Kevin McKenny writing in the Guardian about the release of the Lockerbie Bomber, says that “Kenny MacAskill’s decision to free Megrahi is a tribute to our decency”. He describes the how the Scottish minister walked the lonely road for truth, justice and the compassionate way.
Nothing in his experience of life or politics could have prepared Kenny MacAskill for the walk towards that podium last Thursday and I wondered if he would endure the ordeal ahead. Scotland’s justice minister, an honest journeyman in the minority part-government of a relatively unimportant country, had nothing beyond a desire to see that natural justice must prevail as he pondered his decision to show compassion to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.
In other news the Independent says “British trade with Libya set to soar”. Greg Walton writes “with the Lockerbie bomber’s release, Gaddafi’s gates swing open to UK firms as his massive building programme begins”. Both articles appeared within a short time of each other and it makes you wonder how the public will ultimately regard the entire issue. Personally I don’t think the public will mind much. They are resigned to being sold out by politicians. They’ve come to expect it. If there’s any reaction, it will be at the sanctimony which they may find irritating.
Politicians can level with us. Can’t they just say, “hands up!” Do they have to add, “it’s for the children”? Would they mind not describing every trillion dollar deficit as “an investment”? Is it absolutely necessary to describing pulling the plug on grandma as “end of life care?” We can read. We know what it means when grandma attends church service, lying in a coffin, with cotton sticking out of her nose. It’s called “savings”. But isn’t it possible, just once, for our dear leaders to say, “I’m here to steal every penny you’ve got”? Why add insult to injury? Is it because they think we’re too stupid to realize we’re being had?
Rich Lowry at the National Review made a plea for politicians to stop insulting people when they’re down. Please just kick them in the face already, he asks. Don’t pretend you care when you’re plying the steel-capped boot on the human face. Lowry writes:
The Obama team is saddled with a foundering health-care strategy. But it has a fallback plan — relying on the sheer dimwitted gullibility of the American public. How stupid do they think we are?
Stupid enough to think that a new $1 trillion health-care entitlement is just the thing to restore the country to fiscal health. …
Stupid enough to consider it wise to use several billion dollars in cuts from Medicare to create a new entitlement rather than to forestall Medicare’s own looming insolvency, currently projected for 2017.
Stupid enough not to notice that the “public option” was explicitly designed by the Left as a stealthy path to single-payer, even as liberals continue to talk and write about its ultimate purpose openly…
Stupid enough to condemn ordinary people angry and frightened enough to show up at town-hall meetings in every corner of the country as the product of an “astroturfing” conspiracy. …
And stupid enough not to be offended at how contemptibly stupid they think we are.
Yes.
P.T. Barnum may have never said the famous line “there’s a sucker born every minute”. The words were probably uttered by David Hannum, who had a rival freak show and thought audiences were dumb for paying pay to see Barnum’s rip-off exhibit, even though both their shows were fakes. Barnum may have never coined the famous quote, but Wikipedia says he wished he had. “Barnum’s fellow circus owner and arch-rival Adam Forepaugh attributed the quote to Barnum in a newspaper interview in an attempt to discredit him. However, Barnum never denied making the quote. It is said that he thanked Forepaugh for the free publicity he had given him.” A leader might survive a reputation for being dishonest; it’s being regarded as stupid that’s fatal to leadership. That’s for the herd.
The herd’s motto should be that of the man condemned, immersed to his nostrils in a hellish lake of effluence. “Don’t make waves, don’t make waves.” Being in the public means that you’re part of the audience, watching the freak show. You’re already took. But lower still than being swindled, is not knowing that you are. Sure Kenny, a tribute to our decency. And a monument to our assumed stupidity.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
Tip Jar or Subscribe for $5
My guess is that this is an electoral gift to the BNP from Gordon Brown. A slap in the face. And for Obama, it’s a disaster, confirming to most that he is indeed a Muslim terrorist sympathizer.
Andrew McCarthy notes on NRO that Obama is edging towards release of some of the worst offenders, including KSM, and that is going to be a disaster. All it takes is ONE mass casualty attack, and rather than the ability to “get” all sorts of National Security stuff that allows him to rule by decree, Obama is going to be lucky not to be impeached and imprisoned.
The fallout of ObamaCare is that people don’t trust him. It’s been a rapid fall, and one borne of total incompetence in running anything or producing results. A mass casualty terror attack, coupled with his apologies, release of terrorists, appointing the ACLU folks to run the Gitmo program, allowing the ACLU to expose CIA agents to AQ, making war on the CIA in general (trials for interrogators) … guarantees no one will trust him.
The CIA is basically at war with Obama now, and one of his own choosing. They’ll dump all sorts of embarrassing documents, conversations, and deals the second we have a mass-casualty attack, which is inevitable given Obama’s war on them, our Human early warning system, and repudiation of any deals Bush made, with foreign partners, and serial apologies.
The elites and the people are now at open cold civil war (to borrow Ed Driscoll’s phrase). IMHO this will flare “hot” the moment some big terror attack happens and we get the usual appeasement. There will be an irresistible pressure to make examples out of appeasement driven Western leaders AND Muslims, at home and abroad. Third Conjecture. All but certain now.
My new hero:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/08/22/a-united-states-marine-goes-to-a-town-hall-meeting/#more-210106
Semper Fi! As long as there are guys like this, I have hope that our nation is not completely lost.
I wonder if anyone else has had this experience.
Pappy pays.
I have a really nice daughter, that is bright and very quick.
She don’t like to work, however.
She goes to school, big university, takes meaningless courses, but thank God she ain’t got knocked up yet.
She’s really a nice girl, she just costs a alot.
Have you had that experience?
Whiskey talks about how “the elites and the common people are now at open cold civil war”.
I flatly disagree, and this is why. In the United States, we have a class of people who perceive themselves to be elite. That doesn’t mean they actually are. The so-called elites symbolized by Obama should not be confused with any natural aristocracy. Their “elite” status is little more than a confidence game.
American citizens are not required to either recognize counterfeit excellence or acknowledge bogus honors; I’m not about to call anybody part of an elite unless that person has earned my respect.
bob,
Seriously, do you think that a tour in the military might teach her the value of work? If she were a bad girl it would be a disaster because she would get in trouble but if she is a good girl and just needs to appreciate how things work then it might help.
My policy is to only walk out on one party a night. People expect little of politicians because they are no longer educated to expect better. The point of the old curriculum was to teach values, what were called “republican virtues.” Stories of the Roman Republic and the sacrifices they made. Like the Senator who killed his own son for breaking discipline. These served two roles. One it was a common language since everyone read the same histories along with Shakespeare, the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. Second the provided examples that people really could judge conduct by.
Compare that to my consternation at the bottom of the last thread in how people simply had no idea how to respond to rudeness that I encountered earlier this evening.
But have you just shelled out seven thousand bucks for books, rooming, and excessories. That’s what I want to know.
I love my daughter.
I must, I wrote the check.
I’m goin’ to bed.
From a low-lifer point of view I would rather work for Khadaffy any day than Gordon Brown, or Mr. Decency MacAskill. Khadaffy kept his perverted faith; worked to get his man out; didn’t sell him down the river as easily and cheaply as those who occupy the apex of that glorified mound of putrefaction known as political correctness. Kipling believed that in an amoral world there was still room to distinguish oneself by character. I’m not sure that our esteemed Western leaders have any moral advantages over Khadaffy; nor any in the aspect of character.
It can be fun to talk about leftist stupidity. Let’s be honest with ourselves here, though. Some of the nastiest and most virulent anti-Americanism has come from right wing circles in Europe. This should not be a surprise given how royalists* bitterly oppose American republicanism. Does The Guardian include Mary Beard as one of its bloggers? No. That dishonor belongs to The Times (of London), which is widely regarded to be the traditional standard bearer of English conservative orthodoxy.
*Royalism in this sense doesn’t refer to constitutional monarchy, but rather a “conservative” desire for an absolute monarchy. The rise of Fascism in the twentieth century should be regarded as a modernized version of divine right monarchy.
bob
$7000 is a lot to most BC readers, I’m sure, but it could be worse. Suppose your daughter decides to go to med school (so she can yank out tonsils and amputate legs, dontcha know).
Here’s what Harvard Med charges:
“An estimate of yearly expenses shows that the average cost for an unmarried first-year student will be approximately $66,600 for the 10.5-month academic year 2009-2010. This estimate includes tuition, health service fee and insurance premium, room and board, books, travel, transportation to clinical sites, laundry, and incidentals. Students whose homes are outside the northeast region of the United States may experience travel costs beyond the scope of this estimate.”
http://hms.harvard.edu/admissions/default.asp?page=costs
FWIW, tell your daughter she’s lucky she still has you. My dad didn’t live to see me off to college (heart attack at age 51). I know he loved me very much, though.
Loyalty to those who work for you can be dangerous. Nixon’s problem was in covering for those who did the break-in. If he had thrown them under the bus, he could never have been impeached. Of course if those who work for you know they will be thrown under the bus…
See CIA & Obama.
Alexis,
The chicken and egg question regarding European anti-Americanism is whether it precedes from or leads to their virulent anti-Semitism? The distinctions between right and left in this regard are of largely anthropological interest.
NO CO-OP’S! A Little History Lesson
Young People. America needs your help.
More than two thirds of the American people want a single payer health care system. And if they cant have a single payer system 77% of all Americans want a strong government-run public option on day one (86% of democrats, 75% of independents, and 72% republicans). Basically everyone.
Our last great economic catastrophe was called the Great Depression. Then as now it was caused by a reckless, and corrupt Republican administration and republican congress. FDR a Democrat, was then elected to save the nation and the American people from the unbridled GREED and profiteering, of the unregulated predatory self-interest of the banking industry and Wallstreet. Just like now.
FDR proposed a Government-run health insurance plan to go with Social Security. To assure all Americans high quality, easily accessible, affordable, National Healthcare security. Regardless of where you lived, worked, or your ability to pay. But the AMA riled against it. Using all manor of scare tactics, like Calling it SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!! :-0
So FDR established thousands of co-op’s around the country in rural America. And all of them failed. The biggest of these co-op organizations would become the grandfather of the predatory monster that all of you know today as the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance industry. And the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare industry.
This former co-op would grow so powerful that it would corrupt every aspect of healthcare delivery in America. Even corrupting the Government of the United States.
This former co-op’s name is BLUE CROSS/BLUE SHIELD.
Do you see now why even the suggestion of co-op’s is ridiculous. It makes me so ANGRY! Co-op’s are not a substitute for a government-run public option.
They are trying to pull the wool over our eye’s again. Senators, if you don’t have the votes now, GET THEM! Or turn them over to us. WE WILL! DEAL WITH THEM. Why do you think we gave your party Control of the House, Control of the Senate, Control of the Whitehouse. The only option on the table that has any chance of fixing our healthcare crisis is a STRONG GOVERNMENT-RUN PUBLIC OPTION.
An insurance mandate and subsidies without a strong government-run public option choice available on day one, would be worse than the healthcare catastrophe we have now. The insurance, and healthcare industry have been very successful at exploiting the good hearts of the American people. But Congress and the president must not let that happen this time. House Progressives and members of the Tri-caucus must continue to hold firm on their demand for a strong Government-run public option.
A healthcare reform bill with mandates and subsidies but without a STRONG government-run public option choice on day one, would be much worse than NO healthcare reform at all. So you must be strong and KILL IT! if you have too. And let the chips fall where they may. You can do insurance reform without mandates, subsidies, or taxpayer expense.
Actually, no tax payer funds should be use to subsidize any private for profit insurance plans. So, NO TAX PAYER SUBSIDIZES TO PRIVATE FOR PROFIT PLANS. Tax payer funds should only be used to subsidize the public plans. Healthcare reform should be 100% for the American people. Not another taxpayer bailout of the private for profit insurance industry, disguised as healthcare reform for the people.
God Bless You
Jacksmith — Working Class
Twitter search #welovetheNHS #NHS Check it out
(http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/)
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbWw23XwO5o) CYBER WARRIORS!! – TAKE THIS VIRAL
It is getting hard to tell the players without a scorecard. The CIA that Bush 41 rebuilt and that by some accounts worshiped him, the same CIA that sabotaged Bush 43 with a thousand leaks, is now at war with BHO? What do they want? If this was a hostile tin pot dictatorship we would be sending high level emissaries over and offering them scholarships for the manager’s kids. Instead they have Leon Panetta and the house is on fire.
jacksmith,
we so rarely get visits like yours.
It looks as though the release of Mr. Megrahi was the doing of the Scottish National Party government in Scotland. The Scottish government is defending its decision.
The British Labor government does not appear to have been involved in the decision to release Mr. Megrahi. However, this action by Scottish separatists ought to be remembered for future reference.
… as those who occupy the apex of that glorified mound of putrefaction known as political correctness.
Wretchard, you’ve been posting on this topic pretty consistently for the last few days … and make your point quite clear in the previous sentence.
So, a challenge & a simple question to you: Whats the solution?
Lets take this analysis of yours two days ago:
So if its a global operating system … And new events are emerging, due to complexity …
Question: What can we do, from a system designs point of view, to improve the global operating system?
Clearly the global operating system is buggy … so we need to debug it … and probably, to some extent, redesign & rearchitecture it.
What do you suggest?
I guess, just one more question, … Is it the system, or those that occupy the problem? … because if its the system, it is fixable … while if its human nature, well, that hasn’t been fixed in 5,000+ years, and is unlikely to be fixable …
[The beauty of the American Consitution is that it is a system that fixed some of the problems inherent in letting humans rule. Can we improve on it even more?]
If I were a wee Scottish bairn
And MacAskill were my daddy
I’d ask about that tiny cairn
That holds the tiny laddy
Who in an airplane with his mum
Was killed in our own Lockerbie
By killers with compassion numb
And in what is a mockery
Is now set free by my own dad
Who says it was compassion
When what that killer should’ve had
Was a good old stropping thrashin’
But all is well, so I have heard
Qaddaffi’s oil is coming
And I’ve been told by wee small bird
That trade will soon be humming
So maybe things will turn out well
They say the killer’s dying
And everyone says what the hell
The guy will soon be frying
But those who say that don’t believe
There is a hell or heaven
And they of course will never grieve
For a little boy of seven
Life of the Mind:
I think that anti-Americanism and anti-Judaism are distinct strands of hate; they often maintained separate existences.
However, French royalist ideologues from the early twentieth century, particularly Charles Maurras, wove them together. Some of the most virulent anti-Americanism came from the French Right during the 1920′s and 1930′s. Part of the reason is that they hated jazz. Part of the reason is that they hated modernity. Part of the reason is that they hated American power. Many French Rightists referred to the United States as “Uncle Shylock” and claimed that America was controlled by a Jewish conspiracy.
The thing that really gets me about this is that claim that they are more “humane” because they released the bomber.
He spent 11.6 days in jail for each life he took.
Such a low value on human life isn’t “humane” it is barbarous.
Osama Saeed will be standing for the Scottish National Party in Britain’s next parliamentary elections. He will be running for the constituency of Glasgow Central. He has his critics. He also seeks the restoration of the Caliphate. Given Mr. Saeed’s influential role as a Scottish National Party activist, Mr. Megrahi’s release from a Scottish prison should not come as a surprise.
The circle to square is how to wish no harm for those innocents that MacAskill holds dear but to wish that he experiences a trauma great enough that he will know empathy, not a politician’s sympathy, with the Libyan’s victims.
And what are we to make of a person who without hesitation claws at the thought of another and then points to having been wronged when called on to explain the haughty nature of their remark?
He sounds so haughty that one would think at the very least of a pedigree dating from the Enlightenment. But the person is no better born than many others who give themselves airs….and the sensible people scoff at the absurd pretensions of his presentations when they become objects dipped in the inkwell of haughtiness.
One would think such a person would be should be made of sterner stuff.
The Scots are sissies. I spit on my own Scotish heritage. Thankfully, it’s only a minority, but I shall claim mention it again. Apparently the SNP has a suicide wish. They mey just succeed.
Let’s have a little sympathy for poor Mr. McAskill.
If he had let the terrorist die soon of terminal cancer in a Scottish jail, the European leftists and their US running dogs would have been all over him.
So he released the terrorist to die in Libya, and the leftists are all over him.
Best argument for rapid capital punishment on conviction we have seen in a while.
Scotland is following in the dhimmi path of England and this is no surprise. MacAskill’s
‘lonely walk’is nothing compared to the lonliness, sense of loss, the families and friends of the 270 people this terrorist killed, have to face each and every day.
Megrahi should have been left to rot in prison from the cancer that he is dying from.
Scotland had a chance to rise to the occasion and say no to this sham of a release. The business that England is garnering has the blood of 270 innocent victims on it’s hands. Scotland is a septic
pool and her people will have this remember.
This is stealth jihad, like it or not. Obama
did virtually nothing to oppose this release and now the administation is throwing out nasty thoughts and words towards Libya but
what wretchard said is pretty much true.
Islam has learned to use the tools of multiculturalism and political correctness for Islam’s benefit, and it is always at our expense. It is no wonder terroists have no fear of the west.The only good terrorist is a DEAD terroist. It will come down to them or us, and we are at war with Islam. Obama is a Islamosympathizer and a dhimmi tool and stooge. He is a willing partner with Islam.
Much is at stake and we must wake up. I fear for my country and will defend it to the death.
There is another story
The AMERICAN [CIA?] evidence against Megrahi was never opened at his trial. This evidence pointed the finger at Iran, apparently, in a tit-for-tat for the civilian aircraft shot down by USS Vincennes.
The Megrahi trial was flawed, hence the appeal, now stopped, might have suceeded. He might have walked free anyway.
The release covers-up the failure of justice in Scotland and has enabled the SNP to make their first mark on the big wide world.
Guess what the colour of that mark is.
Having gotten back up, it’s not the 7 thousand I worry about, I just don’t know what she’s gettin’ taught.
She is taking a course, called something like ‘The Origins of Language’ that she is fired up about, tracing back the beginnings of words.
That sounds like it might have some merit. There is some deep meaning in the base of some of our words. I’ll pay for that.
Besides, who knows, she might meet a rich young man!
There’s a pretty simple solution, Bob.
Review her courses and pay for the ones you think are worthwhile and not tainted with PC nonsense, and make her pay for the others.
Tough love works.
Many ages ago there lived a beautiful young maiden in a simple hut by the banks of a big mighty river, and every morning when the sun rose over the far sleeping hills, she would arise to her tasks of the day, and then….
Such is life.
ah, I got her into this nonsense. Least she is doing something.
I just dread the day when she hauls in a man.
I’m praying for a good Mormon kid.
W
They are resigned to being sold out by politicians.
Now we are close to why we elect politicians. It is because we know that politics is the art of the possible.
What can we get away with, without bringing the whole fabric tumbling down around us. The Blues want to go Left; the Reds Right. How to reconcile, and thereby prevent mayham?
The glory of the Western world is that we have solved this problem. We elect politicians. People who can say yes when they mean no. People who can say ‘Yes we can’ when EVERYBODY knows we can’t.
We are not just resigned to being sold out by politicians, we need it, we buy it.
And it is good, as long as we don’t buy the bit that tey must have another term in office.
ADE
#31 ADE The glory of the Western world is that we have solved this problem. We elect politicians. People who can say yes when they mean no. People who can say ‘Yes we can’ when EVERYBODY knows we can’t.
Yes, exactly, ADE. The ability of politicans to say yes when they mean no, is a feature not a bug of the system.
And a positive feature at that. (See above comment #22 by me on why we need a to solve this as a system problem).
Our system problem, though goes deeper: Our politicans lack integrity, to the nth degree.
So far, I have identified two solutions we need:
(1) Politicans that only lack integrity to the 3rd degree or so, instead of politicans that lack integrity to the nth degree.
(2) A seperation of State & Business. See: Obamageddon
So we need a new model: Seperation of State & Business. Just like our model of Seperation of State & Religion.
We also need to identify more solutions.
Anyway back to solution #1 … The question then is: How do we find politicans (and encourage them to run), that only partially lack integrity, instead of our current politicans who, at times appear to, [from our perspective, often] completely lack integrity?
Sorry if the above sounds too cynical, not trying to, I’m really trying to come up with positive solutions.
Azides once explained this as follows:
Given any question, like … should we buy a shiny new car …
(E)ntrepenuers will say ‘Yes’ to any such question. Entrepenuers will say yes, to any questions about getting new stuff.
(A)dministratios will says ‘No’ to any such quetion. Administrators always say ‘No’ to any questions about getting new stuff.
(P)roducers will take the pratical approach. Do we need a shiny new car? If we do, then the answer is ‘Yes’. If we don’t then the answer is ‘No.
(I)ntegrators will always say ‘Yes’ & ‘No’. They are trying to integrate the needs of the Entrepenuers, Administrators & Producers.
So according to the above, it seems, we should always just consult the (P)roducers, who come up with the most realistic answer.
However, the reality, for good long term effectiveness, we want to consult the (I)ntegraters.
The key to the above is that politicans are (I)ntegrators. Thus they are always saying ‘Yes’ & ‘No’. And we accuse them of talking out of both side of their mouth …
But, really, the *are* doing their job. Saying ‘Yes’ & ‘No’ is their job … and this is a feature, not a bug, of the system.
So the answer to the question & what we really need is: Politicans who can say ‘Yes’ & ‘No’ … but at the same time, have a core integrity.
However, since we don’t live in paradise, yet. We are not going to get all politicans to have core integrity …
So, I’m trying to say, just get politicans who at least lack integrity to the 3rd degree, instead of the nth degree. This will be a signficant improvement over our current system.
Amit
You are absolutely right that this is a system problem –
where the preservation of the system is priority #1.
For PhD students out there, a question: Is Government the only System (in Amit’s sense) that must be preserved, but still allowed to change? I suspect it is – the ADE conjecture.
The West has got it approximately right. Put your hand in the till, off with your head. Release a convicted murderer to a hero’s welcome? Well shame, but no more.
So here is a commenter (veryretired on SAMIZDATA, commenting on “The British haven’t lost their fondness for liberty. We never had it.”
I would not presume to judge the British people, whom I greatly admire, but I do question the premise of the statement.
In human history, freedom is the anomaly.
Living in a condition of generalized liberty,
able to move about with few restrictions,
able to speak freely, read books and view a wide range of videos, both fictional and documentary,
stand at an intersection with a different house of worship on each corner and decide for oneself which one to attend,
open a little shop and try to make a living,
attend a world renowned university, even though your father and mother were farmers or factory workers,
live in a little cottage that belongs to you and your family, and which the highest magistrate in the land has said even the monarch cannot enter without your permission.
In defense of these utterly pedestrian (to us) aspects of your lives, the British people and their allies have stood against some of the most ferocious and deadly threats to the future well-being of humanity since Attilla, or the Saracens at Tours, or, indeed, the Black Death.
You may find yourselves dissatisfied with the current state of affairs in your society, as I and others are with conditions here ocross the Atlantic, but that is not a cause for despair.
If it were not so ingrained in you, as Britons, to expect to live as free men and women, as it is in those of us who have derived our system of rights and liberties from your example, this question would never even arise.
All across the world, in socieities ancient and modern, on all the continents that your own explorers first contacted centuries ago, the concept that each human being is unique, sovereign, and possesses natural rights that cannot be abridged at the whim of another, has resonated and reverberated.
Of course there have been setbacks. Of course there are enormous and complex challenges to overcome to maintain and expand this extraordinary birthright.
Those born as British citizens have been bequeathed the pearl of great price, paid for with blood and anguish, courage and fortitude, beyond anything most of us are ever asked to demonstrate.
Our task is to gather the courage and determination to fight and win the myriad lesser battles, in the local school committees, local elections, the classroom debates, the neighborhood meetings, up to the great national policy debates that may steer a nation onto the rocks, or back on a true course.
The letter says that of the great virtues, that of faith, hope and charity, the greatest is charity. It is wrong.
Hope, hope, and endless, indefatigable hope is the bedrock upon which all else is built.
For free men and women to lose heart, surrender, concede the field to the collective, secular or religious, is to condemn future generations of people all across the globe to a life of darkness and bitter despair, denied the very essence of that which makes them human.
For millenia, humans survived from day to day, living in an uncertain world in which violence was the only arbiter.
For a short time, in these last few centuries, we have been priviledged to participate in a radically different vision of humanity, based on values which recognized an innate dignity in each human life, something that should not be trampled upon by church or state.
We are now challenged by both of those ancient enemies. One believes in the sword, the other in magic.
Both fear the only true human weapon—the rational mind which will not surrender its committment to its own integrity and rational purpose.
The needed response to the many difficulties and challenges we face, in your society and mine, is an implacable determination to pass the greatest of all treasures on to our children, and their children in turn:
The knowledge that to be truly human is to be free in mind and spirit, and that nothing else is more worthy of our devotion, and our lives.
What’s a little obsfucation when this is what is at stake?
ADE
Scotland got her sovereignty back? How did I miss that!
The British, by whatever phylum or species is most active at the moment, are leading the way for changing simple distrust of politicians to outright disgust.
Kevin McKenny may not be so enamored with “natural justice” when his world meets its face to face.
So the answer to the question & what we really need is: Politicans who can say ‘Yes’ & ‘No’ … but at the same time, have a core integrity.
When we speak of honor among thieves, it refers to that certain essential and limited honesty that is found in people who are habitually dishonest. When you think about it, nobody can be completely dishonest and yet remain part of a system. The SS for example were punctilious about honesty among themselves; they boasted there were no locks in an SS barracks. People who would cheerfully stuff children into gas chambers could be trusted not to steal small change in certain circumstances. A stand up criminal will “honorably” avoid ratting out on associates when he is prepared to betray all else. This is so that he can maintain his status in the core system: to retain the trust of the SS comrades or the criminal associates. He can be out of anything except his tribe. But when a rogue forgets who he works for, what society he belongs to, then he starts becoming a problem. He starts being against all flags; he loses that thieves honor which gives him status and his time on earth is short. There’s a scene in the Rocketeer where the mafiosis turn against the Nazis because while they may be thieves, murderers and scalawags, they are patriotic Americans. This conveys the idea that for a system to work, you may dispense with nearly every honesty except the essential one: the one you’re not prepared to give up. Ultimately you have to know who you’re working for.
From time to time politicians forget who they are working for. Like pigs in a trough their appetites get the better of them and they think with their snouts, not their brains. To their normal menu of lies — which can be overlooked — they add the essential and unforgivable deception: they sell out the people without whom they cannot survive. It’s stupid, yet they do it. Because irrationally, and because they’re thinking with their snouts, they think they can go it alone. And that cannot be overlooked because it creates a lethal competitive situation. Either they go or the gang goes. When guys like that go rogue they have to be brought into line.
In a democracy the way rogues are chastised is that they are voted out of office. That usually works. But sometimes enough gunk is left over so that the normal wash doesn’t carry the grime away. It builds up, like grease in the drain. In extreme cases a revolution is necessary — that’s painful process of replacing the pipes. It’s destructive and expensive, so it happens only rarely. People try everything short of it. Sometimes, the application of Drano or a roto-rooter will do the trick. I think the public is going to try the normal washout, followed by the Drano and the metal snake and see what happens.
Theo Spark is on a roll today.
1) http://tinyurl.com/lmlzej on the draining of FDIC and the Reserve Ratio.
What will the next two points on the graph be?
2) http://tinyurl.com/mcu2mr What if the health care rules logic applied to Obama’s children?
3) http://tinyurl.com/l5ncou The continuing housing meltdown. What Barney Franks and friends have wrought.
And the best for last.
4) http://tinyurl.com/m6tp3u Telling it to The Man at a Town Hall.
He can be out of anything except his tribe.
But should his tribe be the best tribe, he would be silly to be out of it.
To coin a phrase, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you are in the best tribe”.
ADE
ADE,
Good point. My guess is that Oliver Cromwell would have sided with the King against Franks, Reid, Soros & Co.
There are those that think term limits are the answer. But they try not to think of what an FDR or Carter or Obama could “accomplish” in a single term, nor of the results when voluntary terms limits were briefly in vogue, nor the fact that Presidents are already term-limited.
There are those that think States Rights are the answer to runaway governmental power. But they try not to think of “takings” of private property, of zoning laws, of from where term “you can’t fight city hall” might have had its genesis.
There are those that think if we can find politicians with integrity, we’ll be okay. They try not think of how we would actually find such unicorn-esque creatures, nor the thousands of years of counter-examples across history.
What we need is already “on the books”. We’re just happier (for how long?) with not enforcing what’s already there.
Exhibit A: We ignore the nature of rights.
Rights are limit on *governmental* power: Freedom of press, the right to bear arms, protection against unreasonable search and seizure.
Nowhere is there a right to health-care, to a retirement account, to housing, because to have a right TO something, you must have a right to some or all of SOMEONE’s labor, meaning the government has a “right” to claim some or all of someone else’s life, judgement, skill (are you listening, Doctors?) on behalf of another citizen.
Exhibit B: We’ve ignored the Constitutional limit on government powers for so long we don’t even notice.
The Constitution already says that any powers not enumerated in the Constitution are off-limits to the Federal Government.
How exactly, then, do we have federal laws saying the government must run TSA, provide unemployment insurance, “fund” retirement, specify how many MPG cars must get, and literally a million other details?
Franklin warned us that they had given us “a Republic; if you can keep it.” Seems we’re doing a uniformely poor job of it.
“The chicken and egg question regarding European anti-Americanism is whether it precedes from or leads to their virulent anti-Semitism? The distinctions between right and left in this regard are of largely anthropological interest”
y’a don’t forget anti-semitism within anti-americanism, but I would say that is rather of the conservatives battle horse, dunno why ! cuz anti-americanism by us was mainly due to the anathemas that they launched against us, while anti-semitism is anthropologically an effect of Israel policies, yes we have Palestinians and Al Jazeera medias that help
hmmm, not only in Europe
“However, French royalist ideologues from the early twentieth century, particularly Charles Maurras, wove them together. Some of the most virulent anti-Americanism came from the French Right during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Part of the reason is that they hated jazz. Part of the reason is that they hated modernity. Part of the reason is that they hated American power. Many French Rightists referred to the United States as “Uncle Shylock” and claimed that America was controlled by a Jewish conspiracy.”
Charles Maurras was searching for a “volkish” identity, vs Barres who was internationalist, well I don’t know much of the maurrasian anti-americanism, cuz America wasn’t really present in our destinity since the Revolution war, and especially since Washington passed us under “his bus”
It’s only when the allotments of the Versailles treaty were discussed that America manifested her interest for us, d’ya think that the partition of the Ottoman empire wouldn’t change the face of the world ? indeed it made it !
Wretchard, ““there’s a sucker born every minute”. The words were probably uttered by David Hannum, who had a rival freak show and thought audiences were dumb for paying pay to see Barnum’s rip-off exhibit, even though both their shows were fakes.”
This is the crux of the matter in it’s entirety. The Porcelain Throne that is D.C. is filled with turds. Hopefully, 0 is the plug of toilet paper that will pull them all down the chute.
@4. Alexis, Hello? It doesn’t matter that they aren’t “REAL”! The asshats have the stick and are flying Air Farce 0 into the dirt! That alone would be alright except for one little bitty problem, WE ARE ON THE DAMN PLANE!!! And guess what. That wonderful union ground crew we hired didn’t put any parachutes on the plane. Ain’t that just sweet…
@6. bob, It is only money brother. One day when your in your sixties (provided 0 care didn’t off you yet) she will pay you back by putting you into some managed care facility. Smile bob…
@9. There is no Right and Left in Euroville. Only degrees of Left. So calling the Times a orthodox conservative is nonsense in the truest form of the word.
@10. PA Cat, My outlay for Elisabeth last year was 71,398.35. She will one day be a Ob/Gyn she says. This was my third year of such payments. So I just sit on the porch and smile…
@13. Jacksh*t, What you don’t know…will kill you. friend
25. PatriotUSA
“The only good terrorist is a DEAD terroist. It will come down to them or us, and we are at war with Islam. Obama is a Islamosympathizer and a dhimmi tool and stooge. He is a willing partner with Islam.”
Nicely put.
The swift execution of terrorists followed by a trial would end much of this politcal correctness while serving justice in the way she should be served.
If they are the anointed ones on this Earth then the rest of us will serve our eternal sentence with no pardon. Somehow I find Islam is in no position to court such favorable treatment.
Jack @ 13: You are a brave man, buddy. I disagree with your thesis and you’re kind of off topic, but I think that if you want to present a reasoned argument backed up with links, more power to you. A lot of your fellow travellers are just mean-spirited snipers. I think you should be welcome here, IMHO.
LotM
“Think it possible”? Think it is certain.
And there’s the West.
ADE
The problem is not political and neither is the solution. Not in the long run anyway.
Half the people in this country would happily evict the other half because we do not, as a culture, have a consenus view of civic morality. I don’t mean the acceptable limits of personal behaviour but rather the answers to such basic questions as “What is the civic responsibility of a father and a mother, and each of them, to their children and to the other members of their family”? What is the civic responsibility of children to their parents, to their neighbors, to the community in which they live?
Political discussion, such as it is, deals only with the periphery of truly foundational questions about ourselves and our culture. It’s as if (almost) nobody in public life is willing to go the heart of the matter. I think that Sarah Palin’s comment about the immorality of the proposed death panels hit a nerve that changed Congressional behaviour because morality – what we ought to do and why – is important to everybody, or at least everybody that is worth our attention and our consideration.
Obama has seen the value of framing socialization of medicine in terms of moral obligation. I hope that opens the door further to discussions of this kind because I believe that this is the ultimate battleground for the future of our culture.
Confucianism has had a singlular influence on Eastern political thought for 2,500 years precisely because it addresses social, political and economic issues squarely in terms of the moral obligations of each individual and segment of society in maintaining the Proper Order. Although Western politcal thought has addressed these same issues, and in the same terms as Confuciansim, it has been by conglomeration. There’s no single place to go to get the definitive heirachy of values against which we can measure personal and political performance.
Then again, Socrates said that the unexamined life was not worth living – and they killed him for it.
whiskey (#1);
That was a superb comment.
But I really hope you’re being too pessimistic in that last paragraph.
Jamie Irons
Alexis @4 American citizens are not required to either recognize counterfeit excellence or acknowledge bogus honors; I’m not about to call anybody part of an elite unless that person has earned my respect.
Is your last name de Toqueville? Of course! I finally get it.
Wretchard @35 writes they sell out the people without whom they cannot survive. Just the way MacAskill portrays the release of the mass murderer as compassionate, President Obama exhorts us all to be our brother’s keeper with yet another massive government entitlement. Just now on Meet the Press, Sens. Shumer and Lott argued the healtcare, and the Republican repeatedly brought up the unavoidable examples of today’s Medicare and Medicaid and their combined current unfunded liability (approaching $60 TRILLION right now). If we owe murderers compassion and our brothers all we own, what are we owed?
We in the New Deal and Great Society have been our brothers’ keepers for almost a century now, and it hasn’t given us stronger brothers. Rather, it has led to learned helplessness, like we saw with the residents of New Orleans in the face of Katrina.
If I am my brother’s keeper, when will my brother start keeping me? And if go broke keeping my brother, what happens to my brother then?
How dare the Democrats propose one after another TRILLION DOLLAR deficit inducing “compassionate way” solutions on top of a ten year outlook of TRILLION DOLLAR ANNUAL DEFICITS?
Sen. Shumer gave every indication that the Democrats are going to use their majorities to impose a new Medicare/Medicaid/Medi-X upon us. And then we shall see, that even though our form of government is all messed up, it’s still the best in the world, and these bastards will be voted out.
——————
Also on MTP, GEN McMullen and AMB Eikenberry discussed Afghanistan, and when confronted with the question of “exit plan” our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs stated that we need military efforts for another 12-18 months before he can even answer the question of what is going to be required to accomplish the mission. Of course, the “mission” is now miniaturized to simply preventing terrorist training bases. Then we can get about the 10-20 year project of creating civilization in one of the most uncivilized areas of the world. If denying terrorist bases is the only mission we have in Afghanistan, we have a few simple, economical, proven solutions, and they all start with “B-”.
Syd (#39),
Well put!
Jamie Irons
I believe this is the best blog on the Internet.
The contributions are great, the host is very smart and very just in his actions. It’s an honor to be in this company and I thank Wretchard for doing such a magnificant job.**
** A drug and alcohol free accolade.
You too can receive one. Send 5.00 Euros to:
HABU
Cayman Islands
Who measures Right and Left? By whose standard is a conservative a conservative? If the British Conservative Party isn’t conservative, what is conservative? If there are “only degrees of Left” in Europe, does this mean that America is “conservative” by default to such an extent that Barack Obama himself becomes a right winger by global standards??
I think that American politics may need words different from “liberal” and “conservative”. The very words “Right” and “Left” originally referred explicitly to French politics during their Revolution; to say that all French politics are “degrees of Left” is to give decidedly new meaning to those words.
By libertarian standards, the United States is hardly a paragon of virtue. Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands are far more libertarian in their sex laws. Even Mexico has legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana. Estonia has a low flat tax; present tax rates in the United States are downright socialist in comparison. Cultural conservatism? Germany’s abortion laws are far more stringent and pro-life than those of the United States. Who is the Leftist now?
When one labels the New York Times as “elite”, they smile because they do regard themselves as better than “the common man”. When one refuses to recognize the pretensions of the New York Times, that is when fear sets in for them. This is not mere semantics; it goes to the root of the power of the New York Times. When people regard elitists as a joke, the cultural power of the elitists vanishes.
Tony:
Mullen is an Admiral. You can tell from the pretty Navy Blue Suit.
Peter Boston:
There’s a discussion by Harry Jaffa from Clairmont McKenna College about Homosexuality and Natural Law (that’s OT but bear with me ). The pamphlet, which is a series of essays and letters, makes the point that we have lost a moral vocabulary that used to be part of our culture. I think that is a result of making education a major function of Government, coupled with the elevation of hostility to a common understanding of the divine to a major civic principle. We now (even in Belmont Club) speak of “values” instead of Virtues. The former being transitory the latter timeless. Schools cant teach Virtues without encountering the transcendental. Once encountered, it must be explained. The explanation requires the explaining teacher to express a position that may be politically unacceptable.
Bob: Emory was $40K/year. I would have loved to have to cover $7000. A financial guy told me that the only reason that there was a university in the US that cost more than Emory was that Emory hasnt heard about it.
Alexis, “I think that American politics may need words different from “liberal” and “conservative”.”
No, What the world not just American politics needs is to have the meaning of words solidified. To have concrete definitions of words. What you just experienced with my post is precisely why we need concrete unchanging definition of word.
But you will not get this from those who seek control of all others. I only seek control of myself. So do we just let them get away with the perversion of the definition of a word? If not, what a gay world we would live in. If so, what a compassionate world we would live in.
There is an awful lot of ninsense being talked by the people who released him about compassion. The fact is that it has been known for years that this bombing was carried out by Syrian backed Palestinian terrorists, but when Syria supported us in the Kuwait war they got a free pass. Megrahi was just a patsy set up to blame Libya, who in turn have become our friends now. There is nothing compassionate about releaseing an innocent, dying, man. That description is used just so politicians can protect their 7 their tame judges asses.
Herb, thanks for the correction, that’s a tribute to your decency. It’s so nerve-wracking typing here on the Belmont Club.
There is a very old principle; I think it was first articulated by the Prophet Samuel when he admonished King Saul for sparing the life of an enemy King. It goes like this.
When you are kind to the cruel you are being cruel to the kind.
bob,
When I started at Chicago tuition was $1,000 per quarter and room and board ran another several hundred. Of course back then you had to share your room with a sabre tooth and dodge roving bands of aborigines between your cave and the quadrangles.
Peter Boston,
Socrates was threatened by the Oligarchs and killed by the Democrats.
“@6. bob, It is only money brother. One day when your in your sixties (provided 0 care didn’t off you yet) she will pay you back by putting you into some managed care facility. Smile bob…”
heh, I’m ALREADY in my sixties, dammit, got married late, and I’ve earned the right to be a GRUMPY OLD MAN. Which I will proceed to be, thank you very much, smart ass!
I still have sex with my wife, by the way.
So there.
#46 Peter Boston
Half the people in this country would happily evict the other half because we do not, as a culture, have a consenus view of civic morality. I don’t mean the acceptable limits of personal behaviour but rather the answers to such basic questions as “What is the civic responsibility of a father and a mother, and each of them, to their children and to the other members of their family”? What is the civic responsibility of children to their parents, to their neighbors, to the community in which they live?
You have hit our domestic problems on the head. Except in the most technical and legalistic sense, and that the fact that perforce we occupy the same hunk of territory; half the population are no longer my countrymen. We cannot have a rational discussion on matters because we do not have enough of a common reference point in our views of the universe to make the words be intelligible to each other, even if technically they are the same language.
A very apt comparison to Confucianism [not a religion; a way to get a whole lot of people in a small space to live together without killing each other] was made; but it can go farther. When the English first officially and seriously encountered the Empire of China, there was serious cognitive dissonance on both sides. Both were deeply sure of the superiority of their culture, and neither had any idea of what made the other tick. Even with translation, the words did not mean the same thing.
If a culture does not have a word for a concept, that concept does not exist in the culture. Take the concept of “Freedom” as in Liberty under the law. In English, the word is self-explanatory. In Chinese, before centuries of cultural contact and many clumsy linguistic work-arounds, the closest thing it translated to was what we would call “license” as in licentiousness. Praising the virtues of “Freedom” and using it as justification for actions did not go well in a structured and controlled society like China.
In the end, it took a century of Western attacks on China, and its subjugation to a great degree, for us to reach the still imperfect level of mutual understanding that we have. The political consequences of that century still plague us.
But despite the Leftist trope that “violence never solves anything”, which has the unspoken caveat for them of “unless we are the ones committing the violence”; the relationship between China and the West was largely resolved so far, and still is likely to be further resolved by violence.
I will leave to others to ponder any parallels between relations between China and the West, and the relationship between the two very different nations and cultures that are intermixed and occupy the territory known as the United States. I have my own thoughts on the matter, and they turn towards the Balkans or 1930′s Spain.
#47 Jamie Irons
Like many others, I do not accept completely Whiskey’s formulation of the influence of feminism. But in his #1 I can only quibble at two points. I am less sure of the future existence of any counterattack by the CIA, because at its top political levels it appears to have been a profoundly Leftist organization for years [say since Clinton]. I would love to see Buraq be on the receiving end of the same tactics that Bush got, after which we replace the lot of them with non-political appointees. Secondly, I would not underestimate the degree to which the “elites” of both parties, but primarily the Left; would resist any response to a mass terror attack. To Buraq and the Democrats, an attack on America is something to be desired. To the Institutional Republicans, they will reflexively resist anything that comes from the base. [ as Wretchard says at #36, our political class ("elite") has forgotten its ultimate loyalty and is now loyal only to itself.] It may be possible that they will succeed in suppressing a response to the first. But as the Three Conjectures notes, there will be a second, third, and more in the series until such is rendered impossible in the most brutal and permanent way.
I find it interesting that our enemies so far have evinced a preference for striking targets that they consider to be symbolic of the worst aspects of our society, rather than strategic targets. It is no coincidence that almost all of those targets are in areas that by our now conventional notation are of the deepest blue. If there is such a strike, we can be sure that the regime will attempt to use the carnage to garner support for their political goals and supporters.
In the wake of the last 7 months, they may find that the level of sympathy for the target area is somewhat less than they would hope. I have friends and family in some of those areas. I also know that there are those there who are trying to protect and defend what is left of Constitution. I admit that my sympathy and aid will be reserved for those and their survivors, and not those who gave us the regime. TWANLOC can look to the regime.
And before some peoples’ heads burst, I have to note that the regime of Buraq Hussein Obama has a history already in these last few months of NOT coming to the aid of areas in red state flyover country during natural disasters. The ice storms that cut off all power and road access to large parts of Tennessee and Kentucky for months were handled with no help from FEMA who said it was too hard to get to [state and local government managed, but the Obama's Feds couldn't]. State and local governments handled the massive floods in the Dakotas, while FEMA found other things to deal with. I will admit that the Army’ Corps of Engineers were there, but after all; they are the military.
And every few weeks some Leftist political supporter or celebrity publicly expresses the hope that it is the evil, racist conservatives and Christians in flyover country that are hit next by terrorists. The last time that comes to mind was the ‘actress’ Megan Fox who made that statement a few weeks ago to absolutely no outrage.
So I do not care if it offends some Leftist that I return his wishes for me. As I have noted in other venues, I am not a “nice” person; and they are getting close to getting on my last nerve.
Subotai Bahadur
…they sell out the people without whom they cannot survive.
At the tea parties and town hall I’ve attended, the average age of attendees was probably above 60. That means lots of them are retired, i.e. — free to spend their entire day working for political change.
As for my age group (50′s), I can’t think of too many things that anger me more than the thought of my elderly parent, aunts, and uncles being mistreated — even the ones I don’t like. It’s tribal.
I got $10 that says Megrahi’s cancer goes into remission Real Soon Now.
herb
Thanks for the heads up on that Jaffa article. There is a Jaffa interview about his latest Lincoln book at NRO Uncommon Knowledge.
Alexis
The NYT, Hollywood et al are purveyors of popular culture not its maker. Changing the editorial board of the NYT would not change the culture one iota. This quote from the Spectator review of the feminist book Missed Opportunity will make Whiskey proud:
“We have let the feminists down and turned off the rational sides of our brains in favour of the thrilling emotional life that popular culture provides.
The feminists were too intellectual and too angry with men to win the sympathy of most ordinary women, who generally liked their husbands and fathers. Instead, popular culture took possession of female psyches and has left us unthinking, disunited and unable to cope with, or even identify, reality.”
I don’t always agree with Whiskey’s conclusions but I do believe that he’s right on the money by describing political outcomes as a reaction to dominant cultural values and not the other way around. That’s why I say that the solution to our current situation is not political because politics are but a symptom of our culture.
Even though he is dying,he should not be trusted and he should still be monitored.
54:
By nineteenth century standards, modern liberals are generally conservatives and modern conservatives are generally liberals. By the old standards, Left means Jacobin and Right means anti-Jacobin. Given that Thomas Jefferson was pro-Jacobin (for a while), and his opponents were anti-Jacobin, it would make sense to call Thomas Jefferson a leftist and Alexander Hamilton a rightist.
By the standards of the early nineteenth century, Andrew Jackson was beyond all doubt a Leftist par excellence. His dispossession of Indian tribes east of the Mississippi would not have been out of line with the Communist Manifesto. In contrast, by the old standards, Zachary Taylor would have been the closest thing Americans could get to a right wing president.
Leninists confused the notions of Left and Right because they proposed a “vanguard of the proletariat”. What is a vanguard but a self-appointed “elite” that replaces titles of nobility with membership in the Communist Party? The Eastern Bloc became a means to promote a new form of feudalism under the aegis of the Communist Party; that system would have been seen as “right wing” at any time before 1900.
“Does The Guardian include Mary Beard as one of its bloggers? No. That dishonor belongs to The Times (of London), which is widely regarded to be the traditional standard bearer of English conservative orthodoxy.”
Uh, no. Since Rupert Murdoch took over The Times the paper has endorsed Labour at every election. And no the ‘conservatives’ left at the The Times do not represent ‘English conservative orthodoxy’ but neoconservatism – examples include Stephen Pollard and Daniel Finkelstein.
whiskey@1: My guess is that this is an electoral gift to the BNP from Gordon Brown. A slap in the face.
Evidence is coming out that the British government played the key role in Magrahi’s release.
1. Gaddafi directed his thanks to “my friend Brown, his government, the Queen of Britain, Elizabeth, and Prince Andrew who all contributed to encouraging the Scottish government to take this historic and courageous decision”.
2. Apparently the details of the release had been firmed up at a meeting between Brown and Gaddafi in Italy in July.
3. A letter written by the Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis to the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, has emerged, confirming that there were no legal reasons not to let Megrahi go and concluding: “I hope on this basis you will now feel able to consider the Libyan application”
4. The motivation for the release is suggested by a meeting on this issue between the business secretary, Lord Mandelson, with Gaddafi’s son “during a holiday in Corfu this month”, several weeks after the Brown-Gaddafi meeting in Italy. Of course, Mandelson has insisted that it was “completely wrong” and “offensive” to suggest that Megrahi’s release was linked to trade deals over oil and gas
whiskey@1 ”for Obama, it’s a disaster, confirming to most that he is indeed a Muslim terrorist sympathizer.”
An Guardian article contains the following sentence:
“However, the Scottish government last night responded defiantly, insisting the US had made clear in discussions that, while it opposed Megrahi’s release, it regarded freeing him on compassionate grounds because of his terminal cancer as “far preferable” to a prisoner transfer deal that would have seen him in custody.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/23/gordon-brown-letter-gaddafi-lockerbie
Today’s American “liberals” are Jacobin-ish in the lemming-essence of their pitiless Political Correctness. Witness poor Hillary Robespierre who got the chop last year as an even more fanatical hater of the Old Order eclipsed her charms among those brazenly self-righteous who clamor for centralized power over the peeps.
coisty:
Hmmm. If The Times has indeed gotten a brain transplant (and I was wondering what would possess a newspaper with a reputation to uphold to bring on a loon like Mary Beard), where have the British Tories gone? The Telegraph? The Spectator? The Guardian (which is where Simon Jenkins has gone)?
Megrahi should have been shot. Total cost, about a buck fifty for the bullet. I’da pulled the trigger for free.
I’ve become very interested in the history of the American Indian tribes around here.
I’ve actually lived a small part of it.
It is not so simple as you might think, not exactly the old story of the whites beating up on the reds, though there was some of that.
There was a lot of the reds beating up on the reds.
Tototsillips, or whatever his name was, was meet by Lewis and Clark on their way back from the Pacific, with a necklace of human scalps about his neck, back from a fight with the Shoshone, to the south. This fight had gone on forever, like the Hatfields and McCoys. No one really remembering the first cause, no one ever thinking about an ending to it.
A fight forever, no reason to it.
Till the white man came with the law.
You can’t do that no more.
That’s what the law is.
There was also the forever battle between the Nez Perce and the Blackfeet.
Over buffalo, you can figure that out.
Everytime they’d cross the mountains.
They even have a myth about it. The myth of the Monster of Wallowa Lake. The Nez Perce Prince and the Blackfoot Princess, wanting to be married there at Wallowa Lake, the Nez Perce having retreated there, chased by the Blackfeet, out of their buffalo grounds, this marriage between the beautiful youth of both tribes being a mythical image of possible peace between these peoples.
The myth you see, says some peoples just don’t get along. The Prince and Indian Princess you see, wanted to marry, and they were there in the love canoe, in the middle of Wallowa Lake, and the damned monster of Wallowa Lake, overturned their canoe, swamping them.
Some things just don’t work out. Some people are enemies.
Until the coming of the whites, and the law.
I know this stuff.
It was the wild west. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Quil quil se ne na (Eagle of the Light) was one of the non treaty reds. He and most of the Nez Perce women, who went into mourning, tore their clothes, pulled their hair, when the men voted to accept the whites, wanted to fight the whites.
They got mostly outvoted in their group. Lawyer and his group carrying the most votes, finally.
This whole thing took place over many years.
There was also a big effort by Christians to get along with the reds back in the old days.
I personally know some of these Christian people. They are mostly all gone now, just their sons and daughters to talk to.
Now we have casinos, American reds married to American astronauts, American reds as annoucers on our TV news, and red professors of art over at Lewis and Clark State College.
And everyone is getting along really well.
An amazing story, really.
Peace.
Peter: there are two interviews. Robinson said he kept losing control of the discussion. He did. Jaffa’s Really, Really bright.
One of these days Im going to read his books. Maybe Ill understand enough to learn something.
The CIA has made it into several comments on this thread. The obama vs. the CIA, the Bush Presidencies being treated so differently by the Company, it’s all very challenging to understand. For what it’s worth.
The current pretender to the presidency is dealing with real danger given his pro Islamic positions. Inside the Company there are very few following that path for they know who the enemy is. Let’s continue.
W with his two terms, his father with one, and the Duke with two terms mean that in the last 28 years only Slick Willie had eight years to hire and get into place young men and women who agreed with his fantasy world positions. I can say that although the Company is now more liberal than it was during my time inside the numbers who came on board and worked for RWR, G.H.W.B., and W are far more attuned to the true nature of intelligence dangers as opposed to the granola crowd of Willie and Bambi. Those oldest members of the conservative faction of the Republican Presidents are nearing retirement, within their 28th year. Below them are layers of ages in time of service most of who are conservative and once again know our true enemies. They are not going to make it easy on obama, nor should they.
Have there been additional layers of intelligence added since 9/11, yes, but it takes decades for an espirit de corps to develop and they don’t have the gravitas yet to be taken seriously within the intelligence community.
If obama pushes too hard the push back can be perilous for him. He has already ruined the lives of many operational wet works people who are simply squatting in the weeds, waiting until the time is right. He would do well to temper his entire agenda. He won’t however for he has bought into his own press clippings. Hubris has a very steep price which I have no doubt he’ll learn in earnest before the mid term elections or shortly thereafter. Since he’s in league with our traditional enemies and is playing with the wrong people his tenure is precarious.
O is the pilot of a hull on its way to “controlled flight into terrain.”
It cannot be that this moron who cannot even learn lines to parrot when the teleprompter hiccups is anything but a puppet advanced to his current employment by powers in the wings.
You think Joe Kennedy had money to throw around for his son’s electioneering? The Brilliant Hungarian currency speculator has brought governments to their knees by his actions. Sir Ose probably spends more on his wine cellar than Joe Kennedy spent on the 1960 presidential election.
It may be the case that most of his billions were earned legitimately, and only the the odd hundred million here and there were the result of felony insider trading or criminal conspiracy. Small potatoes, obviously.
But there is a determined perversity in the obstinate intentional self-mutilation being crafted by the current leadership. We are being steered into the hurricane, not into any safe harbor. Either that or the rudder has been pulled out and carved into skewers for the cocktail weenies in the lounge.
Whiskey, anyone?
On the rocks, naturally.
Alexis:
I think left and right is a false dichotomy.
I think the two sides are Liberty and Statism/Totalitarianism. You cant tell the difference between Nazis and Commies or simple thugs like Kadaffy or Mugabe. They are all the same. Civilized countries basically put the individual ahead of the collective.
(Thanks for the reference to “Rocketeer,” W – definitely a much under-appreciated flick!)
…speaking of “Decency” a short story:
Our freshman congressional representative, Glen C. Nye, is a democrat, but has voted on several issues in opposition to the Democrat Chicago machine. Yesterday he met with our extended family to present medals, awards and citations that our father had earned but had not received during in his three decades in the Navy. This included a current duplicate of the Navy Cross. (Looked like brushed bronze, instead of the matt black of the original.)
First time we’d all been gathered together for a few years. Ten years after our dad’s funeral, his grandson decided he wanted to know the story behind the medal he’d seen on the den wall, which never got mentioned or explained. No dry eyes in the place, as we recalled the man we had known more for his humor and dedication to his family.
It was reassuring to find that there are people in Congress who do not reflexively sneer at military service, and who have actually served in areas of conflict, even as civilians.
Representative Nye’s staff had done good work in cutting through the bureaucratic obstacles to getting these. Nye did not serve in any branch of the military, but the Wikipedia biography mentions that he volunteered for “medical education missions in the Middle East while in college.” His official website indicates he spent a decade as a foreign service officer and did honorable work negotiating for the release of American citizens in Kosovo, and later worked in Afghanistan with USAID.
A friend of mine who I respect as a real dedicated worker and conscientious student of history and politics joined the foreign service and is also hiking around Afghanistan with U.S. forces helping villagers to re-build and improve their plumbing, school rooms, irrigation, and such. Rugged work, and dodging RPGs and AK-47 rounds, often enough.
==> It would probably be a good thing to be aware of reps in Congress who seem to have their heads screwed on straight. To me that starts with someone having done some sort of service SOMEWHERE, and showing detectable respect for the service of military personnel, instead of the contempt shown by Obama, Frank, Pelosi, et al.
Habu,
Doug Feith’s “War and Decision” documents both CIA and State’s perfidy in W’s Administration, with detailed explication of their undermining Rumsfeld and Bush in war-planning before we even got into Iraq. Without acrimony, with accuracy, with copious de-classified documentation, Feith recalls the many devastatingly-timed leaks and well-crafted “conventional wisdom” promoted by “unnamed sources” and the MSM that created an obviously fake “peace movement” during the period of 2003-08.
Notice no such “anti-war” or “peace movement” exists now, and the only leaks and scandals of any consequence are still directed back toward the previous Administration.
While Rumsfeld has been pilloried for his “snowflakes” and devotion to the dialectical method and WRITTEN position statements, Feith points out that Colin Powell, Armitage et. al. were notoriously NOT documenting or rationally arguing their positions. They preferred back-stabbing and leaks to the NYT and WaPo.
Dick Armitage originally “accidentally” “outed” Valerie Plame, and then immediately reported such to his boss GEN Powell. Then the two of them decided to never admit it until it became a confidence-killing, year and a half bleeding wound on the Bush/Cheney Administration and America’s confidence in her elected government. This tells me the ruling apparat of the CIA is still capable of grave injury to what I consider our national interests.
I hope you are right, I hope I am drawing the wrong conclusions from Feith’s well-documented history.
Tony,
It sounds like a good piece of work Mr. Feith has done. I will have to have Kindle read it to me (lazy)…Mr. Feith’s work for the Hudson Institute speaks well for him as it is a very well repected research organization.
My piece was truly only a very broad look at who might still be at CIA, their numbers and possible philosophical dispositon. I certainly can make no claim after being out of that world for 25+ years that anything of what I wrote ight be true.
It was based more on knowing how slowly institutions give up power and the inertia that propels them forward.
I do know this. After say about your first year with the Company a certain paranoia creeps in and begins to erode your naivety as to what the good, bad, and ugly are inside.
Nice info Tony, thank you , I’ll get Kindle on it.
Amit Green @32
Sorry all, but I came late to the thread and have not yet read all between #32 and here. My apologies. And my 2 cents worth as well:
1.- Systems cannot change or conquer human corruption. The best are devices to manage it.
2.- Any new system is immediately attacked by corrupt humans trying to sabotage it. The longer a system lasts, the more it is patched up and cracked from the injuries of past attacks. Any system can eventually be partially to mostly disabled. That is why it helps sometimes to replace old systems with new ones, which may work for at least awhile until its enemies can finally disable it too.
3.- American Founders devised probably the best system ever. It had some major things going for it. One was absolutely essential, they said.
4.- the essential one was a population with a high percentage of “moral and religious people.” Their system would not work without that, we were warned. The question – how to get such a “moral and religious people” back? That takes rebuilding Christianity among the population – a difficult and indispensable project.
5.- the other thing was its system of “checks and balances.” They pitted the Executive, legislative and judicial against each other – a 3-way war. But it was meant to be a 4-way war. The 4th check-and-balance was to have been the entire federal government against the combined state governments. That got derailed, in part for the sake of the Civil War.
6.- Then the problem that none of us know how to solve: excessive largeness of an organization. Past a certain point, the larger an organization gets, the worse. It chokes itself, and strangles the rest of the society. The only remedy is to cut it up somehow into parts. Let the parts sink or swim on their own. Break them up again once they reach a certain size.
But break them up, fast. Because such a large, powerful entity is just begging to be taken over and run by a dictatorship. Any kind of coup might do it.
7.- What to do? Three things – two structural changes, the other to counter an attempted coup.
8.- One structural change: shrink and weaken the federal government in relation to the states. Devolve all federal powers possible to the states. Even let a few states secede, if they want. Strike down the powers the feds grabbed away from the states under the Commerce Clause and under the practice of unfunded mandates, for instance.
9.- the structural change needed in the character of the population. Let Christians revive themselves and proselytize others. Let Christianity grow. Let non-Christians stand aside and watch, not objecting except under extreme necessity. There is no fixed morality, even no accepted idea of right and wrong, except as absolutes. Make them relative and they disappear soon enough. Only religion, not governments or systems, can make absolutes. Christianity has the best and least harmful record. The U.S. Constitution came out of a Christian – and therefore moral – people. Bite the bullet, and nourish the plant. Help it grow. Cherish and defend it, even if you can’t embrace it. It is a necessary strategy for preserving our freedoms and our nation..
10.- the coup-prevention. That is a war -politically and sometimes, militarily. It might be accomplished by a large minority. But eventually that minority must become a majority to stay in power. See #9. Number 9 can be postponed, but only at a high cost and with great danger. It should never be postponed! We have to do several things at once. No choice about it.
Habu:
The CIA has made it into several comments on this thread. The obama vs. the CIA, the Bush Presidencies being treated so differently by the Company, it’s all very challenging to understand. For what it’s worth.
Thank you for the insight. I’m still puzzled about the behavior under W. It sure seemed like some element was trying to undermine him. Was that just me imagining things, the Slick Willie hires causing trouble, or something else?
FWIW, A very large number of Company Men come from the Armed Forces. They don’t rescind their oath to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic when they join up. This leads to a very educated and enlightened individual having to make choices as to what he/she believes is best for the country. This leads to them working in odd directions to TPTB.
Scottish Leader Defends Release
But Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond told BBC Radio that it was wrong to assume that all those affected by the bombing were opposed to al-Megrahi’s release.
”I understand the huge and strongly held views of the American families, but that’s not all the families who were affected by Lockerbie,”
Salmond said.
”As you’re well aware, a number of the families, particularly in the U.K., take a different view and think that we made the right decision.”
—
”No one I think seriously believes we made any other decision except for the right reasons,”
Salmond said.
”I think it was the right decision. I also absolutely know it was for the right reasons.”
The British and Scottish governments have denied that they struck a deal with Libya to free the Lockerbie bomber in return for greater access to the country’s oil and gas.
Finally, Change We Can Believe In™
…Minutes later, a woman prompted a standing ovation with her emoational outpouring.
‘I don’t believe this is just health care. This is about the systematic dismantling of this country,’ she said, her voice quaking. ‘I don’t want this country turning into Russia, turning into a socialised country. What are you going to do to restore this country back to what our founders created, according to the Constitution?’”
—
As the woman said at the town hall,
“I don’t believe this is just health care.”
Bailouts to banks, huge stimulus payoffs to special interests, nationalization of auto companies, trillions in new debt, the ideological taxing of our great carbon energy supplies, unconscionable deficits stealing from our grandchildren, Washington talk of health rationing, forced abortions, compulsory sterilization, eugenics. Are you all Eurosocialists now? What the hell is going on in Washington?
Maybe, just maybe, the woman is right. Maybe the national roar is a cri de coeur from the heartland to the capital — just the beginning of a national vomiting of alien ideas being shoved down the national throat by a left-wing Congress.
To those congressmen who oppose the horror: This is no time for timidity and compromise. Let your political courage match the passion of the people.
And to all the Washington politicians in Congress, advice from another generation’s poet…
LOTM :58
“…. Of course back then you had to share your room with a sabre tooth and dodge roving bands of aborigines between your cave and the quadrangles.”
I think that is still the situation at major universities.
#78 GerryP
I don’t necessarily agree with you on all your points, but IMHO many of your points are valid.
The idea of checks and balances are important. They are the cornerstones of American government, that which made it great. But there are two things which have undermined it:
(1) There were inadequate safeguards against an oppressive Supreme Court, and (2) the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution which required the direct election of Senators.
Error #1 provided the path to ruin when the Supreme Court was allowed to declare that the Federal government could regulate basically ANYTHING by virtue of the Interstate Commerce clause.
Error #2 essentially destroyed Federalism. The state governments were shut out of their role in the Federal Government.
I agree with you that the solution should be structural. And for that, my solution would be:
(1) Repeal the 17th Amendment, and
(2) Pass a constitutional amendment that says, in effect, that if 50% or more of the State Legislatures pass a resolution condemning a decision of the US Supreme Court, then the Justices who voted in favor of that decision shall immediately be removed from office, and shall be forever barred from receiving any compensation from the Federal government at all, and all that they were entitled to before shall be forfeited.
You can say what you want to say, but most of what got us to the sorry state we are in today was because the people who populated the Supreme Court thought they were philosopher kings who could dictate their will to the masses. They let the Executive and Legislative branches run roughshod over the Constitution because “it was for the greater good.”
As for me, I think a judge that can ignore the law and the Constitution for the “greater good” needs to be put in a position where they have to be begging for spare change to eat on some street corner. After all–that actually would be for the greater good.
79. JMH
I think one could make a strong case that having just been impeached and then having ALgore defeated could have animated the Slick Willie faction within the Company to become a wrecking crew.
Remember the vandalism they did to the White House? You know of course they have always believed they are superior individuals and many will do anything, including selling US secrets and even stuffing then in their pants to make W look bad.
I believe there have been a number of Democratic Presidents who would and have given the nod for murder …. LBJ was that type and Slick Willie was clearly sociopathic…not to mention Hillary who is now, what Secretary to a cabinet Czar?
Yeah in general I believe as much as a person can that the Democrats are in bed with the commies and will do anything to gain and keep power. Certainly the Venona Papers showed the Commies and Democrats go way way back.
Habu, From the perspective of an outsider, peeking in through a poorly lit, hazy and partly covered stained glass…
As it is I am unfamiliar with the ways and means of the company, however, I would tend to believe the majority of leaks came from those whose work crossed desks not just at foggy bottom but at State as well. Historically, to effectively perform its work the spy agency has of necessity had an arrangement with our embassies and consulates. The degradation of agency assets due to Hansen et al as well as the depletion of loyal Americans within its ranks was no doubt only partially re mediated by the time of the short tenure of Porter Goss. At a time when US Intelligence was undergoing dramatic changes in role, function and expectations Goss was perceived to be at war with many of the agents under his command. I know a lot of not so good apples said good riddance as well as some very good men. Would I be wrong to assert the majority of mid to upper level managers and leaders today, joined during the Clinton years. I do not say that as a means of casting aspersions on their loyalty, but as a matter of understanding the judgment formed by experience. What good, practical and applicable experience they have had it seems to me, was all under Bush 43, and bitter at that.
The Clintons made it very clear to the federal bureaucracy that they wanted “under-represented” minorites (women, people of color, and homosexuals) promoted, and that managers’ performance would be judged on how well they promoted this category of people. So people were promoted on the basis of what they were rather than how well they performed. The CIA’s home page even boasted about its commitment to diversity.
One fifth of the feds are eligible to retire in the next five years and these people will be moving into the upper ranks. Their worldview is not conservative. Whiskey, call your office.
On the subject of group morality, I just checked a book out of the library called: “Our turn to eat”, by Michela Wrong, about tribes in Kenya and their perception of what political power allows you to do. It also sounds like the Chicago way. Perhaps reading this book will give me a better understanding of the O.
Also, as a charismatic Calvinist Christian, I fear for America when I read the Elderly portion of the Bible. God has not abandoned his wrath. Read the prophets. There are consequences.
I can’t prove America has had a special relationship with God, but history seems to indicate it. The miracle of the battle of Midway,the low loss of life in the world trade center attacks, are just a few of the signs. I fear if every man does what is right in his own eyes.
Stinking NYT has an article dated 23 August, with a headline “Most of Obama’s Top Appointees Are Not in Place,” under the byline Peter Baker.
These miserable f******s would rather drink a quart of toilet bowl de-clogger than actually report essential facts.
They inform us that at this late date in his administration, O still is lacking FIFTY-SEVEN percent of policy-making appointees who require Senate confirmation.
Quoting Mrs. Dowager Empress Clinton, currently serving in the position of Secretary of State, they convey her statement that the “clearance and vetting process is a nightmare,” and that “it takes far longer than any of us would want to see.”
A little deeper into the article they make a shabby reference to the fact that President George W. Bush “still did not have most of his national security team in place when planes smashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.”
What these utter lying bastards fail to mention is that the REASON for the delay in 2001 was NOT problems occasioned by candidates’ failure to pay their taxes, or criminal revolutionary bomb-making and un-recanted communist associations in their backgrounds.
That would have been problems intrinsic to the candidates.
Instead it was purely political.
It was a direct result of the “I’ll – scream – till – you – do – what – I – demand” extended tantrum following their thwarted presidential try in the 2000 election. You remember, the one where they tried repeatedly to revise the Florida election laws until they got a recount that somehow gave a fictional win to Al My-family-owns-Occidental-Oil-but-don’t-tell-anyone Gore.*
The Democrats in the Senate obstructed one Bush appointment after another until the attack of September 11, 2001 reminded them that there are other people in the world besides Republicans that they need to worry about.
But don’t take MY word for it.
Look it up.
* Even the New York Times itself eventually had to acknowledge that every single recount had produced a win for BUSH, no matter how the Florida Democrats tortured the rules and interpreted hanging chads and dents in the ballots.
On the subject of group morality … Ah–the curse of humanity. Group morality, an oxymoron if ever there was one. Morality is personal. The wolf pretending to be a sheep in the flock is still a wolf, and the disguised sheep amongst the pack of wolves is still a sheep. In the world where we are judged solely by the categories that we or other people tend to place us in, we have lost our humanity. We are just a pebble in a pile of rocks, and what worth is a pebble?
Our self-styled betters talk about groups and their various grievances against the rest of humanity. Pure trash and garbage.
In the final analysis, we are all minority groups consisting of exactly one person.
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 27% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -14. These figures mark the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President. The previous low of -12 was reached on July 30 .
Prior to today, the number who Strongly Approved of the President’s performance had never fallen below 29%. Some of the decline has come from within the President’s own party. Just 49% of Democrats offer such a positive assessment of the President at this time.
At the other end of the spectrum, today’s total for Strongly Disapprove matches the highest level yet recorded. The 41% mark was reached just once before and that came one week ago today. Seventy percent (70%) of Republicans now Strongly Disapprove along with 49% of those not affiliated with either major party.
People seem to be getting sick of this farce we’ve got in the White House.
bob,
If you look at my blog you will find reposts from here where I have been going over the Rasmussen polls. The slide down to the 25-27% range is expected. My guess is that he will slide down to touch 24% and then will recover to 27% for a few weeks and then slip again. It is a step function. By the November off year election he might be down to -20 to -25 in the Index. If anything this slide is starting to accelerate but be cautious. Mighty assets will be used to temporarily lift him. Over time reality wins but some things are time point specific and subject to manipulation.
I strongly encourage everyone to work at poll sites and otherwise participate in the local political process. Also I amthinking that we need to start applying for Census jobs. If you don’t guess who will?
92 bob
People seem to be getting sick of this farce we’ve got in the White House.
Talk about farce– Himself has now lashed out at the governor of New York for playing the race card when only His Nibs is entitled to do so:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08232009/news/nationalnews/peeved_obama_trumps_patersons_race_card_186100.htm
I’m just waiting for Michelle O. to blame the decline in her husband’s poll numbers on the incorrigible meanness of the country.
That’s a good idea, getting a polling job. I’m just sitting around, I can get off my ass and do that. The wife too.
Just had a talk with my daughter, who is staying in the Bates Motel in C’d Alene Idaho, up on Sherman Avenue, for a few days, before her apartment is ready. She is taking some class about the Origins of Language.
I don’t know what she can really learn there, seems to me she already can talk like hell.
Well, she is in a good mood and all fired up, so I’m happy too.
Homo loquacious, the talking animal.
She’s happy, I’m happy.
blah blah blah and ect.
I went to high school with a little girl who was on that plane. she went to hamburg high school in western new york and she was part of the brunner clan. they are a good family and she was a good kid. who should right about now have lived a long life and had the chance to have a family and children……so with that I say I piss on Kevin McKenny Kenny MacAskill may every pint they hoist taste like my urine.
Can’t disagree with that.
It hits home.
Bastards.
@Amit Green:
What he said. It’s the system, not the individuals. It’s the fundamental problem of democracy – legislators bribing electors with their own money, and electors voting themselves state handouts. It’s always the same – though the manifestations are enormously different in different countries – and always will be.
I believe that the only way to solve the problem while maintaining democracy is to separate the powers of taxation and general legislation by electing two separate legislatures – one solely to legislate (without the power to tax to pay for it – so the voters can only elect them on their legislative promises and record) and one solely to raise taxes (without the power to spend any of it – so the voters only elect them on their taxing intentions).
That removes the systemic incentive for politicians to seek the standard corrupt bargain with the electorate: “Vote for me – give me power – and I’ll look after you by going after and penalising those bastards that don’t vote for me.”
How we get there from here, of course, is another question.
86. Wadeusaf:
Simply looking at the chronology of a career it would be the very last of the RWR people left at the top or who have ridden the Peter Principle as far as they can.
The jealosy between the intelligence agencies has always been off the charts; so many of the leaks are simply personal vendetta, some are political vendetta.
I know that the polygraph shop operates all too little and that a good deal of this could be stopped with proper internal security in place. It’s not however so we are left with the foibles of our fellow man many of whom are in no condition or predisposition to handle the nations secrets.
In my almost fifteen years there I was polygraphed once other than the initial one. I had every clearence in the book all th way to CODEWORD projects. It’s just sloppy work and small people.
Very few are motivated after the first year once they understand the culture(s) they are working in and with. You are just a tool.
Peter Boston @63:
herb
Thanks for the heads up on that Jaffa article. There is a Jaffa interview about his latest Lincoln book at NRO Uncommon Knowledge.
That Peter Robinson interview with Dr. Jaffa provides, I think, a lot of insight into how we get to a point where a Scottish Justice Minister can give such a ludicrous-sounding speech about our “values” of compassion. It was so good, I think it bears repeating, so I’ve taken it upon myself to transcribe the 2nd segment of that interview, for anyone interested.
PR: Segment two: Ordained by God. Again I quote you in A New Birth of Freedom, quote: For both Jefferson and Lincoln, a regime in which the majority alone may rule is nonetheless a regime sharply circumscribed by a moral order ordained by God. Close quote. Explain.
HJ: Well…
PR: How is this continuity from Jefferson to Lincoln – in a crisis – in your first book, Crisis of a House Divided, you weren’t so sure there was a – that Lincoln is the one who sees clearly that the moral order must circumscribe popular sovereignty.
HJ: Well, I think I, a little while ago, I quoted Jefferson’s “Can the liberties of a people be thought secure when we have abolished their only sure foundation, the belief they are of the gift of God and may not be violated but with His wrath.” That was Jefferson’s opinion, that was what Lincoln expressed in his second inaugural.
PR: Alright, now, this leads to a pretty tricky question, I think. We’ll see if you find it tricky. I have a feeling you’ll give my – you’ll grade my questions down. William F. Buckley said that, in passing, Whittaker Chambers once remarked that democracy was a political reading of the Bible. And you quote in A New Birth of Freedom a famous Catholic writer, Burke Cochran, who writes that if it was inevitable that if civilization became Christian, two results must follow: the substitution of free labor for slave labor, and the erection of free institutions on the ruins of despotic institutions in government. So the question to you, Dr. Jaffa, is, do you see democracy as a specifically Judeo-Christian development, and then of course the obvious second question is, can it exist once faith in Judaism, in Christianity, dissipates?
HJ: Well, I would say it – the Judeo-Christian – both Judaism and Christianity at some point in their development became rational – found in reason the will of God. So Judeo-Christian’s reason understood a triumphant success of reason as well as of faith. And I would say that the God of the Declaration of Independence, the essence of God is known by reason, because the Declaration, by saying that all men are created equal, distinguishes the equality of human beings, as members of a species, from the beasts which are below and from God who is above. Jefferson in the last letter he wrote, something which was a traditional – in English political theory – that it is now no longer that some men – it is thought that some men are born with saddles on their back and others booted and spurred to ride them. So the rule of a rider over his horse is according to nature. The rule of a rider over another rider is against nature. And God is the author of nature and the legitimacy of rule depends upon recognizing the order that God himself has anointed by distinguishing between man and beast.
PR: Alright. A little smaller bore – smaller bore – all in A New Birth of Freedom – smaller bore question than – If you see Western Europe, where you see collapse of religious practice, does that concern you for the political institutions over time?
HJ: Well, if you have studied Marxism, as I did exhaustively many years ago, you know that the dialectical materialism and all the Hegelian apparatus is all-important in how Marx came to his conclusions. But the aim of Marxism is a revolution which will lead to what he called the leap into freedom, which is literally a leap into nothing. But the great enemy of human well-being, according to Marx, is morality. The society of the future is one in which the moral distinctions, based upon Judeo-Christian and Greek tradition, have all dissolved. We are moving into a communist world. We are moving into the world that Marx wanted, without having – without knowing it and without having the kind of revolution that Marx predicted and thought was necessary. This is shown for example in – almost all – the Secretary of State, the President, they all talk about our values. And what do they mean by “values”? It means moral choices which have no objective basis. A value is a subjective desire, not an objective truth. They don’t know what they’re saying, they don’t know the importance. But 100 years ago nobody would’ve spoken about our principles as being “values.” George Washington said the basis of our policy will be laid in the immutable principles of private morality. If you’d said to Washington, you mean your values? What the hell are you talking about?
PR: (Laughs uproariously.)
bob,
The Origins of Language course sounds interesting. Linguistics is a complex field that draws from many other traditions, such as neurology and philosophy. It is however a very dense and jargon laced discipline that is, like the related subject of psychology, subject to abuse if taught at an undergraduate level before a thorough grounding in another area, such as anthropology, is obtained at the entry level. Instruction in complex and technical matters to students without a prior firm grasp of broader underlying principles can easily become indoctrination into arcane matters that are accepted as a faith.
The worst case scenario would be if the course was used to recruit adherents for the ideology of Noam Chomsky. Some years ago his work was discussed in the Belmont Club by others who know more about it then I do. My suggestion to you is that you read up on the subject and particularly on Mr. Chomsky. Given my criticisms of some web based information in the past you can understand my urging you to be careful when evaluating anything in wikipedia. Still that would be a good place to start by reviewing the articles on Linguistics and Chomsky. A look at the articles associated discussion pages may at least alert you to a partisan debate that is attempting to pass as an assertion of fact.
The good news is that Linguists are in demand in the job market. Intelligence shops, like the NSA, love them.
So many good comments, hard to respond to.
Therefore, I’ll make a general comment though first about Wretchard’s thought at Without Borders:
I keep experiencing this reality again, and again, … and again … in other words a systemic problem … like in this discussion we are having the last two days.
Question: What to do about it?
What I would like is a social site, or a forum, to continue many of the threads that keep starting up…
As Brooks wrote in the same thread
… None of us want to take traffic away from Belmont club, or Pajama’s media, so the question is how to enhance it …
To me, it seems the best possiblity is to somehow convince PajamasMedia to setup a forum for us … This would be a win/win for everyone.
Until then, I will respond to specific comments (but this takes too much of my time, the systemic problem needs to be solved, hopefully soon):
#4 & #65 Alexis: Please send e-mail to amit@mixie.org, I would like to follup.
#33 ADE: Please send me e-mail to amit@mixie.org, I would like to followup.
#36 Wretchard: In a democracy the way rogues are chastised is that they are voted out of office. That usually works. But sometimes enough gunk is left over so that the normal wash doesn’t carry the grime away. It builds up, like grease in the drain. In extreme cases a revolution is necessary — that’s painful process of replacing the pipes. It’s destructive and expensive, so it happens only rarely. People try everything short of it. Sometimes, the application of Drano or a roto-rooter will do the trick. I think the public is going to try the normal washout, followed by the Drano and the metal snake and see what happens.
Yah, that seems to be what is happening. Its super-dangerous though … How can we help … so the end result is better?
#39 Syd: There are those that think term limits are the answer
How about this proposal, Syd.
The first time you win a seat to the House of Representatives, you get four years.
The second time, two years.
The third time, one year. And the governor appoints someone to fill out the rest of your term after one year.
Same for the President. First time you win, you get four years. Second time you win you get two years. Then your vice-president takes over for the last two years.
Would suddenly make the vice-president a job worth having. If the vice-president did a good job during those two years, he could then run for President & get a full four year term. So overall could still have 8 years.
#79 Gerryp: ‘the essential one was a population with a high percentage of “moral and religious people.” Their system would not work without that, we were warned. The question – how to get such a “moral and religious people” back? That takes rebuilding Christianity among the population – a difficult and indispensable project.’
As far as I can tell, Christianity (as currently praticed) is more concerened with “are you born again?” than with helping others…. Until this changes, I doubt Christianity will be the salt of the earth (i.e.: helpful to America & the world with its current problem). In fact, to be blunt … maybe the best thing with Christianity, as currently practiced since it has lost its saltiness and is tasteless, is … “It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men”.
This problem is much more than ‘a difficult and indispensable project.’. This is truely a systemtematic problem & systems problem.
I agree with your all your changes, in general, would love to follow up more (and will in an email).
#84 Tcobb There were inadequate safeguards against an oppressive Supreme Court, and (2) the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution which required the direct election of Senators.
Agreed. Question: How do we solve this problem? I’m not sure that your (2) solution is the best, but I have often thought along the same lines.
Lol, please send email to amit@mixie.org to follow up the conversation.
#98 Thon Brocket I believe that the only way to solve the problem while maintaining democracy is to separate the powers of taxation and general legislation by electing two separate legislatures – one solely to legislate (without the power to tax to pay for it – so the voters can only elect them on their legislative promises and record) and one solely to raise taxes (without the power to spend any of it – so the voters only elect them on their taxing intentions).
Fascinating proposal. As a Libertarian, I would just prefer Congress spends a lot less money … however, since the vast majority of this country wants Congress to spend ~20% of GDP … your solution is one of the most creative & interesting I have read in a long time.
Summary: Sorry to be so long, its just too hard to respond to comments in this format. Someone please, convince Pajamasmedia to setup a forum for us.
I’m not sure that our esteemed Western leaders have any moral advantages over Khadaffy; nor any in the aspect of character.
tru dat!
So I’ll meet ‘im later on
At the place where ‘e is gone –
Where it’s always double drill and no canteen;
‘E’ll be squattin’ on the coals
Givin’ drink to poor damned souls,
An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
By the livin’ Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
If I gave you everything that I owned
And asked for nothing in return
Would you do the same for me as I would for you
Or take me for a ride
And strip me of everything, including my pride
But spirit is something that no one destroys
- Traffic, Low Spark of High-heeled Boys (emphasis added)
Thanks for the Kipling, W.
Habu,
First, thank you for a thoughtful reply,
“We are left with the foibles of our fellow man many of whom are in no condition or predisposition to handle the nations secrets.”
On the bright side, as depressing a note as that is (and I believe it is an honest and detached assessment), it is not the assessment I anticipated. Politics is not treason, until it is.
LOTM–I’ll keep her away from Chomsky, I promise. I’m not forking over hard earned money to end up lectured and hectored by my daughter.
I wouldn’t mind sitting in on this class myself, though I’d feel out of place with these younger kids.
I was reading the other day–how the scientists come up with this stuff I don’t know–that some gene sequences have been isolated from Neanderthal DNA that relate to our gene sequences that have to do with the ability to talk.
Those folk seem to have had the ability to speak.
One wonders sometimes if this is such a good thing, considering history.
Who said “Silence is golden”?
My guess is the ability to speak rose from the necessities of the hunt.
And perhaps, the urges of love.
After all, a lover that can whisper a sweet nothing or two in another human ear might have a real advantage.
heh, I failed to mention, talking to my daughter, I said “I’m thinking of buying a boat. To do some kokanee fishing. I want to flop at your apartment.”
“Do that Dad, do that.”
She still has her head screwed on straight.
Possibly thread worthy article in the Washington Times about Petreaus’ new Intel Center. This ties together several topics we have been chewing over such as AfPak, Intel methodology, the role of the CIA, and organizational politics. Everything but women. http://tinyurl.com/no8b89
bob,
Take the class. Good instructors love older students. Good kids like having an older guy around who isn’t trying to play them.
102. Amit Green
You sound as though you would make a great blog owner. You are brimming with ideas on how to improve this site so why don’t you simply impliment your ideas sans anyones permission?
Just think of the possibilities.
104. Wadeusaf
“Politics is not treason until it is”
A great observation.
Unfortuneately we end up knowing AFTER the treason has been committed. Then we are place in the position of not being able to take the traitor to court since that would do more damage to what is ateempting to be kept secret.
Take Sen. Kennedy several years ago sending Sen. Tunney dowm to convince commie Daniel Ortega not to cooperate with Reagan, that he could get a better deal from the Dems…treason..in my book without a doubt….foreign policy is the sole responsibility of the Executive branch…Congress has secondary oversight and purse string responsibility but not direct US policy negotitation authority, especially not anti US foreign policy. Treason is now the Democrats stock and trade.
Sen. Kennedy?
Kennedy should resign
Kennedy wants the Legislature to upend the succession law it passed in 2004, when – at his urging – it stripped away the governor’s longstanding power to temporarily fill a Senate vacancy. Back then, John Kerry was a presidential candidate and Republican Mitt Romney was governor; Kennedy lobbied state Democrats to change the law so that Romney couldn’t name Kerry’s successor.
They followed his advice with gusto. When the final vote took place, the Boston Globe reported, , “hooting and hollering broke out on the usually staid House floor,’’ and House Speaker Thomas Finneran acknowledged candidly: “It’s a political deal. It’s very raw politics.’’
Corrupt to the bitter end.
Syd (#39),
Nor of the increased power the bureaucracy and Congressional staffs would gain in such a situation (assuming no corresponding scaling-back of Federal power, which of course is your larger point.)
Subotai,
TWANLOC? Can’t seem to find an expansion of this acronym anywhere; help me out please.
I’m coming in very late to a fascinating discussion, but I wanted to add my thoughts before the thread closed…
The most troubling aspect of the Lockerbie Bomber’s release is not Obama’s soft-spoken, insincere opposition to the amnesty. It is not the unseemly jockeying between Scottish and English and Libyan politicos. And it isn’t the ripe odor of Scottish progressives’ vain yen for “moral” costumes either. It is the event’s prime position in a series of perceived American concessions that follow from the largest mass-murder of civilians ever on American soil in the modern era that has me worked up.
Put another way, Al Magrehi’s release represents a key touchstone in a chain of propaganda events aimed at signaling and documenting
The Great White Satan’sAmerica’s bowing to her new, global Masters. As the pro-Jihad/Socialist narrative goes, the attacks on 911 worked: only nine years (barely a drop in History’s bucket) after “Radical Muslims” defeated American air defenses and killed almost 3000 of our citizens, “evil” America has elected a Muslim president, she has submitted incrementally to a centralized, planned economy, and her voters have “rejected” Satan’s sinful, usurious economic practices in favor of a more Shariah-Compliant approach (see allied leftists parallel “anti-capitalist” memes, Schumer’s/Franks’ calls for more lending regulation, etc.). This particular “history” labors to show, too, that the architects of a muscular, interventionist, pro-American foreign policy (ie. “Cowboy Unilateralism’s” Rumsfeld, Bush, et al) have been “thoroughly discredited,” and that Hamas and Hezbullah have been graduated to a new, normalized “community organizations” status, and are now worthy of American taxpayer subsidy and State Department “recognition.” America’s President has publicly apologized for her atrocities – adding evidence to terrorists’ assertions that America deserved the 911 attacks in the first place. And, to cap the story, like crunchy peanuts sprinkled over a Sundae, we’ve got the public amnesties: Iranian Qud’s operatives, guilty “only” of repelling “Bush’s Illegal War” in Iraq (but who have American soldiers’ blood on their hands) returned to Iran, and now, the Lockerbie bomber’s “humanitarian” release. Take the chain as a whole and the “record” shows Islam/Left wins, American “Cowboy Capitalists” lose.All that’s missing – actually, there are two things – that will seal the “911 Worked!” narrative in the Globe’s collective memory are, (1) for Cuba to regain sovereignty over America’s Guantanamo Bay facilities so that Raoul C. can recast the site of “Bush’s Gulag” (shockingly, this was an Illinois Senator’s homage!) as an Auschwitz-style “American Atrocities Theme Park” and (2) for Obama’s AG to secure the Congress’ permission to seat an Independent Prosecutor charged with seeking prosecutions against the “evil” Bush administration. Incidently, the ominous, inchoate rumblings of both can be heard back stage – they’re waiting impatiently for AG Holder to call ‘em onstage to play their parts.
Remember that, for people who live in worlds dominated by abstract, artificial constructs like media “perceptions,” “high” fashion and “urban projects,” perception, or, more correctly, the control of perceptions – as in presuming to write “History,” or pretending to be able to engineer and exploit zeit-geists, becomes more important than actually measuring reality in the here and now. Suggestively, this is the sphere that Obama, Geithner, Clinton, Holder, Durban, et al hale from, and so their apparent complicity in drafting key chapters of this looming, anti-republican history for international consumption may be more than accidental.
Aye, we’ve hoped for better from our elected lairds but seen our hopes go awry, the Obama plowman leaving our wee-bit housie in ruin.
Which calls for a word or two from Robbie Burns, from “To a Mouse,” (in modernized English for you non-Scots):
“But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
Still you are blest, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!
Or practice your dialect, preferably while swilling a pint or shot of single malt!
“But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still thou are blest, compared wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
Amit Green @102: (Re: what about diminishing terms, 4 years > 2 > 1)
Really, anything that reduces politics as a carreer is something that helps. However, I think the *fundamental* task is that we need to get our political system back on the track of protecting individual rights. Darned few politicians of any stripe truly understand, believe in and consistently defend individual rights.
Even with individual rights as a foundation, it takes vigilance to improve or even maintain the system; without that foundation things are much more dangerous.
#108 Habu You sound as though you would make a great blog owner. You are brimming with ideas on how to improve this site so why don’t you simply impliment your ideas sans anyones permission?
Just think of the possibilities.
Habu, another blog won’t help the situation, it will also end up being trapped in the dimension of ideas.
We need to come up solutions for Wretchard’s stated problem: It doesn’t help if your blog gets bigger. Ironically, the more heavily trafficked a site is, the more restrictive the blog format becomes for arranging any kind of concerted activity. Comment threads on this site are often fifty items or more in length and tracking a conversation interspersed among the many asides and discussions involves a lot of scrolling up and down.
Forums, Ning, etc, all of these could be a start towards a solution …
As for me, I don’t write well enough to lead one of them, though I would be a glad participant.
#114 Syd: However, I think the *fundamental* task is that we need to get our political system back on the track of protecting individual rights. Darned few politicians of any stripe truly understand, believe in and consistently defend individual rights.
As originally conceived, in the Constitution, the task of defending Individual Liberties fell upon five institutions: Congress, President, Supreme Court, States, Individuals (in terms of Free speech & that could organize as Militia).
The fact that we have wrongly delegated most of that defense to the Supreme Court (and it tends not to do that great a job at it in some areas such as property rights or defending us from the encroaching power that Congress has keeps amassing, in condtradiction to the limited powers delegated to it) … is one of the systematic problems that needs to be resolved.
Here is an excellent article from Abe Greenwald at Contentions regarding releasing Abdel Basset al-Megrahi:
More at the link from Contentions.
Hmm—sure makes Scotland look like the “weak horse” to me.
@ 102. Amit Green
You are too kind, sir
As a Libertarian, I would just prefer Congress spends a lot less money
Amen to that – but consider why that money is spent. It’s fundamentally a quid-pro-quo; “Power for me at the next election, largesse for you, and somebody else pays” – corrupt and dishonest in the main, but as things stand, the unalterable way of the world. It’s engineering, almost – disconnect that link, and the machine will run right.
Much of the money is wasted. A boondoggle out this way that irritates me no end has been the reintroduction of the wolf into Idaho and Montana boondoggle. I’m not sure about Montana but here it has been an absolute disaster for the elk herd in the Clearwater. As predicted.
These fangs got to eat something, elk are tastey. So now with the wolves out of control, the elk herds collapsing, on their knees, the biologists doing study study study, we are going to have a wolf hunting season, to get things back to the situation as it was before, this hunting season of course being appealed to the courts by the animal rights folks, who don’t seem to have much sympathy for the elk.
Whole thing has been a disaster.
Great if you have a biology degree and need a good paying job, however.
Winners–wolves, biologists.
Losers–elk and deer, and ranchers, whose livestock is being attacked.
If we’d have had an act entitled
“A Bill To Needlessly Slaughter Half Or More Of The Clearwater Elk Herd”
it would have gone nowhere.
Particularily if it had allowed some hunters with guns to be involved.
A bill to
“Reintroduce The Wolf In The Idaho Backcountry”
got a lot of support, for awhile. The support is dwindling now.
Lolo Elk Herd Crashes
Your government at work.
Morons.
This is the same group, by the way, that introduced the mysis shrimp into Lake Coeur d’Alene, collapsing the fishery there.
That’s another good reason to vote for Sarah Palin/2012, by the way.
She ain’t adverse to shootin’ a wolf from a hovering helicopter, to save the elk.
She wouldn’t be likely to miss, either.
This much I know as surely as breath in my throat.
In our despair we will glimpse truth
Many will stand in thrall
Even as the Beast devours their child.
2 things ever pairs define the path before us – Cause and Effect;
Sin and Redemption;
Thought and Deed,
As choices are made and hearts harden.
SSS
Which stands for -
Shoot
Shovel
Shut up
Receding safe shores fade from view.
Tolling bells both summon and mourn,
Calling out defenders and noting fresh sacrifice.
Elemental faith and fury swell the breast.
Life ebbs in places while elsewhere is born, nurtured, and dashed again.
Lingering memories of fading oaths
Salvation may be not of this world, but by our choosing and God’s grace.
nah, Scythianeedle, life is just slowly growing into the realization that there is always something more.
God, whoever that might not be,
God’s got nothing to do with it.
He’s just an excuse, a stumbling stone on the way.
He was just a fantasy of our infancy.
Always something more.
Check Aristotle’s six fold classification on governments. That would of course necessitate reading the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics by the author. It would answer an abundant number of questions that come up here about our system and it’s strengths and flaws….I have found in years of blogging such a minute portion of the population familiar with these works as to be risible, yet the volume of prose published about “fixes” to the system is monstrous.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Politics just doesn’t happen. It has developed over thousands of years and here we are, much of it already outlined and explained by great minds who are never read any longer. Mores the pity for the angst felt by many could be mitigated by extending their knowledge base.
Almost all of the great philosophers in discussing not only politics but society in general begin by asking the question concerning man in a state of nature. What is he like? Is he good or bad? Preceding from that question they usually end up writing for a lifetime, only to have another “more enlightened” mind introduce a buzz kill to their work by introducing another unique question not asked or answered by the previous genius. And so it goes. We are left with the best of the worst and the worst of the best forms of government, and how it plays out in each generation is solely dependent on the qualities each man brings to the table. Sometimes you get a Cincinnatus a la Geo. Washington, other times you get a Caligula, a la Bill Clinton…..it’s not the system, its mankind.
We are but mortal men…and as Shakespeare said in Julius Caesar.
“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
“Scotland is following in the dhimmi path of England and this is no surprise” PatriotUSA@25.
Not exactly. Consider the man.
Gordon Brown is the British Prime Minister.
Gordon Brown was born in Glasgow, and is also the Member of Parliament for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, and Leader of The Labour Party.
Before becoming PM, he was Chancellor of the Exchequer for 10 years. Try reading some of his speeches from that period, and you will see that he was already a Dhimmi, but most conservatives were too busy being upset by his economic policies to notice that.
Consider the system.
MPs representing Scottish seats are currently able to vote on legislation which will be effective in England, but which will not be effective in Scotland. MPs representing English seats are currently unable to vote on legislation which will be effective only in Scotland. This is known as “The West Lothian Question” (please google it for more details).
So, England’s path is being determined by a Scot, who is able to rule with the support of Scottish MPs who can legislate for England without representing, or having to answer to, English voters.This is undemocratic, devisive, and the “Scottish cabal” is increasingly resented in England, and that resentment works to the advantage of the Islamists, for whom strong nation-states are major obstacles.
The recent Labour proposal to attract more immigrants to Scotland may be an attempt to alter the electoral balance in Labour’s favour but, as Alexis@20 indicates, the Scottish National Party is already fielding Islamist candidates. The SNP is arguably even more of a self-hating leftist entity than Labour, whose main rival in Scotland it now is, and the sight of two leftist parties fighting over the Islamist vote is going to most interesting. Interesting, as in the opposite of good.
The current population of Scotland is around 5 million, which is about the same as the total Muslim population of Britain as a whole. Labour has supposedly departed from it’s (initially secret) policy of uncontrolled immigration, but is not hard to imagine the balance of the population of Scotland being radically altered within 5 years or less, especially if Labour wins the next General Election.
There is more I would like to say but I don’t want to be caught outside when this thread gets closed !
110. bob.
Kennedy shouldn’t resign. He needs the healthcare so that his bloody hands (From Mary Jo, Southeast Asia, and the untold abortions he has cheered on) can continue to try to rub away the pain of his well deserved brain tumor.
I’ll burn for that, but its a comfort that sometimes justice happens on this side.
meant as a single post
Richards on November 30th, 2008 11:29 am
I agree with Greg until you have been out there and done the foot work to see up close and personal for yourself you can’t set in a goverment office and estimate the destruction the wolves are doing to the elk herd and be anywhere close to what is really happening to the elk.
The elk herds are and will remain in trouble until we take control of these predators.
I agree with this poster.
I keep hammering on it because I’m in one of my ‘love the elk’ moods this morning.
That was a comment on Black Bear Blog.
I like wolves, elk, and — for that matter — mountain chickadees and Wilson’s warblers!
Not being at all dogmatic about the wolf vs. elk issue, I would defer to those closer to the question. (I live in rural coastal California; we have cougars but no wolves or elk, and, sadly, our grizzly was exterminated long ago.)
But it seems I recall that a few years before I was born, the deer on the Kaibab plateau (north side of the Grand Canyon) exploded and “destroyed the environment” when the cougars were eliminated.
Could one have both wolves and elk with proper culling of the wolf numbers? Or is that outcome a fantasy?
Jamie Irons
We’re going to cull ‘em, Doc Irons, if we are not stopped by some foolish motion in the local Federal Court.
Wish us luck.
“I would defer to those closer to the question”
I’m glad to read that.
I like Wilson’s Warblers too.
And all Birds of Idaho
When in doubt, throw a shrink to the wolves!
Bob collects Bugs
Bob,
I’m not really up on elk predation by wolf packs in the Idaho/Montana area since I shoot holes in paer and buy my meat shrink wrapped in the grocery store but is there a way to keep both species in their natural habitiat?
Should their be a year or two moratorium on elk hunting so the hunters don’t kill off some? Of course I’ve now got every hunting guide in that area looking at me as shoot, shovel , and shut up material.
Seems the wolf was part of the system, then hunted almost to extinction ,protected and reintroduced, and is now doing what wolves have done for a thousand years.
Is there a common ground? I ask in all ignorance …school me if you will. Thx
I don’t think Aristtotle need get involved in this one fer sure.
Damn you Doug.
Didn’t I hear about some Willy Willy headed toward Hawaii?
How you gonna surf that?
I’m with Bob:
Wolves are evil incarnate in today’s World.
Man’s attempts to “re-balance nature” often consist of a cure much worse than the disease.
Preserving all life forms does not result in the re-creation of that which can never be again.
—
If all Mankind becomes Asexual his problems will cease to exist in one generation.
Habu, all I know for sure about this situation is we go to get ahold of it.
I’m certain that the Idaho Fish and Game doesn’t have a very good handle on it.
The elk herds here have collapsed, I can tell you that, for certain.
The obvious answer seems to me, cull the wolves.
I really don’t know what a better answer would be.
The elk have taken it in the ass, of that I am certain.
8. wretchard:
From a low-lifer point of view I would rather work for Khadaffy any day than Gordon Brown, or Mr. Decency MacAskill.
Wellll, based on just the surface facts of this one case, perhaps, I see your point. But hesitate to draw larger conclusions from it.
Bob
Thanks. I had no idea woves were buggering the elk population, blasted sods.
It also looks like the pine bark beetle is doing some tremendous damage with no end in sight…I’ll bet Soros is behind those beetles.
Well since I have no more to say I’ll just shut up and read others.
Hey yo! WadeUSAF, Habu RE the hanging thread:
Like clockwork, after having to show the deficit and healthcare cards, the Administration plays their Ace to take the hand… the “investigation” of the CIA is formally announced.
Sweet mother of mercy, reminds me of me own self, champing for Bush to follow up on the hundreds of guilty pleas, record fines and fleeing felons when Clinton sold our classified satellite technology and got caught doing it, along with his greatest fan Bernie Schwarz at Loral.
In 2002, Loral Space reached a settlement with the State Department over charges of passing advanced military technology to the Chinese Army. Loral agreed to pay $20 million in fines, but did not admit nor deny wrongdoing.
…. cite
Bush didn’t do this type of “investigation” in face of large, active investigations. Bush did look to the future, Bush shut those investigations down. Bush didn’t go on the attack on the basis of “China-gate” – this unprecedented, obvious penetration and failure of our intel ‘inner wall’ at the hands of one easily ID’ed enemy… who just happened to establish Lippo Group in Little Rock, Arkansas. I’m not a conspiracy guy, I am just reporting facts.
In the face of all the economic and foreign threats America is currently entangled, why are we criminally prosecuting the guys who helped win the war over the last decade?
There’s only one obvious answer, and it’s not a forward-looking one.
To inflame the masses with Bush-hatred – the solution to all problems?
Tony,
Yep.
If you can’t give the radical left single payer, let Holder loose on National Security.
That’ll satisfy their need for human flesh.
Doug,
It’s so nice to hear from you, my good man. As a fellow History lover observes, these guys are playing checkers, not chess.
Habu, you are probably fimiliar with ex CIA agent Robert Baer. At minute 3:28 of this CBS interview he explains that he joined the CIA “on a lark” out of Berkley.
How many do you think there are like him that shaped the culture?
“The elk have taken it in the ass, of that I am certain.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
#111 Kirk Parker
TWANLOC
Sorry, it is a phrase I have used for a while to describe the other half of the country that Peter Boston was referring to, and while I made an indirect reference to it in #60, I was thinking that I had quoted the phrase directly in that piece. My error.
It is referential to: “Those Who Are No Longer Our Countrymen.
Subotai Bahadur
Tony said:
“In the face of all the economic and foreign threats America is currently entangled, why are we criminally prosecuting the guys who helped win the war over the last decade? … To inflame the masses with Bush-hatred – the solution to all problems?”
The moonbats will always see George W. Bush as Bushitler (they can’t help themselves). From a moonbat’s perspective, if they still hate Bush then everyone else must hate him as well.
It’s obvious that Obama is in serious trouble. Obamacare is failing. Soon our Dear Leader’s job approval rating at RealClearPolitics will drop below 50%. This will probably happen ***before*** the sucker’s rally on the stock market collapses (that will probably happen before the end of October). After collapse of the sucker’s rally, what’s left of Obama’s popularity will crash with the stock market. The Chosen One’s only option then would be to start a war. However his moonbat base would desert him if he started a war. It’s quite possible that before the end of this year, Obama could be finished politically with everyone but the MSM’s elite (they have super-glued themselves to Obama).
This is a very mixed blessing. It’s satisfying to see a socialist demagogue go down in flames along with his enablers. Unfortunately this is a Pyrrhic victory. The country is in the middle of a very serious economic crisis. We need a strong leader now and not some pathetic Carter/Hoover hybrid flapping around helplessly.
bob,
The wolves are only using the elk for training. Soon they will begin to cull herds of grannies.
Tony,
I agree the CIA prosecution is a distraction. Expect more otrages of the day to chew up newstime and column inches while Pelosi and Reid use reconciliation to ram through the socialization of health care and more.
Sythianeedle,
Nice nordic metering. Have you read Tolkien’s play on the Battle of Maldon,
The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son?
Hige sceal pe heardra, heorte pe cenre,
Mod sceal pe mare, pe ure maegen lytla.
Will shall be the sterner, heart the bolder,
spirit the greater as our strength lessens.
herb @ 74:
Okay, now something we can sink our teeth into. Go check this out.
Secret Takeovers
Back in a few.
The Battle of Maldon is totally On Topic in a discussion of the Sots, sorry I meant Scots, misplaced compassion. That was the battle one thousand and eighteen years and two weeks ago in which the Saxon commander, out of a misplaced sense of pride, allowed the Danish (Viking) army to cross a guarded bridge. The result was a battle lost, his life lost and much treasure in Danegeld lost.
Well Robo, if Obama and Co. were in the employ of the Russians or the Chinese, what would they do that was different from what they are doing now.
Here’s a link to a story about a Texas school in which David Thweatt, superintendent of the isolated Harrold Independent School district near Wichita Falls decided to allow certain unnamed staff members to carry concealed sidearms.
Seems to be an article from Your Abilene Online Reporternews, under the byline Ann Work, Times Record News, Thursday, 06 August 2009
Moonbatfodder.
I’ve checked a few sites, and sure enough, there are lots of idiots who believe the proper response is to just let the murderers come in with their weapons and the victims just shut up and die.
Amit Green @102
You said “As far as I can tell, Christianity (as currently praticed) is more concerened with “are you born again?” than with helping others…. Until this changes, I doubt Christianity will be the salt of the earth (i.e.: helpful to America & the world with its current problem)
This buys into the secular myth that Christians are deficient in helping others. Sorry to see that. The exact opposite is the case. Christians do more for the poor and afflicted than anyone else. (See “Who Really Cares?” by Professor Arthur C. Brooks. Or see a good short summary of it by Marvin Olasky at http://www.worldmag.com/articles/12493?CFID=7227001&CFTOKEN=45396495.)
What Prof. Brooks dug up was what I had already learned the hard way in the trenches. During 18 years that I raised millions of dollars to support the 3 charities for the poor that I started and ran, I learned well who gave and who did not, and who volunteered and who did not. It was the Christians, whether conservative or liberal, not the secularists. Just like Brooks’ figures say.
So while Christians do the heavy lifting in
helping people, they get a bum rap, built up by the MSM. Their reputation is the opposite of what they do. That should be no surprise to Belmont readers. In short, they are already doing what you recommend. They just don’t get any credit for it.
But that misses the point of having a mostly-Christian population. The great charity of Christians is not what gives rise to a free people, and not what protects a free country from crashing. It is what the Founders said – they provide the foundation of a “religious and MORAL people.” In general, Christians cheat, lie, steal, become addicted, divorce, have sex out of wedlock, etc., etc., – less than any other group in society. (Brooks documented that too, BTW.) That’s the key thing they contribute. Morality. The more of them around, the more moral the society. Only that, said the Founders, can keep a free republic going.
Making better systems might help temporarily, but in the end, no system will get us around that necessity for a base in “a religious and moral people.” Systems “don’t just happen.”
As Habu noted @ 127:
Politics just doesn’t happen. It has developed over thousands of years and here we are, much of it already outlined and explained by great minds who are never read any longer. Mores the pity for the angst felt by many could be mitigated by extending their knowledge base.
The rule is: Political systems of governance grow out of the culture in which they were born.
Karen Yvonne quoted some Founders @ 100 who confirmed that:
“For both Jefferson and Lincoln, a regime in which the majority alone may rule is nonetheless a regime sharply circumscribed by a moral order ordained by God.”
Jefferson: “Can the liberties of a people be thought secure when we have abolished their only sure foundation, the belief they are of the gift of God and may not be violated but with His wrath?”
Whittaker Chambers once remarked that “democracy is a political reading of the Bible.”
Burke Cochran wrote that, “… if it was inevitable that if civilization became Christian, two results must follow: the substitution of free labor for slave labor, and the erection of free institutions on the ruins of despotic institutions in government.”
These moderns only affirmed what the Founders knew and wrote long before. Democracy arose out of Christianity, and can survive only within a largely “religious and moral people.”
As to our trying to make a new and better system, we should be cautious. The Founders were preeminently well schooled in history. So they understood better. Then they also arose out of a base of largely-Christian people and saw that their new system could work – but if, and only if, it continued to have such a base. They said so, more than once.
Now we are a badly-educated population, hugely ignorant of history. We also have a much-weakened, much smaller base of “religious and moral people.” This is no time to call a Constitutional Convention.
Rather, we should try to restore the magnificent, one-time-in-history Constitution that we are so fortunate to have. And like it or not – we also have an urgent need to help rebuild a people that are both “religious and moral.” Like the Founders said. Maybe we will listen to them again before it is too late.
Hear! Hear!, GerryP.
Fools, Morons And Idiots
They caused the problem, you think they can fix it?
SSS
Mad Fiddler @ 90:
Hallelujah, preach it! Yup, it is because that drug addled masses that are the DNC think the rest of our memories are as short as their p—ers. But when a Lefty complains of something I immediately go looking for the smoking gun for their latest peccadillo.
Habu @ 72:
You and I read things the same way. See my post @ 150 and follow the link thingy if you have not read that piece before.
bob @ 122:
I plan on working for just that program. And thanks for the laugh! I LOL’ed! I surely did.
Habu @ 127:
Makes the necessity of a classical education kinda real, yes?
Mongoose @ 152:
To your posed Q = A: Nothing. Not one thing. That is the point. But look at the evidence. The 0bamanation as student of:
Frank Marshall Davis = Communist (read as Transnational Progressive)
Saul Alinsky = Communist (read as Transnational Progressive)
And as a creature of George Soros = Transnational Progressive
And his list of friends and acquaintances. It is endless – Bill Ayers, Tony Rezco, Rev. Wright, etc.
The point being that he is not of us. Us being Patriots (h/t Subotai Bahadur) and Loyal Citizens (h/t Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler). He is of the other – varelse(from Swedish: “creature”) – pronouced ‘var-ELSS-uh,’ this term refers to strangers from another species who are simply not capable of communication with Homo sapiens sapiens. In the truest sense, they are aliens, “completely incapable of common ground with humanity.” In Card‘s view, a meeting with true varelse must eventually, over time, lead to war. (h/t Hierarchy of Alienness) (varelse are just aliens we have not decided to kill, yet)
I ask, really, does it take a Ph.D. from the State Uiversity to figure out that if you put a hungry fang in an isolated area where there is meat on the hoof, you are going to get blood on the ground?
Christ, and we pay taxes for this shit.
#154 GerryP What Prof. Brooks dug up was what I had already learned the hard way in the trenches. During 18 years that I raised millions of dollars to support the 3 charities for the poor that I started and ran, I learned well who gave and who did not, and who volunteered and who did not. It was the Christians, whether conservative or liberal, not the secularists. Just like Brooks’ figures say.
It is undoubtedly true, that there are many many individual Christians who do just what you do & you are talking about — and these people are the salt of the earth.
Other wonderful Christians such as Mother Terasa or Dr Paul Branch, which I wrote about Seeing-eye cat are also quite inspiring.
However, the unfortunate reality, is this is a very small subset, of Christians in general in America … the overall influence of Christians, as a group, in America, is currently, not a very positive one [That statement, is, unfortunately true, of practically any group of Americans ... With the possible exception of the Tea party movement, which is having a very positive influence, currently]
GerryP wrote These moderns only affirmed what the Founders knew and wrote long before. Democracy arose out of Christianity, and can survive only within a largely “religious and moral people.”
Agreed, I am well aware of this history; and the founders where correct.
GerryP also wrote And like it or not – we also have an urgent need to help rebuild a people that are both “religious and moral.”
Here, we are back to my original point … I’ll try to restate it better this time …
As far as I can tell, Christianity as a group, is not the salt of the earth … there is truely an urgent need to help rebuild the people … however, I strongly suggest … that this project of rebuilding the people has to “begin with the family of God” … or to put it more bluntly … get your own house in order first …
To repeat myself: This problem is much more than ‘a difficult and indispensable project.’. This is truly a systematic problem & systems problem.
I’ll try to be more positive again .. How about the individual Christians that are the salt of the earth, figure out how to help the overall population of Christians behave better & help America better?
It would be a very welcome change
Finally, I think the idea of a “religious and moral people” was not meant to mean, that the religious and moral people would want the government to impose these rules on the rest of the people via laws … I am afraid that is the mistake many have fallen into [both on the left and the right] … and is, in many ways, as a Libertarian, my objections to how Christians [and other groups] are involved in modern politics.
I think a “religious and moral people” would, mostly support neutral laws (right to free speech, free assembly) to support liberty.
Secondly, a “religious and moral people” would not allow the welfare state to come into existence … but would recognize its fundamental flaws when the government runs it … and instead would support a lot more, of what you are doing, helping the poor on their own, and keeping government out of these projects.
Individuals, Christian or otherwise, can do much greater good in this area, than government ever can or will.
#141 Tony and # 149 LOTM
Might I suggest that there is an additional motive for the announcement of the prosecution. Mixed in with the news releases about the coming prosecution there was the announcement of the creation of a new “High Value Interrogation Unit” operating under White House control via the NSC. It will be in charge of interrogating foreign and domestic terrorism threats. Lets see:
1) Immediately after taking office, the Director of Homeland Security declared that veterans, supporters of the Second Amendment, opponents of abortion, and supporters of conservative politics were “potential domestic terrorists”.
2) Citizens who challenge their Congressmen over the actions of the regime are called mobs, and the White House encourages violence against them.
3) An Enemies List that would make Richard Nixon blush to contemplate is established in violation of the Constitution and incidentally a specific Federal statute passed to prevent a recurrence of Nixon’s actions [Privacy Act of 1974]. The original flag@whitehouse.gov was taken down, but another whitehouse email was substituted. The lists generated are still in White House custody
4) Now an interrogations unit is established under direct White House control.
The feeling of warm fuzzies is overwhelming.
Those of an historical bent might remember Sicherheitsdienst Amt III.
Habu, do you have any thoughts about this new chain of command?
Subotai Bahadur
Cheney Statement on CIA Documents/Investigation
CIA memos on interrogation requested by Cheney finally released;
Amit Green @ 159
You wrote:
However, the unfortunate reality, is this is a very small subset, of Christians in general in America.
You missed my point. It was that Christians as a whole group gave more than any other group. That’s why I cited a scholarly study, documented by very large statistical samples, rather than some anecdotes about a few individuals, such as Mother Teresa. As a group, Christians give far, far more than any other group. Check it out.
They also have no desire to establish a theocracy, in which everyone is legally required to follow religious precepts. That would be abhorrent to them.
I understand your concerns as a Libertarian about personal freedom and liberty. They are no different from mine. Still, there is no reason to deny the facts about charitable giving and volunteering in this country. Christians do more of it than all other groups. That is easily verifiable. Denying that is to distort the reality. Frankly, I find it puzzling.
Our Christian folk are mostly good folk.
Left to themselves, they wouldn’t have mucked up the elk herd on the upper Clearwater.
Our Beloved Idaho Fish and Game Department is beginning to publically recognize we got a problem here. Very reluctantly.
They can get away with the mysis shrimp foulup scooting under the public radar, but the noble elk, they are another matter.
People like elk, don’t care so much about shrimp.
People are getting pissed.
An excellent example of the fruits of Leftist Creationism.
And now this:
“The man who took the decision to free the Lockerbie bomber from jail on compassionate grounds accused him yesterday of breaking an undertaking not to celebrate his release.
“Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the bombing, had shown “no sensitivity” to the families of those who died, Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary, told the Scottish Parliament….”
Well, the bastard showed GREAT sensitivity to his victims when he murdered them all.
Leftism: A Mental Disease. Q.e.d., baby.
#158 bob – Perhaps it ought to be remembered that wolves and elks coexisted for millions of years. I am quite sure that there were large fluctuations in numbers of both, but coexist they did.
Now – What is the difference between conditions a thousand years ago and now? Could it be, perhaps, the introduction of a new apex predator, one that does not depend on elk numbers for its existence and also causes massive damage to plantlife as well?
You want to preserve the ecosystem in an area? Then get the hell out, and stay out.
“Only after the last tree has been cut down.
Only after the last river has been poisoned.
Only after the last fish has been caught.
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.”