Shouldn'ta Couldn'ta Wouldn'ta

Some time yesterday – I couldn’t be bothered to remember when … I think it was daylight - I read a piece at Huffington Post by someone calling himself Rodes Fishburne. About how Gore ought to run again, on the strength of current disaffection with Mr. Bush. You shoulda coulda woulda got *me*! And things would be so much better now! *ahem* Such is Mr. Fishburne’s theme. Here’s my response, buried deep in the comments, and needing, I assert, the light of day in which is might have been conceived – I just can’t be bothered to remember.

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Mr. Fishburne -

You must be wondering why you are wrong, and I'm pleased to be the one who feels himself qualified to inform you. First, your theme centers around the idea of the "comeback." You are correct in maintaining that this is a powerful motif in the American psyche. Your error lies in applying it to Mr. Gore. Winston Churchill, Tony Bennett, FDR - none of these examples you cite had disgraced themselves with an utterly shameful and selfish ploy to undermine their nation. Mr. Gore, in his contesting the election, did do this, and in so doing has disqualified himself from any consideration as a patriot or man of honor. Gore did what Nixon would not do - that Gore's case was the stronger is irrelevant, given Nixon' own statement that he did not repudiate the corrupt outcome in Texas and Chicago because "it would be bad for the country." Lipstick on a pig? Or patriotism? Who can say. But Gore tried to put the lipstick onto himself, and that makes him all the uglier. Selfish. That he is not currently a leader of the disloyal opposition simply further disqualifies him. Out of touch. He might certainly win the Dem nomination, but the present disaffection with Mr. Bush among his base is not that he's too conservative, but not conservative enough. This doesn't bode well for Republicans, but it can be only cold comfort for Dems.

Your second error is contained in your fantasy statement: "If you'd voted for me, we wouldn't be in this mess." You of course must style yourself a liberal, so you will fail to see the bias of the statement. Allow me to point it out: Mess? What mess? The economy is so strong that it creates gratuitous problems - it attracts hordes of illegals. The Iraq war is certainly being lost ... in the media (thanks for that, MSM - you really are trying to make it another Vietnam.) But a reality check reminds us that more and more Iraqi voters turn out for their elections, and this is what sane people call "victory." Victory, you see, is when they run their own sort-of-okay government. What, did you think it was when Iraq becomes the 51st state? Or perhaps you have some other "mess” in mind? Something more existential? Some projection of yours, upon the outer world?

You say that such nostalgia – or rather, Bush-hatred - is "a powerful unspoken reminder that exists behind every campaign speech, every bumper sticker, and every blog posting." Perhaps your prose is simply casual, here, and lacking in rigor. But the ellipsis, of course, is "every liberal speech, bumper sticker, blog." And indeed, for that Leftist 17% of people who lawfully reside in the USA, your statement would be true - they yearn for an alternative to reality. It's just debatable for everybody else.

Wish-fulfillment fantasies are a common thing, sir. They are a coping mechanism. But you haven't served yourself, in publishing your own. Gore is heroically disqualified from serving. Pick someone else. Is Dukakis still alive?

J

Facts

California and Texas are the two largest markets for school textbooks, so whatever their laws are regarding content will determine the policy for the whole nation. Textbook publishers are not going to tailor texts for every state and district. The economy of scale is what drives their thinking, and they are not wrong in this.

I cannot say what the legislature of Texas requires. I look with favor upon Texas and the South in general. The grave crime of slavery was expiated by the blood of the Civil War, and the sin of racism has largely been cleansed from the polity - what remains is the hard moral core of true and traditional American values. I have said, and sincerely, thank God for the South. It's most of what remains of America. But of course I speak from impressions - I have not lived in a Southern state. I could be wrong.

But I am most assuredly not wrong about California. I was born in southern California, and have spent a large part of my life in the county of Los Angeles. We have one of the most reprehensible state legislatures in the nation. California used to be a Republican state, and still elects Republican governors, but the Assembly is a cabal of the most radical anti- everything- commonsensical hacks you could wish on your enemy. Some number of these morons supported the boycott by the illegals, a few weeks back - enough to approve a motion of support. So, uh, "our" "representatives" "thought" an attempt to damage the economy would be a good thing. I won't call them bitches, but they are.

This socialistic radicalization came about when the hardcore Dems, and Republicans, realized that it was they who controlled the primary system that selects candidates. The party faithful are generally the only ones who turn out for such elections, and they pick the most extreme candidates, not the moderates. So if a Dem wins, it will be a wingnut Dem. The Dems win. And their seats are safe, because they've gerrymandered their districts to assure their incumbency.

Special interests have not so much a symbiotic relationship with pols, as a mutually parasitic one. They're all pigs, feeding out of the same trough, just from different sides. A sort of Mad Tea Party, where they are eternally eating each other's leftovers. So atheists and conservative Christians, Arabs and Jews, Blacks and Browns, Armenians and Poles - whoever - get in the bread line and start mewling for their hushpuppies. To mix several metaphors. We can't complain about this. It is inevitable.

Since 1976, state law has required that school texts provide "positive" portrayals of specified groups. Blacks and women and Indians and women and blacks and blacks and women ... well, I'm forgetting who all. The usual suspects. Insofar as there is a need for such sensitive portrayals, this is not inappropriate. Women and blacks and all them other folks that we didn't hear much about, should have been heard about. Insofar as they did important things.

Even a "positive" requirement, rather than a merely truthful one, was not necessarily inappropriate. Even the decree that learning materials must promote a "sense of pride" in ethnic heritages is not entirely odious. There is something really sad in the story of little kids on the reservation watching a cowboy movie and cheering for the cavalry rather than the braves. It shouldn't be about identity politics, but we do, all of us, want the people who look like us, who are from where we're from, to be the good guys, at least some of the time. Role models really do matter.

That texts must not include any "adverse reflection" on any group might be defended, to some degree. Not rigorously defended - not validly defended - but defended, the way even a guilty criminal ought to be defended in a courtroom. So some months ago a Hindu group protested to the State Board of Education, demanding that the texts be changed from saying women in ancient India had fewer rights, to saying they had different rights. Gods. But they are not wrong, to defend their culture. It's called loyalty. Not loyalty to objectivity, but, nevertheless, loyalty.

Makes you wonder why Hollywood always wants to make America the bad guy.

The California Legislature has required that for history texts, in comparison to men "equal portrayal" of women "must be applied in every instance." Word for word, paragraph by paragraph, as much ink must be used describing the actions and effects of women, as of men. If dealing with only the past few decades, this would have little distorting effect. But prior to that, the policy is simply insane. Presidents' wives were important to the man, but not, simply not, important to the nation, compared to the man. Duh. On this day Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Meanwhile, Mary Lincoln bought some antique moiré and hid the bill. (That's not a good example, because Abe got nine words, while Mary got eleven. We'll make up for it when we talk about Rutherford B. Hayes.)

And now we have SB1437, the state law mandating that gays and lesbians - and presumably bisexuals and transgenders and celibates and polymorphs and crossdressers and maiesiophiliacs and shoe fetishists and necrophiliacs and urolagnials and boiz who are into daddies & chubs - be dealt with in an equally even-handed and fair-minded manner. So our second graders have that to look forward to. Mommy, what's a strap-on?

History is a messy, and an ugly, discipline, however. It isn't about feeling good. It's about being warned. How they're teaching about Hitler, nowadays, I just haven't bothered to check. I hope they are sufficiently positive. Our young Aryans mustn't suffer any emotional turmoil, after all. But the cognitive dissonance they - all of them - will suffer when they finally and inevitably learn their education has been a vast uncontrolled experiment in social engineering - well, the fall will be catastrophic.

Reality matters. Fact: criminals in prison have a higher self-esteem than college students. Fact: the academically lowest-performing ethnic group has the highest self-esteem. Fact: the highest-performing ethnic group has the lowest self-esteem. Fact: history is full of important scummy people. This is a fact that our children need to be taught. Reality cannot be amended by a legislature. This is what Orwell so famously wrote about. Realty matters.


J

Last Week's Hatred

I found myself in front of a TV, so I caught Hannity and Colmes last week, and their interview with Shirley Phelps-Roper. I was in the unique position of absolutely agreeing with Alan Colmes, the liberal of the program. I was rooting for him. I wanted him to do really well. He was the good guy.

It seems there is such a thing on this planet as the Westboro “Baptist” “Church,” situated not in Hell, as one might suppose, but in Topeka, Kansas. They own a city block, on which they have cobbled together ten houses surrounded by a ten-foot-high wall. Ah. A compound, then. Surrounded by the other nine, the house in the center is that of their leader, Fred Waldren Phelps. Of the “Church’s” one- to two-hundred members, a reported 80% are related to Mr. Phelps by blood or wedlock. Ah. A clan, then. It is his daughter who graced the Fox set last week. It seems “Church” members are forbidden to marry outside of the "Church." Ah. A cult, then.

And did you know that godhatesfags.com? Well, He does, per Mr. Phelps. Lest we be confused in this matter, it is explained that: “We do not use the word "fag" in order to engage in childish name-calling. Rather, we use it because it is a metaphor chosen by the Holy Ghost to describe a group of people who BURN in their lust one toward another, and who FUEL God's wrath.” Now I know where to turn for answers to these vexing exegetical questions. I’m on a bus for Topeka! About the London bombings, Mr. Phelps said, "Oh I am so thankful that happened. My only regret is that they didn't kill about [a] million of them."

But godalsohatesamerica, it seems. andhehatesoursoldiers. Which is the point. For this is the group that pickets outside the funerals of soldiers fallen in Iraq. Their signs and banners “Thank God for AIDS,” and offer us such tasty tidbits as that “Fags Eat Feces = Scat.” Interesting bit of trivia, eh? More to the point, they carry pickets, outside the funerals of slain soldiers, that say, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers, ” “Thank God for IEDs,” “Fag Troops,” and “God Hates You.” Why do they do this? Mr. Phelps helpfully clarifies: “We don't picket to win people over, idiot. It's to harden people's hearts. Make them hate. Make them hate God even more than they already do.”

Over the years, the picketers have been the recipients of beatings and kickings. They have been hit with automobiles. One of their seniors had his face crushed. Whereas their own violence is confined solely - I do not say merely - to words. To emotions. Is this ironic? I can't tell.

I’d heard about it, of course, this fag-hating “church.” But I make a Herculean effort to block these things out. Repression is a good thing. What, I should get angry? I should hate?

But last week when I saw this woman on TV, there was a part of me that would have seen her beaten to death. Talk about hatred. Not just her’s - mine. But coiled at the root of my spine, not striking. Not hatred at all, then. The bitter seed of hatred – the poisonous egg.

It’s just that there are things that people shouldn’t do. Picketing funerals is one of them. Hating your enemy is another. I’ve talked about this before, here and here – I trust you get it. God hates sin. Some things have to be stopped, and hatred is a necessary spur to action. But it’s a different hatred than that of this group. This group hates people. Well, they hate everything. It is a cult of hatred. They teach it to their children. Video exists of two young girls giving witness to the fact that they want everyone not in their "church" to die a horrible death and burn in eternal hellfire; they say that even if God hadn't commanded their actions, they'd do it anyway, and like it. It is the right of parents to teach this to their children. Not very right is right, of course, but every right is a right. Is that ironic? And the ACLU is on their side. Is that ironic?

I put myself in the place of the mourning family, last week, and could see myself acting in a most forceful and violent manner against these people. Something of which I need to repent, when I get around to it. We mustn’t be like them, after all. These, alas, are the enemy that we are commanded, commanded to love. They are a Taliban of emotion, an enemy of the soul. Not, yet, a blood enemy. They've already been handed over to Satan - they are already shunned. And they are not merely unrepentant, but brazen in their corruption of doctrine, their twisting of Scripture. But they are the enemy, to love, somehow. Dammit. Do you suppose God could be wrong about this? Next time I see Him I'll straighten Him out. Or try to. Sometimes He just doesn't seem to listen.

I’d guess, or wish rather, that Shirley Phelps-Roper cannot possibly be as ugly as she looks. If you get my meaning. But y’know … I did see a picture of Fred Phelps. For an old dude he’s kind of hot. Ironic?

J

Slippery Slopes and Rubber Rulers

Democrats and Republicans. Yes, there is too a difference. We’re right and they’re wrong? Well yes, there’s that – but it goes without saying. And let’s not be cynical. Skeptical, yes – it’s appropriate sometimes, but cynicism is just adolescent. As for what these parties stand for, well, in theory, strength abroad and opportunity at home from one, and social justice and alternative lifestyles from the other. Oh … did I give myself away? I really am trying to be fair-minded. Do the Dems stand for something else, too? I didn’t want a laundry list – just a pair of most-salient traits, and these are what suggest themselves to my poor brain.

But issues are not fixed to labels. Who is, and who was, isolationist? Who was, and who is, for military intervention? Consider Truman, who doesn’t seem to have been tormented by being the only human being in history, so far, to have ordered the use against enemies of (two) nuclear bombs. He ordered the sort-of unprovoked invasion of Korea. He ordered a purge of communist sympathizers from government positions. He oversaw the creation of NATO abroad and the NSA at home. There might have been no Israel, without him. Sounds like Reagan, doesn’t he. Sounds like Bush.

Consider JFK, who authorized the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. He faced down the Soviets in the Missile Crisis and blockaded Cuba. He sent more and more advisors and Special Forces to South Vietnam to resist communism. In his Inaugural Address, he affirmed that “the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.” He said, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” He said, “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Hardly watchwords of contemporary Liberalism.

Of course Truman was a liberal of his day. He advocated universal health insurance. He vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act, which regulated labor unions. He was for higher taxes. Kennedy protested the building of the Berlin Wall but did nothing to stop it. He gave untold tax dollars away as foreign aid. He thought the UN would be a positive and useful thing.

But neither of these men were “pro-choice.” Both would have been scandalized beyond a capacity for speech at the idea of “gay marriage.” Both would have expressed public outrage at the common fare of prime time television – it would have been outright smut, to them, and they would have arrested and prosecuted its purveyors. Some of this is a function of their era. But that's as much as to say nothing at all. They were the men they were.

So now, we look at the positions of the Republican Party. There is much overlap with the Democrats of two generations ago. You might almost say that the one has simply taken the platform of the other – without taking its history. Contemporary Democrats have very little in common with their namesakes of the past. Perhaps this is progress. Perhaps it is degeneracy.

It may be, perhaps, that in a generation or two the Republican Party will be solidly pro-abortion. If that is so, it will only be because the Democrats would be agitating for cannibalism, “birth control” up to age seven, and mandatory incest. Being conservative doesn’t mean holding on to the past. It means holding on to the present. Beyond what I’ve said here, I don’t know what being liberal means.


J

Half Measures

So. Za mous gets to live.

It seems his crime was not sufficiently unusually cruel or heinous to merit the death penalty. Let’s examine the reasoning. If one person is killed with, say, a knife across the throat, well that’s not “unusual.” After all, that’s what throat cuttings are for. So obviously, no death penalty. If a bazillion people are killed with a throat cutting, that’s unusual enough to be "unusual." Za mous’s crime fell somewhere between one and a bazillion homicides. It seems that the nearly- three- thousand number isn’t unusual enough, according to this particular jury. I beg to differ.

As for heinous, well, consider the aim, and the outcome. The aim was to cripple the American economy and government. The aim was to spread immobilizing terror – actual terror ... not just the word terror, but the reality. Like, horror movie, slasher movie terror, only for real. And there were some slashings, if you recall. Lots and lots of blood, before all the fires. As for the outcome, well, a trillion dollar hit to the economy. That’s the recession the dems were celebrating, before Bush’s re-election. Oh, and this thing over in Iraq – that’s a direct outcome of 9/11. All in all, I think za mous’s crime contained a significant degree of heinousity.

The jurors were right in understanding za mous was not insane. His culture is insane, but in his insane culture he is sane. And that Islamism is insane does not mitigate against his crime. The jury maintained, it seems, that za mous’s own desire – to be “martyred” for his “jihad” – did not influence the, uh, deliberations. But of course it did. They didn’t want to reward him with what he wanted. Let’s look at the three possible outcomes of his death. If there is no sort of “afterlife,” then za mous would become entirely extinct, and the world would be free of his pernicious presence; that up to the moment of his extinction he should enjoy the false satisfaction of “winning” would be abnegated by the irony and futility of his false belief. And justice would have been done. If za mous’s whole worldview is correct, then his execution would indeed usher him into the Oasis of his Virgins. But that would mean his cause is just, and we are working against the will of Allah. Well, vile infidels that we are, it is yet only fitting that we should work, even unwillingly, toward Allah’s will - acting as instruments for za mous’s just and glorious reward. That would make his "martyrdom" a good thing. The third outcome would be that executing za mous would hasten his arrival in Hell. The perfect solution – perfect justice. (In this Us vs. Them formulation, there’s no need to consider the option of reincarnation and the like.)

But now za mous will be supported for the next two generations (if his natural lifespan should extend so far) in some federal prison. I will not lament the cost of it. He will be supplied his Q’uran and prayer rug and halal food stuffs. I will not call this “coddling” – it is humane, and what we would wish for ourselves. He will be given viewing privileges to CNN and the Oxygen Network. This doesn’t seem right to me, but the injustice of it is petty.

There would have been justice, in his execution. What is justice? It is an equal and appropriate response. What would have been appropriate? Well, what is not appropriate is being sent to his room for the next half-century. As for equal, on the face of it, a life for a life would be justice. Not mercy, certainly, but every real object must have at least two sides (moebius strip, you slyly say? Two sides, one surface.) Point being, mercy complements justice, it doesn't replace or supercede it. And we mustn't flinch away from justice because it might look like vengence. Alas, his death cannot be equal to his crime. He participated, such as he could, in the deaths of thousands, and plotted the deaths of tens of thousands. And the war in Iraq? A direct result of his 9/11, as noted. The deaths of our soldiers are on him as much as are the deaths of that cold clear Tuesday morning. He doesn't possess some thousands of lives to have executed, that justice may reach its sum. But one would have been enough. In any case, even the lack of justice, here, is not really distressing. What ... you expect justice? Wrong universe, mate.

There is however a material problem. He will act, given the nature of human nature, as a powerful missionary and recruiting officer to the troubled and unanchored prison population - which unlike za mous, will not be imprisoned for life, but rather released back into the general population … having been exposed for multiple hours every day for months and years to za mous’s peculiar and powerful vision of Islamic jihad. This, this seems to be a very real and ugly problem.

When you wish to neutralize some virulent pathogen, it is not enough to place it in some large confined area filled with many potential carriers who will soon be released again onto the public. The pathogen must be isolated – given no chance to expose victims or carriers to its harmful influence. The jury, today, has failed in this very fundamental principle of public hygiene. Za mous’s potential for evil was simply not actualized - he was a failed terrorist, and his crime was merely in the conspiracy, not in the, um, execution of 9/11. But over the next 40 years or so, he will become the great imam, the Sheikh of whatever federal prison he finds himself in.

We have not felt the last effect of za mous’s malarial inspiration. Rather, we have given Islamism another prophet. And in the meantime, our restless vigil over the graves of the fallen has become that much more a mere and hollow gesture.

J

A History Lesson

I’ve had reason to hear, over the past few days, news broadcasts from June of 1974. You know, the six minutes at the top of the hour that radio stations devote to the news. If I could figure out how to post it, I would. (Suggestions?)

Israel was having peace talks with Syria, and had pulled its army away from spitting-distance of Damascus. A body was pulled out of a burned SLA hideout in Los Angeles – not, happily, that of Patty Hearst. Lots of union problems and strikes. Oil skyrocketed to an outrageous $15 a barrel – we laugh now, but it hurt big time – caused a recession. Governors were calling for Nixon’s resignation. Martin Luther King’s mother was murdered in her church – playing the organ, gunned down by a crazy black man – God had told him to get King’s wife, but she wasn’t available. It does go on.

I was in my teens in those days, and I remember some of this. The house fire that didn’t get Patty. I remember that. Nixon, of course. But here’s what I’d forgotten – in the specific: What a wretched, horrible time that was. What an awful decade. The worst decade. The ugliest clothes and music and hair, but that doesn’t mean much. It was the most cynical time ever. It was the worst time in which to come of age. I only got over it a decade later, when I was living in another country and had the distance and perspective to re-evaluate America.

When I heard these old broadcasts, I was very surprised. Truly. It was almost overwhelming, the unrelenting intensity of it all. Lots of seriously bad news, over a few weeks in June of 1974. But I was struck by the fact that it was news. Get what I mean? The news reports were full of honest, hard news. Some sports at the end, but no fluff at all. They didn’t know, you see, what a stupid decade it was. They were just honestly reporting important things in the world. Clear, honest, straight news. If we match our worst problems with theirs, it may break even. Islamism for Communism. Iraq/Iran for Vietnam/Israel-Syria. But these are better times. But they had news.

J

Top 10 Thomas Jefferson Quotes that He Never Said

10. Would you like fries with that?

9. Bajuss? Wee don' neeno steenkun bajuss.

8. Martha Custis? Did her.

7. Where the hell’s me bloody milk?!?

6. That Napoleon … what a fox! Talk about your boney part! Yum yum!

5. Let’s see. "When in the course of human events..." yeah ... "He has affected to render..." yeah, yeah "...our fortunes and our sacred honor." Right. That’ll do. Here’s the ten pounds, Ben. So we’ll just be saying I wrote it, agreed?

4. There is a wall of separation between Church and State, that the Church must never scale!

3. Bush lied, people died.

2. Idiot! I said get the wig with the pink ribbons! Pink! Not blue! Pink!

1. Up is down.

0. Dissent is the Highest form of Patriotism.

J

Getting a Clue

South Park is a wickedly funny show. Wicked in both senses. Irreverent, and down-right horrifying. I do catch it once in a while, for all that I don't watch TV. Apparently Mr. Garrison has had a "sex change" operation - or, as we used to call it, a castration. The two fellows behind the show - let's call them Trey and Matt - get it right: missing testicles and a mutilated penis don't make one into a woman. Silicon implants - or does that date me? ... is it saline now? - do not perform the function of mammary glands. A similitude is not the reality. The characters of South Park give their own very rational explanation, and it is refreshing. And wickedly funny.

But guess what? Matt and Trey produced their own al-Qaeda video, that shows Jesus defecating on the US flag and on George Bush. I didn't see it, but there it is. No, not at all funny. Just wicked.

Oh. But guess what? And here's the whole point. It wasn't Jesus. It was a cartoon - maybe not out of construction paper anymore, but a cartoon. So all of a sudden, maybe it isn't so wicked. It's like the movie from '88, The Last Temptation of Christ. Another clue: it wasn't about Jesus. It was all made up. Like a sex change operation - just a deceiving appearance.

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AN ILLUSTRATIVE SKIT

Little Boy: Mommy, Billy called me booger-nose!
Mother: Well, honey, are you a booger-nose?
Little Boy: No!
Mother: Then Billy's just lying, isn't he. Shame on him.

THE END

____


Simplistic? Humph. It may please you to think so - although I'm quite proud of it actually. It's one of my finest efforts, in point of fact. And frankly my feelings are a little hurt. ... I just need a moment... Well, ahem, the point of my skit, which you so perfect missed, was that there are offenses that matter, and offenses that don't. I should have hoped you'd appreciate that. Apparently I was wrong. I think I'll have to re-evaluate our relationship. I just don't know who you are anymore.

Well. The odds are pretty strong that I would not like Matt and Trey. They seem like offensive a-holes, to me. Let's attack everything that other people value. That's what we call courage! If there was such a thing. But I've spent a pretty fair part of my life being an a-hole my own self - and I may still be one. That's the risk of almost always thinking you're almost always right. I don't even know if I respect them - I don't know their motives. But I respect their work. Not that they'd care. And that's the point. We pick and choose what it is we care about. Those of us who have some maturity can recognize the luck and the almost arbitrary nature of being right. Rather than fume and rage about those who are wrong, there would be some wisdom in pausing for a moment and mulling over the idea that people are allowed to be wrong. Not destructive, not criminal, not homicidal. But about opinions we're allowed to be wrong.

So. Perjury, say, matters. It powerfully undermines a necessary social institution. Vapid affrontery doesn't matter. What South Park reveals is our strength, and the fragility of the Moslems. Yeah, to have that fact revealed, we who care about Jesus have to suffer some discomfort and some offense. But words do not equate with blasphemy. It's the intent behind the words that give force to the curse. Killing Jesus was blasphemy. Angrily shouting "Jesus Christ" when you hit your thumb with a hammer is just rude. Rejecting the Holy Spirit is blasphemy. Manipulating badly rendered cartoon drawings in offensive ways is wicked comedy.



J

Diesel and Widdershins

Conservatives are comfortable with individual power. Self-reliance, rugged individualism - all reflect the idea of the capable man. Liberals are very uncomfortable with the idea of some one person having lots of power. They're comfortable with collective power - group decisions, shared responsibility - a frankly corporate ... dare I say, syndicalist, mentality. We might caricature either of these trends of thought, these character traits. The conservative is selfish. The liberal is cowardly. One lusts for power, the other fears accountability. There is truth to all such criticisms, when applied to the unwise and unbalanced examples of these types. But both modes of operating are necessary, in their place, depending on conditions.

Consider Hamilton and Jefferson. Hamilton the money-man, the guy who wanted a big government to make lots of internal improvements - roads, canals, ports - because these would benefit commerce. Jefferson, the rural idealist, in favor of an agrarian nation of small and self-reliant towns knit together as a loose economic confederation within the greater national federation. So the question is, who was the conservative?

The term doesn't really apply, does it. The stereotype is that conservatives want small government, like Jefferson, but great economic prosperity, like Hamilton. Liberals want big governmental programs - but somehow we just know that Jefferson was a liberal. The confusion resides in the misapplication of labels. Hamilton might be the liberal - he wanted to reshape the world using corporate power. Jefferson wanted to conserve the rustic nature of the country, with its small town ideals.

Consider then our Mr. Bush, so Big Government, so profligate with money, driving up the debt, never saying no to a spending bill ... well, how Hamiltonian. Another way of looking at it, is that he's not afraid to spend a dollar, to make a dollar. Again, he is that anomaly, a conservative activist. It doesn't fit into a little box of orthodoxy, but we need not be dismayed by this. We live in revolutionary times, and new paradigms are emerging. For the good or the bad, I can't say. But that's the reality.

Big Lefty liberals, on the other hand, have simply absorbed the values of Marx and the philosophy of Rousseau. Free love and socialism. What the New Age religion is to Hinduism - a westernized, psychologized paganism - the modern liberal is to the old-time radical. The revolution most certainly will be televised. In fact, it's all television will show, and all LA NY Times will print. The revolution has become institutionalized, like the Mexican political oligarchy - like Castro's Cuba. Ours isn't a banana republic, but a ... oh, say, latte republic.

Manliness is a great virtue. Machismo is pathetic. I see manliness as a conservative trait - steadfast, stoical, great-hearted, easy-going, humorous ... well, sounds like every good thing, doesn't it. I'm trying to think of a fair-minded counterpart for the left. Compassion or sensitivity won't do, because these are part of what true manliness is - think Jesus ... one tough hombre. Ah, I see the confusion. Both Hamilton and Jefferson were manly. Both were conservative. I use the word conservative to embody the masculine ideal. The counterpart to that need not be liberal, but it is certainly disloyal, self-centered and licentious. Wow. Contemptible, right?

But maybe that's just my bias.

J

Boom

On March 23, 2005, the BP Amoco refinery in Texas City exploded - at least five seperate blasts - killing 15 and injuring as many as 170. In March, one year earlier, several explosions rocked that same plant. It supplies 3% of the nation's gas.

Perhaps it's all due to safety violations. This would be a controllable cause - very predictable. Something like, oh, say, terrorism would be bad for business.

And given that publicity is what terrorists want, the nation boosters are right, even if they're wrong, to play up the fire, and downplay the explosions and their cause.

Turns out to be kind of complex, doesn't it. Turns out, not every truth needs to be advertized. Sometimes ignorance is a kind of raincoat.



J

The Mystery of the Mysterious Public Utility

Here in our beautiful burgeoning Los Angeles of 1910, our happy and growing Population has escaped the blight which makes many large Cities a miasma of cacophony, filth, disease and misery. We have achieved this near-miracle by building into what we called "Suburbs" - actually, the countryside many miles away from the FETID heart of the City. We are able to do this because of the modern wonder of Electric Railroads and Streetcars. While it is true that many Do-gooders complain that the Traction Companies have gathered Great Wealth to themselves through Land Speculation - purchasing cheap land and then building to it, which greatly increases its Value - this is simply an example of the Enterprising Spirit that has made our Country the envy of the world.

Some jackdaws complain that Traction Companies run an inadequate number of cars and too few trains, in order to increase their Profits. But the vast majority of Patrons would gladly trade the wait of a few moments, against the TURMOIL of City life. And if the cars are over-crowded, how much more, the horse-filled streets of Central and Olive? And with the affordability of Mr. Ford & Co.'s automobiles, available to even the humblest of menials, Downtown has become like unto the anteroom to the First Circle of Hades.

Again, scare-mongers cry like Cassandra that should the Traction Companies fail, our countless Suburbanites will be marooned on their Islands in the Grass. Muck-rakers proclaim that the Public Trust is easily betrayed by Capitalists, and that the good-faith Expectation to Commute will be SLAUGHTERED on the Altar of Mammon. These weak sisters suppose that such economic Hardship will befall not only our Suburbanites, but that all Employers and Merchants and Tradesmen would be calamitously AFFLICTED. Others go so far as to imagine that a cabal of anarchists and Unionists might Strike, to rein the mighty Engines to a halt! Woe! - the entire Polity will suffer, they prophesy, and beyond any measure of reason. Depression and blight would follow, and we would be transported by immobility back to the Age of powdered wigs. Stuff and nonsense, of course. As much to suppose that the Electrical Companies might fail! Imagine, the fires of Prometheus, going out!

[The scene shifts. We find ourselves nearly one hundred years in the future.]

Once upon a time a giant storm swept over the mouth of the Mississippi. New Orleans is a major port, through which untold barrels of oil find their way into the American heartland. With the closing of the port, gasoline was a scarce commodity, and prices rose. Supply and demand. No mystery, no scandal. Reality. Price gouging? I suppose there was some. But that's what money is for - to buy necessities.

However, in the Golden State of California, a particularly, um, progressive body of legislators has mandated that the gasoline sold in the state have a unique and particular formulation. California gas is refined in California, and only in California. No tankers from Nevada or Oregon make their way across the stateline. Their gas is not special enough. And the petroleum that feeds California's shrinking number of refineries comes into the state through the Pacific ports. Not from inland. Not over the Rockies. Not from, oh, say, New Orleans. Why then did Californian gas prices rise, during the Katrina crisis? Why? The gas came from an unconnected, from an independent source. The supply was not affected by the storm. The demand did not increase because of it. So why did prices go up? Why did the oil companies raise the price in California?

Because they could.

High gas prices take money out of the general economy and pump it into the corporations. Every aspect of the economy suffers. More money is spent on gas, less money is available for buying clothes, books, appliances, food. Hmm. Oil companies have the power to raise prices as high as the market will bear. The market will bear quite a bit. In Europe, petrol is at least twice the price it is here, and often much more. Oh yeah, we certainly can pay more for gas. At the sacrifice of our way of life. And what are you going to do about it? Walk? Ride your bike? Take the bus? Hail a cab? Streetcar, anyone?

We are hostage to foreign and often hostile oil-producing countries. We are hostage to American oil corporations. The demand for this strategeraniositous product must fall. SUVs. God, what a waste. Stupid beyond words. Save the planet? Well, that's not my religion, but I am of an age to remember frequent smog alerts, so yes, save my lungs. (But any male who's over 15% body fat had better worry more about that, than smog. Priorities.) And job one is rationalizing the energy supply. Oil harvests the fields. Oil moves the crops. Oil makes the clothes. Oh yeah, it is a public utility.

And what do we do with Public Utilities? We regulate them. For the public good. In the public interest. For national security.

If there is justification for any regulation at all, it must apply to gas prices. For some time during WW II, the national speed limit was 35 miles an hour. Yes, you read it right. It wasn't to conserve oil. Rubber. The Philippines had been taken, you see. My point? Rubber is easy now. The problem today is oil. Our economy is our way of life. Our way of life is what makes us unique in the world. No, scratch "unique" - "best." Government, for purposes of national security, has certainly stepped in most powerfully to preserve our way of life. Against, say, Tojo and Hitler. Well, can you think of other ethnic-sounding names today, that want to destroy our way of life?

The incredible oil reserves in Alberta assure us that petroleum will always be available. At a high cost, and after some years of development. Do we have years? With Venezuela going insane and Iran already there? With China and India multiplying their petroleum use year by year? The problem exists right now, and a solution is needed, now. Of course the way to drive down prices is do reduce demand, but the morons aren't going to move out of their idiotic SUVs quite yet, into vehicles that reflect intelligence and responsibility. So. Gas prices need to be regulated.

Right now, it cannot be market forces that are driving up the price of a gallon of gas, say, ten cents every week. Up one month, down the next - not connected to any rational pattern. Supply and demand is not the driving force, so much as the greed and irresponsibility of profiteers.

Charles Krauthammer has advocated artificially raising gas prices to a set minimum price, by imposing a self-adjusting tax. Amusingly - haha - he posits the outrageously high floor of $3 ... oh, wait ... that's what it is now, where I am. Oh-oh, guess he means $5. But in any case, if the market price of gas goes down, the tax would instantly rise, eliminating the flux. Artificially elevated prices - that is, artificially elevated by the tax, rather than by the oil companies - which would spur research. Well, it might work. If the tax revenue isn't just flushed down the bottomless toilet of government waste. Which it most likely would be. After all, European petrol prices are high because of taxes, yet they haven't gone alternative.

The real benefit, in theory, would be to encourage the development of alternative energy sources. High gas prices would make alternative energies more profitable, more competitive, more worthwhile to develop. It taps into and exploits the wonderful urge for profit, that right now is only taking, and not giving. If, of course, Americans got the message, about actually going for alternative sources. Lower demand for oil would lower the cost of a barrel, and suddenly our oil-rich friend-enemies wouldn't be so rich. They couldn't hold us over the, um, barrel.

This is what government is for. We are taxed, not to subsidize illegitimacy and to fund social engineering. We are taxed to promote the general welfare. I can think of nothing more general than oil. It is the nation's blood. Well, time to evolve. Wood, coal, oil - next, whatever it is. But really, it's time.

J

A "fight between two bald men over a comb"

... as the incomparable Jose Luis Borges said of the Falklands War. And indeed, 255 Brits and 635 Argentines lost their lives, over what Reagan called "that little ice-cold bunch of land down there." It's got a sheep on its flag, for crying in the soup. But, of course, to the 3000 British subjects who lived on those wind-swept hills in the sea, it was their country, invaded and occupied by a military dictatorship for purely cynical reasons. Principle is a hard thing to kill for, but it's one of the few things worth dying for.

Immediately prior to the arrival of the British navy at the Falklands, when a British SAS team had Argentine General Mario Menendez perfectly framed in the cross hairs of multiple high-powered rifles, word came from London, "We don't do assassinations." As it turned out, there was, um, little need for it. The Argentine military dictatorship was a paper tiger, that crumpled shortly afterwards. And only 890 men died in the conflict. That's a good thing, right? I'm sure, somehow, it must be. But how many orphans does that make?

It gets better. The French acted in close concert with the Brits, being especially positioned to do so, having recently sold Argentina most of its arsenal - fighter jets, missiles and so on. The French trained British pilots in aerial combat tactics; they provided intel to sabotage the French-made Argentine missiles. (Hmm. There may be an upside, to all this seemingly-treacherous French and Russian arms dealing with, oh, say, Iran. Hey, guys, tell us a secret.) But maybe it gets worse: President Mitterand said of PM Thatcher, "what an impossible woman! With her four nuclear submarines in the south Atlantic, she's threatening to unleash an atomic weapon against Argentina if I don't provide her with the secret codes that will make the missiles we sold the Argentinean deaf and blind." Was it in the cards? The classified information will be made public in 2082. Some of us may live that long. And here we come to the crux of the matter.

Regardless of reasons, regardless of justice, there will be wars. Men will die fighting, women and children will die as victims. As long as there is history, it will be this way. Was Thatcher bluffing? It is entirely possible that she was not. Right or wrong, it would be a high cost to pay for victory. But that's why there will always be wars, large or small - because there are always going to be people willing to fight them. Or cause them to be fought. Right or wrong.

So why don't we do assassination? If we will set off nuclear bombs, to kill many thousands or more, then what possible principle could dissuade us from assassination? As a function of math, it is surely the most efficient of all bloody solutions - one life for many. It cannot set any worse example or precedent than war itself. It cannot reasonably be considered more unethical. And as I point out in Piety,

"when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised them up a deliverer" - Ehud, who delivered Israel by assassinating Eglon, king of Moab. "I have a message from God, for thee," said Ehud to the fat king. And he plunged his hand-crafted blade so far into Eglon's belly that it was lost in the folds of blubber. That's some message, from the Lord. That's some deliverer, raised up.

This is what happened - not necessarily an exemplar of right conduct. It is not a mandate. But the words do seem to have a certain clarity, wouldn't you say?

The prohibition on assassination is a politician's safety device - it's expected for the common soldier to get killed, but heaven forefend that an officer or politician should be targeted, merely for innocently holding his office or rank of power and privilege. I know from the very most trustworthy of sources that - oh, how shall I say it - an Iraqi man holding a weapon in an area where it is known that the US military has forbidden it, will be killed on sight. When I heard this, I said, "Good." Absolutely. Good. Blood enemies are for killing. (This is, of course, another discussion.) If the messenger may be killed, why not the author?

Wars, like principles, are often foolish and misguided things. But judgments like "foolish" and "misguided" are almost entirely functions of opinion. And opinions are not facts, because they depend on some inner and invisible moral compass, rather than on a capacity for objective demonstration. Point is, there will always be wars, fought for "principles." Insofar as it is possible to bring rationality to such a situation, I would argue for a policy of swift and ruthless assassination, as the lesser of evils.

Between the gutting of some blubbery despot, and the making of countless orphans, I find no dilemma. Take the dagger from your right thigh and thrust it into his belly, so that the haft goes in after the blade, and the fat closes upon the blade, so that you cannot draw the dagger out of his belly, and the dirt comes out. Because most of them are full of dirt, and even those who aren't, are no cleaner than the armies that would perish in their stead.


J

The Lion Falters

William F. Buckley is a man I would never want to argue with. First, I would hope we agree. Second, even if he’s wrong, he’s more knowledgeable than I. Third, golly, he’s smart. But from this great and secure distance, I feel safe in pointing out how very flawed his reasoning is, in one particular. He writes, “I have myself concluded that our Iraqi mission has failed. Missions have to be judged successes or failures with some reference to a time scale. If that scale is stretched forever, it is not authentically tested."

Buckley doesn’t define here what he supposes the mission is -- this is a lapse not unique to him -- but his argument rests on the fact that American casualties are falling while Iraqi civilians continue to die in large numbers. Not as large as the pre-Mission Accomplished numbers generated by Saddam, but still many. From this fact he supposes that American forces are “voting with their feet to begin withdrawal from an enterprise that has proved costly beyond the successes achieved.”

Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Another might be that we pick our battles based not on the expedient of pleasing public opinion or of meeting the expectations of revered pundits, but rather on the strategeric consideration of picking our battles. Expressed less tautologically, we can’t fight Fallugah every day. The enemy, to be fought conventionally, needs to be amassed. While there are strongholds, which are known to those whose job it is to know such things, we cannot reasonably imagine that the enemy does not know its weakness -– which has been demonstrated to them with the utmost of violence. Thus, weak as they are, they do not congregate in strongholds as once they did. This fact is not evidence that we have lost the war, that “the mission has failed.” It is evidence that the enemy understands the nature of American power –- overwhelming in terms of raw might, a wind sock when it comes to public opinion. Queerly, only America can decide when it loses a war -- the enemy has no say on the battlefield, only in the media.

Again, why have we failed? Because, thinks Buckley, some time scale has been met insufficiently. The three years since Mission Accomplished in Baghdad has been too long. Here are two reasons why that is a woefully misguided analysis: Germany, and Korea. For decades after Mission Accomplished in Berlin, and unto this very day, the US military maintains a massive presence in Germany -- as I have personal reasons for knowing. Are we to presume that WW II was a failure, for this fact? Other goals were achieved -- de-Nazifying the Germans ... containing the Soviets. Again, we have, as I recall, nearly 40,000 troops on the DMZ between South and North Korea. Was the Korean War a failure, for this fact? The goal of that war was not to conquer Red China, but to preserve South Korea. That goal has been achieved -- only because of our continuing presence there. Our presence is not a sign of failure, but the cause of success.

Any who doubt this need only consider Vietnam -- I do not say South Vietnam, since there is no such entity. It ceased to exist, overrun by the enemy after it became clear that America, which had achieved its Peace With Honor, would not return. Had we remained in South Vietnam, there would still be a South Vietnam, and no Cambodian killing fields, and no millions of fugitive boat people, and only half of the Vietnamese race living in utter oppression, rather than all.

Buckley winds down thus: “Given our mission's failure in Iraq, the job in hand becomes to retreat with care, certainly with more care than we exercised in our retreat from Vietnam.” How odd, a man of his intellectual caliber, making such an obvious error. Our failure in Vietnam was not due to any carelessness in retreat. It was in the retreat itself. Perhaps he conflates the withdrawal of the military, with the calamitous evacuation of the Embassy two years later? In any case, there is only one way to lose Iraq, and that’s by, well, retreating.

We should maintain troops in Iraq indefinitely. Not because the war will never end, but because even in the months ahead, when the Iraqis themselves take on the lion’s share of the burden of self-defense, an American presence will act as the guarantor of Iraqi stability and independence, and of its continued existence, as it does in South Korea. It will be a stabilizing force in the region against Syria and Iran, as it was against the Soviets. It will be a civilizing force against the Baathists, as it was in Germany’s de-Nazification.

This is a burden, but it will be a decreasing one. Iraq will take on the costs of its own governing, and Europe is civilized enough, by now, finally, so that our bases in Germany can be, um, evacuated. There is a new enemy, you see. The Soviets are on the ash heap. The hammer and sickle of the Communists have been replaced by the sword and crescent of the Islamists. The Cold War -- the Third World War -- has been replaced now by the War on Terror -- the Fourth World War. The cost will be no less, but the threat is in no way smaller. Just different.

America only loses in retreat. Where we advance, we bring freedom. Mr. Buckley, you love freedom. Reconsider then, on what ground you stand. It is the same place that those shameful cowards of the ’60s and ’70s stood. Against a war for freedom.


J

The Electoral College

The idea is that the presidential election should be decided directly, by a purely popular vote. The Electoral College is called by its opponents "an antidemocratic relic." Well. First, the Framers of the Constitution seem to have been quite a bit wiser than the toadies and mediocrities who thrust themselves forward into public office nowadays. Not every signer of the Constitution was a Madison, but no one today is a Madison. So this is an inherent problem. Don’t tinker lightly with the Constitution – proceed with caution. Even its flaws had a purpose - the hateful compromise which counted a slave as three fifth of a person. Odious. But necessary. The EC is not such an odious compromise. It is part of the very wise checks and balances that make this form of government superior to every other. So that’s the first thing.

In its place, some propose that states simply bypass the intent of the Electoral College by committing to an interstate compact, whereby the winner of the national popular vote would automatically receive the electoral votes of each state, regardless of which candidate actually won the state. Thus, as few as eleven states could decide the presidency; in fact, eleven votes over half the population of eleven states could decide the issue - same as now. In any case, the large states tend to favor such a plan – but the purpose of the EC was to offset the power of the large states. So of course.

What does it matter, if large states have more power? – after all, they have more people. The Electoral College is one of the few remaining cornerstones of the federalist system, in which states had a powerful voice, and the federal government was much more limited. Why is such decentralization important? Well, whither might we flee, when corruption is intractable where we are? If there is only one authority, and it is corrupt, then corruption is universal. Um, Mexico comes to mind – the stink starts at the top – three quarters of a century of an “institutional” yet “revolutionary” national monopoly. Hmm. But here, if state X has laws that you hate and can’t change, you can move to state Y. Leave liberal California and move to conservative Wyoming. Leave Red Neck Utah and live in the Peoples Paradise of, um, Vermont. Pretty sensible idea. (It’s the same reason we must tremble at the thought of a world government. What if all the world had been dominated by the Soviets? Where would one find asylum?)

Some complain that only battleground states receive the benefit of a focused campaign. Um … this seems like a problem? You like all the campaign ads on TV and radio? You think they’re useful? Informative? Accurate? Honestly, have you ever changed your informed position because of what you saw in a campaign ad? Hi, I’m Senator Joe Sincerity, and I love my mother ... so vote for me! And the attack ads! Joseph “Mama’s-Boy” Sin-cerity - he eats puppies ... while they’re ... still ... alive!!! That Florida gets more campaign media dollars than Texas seems like a boon for Florida media moguls, but a blessing for Texans in general. Here’s the thing: it is no longer the year 1924. News coverage is national – not, as may surprise some, limited to hometown papers. Hardly a meaningful objection.

There’s also the obvious problem, that if three candidates all make a good showing, another election would be required. That, or the unhappy solution of having a president elected with, say, 34% of the vote. If, say, two liberals lost, with 60% of the vote between them, and a conservative won with forty percent, the very purpose of the reform would have been undone – and you’d have a situation far more objectionable than the Electoral College.

Finally, and most salient, what of the recent oddity of Gore winning the popular vote yet Bush winning the election? That got right up Lefty’s nose, didn’t it. Here’s the thing, Lefty: if the rules had been different, then the Bush strategy would have been different. If he had to win the popular vote, he would have tailored his campaign to win the popular vote. In other words, if the rules were different, the strategy to win would have been different. Since both candidates were college graduates, and thus presumably aware of the need to win states rather than a popular majority, no one can say the outcome was unfair. Well, they can say it was unfair, but only by reverting to the schoolyard tactics of gimmes and do-overs.

Federalism is absolutely necessary to protect citizens from government. States must have and retain rights and powers, independent of the central government. There must be a rivalry between local and national governments, to outdo the other in protecting citizens. How can I be so sure? A case from history: Once upon a time, Senators were selected by state legislatures, the intent being that states as entities would be represented, just as citizens were represented by the House. Then, in 1913 the Seventeenth Amendment changed the selection process to a popular vote, the idea being that the Senate would no longer be a richman’s club. Alas, the desired effect has not been forthcoming. It is still a richman’s club, with the added ugliness that now the Senate is no longer the federal voice of state’s rights, but just another, longer, smaller House - whoring for the popular vote. The Senate was stripped of its most important function, while the desired outcome remains as elusive as ever it was. The law of unintended consequences.

The purpose of the Electoral College is not obscure. It is a safety net. Before it is shredded, better reasons than those so far adduced must be in evidence. The end.

J

This Illegal War

aving maniacs. Nobody has ever been able to explain to me why there even is a war in Iraq. And as any thoughtfully thinking person of intelligent intellect must think, it is the obligation of somebody else to explain things to me, and I will sit in judgment as to whether I deign to agree. So because nobody has ever been able to explain this illegal war that so-called America is attacking poor innocent Iraq with, and its babies – for as you know, we of the Left are filled with love, and we care most of all about the poor innocent babies – and don’t go off on another one of your tangents about how it is the progressive enlightened Left that kills babies, because I’ve explained this to you before that fetuses are not babies … how stupid are you anyway? Don’t you get it, you fascist pig murdering oppressor? They’re not human, because they’re not viable. A so-called baby that can’t support itself isn’t human. How obvious does it have to be? – you corrupt greedy capitalist scum. Are you a stupid pathetic moron or something, that you need it explained to you? You people are all such idiots, and such hypocrites. You’re all the same. How I hate you, you filthy dirty lying sub-human evil Islamophobic homophobes. Oh, and racist!

It is a proven fact that Saddam had no contact with terrorists. It is a proven fact that Iraq never had and never used any weapons of mass destruction, at any time. Everyone knows that there never was any Iraqi nuclear program. It’s so obvious. It’s all about oil. America the Ugly just wants that cheap Iraqi oil, so they can burn it up and destroy the planet with their SUVs. Any idiot knows this. I know I do.

That’s what this illegal war is about. I mean, the poor French and Russians worked heroically for peace – they are such good and honest people, unlike so-called America. Their motives are pure. And the noble UN, so open, so pure, so honorable and noble and pure – the heroic democracies that comprise this fabulous experiment in freedom and noble honesty all voted that America was a pig monster of oppression ... I’m sure I remember that’s what UN Resolution 1441 was all about. With proven facts like these before us, there can be no doubt about how bad America is.

So, dear reader, I trust that the brilliance of my exposition has made the only sane position even more clear. America is the villain. Iraq is the ideal – especially the heroic insurgency, or Minutemen as we on the Left call them. If you have any more things that need explaining just drop Your Humber Author a line and he will do his usual job of bringing rationality to the insanity. Until then,

I remain, Your Humble Author,


Helmut Crisp

PS – Crédit Mobilier.

A Psychological Study

On myself. Or of myself. Point being, there arose an instantaneous loathing when I stumbled upon, stepped in, a very, ahem, liberal blog. The kind that just imagines it's right? The kind that's full of self-satisfaction? The kind that loves to call names. What's that you say? - the mirror-image of this site? Oh, but how wrong you are! The blog in question can only be understood, if you suppose, say, Helmut Crisp wrote it. Get it? Accusation stands for evidence. A bowl full of begged questions. In other words, typical. The intellect behind it uses, for instance, the phrase Red State Soviets. Such searing wit. I will leave it to you to enumerate the errors in such a trope. I count seven.

But that's not the point. The point is my instant loathing, like inadvertently getting something sticky and smelly on your hands. It might be my reaction to disloyalty. Or to the attack-dog mentality - so unthinking, so blind. Or to the utter wrongness of it. But the thing of it is, I don't have any insights into this reaction of mine. I can observe it, and offer some superficial ideas, but there's nothing deep, here. I get the enemy - the declared enemy. But these people ... I don't get treachery. It is the reflexive repulsion that decency feels for depravity, but that's just another observation, not an explanation.

I did explore this, a bit, in Travail, but even there my conclusion was, either you get it or you don't. I understand my loathing - it is of something disgusting. But I don't understand why liberals - by which I mean this sort of liberal - are so disgusting. Disgust is an entirely emotional reaction - a learned response. An infant has no problem doing, frankly, some disgusting thing. We protect them from continuing in it. We teach them better.

Ah, I'm getting a glimmer. Liberals haven't learned something that is fundamental. They lack an essential. And they are articulate enough to disguise this deficit as something right. I imagine there are as many conservative perverts as there are liberal ones. I imagine so - probably wrong, but who knows ... and let's say it's so. The difference, then, between a liberal and a conservative pervert, is that the liberal would claim his perversion is right, natural, normal, good. The conservative would be ashamed. A litmus test, then. You know where you stand, lib or con, by your level of tolerance for the unacceptable.

So it isn't the irrationality of liberals, or their delusional outlook. It's not even that they think they're right, when they're so wrong. It's that they are like babies who never grow out of doing disgusting things, and refuse to learn better, and refuse to stop. Eventually they stop being babies, and remain, only, disgusting. Hence, my loathing.




J

Credible Threat

Just something I want to point out. During WW II, a little over sixty-five Japanese cities were utterly destroyed, including Tokyo and Kobe. Blasted from the skies. Not with bombs, but with incendiary bombs. The weapon was not explosives, but fire. Fire. Or rather, firestorm. Oh, and a couple more cities were destroyed with nukes. As much energy can be released in ten minutes of firestorm, as in the bright moment of a Little Boy or a Fat Man.

This coming mid April will mark the Centenary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake ... and Fire. Earthquake and Firestorm, I should say. The Great London Firestorm. The Great Chicago Firestorm. And then all those deliberate firestorms of war – the calculated destruction of, say, Hamburg (the fire reached a height of 2000 meters), or Dresden (over 200,000 Germans killed in that one). Not an unknown phenomenon, then.

The flames leap from block to block, isolated fires joining like streams into rivers. Temperatures get hot enough to melt glass - to melt iron. Canals catch fire. Fleeing people sink into boiling asphalt like sloths into tar pits. Winds grow to hurricane forces as cool air is dragged in along the ground to replace the air blasting up with the heat - trees are knocked over like reeds. Roofs are torn from their joists and combust in midair, to rain down as flaming ash, spreading more havoc. Fire climbs stone walls, crosses tile roofs and pours down chimneys like kerosene down a gopher hole. Most casualties come not from the flames, but from poisonous gases, from asphyxiation, from distant heat.

My point? There isn’t a city in the world that the US couldn’t utterly destroy at will. Without any recourse to nukes. And with much, much less political fallout. The precedent is there, after all. Fire is natural, after all. And after all, the really evil thing about nukes is the radiation – not a problem, with firestorm.

Even total warfare need not be nuclear. This should be a comfort to all of us.

J

Savd!

Portgate! Saved from Portgate! Yes!!!!! Savd!!! O .. prase the Deuty! But BEWARE!!! The PERIL is still EXTEME!!!!!!! Did you know that the UAE have ...... its own airline?!!???!!? - that flys into New York sevral times eachday with.... jetplains??!!??!? How long shall this OUTRAGE continue??!!? Airplanes!!!!! ARAB jet airplans!!!!!!!1!! Flying onto ....... NEW YORK!!!!!!!!!!!5!&!!!! First of all ...... being ARAB should be illeegal!!! Secont of all ..... ...... it should be ilegul ....... for ARABS to fly airplains!!!111!!! next of all ARABS flying jet airplainnes into New yOrck shoud be ....... elligol!!!!!! thrurd of all, it shood be illelgel too be ARAB!!..!?!! Fif off al ilunleegal ARABB jett areplayns fling ontuo Nu yorcq illiEggullee shuDd bi uleGall!!!!!!!!..!!!!!@@!!!!!$$!!!!!!!!!!...

And what might we expect of the UAE now - our strategeric and close ally, the UAE? Chances are ... that crane there? - that's unloading those Humvees? Owned by DPW. The port that harbors the largest number of our ships is in the UAE. They've got a lot of money, you know, to invest - to buy, like, um, products made in the USA. Like Bowing aircraft, for instance. What would you do? Continue to shop at a store that wants your money but not you? It's a slap in the face of every Arab and every Moslem: they are not to be trusted. But the Red Chinese, who run the port in Long Beach, California, and whom clinton signed up to RUN THE PANAMA CANAL (!?!), are to be, um, trusted.

But, thankfully, sanity has prevailed, and those dirty, sneaky Arabs aren't going to take over all our ports - or eight terminals, in six cities - and efficiently run them. Dodged a bullet that time, didn't we.

Or not.

I'm not ashamed, for some reason. I guess because I understand. But this isn't right.



J

Review

I haven't been to a movie in a couple years. Don't quite know why. Enjoy them. It's not a protest. Don't care much for crowds, but that's not much of a factor. Maybe it's just my general withdrawal. Didn't watch the Olympics. Didn't watch the Oscars. I've got things to do, apparently. But when I see their names, I always read the columns: Mark Steyn; Charles Krauthammer. Steyn, as I've said before, is always right. When Krauthammer is wrong, rarely, he is still a rational, intelligent and reasonable voice. I've just read Krauthammer's piece on Clooney's movie Syriana.

The phrase for the day: "moral clarity."

Clooney has the reputation of being a generous, modest, funny, decent guy. How is it possible to take the best country in the world - the greatest force for liberty - and make it the villain? How is it possible to take the perfect evil of Islamism - racist, murderous, treacherous - and make it the hero? How is it possible for personable, attractive people to get it always so completely, perversely wrong?

They smile, and smile, and they are villains.

Brokeback Mountain. Haven't seen it. Is it a love story? A love story? Is it love? Haven't seen it, so I don't know. I do know, from hearing, that it is an adultery story. Is this a beautiful thing? I don't see betrayal as beautiful. I understand desire, and longing, and loneliness. I understand lust, and rebellion, and desperation. I understand caring yet not caring about the people you hurt to get your own way. But I don't understand believing it's beautiful. Either they believe it is beautiful, or they smile, and smile.

What, then? They're bad? Disloyal? Confused? I don't know what they are. I know what they claim to be pure and beautiful, I call vile. I know they are skillful communicators. They are very talented at seeming sincere. They are attractive, and recite scripts articulately. With seeming conviction. With passionate intensity. But everything we see of them is an illusion. Whether they are correct or in error, the product they sell is verisimilitude - not reality, but ... an artistic interpretation, or a propagandistic lie. In every case, good or bad, right or wrong, a manipulation.

The days of yellow journalism, of muck-rakers, are gone. In those days, newspapers stated their political allegiance. Biased, and proud of it. Must have been Watergate that changed all that. The adolescent tantrummers of the '60s took power, and never having learned self-control, they made cynicism a mainstream virtue. The problem with cynicism is that it is profoundly dishonest. And so they lie, to us and themselves, about their bias. No, we're objective, we're truth-tellers. It's too dangerous to be pathetic. Now, they are muck-makers.

There will always be twisted liars and self-deceivers. Can't change human nature. The problem is that they deal not only in words, but in images. Everyone knows that liars use words - we are taught early on to doubt what we hear. But pictures? Pictures make better pornography than do paragraphs. What we see is more powerful than what we hear. Hollywood shows us. And what we see becomes what we know. That's why they are so dangerous. They put their pictures to stirring music, and frame them with mountains and seascapes and lovely woman and strong-seeming men, and what are we to do, but believe?

These people, who don't even have the moral sense to be hypocrites. They don't even pretend. They celebrate drugs, which destroy rationality, and betrayal, which destroys society, and the enemy, which destroy us.

When I get around to it, I'll go to a movie. Hope it's a good one.



J

Insert non-judgmental title about gay "marriage" here.

Here.

It was an interesting species of discussion from the Comments of "13 x 3: The Worst President." I say "species" because - um, how should I say this ... don't wish to be negative - my correspondent is particularly, uniquely, and astoundingly non-responsive to the requirement of evidence in meaningful debate. I say "interesting" because it is such an odd artifact of quasi-communication. Not recommended for the impatient.

Read it as a study in non-linear thinking, if you will.




J