A Fate Worse than Death?

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take but as for me; give me liberty or give me death!” Patrick Henry

“Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse,” General George W. Casey Jr.

On the top is the quote of an unquestioned patriot. Below is a the sentiment of a lifelong politician, genuflecting in a clearly Obamaesque manner to the supremacy of diversity and tolerance above all logic and natural love of life. Patrick Henry was willing to face death to be free. General Casey would rather die than be politically incorrect. Taken at his word, General Casey would rather have a dozen soldiers die and dozens more injured than have Muslims leave the army en masse.

What the Fort Hood shooting has done is reveal another of the things that separates liberals from the mainstream, or even logic itself. Upon hearing of the brutal murder of 13 of America’s finest in cold blood, the biggest concern of the “progressives” has been an imagined backlash, apparently because those of us who are less progressive are intolerant racists inclined to attack anyone who is different than us. While there are bound to be some attacks on a tiny minority by a few crazies, it shouldn’t be our primary concern after the first terrorist attack since 9/11. Indeed, even the often overreacting Council on American-Islam Relations (CAIR) offered this lukewarm indictment “”Maybe you won’t see any damage if people are more reluctant to go into the military, or if they are thinking about it. Maybe they won’t join, and you won’t know. But it may not be something that’s obvious until years from now.” (Ibrahim Cooper quoted in the Star Tribune here: http://www.startribune.com/local/69625557.htm ) Now if that doesn’t send chills up your spine, I don’t know what will. What is truly alarming is Janet Napolitano’s significantly stronger response against the dreaded backlash. Because that is her job as Homeland Security secretary, to react immediately to any Islamic terrorist attack by protecting Muslims. And also to gin up concerns in Arab countries about angry Americans attacking Muslims at random. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/08/napolitano-warns-anti-muslim-backlash

Multiculturalism: the Nihilistic Trojan Horse

ni⋅hil⋅ism [nahy-uh-liz-uhm, nee-] –noun 1. total rejection of established laws and institutions.
2. anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity.
3. total and absolute destructiveness, esp. toward the world at large and including oneself: the power-mad nihilism that marked Hitler’s last years.
4. Philosophy. a. an extreme form of skepticism: the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth.
b. nothingness or nonexistence.
(from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nihilism)

“We love death. The US loves life. That is the difference between us two.” Osama Bin Laden

Multiculturalism is the lie that all cultures are equal. Or maybe some believe they just should be treated equally. Regardless, to embrace the lie that cultures that celebrate death are equal to cultures that celebrate life is to reject objective truth. The folly of this is that no matter how irrational a culture might be, very few if any people from a non-western culture would offer the same deference. To believe in multiculuralism literally is to reject any notion of good and evil or right and wrong, because nearly everything that anyone regards as immoral or wrong is permissable in one culture or another. Check out my blog on the Kombai tribe for a few examples: http://totallyobliviousguy.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/cultural-confusion. So, logically speaking (I understand it’s asking a lot for most people who try to push multiculturalism to think logically) multiculturalism is nihilism. It is not merely nihilistic, it is nihilism at its very core.
Now come the concessions. Yes, there is some value in cultural customs from across the world, and we can learn things from other cultures. But there are objective concepts such as right and wrong, good and evil. And the cultures that identify and emphasize those are the most productive and advanced for a reason. To reject the moral superiority of western cultures (though they are far from perfect) is to reject civilization and modernity as we know it. Finally, we must separate the individuals from their culture. To say that one civilization’s culture is better than another’s is not to degrade the individuals in an inferior culture, nor does it somehow make them less human. But this should be self evident. To

The Truth About the Environmentalist Movement

Now, in video! A great video that really gets to the heart of the environmentalist movement. It really is all about the triumph of emotion over logic.

Climate Chains from Climate Chains on Vimeo.

Misanthropy and Environmentalism

“The environmental movement I helped found has lost its objectivity, morality and humanity. The pain and suffering it is inflicting on families in developing countries must no longer be tolerated.” Patrick Moore, Greenpeace co-founder

The reason I am so violently anti-environmentalist is because I believe at the heart of it, environmentalism is destructive, misanthropic, and Godless. I can scarcely think of one redeeming quality of environmentalism. Yes, I’m all for national parks and the like and keeping the environment clean. But this is not what the modern environmental movement is about today. I am all for sensible conservation. I am against starving people to death because some people want to feel good about “sustainable farming” and “organic” food. (http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/9/26/185816.shtml and http://sitemaker.umich.edu/sec006group5/africa) I don’t think that people are a cancer on the earth (http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/e-sermons/humcan.html) nor do I believe that there is an “optimum population” for the earth. (http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.earth.html) I don’t think millions of people should have died in Africa because of the DDT ban. (one of  the greatest tragedy of the 20th century, largely unreported) http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/DDT.html I don’t like mysticism, neopaganism or other superstitious pseudo-faiths. And yet slowly but surely these fringe ideas are slipping into the mainstream. http://stanford.wellsphere.com/bioethics-article/deep-ecology-misanthropy-moving-into-mainstream-environmentalism/631701 There just isn’t good science to support any of the green movement’s ideas and claims about nearly everything. We aren’t destroying the earth, at least not in the USA. The US is substantially cleaner than even 40 years ago. And I would discourage any God fearing person from believing that He would allow us to destroy it. The bottom line is this simple: environmentalism opposes the health and growth of the human race by prioritizing the “health of the planet” above the personal choices, quality of living, reproductive choice (i.e. the choice to have as many children as you want) and health of its human inhabitants. It quite literally seeks to destroy human life because human life is a cancer that is destroying all other life. This alone should make the green movement absolutely intolerable and should cause any rational person to oppose it. But the kicker is that none of it is true. Even if you believed the survival of the earth were more important than the survival of the human race, the environmental movement (for the most part) gets it wrong. Because mankind isn’t a cancer, and we aren’t destroying the environment. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Planet Earth documentary, but I dare anyone to watch that and explain how humans are destroying the earth.

Individual vs. Organizational Responsibility

“I want a health insurance system that works as well for the American people as it does for the insurance industry. They should be free to make a profit, but they also have to be fair, they also have to be accountable. That’s what we’re talking about, security and stability for folks who have health insurance, help for those who don’t.” Barack Obama 9/7/09
It’s obvious here, to any person that doesn’t get goosebumps when they hear Barack Obama’s voice that the insurance companies are on our President’s hit list. When someone a politician has been demonizing a particular industry so brazenly for so long attempts such an obviously half-hearted endorsement of the need of corporations to make a profit–well it’s like the dreaded “vote of confidence” a football GM might give an unpopular head coach. It’s just like Obama’s view on building coal power plants. The insurance businesses can keep selling insurance, they just have to figure out how to make a profit under rules that totally destroy their ability to make a profit.

Clearly, Obama’s plans for health insurance will make it impossible for health insurance companies to stay in business. Which is precisely the reason he wants to legislate that health insurance must be “affordable” to everyone. The concept of affordability is so nebulous and plastic, it provides an almost unlimited range for new government regulation. And the idea that government can regulate anything to make it more affordable is beyond absurd. But it points to a clear strategy that democrats have been pushing lately. Democrats–who hold the free market in contempt–establish onerous regulations and pervert market conditions to favor socialist organizations like labor unions, then blame capitalism and greed (a pejorative code word for rational self interest) for the failure. It is the template that has been tried on every “third way” program that liberals have proposed. When the system fails, it is a demonstration that capitalism doesn’t work. As if socialism could ever work. If socialist programs were judged on the same grounds that a free market company is judged, no one could defend socialism. But if one company fails to succeed in the free market, it is an indictment of the whole system. And government regulation and interference is never considered causal. 

Instead, legislation is crafted to pander to populist concerns with corporations, “protecting” consumers and demonizing the profit motive.  It is organizations that are continually being held responsible for consumer safety, not the consumers themselves. It is government’s responsibility to protect individual from themselves. In fact, there are few limits to the responsibility of government. Anywhere the individual’s responsibility ends, government’s responsibility begins. And an individual’s responsibility begins wherever they say it does. This is the populist heart of the Democrat party. The individual cannot take responsibility for something which has has been ceded to organizational responsibility.

In Defense of the Republican Party and Partisanship

It’s become very in vogue among conservatives to beat up the Republican Party over the last couple of years. And many Republicans have deserved to be criticized for their liberal votes and policies. Medicare part D is one of the worst pieces of legislation in the last several years. There certainly have been some bad Republicans lately, both in policy and personal behavior. I believe that some have taken the easy way out by adopting a populist-yet-conservative philosophy. They say they don’t care about party, they just want people in office that listen to the people. They want politicians who believe in and understand the Constitution. They want politicians with “common sense.” They don’t care what party you’re in if you are a true conservative.
The problem with this is it doesn’t work that way. It might sound good. It might feel good, like you’re proclaiming your independence from any given party. You’re no partisan hack, you’re a free thinker! Or maybe you’re even a “libertarian.” You don’t vote for Libertarians and think they get carried away sometimes, but you like that they’re so individualistic they have absolutely no cooperation or cohesive strategy. Well, stop patting yourself on the back for a minute and think about this critically for a second. You don’t care what party someone’s in? I think you do. Have you ever once found a conservative Democrat? Can you think of one Democrat that you are glad you voted for or wanted to vote for? Have you ever seen a race in which the Democrat was more conservative than the Republican? Of course, the answer for any conservative to these questions would be no. Perhaps there’s an exception to this out there somewhere, but it would be an extremely rare exception. (Zell Miller, perhaps?) And it doesn’t pay to vote for third party candidates. Third party candidates are automatic losers. If a third party candidate actually wins election it is a candidate that is more liberal than the Republican. Libertarians have yet to win a national office. Furthermore, which would be more feasible: to elect a conservative Republican or a third party candidate? While all Republicans aren’t perfect, and there are some that are almost just as liberal as Democrats, following a rigidly idealist voting strategy is simply not helpful. A vote which is wasted on a third party candidate is not only one vote which a Republican should get, it is also an encouragement to the needless and harmful third party.
But before I go further, let me just point out how great some of our conservative Republicans are. You wouldn’t know it by listening to those “conservatives” who enjoy defaming everything Republican, but there are some great leaders in both the House and the Senate who stand for individual liberty, a strong national defense, real family values, and limited government. Leaders like Jim DeMint, John Thune, James Imhofe, and Jon Kyl in the Senate. True conservatives such as Michele Bachmann, Mike Pence, Jeff Miller, Eric Cantor, and Paul Ryan in the House. While none of these are perfect, they are all true conservatives, and they’re all Republicans. They could very well agree with those conservatives who express antipathy towards the Republican party on 100% of the issues. Aren’t the conservatives who demonize the Republican party attacking real conservatives like these? I would argue yes. By turning “Republican” into some dirty word, they are besmirching all Republicans. They are throwing the  baby out with the bath water in some delusional and self serving attempt at “objectivity” or ”fairness.”
The question is, what can an average person do to help more conservatives elected, how can we as individuals affect national politics in a way that favors individual liberty? The answer is not to waste a vote on a meaningless loser. The answer is to get involved at the local level first. Get involved in your local Republican party. Read the Republican platform. You can find it right here: http://platform.gop.com/2008Platform.pdf. I dare you to find something you disagree with in it. More importantly, get involved in the primary process. Inform yourself on the primary candidates, find the best conservative leader and advocate for him. I realize this isn’t easy. It takes work to actually make an impact in politics. But just like those who don’t vote shouldn’t complain about our politicians, those who don’t vote in the Republican primary shouldn’t complain about the Republican Party. Unless you’re a Democrat.
Finally, let me say that there is certainly more to life than politics. This is, as Jefferson might say, self evident. But politics does require a great deal of passion and knowledge from those who would wish to actually serve their country in a seemingly self-serving profession. Indeed, our founding fathers truly saw themselves and office holders as public servants. For this reason they gave office holders a meager salary. Higher office was an honor bestowed, not a duly chosen position of power. Great conservatives tend to not make a career out of politics, though it could be argued that they could better serve their country if they remained in the system. But conservatives don’t treasure the power. They don’t tolerate the types of strain that public life puts on their families. They have interests outside of politics and they realize there is more to life. But it is commitment to those individual, Judeo-Christian principles which animates a true conservative. A passion for politics does not strip someone of his social or cultural ideals, nor does it require that he lose his moral and religious foundation. Rather, true men of integrity recognize that they are inseparable. An exposition of religious principles naturally relates to certain corresponding political philosophies and vice versa. These worldviews are what separates left from right, pagan from orthodoxy.

Liberty and Justice

Something struck me today, as I was hearing of the Obama administration’s disgraceful witch hunt du jour. I immediately thought of what is quite possibly the most cowardly and immoral “justice” decision in recent history, which just happened last week with the “compassionate” release of the Lockerbie bomber. What is most abundantly clear is that liberals and conservatives have vastly different ideas of what constitutes compassion and justice. Liberals want liberty and compassion for all and “social justice” for minorities and the poor. Conservatives want liberty and justice for all and compassion for the poor and disadvantaged. Of course, the difference is in liberals’ and conservatives’ idea of liberty.
The reason that liberty is paired so closely with justice is because it is impossible to have one without the other. Liberty is neither universal nor absolute, because this is anarchy and anarchy is neither sustainable nor desireable. In anarchy, the strong abuse the weak and thus deny them their personal liberty. Justice, then is inseverable from liberty. And it is justice which liberals seem to abhor most. If you listen to a liberal speak of the justice system, they hardly ever use the word, or when they do, they don’t use it literally, but emotionally. Instead, they see the justice system as trying to fix or “rehabilitate” the convicted. Instead of protecting society and dispensing fair punishment, they are more concerned with fixing the criminals. They see the correctional system as a way to discourage criminal acts, not to right wrongs. Because they loathe personal responsibility, their “compassion” is amoral, spread equally among victims and perpetrators of crime. Which is why they can justify not only not putting to death the most evil people such as the Lockerbie bomber, but also freeing such types in the name of “compassion.”
Their compassion for those who willfully choose to kill, maime and torture is nearly limitless, particularly on the fringes of the left wing. They choose to empathize with killers as much as or more than the victim’s family (they like to say that capital punishment won’t bring the dead back, again showing their inability to understand that in a just society, actions have consequences).  And their ideas of what constitutes “torture” is laughable in the extreme, particularly for anyone with any knowledge of historical torture tactics. Somewhere along the way, they decided that any mental anguish that an interrogator might inflict–regardless of whether they are criminals or non-uniformed enemy combatants–constitutes torture or “mistreatment.” I heard one example was that they told Mohamed Atta that they were going to kill his family if he didn’t cooperate, another example was that a CIA agent fired a gun in the next room and told a prisoner that he just killed another terrorist. Such tactics, though potentially frightening, fall far short of anything approaching cruelty in my book. Perhaps they prefer the torture of the Monty Python “Spanish Inquisition” in which the inept inquisitioners tie prisoners to a dish rack or force their victims to sit on “the comfy couch”? Harsh interrogation tactics which do not injure terrorist suspects seem completely legal (since nonuniformed enemy combatants aren’t covered by the Geneva Convention) and, it can be argued, completely ethical if they are used to gain information to save innocent lives. The justice system exists to maintain the rights and freedoms of law abiding individuals, not to rehabilitate or even punish the law breaker. Therefore, unreasonable judicial leniency threatens  and erodes individual liberty.

Obama’s Straw Man Fallacy

One of the more infuriating aspects of Barack Obama’s presidency thus far is reliance on strawmen when making policy arguments. In fact, it would be difficult to point to any policy discussion in which Obama hasn’t engaged in this disingenuous discourse. Reflexively, he and his administration rejects any opposition to his policies as defense of the dreaded “status quo.” He continually stated when proposing his outrageous and untenable “stimulus” bill that doing nothing was not an option. As if that was the only other option. Joe Biden used the same “anything is better than nothing” argument just today concerning the newly tweaked health care bill. But this is all nonsense. Doing nothing is always an option, especially when the action we’re taking only make the problems worse. Which is exactly what Obama’s stimulus package will do according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9987/Gregg_Year-by-Year_Stimulus.pdf The same, no doubt is true concerning the government healthcare that they want to shove down our collective throat. Just take a little time and read between the lines. Obama continually states that we have to cut overall spending on healthcare. Yet, at the same time he is saying that everyone needs to have insurance. More people with insurance means more people demanding healthcare, and if those people don’t have to pay much or anything for their doctor visits, spending will dramatically increase. The only way to cut overall spending is to limit the services that are available, otherwise known as rationing. This was euphamistically referred to as ” realigning incentives to focus on quality care, instead of quantity of procedures” by Joe Biden this afternoon. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to read between the lines here. Fewer procedures means saving money while raising the risk if the doctor’s wrong. And how exactly are they going to “raise incentives to focus on quality care” in the first place? If the doctor does a really good job, he’s going to be paid more? Does that make any sense? This is all just camouflage for more government control. The power grab by the federal government isn’t going to stop anytime as long as democrats are in charge. And the alternative? Well if you believe them, there is no alternative.

The Onslaught of Fascism

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. ” Gerald Ford
It’s not even coming slowly any more. No, Barack Obama and his ever willing congress is attacking liberty at every turn. And it’s easy to spot when you know where to look, as it’s not hidden, the fascism is merely camoflaged. It’s simply called government spending. Each dollar that government spends beyond the most basic of national defense and police, the court system, etc. is a dollar spent in the enslavement of the American people. When someone spends more time working to pay taxes than they do for themselves are they actually free? Every single action of this administration has been to one dangerous end: more power for government. This is why instead of cutting taxes to “stimulate the economy”–which is exactly what tax cuts would do– we are spending trillions of dollars that we don’t have. It is a gamble which might make the Barack Obama Presidency significantly more infamous in the future than it has been historic thus far. How any supporter of Barack Obama can justify such massive spending when he hasn’t even begun bankrupting the country with nationalized healthcare and cap amd trade–aka economic suicide– is beyond me.
The result of these radical changes, if they are all implemented, particularly if the economy doesn’t begin picking up soon–I don’t know what will happen, I can’t conceive it, but it will signify the victory of fascism. This is why I don’t think it will happen. The American people will rise up. Obama is a shrewd politician and I don’t think anyone is ready for this radical change. The 2010 election seems so far away, but the Democrats’ overreaching will backfire. Reality is starting to kick in regarding Obama’s naive pledge to close Gitmo.
There’s so much to say here, so many things to write about, it’s very frustrating. I think my recent case of writer’s block is not for a lack of things to say or issues to talk about. To the contrary, there’s too much for my addled mind to focus on just one issue at a time. But it can all be boiled down to a simple idea: Barack Obama and liberals in general believe that they know better than individuals and corporations at running their lives and companies. The only logical solution for this new aristocracy is to take over for us all. And how will they accomplish this? By simply growing government. Every new regulation, every new tax, every new program, every extra-constitutional “czar” added to the President’s staff, every bailout, every smoking ban, every little annoyance, every nonsensical resolution, every government take over, every new welfare program–these are the building blocks of fascism, the links of the chains that enslave each and everyone of us. Please don’t misunderstand me; government is entirely necessary and is even capable of doing good. But it does so by protecting personal freedom. Once the government seeks to do good for individuals, once it steps outside reactive law enforcement and tries to protect people from themselves or bestow wealth to the poor, it begins to take away those freedoms it was supposed to protect.

Obama’s Hypocricy

“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

One thing that’s become painfully obvious to me since he took the office of the President is the very hypocritical nature of Barack Obama. I emphasize the word nature here, because it seems that it is something that he is totally unaware of. The other part of his character that has been exposed is his ability to blame shift, two qualities which complement each other quite nicely. Concerning the massive and crippling budget deficit, for instance, he did both. First, he blamed and attacked Bush for how huge the deficit had grown, then, just let us know how displeased he was with Bush’s deficit, Obama quadrupled it. He proposed spending that would result in the largest budget deficit mankind has ever known, and increased spending to degrees that might even have caused FDR or LBJ to blush–then, with no apparent irony, no tongue-in-cheek, and presumably straight faced, proposed an economic responsibility conference. Then, he makes a bold pledge to take the defecit which he quadrupled and cut it in half. Only after the economy grows at rates well beyond a prudent forecast would project. But the examples come out every day. Just yesterday he said that we can’t be perpetually bailing out the auto industry. This is another trick Obama plays. While on the campaign trail, Obama pledged he wouldn’t sign a bill with earmarks. Then, he signs a spending bill with thousands of earmarks and immediately declares that this is the last time he was going to do this. Yeah, right. He almost sounds like an addict, declaring this is his last beer, or this will be his last hit. But any objective observer could tell you that if he’s sincere, the addict would forego that last drink. 
Despite what he may say, Barack Obama isn’t spending this money out of necessity. He isn’t taking over companies like Mussolini because he has to. He’s doing it because he wants to. His actions belie fascist tendecies  few who merely listen to what he says could even imagine.