow technological advancement or the inability to record and save information for future generations (outside of word of mouth), our ancestors ascended with and passed on a belief in something greater than ourselves, looking at the world with the awe that comes from an inborn desire to seek out and understand our place in it. That is how I perceive the consciousness of the human soul, and I cannot deduce that something so beautiful can be a part of something unplanned.
As I see it, evolution versus a belief in a Creator are simply not at odds with one another. Evolution on many levels makes absolutely logical sense (the strongest survive and procreate). Mutations are common and observable. Survival of the fittest is part of all life. If you want to see evolution in action, go to any beach and see who the beautiful girls are hanging out with, they do not just "randomly" gravitate towards just anybody. Science however, for all of the good it has produced in attempting to explain some of mysteries of our world, is incapable of answering the serious philosophical questions that have been echoed since the dawn of man.
I have looked at the argument that has been made that I.D. cannot be proven, therefore it cannot be science, compete with science or argue with science. This flies in the face of common sense because at one point, every scientific fact was an unknown. Every fact or principle discovered since was the result of having a theory and attempting to prove it. Scientific fact was built on it's pursuit based on reason, passion and prior knowledge from previous discoveries. What we have observed in this world regarding living things is the result of an evolutionary process, but evolution is incapable of explaining everything about what life is, or how it started from nothing. It can theorize like anything else, but proof to that bugger of a question has been nagging mankind since the beginning, and every discovery since has only led to more questions that science is not capable of answering.
For example, if you were to find, disassemble and go over the details of the parts that make up a high-end Mercedes, their individual purpose in creating a more complex object could be derived and made sense of. If, however, someone were to say that the car was randomly created or the result of chance, that person would be considered ridiculous. On the same level, a single-celled organism is not just a black-boxed mystery made of "globs of stuff". It's complexity would easily surpass a lot of the machines we use from day to day, and none of those machines are even capable of antonymous movement, self-sustaining consumption or reproduction. While a car is much different from a cell because a car is most certainly not alive, I draw my comparison based on the fact that a single celled organism AND that car did not exist at one point. Yes, they are both complex. Yes, the cell is more complex and can autonomously do things the car cannot because it is living. My question, how the hell did something like a cell come from non-living things and somehow become more than the sum of its parts? If I ever found the car as it exists now naturally (assuming I lived in a world where cars didn't exist), no one in their right mind would ever assume that it was a result of Natural Law.
Some people have expressed frustration and downright anger at me in the past for using the words "random" or "chance" when discussing such matters. Their reason was because the more I would deem any result of incremental steps leading to an evolutionary divergence as a random event (even random mutation), the more it would make the person I was discussing this with more and more uncomfortable because truly random events are not a plausible scientific building blocks for discussing an orderly and repeatable scientific process. To those people I would suggest this: Don't get hung up on the use of the words chance or random. Just do what scientists have done elsewhere by expressing them in more colorful euphemisms - such as saying 'mutation', 'alteration', 'modification', 'permutation' or 'variation'. Or my favorite...'Luck'. Yes, if I drop something gravity pulls it. If I break an egg I cannot pick it up and have it whole again. Those are observable laws. My question, how did those perfectly balanced and precise laws come from nothing?
The Big Bang theory believes that before the the universe existed, the sum of all matter was contained in a single, focused singularity that suddenly exploded. Prior to the universe existing...what we know as matter and energy were far different than they are perceived as now. All of the natural laws of nature that we know of and attempt to comprehend...from the physical to mathematical - simply did not exist. What also did not exist was life.
Some theories claim that life is an inevitable part of the existence of the universe, but when you delve into how complex the structure of DNA is, how synchronized and perfectly placed those pieces of the puzzle are, it is not an unreasonable thing to question how something that can arise from chaotic chance. I am a software engineer, and I can assure you of several things: First, a blank slate (such as a finite -state machine such as a computer or a pre-life universe) has no order or innate intelligence behind it. Second, any and all parts within would have to bend to the will of constraints imposed by the limitations of it's creation, meaning that both a computer and the universe can not do anything beyond either the will of it's user or the limits imposed on the nature of it's design.
Any software engineer knows right up front that when it comes to creating orderly, sustainable, reusable and practical source code - there are NO free features. Anything that encompasses what a program can do, how it interacts with information or when, where and why it executes any instruction is completely beholden to the logical constraints placed on it by the developer. Hence, a program can never make a mistake; it is doing exactly what it was designed to do (intentionally or unintentionally).
Consider the following: No matter how good the developer is, he is going to make mistakes. Any mistake, no matter how trivial - can hamper or completely ruin the viability of a program. He is going to have to go back and fix them.
Now imagine telling a developer that they had to create a program with the same amount of complexity of the most simplest of DNA structures for the most simple of lifeforms...with all of the future adaptobility of that program being planned ahead of time in it's design...except they had to get it right the first time and they only got one shot to get it perfect from the beginning. Also imagine that if the developer made a mistake, he didn't get a chance to start against from scratch - the task would go to a totally different person, and those same rules were passed on infinitum.
The odds of one person creating something so massively complex and antonymous without a single error or miscalculation would be mathematically impossible, but we are all expected to believe that life started out in such a manner when DNA spontaneously created itself from random poteins and amino acids combining to form the first DNA helix.
Human beings are intelligent, crafty and practical. Our sense of discovery, determination and imagination have surpassed anything that has ever existed on this planet. Despite everything we have going for us, we cannot (even with the use of all scientific knowledge and machines to assist us) create biological life from nothing, even the most simple of lifeforms. It's not that we're stupid or don't have good ideas. We can create things that mimic life, but unlike true life forms - anything we attempt to mimic is confined and constrained by the parameters of how we interpret life or define what life is. Random creation, if we are going to use that as our model - has no such limitations.
These are the things that have made me convinced that there is a God.
If I were to demand here and now under the penalty of death to every scientist in the world that they give me proof that life existed outside of our planet, every scientist would be dead, because no such proof exists. Yet, I believe it exists anyway. My reason is because since life exists on our planet, it would have a wonderful opportunity to exist elsewhere. On that note, look at the people who participate in purely scientific endeavors like the S.E.T.I. project. These poor souls have absolutely nothing going in their favor. They search, look and listen intently for any sign of life outside our planet despite the overwhelming odds that make the likelihood of any such discovery a fool's hope. They are treated as abused mascots by the scientific community because all of their work has not produced anything tangible. Their work is constantly under-funded and under-appreciated. They are also overworked and underpaid. In an ultimate example of irony - everything they do is based on the exact same principle that is the hallmark of all religious beliefs: Faith.
The belief in a Creator has been with mankind for as long as recorded history, and despite thousands and thousands of years of agonizingly slow technological advancement or the inability to record and save information for future generations (outside of word of mouth), our ancestors ascended with and passed on a belief in something greater than ourselves, looking at the world with the awe that comes from an inborn desire to seek out and understand our place in it. That is how I perceive the consciousness of the human soul, and I cannot deduce that something so beautiful can be a part of something unplanned.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
All talk and no action.
In the past few weeks, former Vice President Dick Cheney has been making the rounds conducting some interviews. Much to the shock and rage of liberals everywhere, Cheney is not hiding or backing down from his beliefs - but rather he is articulating a no-holds-barred defense of his and President Bush's record regarding the Iraq War and economic issues. He has even had the audacity to cite how the current actions and inactions of the TOTUS are endangering Americans. This renewed set of appearances and defense has prompted liberals to once again scream for the prosecution of the former VP and President on "War Crimes".
Since the war started six years ago, we have heard this call for executive prosecution countless times. Not just from individuals on the blogosphere, mind you - we've also heard it from liberal members of the House and Senate. Yet, despite having the majority since 2006 - neither the Senate or House made a single move to hold President Bush accountable for any crime whatsoever. In fact, one of Nanzi Pelozi's first actions as Speaker of the House was to proclaim that impeachment was off the table. Likewise, President Obama - after promising his minions a reversal of the Patriot Act and executive powers used by President Bush during his terms - has refused to reverse or give up any of executive powers he inherited, and now has even defended keeping previously enacted executive powers because they offer him flexibility.
This has always left people with a boggled mind asking themselves: Why didn't (or why won't) democrats go after President Bush and VP Cheney for any of the alleged "crimes" for which they are supposedly guilty of?
"Why" they do not do anything about charging President Bush or VP Cheney for anything is simple:
After the democrats lost the House and Senate in 1994, their prospects for getting either branch back looked bleak for many years. When democrats signed off on the Iraq war, they purposefully made the calculated decision to leverage any bad news about the war to their political advantage. That negativity is what re-energized their base. They will never admit it, but had the Iraq war never happened and none of the negative aspects that it lent to Bush's presidency never occurred, Republicans would probably still be running both the House and Senate and President Bush's popularity numbers would never have been pulverized by the negativity foisted on him because of the war. Outside of criticizing the Iraq war, democrats had very little to go on.
Politically, Americans have always had short attention spans, and there are a lot of people who run around acting as if none of the counter-intelligence information that President Clinton or his liberal cohorts in the House and Senate had cited during the 90's about Iraq ever occurred. Democrats have persuaded a large portion of their uninformed followers that any covert information cited by President Bush was conjured up out of thin air and had never been presented or cited prior to his administration doing so. They have even tried to assert that information was cherry picked for it's effectiveness, regardless of the number of sources providing it. None of that is true. Given that the lefts' most gifted moonbats have run around for years making outrageous claims that the President orchestrated and arranged for the plane crashes and "demolition" of the World Trade Center, it lends a lot to their credit for purposefully whipping their base into a mindless frenzy based on false impressions they have purposefully created through the assistance of an enabling media.
If democrats were to actually act on any of their accusations towards President Bush, it would also mean that their (the democrats) full record of knowledge, support, culpability and all historical references regarding all aspects of the Iraq war would immediately be called front and center into the American political stage when the former administration would make their case. The absolute last thing the democrats want to do is give President Bush any opportunity or excuse to speak out and shove the official record back up their liberal asses. President Bush being *accused* of being a "war criminal" is far more useful for them than their having to actually make a true case that they know would fail and cause them to lose face.
Given that President Obama has already sold out his most ardent anti-war supporters by expanding the war in Afghanistan and refusal to relinquish powers he previously hailed as being unconstitutional, one wonders...how long it will be before any of his star-struck followers blinks and wake up to the reality that they were sold a bill of goods?
***UPDATE***
Here is another person who examines the same issue...
Since the war started six years ago, we have heard this call for executive prosecution countless times. Not just from individuals on the blogosphere, mind you - we've also heard it from liberal members of the House and Senate. Yet, despite having the majority since 2006 - neither the Senate or House made a single move to hold President Bush accountable for any crime whatsoever. In fact, one of Nanzi Pelozi's first actions as Speaker of the House was to proclaim that impeachment was off the table. Likewise, President Obama - after promising his minions a reversal of the Patriot Act and executive powers used by President Bush during his terms - has refused to reverse or give up any of executive powers he inherited, and now has even defended keeping previously enacted executive powers because they offer him flexibility.
This has always left people with a boggled mind asking themselves: Why didn't (or why won't) democrats go after President Bush and VP Cheney for any of the alleged "crimes" for which they are supposedly guilty of?
"Why" they do not do anything about charging President Bush or VP Cheney for anything is simple:
After the democrats lost the House and Senate in 1994, their prospects for getting either branch back looked bleak for many years. When democrats signed off on the Iraq war, they purposefully made the calculated decision to leverage any bad news about the war to their political advantage. That negativity is what re-energized their base. They will never admit it, but had the Iraq war never happened and none of the negative aspects that it lent to Bush's presidency never occurred, Republicans would probably still be running both the House and Senate and President Bush's popularity numbers would never have been pulverized by the negativity foisted on him because of the war. Outside of criticizing the Iraq war, democrats had very little to go on.
Politically, Americans have always had short attention spans, and there are a lot of people who run around acting as if none of the counter-intelligence information that President Clinton or his liberal cohorts in the House and Senate had cited during the 90's about Iraq ever occurred. Democrats have persuaded a large portion of their uninformed followers that any covert information cited by President Bush was conjured up out of thin air and had never been presented or cited prior to his administration doing so. They have even tried to assert that information was cherry picked for it's effectiveness, regardless of the number of sources providing it. None of that is true. Given that the lefts' most gifted moonbats have run around for years making outrageous claims that the President orchestrated and arranged for the plane crashes and "demolition" of the World Trade Center, it lends a lot to their credit for purposefully whipping their base into a mindless frenzy based on false impressions they have purposefully created through the assistance of an enabling media.
If democrats were to actually act on any of their accusations towards President Bush, it would also mean that their (the democrats) full record of knowledge, support, culpability and all historical references regarding all aspects of the Iraq war would immediately be called front and center into the American political stage when the former administration would make their case. The absolute last thing the democrats want to do is give President Bush any opportunity or excuse to speak out and shove the official record back up their liberal asses. President Bush being *accused* of being a "war criminal" is far more useful for them than their having to actually make a true case that they know would fail and cause them to lose face.
Given that President Obama has already sold out his most ardent anti-war supporters by expanding the war in Afghanistan and refusal to relinquish powers he previously hailed as being unconstitutional, one wonders...how long it will be before any of his star-struck followers blinks and wake up to the reality that they were sold a bill of goods?
***UPDATE***
Here is another person who examines the same issue...
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Why I won't watch the Inauguration
Today is Inauguration Day, and as Barrack Obama is officially sworn in as our 44th President, I will not be watching a single moment of the event. The initial response to such a declaration is obviously going to be that I am suffering from a case of Sour Grapes, but that would not be true.
Aside from the souring of the Republican brand, an unpopular incumbent Republican President and John McCain's stark brilliance in running an absolutely lousy campaign, Barrack Obama must be given credit for rising to the occasion and soundly beating his opponents. Running a successful campaign takes guts and raw stamina, and he demonstrated both.
As Inauguration Day approached, I began to reflect on my observations of past Presidential campaigns and events. I remember all the way back to Ronald Reagan's inauguration back in 1981, and I have been fortunate to see the celebration and coverage of every successful campaign since then. After careful consideration and reflection on how I felt about this past year in politics, it dawned on me that my negative reaction has nothing to do with Obama's election, Nanzi Pelozi, Harry Reid or even the democrat party as a whole.
After struggling for the past couple of months to coalesce my thoughts and feelings into a focused thread, I have come to realize that my sense of anger and absolute disgust is entirely the product of - and focused on - what we have come to call the "Mainstream Media".
The entire point of the Founder's reasoning behind the establishment of a free Press was to act as a watchdog of the government on behalf of the citizenry. The idea was that a fully informed citizenry would be educated on political issues of the day, thereby holding bad politicians accountable by them having to suffer the wrath of disillusioned voters who would subsequently remove them from power.
The Founders were brilliant men, but even their brilliance overlooked the worst possibility they could have envisioned: What would happen to the integrity of the checks and balances of government if the Press chose sides? Well, for at least the next four years, we're about to find out.
The coverage of this past election cycle has been the single largest case of journalistic malpractice ever foisted on a free society. I am not painting with a broad brush or stating it to be funny. I am dead serious. So serious, that I submit to you that if this malpractice was ever punishable by capital statute, the first order of business would be to send Oprah Winfrey, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and the rest of the liberal spam-monkeys at MSNBC, The New York Times, Time and Newsweek straight to the gas chambers. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200 dollars.
Let's take the Inauguration itself as a recent example. In the early part of his second term, President Bush celebrated with his second Inaugural party. The price tag: $40 Million dollars. The result? Numerous op-eds and opinion pieces criticizing the President for spending so much money on an Inauguration when we had troops fighting overseas. The cost of Barrack Obama's Inauguration? $170 Million dollars. The result? No "mainstream" media complaints, no calls for a reduction because of the troops being overseas or because our country is in dire economic times. No, we're told that now is the time when you want to display such celebration because it is so historical and raises the spirits of the country. Journalistic double-standard? Why, not at all!
The media has put Barrack Obama on such a high pedestal and has hung on his every word and action to such an extent that Moses' parting of the Red Sea would look like an amateur card trick in comparison to the advertised abilities of our next President. He was able to run a campaign on vague concepts such as Hope and Change, and instead of asking for - no, demanding specifics, he was lauded by the Press for running a campaign that captured the hearts of the American people by concerning himself and appealing to their needs, all while not getting mired in specifics. Whenever John McCain started highlighting or stated specific differences between their campaign or experiences, the press labeled McCain as erratic, desperate, grouchy, angry and unstable, while Barrack Obama was characterized as already "acting Presidential", calm, cool and collected. With that kind of positive coverage, why shouldn't he have acted cool? Obama himself said that at the moment when he accepted the nomination, it was the time when people would look back at that point and say "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Forget that such a claim demonstrates a line of thinking that is downright megalomaniacal and scary as hell in it's nature. It was far scarier that no one in the "mainstream" media saw fit to laugh him out of town for making such a ridiculous statement.
Today, Chris Mathews (who has been suffering from a near-terminal Man-Crush on our next President) will have to leave the Inauguration at least two times to change his shorts as a result of the "tingle" Obama gives him running too far up his legs. (Hey Chris, make sure you axe Obama if it was good for him, too.)
Regardless of how I feel about the media that helped get him there, Barrack Obama deserves his Inauguration and time in the sun, because he has rightfully earned it, and it would be wrong of me to deny or begrudge him his due as the result of his victory. What I will not do, however, is watch the media's coverage of the event. They have broken their Constitutional and journalistic duty to inform the American citizenry by taking their blatant bias to a never-before-seen level. As far as I am concerned, American journalism has less integrity and credibility than the BBC, Al Jazeera and Pravda.
Aside from the souring of the Republican brand, an unpopular incumbent Republican President and John McCain's stark brilliance in running an absolutely lousy campaign, Barrack Obama must be given credit for rising to the occasion and soundly beating his opponents. Running a successful campaign takes guts and raw stamina, and he demonstrated both.
As Inauguration Day approached, I began to reflect on my observations of past Presidential campaigns and events. I remember all the way back to Ronald Reagan's inauguration back in 1981, and I have been fortunate to see the celebration and coverage of every successful campaign since then. After careful consideration and reflection on how I felt about this past year in politics, it dawned on me that my negative reaction has nothing to do with Obama's election, Nanzi Pelozi, Harry Reid or even the democrat party as a whole.
After struggling for the past couple of months to coalesce my thoughts and feelings into a focused thread, I have come to realize that my sense of anger and absolute disgust is entirely the product of - and focused on - what we have come to call the "Mainstream Media".
The entire point of the Founder's reasoning behind the establishment of a free Press was to act as a watchdog of the government on behalf of the citizenry. The idea was that a fully informed citizenry would be educated on political issues of the day, thereby holding bad politicians accountable by them having to suffer the wrath of disillusioned voters who would subsequently remove them from power.
The Founders were brilliant men, but even their brilliance overlooked the worst possibility they could have envisioned: What would happen to the integrity of the checks and balances of government if the Press chose sides? Well, for at least the next four years, we're about to find out.
The coverage of this past election cycle has been the single largest case of journalistic malpractice ever foisted on a free society. I am not painting with a broad brush or stating it to be funny. I am dead serious. So serious, that I submit to you that if this malpractice was ever punishable by capital statute, the first order of business would be to send Oprah Winfrey, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and the rest of the liberal spam-monkeys at MSNBC, The New York Times, Time and Newsweek straight to the gas chambers. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200 dollars.
Let's take the Inauguration itself as a recent example. In the early part of his second term, President Bush celebrated with his second Inaugural party. The price tag: $40 Million dollars. The result? Numerous op-eds and opinion pieces criticizing the President for spending so much money on an Inauguration when we had troops fighting overseas. The cost of Barrack Obama's Inauguration? $170 Million dollars. The result? No "mainstream" media complaints, no calls for a reduction because of the troops being overseas or because our country is in dire economic times. No, we're told that now is the time when you want to display such celebration because it is so historical and raises the spirits of the country. Journalistic double-standard? Why, not at all!
The media has put Barrack Obama on such a high pedestal and has hung on his every word and action to such an extent that Moses' parting of the Red Sea would look like an amateur card trick in comparison to the advertised abilities of our next President. He was able to run a campaign on vague concepts such as Hope and Change, and instead of asking for - no, demanding specifics, he was lauded by the Press for running a campaign that captured the hearts of the American people by concerning himself and appealing to their needs, all while not getting mired in specifics. Whenever John McCain started highlighting or stated specific differences between their campaign or experiences, the press labeled McCain as erratic, desperate, grouchy, angry and unstable, while Barrack Obama was characterized as already "acting Presidential", calm, cool and collected. With that kind of positive coverage, why shouldn't he have acted cool? Obama himself said that at the moment when he accepted the nomination, it was the time when people would look back at that point and say "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." Forget that such a claim demonstrates a line of thinking that is downright megalomaniacal and scary as hell in it's nature. It was far scarier that no one in the "mainstream" media saw fit to laugh him out of town for making such a ridiculous statement.
Today, Chris Mathews (who has been suffering from a near-terminal Man-Crush on our next President) will have to leave the Inauguration at least two times to change his shorts as a result of the "tingle" Obama gives him running too far up his legs. (Hey Chris, make sure you axe Obama if it was good for him, too.)
Regardless of how I feel about the media that helped get him there, Barrack Obama deserves his Inauguration and time in the sun, because he has rightfully earned it, and it would be wrong of me to deny or begrudge him his due as the result of his victory. What I will not do, however, is watch the media's coverage of the event. They have broken their Constitutional and journalistic duty to inform the American citizenry by taking their blatant bias to a never-before-seen level. As far as I am concerned, American journalism has less integrity and credibility than the BBC, Al Jazeera and Pravda.
Friday, January 16, 2009
A Narrow Path
After his final address to the nation was complete, beltway pundits began exchanging predictions about what President Bushs' legacy would be. As predicted, liberals came out in droves and continued calling the President a war criminal...guilty of torture, murder and treason. By their one dimensional line of reasoning, the only thing Obama needs to do in order to make the country a virtual Utopia is to simply do the opposite of everything President Bush did.
Obama, while he is not nearly as brilliant or omniscient as his supporters claim he is, he is certainly not stupid, either. Besides knowing full well that the typical democrat party talking points that portrayed the President as a heartless monster was contrived, red meat fodder to feed their liberal cattle, he is also now doubtlessly privy to information that - if it was to ever become public - would embarrass and seriously damage the remaining credibility of anti-war moonbats everywhere. Obama is now in possession of inconvenient knowledge that makes it very difficult to deal with certain segments of his constituency. On one hand, he and other democrats have gained political power by exploiting the outrage and lunacy of some people who have embraced the lowest common denominator in politics. Likewise, they also know that those people have to be managed like a carefully orchestrated balancing act, because much of the base nature of their beliefs is not rooted in the facts.
At some point, when Obama decides to use more troops, continue detaining terrorists, not set a withdraw date, spy on foreign phone calls and act unilaterally, etc - he is going to start being assaulted by a lot of the people who put him in power. That will be a major problem, because of the potential use of the race card.
Obama could never have been elected without the votes of whites, but urban blacks who had never even seen a voting machine before came out in overwhelming numbers. This left them with a huge sense of pride and empowerment. They, in effect, see Obama's election as an achievement of theirs, not Obama himself.
Inevitably, when white liberals begin to voice strong opposition to Obama's decisions not to undo everything President Bush enacted or set into motion, the first instinctual reaction on the part of all of those urban blacks who would follow Obama off a cliff if he asked them will be to defend him at any cost. They as sure as night following the day will absolutely use the race card at some point. And liberal whites, having felt that they had purged themselves of the guilt associated with the past mistreatment of blacks by voting for Obama, will become extremely pissed off for being called racists for simply voicing disagreement with a President that just happens to be black. To give you a recent example of how quickly white liberals will turn on fellow black liberals, look at how quickly white homosexuals in California started dropping the N-Bomb as soon as religious blacks voted to defeat gay marriage.
Obama has to now take a path more narrow than the edge of a knife. If he reverses any of the actions and orders President Bush put into place, it will only take a single terrorist act made possible by a resulting lax in security to permanently shatter his mystique of infallibility. If he does what is necessary to win the war and acts responsibly, he throws every die-hard supporter over the cliff and must then deal with an internal civil war between the disaffected liberal supporters and the Obama loyalists who believe he is incapable of failure.
Obama, while he is not nearly as brilliant or omniscient as his supporters claim he is, he is certainly not stupid, either. Besides knowing full well that the typical democrat party talking points that portrayed the President as a heartless monster was contrived, red meat fodder to feed their liberal cattle, he is also now doubtlessly privy to information that - if it was to ever become public - would embarrass and seriously damage the remaining credibility of anti-war moonbats everywhere. Obama is now in possession of inconvenient knowledge that makes it very difficult to deal with certain segments of his constituency. On one hand, he and other democrats have gained political power by exploiting the outrage and lunacy of some people who have embraced the lowest common denominator in politics. Likewise, they also know that those people have to be managed like a carefully orchestrated balancing act, because much of the base nature of their beliefs is not rooted in the facts.
At some point, when Obama decides to use more troops, continue detaining terrorists, not set a withdraw date, spy on foreign phone calls and act unilaterally, etc - he is going to start being assaulted by a lot of the people who put him in power. That will be a major problem, because of the potential use of the race card.
Obama could never have been elected without the votes of whites, but urban blacks who had never even seen a voting machine before came out in overwhelming numbers. This left them with a huge sense of pride and empowerment. They, in effect, see Obama's election as an achievement of theirs, not Obama himself.
Inevitably, when white liberals begin to voice strong opposition to Obama's decisions not to undo everything President Bush enacted or set into motion, the first instinctual reaction on the part of all of those urban blacks who would follow Obama off a cliff if he asked them will be to defend him at any cost. They as sure as night following the day will absolutely use the race card at some point. And liberal whites, having felt that they had purged themselves of the guilt associated with the past mistreatment of blacks by voting for Obama, will become extremely pissed off for being called racists for simply voicing disagreement with a President that just happens to be black. To give you a recent example of how quickly white liberals will turn on fellow black liberals, look at how quickly white homosexuals in California started dropping the N-Bomb as soon as religious blacks voted to defeat gay marriage.
Obama has to now take a path more narrow than the edge of a knife. If he reverses any of the actions and orders President Bush put into place, it will only take a single terrorist act made possible by a resulting lax in security to permanently shatter his mystique of infallibility. If he does what is necessary to win the war and acts responsibly, he throws every die-hard supporter over the cliff and must then deal with an internal civil war between the disaffected liberal supporters and the Obama loyalists who believe he is incapable of failure.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
I'll be the Judge of that...
As a conservative, I am completely used to my opinions not sitting well with a large segment of our country. Long before Republicans attained sizable political power, the obvious differences in both politcal and social beliefs became very apparent to me once I left home to enter the professional workforce. I saw that a large portion of my conservative tendencies came from my upbringing, and I instinctively knew that certain actions and attitudes did not...and would not...fly in my household. Respect for your elders, knowing the value of an education and the value of the money you earn...and learning to be judgmental regarding the moral consequences of bad behavior were lessons that were reinforced every single day.
That's right, I said judgmental.
We are taught from an early age that being "judgmental" is wrong or a sign of moral turpitude. When we are presented with an opportunity to demonstrate some independence, people who want to encourage our actions coax us along by saying "Go on, we trust your judgment." Yet, when presented with a situation where genuine moral conflicts that negatively effect either ourselves or others occur, we are bombarded with denouncements where the prevaricator of bad behavior attacks his accusers with demands that they "not be so judgmental".
Our society functions because, in large part, people are capable of taking care of themselves and making positive judgment calls in day to day affairs. That means they look at any situation, define limits for themselves, determine what is right and wrong and render value judgments based on the actions or inactions of the people around them. Those that do this are responsible human beings.
Despite it being part of our everyday life, liberals regard the mere mention of judgment or the making of firm, committed decisions based on a moral compass not as demonstrating restraint, consideration or maturity, but rather the product of intolerance and hate. Even California, a state that is as liberal left as it can possibly get, defeated gay marriage. Yet the moment people considered the consequences and decided to draw a line at giving homosexuals the right to marry, homosexuals immediately attacked and hurled racial and ethnic slurs at the black and Hispanic communities and compared Mormonism to Nazism, who's long-standing religious beliefs saw such a move as an abomination. Open-mindedness and tolerance towards the beliefs of others, as it seems, is only meant to be a one-way political street.
Experience is the greatest teacher. From our first forays into public life and interacting with others, people define boundaries and set limits for themselves and those around them. Invariably, conflicts occur, and it from our successes and failures that we gain confidence in ourselves and our abilities. Believing in yourself is more than just a frame of mind, it is a state attained through a long process of trial and error, self-examination and correction. That is the process of attaining maturity.
If maturity arises from experiences related to resolving conflict, learning from mistakes and making good choices, then consider what we have allowed the government sponsored teachers unions to do to our kids:
Children in our public school systems are now routinely insulated from having to make any of the decisions or deal with any of the problems people routinely encounter on the path to adulthood. Schools have created artificial "bully free" zones. Punishments or discipline can never involve shame or humiliation. Cheating has been reduced in most cases to a minor offense where the most the student has to worry about is the failing mark for the test they were caught cheating on. Teachers are not allowed to enforce discipline beyond asking nicely or handing out detentions. Homework is not nearly as difficult. The dress code is often lax. Let's also not forget the obvious - that educational standards for mathematics, science and history are among the lowest for industrialized nations.
All of these examples can be directly tied to a perverse culture that demeans and belittles value judgments and the people who make them, and subsequently seeks to insulate kids from the very experiences that will aid them into becoming responsible adults. Creating artificial bully-free zones discourages self-defense and people settling their own differences by promoting a false nation that your own protection and value is to be managed and determined by someone else. It also leave kids unprepared as to how to deal with difficult and unsavory people on their own. The lack of shame and humiliation on students who are punished for bad conduct comes from the morally relativistic idea that imposing harsher punishment produces and promotes more bad behavior. Cheating is treated as being passe because of the group-think mentality that promotes the idea that "everyone does it". Teachers cannot enforce strict discipline because schools are supposed to teach, not "tell how my kids are supposed to act!". Homework has become viewed as just another punishment that is leveraged as a tool to control kids. The dress code has been downplayed as just another prudish way of telling people what to do, with no redeeming value. Downplaying the value of mathematics, science and history has been done by teachers to make their jobs easier. All three of those subjects are bound by facts, not feelings. Since teachers are more at home with promoting relativistic ideas such as philosophy or debate over subjects where there is only one true correct answer, promoting those subjects is subtly discouraged. Is it any wonder that the moment you hand a teenager behind the register a few extra coins to make exact change, talk about science or use historical context to make a point...their eyes glaze over?
I remember when my father, who was beside himself over the average report card I brought home one semester, threw me into the truck and took me on a tour of depressed neighborhoods. I saw the run down houses, and often we would see able-bodied people sitting on their porches with beers in their hands, all of them slovenly dressed. He verbally laid into me harder than any other time in memory, and what sticks out the most was his descriptions of the people we passed by. He called some of them "bums", he used the word "lazy" a lot, and even referred to one unshaven guy running around in his wife-beater as an "animal". He said that people make bad decisions in life and have to pay a price for those mistakes. He then took me on a tour of some really nice houses, and bet me money that the people living there had good educations, worked hard and made good choices. At no time for either class of people did he ever use the word "luck" to describe the most likely cause of their fortunes.
Years later, I looked back at that day and realized that it was one of the most profound moments in my life. I saw it as a day where from that point on, I never looked at people or myself in the same fashion. I also realized that, by today's counter-culture standards - liberals would regard what my father did for me that day as barbaric and insensitive. As they would claim, my father would have had no right to call anyone a bum or lazy because he had never been a lazy bum. What that experience did was firmly cement two strikingly powerful ideas in my mind:
- My life is not the result of someone elses' responsibility or lack thereof.
- Value judgments are the bedrock of good decisions.
When liberals try to use the biblical phrase of "Judge not, lest ye be judged" often in a last ditch effort to diffuse the argument of conservatives they disagree with by trying to make appeals to their religious beliefs, they are intentionally leaving out the context of the warning. Using only Mathew 7:1 is entirely incomplete, as this passage is not speaking to not judging at all, but rather it is speaking to not judging others in an unfair light, or any other cheap and selfish way.
Being judgmental does not mean that one is unwilling or unable to hear another point of view or understand where an adversary stands on an issue. Being judgmental is the act of being able to make decisions based upon the perceived pros and cons associated with different choices, and based on that set of choices, make the one that has the most benefit and causes the least amount of harm to others. It is impossible to do the right thing for yourself and others without being able to dispassionately cut through watered-down notions of right and wrong by being firmly rooted in the truth about who you are.
I was never given a better gift, and I can think of no greater gift I could give to my children.
That's right, I said judgmental.
We are taught from an early age that being "judgmental" is wrong or a sign of moral turpitude. When we are presented with an opportunity to demonstrate some independence, people who want to encourage our actions coax us along by saying "Go on, we trust your judgment." Yet, when presented with a situation where genuine moral conflicts that negatively effect either ourselves or others occur, we are bombarded with denouncements where the prevaricator of bad behavior attacks his accusers with demands that they "not be so judgmental".
Our society functions because, in large part, people are capable of taking care of themselves and making positive judgment calls in day to day affairs. That means they look at any situation, define limits for themselves, determine what is right and wrong and render value judgments based on the actions or inactions of the people around them. Those that do this are responsible human beings.
Despite it being part of our everyday life, liberals regard the mere mention of judgment or the making of firm, committed decisions based on a moral compass not as demonstrating restraint, consideration or maturity, but rather the product of intolerance and hate. Even California, a state that is as liberal left as it can possibly get, defeated gay marriage. Yet the moment people considered the consequences and decided to draw a line at giving homosexuals the right to marry, homosexuals immediately attacked and hurled racial and ethnic slurs at the black and Hispanic communities and compared Mormonism to Nazism, who's long-standing religious beliefs saw such a move as an abomination. Open-mindedness and tolerance towards the beliefs of others, as it seems, is only meant to be a one-way political street.
Experience is the greatest teacher. From our first forays into public life and interacting with others, people define boundaries and set limits for themselves and those around them. Invariably, conflicts occur, and it from our successes and failures that we gain confidence in ourselves and our abilities. Believing in yourself is more than just a frame of mind, it is a state attained through a long process of trial and error, self-examination and correction. That is the process of attaining maturity.
If maturity arises from experiences related to resolving conflict, learning from mistakes and making good choices, then consider what we have allowed the government sponsored teachers unions to do to our kids:
Children in our public school systems are now routinely insulated from having to make any of the decisions or deal with any of the problems people routinely encounter on the path to adulthood. Schools have created artificial "bully free" zones. Punishments or discipline can never involve shame or humiliation. Cheating has been reduced in most cases to a minor offense where the most the student has to worry about is the failing mark for the test they were caught cheating on. Teachers are not allowed to enforce discipline beyond asking nicely or handing out detentions. Homework is not nearly as difficult. The dress code is often lax. Let's also not forget the obvious - that educational standards for mathematics, science and history are among the lowest for industrialized nations.
All of these examples can be directly tied to a perverse culture that demeans and belittles value judgments and the people who make them, and subsequently seeks to insulate kids from the very experiences that will aid them into becoming responsible adults. Creating artificial bully-free zones discourages self-defense and people settling their own differences by promoting a false nation that your own protection and value is to be managed and determined by someone else. It also leave kids unprepared as to how to deal with difficult and unsavory people on their own. The lack of shame and humiliation on students who are punished for bad conduct comes from the morally relativistic idea that imposing harsher punishment produces and promotes more bad behavior. Cheating is treated as being passe because of the group-think mentality that promotes the idea that "everyone does it". Teachers cannot enforce strict discipline because schools are supposed to teach, not "tell how my kids are supposed to act!". Homework has become viewed as just another punishment that is leveraged as a tool to control kids. The dress code has been downplayed as just another prudish way of telling people what to do, with no redeeming value. Downplaying the value of mathematics, science and history has been done by teachers to make their jobs easier. All three of those subjects are bound by facts, not feelings. Since teachers are more at home with promoting relativistic ideas such as philosophy or debate over subjects where there is only one true correct answer, promoting those subjects is subtly discouraged. Is it any wonder that the moment you hand a teenager behind the register a few extra coins to make exact change, talk about science or use historical context to make a point...their eyes glaze over?
I remember when my father, who was beside himself over the average report card I brought home one semester, threw me into the truck and took me on a tour of depressed neighborhoods. I saw the run down houses, and often we would see able-bodied people sitting on their porches with beers in their hands, all of them slovenly dressed. He verbally laid into me harder than any other time in memory, and what sticks out the most was his descriptions of the people we passed by. He called some of them "bums", he used the word "lazy" a lot, and even referred to one unshaven guy running around in his wife-beater as an "animal". He said that people make bad decisions in life and have to pay a price for those mistakes. He then took me on a tour of some really nice houses, and bet me money that the people living there had good educations, worked hard and made good choices. At no time for either class of people did he ever use the word "luck" to describe the most likely cause of their fortunes.
Years later, I looked back at that day and realized that it was one of the most profound moments in my life. I saw it as a day where from that point on, I never looked at people or myself in the same fashion. I also realized that, by today's counter-culture standards - liberals would regard what my father did for me that day as barbaric and insensitive. As they would claim, my father would have had no right to call anyone a bum or lazy because he had never been a lazy bum. What that experience did was firmly cement two strikingly powerful ideas in my mind:
- My life is not the result of someone elses' responsibility or lack thereof.
- Value judgments are the bedrock of good decisions.
When liberals try to use the biblical phrase of "Judge not, lest ye be judged" often in a last ditch effort to diffuse the argument of conservatives they disagree with by trying to make appeals to their religious beliefs, they are intentionally leaving out the context of the warning. Using only Mathew 7:1 is entirely incomplete, as this passage is not speaking to not judging at all, but rather it is speaking to not judging others in an unfair light, or any other cheap and selfish way.
Being judgmental does not mean that one is unwilling or unable to hear another point of view or understand where an adversary stands on an issue. Being judgmental is the act of being able to make decisions based upon the perceived pros and cons associated with different choices, and based on that set of choices, make the one that has the most benefit and causes the least amount of harm to others. It is impossible to do the right thing for yourself and others without being able to dispassionately cut through watered-down notions of right and wrong by being firmly rooted in the truth about who you are.
I was never given a better gift, and I can think of no greater gift I could give to my children.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Merry Christmas
Over the years that I matured, I vacillated back and forth with faith in the divine. As I wavered between full blown atheism, agnosticism and Catholicism, I tried to keep my mind open to the possibilities of what life was about; all the while trying to see the subtle details that we tend to overlook. I wanted, like anyone else, to know the truth, whatever it was.
My initial problems stemmed from my lack of inspiration in attending mass. I simply could not get excited about reading scriptures or discussing biblical lessons in CCD. When you're young, all you want is...well...whatever it is that you want at the time. Trying to take scripture and interpret it into my daily life just didn't make sense. I started going to church less and less.
Finally, I just stopped believing altogether.
When I was in college, I went to a fair with some of my friends, and on the way back to the parking lot, I encountered some Christians witnessing the Word to some people they met. They weren't making a lot of friends anytime fast, but people were mostly politely declining. Curiosity overcame me and I approached them. After I introduced myself, I gave them a brief history of what I knew and believed (and didn't believe). I asked the man who was the leader of the group about himself, mainly just wanting to know from him about how he came believe and have such a strong faith in some higher power he couldn't prove exists.
He was very frank in his answer. He was an abusive and unfaithful husband, a liar and a drinker. One day, he stopped and listened to a street preacher and realized there was another aspect of life he hadn't considered until that moment. Once he heard the Gospel and felt nothing but guilt and regret for his actions, he wanted to set his life right.
I asked him "If you knew the decisions you made in your life were wrong and hurting yourself and others, why not simply change because it's the right thing to do?"
He responded with a question. "Under what authority do you determine what is right and wrong?"
"My common sense, my opinion, my..."
"...and what happens when your opinion conflicts with others who's opinions differ?"
"We argue."
"Then how do you settle who is right when you reach an impasse?"
After thinking about it for a few seconds, I just said that we'd have to agree to disagree. He just sighed and said "That is the inevitable result of what happens when what is right and wrong is defined by individual choice. I stopped making my own choices of what was moral and embraced God's Word."
I never forgot that exchange, and for a while my mind was open to the possibility of God.
A few years after I graduated, I was introduced to a nice girl who my cousin set me up with. We enjoyed spending time together, and both of her parents liked me. But her sister, a manic/depressive who had become a born again Christian after she was introduced to Prozac, began to undermine our relationship by getting my girlfriend to attend her church. They slowly ate away at her self confidence and initiative, eventually convincing her that I was a bad influence because of my Catholic upbringing. It was the first time in my life where it ever occurred to me that Christians of other denominations would undermine someone because they were Catholic. Seeing as our collective systems were all centered around Christ, I just couldn't figure out what the big deal was. That incident gave me a profound sense of distrust of Born Again Christians; not because they were different, but because I saw deceit in their methods. It frustrated me because the passion and strength of their beliefs was something I respected, and separating that aspect of their faith from the experience I had was difficult, and it left me shaken and doubtful.
Later, I watched my cousin, who had married a Jewish woman, not only suffer the pain of losing her to Hodgkins Disease, but also suffer the indignity of being insulted and mistreated by her family because he was not really Jewish. It didn't matter that he never left her side and never wavered in his devotion, or that he converted before they married. He never fully recovered from it, and after a few years of failing health, he died in his late 30's. I watched the happy horseshit he went through and it chapped my ass royally that in the end of his life, it seemed that all the aggravation and sacrifice he went through in the desire to appease the religious expectations of others had amounted to nothing. That turned me off to religion in a huge way, and my mind closed up again.
Then something happened I didn't expect. While I was working for Merrill Lynch, I met a person who, of all things...made me give up atheism altogether. He was the epitome of all the things that I had been taught were wrong. He was chronically dishonest , with people he worked with and even with people he regarded as his friends. He was boorish, crass, snobbish, elitist and demonstrated a massive ego.
Through the normal course of our days at work, we got to know each other. Invariably, the subject of religion came up, and I was quite surprised at how seemingly interested he was in hearing my thoughts on the subject. After hearing me out, he shrugged and told me that I had been wasting my time trying to find answers or hem and haw over finding meaning in everyday events. As he saw it, life was a brief flash that ended, and then there was nothing. When I tried to use an example by pointing out the consequences of a business deal he related earlier where a customer had effectively been ripped off after not getting what he paid for, he said "So what? Shit happens, he'll get over it."
When I expressed my incredulity at his response, he told me I needed to avoid the trap of looking at things in black and white.
Now, it was at this moment that the conversation I had with the man at the fair back in college came back to me, and I suddenly realized something that made me feel very uneasy. If my co-worker's concept of morality was just as justified by his own point of view as my own, then what he believed could never be wrong. If life did not continue beyond this, and there were no ultimate consequences to our actions, then nothing, no matter how horrible, beautiful, loving or hateful could ever...EVER mean anything.
While I know that my co-worker was no more a representative of all atheists as the Westboro Baptist Church is to all Christians, it left me aghast that a person who was otherwise intelligent and educated with an MBA could feel justified in acting the way he did. Then it occurred to me that what I saw as decency or a desire to do the right thing was not common sense or shared by everyone. Anyone who has ever had children have seen that, left to their own devices, kids will act selfishly, bully, tease and prey on others that show weakness. Concepts such as compassion, morality, selflessness and generosity are not inborn traits, but lessons that need to be learned, enforced and taught by example. A religious upbringing had given me a moral compass and center that continued to serve me in a positive way, even when I was too immature to appreciate it.
My negative experiences and observations of the consequences resulting from the extremes of both zealotry and secular hedonism made me a better person. I learned that I didn't have to become a fire and brimstone preacher to accept the simple message of forgiveness and love taught by Christ, nor did I have to give up reason and critical thinking just because I rejected the vapidness or moral malaise of secular humanism. That balance has made me a happier, successful and more well-rounded individual.
So it is in that good spirit and happiness that I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and God Bless us, everyone.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
The Ghost of Fitzmas Past
With the inevitable arrest of Governor Blagojevich of Illinois, there is, of course, a lot of speculation regarding the extent of Barrack Obama's relationship and communications with this product of the idiocy of Illinois voters. It has also brought about the opportunity for another sad example of political disingenuousness to once again rear its ugly head: Mr. Patrick Fitzgerald, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
In November of 2005, the political lexicon was treated to a new holiday: Fitzmas.
For those who need a reminder, Fitzmas was the embodiment of the irrational giddiness felt by liberal moonbats who sought to promote Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the Valerie Plame affair into a claim that the President conspired to leak the identity of a former CIA employee in order to smear her husband, the former ambassador Joseph Wilson, because he later criticized the grounds for the Iraq war.
But it didn't work out as they planned. The President wasn't indicted. Dick Cheney wasn't indicted. Karl Rove wasn't indicted. The leaker, much to the dismay of moonbats far and wide, was an employee of Colin Powell by the name of Richard Armitage. What was even worse was that Patrick Fitzgerald found out that it was Armitage a mere two weeks into an investigation that took the better part of two years.
Two years.
And what did Fitzgerald have to show for it? A process crime brought about during an investigation that should have ended two weeks after it started.
The moment Patrick Fitzgerald found out that it was Richard Armitage who confessed to leaking Plame's identity only two weeks into the investigation, the matter should have ended on the spot. Instead, he ignored Armitage and ends up prosecuting Libby because he asserted that Libby was lying when he could not answer for sure about exact dates and the order in which conversations took place, where they took place or what the circumstances were that initiated those conversations. Hell, couple that with asking for specific details on matters that are months or even years old, and you could probably convict virtually every person alive for giving answers that are incorrect or contradict one another.
Now, also understand this: The entire time that the investigation went on beyond that point, we were all treated to all manners of conspiracy theories about how this all came down as an order from the President and Vice-President! It was Karl Rove who did it! They tried to out Plame as revenge!
Only none of that was true.
The entire time that the Bush Administration was being accused of all manner of treasonous acts in outing a supposedly "covert" agent, Patrick Fitzgerald, knowing full well that it was Armitage, questioned Libby, Rove and other Administration officials at length regarding the details of who they spoke to and when...questions meant to find the answer he already had.
The worst part about this entire fiasco was that after all was said and done, with Libby hung out to dry, Fitzgerald closed the case, brought no charges against anyone else, pranced away and left the entire central focus of the investigation unpunished and abandoned. After the trial was ended, we were all treated to the confused and angry exclamations on the part of jurors about how they wanted to know why they weren't going after Rove, or what about questions regarding the war in Iraq? Why wasn't the President and VP charged with anything? Then after convicting Libby, a number of jurors came out and felt that Libby deserved to be pardoned!
If neither the President, VP or Rove were specifically under investigation, and the jury was informed by Fitzgerald as to who they were focusing the investigation on, where would a supposedly impartial jury get the idea that someone else was going to be brought to court, or ever expect questions be asked beyond the scope of the trial? It's simple: That DC jury went into that courtroom with expectations that were fostered by every moonbat conspiracy theory that had been feeding the media with speculation and baseless accusations for over two years. How many of you remember people claiming inside information that Rove was to be indicted any minute and Libby was going to turn in Cheney, only it turned out that all of it was bogus?
Liberals whipped their base into a frenzy and used this case as a foothold to point towards the "culture of corruption" platform that they used as a campaign slogan all the way up to the 2006 elections. They used it as a character attack on countless occasions against both the President and VP, knowing full well that because it involved an active judicial case, they were not allowed to comment on anything. There is little doubt that between this event and the outing of Mark Foley, you have the very foundation upon which the 2006 elections turned.
So the result? Armitage walked, Fitzgerald did nothing about it and not one person who made false accusations about Rove, Cheney or the President concerning this case ever got called on it, but what does the truth matter so long as you win elections, right?
Fitzgerald supposedly set out to find the leaker, found out early into the investigation that it was Armitage, then proceeded to conduct the whole affair as if he hadn't found what he was looking for to begin with.
Fitzgerald should have been disbarred and brought to trial for abusing his role as a prosecutor, as he acted in no less of a dishonorable manner than that other ass-bite, Mike NiFong, the democrat party District Attorney who intentionally sought to promote false charges of rape against innocent students of Duke University to secure the black vote during a close election. Upon close inspection, the two are virtually no different in that both prosecutors had evidence early into their investigations that showed that the premise for their investigations was unfounded, yet they refused to act on that evidence. One gets disbarred and the other prances away without even charging the guilty person for the so-called crime he was charged with finding.
So...for any of you conservatives out there looking to promote this guy now out of sense of SchadenFreude simply because he is taking out yet another corrupt liberal democrat from Illinois, just remember: Patrick Fitzgerald proved before that he is just another political hack from the same corrupt Illinois/Chicago political machine as Blagojevich. Fitzgerald told newspapers to sit on the story for months prior to the presidential election and intentionally closed the investigation sooner in order to prevent felonies from being committed. His abrupt ending of the investigation limited the number of counts against Blagojevich to such an extent that he only needed to post bail at an amount of less than $5000. Fitzgerald's timing in this haste arrest and the mad dash being made to impeach Blagojevich is yet another example of partisan, political expediency in the name of saving yet another liberal Illinois democrat from potential embarrassment and scandal: Barrack Hussein Obama.
In November of 2005, the political lexicon was treated to a new holiday: Fitzmas.
For those who need a reminder, Fitzmas was the embodiment of the irrational giddiness felt by liberal moonbats who sought to promote Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the Valerie Plame affair into a claim that the President conspired to leak the identity of a former CIA employee in order to smear her husband, the former ambassador Joseph Wilson, because he later criticized the grounds for the Iraq war.
But it didn't work out as they planned. The President wasn't indicted. Dick Cheney wasn't indicted. Karl Rove wasn't indicted. The leaker, much to the dismay of moonbats far and wide, was an employee of Colin Powell by the name of Richard Armitage. What was even worse was that Patrick Fitzgerald found out that it was Armitage a mere two weeks into an investigation that took the better part of two years.
Two years.
And what did Fitzgerald have to show for it? A process crime brought about during an investigation that should have ended two weeks after it started.
The moment Patrick Fitzgerald found out that it was Richard Armitage who confessed to leaking Plame's identity only two weeks into the investigation, the matter should have ended on the spot. Instead, he ignored Armitage and ends up prosecuting Libby because he asserted that Libby was lying when he could not answer for sure about exact dates and the order in which conversations took place, where they took place or what the circumstances were that initiated those conversations. Hell, couple that with asking for specific details on matters that are months or even years old, and you could probably convict virtually every person alive for giving answers that are incorrect or contradict one another.
Now, also understand this: The entire time that the investigation went on beyond that point, we were all treated to all manners of conspiracy theories about how this all came down as an order from the President and Vice-President! It was Karl Rove who did it! They tried to out Plame as revenge!
Only none of that was true.
The entire time that the Bush Administration was being accused of all manner of treasonous acts in outing a supposedly "covert" agent, Patrick Fitzgerald, knowing full well that it was Armitage, questioned Libby, Rove and other Administration officials at length regarding the details of who they spoke to and when...questions meant to find the answer he already had.
The worst part about this entire fiasco was that after all was said and done, with Libby hung out to dry, Fitzgerald closed the case, brought no charges against anyone else, pranced away and left the entire central focus of the investigation unpunished and abandoned. After the trial was ended, we were all treated to the confused and angry exclamations on the part of jurors about how they wanted to know why they weren't going after Rove, or what about questions regarding the war in Iraq? Why wasn't the President and VP charged with anything? Then after convicting Libby, a number of jurors came out and felt that Libby deserved to be pardoned!
If neither the President, VP or Rove were specifically under investigation, and the jury was informed by Fitzgerald as to who they were focusing the investigation on, where would a supposedly impartial jury get the idea that someone else was going to be brought to court, or ever expect questions be asked beyond the scope of the trial? It's simple: That DC jury went into that courtroom with expectations that were fostered by every moonbat conspiracy theory that had been feeding the media with speculation and baseless accusations for over two years. How many of you remember people claiming inside information that Rove was to be indicted any minute and Libby was going to turn in Cheney, only it turned out that all of it was bogus?
Liberals whipped their base into a frenzy and used this case as a foothold to point towards the "culture of corruption" platform that they used as a campaign slogan all the way up to the 2006 elections. They used it as a character attack on countless occasions against both the President and VP, knowing full well that because it involved an active judicial case, they were not allowed to comment on anything. There is little doubt that between this event and the outing of Mark Foley, you have the very foundation upon which the 2006 elections turned.
So the result? Armitage walked, Fitzgerald did nothing about it and not one person who made false accusations about Rove, Cheney or the President concerning this case ever got called on it, but what does the truth matter so long as you win elections, right?
Fitzgerald supposedly set out to find the leaker, found out early into the investigation that it was Armitage, then proceeded to conduct the whole affair as if he hadn't found what he was looking for to begin with.
Fitzgerald should have been disbarred and brought to trial for abusing his role as a prosecutor, as he acted in no less of a dishonorable manner than that other ass-bite, Mike NiFong, the democrat party District Attorney who intentionally sought to promote false charges of rape against innocent students of Duke University to secure the black vote during a close election. Upon close inspection, the two are virtually no different in that both prosecutors had evidence early into their investigations that showed that the premise for their investigations was unfounded, yet they refused to act on that evidence. One gets disbarred and the other prances away without even charging the guilty person for the so-called crime he was charged with finding.
So...for any of you conservatives out there looking to promote this guy now out of sense of SchadenFreude simply because he is taking out yet another corrupt liberal democrat from Illinois, just remember: Patrick Fitzgerald proved before that he is just another political hack from the same corrupt Illinois/Chicago political machine as Blagojevich. Fitzgerald told newspapers to sit on the story for months prior to the presidential election and intentionally closed the investigation sooner in order to prevent felonies from being committed. His abrupt ending of the investigation limited the number of counts against Blagojevich to such an extent that he only needed to post bail at an amount of less than $5000. Fitzgerald's timing in this haste arrest and the mad dash being made to impeach Blagojevich is yet another example of partisan, political expediency in the name of saving yet another liberal Illinois democrat from potential embarrassment and scandal: Barrack Hussein Obama.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Republicans got off easy...
In the aftermath of a Presidential election, it's natural for the losing side to do some soul searching. No longer burdened with worrying about the election itself, people tend to open up and admit to themselves where the faults in their political party exist. That is indeed unfortunate, because while the lessons you learn in defeat are helpful in reassessing what you stand for and what you want to achieve, it also means not having the power to implement your policy and correct your mistakes.
For me, this election cycle was one that I watched with morbid fascination. I remember how I felt after the 2004 elections, reading a story about how shortly after President Bush won a second term, liberals were depressed, sullen and not even close to gaining back the House and Senate, let alone reclaiming the Whitehouse. Some felt so lost that a John Kerry supporter went to the former site of the World Trade Center and shot himself in the head in protest. I look back at the 2004 election and just can't help but marvel at how...in politics...nothing is set in stone. In less than four years, Republicans managed to lose the House, Senate, Presidency, a majority of Governorships and public confidence in their policies on National Defense, Taxes and Fiscal Discipline, the bedrock of conservatism itself.
Now, I knew that Republicans stood no chance at winning the Whitehouse when John McCain became our nominee. Once again, Republicans...in their unwillingness to admit that sometimes its OK to piss off liberals and not try to be their friends...allowed democrats and liberal independents to use the open primary system in lots of states to vote for non-conservative candidates. John McCain represents to me the exact type of person Republicans had to get rid off. President Bush had spent a majority of the second term of his Presidency acting like a liberal democrat, and here the Republicans had chosen the most liberal of the candidates we as Republicans had to choose from. Let's not kid ourselves, either, they were all liberals: Romney, Huckabee, Guliani, McCain...none of them were interested in promoting conservatism as a whole. McCain was such a bad candidate that he was trailing in the polls until he selected a running mate that actually spoke directly to the American people and acted like a conservative. Gov. Sarah Palin is everything McCain was not. She is young, attractive, focused, fun, a well-polished orator and was the only one who showed determination to win and draw huge crowds. For a short time, things looked a lot better for the Republicans, that is until the Subprime meltdown. That was the final nail in the our coffin.
To say what happened on November 4th was a disaster would be kind. The election of Barrack Hussein Obama was a complete refutation to Republicans and conservatives alike. It was nothing short of the most embarrassing, shameful and humiliating political experience that I have ever witnessed. We, as a political force, have simply been dismissed. I certainly can't blame voters for throwing Republicans off the bridge, because if someone came into my house and tore it up the way Republicans have dismantled the principles it once stood for, they'd be in the trunk of my car with a shovel headed for the Pine Barrons of New Jersey...
As bad as it all sounds, I can only think of one scenario that would have been worse: What if John McCain had won?
In an earlier article, I had outlined the dangers of Political Paralysis. In short, it is the combination of having a member of your party consistently go against its core principles in favor of appeasing your political enemies, refusing to be partisan and leaving supports in a state where they can neither defend themselves or support their candidate.
In my opinion, John McCain goes against Republicans so often because his experience with being tortured by the filthy Vietnamese animals who held him captive left him in a mental state that meant being at odds with your enemies causes pain. Cooperation, on the other hand - led to better treatment. So, when liberals at the NY Times routinely praised McCain and gave him special treatment because he attacked his own party and the President, he was ill equipped to have the mental strength to engage in a on-on-one partisan fist fight. Barrack Obama had so many political weaknesses and flaws that prior to Bill Clinton becoming President, he never would have been someone that an active politician would have been comfortable saying he knew, let alone become the nominee and winner of the Presidency. If I had been running, I would have called Obama on every weakness he had and made him look like the political joke he actually is. Win or lose, I would have said in no uncertain terms that Obama was a liar; a liar who in fact comes from a corrupt state that is exclusively run and controlled by corrupt liars. McCain did none of that, perhaps a half-hearted attempt at it in the end, but nothing significant. He demonstrated in the end that he didn't have the stomach or heart in victory, because doing so meant having to draw a line in the sand and paint your opponent for the fraud that he is.
If John McCain had won, we would be left once again in the position we have been in for the past 4 years. We would have to spend all of our resources on defense, clawing back at liberals who would paint McCain as a doddering old man and trashing the actions, words and family of Sarah Palin. We would have cringed and held our heads screaming every single time McCain "worked together with Democrats" and allowed our Party to be the wholesale sponsors of the sick, creeping doom of Socialism. He would, in effect, have been treated NO DIFFERENTLY and with LESS RESPECT than President Bush and would have to contend with a liberal electorate and press who would be more uncivil and more biased than they have been for the past few years, and that is difficult to comprehend.
Recently, on the political boards I attend, a liberal started asking Republicans what they thought about a certain issue, and when I responded that what Republicans think doesn't matter anymore because we do not have any more political power, he was uneasy to say the least. He wanted to argue in the same manner he had for years taking pot shots at Republicans for taking ANY stand on ANY issue, but when hit with the realization that liberals were now left in a position akin to a child standing alone in the park with his ball and nobody to throw it back to him, the idea of actually leading and being responsible for decisions and their consequences does not seem quite so easy.
When you have a lot to lose and watch helplessly for years as more and more of what you have is taken away despite your efforts, it is painful beyond words to lose in spite of your attempts to keep what you have. Once you have lost it all, however, there is a certain peace that comes to mind because once you have nothing, you are keenly aware of what you've lost, what is important to you and how you plan on getting it back. Republicans have to figure out if they are going to remain Democrat-Lite or grow a set of balls and stand for something worth voting for.
For me, this election cycle was one that I watched with morbid fascination. I remember how I felt after the 2004 elections, reading a story about how shortly after President Bush won a second term, liberals were depressed, sullen and not even close to gaining back the House and Senate, let alone reclaiming the Whitehouse. Some felt so lost that a John Kerry supporter went to the former site of the World Trade Center and shot himself in the head in protest. I look back at the 2004 election and just can't help but marvel at how...in politics...nothing is set in stone. In less than four years, Republicans managed to lose the House, Senate, Presidency, a majority of Governorships and public confidence in their policies on National Defense, Taxes and Fiscal Discipline, the bedrock of conservatism itself.
Now, I knew that Republicans stood no chance at winning the Whitehouse when John McCain became our nominee. Once again, Republicans...in their unwillingness to admit that sometimes its OK to piss off liberals and not try to be their friends...allowed democrats and liberal independents to use the open primary system in lots of states to vote for non-conservative candidates. John McCain represents to me the exact type of person Republicans had to get rid off. President Bush had spent a majority of the second term of his Presidency acting like a liberal democrat, and here the Republicans had chosen the most liberal of the candidates we as Republicans had to choose from. Let's not kid ourselves, either, they were all liberals: Romney, Huckabee, Guliani, McCain...none of them were interested in promoting conservatism as a whole. McCain was such a bad candidate that he was trailing in the polls until he selected a running mate that actually spoke directly to the American people and acted like a conservative. Gov. Sarah Palin is everything McCain was not. She is young, attractive, focused, fun, a well-polished orator and was the only one who showed determination to win and draw huge crowds. For a short time, things looked a lot better for the Republicans, that is until the Subprime meltdown. That was the final nail in the our coffin.
To say what happened on November 4th was a disaster would be kind. The election of Barrack Hussein Obama was a complete refutation to Republicans and conservatives alike. It was nothing short of the most embarrassing, shameful and humiliating political experience that I have ever witnessed. We, as a political force, have simply been dismissed. I certainly can't blame voters for throwing Republicans off the bridge, because if someone came into my house and tore it up the way Republicans have dismantled the principles it once stood for, they'd be in the trunk of my car with a shovel headed for the Pine Barrons of New Jersey...
As bad as it all sounds, I can only think of one scenario that would have been worse: What if John McCain had won?
In an earlier article, I had outlined the dangers of Political Paralysis. In short, it is the combination of having a member of your party consistently go against its core principles in favor of appeasing your political enemies, refusing to be partisan and leaving supports in a state where they can neither defend themselves or support their candidate.
In my opinion, John McCain goes against Republicans so often because his experience with being tortured by the filthy Vietnamese animals who held him captive left him in a mental state that meant being at odds with your enemies causes pain. Cooperation, on the other hand - led to better treatment. So, when liberals at the NY Times routinely praised McCain and gave him special treatment because he attacked his own party and the President, he was ill equipped to have the mental strength to engage in a on-on-one partisan fist fight. Barrack Obama had so many political weaknesses and flaws that prior to Bill Clinton becoming President, he never would have been someone that an active politician would have been comfortable saying he knew, let alone become the nominee and winner of the Presidency. If I had been running, I would have called Obama on every weakness he had and made him look like the political joke he actually is. Win or lose, I would have said in no uncertain terms that Obama was a liar; a liar who in fact comes from a corrupt state that is exclusively run and controlled by corrupt liars. McCain did none of that, perhaps a half-hearted attempt at it in the end, but nothing significant. He demonstrated in the end that he didn't have the stomach or heart in victory, because doing so meant having to draw a line in the sand and paint your opponent for the fraud that he is.
If John McCain had won, we would be left once again in the position we have been in for the past 4 years. We would have to spend all of our resources on defense, clawing back at liberals who would paint McCain as a doddering old man and trashing the actions, words and family of Sarah Palin. We would have cringed and held our heads screaming every single time McCain "worked together with Democrats" and allowed our Party to be the wholesale sponsors of the sick, creeping doom of Socialism. He would, in effect, have been treated NO DIFFERENTLY and with LESS RESPECT than President Bush and would have to contend with a liberal electorate and press who would be more uncivil and more biased than they have been for the past few years, and that is difficult to comprehend.
Recently, on the political boards I attend, a liberal started asking Republicans what they thought about a certain issue, and when I responded that what Republicans think doesn't matter anymore because we do not have any more political power, he was uneasy to say the least. He wanted to argue in the same manner he had for years taking pot shots at Republicans for taking ANY stand on ANY issue, but when hit with the realization that liberals were now left in a position akin to a child standing alone in the park with his ball and nobody to throw it back to him, the idea of actually leading and being responsible for decisions and their consequences does not seem quite so easy.
When you have a lot to lose and watch helplessly for years as more and more of what you have is taken away despite your efforts, it is painful beyond words to lose in spite of your attempts to keep what you have. Once you have lost it all, however, there is a certain peace that comes to mind because once you have nothing, you are keenly aware of what you've lost, what is important to you and how you plan on getting it back. Republicans have to figure out if they are going to remain Democrat-Lite or grow a set of balls and stand for something worth voting for.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
A sign of things to come?
The county I live in went to Barrack Obama. Up until the day of the election, there was not one day that went by where an Obama supporter wasn't dropping off campaign materials and wanting to discuss the issues. I was good natured about it, and I really liked watching them squirm when they realized they were talking to an unapologetic conservative. They always looked really uncomfortable, but I expect that from people who are so easily swayed by missives of "hope" and "change".
My area was littered with McCain and Obama yard signs everywhere. Public property, private property, roadside, curbsides...everywhere.
The day after the election, I had to drive back and forth across town multiple times, and it suddenly occurred to me that I could not see any McCain signs anywhere. Every single place I knew they were put out were gone. At first I figured that the people who had put them out were disapointed in the outcome and decided to get rid of them, but the odds that everyone had done so seemed a stretch. I was right to question the odds.
Then it happened to be that I looked in the local newspaper, and to my complete lack of surprise there was an article written about the wholesale theft of McCain signs that had occurred in the middle of the night. Overzealous Obama supporters - so gleeful that all their problems were going to be solved now that the Messiah had been reborn - took it upon themselves to scour every road and piece of property during the night and steal every McCain sign they could find.
Now, I'm old enough to accept defeat gracefully, and as much as I was disappointed that Obama had won, I had pretty much accepted McCain's inevitable loss after seeing his lousy performance in the second debate. It was the final product of the Perfect Storm: Unpopular President, economic woes and the souring of the Republican brand. It hurts to lose and nobody likes it.
The sign theft bothered me not because the miscreants went on private property and took things that didn't belong to them, or that it was a bunch of smug winners wanting to rub victory in the faces of McCain supporters. It's part of what it represents.
The people who did it embody the new mainstream face of the democrat party. These are not just people who have a different set of political beliefs, these are people who resent the fact that people like me and others who openly opposed the election of Barrack Obama exist. We're called racists. We're called Nazis. We're called homophobes, sexists, bigots, warmongers, religious wackos and gun freaks. It is not enough for them to accept that we oppose their liberal ideology for legitimate reasons. They consider the opposition to their political beliefs not as a difference in opinion, but as the embodiment of evil and hate. Those are convenient emotional responses to political opposition for them, because in their minds it frees them from all restraints and standards of moral conduct. After all, when battling evil, or defending one's self from hate, what can possibly be considered out of bounds?
The essence of liberalism's goal is the elimination of dissent, and in attempting to remove dissent, liberals will do whatever is deemed necessary. President Bush rose in popularity because he wore his humanity on his sleeve and reacted to the 9/11 attacks with grit and resolve, so liberalism's solution was to engage in the personal, nonstop, brutal, 24/7 no-holds-barred dehumanization of the President. Successful and popular talk radio programs that have promoted conservative values and beliefs were recently compared to pornography by Chuck Schumer, who said that the Fairness Doctrine needed to be reinstated in order for the government to regulate the content of speech in a free enterprise business. Scientists who express doubt about the existence of Global warning don't get grant money. Teachers who do not tow the liberal line are not granted tenure. Joe Lieberman, a lifelong democrat who dared to support the war, was kicked out of his party. Bob Casey, another lifelong democrat who had the audacity to be pro-life, was once barred from speaking at the Democratic National Convention specifically because he opposed abortion.
Barrack Obama is not a centrist. He is not another "New Democrat". Outside of him being the first black to be elected President, he is no different nor any less partisan than Bill Ayers, the Reverend Jerimiah Wright, his new chief of staff Rahm "F-Bomb" Emannuel or the people who could not stand seeing signs supporting McCain for one more minute.
My area was littered with McCain and Obama yard signs everywhere. Public property, private property, roadside, curbsides...everywhere.
The day after the election, I had to drive back and forth across town multiple times, and it suddenly occurred to me that I could not see any McCain signs anywhere. Every single place I knew they were put out were gone. At first I figured that the people who had put them out were disapointed in the outcome and decided to get rid of them, but the odds that everyone had done so seemed a stretch. I was right to question the odds.
Then it happened to be that I looked in the local newspaper, and to my complete lack of surprise there was an article written about the wholesale theft of McCain signs that had occurred in the middle of the night. Overzealous Obama supporters - so gleeful that all their problems were going to be solved now that the Messiah had been reborn - took it upon themselves to scour every road and piece of property during the night and steal every McCain sign they could find.
Now, I'm old enough to accept defeat gracefully, and as much as I was disappointed that Obama had won, I had pretty much accepted McCain's inevitable loss after seeing his lousy performance in the second debate. It was the final product of the Perfect Storm: Unpopular President, economic woes and the souring of the Republican brand. It hurts to lose and nobody likes it.
The sign theft bothered me not because the miscreants went on private property and took things that didn't belong to them, or that it was a bunch of smug winners wanting to rub victory in the faces of McCain supporters. It's part of what it represents.
The people who did it embody the new mainstream face of the democrat party. These are not just people who have a different set of political beliefs, these are people who resent the fact that people like me and others who openly opposed the election of Barrack Obama exist. We're called racists. We're called Nazis. We're called homophobes, sexists, bigots, warmongers, religious wackos and gun freaks. It is not enough for them to accept that we oppose their liberal ideology for legitimate reasons. They consider the opposition to their political beliefs not as a difference in opinion, but as the embodiment of evil and hate. Those are convenient emotional responses to political opposition for them, because in their minds it frees them from all restraints and standards of moral conduct. After all, when battling evil, or defending one's self from hate, what can possibly be considered out of bounds?
The essence of liberalism's goal is the elimination of dissent, and in attempting to remove dissent, liberals will do whatever is deemed necessary. President Bush rose in popularity because he wore his humanity on his sleeve and reacted to the 9/11 attacks with grit and resolve, so liberalism's solution was to engage in the personal, nonstop, brutal, 24/7 no-holds-barred dehumanization of the President. Successful and popular talk radio programs that have promoted conservative values and beliefs were recently compared to pornography by Chuck Schumer, who said that the Fairness Doctrine needed to be reinstated in order for the government to regulate the content of speech in a free enterprise business. Scientists who express doubt about the existence of Global warning don't get grant money. Teachers who do not tow the liberal line are not granted tenure. Joe Lieberman, a lifelong democrat who dared to support the war, was kicked out of his party. Bob Casey, another lifelong democrat who had the audacity to be pro-life, was once barred from speaking at the Democratic National Convention specifically because he opposed abortion.
Barrack Obama is not a centrist. He is not another "New Democrat". Outside of him being the first black to be elected President, he is no different nor any less partisan than Bill Ayers, the Reverend Jerimiah Wright, his new chief of staff Rahm "F-Bomb" Emannuel or the people who could not stand seeing signs supporting McCain for one more minute.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
My Prediction
Our next President will be Barrack Hussein Obama, who will win with 48% of the vote. McCain will garner no less than 45% of the vote.
The Electoral College results will show Obama with a very narrow victory in PA, although NC and VA will remain in the red. OH and FL will turn blue this election cycle.
This will not be a Presidential blowout, but a victory for democrats nonetheless. Republicans lose 23 additional House seats and democrats will have a 58 seat majority to the Republican 39 seats.
McCain will concede defeat before 12:00am this evening.
The Electoral College results will show Obama with a very narrow victory in PA, although NC and VA will remain in the red. OH and FL will turn blue this election cycle.
This will not be a Presidential blowout, but a victory for democrats nonetheless. Republicans lose 23 additional House seats and democrats will have a 58 seat majority to the Republican 39 seats.
McCain will concede defeat before 12:00am this evening.
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