And people wonder why there's apathy

Last week there was a rather ironic (well, I thought so) meeting on a college in Arizona to take up the formidable issue of apathy in regards to student elections. Three people showed up to listen and offer input. I wonder if that has anything to do with the difficult issues that college student governments deal with. Like this one:

Sports Commissioner Alex Wakeman ’06 asked the Senate for advice about an inner-tube water polo scoring system concern. Currently, female participants are awarded two points per goal and male participants are awarded one point per goal. One student was concerned about where transgendered students fit in this system. Wakeman understands the concern, but she is reluctant to change the scoring system because she feels it encourages more women to participate. DesRochers pointed out that the Senate needs to learn more about transgender issues because they do not have the vocabulary and background to provide the best solutions for these problems.

I know it's only "fair" that girls get two points for doing what guys are awarded a single point for. But I suspect that if they take the easy route and award transgendered students one and a half points per goal, a whole busload of really competitive former men are going to suddenly be transgendered. And with that kind of a disadvantage, would women still participate?

Oh, the conundrums of college life. They don't pay student senators enough for the stress they must endure.

Hat tip: BOTW

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of Land Mimes brand petards and Greek fire for use on performace artists. Invisible Casket(tm) sold separately.

How feminists deal with arguments

OK, I know it's not ALL feminists, ok? But it's just funny and instructive to see the left-wing blogosphere in a complete tizzy over Vox Day's latest volley. It started with a little diatribe on date rape and how in no other area but rape is the victim completely exonerated from responsibility when they act stupidly. Leave your keys in the car, and you're to that extent responsible if it's stolen. Leave your purse unattended on a park bench, and you're partially responsible when it gets stolen. But go to a frat party, get drunk to the point of passing out, and you're somehow exonerated from responsibility when you wake up in the morning to find out you had sex the night before.

I'm not going to argue for or against what Vox said...too much ink has already been spilled over it and if someone is interested, follow the links that appear in bold. What I am interested is in the response of so many in the feminista corner of the blogosphere who, rather than actually arguing with Vox's premise, immediately resort to one of two responses, both emotional.

First is a quick case of the vapors:

anashi: I can’t breath (sic), that was just so awful. Just no words. None.

Tapetum: Much more and I won’t be able to look at his site without becoming physically ill. He’s already making me nauseous.

Kim: this just makes me want to cry.

Norah: That’s what really turns my stomach.

Anne: Wow. The man’s words sicken me.

Second is an immediate recourse to violence:

Kyra: Can we castrate all these people? Please?

Karpad: so… anyone got the original posters home address? since, you know, he’s already agreed that rape is morally acceptible?

Chris: wow….just wow. will someone please shoot this man in the face?

Eleanor: It makes me want to find him and subject him to various measures suggested by other commenters here.

Sarah: I have some fun ideas of what to do with him involving my fencing equipment.

Finally, the pot calls the kettle black:

Tigerlily: "I think Vox Day’s tune might change if HE were the one to be raped, especially if the prepetrator is a 350lb black guy; Vox Day sounds a little racist, doesn’t he?"

Yeah, Vox is the racist.

And it's rather funny, because they completely misread Vox (or in most cases didn't read him at all). But that was certainly not reason to completely avoid addressing the issues raised, and to immediately either pull either a Scarlet O'Hara or a Lorena Bobbitt.

Neither bodes well for reasoned discussion of important issues, and who can complain about Vox's "misogyny" when what he says about feminists is so manifestly illustrated by the very posters he repeatedly criticizes?

Update: No, it's not just wimmin. Our good friend Jim over at Patricide misses the point as well. Vox, who is NOT a moral relativist, asks upon what grounds moral relativists condemn rape. Jim calls him a "pinched-off little turd," and proposes that Vox would change his tune on the "evil of rape" were he in prison. In other words, he completely succeeds in not answering the question of how those who do not believe in a moral God can find rape objectively evil, other than roundabouting his way into a watered-down version of "how would you like it if they did that to YOU?" and then writing to Elliot Wave to complain that they advertise on a site that he says (I kid you not) "advocates rape."

Copyright 2005, El Borak, inc. Makers of “Here-Kitty-Kitty” brand sandwich slices. The other white meat.

Copied over from the old site

Just in time for the coming Law.com war over creationism.

Fred says:

...evolutionists are obsessed by Christianity and Creationism, with which they imagine themselves to be in mortal combat. This is peculiar to them. Note that other sciences, such as astronomy and geology, even archaeology, are equally threatened by the notion that the world was created in 4004 BC. Astronomers pay not the slightest attention to creationist ideas. Nobody does - except evolutionists. We are dealing with competing religions - overarching explanations of origin and destiny. Thus the fury of their response to skepticism.

It's probably fair to say that creationists likewise imagine themselves to be involved in the same combat, and most probably think that Darwin discovered something new. But such arguments (and in pretty much their present forms) have been around for millennia. Evolution is not a 'modern' idea, but a very old one. And it has been in conflict with creationism all that time, even when those creationists were ancient pagan Romans and Greeks.

"Is it not a wonder that anyone can bring himself to believe that a number of solid and separate particles by their chance collisions and moved only by the force of their own weight could bring into being so marvelous and beautiful a world? If anybody thinks that this is possible, I do not see why he should not think that if an infinite number of examples of the twenty-one letters of the alphabet, made of gold or what you will, were shaken together and poured out on the ground it would be possible for them to fall so as to spell out, say, the whole text of the Annals of Ennius. In fact I doubt whether chance would permit them to spell out a single verse!'"
-- Cicero, Roman Statesman and Stoic Philosopher, ca 100bc

Boy, THAT one sounds familiar, doesn't it? Change it to monkeys and typewriters and it's right out of biology textbooks "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

"Living creatures arose from the moist element as it was evaporated by the sun. Man was like another animal, namely, a fish, in the beginning… Originally man was born from animals of another species. While other animals quickly find food by themselves, man alone requires a lengthy period of suckling. Hence, had he been originally as he is now, he would never have survived."
-- Anaximander, Greek Philosopher, ca 500 bc (quoted by Theophrastus)

Note how Anixamander tied the necessity of evolution with survival of the fittest. Could it be coincidence that Darwin did the same?

Anaximander has been called "a precursor of Darwin". It's probably just as easy to say that Darwin tapped into an argument that was already at least 25 centuries old when he joined it...That we consider Darwin the pivotal character shows how short our cultural memory is.

"Some people, I believe, account for all things which have come to exist, all things which are coming into existence now, and all things which will do so in the future, by attributing them either to nature, art, or chance."
-- Plato, "The Law", ca 400bc

Plato's uncertainty about the existence of people who thought everything occured as the result of random processes shows that naturalistic evolution was a pretty rare and novel idea. More than two thousand years ago.

"If there is anything in nature which the human mind, which human intelligence, energy and power could not create, then the creator of such things must be a being superior to man. But the heavenly bodies in their eternal orbits could not be created by man. They must therefore be created by a being greater than man ...Only an arrogant fool would imagine that there was nothing in the whole world greater than himself. Therefore there must be something greater than man. And that something must be God."
-- Crysippus, Stoic Philosopher, ca 200bc

Here we find the crux of the religious problem for the evolutionist. He is generally quick to tell us that one can believe in God and evolution. And that's certainly no problem either for a classical pagan or a Christian. But what one can't believe in is creation without a creator. While evolution does not force a disbelief in God, creationism forces a belief in God on those who want no such thing.

"When you see a sundial or a water-clock, you see that it tells the time by design and not by chance. How then can you imagine that the universe as a whole is devoid of purpose and intelligence when it embraces everything, including these artifacts themselves and their artificers? Our friend Posidonius as you know has recently made a globe which in its revolution shows the movements of the sun and stars and planets, by day and night, just as they appear in the sky. Now if someone were to take this globe and show it to the people of Britain or Scythia would a single one of those barbarians fail to see that it was the product of a conscious intelligence?"
-- Cicero, Roman Statesman and Stoic Philosopher, ca 100bc

Evolution v. Creation is not a uniquely "Christian" thing; there's not a Christian quoted above, not even Fred. It's not even really a question of religion for the Christian; my belief in God is predicated on the person and work of Jesus whatever the ultimate historical explanation for the universe. But it does bring up a nasty religious conundrum for those who do not believe in a creator god (or God) of the Greek or Roman or Jewish or Christian or Muslim type. Maybe that explains the ferocity of their defense of evolution.

Copyright 2005, El Borak, inc. Makers of Bubba Claus brand mistletoe belt buckles. Bubba Claus Defense Fund sold separately.

What? A Crooked Congressman?

Say it ain't so, Duke:

Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy and tax charges and tearfully resigned from office, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to conspirators.

Cunningham, 63, entered pleas in U.S. District Court to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud, and tax evasion for underreporting his income in 2004...

Cunningham, an eight-term Republican congressman, had already announced in July that he would not seek re-election next year.

Imagine that. A congressman whose job it is to funnel tax money to the various open mouths that congregate along the Potomac figured that it was just a dandy idea to pocket a little largess for himself. For guys like this, prison should not be considered. Seriously. It's obviously not a deterrent and former congressmen are not a danger to society: their danger potential ends the moment they resign.

For guys like this, there are highways that need cleaning. How about Mr. Cunningham spends the next 120 years (that's about $10 an hour paying back $2.4 million) under guard cleaning highways in an orange suit with a target on the back? Oh, and California should suspend all anti-littering regulations within 50 yards of where he's working.

But he'll likely be replaced with someone just as crooked. Anytime you put $2.5 million million dollars in a pile and divy it up based on votes, the kind of people you are going to attract are generally those who enjoy the power that comes from being that type of kingmaker. If you've ever wondered why it's worthwhile to spend millions of dollars to win a job that pays ~$150k a year, this is the reason. Money is power and power is an aphrodesiac.

It's just a shame that the only ones who resign are those who decide to pocket the money. The ones who exercise power for its own sake are re-elected time and time again.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of Compleat Failure brand trophies for losers. Sometimes your best isn’t even close...

Ce n'est pas amusement à être sur le pavé

People walk past as a homeless person takes cover from the cold on a Paris sidewalk November 28, 2005, as six homeless have died in France since the arrival of winter temperatures. French authorities have raised their weather alert in 31 departments and asked for increased vigilance to the homeless in Paris.

What? France has homeless? I was taught in school that homelessness was a byproduct of cruel Republican policies like not giving everyone health care for free. France has everything a socialist political agitator could ask for, yet cars burn in the streets and homeless die as soon as it gets cold. Maybe the French Republic is not dead after all...

Actually, it's not that the homeless get a bum deal under the GOP, but that only when the GOP is around to get the blame are the homeless deemed important. France's homeless problem is small potatoes compared to that of that great American bastion of Republicanism, San Francisco:

Homeless people in San Francisco are dying at a rate of nearly one every other day, according to figures released by the city's medical examiner.

The report counted 169 homeless deaths during the fiscal year that ended July 2003, matching the record annual high since the city first started compiling the data in 1987.

Though the report provided no causes of death, past studies by the Department of Public Health have attributed more than 60 percent to drug and alcohol abuse.

The last sentence, I suspect, says it all. People are not homeless because of a lack of money or work to do; they are homeless because of choices they have made that lead one to having no money and no home. Of course, it's cruel to say so, but that doesn't make it untrue.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of Spacoon and Sparmadillo brand canned luncheon meats. If you have to ask what's in them, you can't afford anything else.

Ignorance and Polling

Democrats fumed last week at Vice President Cheney's suggestion that criticism of the administration's war policies was itself becoming a hindrance to the war effort. But a new poll indicates most Americans are sympathetic to Cheney's point.

Seventy percent of people surveyed said that criticism of the war by Democratic senators hurts troop morale -- with 44 percent saying morale is hurt "a lot," according to a poll taken by RT Strategies. Even self-identified Democrats agree: 55 percent believe criticism hurts morale, while 21 percent say it helps morale.

The results surely will rankle many Democrats, who argue that it is patriotic and supportive of the troops to call attention to what they believe are deep flaws in President Bush's Iraq strategy. But the survey itself cannot be dismissed as a partisan attack. The RTs in RT Strategies are Thomas Riehle, a Democrat, and Lance Tarrance, a veteran GOP pollster.

Their poll also indicates many Americans are skeptical of Democratic complaints about the war. Just three of 10 adults accept that Democrats are leveling criticism because they believe this will help U.S. efforts in Iraq. A majority believes the motive is really to "gain a partisan political advantage."

By titling their entry about this poll "Democrats Hurting Troop Morale," Red State accidentally illustrates how polling does very little to foster knowledge. The poll does not answer the question of whether Democrats are actually hurting troop morale, because the people the pollsters asked are not generally in a position to know for sure. I certainly don't know, because I'm not a troop. By asking people who are not in a position to know the answer, the poll, like most polls I think, measures nothing but people's attitudes about subjects they are ignorant of. Of course, everyone holds ignorant opinions; but why they are important I don't know. My own opinion about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, for example, is not worth holding, much less sharing. I guess aggregating all those opinions somehow makes them important. And if you multiply zero with a big enough number, you'll eventually get steak and potatoes...

But there is a place where those perceptions may be important, and that's why the second question IS politically relevant. Are the Democrats simply acting out of partisanship rather than in the interest of the nation? Well, they have certainly given every indication that such is the case, and seven-in-ten think that is precisely the reason. That bodes ill for the Democrats, not only on this issue but on every issue they address. If 70% of people think they are simply saying the sky is one color because Bush says it's another, regardless of the facts of the case, then that's 70% who believe the Dems have no principles, ideas, and solutions of their own. The Dems, at least in the minds of voters, are simply "Anti-Bush" because Bush has what they want, like a 5-year-old who no longer "likes" his best friend because he's super-jealous that friend got the new radio controlled Tonka play bulldozer.

As good as the GOP has been at abandoning their principles, at least they are generally-perceived as having them. Unfortunatley, any advantage the Dems might have received from that abandonment has been squandered by their own inability to develop and articulate any principle more complicated or helpful than"Bush lied."

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Drac-Be-Gone brand vampire repellent. Hot cross buns sold separately. This product works best when applied in direct sunlight.

Those Theocrats

WHEREAS, It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor;

WHEREAS, Both the houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
--George Washington - October 3, 1789

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Frittering Away Fear

Tokyo's governor misses the easy pitches:

"In any case, if tension between the United States and China heightens, if each side pulls the trigger, though it may not be stretched to nuclear weapons, and the wider hostilities expand, I believe America cannot win as it has a civic society that must adhere to the value of respecting lives," Mr. Ishihara said in an address to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies...

The governor said the U.S. military could not counter a wave of millions of Chinese soldiers prepared to die in any onslaught against U.S. forces. After 2,000 casualties, he said, the U.S. military would be forced to withdraw...

Officials acknowledge that Mr. Ishihara's views reflect the widespread skepticism of U.S. military capabilities in such countries as Australia, India, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. They said the U.S.-led war in Iraq has pointed to the American weakness in low-tech warfare.

Blame George Bush. Seriously, I do, and there's a good reason for it.

Remember the ground forces that routed Iraq's "low tech" army not once but twice in a decade? Where is that army today? It still exists, right? So how is it that our armed forces can go from obviously the finest, most lethal, most disciplined, best equipped killing machine in the world to one that our own allies doubt could beat an army that has failed to take Tiawan for half a century?

It's George Bush's fault that our allies have lost the respect for our ground troops earned by routing a smaller version of China's "throw bodies at them" army, because our army has failed to do what it was not designed to do: play defense.

It's a rather simple argument, yet one that has some historical precedent. Why did we lose in Vietnam when we outgunned, outspent, outkilled our opponent by an order of magnitude? Why did the USSR lose in Afghanistan when they did the same? The simple reason is that in each case, the army was trying to prop up a government rather than knocking one down. The same is at play in Iraq. When our armed forces were knocking down Saddam, they did so with incredible, dreadful efficiency. When they are trying to prop one up it works not so much.

The point is not that GWB has made our army less lethal; it's that valuable fear of our army has been frittered away because he has them doing a task that armies are not fitted to do.

Why is that fear valuable? Because fear is the first step towards peace. There's a cool t-shirt sold by some conservative sites that has a b-52 superimposed over a peace symbol. It reads, "Peace through superior firepower." That's a good motto and an effective one, but only if your opponent KNOWS your firepower is superior. You only have peace if your opponent fears you enough to give it to you. We have superior firepower; in fact, the US spends as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. The problem is that by misusing that firepower to play defense, propping up a democratic regime in an undemocratic culture, we have allowed the world to forget what we accomplished before GWB declared the end of hostile operations.

Mr. Ishihara is completely incorrect in assuming our forces can't handle "low-tech" warfare. They handled Saddam's version just fine, thank you. But his confusion of that warfare with the fourth-generation opponent we face in Iraq is a dangerous mistake. It's dangerous for us; it's dangerous for Japan; it's dangerous for China.

I have no doubt our military could kick China's ampersand no matter how many bodies they threw into the breach. But the danger arises because, since GWB has misused the tool and squandered the Chinese's fear of that tool, we may eventually be put into a situation where we have to find out for sure.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of Faux Pearls, Turin Shrouds, Quality Manhole Covers, String Cheese, Counterfeit Canadian Dollars, Japes, Puns, and Irrelevant Comparisons, and confusing Florida ballots

The A-Team

When I was a kid, I used to love to watch “The A-Team” on TV. This quartet of lovable fugitives, upon finding themselves in weekly hot water, would always manage to fight their way out using the most creative – and unlikely – of means. But my favorite part of the show was its consistent finale: that point at which Hannibal Smith would chomp down on a cigar while overlooking whatever mayhem the team had just caused and say, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

This month's silver article has been published at SilverSeek.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of Fire in the Hole brand jalepeno suppositories. The quickest way to burn the shorts.

Forget the Counter, Keep the Bias

CounterBias sees a problem with Phill Kline:

Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline isn’t a household name yet, but he may be soon. In recent months Mr. Kline has shown that he is the type of judicial nominee that President Bush is looking for. Mr. Kline has that most valuable of assets that right-wing Republicans require of a nominee: a “conservative judicial philosophy.” In recent months he has sought to deny poor women of the right to an abortion, despite federal law to the contrary. And he supported handing out a much harsher sentence to a gay teenager who engaged in consensual sex than to heterosexual adolescents.

One of the fun things about being Attorney General is that, a lot like being a judge, you don't always get to pick your cases. Such is the case in these two issues that seem to have Kansas liberals up in arms. Let me preface this by a bit of disclosure: Phill Kline is a friend of mine. He is also one of the two Republicans in the world whose campaigns I'll work on. I've worked with him and for him, and we probably agree 75% or more of the time. How can that be since he (according to Counterbias) "has a penchant for promoting a right-wing, evangelical Christian judicial philosophy," and I'm a libertarian?

The reason is that I, unlike CounterBias apparently, understand the position of the AG as opposed to that of a proponent or a legislator. The "Gay Teenager" (Matthew Limon) case is a perfect example. Phill Kline served about 10 years in the Kansas House, during which time the Romeo and Juliet law was passed. When Phill was in the House, he voted against Romeo and Juliet. He opposed it. As a legislator, he had the right to make that stand, and his opinion was overruled. Romeo and Juliet became the law in Kansas.

Fast forward a few years. Phill Kline is now the Attorney General, charged with defending the state and the legislature in court. Romeo and Juliet is challenged in the courts. What is Phill to do?

He defends the very law he voted against when he was a legislator. Why? Because he's suddenly changed his mind? No, because he's suddenly changed his job. It's no longer his job to vote on the law, but to defend it, which is what he did. As AG, he no longer has the right to oppose the law professionally, even if he opposes it personally. Just like a good judge.

The same is the case with the other lawsuit noted, that Phill "sought to deny poor women the right to abortion." Other than the ludicrous assertion that people have the "right" to have abortions funded by the government, CounterBias leaves out a very relevant fact noted by Knight Ritter at the time the lawsuit was filed:

The Kansas House of Representatives ordered the lawsuit three years ago.

In other words, it was his job to file this suit; he was ordered by the elected officials of the Kansas House of Representatives - his bosses - to do so.

This is not to say Phill's not pro-life. He is, and unabashedly. But it is to say that were he to decline to file the suit even though the Kansas House ordered him to file it, he would not only be a poor AG, but would be engaging in the very activism CounterBias falsely accuses him of, putting his own opinion above what the legislators have decided.

The distinction between legislators who make the law and courts who interpret it is one that liberals like those at CounterBias never seem to understand. I can only hope that Phill is appointed a judge someday, because it's a distinction that he not only understands, but respects.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of Stinkin’ Logs brand malodorous construction sets. For the fecal foreman in your family.

Who Cares?

Of the nine students sitting on Heritage Hill yesterday at noon, one was sleeping, two were talking, three were eating lunch and three were listing to a talk on student apathy...

Student leaders were on hand to give their take on student apathy in regard to low turnouts during campus elections.

"We do a good job of getting the word out," said Erin Hertzog, Associated Students of the University of Arizona executive vice president and a journalism junior. "I don't think we do a good job of making it accessible to vote."

Whatever, dude.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of TaterAde brand potatoe flavoured sports drink. Run faster, run farther, from TaterAde.

How Liberals Think

From Daily Kos Via Stevo:

Just a reminder of who serves and who doesn't from a Kos Diary:

* Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71.
* David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72.
* Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72.
* Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam.
* Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam Jan. 1971 as an army journalist in 20th Engineer Brigade...

* Dennis Hastert: did not serve.
* Tom Delay: did not serve.
* Roy Blunt: did not serve.
* Bill Frist: did not serve.
* Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
* Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage...

This is a perfect example of green car liberalism. Why does George McGovern make the list but not Bob Dole? Why does Jimmy Carter make the list but not GHWBush? Why include Howell Heflin and Fritz Hollings but not Pat Roberts or Ike? Why leave out Harry Reid but include his Senate counterpart, Bill Frist? Why include Justice Thomas (who has he sent to war?) and leave out Justice Breyer?

Because they are simply looking for data that fits the model and then declaring all cars to be green. As the note on Stevo's blog said, "I am sure this one has been around, but I had never seen everything together in one place." Of course, it is not remotely "everything." It is only the data that fits the model.

That's why Pete Stark is noted as "Air Force 1955-57," but Bob Dornan who served in the Air Force from 1952-1958 and in the Cal Air Guard after that is noted as "enlisted after fighting was over in Korea." It's simple spin.

What they are proving, to answer Snoop's question, is nothing more than "how liberals think," which is to assemble data that fits their pre-conceived notions and then use that data to reinforce their opinions. They consistently confuse being critical with thinking critically.

All that being said, there is a certain amount of emotional appeal. We naturally want leaders who have done what they are asking others to do, and I can understand how liberals can find hypocrisy in those who have never served but who think others ought to go off to war. In certain specific cases, they may be absolutely correct in calling those people chickenhawks. There are plenty in both parties. Unfortunately, they find it in Frist and ignore the same in Reid.

However, in the case of the military, I think they are dangerously misled. There is a reason that our military is supposed to be under civilian control, and that reason is that history shows it is far more dangerous to place control of civilians in the hands of generals than it is to place generals in the hands of civilians. Many military men glory in war (think Patton, Alexander, Caesar) and it has long been a practice of military-minded men to seek immortality through conquest.

And while I am generally opposed to Presidents sending men off to war without a congressional declaration of war, given the choice I'd rather have the military in the hands of those who are less personally susceptible to that kind of temptation than in the hands of a Patton, who said, "Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God help me, I do love it so!"

God help the rest of us to avoid ever making a Patton President.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. No animals were harmed or killed during the making of this message.

Red State's Leon Joins the Depressed

The attacks in question were certainly alarming enough, but the incredibly obtuse response, at least on the part of the Spanish and the French, has convinced many (including myself), that Western Europe is largely lost. They have crumbled under the weight of their own ineptitude - they have institutionalized the socialist welfare state and found to their dismay that it led to crushing unemployment and widespread abuse of the system (who could have predicted such an outcome?). They have ousted peaceful religion from their public consciousness and have tacitly allowed fascist religion to fill the void left behind. They have stirred their socialism, secularism, and Islamofascism into a brew, and in the process set France on fire.

If Western Civilization is to survive, it will be up to America - and to a lesser extent, the tottering Britons. We will determine whether the Caliphate will cover Western Europe - and if Western Europe falls, we shall not be far behind.

Every day that goes by, I become more concerned that we are simply not up to the task.

Western Europe is largely lost. France has a ~10% Muslim population, yet according to the London Telegraph, its under-30 Muslim population is on the order of 25-30% and it is quite possible that France will be majority Muslim within a generation. France is doomed, and the Caliphate will reign. It is simply a matter of time.

Yet even after perfectly describing the problem, Leon draws the wrong conclusion:

Isolationists ...advocated a turtle-like approach to the rest of the world - if we just stayed over here, protected by oceans on either side, and didn’t make any provoking moves, we would surely be safe from harm...

What they fail to realize is that everything they hate about America - from her cowboy foreign policy to her tenacious grasp of the Christian religion - are the things that make America the one country that can save Westernism from the encroaches of Islamofascism.

As an isolationist myself, I would just ask one question: why did 9/11 occur in NYC rather than in Geneva? To pretend that our troops and homes are victims solely for the reason that "they hate our freedom" is the height of folly. Surely they hate our meddling and support of Israel just as much. That may not be a reason to ignore the world, but it is an acknowledgement that every choice has costs, and 9/11s are the price we will pay for marching troops all across the Muslim world.

But getting back to France, the question that must be asked is not "Is America the only nation that can save France?" but "Can France be saved?" If it were simply a question of an invading army a la 1940, then sure. One can drive out an army on behalf of an ally, and sometimes one must do that.

But what army is invading France? The 10% of French who are Muslim are French citizens. Are we going to drive the Muslim French out of France on behalf of the Western (I will not say Christian) French? Shall we intervene on behalf of the Western French not when they lack the ability, but the very will to save themselves?

The real problem is not the 10% or even the 25-30% in France. The problem is the 65-70%. The reason the demographic trends are running as they are is not because the Muslims are baby factories, but because the Westerns are not. They are not even biologically replacing themselves, much less at a rate anywhere close to the Muslims within their population. Shall our army invade and oversee a little (or a lot of) procreation? Western Europe, utterly disheartened by their loss of faith and empire, has chosen extinction. There is nothing we can do about that choice.

The problems of Western Europe are not problems of armies or policies or engagement, but problems of culture. They are the problems of an entire Continent that has fallen into the post-modern existential fear of death by subconsciously embracing it. There is a reason that Europe, even in the midst of an invasion by a hostile and ascendant culture, is still seeking ways to kill its own members off.

The solution for America is not militarism for the simple reason that the problem is not military. Since it is cultural, America has two advantages. The first is the very fact that we are "protected by oceans on either side," not from the invasion of armies, but from the immigration of ascendant Islam. Since our government has decided that open immigration is a de-facto policy, those oceans ensure that we are blessed with an invasion of hard-working Mexican peasants rather than radical Islamic ones. But the second advantage makes all the difference in the world. We have a vibrant core of Christianity in our culture that does replace itself, not only through birth but through evangelism.

America, like every other Western Nation, is split between two opposing cultures. One is a core of Christianity far larger and more vigorous in America than in Europe. The other is the suicidal nihilim of post-modern liberalism. In Europe, where the latter is nearly universal, that suicide brings down whole nations. In America, where only a minority glories in non-reproduction, it can only kill itself.

America cannot Hellenize the Middle East except to do it as Alexander did: wholesale slaughter and military occupation, seizing their wealth outright to support ourselves and our troops. If we have no stomach to do that, then we are wasting our time trying to convince them that modern democracy is their salvation at the same time much of the democratic world has chosen to die rather than to face life without hope.

But we can preserve our own culture. Not the way the French do it, by legislating and regulating what is to be considered "French." That approach is simply another form of state-worship that brings despair once it's discovered what a straw god government is. The solution to preserving culture is to disengage from state worship and rebuilt the evangelical foundation of volunteerism and self-reliance that has allowed America, thus far, to escape Europe's fate. Those who volunteer for the Red Cross and little rural fire departments are less likely to develop the weltanschauung of helpless despair that comes from reliance on government for daily bread. Those who homeschool their kids are in no danger of falling under the state's siren song. Those who believe that government is not god are, ironically, those who can preserve the nation.

Those like Leon who see in every problem an opportunity to use American power overseas have fallen into the trap of state-worship, the belief that government can and should solve all problems. But there is no choice, and perhaps no justice, but to let the Europeans have their own way. They have chosen death; who are we to tell them we cannot have it? And given the European propensity to go periodically mad, how is Islam worse than the fascism, communism, and other forms of state-worship the Europeans occasionally bloody the entire world with?

The question for America is, when the straw god of government fails, will we then choose a true God to replace it, or will we choose extinction? If we choose the latter, then France is our future, and there will be nothing we can do but reap what we have sown.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Publishers of ‘Swiss Family Robeson,’ the heartwarming saga of a troupe of Hollywood communists marooned on a South Pacific island, who must survive by their own brains and work (it’s a short story).

Making Stalin Proud

Children as young as eight are being taught that the controversial European Constitution is up and running - even though it has been rejected by voters...

Last night the Tories denounced the new teaching material. Liam Fox, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "It is quite clear that the commission are determined to ram through the constitution, despite any democratic objections. And to do so they are using propaganda that would have been more at home in the brainwashing era of the Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc."...

The teaching material, entitled Europe, My Home, features two children, Lea and Thomas, who are guided through the complexities of the EU by a character called Good Father Houpette.

"You will be astonished by what I will tell you," Father Houpette tells them. "You will see that the EU is a necessity."...

"Some people might argue that the constitution is dead," said Willy Helin, head of the commission's embassy to Belgium. "But it is still on the table. The only thing that has been decided is that there will be a period of reflection."

"A period of reflection," unfortunately, means only that even though the EU Constitution has been democratically defeated, it will live on as a done deal in public school books until a sufficient number of children are propagandized into voting for the very thing they've been taught existed as a necessity for years. The only question is whether the nations that make up the EU will survive individually long enough for children who know "the truth" to grow into voting citizens.

Of course, such propagandizing is not unique to Europe. Looking at some of America's battles over public school curriculum, it becomes obvious that much of the purpose of public education is not, in fact, to educate, but to "create citizens;" the kind of citizens, coincidentally, that believe those things and act in ways that the government finds convenient. It doesn't matter, specifically, if that government is made up of right-wing creationists or left-wing materialists. What matters is that those who have power are perfectly willing, even eager, to use the public schools as mouthpieces to speak "truth" into the ears of children that is true only in the sense that it is approved by those in power.

Education reformer John Dewey, in his Pedagogic Creed (1897), laid out the "true" purpose of public education:

I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.

I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.

I believe that in this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God.

"The proper social order," is of course defined by the state, which always seems to have a kingdom of God of its own. Any resemblance to any other kingdom of God, real or imagined, is purely coincidental and will be eliminated as soon as the ACLU hears about it.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of Clint Squint brand ponchos and cigarillos. Mangy redbone hound sold separately.

Christians and the Spirit of Fear

Snoop this week featured a post called, "Meet the Religious Right" that showed footage from some TV show or other. In the show, a Christian woman of substance returns to her family from a week in the home of a non-Christian family and completely freaks out, screaming at her family over the fact that the woman who replaced her might have exposed them to astrology and banishing everyone in sight from her home while being reduced to a blubbering pile.

Hey, I'm as opposed to astrology as anyone; stars should be relied on to sing the Gospel instead of telling the future. And I certianly understand that this woman is not "all Christians." She's certiainly not me, who is probably as "fundamental" as anyone you are likely to meet. But seriously, what kind of churches teach this kind of fear? Click thru to Snoop and watch the vid (if you can; I couldn't even watch the whole thing). We have a woman who seems to understand that Jesus is king; but that does not make one who is walking as Jesus taught.

Was Jesus ever reduced to an incoherent, blubbering pile with fear over the world? I think not. In fact, John taught that Jesus (and we through Him) had already overcome whatever powers manifest themselves in the world.

Did Jesus run around screaming about what kind of prayer warrior he was? I think not. He simply prayed, even on the very night he was to be betrayed and crucified.

Did the early Christians make a freaking spectacle over the unbelief of their neighbors, being reduced to sobbing Jabbas-the-Hutt whenever their families came in contact with the world? Of course not. Paul taught that Christians were to shine with light in that world, no matter what they came in contact with.

This woman does not, obviously, represent all Christians. But it's just sad to see Christians who have obviously not taken to heart Jesus' message concerning the things of the world: "In the world you will have trouble: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of CosaNostradamus prophetic services for Mobsters, Gangsters, and Racketeers. An offer you will not refuse. And we’d know.

Cowardice in the face of, well, whatever.

Sometimes it's tough being an ex-Republican. Seriously. Other than the fact that the GOP has shown Clinton to be a fiscal conservative (the main reason for my leaving the party) my biggest complaint has been their utter gutlessness in dealing with their Democratic opposition. Don't get me wrong, the Dems are at least half right when they propose their newfound (and seemingly only) principle: "Bush is wrong." They have no ideas of their own and simply define themselves as anti-Bush. But that's fine so far as it goes, since Bush is more than half wrong, it follows that the Dems are more than half right.

And the GOP, even though they control everything in Washington worth controlling, have consistently acted as a minority party (except, I'm happy to report, in the case of judges, the only area the GOP consistently - other than Miers - manages to get it right,) allowing the Dems to control the debate. Frankly, I'm glad the Dems killed SocSec reform. I'm glad they have killed most of Bush's domestic platform. A government that does nothing is far superior to a government that does whatever the GOP or the Dems wish. The Dems, though they can't run anything, have at least managed to stop Bush from doing much of anything. Props.

That is not, of course, reason for me to become a Democrat. The Dems last night once again showed why they are not an opposition party, but a joke that simply articulates a series of weekly memes that take the place of principled thought. Last week's meme, "Bush lied," is a non-starter because the Dems have left a paper trail that shows without a doubt that whatever Bush said, they said as well. This week's meme was promoted by Congressman John Murtha, who said:

...American forces should “immediately redeploy” from Iraq in order to help Iraqis take control of their country. “The presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is impeding this progress. Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency.They are united against U.S. forces, and we have become a catalyst for violence”...

He's correct. The Iraq war was a war to get rid of Saddam, which I supported. It was not a mandate to try to create a modern democracy in Iraq, which, if even possible, is guaranteed to simply forge another Shiite nation opposed to the US. We'll have to learn that eventually, I guess.

But what has that to do with Republicanism? Well, the GOP finally grew some stones and forced a vote to do that very thing. They brought up a vote that basically said, "...the deployment of United States forces in Iraq (shall) be terminated immediately," exactly what the Dems' weekly meme promoted.

How did the Dems react? With their customary outrage but little else. "A disgrace," Nancy Pelosi called it. "The rankest of politics and the absence of any sense of shame," added Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat. The motion, which brings to the floor what the Dems have been calling for all week, failed 400-3 when the Dems scattered like roaches. In other words, the Dems are simply not willing to go on record supporting the very thing they are willing to call for on TV.

Unfortunately, I line up with the 3. We won the war; the Iraqis can build whatever they wish in place of Saddam's rape rooms. So even though I think Bush is wrong to try to create Britain on the Tigris, the only party that says it agrees with that has no backbone when the vote comes.

Well, as Pelosi said, it's a disgrace.

Given the chance to "send a message," they sent a message that they will not go on record actually opposing Bush. When and if we leave Iraq and Afghanistan, having spent more than $300 billion to try to force 2 nations full of 6th century citizens into the 21st century, the Dems will be on record as supporting whatever those folks want. What that will likely be is a pair of nations that are anti-American, anti-freedom, and at least as dangerous as Iran, and the Dems will not have Bush to blame, but as in any WMD-related statements Bush might have made, they'll have themselves to blame.

I understand that many of our friends on the left hate Bush. What I don't understand is why that makes them Democrats. "They're the only ones opposing Bush," is their answer. Unfortunately for them, it's the wrong answer. The Dems aren't a real opposition party; they just play one on TV.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of VamPyre brand anti-undead flamethrowers and torches. Light one up, with VamPyre! Don’t forget our ‘mob pack’ of 100 straw torches, available wherever these products are sold.

Desert Rat Democrat forgets to do his homework:

Fred Phelps, the crazed Baptist psycho who gives Kansas a bad name (ok, an even worse name than they already deserve) by picketing funerals of people who have died of AIDS, has decided he and his followers aren't getting enough attention burning crosses in Durham, North Carolina...

This is your party, moderate Republicans. The racist, sexist, misogynistic group of assholes that your party considers its base have a great deal of liking for people like Fred Phelps....

This is what you voted for, Republicans. I hope it hurts you to realize that. And I hope you think about it every day until November 2006.

Ah, the beauty of ignorance. The man to the far left in the picture above is none other than Fred Phelps, Jr., oldest son of Fred Phelps, Sr., and notorious for his representation, I guess, of all things Republican. But who is that next to him? Some of you Dems might remember that guy.

The picture above is taken in front of Phelps' house, where you might have forgotten said dashing fellow held a fundraiser when he ran for President.

And you might have forgotten that said dashing fellow, when he was Vice President, sent invitations to both innaugurations to the Phelps family.

And you may have forgotten that Phelps was a convention delegate for that dashing fellow when said fellow ran for President in 1988. It's in Wikipedia, right after the heading that notes Phelps' political affiliations as "Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, Al Gore, and the Democratic Party":

In the 1980s, the Phelps family were strong political allies with then-senator Al Gore. The home of Fred Jr., Phelps' eldest son, located in the Westboro compound, acted as Gore's campaign quarters for one of his senate races, and the Westboro compound was host to a fundraiser. Numerous photos exist on the internet of Fred Phelps Jr. and his second wife, Betty Phelps-Schurle, posing with Al and Tipper Gore in Phelps Jr.'s home. Phelps also served as a Gore delegate on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988.

And you might not recognize the young lady next to AlGore in the photograph. That's Joan Finney, then Democratic Governor of Kansas.

And you can be forgiven for forgetting that Phelps was a Democratic candidate for Kansas governor in 1990. He came in third place after all.

Those who live in the desert might have a small excuse for not understanding the intricacies of Kansas politics (like FRED PHELPS AND HIS CHURCH ARE DEMOCRATS), and I understand that. If they were in my party, I'd try to brush them off on the other guys, too.

But they might want to consider what Fred Phelps' father said:

Phelps, Sr. told CNS that Gore "looked us in the eye and gave us assurance, that, based on his Bible beliefs, he was against the homosexual agenda and the killing of babies."

So which is better, a man who sticks with his principles even in the face of significant (and in the case of Phelps, well deserved) opposition, or a man willing to chuck those principles in pursuit of power?

Copyright 2005, El Borak, inc. Makers of Macarena Al brand jointless marionettes, guaranteed to dance just like the real thing. But you’ll never guess who’s pulling the strings.

Those Buggers?

Saddam Hussein was beaten up while he was being interrogated by a judge after he insulted two of the most revered figures in Shia Islam, it emerged yesterday...

Asked whether the shrines of the Imams Hussein and Abbas in the city had been attacked by Iraqi forces, Saddam at first pretended not to know the two holy figures of Shia Islam.

But he then said: "Who do you mean? Those manayich [buggers]?" According to the Iraqi lawyer, two of the court's clerks who had been taking notes then lunged at the former dictator and started to punch him.

Saddam fought back until the judge succeeded in restoring order, but not before the ex-dictator's head was bruised. US guards posted outside the makeshift courthouse in Baghdad found the incident amusing and did not intervene, the lawyer claimed.

I find the incident amusing as well, but think it illustrates why Iraq will not be a democracy, no matter how long our soldiers hold the lid on that pot, because it shows that peaceful disagreement is not possible.

Just as an illustration, can you imagine two American Catholic court clerks punching out a prisoner because he called the pope a bugger? How about a couple of Lutherans punching one out because the same was said of Luther? We didn't even have Christians physically attacking Robert Maplethorpe because of "Piss Christ," but the way the left squealed about Christian calls for de-funding anti-religious art you'd have thought there was no distinction. But there is all the distinction in the world.

Democracy demands that people be able to agree to disagree. It demands that people who don't like something accept their lumps - without resorting to violence - in hopes that they can win next time. Such is not possible in much of modern Islam, which is an honor-based culture that demands violence, even death, for slights, perceived or real. Ask Theo Van Gogh.

To be fair, there was a time when such was not possible in Christianity, either. The Thirty Years' War that ended in 1648, creating modern warfare and the beginings of the modern state at Westphalia, was in large part a religious war. At that time, Catholics and Protestants DID kill one another over words. But there was no democracy, either. The war was as much a Spanish/Austrian war as a Papal/Lutheran one, where royal families fought for control of much of Central Europe and its outlying empires. It was not until the development of a middle economic class that democracy could finally get a more-or-less permanent hold in many nations. And such does not exist in Iraq. It will not exist until Iraq follows the same painful economic modernization that took America and Europe a century to complete.

Robert Kaplan, in his essay "Was Democracy Just a Moment?" laid out the sorry truth about Democracy:

Democracies do not always make societies more civil - but they do always mercilessly expose the health of the societies in which they operate.

Any society where educated professionals are allowed, nay expected, to react with violence because of an opponent's words will not support a democracy, at least not past the first election. Sunnis and Shiites are not like Democrats and Republicans in modern America; they are more like Catholics and Protestants during the Reformation. They lack a social ability to disagree without violence. And we can expect parties that show one another no mercy to mercilessly expose the sickness of Iraqi society as soon as they get a chance.

Copyright 2005, El Borak, inc. Makers of Land Mimes brand explosive and incendiary devices for use on performance artists. Invisible Casket (tm) sold separately.

Reverend Land frets about Christian Fascism

[T]he point I am making is that Mr. Bush is a sincere front man for an emerging fascism. His religious rhetoric is an authentic merging of Holiness Christianity with Imperial Americanism. The emphasis on security, law and order is necessary to maintain the "high calling" of the American people. The policies of fascism, in other words, are consistent with religious holiness and holy war narratives. And fascism, woven underneath Christian Holiness/Holy War traditions, is a powerful symbolic narrative that speaks to the American people as evidenced by Mr. Bush's 58% approval rating.

Obviously, this was written some time ago, as El Presidente' hasn't seen 58% in a while, but it was brought to mind last night as I was watching "Back to School" with one of my sons. In the movie, Robert Downey Junior plays a comical commie sidekickwho shares inspirational gems as, "violent ground-aquisition games such as football are a crypto-fascist metaphor for nuclear war." There's that word again, "fascist." I ran across a variation this morning in the Dallas Star-Telegram, "islamofascist." Neal Boorts uses the latter moniker as well.

These fascists must be everywhere; and they are, but not in the way Reverend Land expects. To Reverend Land, fascism seems to be the rhetorical equal of an emphasis on law and order combined with a national purpose. And that is a part of fascism, yet it is a very small part. Boortz is even less correct: radical Islamism has nothing to do with fascism. But both of them illustrate how politics, from both sides of the political aisle, has simply devolved into name-calling. And the worst part is not that people call names (Jesus called the Pharisees a "generation of vipers," after all) but that when they do so unthinkingly, the very words they misuse lose their meaning. And when words have no meaning, there's nothing to talk with or about.

Fascism is a perfect example. What is it? "Well, it's wacko Christians who want to tell people what to do." No, it's not. "Well, it's towel-headed A-rabs who want to blow up children." No, it's not. Let's look at what Fascism entails, from "The Authoritative Dictatorial Page" (which features Mussolini's "Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle" translated by Vox Day).

Mussolini's Fascists defined themselves in 1919, and if you read through the manifesto, you'll find a whole lot of very familiar planks:

Suffrage for Women (Part Ia)
Voting age set at 18 (Part Ib)
An 8-hour work day (Part IIa)
Deference to labor unions (Part IIc-d)
A Minimum Wage (Part IIb)
A national transportation policy (Part IIe)
A national retirement age (Part IIf)
A national militia (Part IIIa)
Exportation of culture (Part IIIc)
Progressive taxation (Part IVa)
Seizure of church property (Part IVb)
Seizure of excess profits (Part IVc)

Now, I've skipped a few, and you're free to look them up at the link above, but I ask you, is there anything on this list that America has not implemented or an American political party has not tried to implement since 1919?

If we take a hard look at what fascism claimed for itself to be, what it ran on, what it implemented, it becomes obvious that not only do those who apply the "fascist" moniker to others not know what it means, they are usually 80+% fascist themselves.

As Vox himself said:

In 1925, Mussolini encapsulated the heart of fascist philosophy in a memorable phrase:

Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato. This means "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State." Now, I ask you, in the Year of Our Lord 2004, does that sound more like a Libertarian, a Republican or a Democrat?

Yes, there are fascists everywhere, and the one thing they have in common is the desire to use the government to control labor and capital, to make sure everyone votes, and to eliminate or subsume any organization (e.g. the church) that gets in the way of government power. They are not some fringe element, but the very "mainstream' of modern American government and ideology. If we wonder why we can't get the government to do something about all these fascists in our midst, it's only because we fail to realize that "getting the government to do something for us" is the very heart and soul of fascism.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of Chapeau le Pew brand skunkskin caps. Available in black and white or white and black.

If you fight hard, we'll put your name on a coffee mug

Thus spake the Associated Press:

JERUSALEM (AP) - Archaeologists digging at the purported biblical home of Goliath have unearthed a shard of pottery bearing an inscription of the Philistine's name, a find they claimed lends historical credence to the Bible's tale of David's battle with the giant...

The shard dates back to around 950 B.C., within 70 years of when biblical chronology asserts David squared off against Goliath, making it the oldest Philistine inscription ever found, the archaeologists said.

Of course, it doesn't prove the story, but it is interesting that the oldest Philistine inscription happens to feature the name of the most famous Philistine in history. Well, after Robert Mapplethorpe, of course.

Copyright 2005, El Borak, inc. Publishers of "Nikita Krushchev and other Prehistoric Myths." Available wherever these fine books are sold.

Nothing Bad Ever Happens in America

It's been a while since I've typed a really depressing missive on the economy (usually I save that for my monthly silver column), but USA Today published an article that I really never expected. Brutal in its honesty, two things stuck out at me: that no politician was willing to be quoted saying "oh, nonsense," and the admission that the voters themselves are driving us to economic ruin.

WASHINGTON — The comptroller general of the United States is explaining over eggs how the nation's finances are going to hell...

To hear (David) Walker, the nation's top auditor, tell it, the United States can be likened to Rome before the fall of the empire. Its financial condition is "worse than advertised," he says. It has a "broken business model." It faces deficits in its budget, its balance of payments, its savings — and its leadership.

Walker's not the only one saying it...

But the problem is that he can only say it, honestly and in such stark terms, because he does not have to stand for re-election. The article goes on to describe some pretty heroic if rare efforts by Dems and GOP alike, liberals and conservatives alike, to get the budget under control. But as is so often the case, it misses the big picture, the real reason that the problem is not only inevitable, but fatal:

TANSTAAFL. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Every bill must be paid somehow.

Congress tried to cut $51 billion from the budget this week, but 'moderates' balked, claiming that the poor would be hurt when the something they get for nothing is cut off. So it stays. Business also demands something for nothing in the form of export credits, R&D credits, technology credits. The middle class gets it in the form of child tax credits. The elderly get social security and medicare and subsidized drugs. Farmers are paid to grow native grasses. The list is endless, the demographics demonstrable, the result inevitable. We have accumulated more than $51 trillion in unfunded liabilities, three orders of magnitude higher than the proposed cuts Congress found too large to bear. Those promises cannot be kept, yet the voters demand more promises.

Everyone wants something for nothing, and the fiscal waterline slowly creeps back, making the beach bigger. And we pitch our umbrellas, spread our blankets, and apply our government-subsidized suntan oils, not realizing that the receeding water is the forerunner of a tsunami.

The result is not simply higher interest rates or recession. We've all lived through recessions. Big deal. Modern recessions are simply excuses for the government to spend more. The real problem is that spending, once we decide that everyone can live at the expense of eveyone else, will accellerate until the nation is destroyed, until the dollar is worthless, until the hungry march in the streets (not the fatassed hungry we have today, but the rail-thin bloated-stomach hungry). No one wants to give up a free lunch today so their children will have food tomorrow.

Congress and El Presidente look at the problem coming, blithely promise $200b in aid for New Orleans, and agonize over cutting 1/4th of that amount elsewhere. The GOP ramps up the size of government 33% in 5 years, and Tom DeLay says there is nowhere else to cut except taxes. The Democrats, no matter what, find every program underfunded so long as it gives their voters free money.

When you start down the road to free lunch, it will never stop until the currency (made of paper just for this very thing) expands to nothingness. It will never stop until the government drowns in debt, cannot borrow, and prints the difference. It will never stop until those who have been raised to believe Uncle Sam gives us this day our daily bread storm the Bastille. If you take the road to hell, you'll eventually arrive.

The course we are on is fatal. TANSTAAFL. Someone will pay.

It's not going to be the rich. All you wide-eyed liberals who think that raising taxes on the rich is going to get them to pay their fair share are fooling yourself. The rich write the laws and they write the loopholes. When Jay Rockefeller pays marginal-rate taxation like the rest of us, then maybe. Don't hold your breath. All you wide-eyed conservatives who think tax cuts will allow us to grow our way to fiscal balance are fooling yourselves. You have proven that conservatives' spending propensity exceeds even that of liberals. You kept their free lunch programs and added your own on top.

It's going to be the poor who pay quite a bit, because they are stupid (yes, stupid) enough to become addicted to free lunch. They don't pay taxes, yet they cannot survive without what taxes pay. They are about to be tossed to the wolves. Those who are clever enough to adjust will survive. The stupid will, frankly, not. Blame Darwin. Natural selection is a bitch.

It's going to be the middle class that pays the most, like it always is. They will pay in lost pensions. They will pay in lost Social Security. They will pay in lost 401(k)s. They will pay in higher taxes and higher prices and lower real wages and shortages. They are going to find poverty, not from a lower wages (though plenty of jobs are going away) but because when the government breaks the dollar, all the dollars they saved won't buy a song. The foresighted will survive, the rest not so much.

How many other places has it happened? Argentina, Mexico, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Sweden...the list is endless because the problem is as universal as it is inevitable. Everyone who combines a paper-money economy with a transfer payments free-for-all either breaks their currency, sees their government overthrown, or - if they are really lucky - gets both at the same time. Everyone who does not own real wealth, secreted away, is rewarded with a generation or two of eating dirt.

It's not coming today, not this week, maybe not even in the next handful of years. But it is coming. The government's own auditor calls it "a broken business model." Companies with broken business models fail. The head of the government's own accounting office compares our fiscal condition to that of late Rome. Late Rome had home-grown armies marching across it, collecting taxes at swordpoint. The end result was slavery and destitution for the vast majority, death for a number that will never be counted. The rich, whom liberals want to tax, became the royalty and nobility we threw off barely two centuries ago. They'll come out OK this time as well. There's no Thirteenth Amendment if there's no Constitution.

Of course this is alarmist. It is meant to be. If you're not alarmed by what the government, both parties, is doing - or even worse, if you think your party, given the chance to implement more of the same, could fix it - then sleep well, because this is America, and nothing bad ever happens here.

Until it does.

Copyright 2005 El Borak, inc. Makers of Stovehenge brand yard art kits for rednecks. Turn those old appliances into an astrologically significant landmark from the comfort of your trailer home.

Bring out the ClueBat(tm)

Terminal-D asketh:
"What do you make of Bush's rewriting history statements of late - a bit of a blunder no?"

I don't think so. Let me say up front that my opposition to the war is not that we fought it. My opposition has always been that once hostile operations were successful and "regime change" completed, we did not get out. If the President and Congress believed, at the time, that Saddam presented a threat, or if they believed it in the best interests of the US to depose him, fine. Both parties made Saddam the issue, and once you deal with the issue, you leave.

That being said, it's not Bush who is re-writing history, but the Democrats who made the same statements as Bush about Saddam and WMDs and voted for the war, but who are now trying to make political hay through the Bush Lied(tm) meme. If Bush lied, they lied as well. Then they voted for the war, following the statements they made both with Bush and Clinton as President. Suck it up and accept responsibility.

This may be the first time I've ever linked to the RNC site in my life, but this vid is not to be missed: Democrats: Dishonest on Iraq

Hat tip: Barking Moonbat

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I'm not surprised this did not make the American Press
"What, us worry?"

It was an incredible revelation last week that the second largest oil field in the world is exhausted and past its peak output. Yet that is what the Kuwait Oil Company revealed about its Burgan field...

...[I]t is surely a landmark moment when the world's second largest oil field begins to run dry. For Burgan has been pumping oil for almost 60 years and accounts for more than half of Kuwait's proven oil reserves.
-- AME Info

It surely is a landmark, yet one that will get (and has gotten) no play in the American press. Of course, the fact that most Americans could not find Kuwait on a map doesn't help. When Ghawar - the only field in the world larger than Burgan - peaks, don't expect to be told that here, either. Don't expect to know unless you consciously seek out the information. Most Americans won't. Unless the disaster is happening on live TV, it's too far away to worry about.

Peak Oil does not mean there's no oil. In fact, by definition it means that half the oil in the world is still available. There is as much oil left as we have used in the past century and a half.

All it means is that the oil left is going to be harder to find, more expensive to pump, and the amount of oil we pump in 10 years is likely to be the same annual production we had 10 years ago. The amount of oil we pump in 20 years is likely to be the same as 20 years ago. The bell curve of cheap oil in increasing quantities ends when the biggest fields in the world peak. Yet the world's energy agencies consistently predict a 50% increase in oil demand over the next few decades.

If one can understand the economic effects of rising demand and falling supply of the lifeblood of the world economy, great. If not, don't worry about it. It'll be on TV eventually.

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Sometimes it pays to listen to the other side.
Especially when they tell you how to win.

Iris GOES on a rant:

I think that God's righteous army fighting the evil Satan worshipers who are slaughtering innocent little babies that result from their uncontrolled sexual urges should adopt those babies. But for some reason, they don't. They just want to outlaw abortion and then leave the mother and child on their own. Then they complain about welfare.

Now, ignoring her ludicrous assertions about how pro-lifers just want to find out who the slutty girls in church are so they can hit on them (c'mon, it's not like no one knows anyway), the "Why don't you adopt them?" argument she brings up is one of the most common taunts of the pro-choice side and most ignored statements by the pro-life one.

But why don't we?

I seem to remember Jesus talking about a certain judgment of people who had ignored the cries of their fellow man: "They will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you?' And he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, to the extent you did not do it for the smallest of these, you did not do it to me.'"

It also seems to me that necessary corollary of the pro-life position is to truly care for the hungry ourselves. I think people are correct to complain about welfare, which feeds more bureaucrats than hungry and which has disasterous life incentives in and of itself. Impersonal welfare is simply plunder that traps the poor in dependence. But we are not correct, especially when pursuing political policies that WILL result in more children in foster homes, in adoption, and in poverty, to ignore the personal sacrifice necessary to deal with the real problems that are likely to result from these kids.

Some Christians do that - we have a Ministerial Alliance here in FS that runs a food pantry, a clothing bank...they truly put their money where their mouth is. Heck even the public high school collects goods (don't tell the ACLU) to help. But too many do not. Too many seem content to rely on the political process and calling their opponents names than actually personally sacrificing for these kids. That's one reason kids languish in the court systems for years - not the only reason, of course, but one reason.

Rather than chalking up Jesus Points(tm) by being on the correct side of a political battle, we ought to take the words of his brother James to heart: "If your brother or sister is naked and without daily food and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' and does not give those things which the body needs, what does that profit? Even so, faith alone - if it has no deeds - is dead."

Faith without deeds doesn't do us - or the kids - any good.

But there's one final reason that I note only because we are seeing the results of it in France this week. Less than 10% of those living in France are Muslim. But more than 30% of those under age 20 are. It does not take a genius to see France's future.

What if every conservative, pro-life Christian adopted a kid or two? What would our future be then? What if we grabbed up every one of these kids who languishes on the streets or in the courts or in foster homes and gave them the Bread of Life? What if we wanted the unwanted, loved the unloved, and personally (not through government) provided for these kids as our Lord commands us?

Could we not build a better future by obeying our Lord than by trying to get the rest of the world to do that?

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