The Measure of a Religion

I heard the other day on Laura Ingram’s show (a mediocre show, I admit)
that some Hindus are upset over the recent movie “The Love Guru” (a less
than mediocre movie, I hear) and its casual treatment of Gurus, who are a
religiously and historically important kind of people to Hindus, evidently.
I gather they’re about like a Priest, Imam, Monk or Elder in other
religions.

Hindus are the third largest religion in the United States, making up around
2% of our population. What struck me as fascinating was how small their
outcry was over a movie making a joke out of their respected Priest-like
figures. In fact, it impressed me. The measure of a religion’s general
“character” can sometimes be judged by how it responds to being made fun of
or trivialized.

So I got to thinking: what would happen if the movie was named “The Love
Imam”, and the movie made a mockery of Islamic Imams? No such movie would be
made, of course, and we all know the two reasons why: political correctness
and survival. Muslims may only make up less than 1% of our population, less
than Christians, Jews, Hindus, atheists, and Buddhists, yet we would see
every Muslim and their grandma on TV if such a movie was made, lambasting
the horrible “Islamophobia” and whining about nobody respecting them.

Furthermore, enormous protests from London to Islamabad would be organized,
with large numbers of Muslims calling for the heads of everyone who made or
took part in the movie, as well as apologies from anyone who saw it (they
would likely get off with calls for mere beatings). Western commentators
would shake their heads, mutter something quietly about Muslims needing to
relax, then talk about how insensitive the movie was and how their anger is
generally justified.

I suppose you can expect reaction to be a little more limited when the
reactionaries’ lives are threatened on a daily basis. It’s an effective
strategy for Muslims to silence those in disagreement.

It’s also one that shows the character of many of their faith’s adherents,
and perhaps the character of the faith itself, the only major faith in the
world that has habitually acted this way from the time of its conception to
today.

Seasoned Values vs. Seasonal Values

Last November, Barack Obama’s campaign explicitly told the Chicago Tribune
that he believes that the recently struck down (I can’t take more delight in
those three words) D.C. gun ban was constitutional. Just a few weeks ago, he
was busy lauding the Court’s decision and saying he agreed with it, and that
Americans have an individual Constitutional right to own guns.

Just a year ago, Barack Obama was amongst the Democrats promising to shoot
down the FISA “eavesdropping” bill, going so far as saying he would aid in
the filibustering of it. Recently, he voted for the exact bill in the
Senate.

In 2007, Barack Obama said he doesn’t wear the flag pin on his suit because
it’s a substitute for “true patriotism” and therefore he rejected it. Today,
you’ll see him wearing it everywhere he goes.

All politicians move to the center from primary to general elections.
McCain’s doing it, too. But McCain has blatantly changed only a single
opinion from primary to general: drilling offshore for oil (this was done in
the face of a $2.00 rise in the price of gasoline, it is worthy to note).

Why do these things matter? Because Obama is willing to do whatever it takes
to win. He’s doing it because, as I’ve said before, he’s a Crusader. He is
utterly convinced that this nation needs him. He’s so convinced that no
notions of personal honor, honesty or dignity will get in his way. The end
will justify the means.

Contrast this to McCain, who has repeatedly quoted and paraphrased Henry
Clay’s famous statement throughout both primary and general cycles: “I’d
rather be right than president.” Obama, it is becoming increasingly clear to
me, would rather be president than right. McCain wants to win, but there are
prices too dear for him to pay, values too dear to cast out. He has many of
these values, the most prominent of which is the success of the United
States in Iraq.

Obama, almost certainly, has at least some values too dear to sacrifice as
well. But where is his line? We don’t know. We’ve seen McCain’s values and
his lines, even if you don’t like them, but Obama’s remain shifting and
foggy.

This is a case of seasoned values, values honed and shaped by a lifetime of
diverse experiences and an understanding of what America is, and seasonal
values, which allow all the twisting, turning, and flipping and flopping as
is necessary. Barack Obama does have a single seasoned value, I believe,
after reading an excellent account by Byron York for the National Review
regarding Obama’s inner-city experiences as a community organizer in
Chicago. That single seasoned value is that he can save people, save all
people, from their problems, if only given enough power.

I’m young, and I’ve not seen a lot of the world. And yet if there’s one
thing I really believe I’ve learned in my short life, it is that people are
almost never saved by other people. They are saved by themselves and God.
You can help, you can aid them, but in the end, it’s their decision.

If Barack Obama wins the presidency, he will leave the White House in 2016 a
disappointed and depressed man, because he will realize just how
fundamentally powerless he is to save the poor he saw in Chicago. And if he
does possess true moral fiber, he will regret the seasonal values he showed
for 10 years to try to help.

Obama will find that the end does not justify the means because the means of
his choosing are incapable of producing the ends of his desire.

As Turkey Goes…

It is largely agreed that five of the most colorful, interesting histories
of any nation to study are China, Britain, Italy, Greece, and India (I can
already hear the French bemoaning at being left off of my list). Other,
younger nations such as Russia, the United States and Japan have interesting
histories that are widely studied as well (and as Americans, we would do
well to know our own history best).

A country that hardly gets the attention that its extremely fascinating
history deserves, however, is Turkey. This nation of 80,000,000, perched
against the Black Sea in the north and the Mediterranean in the south, on
the northern edge of the Middle East, has been the crossroads of Europe and
the Middle East, and therefore, Europe and the Far East, for over a thousand
years. Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, is the third largest in Europe (it
is on Europe’s southeast edge), and has had as much of a historical role as
any city but Rome or Jerusalem on human history. It was first founded by the
Greeks and called Byzantium, but later came to be known as Constantinople.
Throughout the Middle Ages, it was called *Vasileuousa Polis*, Greek for
“the Queen of Cities”. It has been the capital of the Roman, then East
Roman, then Byzantine Empires, and it is where the head of the Eastern
Orthodox Church resides.

Turkey’s history reaches back even further: the Persians crossed the Turkish
straits to invade Greece in the ancient times, and were famously repelled
after the Battle of Thermopylae. The ensuing Greek “counterattack”, led by
Alexander the Great, crossed Turkey first as he stormed east. Turkey was one
of the key provinces of the Greek Empire (it was then called Anatolia), and
later the Roman one as well.

To Christians, as well, Turkey holds deep history and roots: the Apostle
Paul’s original evangelizing occurred mostly in what is now Turkey, and the
city of Antioch still exists in southern Turkey. The Nicaean Council in
northwest Turkey established the power of church Elders to set
Christendom-wide doctrine, resulting one of the cornerstones of the Roman
Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches being laid. It was from Nicomedia,
Turkey, that Augustus Galerius issued the first edict of toleration in 311
A.D., that is, that Christians living in the East Roman Empire were to be
welcomed as citizens and equals, and that their religion might be practiced
freely. And it was from the throne in Constantinople, Turkey, that
Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor, enforced the
doctrine effectively.

These, however, were events that happened mostly outside the control of the
people who came to be the largest ethnicity of Turkey: Turks (what a shock).
The Turks came out of central Asia in the later Dark Ages and settled in
Anatolia, mixing with the native populations and Greek/Arab conquerors (this
has led, as you may notice when seeing them, to a more European look amongst
Turks than most Middle Easterners). They adopted Islam, for the most part,
and took the responsibility of fighting the Byzantines from the Arab
Muslims, who were more than happy to hand the responsibility over.

Turkey, furthermore, was home to the great battles of Manzikert, the Second
Siege of Constantinople, and countless other wars fought by the Muslims to
advance their religion and defeat the Christian Byzantine Empire. They
eventually did this, with the sack of Constantinople in 1453, and though
their advance into the Balkans was blunted and destroyed by combined
European forces. To this day, the line between “Christendom” and the Islamic
world lies on the Turkish border.

The Turks developed a great empire, called the Ottoman Empire, that ruled
much of the Islamic world for centuries until its fall after World War 1.
Since the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the 1920’s, Turkey has found
itself moving quickly towards the ancient European roots and away from its
more Islamic “recent” influence. Ataturk created a semi-democratic nation,
whose military leaders hold great power, and a rigidly secular public
education system that has, to this day, held no room for the anti-semitism,
anti-Christian, anti-anyone-who-is-not-you values that one finds in most
countries in the Muslim world.

Which brings me to my point: Turkey is a hinge upon which the Islamic world
just may turn. Turkey seeks better relations with the West (notably being a
staunch ally of the U.S. during the Cold War, and welcoming American nuclear
missile stations in its territory), as it has since the Ottoman Empire fell.
In fact, due to its small sliver of land on the continent, and ownership of
Constantinople (now known as Istanbul), Turkey seeks membership in the
European Union, and is already a member of NATO.

Turkey is not a model of democracy. Neither is it a model of tolerance,
either religious, moral or political. And yet, Turkey is the closest thing
there is in the Islamic world to such a model, in all ways. It takes Islamic
radicalism seriously, and its leaders work to make it a more tolerant, free
society, as they have for years. Working sometimes with, sometimes through,
and sometimes despite a large Muslim majority, Turkey strives to join the
West and to fly away from the turbulence of the Middle East.

If the West is to win the clash of civilizations against the Islamic world,
Turkey is the best place to start. If we can’t do it there, we can’t do it
anywhere.

Just a Man

Obama’s deity is something that fascinates we conservatives, in case the
incessant articles, coverage and rippings of the senator by conservative
commentators and magazines haven’t clued you in. It is a fascinating event,
for so many millions to place their faith in one, that has happened
regularly but rarely throughout history. Many men have become effectively
gods, in the eyes of their followers. Some were great warriors, like Genghis
Khan or Julius Caesar. Some were brilliant thinkers, like Karl Marx
(brilliant doesn’t mean correct) or Aristotle. Some were religious or
altruistic figures, such as Gandhi or Mohammed. (For the record, all of
these men were more charismatic, wise and genius than Barack Obama could
ever hope to be, I do not mean to put him in the same league as them, he is
a son of lesser sires.)

It is man’s nature, as a tribal/pack creature, to gather around strong
leaders. We see raw versions of it amongst children, when there is a chain
established and power levels are formed. It is the child who is largest, or
is the best speaker, or most imposing, or best looking, or is the best at
something else. This mystique that creates alpha males amongst packs is
called charisma.

As one grows older, one sees less and less outright charisma hold sway over
groups of individuals. As structured environments, such as those in the
workplace, replace the natural strength of charisma, its influence fades. As
societal structures become more complex with age, the less charisma is
acquainted with power. Intelligence and wisdom take the place of willpower.


The ultimate system of complexity, then, is the American political system.
Millions of laws, regulations, individuals, contradicting willpowers, and
groups restrain charisma more than any other system or place in the world.
Do not make the mistake of believing that this system happened
unintentionally: when nothing is done, chaos and charisma prevail. Order
like there is in the American political system is only the product of
hundreds of years of determined individuals fighting to restrain power, and
to refine the system.

It began with our Founding Fathers, who saw the political systems of Europe,
which allocated power based largely on charisma and personal will as well as
hereditary factors. These men decided that, while the restrictions upon the
common man’s individual, personal actions were asinine, there must be
maximum control over government officials. They created a brilliant
entanglement of webs to create a gridlock that would, in theory, place
charisma and power-lust under the firm boot of ordered democracy run by well
informed individuals. This was exemplified when George Washington refused to
become king of the United States, instead allowing the people to decide a
leader who did not have absolute power in any sense of the term.

Why did the founders do it? Because they were realists. They were men of the
Enlightenment: they believed that when man thought most, when man set
boundaries, when man was rational, when man was individual, when man’s life
was in his hands and not those of a king, and when government was small, man
was at his apex. When man bowed at the feet of another man as his savior (I
find it necessary to emphasize “another man” to put it as opposed to Christ,
who was anything but “another man”), when man’s judgment gave way to
fainting at rallies and making propaganda posters for a man whom he did not
know, he was at his worst.

When man thought for himself, he was at his highest. When man let another
man think for him, he was at his lowest.

What is so deeply fascinating about Obama, then, is that he is a man whose
personality cult, whose raw charisma, whose well-intentioned and
subtly-concealed lust for power, is coming close to catapulting him into the
White House. Obama, like Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, George
Washington, and John Kennedy before him, is a man who is intelligent but not
brilliant, wise but not all-knowing, yet holds a charisma that just may put
him in the place where it matters least.

What exactly is this charisma of Obama’s? Charisma is difficult to define,
and there are many, many forms of it. Most charismatic individuals have at
least some military experience, but Obama’s the kind of guy you picture
squealing and dropping a gun (this, indeed, is a characteristic of many on
the left as well as many women, explaining his popularity amongst both in
part). Most charismatic individuals that don’t have military experience can
give a speech that is truly brilliant, laid out in a logical and truthful
manner. Though Obama gives a nice speech, he rarely says anything that could
remotely be called brilliant or revolutionary. In fact, many of his favorite
slogans were hijacked from the leaders of the past 30 years: Jimmy Carter,
Ronald Reagan, both Bush’s, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, etc.

What Obama has, however, is what I have stated is so attractive about him
before: faith. He is the man that rushes to the aid of the girl whose
boyfriend dumped her, effectively. He overwhelms her not with logic or a
truthful but fresh perspective, but with the unendingly positive rhetoric
and almost cute (that’s the last time I’ll use that word outside of
quotation marks on my blog, I assure you) confidence. His appearance of
naivety is what makes him so loved by his fans: he really, honestly believes
in *them*, in all of *us*. And if he does, maybe *we* can, too!

This idea quickly falls apart, or at least tumbles into circular reasoning
and self-fulfilling prophecies, upon a closer look at how his policies match
up with his words. But liberals take no such closer look (do they ever?),
and many casual moderates who like him don’t, either.

Indeed, good leaders inspire confidence, and charismatic men have worked
well in the White House. But Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington, and Andrew
Jackson did not overwhelm Americans with nonsensical phrases like “We’re the
ones we’ve been waiting for” and “take a chance on your dreams [and vote for
me]”. They brought logic, truth, honor, strength, and courage to their
office, not pop-psychology. They did not bash America’s past and present
while extolling their sole ability to save it. They were true leaders, and
as such, worked through all the webs of charismatic-restrictions with
intelligence and wisdom as well. They were charismatic men, and sometimes
they did overstep their bounds, but their ability to work within the web, so
to speak, was key to their success at implementing their agendas.

Think about it: does Barack Obama bring the experience and strength of those
aforementioned White House charismatics along with his ability to woo a
crowd?

I’m happy to say that he doesn’t. And if Obama wins this year, Republicans
had better choose a good nominee in 2012, because we’re going to have a
very, very good chance to take the White House back from the shell of a man
who is on track to take it this November.

The Imprint of an Image

Something Bernie Goldberg said last night on The O’Reilly Factor really
stuck with me. He said that Obama’s recent trip to Iraq, Europe and
Afghanistan really had little substantive value, but that the images of him
speaking to masses of Europeans in Germany, shaking hands with General
Petraeus, and sitting side by side with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki were the
entire point of the trip.

And that got me thinking: Goldberg is really correct. Do you remember what
George W. Bush said on that aircraft carrier after the first stage of the
Iraq war was over? Neither do I. We just remember him flying in and landing,
and the “Mission Accomplished” banner. It was the images that stuck in our
minds, not text or even sound.

Take a more recent appearance by Obama: the one he did with his family on
the Hollywood Access show (I’m still wondering why a guy who probably has
only set foot in Hollywood once or twice in his life got onto the show).
Most people remember how “cute” they looked. I remembered a little better
how Michelle Obama’s brow seemed permanently furrowed, Barack refused to
look at the camera or his wife and instead stared at the ground or his kids,
and his daughters seemed a little too delighted to talk about their family’s
problems (symptoms a person from a broken family like myself perhaps
understands better than most). But most folks would prefer to think
positively, and just remember how nice a family they looked.

Yet content and analysis isn’t what these things are for. This is about an
image, and the imprint that, with just a bit of positive commentary (it’s my
opinion the initial few words spoken about an image from the TV personality,
their content and tone can greatly impact the reception of an image), can
plant a lasting idea into a person’s mind, both consciously and
subconsciously. In fact, Barack Obama takes advantage of mass media, like
most 20th and late 19th century leaders have, to create a personality cult.


There is no real shame in Obama’s actions and brilliant manipulations of a
shallow culture, there is only shame in the shallow culture itself, too
stupid or ignorant to keep itself from being swept into something as serious
as a voting booth by a soundbyte, video clip or picture. Casual voters like
this are not a majority in the United States, but it is my belief that they
are the largest plurality of the three voting types: casual, semi-casual,
and serious. And, too often, they are the oft-vaunted swing-voters that each
candidate must gun for in every election. This gives them power more than
even their numbers might suggest, thereby empowering the casual,
first-glance culture that has been churning along (and arguably growing) for
some time.

Such a culture is bad enough when it encourages girls to dress immodestly,
but it is truly, deeply damaging when the imprint of an image is introduced
to and ingrained in politics.

What is He Talking about?

“I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best
traditions.” – Barack Obama

I’ll go ahead and get this out of the way: Barack Obama is arrogant,
pompous, self-obsessed, overconfident, huge-headed, moronic, self-righteous,
etc.

But these sorts of quotes from the esteemed Senator have become regular
enough, and my commentary as well as other’s commentaries on aforementioned
quotations have become common enough, that I don’t need to talk any more
about these quotes’ self-righteous, arrogant, gloating tone.

No, I intend to instead talk about just what he said.

What are America’s best traditions? Apple pie and baseball for starters.
Then there’s representative democracy, opportunity to succeed, a strong
sense of patriotism, and individualism that is not exclusive to being a good
neighbor or friend.

In every one of those great traditions, I can find you a much better example
than Barack Obama. In fact, he outright disavows the tradition of American
individualism, talking spitefully of the “John Wayne myth” (the very phrase
“yes we can” is a collectivist take-off on the more common and more
individualistic “yes I can”). He furthermore effectively denies whilst
vocally espousing the truth of opportunity. He attended a church that railed
against the idea that blacks can rise out of the ghetto, and instead
preached that the system was irrevocably stacked against them. A kid from a
middle class home became president (it is important to note that Obama has
yet to become president, yet he seems to think that he is)? That’s hardly
impressive: Abe Lincoln came from a log cabin in Kentucky, Bill Clinton from
a broken home in a tiny, dirt-poor town in Arkansas, and Andrew Jackson came
to the White House from being a wild orphan brawling, drinking and dueling
impetuously.

Obama’s rise is noteworthy, if only as testament to the fact that biracial
heritage, a baritone voice, the politics of Vladimir Lenin preached with a
sugar coating and a lot of other patented nonsense can carry you quite far
in the realms of soundbyte politics and buzzed college kids. The other men I
mentioned made due, for the most part, from much harder circumstances with
many less benefits. That Obama would think to put himself into league with
these men in rising from nothing is unthinkable.

But I digress. Obama’s only achievement is to be half-black “by incident of
birth” (Alexander Hamilton). If his point were that he is the fulfillment of
the Civil Rights movement, then I would cut him much more slack, for he is
one fulfillment of that movement. His point, however, was clearly not that
at all. Look at it again: he states that he is a symbol of America “returning” to its best traditions. There has never been another president with a drop
of African blood, so how would electing a half-black be “returning” to our
best traditions? He’s obviously not getting at that.

The next great tradition, patriotism and belief in our country, may not be
something Obama lacks. Yet that is irrelevant. If you’re looking for a
return to patriotism and love for our country, you’re not going to be voting
for Obama when he is running against John McCain, arguably among the most
exemplary figures of American patriotism ever. I’m not one to rank
patriotism, but Obama ought to have the decency and humility to not even
place himself onto the field with a man like McCain, much less claim that he
is a symbol of patriotism, implying that McCain is not as good of one.
Therefore, I doubt, too, that he is talking about patriotism.

So if he’s not getting at patriotism, he’s not getting at rising from
nothing to become president, and he’s not thinking of individualism, what *
is* he thinking?

I hate to disappoint, but I truly can’t say that I know what he’s talking
about. There *is* no American tradition that Obama is truly exemplary of,
and all he is a man whose rise is the product of those people and factors
around him. No, not the aforementioned buzzed college kids at rallies: the
media elites who leapt onto the bandwagon, and the culture of shallow image
that exists to drive otherwise sane, thinking people into idiotic drones
swayed by a picture, a catch phrase or a roaring crowd. This does not show
that those who support Obama are some sort of superior individuals or beings
(as is often implied amongst leftists), only that many are gullible
conformists, starved for what seems to be an original (regardless of his
originality’s quality) candidate in a Washington filled with the same old
white men in black suits with red ties. Essentially, they’d rather read *The
Audacity of Hope* than* Clash of Civilizations*, they would rather hear
“yes, we can!” than “law of diminishing marginal utility”.

It is no great American tradition that Senator Obama is a symbol of. He is
little more than a representative of a contemporary fad.

A Word for the Truth

I read an excellent article in one of the latest Weekly Standard issues
recently, a fine piece by Andrew Ferguson regarding the truths of politics
that we cannot speak. He cited Phil Gramm’s statements to the effect of
“we’re not in a recession, get over it,” as one of the truths we couldn’t
speak. Gramm was right, of course, that there is no recession: a recession
is defined as two consecutive fiscal quarters of economic retraction, and
we’ve yet to have even one fiscal quarter of economic retraction. Gramm had
to step down as one of McCain’s economic advisors, and McCain had to
distance himself from the comments, adding some nonsensical populist
rhetoric regarding the pain of a Michigan steelworker (those stories are all
starting to run together for me, and are especially annoying, seeing as they
are marketed every bit as much, if not more, to air-headed soccer moms who
like the idea of caring more than the steelworker himself). Ferguson further cited retired General Wesley Clark’s comments that “being shot down in a fighter plane is not a qualification to be president” as another truth one could not speak. Clark was, again, wholly correct: to be
shot down in a fighter plane is not at all a qualification to be president,
though one could make the case that it is a plus. Clark and Obama both had
to repudiate the comments, too scared to come anywhere within the ballpark
of being accused of “questioning patriotism”.

The worst case Ferguson engaged was that of Geraldine Ferraro, who said,
whilst working for Clinton back in the primaries, that Obama would not have
reached his current position were it not for his African blood. Oh, the
horror!

Bob Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, echoed this
sentiment by saying something that absolutely no person in the country with
more than a quarter brain can deny: were Barack Obama a white senator from
Illinois with 4 years in the Senate under his belt, he could not enter the
presidential race, give a fancy speech or two and hold 85-90% of the black
vote against the Clintons. It was not Bill Clinton’s racial comments (which
I will come to in a minute) that caused blacks to make this alignment: in
South Carolina, the first primary state with a significant black population,
blacks went for Obama at the same rate they did for the rest of the primary:
9/10. (Now, were Obama not such an impressive candidate, that number
might’ve been 7/10, or 8/10.) Ferraro’s comments were undoubtedly true, on
the whole: Barack Obama would not have won the primaries were it not for the
black vote, an enormous section of the Democratic party, and we all know the
main reason he got the black vote.

This leads me to Bill Clinton’s sly comments about Jesse Jackson winning
South Carolina back in 92. These were the height of a politically incorrect
truth, which is exactly why they were lambasted so (Ferguson’s column
refused to even touch Clinton’s comments, because he, of course, is an
established writer for a prominent magazine; as a blogger sitting in my
bedroom, I don’t have that problem).

Blacks tend to vote for Obama… why? It’s the elephant in the living room.
Blacks, more often than not, voted in the primaries based on color. Clinton
was right in the rough truth that he was hinting at: Jackson won South
Carolina largely because he was black, Obama blew Clinton out largely
because he was half-black. These were not the only reasons, but they were
huge ones. There is no getting around it, no explaining it away. It is the
truth. It is a truth that ordinary Americans, black, white, Latino and
Asian, everywhere know and speak of across the dinner table, at the bar, or
in the car.

But it is a truth that no politician, no strategist, no reporter, no pundit and no candidate can ever  speak.
 

The Dangerous Line

From such assorted people as Chuck Schumer, Mike Huckabee, Glenn Beck, Mahmoud Amendenijad, Bill O’Reilly, Ted Kennedy, John Hagee, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Michael Moore, Ann Coulter, Lou Dobbs, Keith Olbermann, Osama Bin Laden, three quarters of Western Europe, and Hugo Chavez comes the constant drumbeat of, well, when you add it all up, doom. If one is to listen to these sources closely enough, they either believe that America’s doom is coming soon or it has already begun.

Their reasons are as diverse as these people are themselves: the wrath of God, economic disaster, radical Communists, radical Fascists, radical anarchists, fundamentalist Islam, immorality, despair, arrogance, immigration, free trade, oil-dependency… you name it, they believe it is coming, or is already happening, and will be the end of our nation.

America has turned into a bit of a strange nation, in a way. One of our most successful predecessors, Rome, was very similar yet very different. Rome was a nation that, after a point, believed that it could not fall. America is the exact opposite: for years, we have been extolling, like radicals on the street corner, that “the end is near! Repent! Lower your taxes! Raise your taxes! Secure the border! Plant ethanol! Drill in ANWR! End the war! Win the war! Vote for change! Vote for the other change! Drive a Prius! Get a gun and go to the hills! Vote Democrat! Vote Republican!”

Whatever the lyrics, the music remains the same from the many angles of our doom. This strange asymmetry to our Roman predecessors is an extremely odd difference. The Romans stood by and turned a blind eye to their problems: extreme political corruption, hordes of Germanic immigrants/barbarians (your pick) crossing their borders without control, the Hunnic horde coming out of southern Russia, lowering birth rates, Scottish, Slavic and Nordic incursions throwing Britain, France and the Eastern European provinces into chaos, over-farming and food shortages, lack of economic production, intra-Christian division between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope of Rome, political division between the same two cities, and a military in utter disarray.

Rome watched some of these problems fester. Others, they simply ignored, or resigned themselves to be unable to stop. In any event, the Empire, of course, split into East and West. (It is interesting to note that the Eastern Empire survived another thousand years only by a strong economy, an extremely mobile and powerful military, religious uniformity, and closing its doors to immigrants.)

Many in the media try to draw lessons from these events. It is a worthy goal, to draw lessons from history. Yet what they lack is the balance of the truth: a nation convinced of its inevitable failure stands even less of a chance than a nation convinced of its inevitable survival. Though I do not believe in any case that the American people buy this pulp on the whole, I do believe that having raving idiots in the town square with megaphones decrying every inch of a town’s existence and harking for some kind of change, either a return to the good old days or to the Animal Farm ahead, is not helpful in any way.

This dangerous line, between acceptance of extremely difficult problems being a threat and believing that everything is the gravest threat mounting into Glenn Beck’s “perfect storm,” is enormously difficult to walk. Yet walk it we must, if our country is to survive. We will, of course, survive, I feel it pertinent to note. The question lays only in America’s status as the superpower that shapes the world. I wholly admit that, as always it is with such a position, is in a permanent state of challenge.

And yet, if we will ourselves to confront serious challenges of our time, we may weather the storms to maintain our position as the benevolent big brother of the world. 

A Quick Word on The Reverend…

“… and he’s (Obama) got to ask himself, how can he raise his children in an atmosphere where there is a circus for the media…” – Al Sharpton, regarding Obama leaving Trinity United.

I have but a two-sentence response: how can Obama raise his children in an atmosphere where there is a circus for racism, hatred of your country and your identity, and utterly reckless irresponsibility? And how can Reverend Sharpton turn a completely blind eye to the obvious realities of the situation (don’t answer that unless you want to see the raw, ugly truths of Us vs. Them politics, and racial tribalism at its worst modern form in this country)?

Obama’s Exodus, And What it Cannot Answer

I heard the news that Obama left Trinity United Church of Christ almost as soon as anyone else did, in the post-Pflager (the white Catholic priest who went on a racially-undertoned rant, stopping just short of calling Hilary Clinton a white supremacist) days.

Many seem to want to be satisfied, but thinking people like me, of course, generally aren’t. The primary reason I’m not satisfied regards the reasons Obama listed for leaving during his statement: he felt he was drawing too much attention to his church, making a scene and a frenzy for the media. People couldn’t worship in peace, you know.

It didn’t have to do with the fact that the new preacher, the man he praised as a “great young pastor” not only called Moses and Noah “pimps and thugs”, but furthermore praised Father Pflager after he openly mocked Hilary Clinton and called her racially prejudiced.

It didn’t have to do with the fact that the entire church was on their feet cheering, screaming and raving as their preacher screamed “God d*** America!” or the fact that they reacted the exact same way when he extolled the idea that the U.S. government created AIDS as a race-based killer to keep the black man down via genocide. That they cheered and roared when Wright stated that the U.S. Marines are doing the exact same things of Al Qaeda.

None of this was the reason Barack Obama left. He left because a church member or two got followed by the media as they left church.

I’ve got to say it: it’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard go so unchallenged by moderates and liberals. Conservatives hear it and realize, of course, that it’s a crock. Liberals have to stick by their nominee, so I suppose I can’t blame them for shoving their fingers in their ears and yelling about prejudice, racism and guilt-by-association. But why do the supposedly open and fair-minded moderates and independents ignore the fact that Obama just is not that offended by the idea that our Marines and Al Qaeda are the same? If you were at a church and your preacher, obviously greatly impassioned, stated that the U.S. government invented AIDS, the Marines and Al Qaeda had general moral equivalency, and uttered curses against America, how would you react?

What this all adds to, though, is the mystery of Obama. His mystery truly leads him to be the most apt politician we’ve seen in decades. He is, at his core, a man who is utterly and totally frozen over on the inside. He will stick to his guns no matter what, we have seen this in the Wright controversy. Even when he retreats, like when he leaves the church, he still finds a way to not back down, claiming that he’s doing it for glorious reasons, turning the excavation of truth by the media into errant offenses against mankind and making himself appear to be the bigger man by stepping away.

What is his strength is that he does not bend to public will. What is his deepest wrong, his deepest, most dangerous and pervasive lie, is that he intentionally appears to. Obama is the quintessential fake-listener. He hears, yet does not listen, and only cares so far as he may ride public opinion higher. He blatantly lies when he says he understands what was so offensive about Wright’s comments to Americans.

He does, in a way. He understands the surface: Americans like their country and don’t like it when it’s insulted. But that is where Obama’s fabled judgment, knowledge and genius stop. What Obama cannot hope to understand is that it is more than a simple offense to Americans.

What Americans despise so much about Wright and his preaching is that t is a lie. It is a lie to suggest what Wright has suggested, and furthermore, what Wright has said is the worst kind of lie: one that is born out of bitterness, rage, hatred and demagoguery. It is a lie that Wright tells himself because he finds it impossible to forgive wrong, because hatred has permeated his being and deepest essence. Worse yet, it is a lie that Wright tells children, children who shouldn’t have to grow up, insecure, angry, hate-filled and bitter. Children that CAN have the better tomorrow that true civil rights leaders promised, but are brought up believing that they cannot. They need not feel the angst, the depression, the fear, the anger, and the pain of the prior generations of African Americans. These are children that can have the true hope our country gives, not Obama’s cheap political imitation.

Yet they aren’t given that hope. Reverend Wright, Obama’s friend, mentor, father-figure, and “spiritual” leader, sees to it himself.

The reason we find Wright and that church so offensive is not because we like our country. It is because we deeply love it. We deeply respect it. And we are deeply angered when we see its promise in the children and people that heard those sermons, the Americans that heard those sermons, twisted, torn down and beaten. It is a lie, and furthermore, it is a lie that has no excuse, no explanation, no smooth words can skirt around it, no soothing baritone can assuage the justified outrage.

And that, if you care to listen to the American people, Senator Obama, is what you do not understand.

Look No Further Than Wright

This brings me to another point: to see why Obama is the man we have come to know, one needn’t look further than Chicago and Trinity United. As I just said, Wright crushes dreams, he crushes hopes, he crushes change. That is the core of his preaching.

Yet if he did that, you ask, wouldn’t Obama hate that church?

Not necessarily. In fact, it is my belief that this is what inspires Obama most deeply: he sees America like a large Southside of Chicago, seen through Wright’s lens. He obsesses on a dream, he obsesses on a hope, because he believes that, like Trinity’s constituency and blacks in Chicago, America has none of these things. It is what feeds his campaign, his personal drive, his enormous ego: he’s here to save us, to save this country, and to give hope to the hopeless.

And yet, in a strange way, he fuels hopelessness, for the time being. The more bitter you are, the angrier you are with America, the more likely you are to be voting for the man to fix it. People with guns and Jesus in small towns aren’t bitter; they’re normally bright and cheerful people. The people that sip fine wine in San Francisco with their friends before they drive to their fine home in their Prius are the ones that are bitter and unhappy, because they are voting for the change candidate, the hope candidate. To act like this either implies that you are arrogant enough to believe that you’re the only hope-filled, figured-it-out person in America (as Obama thinks he is), or you are angry and despairing with the way things currently work.

Obama’s entire philosophy is centered around the angst and pain of Chicago, compounded by the religious hacks like Wright as well as the political ones as well. Obama believes he saw the parting of the clouds, he saw the clearing of the fog, and he felt the light, and he realized that America is dying and thirsting for its savior to save it. That’s why he’s going to force you to be involved, he will pry that cynicism from your hands, he will draw you out to “believe again”. That is because, in his heart of hearts, he believes it must be done, and he must do it.

“Arrogance” doesn’t begin to describe it.

Barack Bush

Idealism. Dogged loyalty. Very little outward temper. A quick smile. Either eternally upbeat or deathly serious. Faith in man’s good side and ignoring of his bad. Stubborn as can be. Refusal to flex or compromise. Ultimate conviction that they are correct.

Who am I describing? I wonder myself. For every one of these qualities could describe either George W. Bush or Barack Obama. I’ve noticed, for a long time, that these two men have more in common than anyone has ever given them credit for. Of course, both of them have more numerous and obvious differences. They disagree on virtually every issue, and where Obama comes off as distant and brimming with a barely concealed ego in his speeches and press-exchanges, Bush comes off as friendly but uncomfortable. But their most striking similarity is in handling mistakes: play up everything that they’ve done that is right, and ignore (Bush’s preferred method, but sometimes used by Obama) or ridiculously rationalize (Obama’s preferred method, though sometimes used by Bush) what is wrong.

Barack Obama can’t disown Reverend Wright (or murderer William Ayers) any more than the black community, and Bush can’t disown an old attorney buddy who put two border patrol agents in prison for doing their job. These two cling to their loyalties for as long as humanely possible, no matter how mistaken they are. Both of them despise change, despite Obama’s claims to love it, as shown by the fact that they both recite today what they recited a year or two ago. Both are utterly convinced that they are on their permanent track to righteous victory over their mistaken opponents, and both are driven on by their respective dream-worlds, righteous Crusaders with unshakable belief in the causes they fight for.

I bring this up neither to compliment Obama nor to denigrate Bush. I say it because it is something no one else will say, but it is largely true. These two men, though they are so very, very different in the obvious ways, are subtly yet strikingly similar, when you think about it. So is that good or bad that the man who will possibly be our next president has the same core methodological ideals of our current one?

I happen to think it partially depends on what exactly they believe, and in that case, Bush has quite an enormous edge, obviously. But on the whole, their methods are dangerous at best, and disastrous at worst.

Corporate America

“That’s what we’re asking… We’re asking kids to not go into corporate America…” – Michelle Obama

“… In college, he [Barack Obama] explains, ‘I began to notice a world beyond myself.’ So while his friends were seeking jobs on Wall Street, he applied for jobs as a grass-roots activist. And one day, a group of churches in Chicago offered him a job as a community organizer for ‘$12,000 a year plus $2,000 for an old, beat-up car. And I took it.’”[1] –Excerpt from a William Kristol article in the New York Times, regarding Obama’s recent speech at a college graduation Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

I find something deeply fascinating about these quotes. There’s the obvious professed disdain for money, of course, that both subtly show. That’s fine and well, in one way. It is better to hate money than love it, I suppose, though better still to do neither.

What I find disturbing is that he and his wife don’t seem to think about what would happen if every “kid” followed their advice. They obviously thought enough regarding what would happen if every family followed their advice and ran their heaters less: the energy crisis would be solved!

So what would really happen if everyone followed the Obama’s advice and corporate America died? America would die with it. If there were no tariffs and protectionist legislation enforced, every country’s corporations in the world would move into our enormous market to fill the avoid: China, Japan, Britain, India, Germany, Russia, and Canada (Canada!) would come to dominate the U.S. market. Things would continue as normal, but America would no longer be a sovereign nation, of course.

If the proper radical protectionist sentiments that Obama laughs at Pennsylvanian voters for clinging to whilst he espouses their glory were enforced, then what would happen, would corporations to simply disappear? America probably wouldn’t fall back to the pre-corporations, early-1800s era. Instead, it would fall into the modern second or third world’s level. You could say goodbye to an efficient transportation business, for starters. Furthermore, oil production would drop radically, as would its quality and distributions. Interstate trade, as a result of trucking, shipping, aircraft and train industries utterly collapsing, would be almost completely destroyed. The internet, radio and telephone would be destroyed as effective communication, and postal services would face an enormous spike in prices as a result of more expensive oil.

Agricultural prices would face one of the biggest rises, and the distribution of food from fertile areas such as the Midwest to infertile areas such as much of the Southwest would become much more expensive, and food riots would ensue. America’s military would collapse as an effective force with the logistical ability to deploy overseas, as their weaponry and transportation costs would skyrocket and upkeep would be impossible. It would be all the government could do to move them home.

Next, the medical industry would be destroyed as we know it, and disease would greatly increase across the board, as the drug and medical technology industries would fragment and collapse. Technology like computers would cease to exist due to being luxury products high up in the pyramid, as would the enormous efficiency increases they bring to all life.

In short, America would die. Corporations, despite being hated by everyone in the country, are the most important entity and the greatest advancement and most lasting accomplishment of the Industrial Revolution that began 140 years ago.

Before Standard Oil, kerosene lamps killed thousands of people worldwide every year. It was a risk to read by an efficient, oil-made fire. Pollution made by coal-based fires was more dangerous than any kind of greenhouse gases we omit today. Ships and trains were infinitely less speedy and efficient than they are today, and the new, efficient oil opened the path for both automobiles and aircraft.

Before Carnegie Steel, the very infrastructure of society was frail and disorganized. Carnegie revolutionized his industry and made the entire foundation of every sidewalk and every railroad, the hull of every ship, the frame of every car, the barrel of every gun, the support of every building.

Before New York Central Railroad, transportation was accomplished mainly by simple wagons that took days to carry small loads anywhere. The trains were slow and disastrous wrecks due to disorganization were a constant. Today, we have the fruit of the greatest step forward in the transportation industry’s history due to William Henry Vanderbilt’s largely unsung mega-corporation.

Before Microsoft, there was no efficient way for the layman to operate a computer. Before Dell, computers were a luxury for big businesses. Before Wal-Mart, all kinds of every day appliances were unavailable to Americans everywhere. Before Ford, cars, too, were a luxury for the richest of the rich.

It is these corporations that effectively birthed the modern world. Most did not invent what they sold, but they took their products and made them more efficient than the inventors could dream of. Corporations did more and are doing more for the technological explosion between 1870 and 2008 than government could hope for. None of the men who made them were amongst the richest of the country when they started their corporations, but all ended up so by their dedicated work, a work that has furthered societal advance in the last 140 years than it did in the 2000 years prior to that.

It’s about time Mr. Obama gave them credit.

P.S. Karl Rove wrote an excellent article here, regarding McCain’s and Obama’s views on the Capitalism that drives America here, if you care for a bit more of a read:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121383441884986739.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

The Truth About Energy

Interesting fact I heard from Bill Sammon on Fox News: the United States currently produces 40% of its own energy. The fact that he followed up with is that, if we began to drill and tap the oil resources we have found right now, in 10 years, we could up that 40% by over 10%. Considering the size of the enormous oil cavern recently discovered deep under Colorado, I would guess myself that that estimate surely could be upped by another 10% over the 10 years after that.

By the year 2028, the USA could produce 60% of its own oil, a 1% increase every year. (In fact, with the rising alternative electric and more efficient cars, I suspect we in the USA won’t be needing as much energy in 2028 as we do in 2008, just as we need today exactly what we needed in 1978). Sounds like an amazing start to energy independence to me. The best part? The U.S. taxpayer wouldn’t pay a penny! The government has only to open up drilling in ANWR in Alaska and the Rockies area in Colorado, as well as for the oil underneath South Dakota and off the coasts of California and Florida, and the United States shoots off to energy independence, led by Exxon-Mobile and Shell, those evil, horrible oil companies that politicians like to bash.

Congress stands in the way of the United States opening up its own energy independence, and instead invests enormous subsidies into the fruitless alternative of ethanol, an energy so inefficient that it could not possibly succeed in the free market. All the while, George Bush, who strongly supports the ethanol subsidies, insists that Saudi Arabia increase its oil production, while ignoring the fact that the U.S. could, in 20 years, with his start, enter into the top three oil producers in the world (those three currently being Canada, Russia and Saudi Arabia). Why should our Arabian friends listen to us grovel for more production when we won’t even produce ourselves?

John McCain, too, is deeply disappointing in the realm of energy production. He claims that ANWR province is a “national treasure” like the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone Park.

Let’s get something straight: ANWR makes West Texas look like a pristine lake valley in Montana. It makes Oklahoma look like the Alps. I’ve seen pictures and video of the place on the National Geographic Channel, and it is one of the ugliest pieces of land I have ever seen. Flat, brown grass with permafrost beneath for as far as the eye can see in the summer (excluding the hordes of mosquitos that travel into the land in that time), and a frozen wasteland with temperatures dropping below –50 degrees in the Winter, where even the most adapted land animals to cold in the world, Polar bears, are driven into hibernation by the impossible cold.

ANWR is an irredeemable wasteland whose terrain is near-identical to most of Siberia’s, placing it along with the Sahara Desert and Antarctica as one of the most barren places on our planet. To compare it to the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone Park is, as much as I like John McCain, laughable.

ANWR is just the easy beginning of what we must do, however. An even more difficult cap to open up likes underneath Colorado. I’ve heard conflicting reports, but the first I heard of it is that it is suspected to be larger than every drop of oil combined from the Arabian peninsula. Make no mistake, it is very deep underground and would be difficult to tap for years, but it is the only true path to energy independence.

Yet most of our politicians oppose it. They, eventually, will not. I believe that within the next 8 years, no matter who is elected president, preliminary drilling procedures will begin. Politicians are rarely known for having spine, and as gas prices increase, the people are going to demand action. In this case, they’ll get it. What is sad is that I am not so confident in the situations in Florida, California, and South Dakota oil fields that wait to be tapped.

In any case, we also have reason to be positive regarding the energy situation as well: Saudi Arabia and our other buddies in the Middle East will pump oil for us for a long, long time, as will Great Britain, Nigeria and Canada. We, of course, will pump our own oil as well, and Venezuela is unlikely to stop for no reason. The United States’ oil supply, while in constant threat, is secure and becoming even more so, as the Surge cleans up Iraq and destroys Iranian influence there.

The United States, at least, has highly diversified oil interests around the world, and well-established trading partners providing for a majority of it. Europe, tied to Russia by an oil leash, and China and India, in a constant scramble for new resources to run their burgeoning economies, cannot say the same.

So be wary of oil-scare mongers such as Glenn Beck who have no stomach for the encouraging facts and would prefer to demagogue distrust of foreigners baselessly.

A Lesson in Irresponsibility by Scott McClellan

Perhaps some of you saw Bill O’Reilly’s interview with Scott McClellan on last week. Pretty interesting stuff! They sparred over continuous details regarding the Libby-leak, the Iraq War run-up, etc. (For the record, I have already seen Rob Novak, one of the best and most connected journalists in Washington, the man whom deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage leaked Plame’s name to in the first place, dismantle McClellan’s ridiculous assertions and ignorance as facts, and Karl Rove, too, has provided a strong defense for his part regarding the case).

What was most interesting, though, was when Bill O’Reilly made the point that McClellan’s book was going to be used by the hate-Bush/America crowd to baselessly attack Bush. Classic of a man who has difficulty seeing the world as a sphere larger than himself yet a sphere he can still effect, McClellan claimed that he couldn’t control what others did with his truth, but he had to speak it. O’Reilly first pointed out that McClellan merely was stating his opinion, a debatable truth, as opposed to facts. This, of course, opened it up to abuse by the anti-Bush press. McClellan shrugged.

It could be both admirable and shameful to do such things, and which one of these it is hinges upon motive. McClellan’s motives are incredibly questionable. Just a month or two before the book came out, McClellan communicated to Ari Fleischer, his predecessor as White House Press Secretary, that his book was going to be highly favorable and an effective defense of the Administration’s policies and their implementations.

Later, he admitted that his editor, part of an editing and publishing organization whose ties to ultra-left liberal activist George Soros are strong (O’Reilly’s research indicated that the publishing company publishes liberal books at an 8-1 ratio of conservative ones), tweaked it “slightly”.

Starting to sound shameful.

What McClellan must understand but perhaps does not is that he, as an official deeply involved both personally and publicly with the President, has words that are more notable than the average Joe such as myself, who can spout his opinions without worrying what others tend to think. He knew that the anti-Bush media would leap upon his book if he provided just a little anti-Bush words and just a little clouding of the truth around the Plame leak and its subsequent investigation.

He also must be an intelligent enough man to realize that a president sprinkling a little propaganda is a regular occurrence in war time. I’ve yet to think of a war in which it didn’t happen whatsoever, and truthfully, there’s nothing wrong with it, as long as the propaganda does not become outright lies. Our Executive Government has a right to make its case to its people regarding exterior threats, and to use the same tactics permitted to 527’s, corporations, public relations firms, and other politicians as individuals. Though the Executive Government is held to a higher standard, it has the most educated opinion of any part of America, and it is its duty to express that opinion. That, after all, is why we claim to elect leaders: leaders do not simply follow polls and conventional wisdom, they seek out new facts and truth to communicate to their followers. They educate as they are educated.

McClellan’s book did speak of a couple of truths: the pre-Surge Iraq policy was not effective, and neither was Bush’s Katrina policy. But a 12 year old could tell you that, much less a former White House Press Secretary who let his editor toss in a couple of sentences of non-controversial bashing of Bush (whilst knowing that the media would leap on the chance to turn non-controversial bashing into controversial betrayal).

McClellan was always a poor Press Secretary. I knew that before he wrote this book. He didn’t have Ari Fleischer’s lightning speed that gave him the gift of being able to leave reporters in a dazed silence by always being at least two steps ahead of them, nor did he have Tony Snow’s witty and endearing banter with the media. He wasn’t even the equal of Dana Perino, who hasn’t been a particularly good press secretary.

So why did he do it? Was it the fame he sought? Was it the chance to get back at Bush for wrongdoing? Was it to take out his own anger regarding his poor performance on the Administration? Was it the money he knew would flow into his coffers? Was it that he wanted to tell the truth, but was merely too stupid to do it correctly? Was it a mix of all of these?

I’m not sure. What I do know is that a good motive has a 1/5 chance of being his reason.

A pretty poor chance, if you ask me.

Beck Part 2

So I just saw Glenn Beck have the following exchange with Mary Matalin:

Beck: “So tell me, how will John McCain get a good Supreme Court justice through such a liberal Congress?”

Matalin: “Because John McCain has worked across the aisle before, and he can—”

Beck: “Like I care!”

If you can’t see the problem with Beck’s logic, I can point it out to you. If there is one gun between you and your enemy, and your enemy has it and your goals conflict, then how do you handle your situation? You speak with him and attempt to reason some kind of compromise. You’re not in a position to do anything other than that. McCain doesn’t have the gun, so he’s going to have to negotiate. So would you rather McCain negotiate for a conservative justice or Obama pass a liberal one with flying colors?

Why do I even need to ask that question? Why is Beck so utterly incapable of asking himself that question?

Rational people realize this situation for what it is: McCain will have to resort to soft-power to push his Supreme Court appointees through. He, unlike Bush, will not have a Republican majority (in fact, I feel it prudent to give McCain credit for his Gang of 14’s actions, as they led Samuel Alito, a justice who openly stated that there is no Constitutional right to abortion, to get onto the Supreme Court without a filibuster, a move the Democrats didn’t make because they knew McCain’s 14 moderate Senators and their further-right Republican friends would break it).

This is where McCain’s genius and knowledge of the Senate come into play, as well as his near-universal respect within that body. He may not be the next Lyndon Johnson, but he will know how to work with the Senate better than anyone since President Johnson. Someone who doesn’t do a lot of deep thinking, someone like Glenn Beck, thinks that’s a bad thing, and is reason to reject McCain. Someone who does do a little more thinking, like you and me, realizes that it’s sometimes better to have an effective person who agrees with you on many, many things in a position of power than an ineffective person who agrees with you on everything.

We also must realize that a smart person takes the cupcake that is in front of them now and waits and hopes for the cake, while an idiot rejects the cupcake whilst whining about the lack of a cake.

I’ve spun a bit off course, though. The point is that a conservative who, like Beck, wants conservative Supreme Court justices without negotiating in a liberal Senate, is like the child who wants the money without having to work the lemonade stand. Washington is not evil, unless you call compromise evil. But it is a city where things need to get done, and people in disagreement need to get things done, they’ve got to give and take a little.

We’ve got to work the lemonade stand a little to get a more conservative government. That’s something Beck willfully misunderstands, a willful misunderstanding that is shameful given his prominent standing within the media.

What is even more saddening, however, is how normal it feels to me to put “misunderstanding”, “shameful”, and “media” in the same sentence.

A Word from Krauthammer Regarding Obama

“As public financing is not a principle dear to me, I am hardly dismayed by Obama's abandonment of it. Nor am I disappointed in the least by his other calculated and cynical repositionings. I have never had any illusions about Obama. I merely note with amazement that his media swooners seem to accept his every policy reversal with an equanimity unseen since the Daily Worker would change the party line overnight -- switching sides in World War II, for example -- whenever the wind from Moscow changed direction.

The truth about Obama is uncomplicated. He is just a politician (though of unusual skill and ambition). The man who dared say it plainly is the man who knows Obama all too well. "He does what politicians do," explained Jeremiah Wright.

When it's time to throw campaign finance reform, telecom accountability, NAFTA renegotiation or Jeremiah Wright overboard, Obama is not sentimental. He does not hesitate. He tosses lustily.

Why, the man even tossed his own grandmother overboard back in Philadelphia -- only to haul her back on deck now that her services are needed. Yesterday, granny was the moral equivalent of the raving Reverend Wright. Today, she is a featured prop in Obama's fuzzy-wuzzy get-to-know-me national TV ad.

Not a flinch. Not a flicker. Not a hint of shame. By the time he's finished, Obama will have made the Clintons look scrupulous. ” – Charles Krauthammer

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/the_evermalleable_mr_obama.html

I need say nothing about Obama’s flip-flops of late. Dr. Krauthammer has said all there is to say.

A Word on Fascism, and What to do if Someone Calls You a Fascist

Whilst reading the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, it really hit me how many times America’s ideological foundation has been threatened. The most recent and obvious example, of course, is the Islamic fundamentalists like Al Qaeda. Their ideas are largely unclear to me, to be honest, as they are to most everyone. Their cause is also the first cause rooted in traditional religion to attempt to overthrow American ideas, which makes it even stranger.

When I talk about American ideals, I mean the things that this nation has always held dear to its heart, though we’ve sometimes been guilty of hypocrisy on them. Here they are:

1. The ultimate equality of every man and woman.
2. The belief that the free market is generally (though not always) the answer to economic problems.
3. Our inherent belief that the individual is responsible for his own actions and he must be allowed to choose those actions and take responsibility for them in general.
4. That government must be representative of its people and must be restrained by a system of checks and balances.
5. That government should play a small role in the lives of Americans, whether it be in how they act or believe or in how they invest or spend their money.
6. That church and state ought to be separated and have different areas of power.

Those six ideas, as I understand it, sum up the foundation of this country as well as Classical Liberalism, which is what every one of the Founding Fathers believed in theory (though I must state that they did not agree, largely, with the implication of the first statement with regard to blacks).

These things are obvious enough to many Americans (though there have always been people who have strongly doubted, or outright disregarded, one or two of those principles). In fact, whether conservatives realize it or not, that is what we fight to conserve: Classic Liberalism (ironic, isn’t it?) 

The historical exterior challenges mounted to classic liberalism were most serious in the forms of Communism and Fascism. Now, for definition, Communists and Fascists aren’t all that different. They’re also two words that are thrown around far too much and not given enough context. So to help you understand what they mean, I can explain them both individually:

Communism is the ultimate “left-wing” form of government. Communism’s main tenet is that all property must belong to the community, the collective group. In communist nations there is no individual property, and the ultimate goal is for there to be no individual will but instead a collective one. It is essentially radical socialism, based on the anti-upper-class sentiments of Karl Marx. Communism has always felt that the workers of the world must unite against the oppressors. In this way, it is the most revolutionary of ideologies in that there is perpetual revolution. This is what makes it liberal (liberals, at their core, believe that new change is almost unequivocally good). Most liberals aren’t communists, but all communists are liberals. The quote from Karl Marx that best sums up Communism is this: “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

Fascism, a more complex beast, has often been cast as the ultimate form of “right-wing” government. This is largely untrue. (The ultimate form of “right-wing” government, as the American conservative sees it today, truly is anarchy, meaning no government, but that’s another story for another day.) Fascism’s historical application has actually been quite bipartisan: Italian fascisms of the early 1900s through World War 2 promised a “third way” meaning no partisanship, just what works. Fascism spawned out of people who were intensely practical; namely, the Progressives of the late 1800s (whom modern liberals speak of with nostalgia). The Fascists despised the left-right gridlock of American, Italian, Spanish, German etc. politics; effectively despising legislatures in general. This led to the idea of fascism: a focus on effectively solving problems through a very strong, unified and non-representative government. (Fascists, like almost all extremists, are hopelessly idealistic. They claimed that they could make the kind of good government that would listen to its people without annoying Congressmen and voting.) Fascism was, much like Communism, very much focused on socialism as well and despised the upper-classes. Whereas Communists dream of the workers of the world uniting, Fascists dream of the workers of each country uniting behind the country. Mussolini’s quote that best sums up Fascism is this: “everything within the state, nothing outside the state.”

That leads me to another point about Fascism: it’s extremely nationalistic. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism (Hitler made a strong distinction of himself as a nationalist, not a patriot): nationalism focuses on words like “blood”, “people”, “destiny”, “race”, etc. while patriotism focuses on “ideals”, “country”, “freedom”, and “righteousness”. In other words, nationalists make an odd sort of reversion to tribal instincts and the blood of their people, whereas patriots focus much more on the modern nation and its values. I, a patriot, love America. Hitler, a nationalist, loved the German people. (Most liberals have trouble making the distinction, and so think that Hitler was a patriot like Conservatives are patriots. This is one link they draw between Bush and Hitler.)

Nazism fits into all of this by being an extension of Fascism. It was once said that Nazism is not a coherent ideology or belief, but a torrent of “hatred, passion, rage, prejudice, lust, and strength,” that is disguised as an ideology. Nazism takes racism to the next level, as well as the nationalistic tendencies I mentioned above. Hitler despised Germany as he saw it: he hated capitalism, the upper-classes, the Jews, the Communists, etc. whom he felt were ruining the greatest people (not nation, but people) on earth.

The argument that Hitler was a “conservative” is ludicrous, on two grounds. First of all, the modern right in America believes in less government, Hitler believed in more (with gun control, national healthcare, mandatory public schools, a smoking ban, etc. Hitler wanted more government in everyone’s life). America’s modern right defends vehemently the free market and capitalism on the grounds that it is the most efficient economic system ever made, and it’s completely true. Hitler hated capitalists and the free market, being a socialist. Hitler hated the establishment of rich folks and a government with checks and balances as well as Germany’s constitution, America’s modern right defends all of those American counterparts. Finally, Hitler hated traditional religion (something most modern American conservatives hold dear to them, in both theory and practice) and wanted it to be replaced by his nationalism.

The differences between Hitler (and Mussolini’s Italy) and the modern American right are very clear, and this is why no one should call you a Fascist.

The Truth About Why Obama is Winning

How Obama is winning has been a question of great matter to me lately. I just can’t stop thinking about how on earth he’s still continued this amazing climb of his despite his series of gaffes and things that would destroy any other politician.

His African blood certainly isn’t hurting him: guilty white youths are anxious to atone for the sins of their fathers, black people are dying to elect “one of their own” to the White House, and latte-liberals, too, remain guilty about race. But that alone is not nearly enough for him to overcome all of these things. Obama’s race is also helping him greatly with regards to the ancient problem of the McGovern/Stevenson style latte-liberal, far-left, upper-class Democrat. These Democrats have traditionally had great trouble with a generally cynical black vote. Obama takes blacks instantly while also picking up the students, rich, naïve whites, and, frankly, air headed moderates that the traditional far-leftist can reel in.

One could pass it off on the overwhelmingly pro-Obama media. This, too, has merit: the backlash over the ABC moderators, George Stephanopolous and Charlie Gibson, asking many questions in the debate about the many controversies surrounding Obama. (Rob Novak stated that, having watched every presidential debate since the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon one, he had never seen a candidate challenge the moderator’s authority and grounds for asking such questions; Obama did it at least eight times.) Mainline media bias is definitely aiding Obama. But this, even when combined with his being half-black, is again not enough to make up for all of his mistakes.

The third of the four reasons for Obama’s Teflon jacket is the man’s talent for words and talent for shifting around as much as need be. In every controversy, he has shown the adept ability to slither around it like a snake, mixing excuses, outright lies, and foggy-half truths with the real truth to dilute his whole response to a point of inexplicable elasticity. He can stretch it as far as he needs to (as shown by his claiming to denounce Reverend Wright, when he truly only denounced a few of Wright’s comments) to cover anything. Then, with his questioner and listener sufficiently confused by his foggy answer, he can say, “but you know, let’s move on, let’s move to a politics of hope and not of criticism, etc.” He has done this extremely well with every controversy, and this is another reason he’s been so invincible.

(A slightly less obvious but still great aid to Obama amongst moderates is his voice itself. In the paraphrased words of Mark Steyn, National Review columnist, Obama’s Marxist words about redistributing the profits of the oil and pharmaceutical corporations can all sound so reasonable when he uses his silky baritone, even as we forget the economic foundation of the free market and right to do what we please with our money, one of the pillars of America. Another example is his suggestion that his Supreme Court picks’ most important attribute will be to simply understand the problems people are having, tossing out the entire notion of objective law-enforcement, a second pillar of America and any other good nation in history.)

The fourth and final reason is something most people don’t talk about: this entire nation is simply sick of and disgusted by the Clintons. This wave of Obamania that began in Iowa back in January has swept over the country, and it is in no small part due to the uneasy dissatisfaction with the Clintons within what are now Obama’s three key constituencies: blacks, high-income liberals, and young voters. The Clinton’s great mistake is that they built a domination of the Democratic party on a proverbial throne of bayonets. The problem with thrones of bayonets is that while they’re handy in the short term, you can’t sit on them for long. Sooner or later, some young upstart is going to come out of nowhere and displace you, due to the dissatisfaction the people have with your rule. That is exactly what is happening to the Clintons, and essentially, that is why I believe that this election has been basically over since Super Tuesday: no matter what she says, almost no matter what he does, at the end of the day, he’s Barack Obama and she’s Hilary Clinton.

And that’s why this election is over, when it comes down to it.

Hindsight on Iraq

Republicans don’t often talk about the elephant in the living room of this whole Iraq affair: whether we should have gone in or not in the first place. It’s obvious enough to about 95% of Republicans that staying is a necessity, but should we have gone in? I think some 80% of Republicans supported it at the time, but how many of us are having second thoughts? I know I am. It was highly convincing at the time and I think we made the right call with regards to the intelligence that we had.

But what if we’d known that Iraq evidently didn’t have or, at least, didn’t have nearly as many WMD’s as we had thought (they may have been there, they may still be there, but it looks as if, until further notice, most of our intelligence was flawed)? What if we’d known that Iraq’s ties to terrorists weren’t nearly as strong as Iran’s? Assuming we’d know all that, what would we have done differently?

I now believe that going into Iraq was a mistake. Not a terrible one, but in hindsight, two other countries warranted more serious consideration, in my view: North Korea and Iran. Iran warrants such consideration for its meddling in Afghanistan as well as its attempted bullying of the Persian Gulf Arab states, all U.S. allies. Iran’s continued support of anti-Israeli terrorist organizations is another factor.

Those are all convincing enough on the surface, but most of Iran’s sins didn’t happen until the Iraq war did. (I’m not excusing them or saying they wouldn’t have happened eventually, I’m just saying that we had no idea if they’d happen in Spring of 2003.) That’s why I believe North Korea should’ve been the target of a U.S. invasion, if one had to happen.

North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006. Prior to that, it had been repeatedly beating its chest about its nuclear program and how it would soon have a nuclear weapon. North Korea was bragging about its most powerful of WMD’s while Saddam was suing for his own innocence in that area. Nuclear proliferation is the most important foreign-policy issue of our time. So why wasn’t North Korea’s nuclear program, clearly much further along than Saddam’s WMD programs, given more attention?

Many reasons made North Korea a much more complex issue than Iraq. To start, North Korea’s military was and is infinitely more efficient and competent than Saddam’s in 2003 Iraq. Of course, I doubt it’d last more than 2 months against the combined United States and South Korean forces, but the military casualties on all would’ve been much, much heavier. That’s bad PR, as you know, and ever since Desert Storm, Americans have been spoiled to the kind of low-casualty, quick and clean wars that come two or three times a century.

Even more complicating was the issue of civilian casualties. Though it’s difficult to gauge city’s populations for a number of reasons, I’m pretty sure the general consensus is that the world’s six largest cities are Shanghai (China), Tokyo (Japan), New York (I hope you know), Seoul (South Korea), Sau Paulo (Brazil), and Mexico City (I hope you know this one, too). Seoul is the immediate target of North Korea’s aggression. That’s because it is only about 20 miles south of the North Korean-South Korean border, well within range of North Korean conventional artillery. Seoul would take great damage inevitably and would also possibly be the target of a nuclear weapon (if not, Tokyo, a city which, with its outskirts, isn’t much smaller than California in population, would be next in line).

Basically, it would get very messy very fast, if the United States’ air force couldn’t take out North Korea’s nuclear launch sites fast enough. However, North Korea had no known nuclear weapons in 2003. Conventional weapons could possibly have harmed South Korea and even Japan, but not anything like nuclear ones would.

Ah, but North Korea didn’t have anything to do with terrorists, you might say!

North Korea actually had everything to do with terrorists, simply because they are terrorists. In fact, like the Taliban, they are the worst kind of terrorists: those who have unlimited power to enforce their terror over a large population. Al Qaeda’s most efficient terror is a few car bombs, or, when they’re at their evil “best”, an attack like 9/11. The North Korean government holds an entire country under lock and key. All the horrors of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany combined live on today in North Korea: concentration camps, dissidents being tortured and murdered, the total repression of free speech or religion, the lack of any real press, etc. North Korea gets so little attention for these things because it gets so little attention in general due to its existence as the most sealed nation in the world. What comes in is completely controlled and minimal. What goes out is almost nothing.

The most pertinent point regarding the idea of invading North Korea instead of Iraq is that an invasion of North Korea would not advance the War on Terror. That’s true, in a way. However, I do ask you, in the long term: what do you think North Korea’s going to start doing when it has significant stockpiles of nukes? What would help its permanently-struggling economy? To sell them, of course, or at least their technology. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda, Russian separatists, Hamas, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba… it doesn’t matter to the Koreans.

(The Saudi Arabians will be the first in line, partially due to their great wealth. If a Democratic president is elected in 2008, the Saudis will have extra incentive to purchase a nuclear weapon, as that means that the U.S. has a much smaller commitment to winning in Iraq and protecting them, and it means Iran is almost guaranteed to get nuclear weapons; something that scares the daylights out of the Saudis.)

If Al Qaeda gets its hands on a North Korean nuclear weapon, as difficult as that would be compared to the higher bidders out there, or learns how to build a weapon from North Korean scientists, we’re going to find out just how much North Korea has to do with the War on Terror real fast.

What’s worse is that North Korea is possibly already setting off a chain reaction in the Far East. We don’t know for sure, but it’s not a stretch to imagine South Korea, Japan and Taiwan getting edgy about China and North Korea (one country bent on an empire of sorts and another country with a crazy rogue dictator who cares nothing for his people) being the only two countries with nuclear weapons in their region. Much like with the Saudi Arabian-Iranian relationship, if America is not committed to defending its friends against the bad guys, they’re going to defend themselves, likely by obtaining nuclear weaponry. (I have no problem with countries being able to defend themselves, but you can’t keep increasing the number of nuclear armed nations without limit and expect nobody to use one eventually.) And why should Japan, South Korea and Taiwan trust us when Iraq couldn’t (that is, if a Democrat is elected)?

Make no mistake, I support winning in Iraq unconditionally and don’t regret it too much. I simply feel taking care of the North Korean problem is greater in the United States’ long term interests as well as the world’s. Iraq, however, if we win it, will have turned out to not be the kind of mistake that I wish we could make all the time: we will have drawn Al Qaeda into semi-open conflict and beat them soundly in a country whose religious and ethnic stability is much worse than any other country in the world (a dream scenario for Al Qaeda). If we do that, Iraq may have indeed turned out to be the better choice. If not, it’s going to have been an awful one.

East and South Asia, however, are where the U.S. needs to turn its eyes to next.

Obama’s Wright Problem Returns

Barack Obama’s latest troubles include our old friend, Reverend Wright. Wright has now resurfaced, looking, if possible, even more crazed, angry and ignorant than before. This time, he did it in front of the National Press Club and, whilst cheered wildly on by many blacks present, mocked Dick Cheney’s patriotism, obviously regretted nothing, and reiterated his prior points.

Further compounding the situation, a new piece of a sermon preached in 2003, evidently, has emerged. In this one, our favorite preacher is expressing his hate for the war in Iraq. But that’s not it: he goes on to speak of how the U.S. Marines, or rather our U.S. Marines, are the “exact same as Al Qaeda, doing the exact same things as Al Qaeda under a different flag”. He also says we are doing the same holy war as Al Qaeda and simply praying to a different God. Keep in mind that Wright did not say this newly at any of his recent media engagements, but instead said this years ago. Obama also has not, to my knowledge, denied hearing this directly in the church (I’ve not seen him asked about it).

How has Obama reacted? He’s hurt. Hurt that Wright is personally betraying him and their relationship has now changed. Not because Wright said anything new. (The only thing he said new was the idea that black children have a wholly different way of learning than white children because of a fundamentally different mind, in the context of it as an excuse for black children being less successful than whites in school.) Obama is mad because Wright has now said it likely in direct defiance of Obama’s pleas with him to shut up and go away. This textbook case of narcissism speaks clearly: Obama can tolerate anyone as long as they hate someone or something other than him, but when you take the fight to his door, it angers him. Well, “anger” isn’t truly the right word, I think. “Offended” is much better for describing his demeanor. (I wonder sometimes if Obama is actually capable of any anger, so above-it-all he thinks himself.) Basically, he’s ok with it when his crazed Rottweiler is mauling his neighbors, but it is only when it bites him that he takes it seriously.

Even more telling is Obama’s statement that this Wright is “not the man I knew 20 years ago.”

Oh, really? Because Wright now doesn’t have the grace to keep his radical views to himself and help a brother out, and instead is saying these things repeatedly and in the open to the detriment of Obama? Obama’s sudden repulsion is laughable. Does he think that just because something was said a long time ago, it can be shrugged off, even if the person doesn’t apologize or change his mind? That would be consistent with the fact that Obama has “friendly” relations with an ex-domestic terrorist, William Ayers, who says he didn’t do enough to take down the United States. His excuse for that is “I was 8 years old when he bombed the Pentagon.”

And I was 4 years old when Timothy McVeigh bombed Oklahoma City. If he were still alive, never caught, and wishing he had done more, I would never so much as shake his hand. Not when I’m 17, not when I’m 77. Obama’s calling age as an excuse is essentially making the statement “I didn’t know about it when it happened, so it’s ok for me to continue to pretend to not know about it now, even though I know about it.”

The average six year old has better logic than that.

In conclusion, all of these things are, again, not a question of patriotism but of judgment and perspective. We have a man running for president who’s only offended enough to get off of his rear by “God D*** America,” only offended by “the U.S. Marines and Al Qaeda are the same,” and “the government created AIDS to kill off people of color,” when they are to his harm during a campaign, not when they are made in a sermon to a congregation of thousands, including children. He’s a man who thinks that because he was 8 years old when William Ayers was murdering and destroying out of hate for this country, it’s an excuse for being friendly with Ayers 35 years later.

And he’s the exact same man who wants to sit down and have tea with Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il, and Mahmoud Amendenijad, murderers and dictators all (the last two of which, it is important to note, have attempted to spread nuclear technology to anti-American states and have killed many American soldiers by supplying insurgents with weaponry in Iraq, respectively). He’s the same man that wishes to be the most powerful individual in the world. The same man to run your healthcare, run a war for our freedom, jostle with Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao for global supremacy, keep our military running, and protect this country from Osama Bin Laden and company.

You make the call.

Limbaugh

While listening to Rush Limbaugh today, I heard him have a conversation with a caller who was denouncing Limbaugh’s comments that we Republicans “want there to be riots in the street like 1968” at the Democratic convention. The caller’s points were numerous: he first made the point that people and property get damaged in riots. After that, he stated that it’s going to look bad to the rest of the world if we’re having riots over elections here in the heart of democracy. Finally, he said that’s not what we want because we want unity, not division in our country.

I thought his points were pretty good, on the whole, especially the first and second. Rush, however, decried the second and third. I agree somewhat with Limbaugh regarding the third point: division within the Democratic Party is not the same as division within the country. However, the conclusion Rush further drew is that America is not about unity: it’s about ideas competing and forcing their way through the process to see who will win. That’s only honestly true as it pertains to peace, and that is something we miss here in America: democracy, freedom, and war are a trio of events/ideas that exist extremely tenuously. During all of America’s wars, there have only been three in which Americans did not have a complete outpouring of support for the war: Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. See a pattern? A tie, a loss, and an undecided, as of now.

My point is that in modern war, only the state who controls and combines the political, economic and military forces of its territory may win. Any country who lacks any of these three components will lose a war against an opponent who has them. The Soviet Union combined all three by having them be one, during the Second World War: political propaganda and anger towards the Germans fueled the Russian people to support the war unhesitatingly, the Soviet economy was simply another branch of its government, and its military was easily in the top 5 most effective of all time. The United States created an equally effective military through great support for the war, and an amiable and respectful relationship between government and business.

To call upon division as Limbaugh blatantly does is excellent, commendable and preferable in peace, but in war, it is to invite disaster. Douglas MacArthur, a man who knew a thing or two about war, once said that “it is fatal to enter a war without the will to win it.” Another man who knew something of war, Abraham Lincoln, once famously stated that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” (though perhaps this quotation was targeted not at war but at running a country, it applies to war as well). We cannot win a war without at least 80% of the public behind it, and that is why unity is so critical now.

The caller’s second point, that question of what the world will see when they see the Democrats rioting in the streets, was another highly valid one. Limbaugh, characteristic of his simplistic analysis of foreign policy, said “screw the world!” of course, asking the caller if he was just “trying to please the Europeans.” He took the caller’s point wrong, in my opinion. Of course we shouldn’t make our decisions or care much what the Europeans think: they already hate us. They always will, most likely. Europe is not the world, however. In fact, it is very, very far from it. What does it say to Iraq? What does it say to Afghanistan? What does it say to struggling Africans who wish to democratize their countries? What does it say to Venezuelans? What does it say to the Tibetans who struggle for freedom? What does it say to Russian democrats who are hoping to some day be like us? What happens when Iran and North Korea play videos and show images of the riots to their people as propaganda? Limbaugh doesn’t answer that because he still thinks that when you talk about what the world thinks, you’re worrying about Germany, Britain, and France.

The Europeans may draw whatever conclusions they please: they are allies, trading partners and little else. In fact, it is Limbaugh whose conclusions about Europe’s importance are wrongheaded: their individual importance is already eclipsed by the United States, Russia, Japan, China and India. Japan and China are extremely major U.S. trading partners, Russia still holds the distinction of being the only other major nuclear superpower in the world, and the up-and-coming India is the world’s largest democracy. Indeed, why do we still focus so much of both our like and dislike, approval and disapproval, love and hate, on our Western European partners? I’m not entirely sure.

In any case, though, riots at the Democratic convention, while they may be in Republican’s best interests, are not in America’s best interests.

Beck

There was a time long, long ago, in a living room not too far away, when I saw Glenn Beck’s TV show and found him refreshing, insightful and entertaining. Alas, that day is no more. Beck is known for his passionate warnings (read: alarmism) and fancies himself a great whistleblower when no one else is. I once called Glenn Beck an airhead, and I stand by that statement. Beck is not a stereotypical airhead, understand me, but he is the type of airhead that, like most conservative talk show hosts, has no stomach for facts and objective truth. Furthermore, he’s also a terrible debater (like most talk show hosts), which is why 9/10 guests he invites on he invites on to agree with him. His lack of understanding is especially scary when he doesn’t know his own power.

My biggest quibble with Beck is his handling of our economic “crisis”. He blows the horn every night, sounding the evils of our impending depression (he sometimes says it will be worse than the Great Depression) and warning us all that our economy is going down in flames. By the way, our culture is going down in flames due to illegal immigration, all the liberals are fascists that are trying to take us down, Hilary Clinton is a raging Communist, big business is waging an enormous conspiracy to destroy America’s sovereignty, and Iran has the power right now to annihilate the United States in two weeks. That’s what you’d think if you watched Glenn Beck’s show.

Like any good lies, all of these have some truth to them. Our economy is in a bit of trouble, our culture is degrading slightly due to illegal immigration, some liberals are fascists whether they realize it or not, Hilary Clinton harbors some Communistic tendencies, big business is unintentionally damaging our nation’s sovereignty to some small degree, and Iran is a threat. But that’s the problem with Beck: not only does he hardly ever dwell on solutions, but he overstates problems to such an enormous level that they sometimes are self-fulfilling prophecies.

Take the economy. Beck has been saying it’s all going to crash soon, as have a couple of others, and he complains that others won’t say it in public but know it. No, Mr. Beck, this little slow in growth (that’s what it is, a slow in growth, we have not had net decrease in GDP in years upon years) is not the start of the next Great Depression. It is going to be worse than it might be because of people like you complaining 24/7 about how awful it is, even when it’s not that awful. The market is all about perception: it’s what influences stock purchases, money spending, etc. and that’s what runs the market. Beck and others raging about how awful it is will NOT help under ANY circumstances.

Another smaller complaint I have with Beck is his decrying the raunchy commercials advertising some new TV show on one of those really-high numbered channels that’s pretty sexual. Fair enough. The problem is that he’s showing the ads all over on his TV show, just like Bill O’Reilly does (I can only hope that Beck didn’t show it over… and over… and over… and over like O’Reilly does). How are you supposed to combat them if you don’t show them? I’m not really sure. But I have another question: how are you supposed to combat them if you do show them? Is Beck’s aim even to combat them, or is he trying to turn heads and gain viewers, both of the “Jesus wouldn’t like that, I wish this was the old glory days, America is a bunch of pagans today,” type and the “wow, cool!” type? What’s he trying to accomplish? Raised awareness? What’s that awareness going to do? What is Beck thinking?

Probably not much. Beck has stated that the rationale for his program is that most people already know the news of the day before the 6-7 time slot, they just want to know what to think about it. If only his program acted upon this. When you watch his show, you’re not being told what to think or do about the news of the day, you’re being shown the personal reaction of an entertaining guy to the news that day. That’s all it is.

Perhaps people like that, evidently quite a few do. I, however, watch the news to get a mix of learning and learnt opinions regarding the facts. That’s the same reason I subscribe to the National Review and Weekly Standard: intelligent, well thought out opinions being expressed in a rational ways detailing both a start of a problem or success, the middle of it, and their recommendation to end the problem or prolong the success.

Which is why, I am sad to say, I no longer intend to take Glenn Beck seriously.

 Democracy and Dreams

We in America profess strongly our love for democracy in all kinds of ways. We love our democracy dearly, or so we claim, but why is it that a man who acts as if it is completely ok for someone to be ashamed of our political process is the frontrunner of the presidential race? When Michelle Obama espoused her idea that she had not been proud of our political process since she became an adult (though she initially, of course, claimed to not be proud of our country at all until her adulthood), Obama jumped in to clarify that she meant our political process, as if that would make it all ok.

Why isn’t she proud of it? If you profess that democracy is the greatest system of government in history, shouldn’t one be proud of the most perfected form of it in the world, which is the United States’ political process? But she’s not. Why? I can only produce one answer: because we’re not perfect.

That is the great problem with dreamers in a democracy. They are dissatisfied, disappointed, and ashamed of anything less than perfection in all things. They are particularly dangerous in a democracy or any place that is not rigorously ordered because they will espouse their ideology and ideas, some of which are highly dangerous, everywhere.

Case in point: Russia during World War 1. Czar Nicholas II of Russia had a weakening grip over his vast, heavily populated country after its defeat at the hands of the Germans. Ideological dreamers we now call Communists ran wild, espousing their belief in a perfect government. After the war, the Russian Royal family was too weakened to maintain order, and was overthrown by the Communist rebels. We know the story from then on out, and this is simply one example of a dream, so noble on the face of it, gone horribly wrong.

I’m not making the case for the Czars, though their government was undoubtedly was many times less harsh than Communism. I’m making the case that anyone who says anything, including and even especially government, can be perfect, or even 95% perfect, is wrong and that idea is deeply dangerous. I’m making the case for satisfaction (something I think America has lost sight of entirely for the past 60 years) with the greatest democracy, the greatest government, ever seen by men. Contrary to what Hilary Clinton says, some people have gotten things by dreaming, but these things received were as often evil as they were good, regardless of the moral content of the dreams.

The Obama’s dream is that of a people whose hope is in the Obamas. That is the simple truth of it. Think about it. When Obama says, “I’m not asking people to take a chance on me, I’m asking them to take a chance on their dreams and aspirations,” he’s repackaging the ancient political request, “vote for me” to make it sound much more glamorous (and I wouldn’t go beyond accusing him of playing the race card in that sentence, after all, what other dream could he be talking about than an African-American president?) What are you really doing, by taking a chance on dreams? You’re voting for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Period. There’s no getting around it. He is asking you to take a chance on him, no matter what he says, because that’s where his ideas lead to via a logical progression. You will vote for Obama if you are to take a chance on your dreams because Obama is your dreams and aspirations.

All of this dreaming is dangerous for many reasons. The first of these reasons involves the most fundamental difference there is between liberals and conservatives: liberals believe America is inherently flawed and must be fixed by government, conservatives believe America is inherently good and must be allowed to work its further good by the government. That Obama acts as if his wife’s shame about our political process is completely acceptable puts him firmly inside the liberal side of that divide. The dreaming is dangerous, then, because if our electoral process, one of the cleanest and best in the world, is shameful and must be fixed by government, where does that take us, exactly? How is Obama going to improve it? Given his professed extraordinary taste for politics of any kind but a vague “hope”, I am left with some very dark thoughts.

Should all of this danger stop us from ever dreaming? Of course not. We may dream away, in a realistic context. My point is that this dream that Obama is selling must be scrutinized to the utmost degree, because the dream of his, the dream of a Kingdom of Heaven on earth and a perfect government bringing it, is a dream that has killed millions and destroyed nations. Scrutinized does not meant rejected, necessarily, though it probably will, but it means we must look with a jaded cynic’s eye on everything a politician says. Obama, in fact, warrants heavier criticism than most politicians because he rails against the jaded eye (he favors the hopeful, teary type of eye, and both have a place in democracy, both are necessary to create the irreplaceable balance between truth/fact and hope/faith that they do, but Obama fails to realize this). He professedly can’t stand cynicism and is all about hope, which is all the more reason for cynics to stiffen up. We hope for the best (that he isn’t anything we think he is) but we plan for the worst (that he’s everything we think he is). 

The Olympics and China

As you no doubt know, the Olympics are being held in China this year, much to many people’s chagrin. China is a human rights violator to a large degree, with its militant invasion and repression of Tibet to its southwest being the most obvious violation. Furthermore, it holds no semblance of a democracy, and has perpetually been trying to control, using brutal and soft methods, any religions within its borders (it has a very sizable Christian minority, with smaller groups of Muslims, Buddhists and other religious groups present as well, and all are repressed). Their domination of Tibet, continued threatening of Taiwan, ever-looming threat to Japan, and their ally and step-brother North Korea’s threatening of South Korea are all grave concerns to the United States.

China’s objective is obvious enough: an East Asian empire. But I can save that geopolitical discussion for another day. Right now, the issue is what to do about the crackdown in Tibet. What I believe is necessary is to, like France has openly spoken of, boycott the opening ceremony. We must also threaten a boycott of the Olympics themselves, if China does not open up its western regions to the media and cease the bloodshed. We must follow this up with continued private pressure on China to lighten up on its religious oppression and to begin the start of democratic processes within their government. Traditional, State Department bureaucratic wisdom is that China will become more capitalist and democratic with time. It will likely become more capitalist, as it has. But what we’re seeing China attempt is something that has never succeeded (and to my knowledge, even been tried): capitalistic-Communism with a dictatorship. The only ideology behind these seemingly contradictory doctrines is success, both in economics and military power.

Capitalism is often a given direction that countries and peoples tend towards: it is the most basic of human economies. Capitalism is something that happens when government oppression and control of the market doesn’t happen. Government oppression and control of the market is highly difficult and generally illogical, and this is why every country leans towards capitalism. Democracy, on the other hand, is not something we all naturally move towards. It is something that, for most cultures of the world, thousands of years of culture and sometimes religion lean against. How many times has China been ruled by a democracy? None. How much has China had mostly-free markets? The majority of its history, most likely. The only society in the world where democracy is truly ingrained is in Greece, its birthplace. (Democracy rails against human nature because it is equality, and superiority is in every human’s instinct rather than equality). That is why democracy is not something that happens naturally, it is something that must have a conscious force behind it, whereas capitalism needs only unconscious force (though conscious force helps as well) to succeed.

That is why, this year and for years to come, we must take it upon ourselves to be that conscious force that pushes democracy in China, and we can’t simply expect it to happen. A good start would be a strong showing of pressure to end the terror in Tibet.

Condescension 101

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." – Barack Obama, at a fundraiser in San Francisco.

You have, no doubt, heard of this many times on the news. You probably understand how insulting this quote is as well. As a religious gun owner, I find the notion that I “cling” to these things due to economic depression insane. Americans have been religious and owned guns since the founding of our country, and for good reasons. When one uses the word cling, one spawns images of a person in a shipwreck desperately clinging to a board or a barrel, or perhaps one thinks of a child holding desperately onto their toy as someone tries to pry it out of their hands. Either one of these images used as an explanation of why I believe in my faith or why I own guns is absolutely insulting. Just as insulting is the idea that economically depressed people in small towns are universally bigoted towards “people who aren’t like them”. But you’ve heard of all this already.

What you may not have heard of is the book What’s the Matter With Kansas? This book, by Thomas Frank, asks the question of why Kansans are some of the most conservative people in the nation. It shows a common strain in liberalism’s latest trends that Obama’s comments are in line with: middle-class, religious whites vote Republican because of, essentially, fear of secular progressives, fear of gun control, hatred of abortion, and fear of gays. Basically, middle class whites are too stupid to see the truth of liberalism because evil Republicans blind them with talk of gays and guns. They don’t see the “real”
 issues at stake here, and they have to be helped.

This is what Obama was communicating to his crowd of San Franciscans: that these rednecks in Pennsylvania like their guns and their Jesus and don’t like those Mexicans or gays, and that’s why they vote Republican.

And Democrats wonder why they consistently lose the white, middle-class religious vote? It’s partially because of condescending statements like this. In fact, I might even be willing to go so far as to accuse Obama of prejudice against lower-class whites, something no one else seems to want to do. I saw Pat Buchanan on MSNBC (my brother was in charge of the remote, forgive me) shortly after this happened saying that if it was John McCain in Chicago saying this about blacks, there would be a firestorm, and that it’s only ok to say this type of thing when you’re picking on low-class whites.

As for just what is the matter with Kansas and other people outside the state who may share Kansans’ views, it is not that Republicans blind them with guns and gays issues. How it started is that these people simply decided that Republicans and conservatism represented their views better. So they got to voting that way for some time, and then the liberal attacks started. Liberals and their predecessors, Progressives, have been attempting to belittle their opposition for all time. Indeed, conservatives have been guilty of it often, too. But liberals, unable to see how people can see what they see and disagree, have made this a habit when talking about religious, white middle/lower class voters.

This pattern is only perpetuated by their arrogance, and Barack Obama, contrary to his promises to unite the country, is playing this game once again.

One More Thing…

“You’re only taking two or three sentences and using it to condemn a man who spoke millions upon millions of words in his sermons!” – Everyone defending Jeremiah Wright.

I’ve heard this argument a couple of times lately, and indeed, Barack Obama himself used it. This hypocrisy is palpable. Were these not the same people calling for Don Imus’ head? Were these not the same people demanding Trent Lott resign? I’ll list the comments each man said that inflamed so many people and let you make the call on which statements are more condemning, which ones are more resignation worthy, and which ones are more controversial.

(Italics are used here to denote the emphasis the speaker used in each quote)

“So I was watching the women’s NCAA championship last night… those Rutgers girls looked tough. Like some nappy headed ho’s.” – Don Imus

“If Strom Thurmond had been elected back then, we wouldn’t have a lot of the problems we have today.” – Trent Lott

“Should we sing God Bless America? No, no, no, God d*** America! That’s in the Bible!” –Jeremiah Wright

“Hilary has never been called a n*****!” – Jeremiah Wright

“Barack [Obama] knows what it’s like to be a black man livin’ in a country run by rich! White! People!”- Jeremiah Wright

“[These] Whiteys…” – Jeremiah Wright.

“The government lied about the AIDS virus when they made it to destroy people of color! – Jeremiah Wright.

“9/11 was America’s chickens coming home to roost!” – Jeremiah Wright.

“Jesus was a poor, black man being oppressed by the rich white men!” – Jeremiah Wright

“The Romans, which meant they were Italian, which meant they were white, [simply] stared down their garlic noses at Jesus…” – Jeremiah Wright

I rest my case.

McCain Vs. Obama

Obama and the Democrats have recently been ripping McCain for his 100 years comment regarding Iraq. Obama, especially, has been distorting him ridiculously, claiming repeatedly that McCain wants a hundred years of war in Iraq, when McCain clearly said 100 years “as long as Americans are not being killed and wounded”, meaning that McCain would like 100 years of some kind of U.S. military presence in Iraq, much like we’ve had military presence in Germany and Japan for 60 years, South Korea for 50 years, and Kuwait for 17 years (McCain actually used these examples in his original statement).

What this is, on Obama’s part, is typical election politics. I don’t blame him. It’s what politicians do; it’s part of the game. What I blame Obama for is claiming to be different when, just like a standard politician, he is distorting McCain’s words to the extreme. To say that McCain wants a hundred years of war is an outright falsehood, McCain has already reputed that idea multiple times and clarified himself again and again (even though, if one actually reads or hears his words, his intent is clear enough in the original form). We have a term for a person who claims to be above something and different from something and yet participates in it: hypocrite. In fact, we have two words, and the second is liar.

This McCain-Obama scuffle here is just a taste of what we’re going to see come the general election. But another taste is in Obama’s claim that McCain represents “the politics of the past”. I don’t expect the air headed college students at his rallies to question just what he means by that, and I don’t expect the fawning media to, either. So I am left to wonder just what on earth he means by “politics of the past,” and how on earth McCain represents them. Are the politics of the past compromising sometimes to get things done? Making realistic assessments and suggestions for national security? Leading members of both parties to get things done? Speaking your mind, almost no matter what is on it, to the American people? Staking your campaign on something few others believed in at the time but you knew was right? Fighting against wasteful spending within the federal government?

If all of that is the past for Obama, I’m not sure I want to know what the future is.

Obama doesn’t offer a further explanation, naturally, because he’s just trying to take a cheap shot at McCain. What he’s really talking about is age, here. McCain has, in absolutely no way, been pushing the politics of the past for his life in public service. Rather, he represents many of the timeless values that all Americans hold: individualism, honor, commitment, and honesty. Obama’s only shot boils down to age. You can argue whether that’s a legitimate criticism, if you please, but if Obama wants to critique McCain on age, why won’t he come out and do it openly? Instead, like everything else he does, it’s just sugar coated, knife-in-the-dark attacks against his opponent. Once again, I accept knife-in-the-dark attacks as legitimate enough. But Obama’s claim to be above it, once the pretty surface is ripped off, is outright false, just like his charges against McCain’s 100 year statement. 

The Pakistani Problem

Al Qaeda’s largest stronghold in the world right now is not in Afghanistan, and it’s not in Iraq: it’s in the northern strip of Pakistan. Pakistan, though you probably already knew this, is just south of Afghanistan, west of India, southeast of Iran, and north of the Indian Ocean. It’s a country of about 120 million people, is almost entirely Muslim, has a professional, well-equipped military, and some 60 nuclear weapons. It is a U.S. ally led by the sort of half-dictator, half-elected official, a style of leader that is becoming more and more popular these days (his name is Pervez Musharraf). Musharraf is pro-America and has been a pretty good friend, as far as friends go, to our country and our fight against Islamic extremism.

The problem is that he is lonely in his country: most of them have strong sympathies with Al Qaeda’s cause, for one reason or another, and dislike America to some degree. Now, it’s been said that as long as Musharraf has the support of the three A’s (Allah, the Pakistani Army, and America) he can remain in power indefinitely.

Musharraf wants to help the United States in its war on terror; he realizes it is in Pakistan’s best interests to do so, but his hands are tied by an unwilling populace. Al Qaeda’s sanctuary areas are in the northern and western regions of Pakistan, those regions close to the border of Afghanistan, and Musharraf attempted to send the military in once in order to defeat them. This was a highly unpopular move, however: not only do his people sympathize with Al Qaeda, but his military was uneasy about killing “fellow Muslims”. Musharraf then worked out a deal giving these northern and western regions, infested by Al Qaeda, a kind of semi-sovereignty where he wouldn’t mess with them, and they wouldn’t mess with him.

The problem is that Osama Bin Laden and company are all in those areas, and America needs to go after them. Al Qaeda’s Iraqi regiment is being scattered badly by the American (almost) victory there, and countries like Somalia, Morrocco and other north African countries are where the small remnants are headed. Bin Laden’s wing of Al Qaeda, the older, in-charge wing that caused 9/11 directly, is primarily regrouped in Pakistan once they were kicked out of Afghanistan.

So if Musharraf can’t handle it, who can? Barack Obama suggests invading these areas of Pakistan and hoping the rest of Pakistan just understands what we’re doing. This is idiotic: Pakistanis sympathize with Al Qaeda and they don’t view their country as separate entities at all. If we invade Pakistan, we’ll be invading Pakistan. Musharraf won’t want to fight back, but his people may not give him a choice (even dictators must answer to the mob, if they cannot control it sufficiently). We would win against Pakistan, of course, but it would require a mass draw-down of forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a new occupation and a new insurgency. Obama’s plan, while it sounds nice on paper, is ridiculous in reality when one considers that Obama won’t have the guts to fight an insurgency.

There’s no good answer to Pakistan, in the end. My only idea would be to beef up special operations incursions into Pakistan as well as airstrikes, two things that won’t provoke war but won’t let Al Qaeda off of the hook. Furthermore, some kind of isolation of that region of Pakistan is in order, meaning that our own CIA and NSA intelligence services must work hard to track anything or anyone coming in and out of Pakistan, with Pakistani intelligence’s help. In the long haul, these measures, with continuous pressure on Musharraf to crack down on terrorists as much as he can without upsetting his populace, are the only ways to deal with terrorists in Pakistan directly. Direct military force must be placed entirely on defeating the terrorists in Afghanistan itself, which is something we can and hopefully will do. 

Want to Have a Conversation on Race?

Ever since Barack Obama’s speech on race, people everywhere have been blathering about starting a new conversation on race, or perhaps the first conversation on race. The idea that we have not ever had conversations about race is preposterous: pundits have been talking about race for the last 60 years almost incessantly. But there is no way to have a true national dialogue on race: you can’t have 315 million people (the illegal immigrants surely will want a say as well) talking at once. Each of the 315 million people harbors their own individual opinions upon race, and that is why the term conversation is flawed in and of itself.

Here’s another couple of facts: whites generally don’t care to talk about race. The majority of Hispanics don’t, either, and I’ve yet to see any Asians care about it. In fact, blacks are the only ethnic group that cares to talk about race on the whole, and they tend to only wish to speak of it as it pertains to white racism. Hispanics, a minority group much larger than blacks, and Asians, a minority group that will be larger than blacks in the not-too-distant future, are largely left out of the conversation that blacks want to have. How can you have a national conversation about race when 20% of the country’s opinions are, at the very least, shoved aside?

A factual look at the history of Asian-Americans and Hispanics shows that they have, since Reconstruction, faced almost as much prejudice and racism as blacks have from whites. Many Chinese and Mexican immigrants were not welcomed by employers in the west and southwest, and there were many laws in place in these regions that rivaled Jim Crowe in the south. The internment of Japanese-Americans during World War 2 was one of the greatest civil rights violations in American history, and was committed against Asians only.

I’m not making the case that any minority has faced what blacks have, as a whole. I’m saying that I’ve yet to see many Hispanic or Asian rights activist on TV, definitely not in the numbers that there are for black rights (interesting, considering that Asians and Hispanics combined outnumber blacks 2-1). Heck, you don’t even see any Native Americans on TV complaining. Proportionally speaking, within the last 140 years, Hispanic, Native and Asian Americans have a remarkably low ratio of complaints-to-injustices when compared to blacks.

The reason whites don’t want to talk about race is multi-fold. There is the most obvious of reasons: some blacks often get trigger-happy when it comes to shouting racist. When Don Imus used the term “nappy-headed hoes” to describe a women’s college basketball team of 14 blacks and 1 white, he was publicly executed, in a sense (never mind the fact that he commented that their opposing team of similar racial make up was “pretty cute”, therefore almost wholly nullifying the notion that he, personally is a racist). What Imus said was stupid and insulting, but if a black man said a similar thing about white women, he would’ve gotten suspended a week or two at worst. That’s because there are no white head-hunters whose job it is to race-bait and go after anyone who says anything insensitive, like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. There is no National American Association for White Peoples, either. Though there are similar organizations for Asians and Hispanics, they do not hold nearly the prestige and power that the NAACP and Sharpton do, and in fact, I suspect most Hispanics and Asians don’t care to associate with their ethnic organizations.

I think another reason whites don’t like to talk about race is that it makes us angry and frustrated. This frustration stems from the fact that many blacks, at the same time, beg for rescue from the ghetto and blame whites for their being in the ghetto. Many blacks seem to spend a lot of time looking inward and glorifying their own culture or abilities, and they seem to spend plenty of time looking outward at white racism, but at the same time, they tend to ignore two things: what they are doing wrong, and what whites are doing right. I believe one fundamental difference in white and black American cultures is that while white Americans view their individual identity as superseding their identity as whites on every level, every time, while blacks tend to view their blackness as superseding their individual, or being so fundamental a part of it that it theoretically supersedes their individual. To give it a formula, my description of myself is a person who is an American of Caucasian descent. A black individual might describe themselves as a black person from, or even simply in, America. Being black is much more important to a black than being white is to a white, in other words, as far as blacks and whites see themselves. (I suspect this plays into the hesitancy by many mixed-race people like Obama to call themselves mixed race: the black parent and culture stresses blackness as a virtue and something of importance, the white parent and culture doesn’t really care, partially because they might be called racist if they did, and this hesitancy on the part of most mixed-race people leads me to admire other people like Tiger Woods, who, risking the ire of the black community, acknowledges and embraces his Asian and white blood and doesn’t call himself black.)

Whites are frustrated by this black obsession with blackness because it encompasses a deadly group think mentality: you’re one of us. Whites, as I implied before, tend to be individualistic by culture here in the U.S., and look on with great scorn when Jeremiah Wright and Michelle Obama bemoan the evils of “middle-class-ness” encouraging blacks to stay in the ‘hood, because if you don’t, you’re betraying your community and your race. We see the same thing when blacks excel in school, and are often ridiculed by other blacks for “acting white”. You can blame white racism all you want, but it is the culture of conformity-to-poverty (and the out-of-wedlock births, abortions and drug use that come with it) that truly damages blacks more than anything.

In my opinion, if blacks truly seek to integrate into American society and get to the top of Dr. King’s proverbial mountain, they must shed their confusing of authentic African-American culture with poverty, and if they are to succeed, they must do it themselves by integrating and assimilating into white-Asian-Hispanic culture. If that is not done, then they will continue to be that 10% of America that nobody wants to talk about.

 
Jeremiah Wright and Obama

You all have probably heard about Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s now-infamous sermons. He, of course, is the preacher at Barack Obama’s church, and has been known to say some nutty things. He’s been saying them for years, but apparently, the media was loathe to talk about it (MSNBC, CNN, ABC and CBS because they love the guy, and Fox because of fear of accusations of racism, most likely).

Wright is essentially a black nationalist. He hates America, admittedly so, and like many prominent blacks, honestly seems to believe that race is at the core of every issue. After 9/11, he ripped America for its evils and said it was just punishment, stated that AIDs is a disease created by “white America” to destroy blacks, and says that God Bless America should be changed to “God D*** America”.

Obama has been attending Wright’s church for 20-25 years. Wright conducted Obama’s marriage to his wife and baptized both of Obama’s children. Obama has put out a statement saying that not only was he not there the Sundays that Wright made these numerous statements, but that he disagrees vehemently with him.

What difference does it make whether Obama was there? What would he have done, confronted Wright in front of the entire multi-thousand person church? Walked out? Walking out would be admirable only if it were followed up by leaving the church and never setting foot in its doors again. Obama had to know, one way or another (if the comments Wright made were unusual, then wouldn’t someone in the congregation of 10,000 talked to Obama about them?) And if he didn’t, then he does now, and there’s no excuse for him to NOT switch churches. Wright has recently stepped down as the church’s preacher, but a presidential nominee for this country’s most honored position doesn’t belong at a church that would allow a man so bigoted to preach at their pulpit. Of every Democrat I’ve seen on TV trying to defend this, the best they can come up with is that George W. Bush spoke at Bob Jones’ University, which until recently has had an extremely racist past.

So maybe George W. Bush shouldn’t have spoken there. I understand that position. But does that compare to attending a church led by a racist not one Sunday, not until you figured out about his racism, but for 25 years, and allowing him to baptize your children and marry you to your wife, and accepting him as a spiritual advisor? No, it doesn’t.

As for Obama not hearing the comments, there is new evidence that he actually did know at least some of what Wright was saying. First off, he always states that he wasn’t in the pews when those words were said. That implies strongly that he knew something of what was being preached, because he simply says he didn’t hear the comments, not that he had no idea about them. If he had no idea they were being made, then he would’ve said so openly to resolve himself of the matter. Secondly, the church crowd was roaring and loving Wright’s speeches. Now, my church isn’t as openly expressive as Senator Obama’s, but if my preacher went into, say, an anti-Semitic rant, the only thing you could hear in the church was that stunned, awkward silence, and the preacher would be fired that afternoon. That’s because anti-Semitism is not tolerated in my church (neither would baselessly attacking America be tolerated). Anti-American rants are more than tolerated in Obama’s church: they are wildly applauded.

The next Democratic counterpoint, once again, is not at all a defense of Obama (a logical defense of his actions regarding his church is impossible), but accusations regarding McCain’s acceptance of John Hagee’s endorsement. John Hagee, a San Antonio preacher with what I call “End-Times-Syndrome” (that being the irrepressible obsession with interpreting Revelation and the end times so as to predict when the world will end), has stated that the Catholic Church is the “Great Whore of Babylon” mentioned in Revelation.

I encourage all of you to read the part in Revelation about the Great Whore of Babylon and see just how wrong Hagee is. But that’s beside the point. Hagee’s view of the Catholic Church is religious on every level; Wright’s view of the United States is political on every level. That’s not even mentioning that Hagee happened to endorse McCain, who likely has never attended his church, as opposed to Wright being Obama’s spiritual advisor for 20 or more years.

(I said my opinion on this fairly well here, but there’s a much better appraisal of this issue on The Weekly Standard’s website that I recommend: right here.)

Arrogance You Can Believe in

My prediction is that Obama will not leave his church. Why? Obama has shown a deeply disturbing pattern of arrogance in the way he deals with his problems. When confronted by Hilary Clinton in the last debate about his relations with Louis Farrakhan (the strongly anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam) and his refusal to reject Farrakhan’s support, Obama waved it off as a simple matter of semantics. When his wife faced trouble with her laughably ignorant anti-American comments, she hardly backed down at all, and had no apologies. Now that Obama is under pressure for his Chicago politicking past, he simply blows it off as a bit of poor judgment, and don’t we all have that sometimes? When Clinton confronted him in the debate about his plagiarizing from other politicians, he responded, “come on.”

Obama is soft, warm and fuzzy on the outside, and icily hard on the inside. We’re looking at a man who admits to no mistakes whatsoever, and never apologizes. Some folks do have this problem, especially politicians, but this continued and permanent hardness of the inside is what makes Obama the ultimate fair-weathered politician: he’s great when he has momentum; he’s awful when he’s thrown into a slugfest. That’s on the campaign trail, though. In the eight years most presidents spend in the Oval Office, about one or two years of it is spent with the wind at your back. In other words, it’s a longstanding slugfest between you and foreign leaders, you and terrorists, you and the military, you and your staff and Department heads, you and Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike, between you and three quarters of the country and four fifths of the world. The gridlock inducing gears of Washington will grind a self-centered man like Obama into dust, if given the chance. Presidents aren’t made by rousing speeches to buzzed college kids; they’re made through smashing your way through Washington as effectively as possible to do what you came to do. Woodrow Wilson had to shut down newspapers and propagandize the masses; Lincoln had to destroy half of the country; Reagan had to buck the conventional wisdom almost entirely at every turn; and Clinton had to weasel and lie his way through half the American public’s hatred.

Were all of those men great presidents? Of course not. But nobody denied their effectiveness at doing what they wanted. Only one normal (which is to say, excluding George Washington, whose status of American legend rightly had the masses at his feet) president has ever been effective at policy implementation by uniting a country, and that is Franklin Roosevelt. One president in 232 years of American politics has done it, and he was only able to do it by coming in during the greatest economic disaster in world history. Here’s to hoping Obama won’t be the second, and here’s why:

The problem with unifiers is that they have two deep flaws, those being ignorance and intolerance. Their ignorance is not that they don’t know enough, but that they ignore those who disagree with them on the basis that dissenters are not for unity. Their intolerance is based on that knack for dismissing any who disagree with them on the basis of being “against unity”. Obama, one could argue, really does listen to the other side. But does he really care what they say? Just because he listens to a pro-lifer doesn’t mean he will mitigate his pro-choice stance in any way, and the same applies to other issues. All Obama is trying to do is placate those who oppose him into thinking he’s on their side, even when he loses the War on Terror, encourages the deaths of the unborn, and ruins the country’s economy. He’s not reaching out, he’s running his mouth (which is far from the same thing). Obama’s not a unifier: he’s a hard leftist who will do anything, even if it includes deceiving independents and Republicans into thinking that he agrees with or respects them (he doesn’t agree with us, and when he pulls out of Iraq, appoints ultra-liberal Supreme Court justices that legislate from the bench, and raises taxes by large margins, his respect for any of our views will be totally irrelevant).

The government is not a place where mutual respect solves problems; it’s a place where if you’re not going to compromise, someone is going to have to win. It’s a mean business because it’s a deeply serious business (sorry, Michelle, Washington will always be mean and there’s nothing your husband can do about it).

Obama’s “unity” is just another ploy to win without compromising, and that’s what makes his flowery deception so incredibly disgusting.

Real Integrity

“Once again, we have a politician campaigning on integrity when he has none.” –Howard Dean, about John McCain.

Governor Dean, you never cease to amaze me, whether you’re screaming your head off after a loss, stating emphatically that George Bush is not your neighbor, telling a man twenty years your elder to shut up and sit down, or calling John McCain a liar, essentially. Dean did this because of McCain’s effort to get out of public funding. I’m not too clear on all the details of this whole affair, to be honest. But I do know that Dean, during his failed 2004 campaign, did almost exactly what McCain has done now, for starters. I also know that McCain is prompted to back out of public funding because Barack Obama is backing out of public funding, which Obama is doing because he’s realized how good at private fundraising he is.

Now, as for Dean claiming that McCain has no integrity, I do have more words on that. During a special one hour interview with Sean Hannity, John McCain related his story of capture and his time in the Vietnamese prison camps (I think it’s the 35 year anniversary of his release, coming up). He started by talking about how he crashed almost in the middle of Hanoi in north Vietnam, was dragged from his aircraft’s wreckage by an angry mob, which proceeded to break at least five bones and beat him severely (he stated he was very fortunate the Vietnamese authorities showed up when they did to “rescue” him). He went without medical attention for the better part of a week, when he first made it to the prison camp. A month or two into his tenure, his captors realized he was the son of an American Admiral, and offered to set him free. He refused.

When he was asked about why he didn’t accept this chance, he first cited United States military policy of “first come, first leave”, that it would be a direct violation of the rules to accept release before the men who came prior to him were released. McCain’s commitment to following military policy was impressive enough, but he had another reason, as well: he knew very well that the North Vietnamese weren’t fighting to win the war in a normal way, they were fighting a propaganda war. He knew that they would remind POW’s everywhere constantly that the son of the Admiral got out before they did, he knew that he would become a symbol for them of a weak but lucky American coward that only looked out for himself, and John McCain instead decided to become the opposite. He denied release, and said he was beat harshly and daily for the whole next month.

McCain stayed in that camp for the next 5 years. He bears all kinds of scars, both emotional and physical, from his awful tenure there, the most obvious of which is that he cannot raise his arms above his own head due to his broken shoulders that didn’t heal properly. But not all of McCain’s memories are heroic, from those camps: he was, after refusing for a long time (and being tortured continually for it), forced into sign a statement that said Americans were war criminals that had no place in Vietnam. He expressed, once he was released, a deep shame that haunts him still in committing this act, saying that he let down himself, his country, and his fellow servicemen. McCain gave in temporarily, but his hope was never crushed, and his spirit never truly broken. John McCain has said that he was inspired by his comrades, inspired by his patriotism, and inspired by his faith to hold as firm as humanely possible to his commitments in that Vietnamese prison.

That, Governor Dean, is integrity.

Why Obama’s Response Failed

So Obama gave a speech the other day in an attempt to clarify his relationship with Reverend Wright as well as to handle the discussion of race in America. He said generally what I expected and predicted above: he won’t distance himself from Wright, etc. But it was an awful speech for three reasons. The first is that he compared distancing himself from his bigoted, anti-American, hateful preacher to distancing himself from the black community.

Excuse me? Is he attempting to communicate that the ENTIRE black community is bigoted, anti-American, and hateful? A large part of it is, I believe. But to say that the black community mirrors Reverend Wright is to say that the Evangelical community mirrors Pat Robertson. In fact, the Wright-black community connection is even worse, because Robertson is generally more prominent (and normally more socially-acceptable) than Wright in evangelical circles.

I believe that there are two halves of black America (though I’m not sure as to the size of each): the Old half is led by men like Al Sharpton and Jeremiah Wright. It is living in 1960, remembering 1850, and can’t get over racism like white Americans have. The New half is the part that has gotten over racism, and is moving forward. So when someone asks “are we ready for a black president?” I immediately would answer, “which half is he from?” If the man is from the New half of black America, I would have no problem with voting for him on cultural grounds or view of race. If he’s from the Old half, then I have a deep problem voting for him, because he can’t see the way race has changed over the past 60 years, and will therefore be fighting the battles of 60 years ago. I believe I speak for almost all white Americans when I say this.

Obama was supposed to be from the New half of black America for many reasons: first of all, he’s not actually black, being half-white. Second of all, he’s from Honolulu, not exactly a place with history of prejudice. Third of all, he was raised by white grandparents in a white culture. Finally, he’s an Ivy League guy who graduated from Harvard law school. None of these things signifies any Old black American allegiances. Obama could’ve been almost a lock for the first president of significant African blood because of the fact that he was more a cross, both culturally and physically, between the New black America and white America, but the fact that he decided to attend Jeremiah Wright’s church may be what ends up stopping him. That’s because 90% of whites and Hispanics, whether they admit it or not, can’t stand the Old half of black America. In the words of Clarence Thomas (the leading proponent of the New black America), all the Old half of black America does is “B****, B****, moan, and whine.” Obama now is appearing less and less like a New black American or a white American, the kind Americans have been dying to vote for and have been voting for (respectively), but is appearing to be the Old kind of black American. That’s why this business with Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan is so important.

The second part of the speech that irked me was when Obama compared disowning Wright to disowning his grandmother on his mother’s side, who confessed to him her fear of black men and occasionally uttered ethnic stereotypes that made Obama cringe. Ok, let me give a little straight talk: some women are afraid of any men, regardless of their skin color, and blacks do have a higher crime rate than whites. Just the same, young men have a higher crime rate than anyone else. Add it all up, and logic tells us that it’s not the most ridiculous thing in the world for a paranoid woman with no means of self-defense to have a fear of young black men. I’m not excusing or justifying it, I’m saying that Obama made it sound like she stole young black children’s lunch money because she was a racist, and comparing it to Wright’s extremely hateful (as opposed to worried and mistrusting) statements and ideas made from a public pulpit at a church was insane.

As for the ethnic stereotypes, I’m going to be honest: if you were to take a room of 100 people and ask them how many had thought ethnic stereotypes to themselves, I would be willing to bet about 90 had. If you then ask them how many ever uttered, even as a joke, an ethnic stereotype, I would bet about 70 had. Once again, I’m not excusing Obama’s grandmother’s behavior, I’m saying that if this is as much of a qualification for disownment in Obama’s mind as saying, “G-D American,” the “U.S. of KKK”, claiming that the United States invented AIDS to kill black people, and giving a Lifetime Achievement award to a man who proclaimed that the white man is “the skunk of the earth,” then Obama’s judgment is seriously flawed. Not to mention that Wright is Obama’s preacher, no matter how close he is, he’s NOT the grandmother that raised him, and spent the latter part of her life as a mother to him, loving and aiding him however she could.

The third and final part of the speech that was angering to me was Obama’s insulting of every American’s intelligence by flip-flopping, in the middle of the speech, about whether he heard the comments or not. He essentially confessed to hearing them or at least knowing about them, even while sort-of implying he didn’t just days earlier. Now, he obviously was finally telling the truth this time: the Obama campaign juggernaut, like every big campaign, most definitely has a section dedicated to defense from potential attacks and threat assessments. You can’t tell me they didn’t do a little research on the man’s pastor of 20 years and spiritual mentor in an effort to prepare responses for Obama against potential attacks. The idea that Obama didn’t know about it until now is insane, and is proved by his uninviting of Jeremiah Wright to his announcement about his bid for the presidency (which actually helps prove that he didn’t need his campaign to dig it up, he knew before his campaign even got started). It’s also proved in his initial denial of knowing about it: “I wasn’t in the pews when Wright made the comments in question.” That doesn’t deny that he heard recordings of the comments. That doesn’t deny his friends at church talked to him about the comments. All it denies is that the three, four or five sentences the media has repeatedly played were actually heard by Barack Obama while he was sitting in a church pew at the United Trinity Church of Christ. It’s the most pathetically open-ended denial I’ve ever heard.

So why hasn’t Obama admitted that he knew about the comments, at least, and chose never to confront Reverend Wright about them? Why hasn’t he apologized for it? Because it’s not his way. Obama has built himself into the angel to save Washington, and how can he do that when he doesn’t have the guts, the will or the wit to confront his own preacher, a close friend of his, about the statements that preacher made? And if he can’t confront a man who’s probably his father figure about some bigoted and hateful statements, I wonder what he’s going to say to Kim Jong Il (the dictator of North Korea whom Obama has opened the possibility of speaking with), who is responsible for more death and pain than Osama Bin Laden can dream of. How will he handle Amendenijad, Iran’s dictator, a man who professedly wishes to throw Israel into the sea, effectively advocating genocide?

The mainstream media is completely swooning over his speech yesterday (Chris Matthews called it the greatest speech ever given on race, apparently forgetting one of the greatest of all American speeches and easily the best on race, spoken 45 years ago from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial) of course, but that doesn’t change the fact that in the words of Charles Krauthammer, Obama’ speech was “a beautiful and elegantly worded disaster.” (Doesn’t that describe Obama himself?)

I’m sure you all have seen Clinton’s latest ad, the one where she talks about answering the phone in the White House at 3 A.M. to keep your kids safe. I doubt it’s really working, for two reasons:

First of all, Democrats, as opposed to Republicans and Independents, just aren’t that interested in national security. 9/11 is a distant memory to almost all of them, and a significant chunk of them believe that Bush rigged the attacks anyway. They live in a dream world where terror attacks can be prevented only by the most basic of measures, one of which is ignoring the terrorists committing them.

Second of all, Hillary Clinton doesn’t have all that much experience in foreign policy and managing crises. Seriously, she was in the White House for 8 years, doing what? Let’s count her and Bill Clinton as one person, for the heck of it. So they negotiated a failed Middle Eastern peace agreement, had a disastrous venture to end the Somali genocide in 1993, had a moderately successful campaign to end genocide in the Balkans, and handed over nuclear fuel rods to North Korea. That’s a pretty lackluster list of accomplishments.

What’s pretty bad as well is Obama’s response to Clinton’s ads: saying they just play on people’s fears. I have news for Senator Obama: fear is neither entirely evil nor good. Fear has motivated many of the greatest actions in the world, and it has motivated many of the worst. We think of it as bad because it is unpleasant, and most of fear is unnecessary and bad. But Al Qaeda has killed 6,000 Americans. Is it fear-mongering to point that out, and to point out that they’re going to kill as many more as they possibly can? Is it fear-mongering to point out that George Bush got the same call the next president may take when he was at that Florida elementary school? What is Obama going to say to his National Security Advisor when the terrorists attack this country again if he’s president? “Oh, you’re just fear-mongering. We need to communicate to Al Qaeda these politics of hope that so helped America, and they’ll understand.”

Obama, in fact, has a campaign that plays on a combination of people’s fears and dreams: the fear that they’re racist drives many to vote for him, the fear that if Washington continues as it does the country will be ruined, the fear that America truly is a bad nation in need of redemption (both spiritual and political), the dream of a non-fully-white president, the dream that America can become “great again”.

This does not condemn Obama at all: all politicking is somewhat based in fear and dream mongering. McCain, too, runs on dreams and fears: the fear that an uncontrolled border will irreparably damage this country, the fear of the next 9/11, the fear of defeat and humiliation in Iraq, the dream of a true hero in the White House, the dream of a smaller and more responsible government, and a perpetuation of the American Dream itself.

The difference is that Obama openly condemns any who run on fears. Indeed, his change itself is supposedly based on hope, but is truly just a fear of the status quo (Americans have a general fear of the status quo, which is part of what has made us great and also may be our eventual downfall). Yet he condemns Clinton when she brings the truths of the world into the campaign.

So how can McCain run against this? I’ve been thinking, and this is my idea: McCain must make himself into the Candidate of Truth, against Obama’s Candidate of Hope. He’s already done it, to some degree, with his reputation of straight talk. But I’d recommend hammering truth everywhere he goes: the truth that the American economy is doing pretty well but some things should change, the truth that the Surge is working, the truth that Al Qaeda is still out there, the truth that the border must be secured. If the opposite of hope is despair, the opposite of truth is lies. People don’t like people who despair, but they hate liars and deceivers. (Obama does little lying though bits and pieces of deceiving, and McCain does no despairing, I’m simply saying that at the negative extremes, I believe truth still beats hope.)

If anyone has a better idea to stop this rock star, I’d love to hear it.

A No-Vote is a Vote for a Democrat

Come this November, Republicans are facing a steep hill to climb. An unpopular war (though it ought to become steadily more popular as we continue to win), a slumping economy, an extremely unpopular Republican president, etc. all contribute to a Democratic victory come November. I feel that the Republicans clearly nominated the most electable candidate. There’s really little debating that (unless you’re Rush Limbaugh and consider anyone who totally agrees with you the most electable). John McCain, as an American hero and undisputedly great persona in American politics, harbors tremendous appeal to independents.

That said, what I stated about it being a steep hill remains true. Even if conservatives were perfectly united, it would be a tough election to win, just like 2000 and 2004 were. Then why do we insist on making it so much more difficult for our candidate by refusing to support him with all we have?

Glenn Beck was saying just the other night that he’s sick of selling out, he’s sick of compromising and there’s a point where you just don’t compromise anymore. Is that point a kinda-Amnesty-ish bill and campaign finance reform? Is that really what you value more than abortion, more than the War on Terror, more than good judges, more than an effective healthcare system, more than keeping gun control minimal, more than tough foreign policy and more than free trade?

Explain to me, Glenn, how letting Hilary Clinton win is NOT compromising. You’re compromising the Oval Office by staying home. You’re compromising our nation’s healthcare system by allowing one of the 5 most liberal members of the U.S. Senate (Obama and Clinton both fall into this category) to take the White House and make a sham of it. You’re handing a massive victory to Al Qaeda in Iraq, you’re guaranteeing an ultra-liberal Democratic president to work with an ultra-liberal Democratic Congress (Lord knows what kind of new “abortion rights” and gun control bills they’ll cook up), and what are you going to do about it once they’re there? What are you going to do about it when the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq are lost, the border is totally unsecured, Al Qaeda is on offense, our foreign policy is extremely weak, Iran obtains nuclear weapons, our nationalized healthcare becomes a growing tumor, our deficit is massive even while our taxes rise, defense spending is cut, our economy faces stagflation, and the national debt continues to grow? Oh, I think I know.

You’re going to get on your little talk radio program and you are going to whine yourself into tears about how awful our elected officials are. You, Laura Ingrahm, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and all those other lauded “conservatives”.

And you know what? Republicans aren’t going to want to hear it. Conservatives aren’t going to want to hear it. Independents aren’t going to want to hear it. America’s not going to want to hear it. We’re getting sick of talk-radio as a platform to complain without offering alternatives. We’re sick of hearing people talk like if they just don’t vote, maybe there won’t be a president. Well, I got news for you all: there’s going to be a president in 2008, and it’s going to be either a man with an 83% rating from the American Conservative Union, or a woman with a 9% rating from the American Conservative Union.

You want to stay at home? That’s fine. But don’t call yourself a Republican. Don’t call yourself a Conservative. And don’t ever call yourself intelligent.

Conservatives vs. Establishment?

So, as I am wont to do occasionally while I eat, I listened to Rush Limbaugh the other day. Sometimes it’s an enlightening experience (when he’s playing sound-bytes from our shamelessly defeatist Congress), sometimes it induces hair-pulling (when he’s ranting about McCain), sometimes laughter (when he’s making fun of Al Gore).

Today, it was once again hair-pulling. Rush started off on the normal anti-McCain track, blabbering about how he would support McCain over Obama/Clinton despite the “fact” that they all have “ruinous” and “identical” economic policies. He would support McCain because he’d rather a Democrat take the fall for economic ruin than a Republican (wait, what?) Ah, that Rush, he’s as cunning as he is nonsensical.

Anyway, he went on to rant about how the Republican establishment is so eager to proclaim conservatism dead. He says the media is eager to sing it from the hilltops, too. Who can blame the media, after all? I’d be eager to proclaim anti-war defeatism’s domination of the media dead, but the facts indicate it’s not. But the Republican establishment? Who are these mysterious cigar-smoking, slightly-overweight, balding white men who play golf often and dictate so much influence over the Republican party that Rush is talking about?

The dirty little secret is that I just described Rush Limbaugh, and the reason is that Limbaugh is the core of the Republican establishment. Limbaugh, I suspect, truly believes that Rob Novak, Will Buckley, George Will, Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol are the evil Washingtonian Republican establishment, trying to destroy Reaganite conservatism. In his own little world, Rush is defending it from their evilness and wicked attempts to annihilate his Conservative movement.

The perceived difference between Rush and the wicked imposters is that Rush doesn’t just give his offerings to Reagan. He spends hours at the foot of the Reagan altar, praising him and wishing for his second coming, not content with anything less. Rush feels that the aforementioned pundits do not spend enough time kneeling at the Reagan altar with him, and therefore they are traitors, liars, phonies (which is what he called McCain) etc. and must hate conservatism.

Perhaps Rush has built his popularity so much by convincing his 20 million listeners that they really are the last vestige and hope of conservatism in America, the last army that can stop not only the wicked Democratic hordes, but the wicked non-conservative Republicans as well.

I have some happy news for Limbaugh. The happy news is that there are few Republicans that aren’t conservatives anymore. Rush would want to hear my definition of conservatism, and I can sum up its political implications in three phrases: pro-life, strong national security, fiscal responsibility. There are other conservative issues, but none more important than those three. Can you find me a Republican that is pro-choice, anti-defense spending, and pro-debt? If so, I can find you Bigfoot.

Rush also attacked McCain today for not being ideological enough. He says that McCain simply does what he feels is best for the country, regardless of ideology.

Wow, Heaven forbid our politicians put aside partisanship and hopelessly-rigid ideology sometimes to do what’s best for the country! It’s blasphemy!

What really angers Rush about McCain is this: McCain, unlike Romney, will not purposefully bow to any part of the Republican establishment, which Limbaugh is the true heart of. McCain does what he does, Rush Limbaugh or not, and it drives Rush nuts. The insolence to not bow to the torch-bearer of Reagan! Limbaugh’s ego has gotten hopelessly carried away with him, and his rants on McCain are evident of this.

Meanwhile? Meanwhile, the other wing of Conservatism, the wing I associate myself with more readily, is writing mature, intelligent, realistic, controlled articles such as this one by Bill Kristol (try to ignore the fact that it was written in the New York Times).

There are two kinds of conservatives: the ones who accept all conservatives and welcome moderates’ votes, and the ones who don’t on the grounds that it’s not ideologically pure. You can take a guess at which wing wins elections, or you can watch when John McCain is accepting the Republican nomination this summer and Mitt Romney is on the couch with the potato chips.

I leave you now with an adage from a Republican President who’s not particularly popular anymore, and for good reason, (though this shouldn’t blunt the unrelenting truth of the statement,) who lived the adage to the end:

“Losers don’t legislate.”

The Iranian Problem and the Choices it Presents

It seems like every decade or two a new, pesky third-world country pops up, running its mouth at the United States and acting tough. All of them know, of course, that they don’t stand a chance in open combat. Like Rome’s enemies in the ancient world, they merely hope to pick at the U.S. slowly and steadily and present a moderately-united front (with friendly, large and powerful countries like China and Russia helping out) against their enemy.

Lately, Iran has been leading the charge. Their leader, a fellow by the name of Mahmoud Amendenijad, tends to agree with Bin Laden regarding America’s status as the Great Satan, and Israel’s as the Lil’ Satan. Amendenijad poses a threat in a couple of ways. First of all, he’s just a gulf away from one of America’s largest oil suppliers: Saudi Arabia (Iran has enough conventional means to be able to damage Saudi Arabia’s oil-production some). Second of all, he’s continually been supplying Shiite militias in Iraq with IED bombs to attack American soldiers with. Third of all, he’s actively seeking nuclear weapons.

Iran is a country of some 90 million people. It has a pretty good military, for a Middle Eastern nation, mainly due to its Chinese and Russian ties. If it were to obtain nuclear weapons, it would become the third nation in the Muslim area of the world to do that (the other two are Israel and Pakistan, both U.S. allies). Syria, Iran’s neighbor on the other side of Iraq, is also seeking nuclear weapons, as evidenced by an Israeli airstrike on a nuclear weapons facility in southern Syria.

Iran is overwhelmingly Shiite, (most Muslims, including Saudi Arabians, Al Qaeda, and Syria, are Sunni) and its governmental structure is highly theocratic. It has a few “Ayatollahs” that virtually control the entire government. Though it can’t be said for sure, it’s almost certain that Amendenijad is tied around their fingers.

Amendenijad talks a lot about wiping Israel off of the map, due to their status as the greatest insult to collective Muslim honor in existence. The reason is that the radical Muslims feel that it’s their land (obviously, it’s not, seeing as the Jews held it long, long before any Muslim existed) and they should get it back. Muslims/Arabs have been repelled from many areas they conquered or tried to conquer: Spain, Sicily, Greece, southern Russia, the greater Balkans area, and India, for example. Though of course the radical Muslims would like to have these lands, it does not anger them like Israel does.

There are two reasons for that: first of all, Israel is in their backyard. One of their holiest sites is located in Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock (that neat golden dome you’ve probably seen on TV). Second of all, it’s just more anti-Semitism. Many radical Muslims idolize Hitler for what he did in the Holocaust, and wish they could’ve done it themselves. Others deny it happened, but wish it did, and take it upon themselves to try.

Amendenijad denies the Holocaust, but claims to not hate Jews. Chances are that this is wrong, seeing as Israel “not having a right to exist” (the claim he always makes) doesn’t justify driving its inhabitants into the sea and killing 20 million people, something he says he’d like to do.

Iran’s interaction with Israel, however, is mostly rhetoric, I think. Iran knows that if they somehow obtain nuclear weapons, using the one or two they would have at first would be totally foolish. It would take a lot more than 2 small nukes to neutralize Israel, and Israel would respond with a lot more than 2 small nukes. The United States would likely respond with its own attacks and doubling up protection in Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

If Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, like North Korea, it would not use it. It would continue to build its own little arsenal and play the power game, trying to pry the United States out of the Middle East using its terrorist groups and ties. Iran wants to become the Middle East’s dominate power, and it can’t do that while the United States has massive presence in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and Israel is still at full strength.

The good news is that Iran is unlikely to obtain a nuclear weapon. If Iran’s program moves too far along, Israel will take action (and under Bush, McCain or Romney, the U.S. likely would as well) against them.

This, really, makes it all the more important that the U.S. elect a Republican in 2008. Jumping out of the Middle East fixes nothing, and simply emboldens Iran and likely guarantees another Six Day War (though this one could last longer and could involve nuclear weapons) between Israel and multiple Muslim nations. It also guarantees Al Qaeda gets a massive poster that says, “we defeated the United States in Iraq! Join us, and we can do it in Afghanistan as well! After that, we get to follow them home!”

What Democrats simply don’t realize is that nations of the world like Iran aren’t swayed by sweet-talk, liberal democracy, U.N. resolutions of condemnation, and lovin’. They’re swayed by forceful winners. Pulling out of Iraq and making America look like a pansy that couldn’t control a small country and crush a few terrorists would be awful for America everywhere (not to mention just how little we evidently care for our allies, when they’d all be executed in Iraq like they were in South Vietnam). It also would make every country on earth more hesitant to align themselves with us. How much confidence will Taiwan have that we’ll protect them against China? How much is Musharraf of Pakistan going to count on America being loyal to him? Is Israel going to have any faith in us? What about the Saudi Arabian royal family?

On the flip side, how emboldened will China be? How about Russia? North Korea will fear little. Syria and Iran will fear much less as well, and Islamic extremists everywhere, including Al Qaeda, will be greatly empowered.

America gets to choose whether they want all of that in 2008 or not. Sadly, at the moment, I have little confidence they’ll see the repercussions of quitting in Iraq.

Freedom vs. Islamists

I just read a disturbing but intelligent article in The Weekly Standard regarding a Canadian magazine editor who is being sued for “advocating hate” or something along those lines, by an Islamic fellow who is a member of the Supreme Islamic Council of Canada. The crime? Reprinting the Danish cartoons, in his magazine, that so offended Muslims everywhere. He reprinted them to show his readers the cartoons that they had often heard of but never seen, and let the readers make their judgments on the level of offense.

His case is pending, and he will likely be vindicated, as public support is overwhelmingly for him ever since he posted his attempted-grilling by a Canadian government bureaucrat on Youtube (this interrogation was evidently turned into a vehement defense of free speech by the Canadian editor). This is a disturbing pattern of the hatred for free speech amongst the more radical elements of Islam. This isn’t just Al Qaeda, though: many, many Muslims feel this way.

When the Danish cartoons were released, there was an uproar amongst all Muslims. Death threats were issued, marches were created, banners were everywhere… all for what? The “insult” of Islam? It’s ridiculous. But they have a right to march and protest, I suppose (though not to issue death threats). I’d just like to ask the idiots who did march and protest just why they don’t protest every time Al Qaeda sets off a car bomb killing Iraqi women and children. What’s worse: drawing a picture of Mohammed or murdering innocent Muslims? I’m wondering where these people’s priorities are.

A more disturbing incident still was when a Dutch movie director who made a film about the repression of Islamic women, he was stabbed to death by a Muslim fanatic, who left a note pinned to his chest threatening the life of the Somali woman that had acted as a consultant in the director’s moviemaking, having experienced the Islamic repression of women herself.

A closer-to-home event was when a Texas Islamic immigrant killed both of his daughters for intermingling too much with non-Muslim friends and standards. This leads me to think we must make a statement (not in a literal hand out, but in an effective way) as a country, and as the West, to any and all Islamic immigrants coming to our society, and I would make it something like this:

“In America, we have a long-held tradition of free speech. People are free to say and do as they please, for the most part, barring the repression of others’ freedom. This freedom ensures that any and all can express themselves, and these expressions will sometimes be offensive. They may be offensive to your race, your gender, your ideology, your lifestyle, your preferences, or your religion. We ask you to endure any indignities that do no bodily harm to you, your goods or your family. You have a freedom to argue with those who insult you, you have a freedom to protest it in legal ways, you have a freedom to insult them back, but there is no guarantee whatsoever that you will not face things you find to your disliking. If this is too much for you, we ask that you leave this country, as the freedoms of expression and speech are two of the cornerstones our society is built upon.

‘Happiness depends on being free, and being free depends on being courageous.’”

Above all, we cannot repress the freedom of expression for anything or anyone. The right to bash Islam in a reasonable manner is the same as the right to bash any religion: it is your opinion, and you are free to say it. As a Christian in America, I must be able to tolerate hearing that my religion is terrible. It is the same with a Jew, a Buddhist, a Hindu, or a Muslim; and for the last to be good Americans and good members of society, they must learn to take it.

The Iraq War

About a year and a half ago, we were losing the war in Iraq. Violence was skyrocketing to genocide-like proportions, our enemies were united against us, and Democrats were calling for a withdrawal. Eventually, Bush got the point and implemented the surge strategy some 1 year ago. The surge, of course, was designed to drastically up the number of American combat troops in the country, along with a new counter-insurgency strategy led by a new face: General David Petraeus. Petraeus had a plan that was pretty simple on the face of it: relentlessly pursue any and all tribal leaders and lobby them for assistance, and attack Al Qaeda relentlessly as well. Isn’t that what we had been doing, though?

Kind of, but with one big difference: Petraeus planned to back up his lobbying of Sunni tribal leaders (Iraq, like many countries in the world, still holds its tribes dear in sociological organization) with some 10,000 new U.S. combat troops. In other words, it sent a message that we were going to crush Al Qaeda whether the Sunni tribal leaders liked it or not, and Al Qaeda was no longer the winning side they had thought it was. Al Qaeda itself helped greatly in our efforts: Al Qaeda warlords were known to march into Sunni tribal leaders’ houses and demand to marry their daughters. This was greatly offensive to the tribes, who strongly prefer their women to not marry outside the tribe; much less brutally oppressive terrorists who will no doubt put the tribal leaders’ daughters in great danger. Al Qaeda also heavily regulated the economy (in their own strange way) of the areas it dominated, closing down businesses (and therefore people’s means to feed their families) at will. Every kind of “moral hazard” was snuffed out: smoking, drinking, or not dealing appropriately with women; which to Al Qaeda means talking to them.

Sunni tribal leaders who submitted to Al Qaeda put their people in more harm than they would have by helping the Americans. They eventually began to realize this and switched sides, knowing that the surge of American forces on the ground would greatly help them in protection.

Long story short? The surge worked, and it worked devastatingly well. Those 10,000 new combat troops quickly set to work routing Al Qaeda from anywhere it might hide, and the areas it cleared could now be held by other American forces, who didn’t have to worry about chasing Al Qaeda and could stay put helping the locals in all kinds of matters.

Iraq still has numerous, numerous problems. Despite what the leftists would really want you to think, though, they’re fixable problems. The greatest myth of this war is that America can’t win it. Let me make this clear: if there is any kind of war that is fought militarily, the American military can win it, when given the chance. Period. That the left would deny this isn’t insulting to anyone but our soldiers. The American military has no shortage of money, it has no shortage of technology, it has no shortage of courage, and it has no shortage of heart. The only thing it’s got a shortage of is real support.

See, you can support the troops and hate/not support their mission, in theory. A lot of folks do take that path. But are you really supporting them? My analogy is that doing that is like supporting the Dallas Cowboys as individuals, but not supporting their objective: to win the Superbowl. If all you want is for none of them to get injured and to play their games decently (as long as they’re not hurt), you’re not really supporting the team or its objective. You’re just supporting individuals.

Supporting individuals, while better than not supporting anything, really isn’t supporting the military. That’s because the troops, when they join the U.S. military, cease to become simply individuals. They join a greater cause, where the mission supercedes the individual’s safety or anything else. The cause, currently, is victory in Iraq and the defeat of Islamic terrorism. The military is, as the old Army commercials used to say, “an army of one.” While it’s made up of troops, those troops are a team united by the objective.

So, in conclusion, supporting the troops is good and necessary, but supporting the military is much more meaningful.

The Ron Paul Show Part 2

So, after hearing Ron Paul attack Rudy Giuliani for, essentially, “stereotyping terrorists,” I felt compelled to make another comment on Dr. Paul. The attack on Giuliani during a debate was very interesting, to say the least. Giuliani had just finished refuting Paul’s point that we’re the ones that started the War on Terror, citing evidence of terrorist attacks on German, British, French and Middle Eastern targets before 9/11 or the Iraq invasion. (Romney, too, intelligently pointed out the assassination of Benazir Bhutto as an attack unrelated to American activity) Paul lashed out at Giuliani’s “not being able to tell the difference” between the terrorist groups.

This attack showed just how strongly Paul believes that Al Qaeda is right and America is wrong. Giuliani was not claiming that all terrorists are the same, he was citing a clear and present pattern of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism against democracy; as was Mitt Romney. The difference between Paul’s and the other Republican candidates’ views couldn’t be clearer: to Paul, if we would simply leave the world alone we would be alright; and to the other Republicans, jumping ship from the world won’t solve anything.

Paul’s rigid isolationism sounds better now than it has at other times. What would his response to the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941 have been? He might tell you now that we did the right thing in declaring war and proceeding to win against Japan, or he might not. Destroying half the U.S. Pacific fleet and killing 3,000 Americans is a grave offense, is it not? So how on earth could he say no to fighting Japan?

The same way he says no to fighting Al Qaeda after they killed 3,000 American civilians and knocked down the World Trade Centers. Paul never outright says it, but it’s continually and strongly implied that going into Afghanistan and breaking up Al Qaeda’s stronghold there was a mistake. In other words, Al Qaeda didn’t need to be brought to justice, they needed to be appeased.

Furthermore, what would he have said about responding to Germany’s declaration of war against the United States two days after Pearl Harbor? Germany had not attacked us. They weren’t messing with us. What business of it is ours if they want to have their little Holocaust and crush freedom in Europe?

By Ron Paul’s logic, we would not have responded to Germany. Furthermore, I doubt Paul would’ve chosen to fight back against Japan: after all Hawaii, where Pearl Harbor was, was annexed by the United States. Ah, the wicked non-isolationism! Don’t you see? If we had not taken Hawaii, had naval presence in East Asia, and there were no Americans on Guam or Wake island (or the Aleutian islands off the coast of Alaska, where Japan attacked later in the war), the Japanese would have left us entirely alone. They would’ve been perfectly happy to take the entire Far East and kill the some 12 million Chinese, many of them civilians, that they did.

And why did we fight the Communists in the Cold War? If Ron Paul had been president, it’s chilling to think of the consequences. For instance, Paul continually advocates spending “less money overseas”. I like the idea. But what he means is bringing all the troops home. It doesn’t cost that much money (definitely not enough to pay off the national debt, like he seems to think) to keep them out there, so where would he save the money? The dirty little secret of his ideas is that he would cut defense spending. And probably not just by a little bit, but by a lot.

What if Paul had cut defense spending in World War 2 and kept our troops from being overseas to hold Russia at bay? I wonder if those farfetched ideas like the little Manhattan Project (the scientific, government funded project to develop atomic weapons) would get cut. I also foresee a unified Korea under the Communist rule of the North, and very possibly Japan as a satellite state to China. Western Europe would not have stood a chance against the Soviet war machine, and the Middle East wouldn’t, either.

The point is this: the world isn’t in 1780 anymore. In the Revolutionary War era, our worst enemies were a bunch of fellows who marched slowly across fields in bright red coats with weapons that took a full minute to reload.

In 1980, two-hundred years later, the Soviet Union possessed the capability to destroy around 90% of the United States’ population between sunrise and sunset. To give you an idea of just how much that is, make the Holocaust 50 times bloodier, and achieve it in less than one five-thousandth of the time. I’ve never heard more chilling numbers than that.

And I’d suggest Dr. Paul chew long and hard on them.

Energy Dependence and the American Economy

People are out saying that energy independence is an absolute necessity. They say we’re funding the terrorists indirectly by buying oil from Saudi Arabia. They say we’re stirring up Venezuela somehow by buying oil from them. They say we’re putting ourselves in grave danger by buying oil from other countries and not having enough of our own here.

They’re partially right. There are a few things they’re missing, though: first of all, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela provide some 35% of all American oil together. What they don’t like to talk to you about is the fact the other 65% or so comes from the combined oil reserves of Canada, Britain, Mexico, and the U.S. itself. Most of our oil is in secure locations pretty near us. That’s why, say, if we happen to get into a war with Saudi Arabia and Venezuela at the same time, our military could function fine, though we would have to have civilian gasoline rationed. (This scenario, though, is as far-fetched as they come: if a war occurred between any primary-American oil supplier and America occurred, chances are that all of the others would immediately fall in line with the U.S. in hopes of maximizing their oil profits.)

No country in this world is truly energy-independent. Even those that are closest, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, rely on other countries overwhelmingly for vehicles and movers. Go to any one of those countries and you’re not going to see many native cars: the cars will be European, American and Japanese. This doesn’t change the fact that it would be preferable for America to become more energy independent.

I’ve got a dang good way to start: drill in the Arctic. There are massive oil reserves up there, even though the natural environment makes them rather difficult to get at. Here’s another good way to start: drill in Colorado. Colorado houses a massive oil reserve deep beneath the Rockies. What stands in the way of both? Environmentalists.

Look, I love nature. I really do. I’m a conservationist as well. I’d be highly hesitant to drill in Yellowstone Park, and I don’t like to drill in the Rockies, either. The Arctic, however, is not Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon. It’s a barren wasteland of ice up there; not exactly a vacation spot. As for the Rockies, I don’t think this is exactly like destroying them. Look at Texas here, today! We’ve drilled this whole state inside-out and it’s not unlivable, nature still thrives in many places here, and it’s a nice state.

Here’s the point: when small sections of nature and national security collide, I think we know the answer. They collide now due to the fact that most terrorist organizations, like Al Qaeda, get their funds from rich Saudi Arabians, who get their funds from oil revenue. They also collide because Venezuela’s only claim to fame is their status as a large supplier of American oil, propping up a potentially-dangerous anti-American dictator.

Finally, the third step is to invest more funds in alternate energy research. I doubt that Ethanol is the final answer, but it’s a nice starting point. I think the answers will become clearer over the next few years as we invest more research to find something, anything, to replace oil.

America will never be energy-independent, in all likelihood. But I think we can and will grow more energy independent over the years, and an excellent starting point is to use the energy that we have here in the States.

Florida ‘08

The Florida elections just happened and McCain has narrowly defeated Romney, making him the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. As Huckabee fades from existence (and Giuliani has dropped out, endorsing McCain), it looks like the race is now between Romney and McCain for the whole Republican race. The “base” (folks who are permanently-raged about the fact that immigration, even legal immigration, exists, think that tax cuts with more spending is a grand idea, etc.)  seems to be uniting behind Romney, while the rest of us are going for McCain.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t hate Mitt Romney or the Republican base. I agree with that base on many, many things (Mitt Romney currently agrees with us, too). I really wouldn’t mind Willard Milton Romney, which is his real name (I’m not kidding), as president all that much (as opposed to Obama or Clinton). Like I said before, I just don’t believe he’s electable at all. He’s going to be seen by independents as just another country club, big business Republican who’s the same old flip-flopping politician. Coming off of the heels of an extremely unpopular president, we’re going to need someone that’s not quite the normal mold to win.

Let me warn all of you Conservative ideologues out there: Mitt Romney’s not your man. Yes, he is perfect on all his positions. But take a moment to think about what that means: here is a man who changed his positions on assortments of issues, not just from campaign to campaign but from campaign to governing. Running as a pro-choicer then turning around in office and voting like a pro-lifer every time is NOT something to be proud of, despite how Romney shamelessly brags about it. Changing from election to election is tolerable (only because all politicians do it a little bit) but distasteful. Changing from campaigner to officeholder is not only inexcusable, but it is unacceptable except under the most extreme of circumstances (Bush changing to a Terror-Hawk after 9/11 would be an acceptable change). It’s fundamentally dishonest to campaign as something and govern as something else when the voters entrusted you to be who you campaigned as.

I end this short rant on Romney with a letter sent into the National Review by Tony Riveria of Newark, Delaware:

“Your endorsement of Governor Romney… has left me a little cold. You disqualify Mayor Giuliani for alienating social conservatives, but Romney is sure to suffer a similar deficit in their ranks. Giuliani, at least, has had the courage to acknowledge this disagreement and has offered to appoint conservative judges. You say Governor Huckabee suffers from a lack of credentials on economic policy and foreign policy, but Romney has no real foreign-policy credentials either At best, you are endorsing Romney for his economic policy, management ability, and electability. More important, however, is the point that Romney is still an unknown entity. Your endorsement implies confidence that he has not changed positions for political expedience-that you believe you know the man and his policies. I suspect you may be seeing only what you want to see. He’ll take you to the dance and end up dancing with someone else.”

Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter, the face of modern idiocy, has recently stated on an episode of Hannity and Colmes that she would “campaign and vote for” Hilary Clinton over John McCain if that is the match up. After being grilled (though not hard enough, her incessant and exceedingly annoying blabbering makes that difficult) by Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes calmly sat back, arms folded, and said his work is finished. He then asked her to sit in for him the next day. (I promise, I’m not joking about any of this, the clip is on Fox’s website).

Don’t you love it? Ultra-conservatism: so far right, it’s left. John McCain holds some liberal positions. How many conservative positions does Hilary Clinton hold? Give me a moment… none.

If that’s not bad enough, Coulter made the statement that she honestly believes that Hilary Clinton would be better fighting the War on Terror than John McCain. She cited that other Republicans supported the surge as well, ignoring that Hilary didn’t and doesn’t and completely ignoring that McCain had been calling for it for a long, long time. She said Hilary is not going to pull out of Iraq completely, despite the fact that Hilary has continually stated that she will pull out of Iraq completely.

I couldn’t make this stuff up.

This leads us to an important point: the ultra-conservative movement has, at this point, completely thrown out character as a qualification for President. The only thing that matters is ideological orientation. With the death of Ronald Reagan, Reagan’s character is dead to them, even though it lives on in John McCain. Reagan’s positions remain, however, and they live on in Mitt Romney (for the moment). Character, being completely null and moot now, is not at all a factor in their equation of McCain. All they can look at is what he voted for and what he didn’t.

McCain tried to get things done. Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter act like we have 70 die-hard Republicans lined up in the Senate and 350 in the House, all ready to vote the party line. That’s nowhere close to true, and it seems like McCain is the only one to realize it. Compromise is a part of legislative action. Rigid ideology rarely is. Coulter will never under facts like this.

Despite the fact that Hilary will go for amnesty more than John McCain, that she will lose the war in Iraq unequivocally and willingly, that she will “resolve” (AKA claim to win then retreat) the war in Afghanistan, that she will bring socialized medicine and massive government growth across the board, she will raise taxes and spending, and she will fight any restrictions on abortion and will support any on guns, Ann Coulter will take her over John McCain.

Coulter represents the ultimate fringe of the Republican party, but Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and others seem to be slowly inching out there. Limbaugh has accused McCain of “second guessing our generals,” and has been railing against him every day for weeks now. Beck has stated that if it’s a light drizzle on election day, “real” conservatives won’t show up to support McCain over the Democratic opposite (likely Clinton).

These statements aren’t quite as ridiculous as Coulter’s, but they’re pretty ridiculous, especially Beck’s. Will these ultra-“conservatives” derail a Republican shot at the White House? If so, I think it’s safe to say that they should be held accountable completely for the loss of the war in Iraq. They will also be held accountable for at least 2 new left-wing Supreme Court justices. They will be held accountable for increased gun control, decreased rights of the unborn, increased taxes, increased spending, a stronger liberal homosexual agenda, and increased internationalism.

The irony is that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter deride Washington for being disconnected with the people, for being corrupt, and for never getting anything done. There have been only a few people in Washington, I think, that can be called clean of all three counts. One of them is John McCain. So why is that these ultra-conservatives rail so badly against the only man who fits their criteria for what Washington should be?

It’s far, far beyond me.

(For the record, I thank my brother for bringing Coulter’s statements to my attention and helping me condense and clarify my angry thoughts, as well as injecting some of his own, regarding those statements.)

Wrap Up and Look Ahead

It would be a miracle for Romney or Huckabee to win the Republican nomination over McCain at this point, and it would be a sign of the apocalypse if Ron Paul were to. Thought it’s still possible, of course, it probably won’t happen and I, therefore, am going ahead on the assumption that McCain is the nominee.

On the Democratic side, even though Obama has guilty whites, a media lovefest and blacks alike, Clinton is still the favorite for a reason. Obama also has likeability, freshness, and, from all I’ve heard and seen, is the best speaker in the race on either side. Clinton has name recognition and “Democratic Party Core” stamped on her forehead. She also has women and Hispanics, and any lingering racists, all six-dozen of them, in the country (now that John Edwards is out). So it’s the media, blacks, and rich whites vs. Hispanics, racists and women.

What is this world coming to?

I don’t know. But I do think that Hilary still is clearly the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, despite Obama’s wins in Iowa and South Carolina. Obama has less than a week to catch up to Hilary in about 80% of the Super Tuesday (next Tuesday) states. That’s why, until further notice, Clinton is probably going to win the nomination.

Watching her and John McCain go at it is going to be more fun than anything. You can count on Hilary to get repeatedly and mercilessly hammered on the Surge issue. McCain, as he repeatedly has in the course of Republican debates, is going to come across as the most clear-minded, vocal leader in all matters of foreign policy, and the long-rejected architect of the Surge.

McCain is not the smoothest speaker and he sometimes misspeaks. That’s in contrast to the more well-spoken Clinton, which would initially appear to be an advantage for her. It may indeed be. But I think it also highlights all the more the difference between the two individuals: McCain is a real, honest patriot who happens to serve his country now in Washington. Clinton is just a cheap, Clintonian politician who is addicted to Washington.

I think that when McCain and Clinton match up, Clinton will continue to be exposed badly, in the words of Matt Labash, as “[someone whose] icily-fake exterior melts down to reveal her core of molten artificiality.” Clinton will stand up there and claim she will fight for you and be your champion in Washington. McCain will stand up there and tell you he was your champion in Washington. Clinton will tell you she wants to end this war. McCain will tell you he’s going to win it. Clinton won’t mention illegal immigration or Al Qaeda. McCain will tell us he plans to stop both. Clinton will tell us about caring, changing and how she’s a fighter. McCain will tell us about honor, dignity, and how he’s been a fighter.

If an ounce of true heart is left in this country, John McCain will be the next president of the United States.

Four states down, 46 to go! The Michigan primary has just ended, and the first three states are split between Huckabee (Iowa), Romney (Michigan), and McCain (New Hampshire). South Carolina is next up, with McCain holding onto a lead and Huckabee trailing slightly. Thompson and Romney can’t be quite counted out of that one, either. So we’ve got a tight one with no clear frontrunner… the question is if that’s good or bad. It’s both, really. It’s good that they’re all fighting a war in the trenches because the more competition there is anywhere on this earth, the better, in one way. Everyone is sharper when they’re competing, and the Republicans are competing hard right now.

The real problem is that competition can also divide us. That’s no problem if we can come together in the general election and win, but it’s a real problem if we don’t. The four frontrunners all suffer some kind of electability issue (meaning that they may have trouble being elected in the general election on some grounds), and three of them suffer it within their own party. I’m going to tell you just what I think harms each candidate’s electability in both the general election and the primary, and why some candidates would divide the Republican base badly. Now, if you buy into what I’m saying about each of them, you might come away with a bad taste in your mouth about all of them. That’s not my intention; instead, my intention is to inform you just what their problems are going to be. If I’m concentrating on problems of people, much less politicians, my analysis is going to be pretty negative, but I beg of you to remember the plusses each candidate has as well. That said…

Huckabee’s electability issue lies within several problems. First of all, he’s a tax raiser. Second of all, he’s a Compassionate Conservative (Jonah Goldberg, I think it was, had an excellent article on Huck’s Compassionate Conservatism in the National Review a few weeks ago that I’m currently unable to dig up a link to). He also likes the education lobby and is against school vouchers. Finally, his foreign policy is best summed up by the Golden Rule. Huckabee is the social conservative’s dream, and the fiscal and foreign policy conservative’s nightmare. He’s George W. Bush all over again but instead of cracking down on Iran like Bush does, he’d really rather talk to them. Huckabee governs with a heart, and he does have a heart of gold as best I can tell. The problem is that when heart and government mix, you get the New Deal, the War on Poverty, the Progressive Era, etc. Basically, you get big government. It starts out warm and fuzzy as it seemingly fixes all society’s problems (though the only thing that fixed the Depression was World War 2, for the record), but yet, when the problems die out, the bureaucracy does not. Eventually, it becomes a parasite on society, leeching off of what it can.

The fact is that big-C Compassionate Conservatism is a contradiction, in a way. See, conservatives who are compassionate are not at all contradictions. It’s when government is used as a tool of Compassion, with a big C that could also stand for “Coming of the Kingdom,” that it becomes a contradiction. We conservatives believe in an empowered people and a smaller government; not bailing out people who bought homes they couldn’t afford or telling people they can’t eat at McDonald’s because they’re too fat. If you seek the Founder’s opinions on this, look no further than James Madison, who once stood upon the floor of Congress with a copy of the Constitution and shouted, “show me the passage in this document that calls for the allocation of federal funds to noble causes!” (paraphrased). Compare that to when George W. Bush said, “when people hurt, government’s got to move.” Huckabee can try to downplay it, but he lines up with Bush because his heart seems to have a tendency to act in place of his brain. Huckabee upsets libertarians, fiscal conservatives, and foreign policy conservatives alike. The coalition of foreign-policy conservatives (whose vote is even more important in war time like this), small-government libertarians/economic conservatives, and religious conservatives would be fractured if Huckabee got the nomination. It’s a risk we may end up taking, but it could do damage to the American conservative movement.

The other candidate who would clearly damage the Republican base is Rudy Giuliani. Social conservatives could be called the loudest wing of the Republican party right now, and not without good reason. The court case that basically brought them into existence happened some 35 years ago, and it’s still not overturned. They’re getting anxious, as should all of us be when a voluntary genocide occurs in our own country. Giuliani hates abortion, and as far as we know, he always has. He worked to bring down abortions in New York City in his time as mayor, and he would do so in his time as president as well, I think. He’s promised to appoint strict constructionist (read: probably pro-life) judges to the Supreme Court, an issue many social conservatives hold dear. His advisors speculate a Giuliani presidency would be little different than this George W. Bush one with regards to abortion. Where’s the problem, then?

It’s in two places: the first is that Giuliani stated that, in the extraordinary (extraordinarily unlikely, that is) event that Roe v. Wade was overturned and a bill made it through both houses of Congress to his desk banning abortion, he wouldn’t sign it. The second is that he’s labeled pro-choice. Giuliani wants Roe v. Wade overturned, and he wants strict constructionist judges on the Supreme Court, making him initially effectively pro-life. However, if Roe v. Wade is overturned, the issue is turned over to the states. I’d guess about 25 would enact abortion bans and 25 wouldn’t, at that point, and the Supreme Court would not rule any of them unconstitutional. However, Giuliani supports no federal attempt to ban the procedure, but only a lift of the federal protection of abortion (and I would guess funding of it). He’s not exactly the late Henry Hyde, but he hates abortion, will lend an ear to the pro-life lobby, and wants Roe v. Wade overturned.

The fact is that if he gets into the election against Hilary Clinton, a lot of social conservatives will still probably turn out, just as economic and foreign policy conservatives will still probably turn out for Huckabee. But the fact also is that social conservatives will complain, moan and probably won’t be holding any signs or doing any ground work for Giuliani, just as the other sides of the coalition probably wouldn’t be doing it for Huckabee. That is why Giuliani and Huckabee are the riskiest candidates in that they run the risk of dividing the Republican base.

Mitt Romney made sure he wouldn’t be dividing anyone before he entered the race by tweaking, to put it nicely, most of his positions prior to his announcing his bid for the nomination. He’s so strong, across the board: for the surge, for staying in Iraq as long as it takes, he knows how the economy works, he can make anything work including Washington, he doesn’t like amnesty and wants to secure the borders, he’s pro-life, anti-gay marriage, anti-taxes, and anti-gun control.

Yeah, on January 17^th, 2008 he is. Romney’s perception as a flip-flopper is true, in my opinion, but that truth is a little irrelevant. The fact is that he is perceived as a flip-flopper is infinitely more important. Just like with John Kerry in 2004, Romney can weasel his way out of nearly anything when he’s asked a question about it. (I have little doubt that if one were to remove that cap of iron he calls hair and the scalp beneath it, you’d find a mind with gears, ball-bearings, and memory chips.) But Romney, like Kerry, slithers wily around his position changes it in a way that’s almost too smart, almost too contrived and well-said, but leaves the viewer feeling a little wanting. Mitt Romney doesn’t suffer from one or two or three issues like Huckabee and Giuliani do. He suffers from across the board repulsion from both casual voters and many political junkies alike.

If he advances to the point of Republican nominee, as he walks off of the debate stage against Hilary Clinton, the buzz in nursing homes everywhere is going to be about just why John Kerry became a Republican and just how he got the nomination (not to mention how he colored his hair). And if Romney ends up debating Barack Obama, the question is going to be who that nice young fellow with the serious eyes and tanned skin is. What I mean is that I’m not repulsed by the idea of a Romney presidency entirely. I mean that I’m repulsed by the idea of Romney taking a 5-10 point loss to a Democratic nominee, which is what I predict will happen if he gets the nomination.

This all brings me to the candidate of my choice, personally: John McCain. McCain’s electability issue lies, like Romney’s, not in one single issue. Unlike Romney’s, however, it does not lie in a weak ability to attract independents. This, actually, is McCain’s strongest suit. The problem is that when you say the name “John McCain” to conservative ideologues, they shudder and shake their heads. Whether it’s the McCain-Feingold bill on campaign money, or the McCain-Kennedy(-Bush) bill on immigration, conservatives just have a bad taste in their mouth about John McCain. McCain’s a maverick who has come down opposite from conservatives several times on different issues.

The good news for McCain, though, is that if he runs against Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama, those conservative ideologues WILL without a single doubt show up to vote for him, and will probably hold signs and do groundwork for him as well. McCain isn’t their favorite Republican, but he probably is better than even their favorite Democrat, much less Obama and Clinton. McCain, then, doesn’t have the problem of really discouraging turnout like Huck or Rudy might because the people who don’t like him are mostly the people who really, really get it (meaning that they understand how important this election is). He also doesn’t have Romney’s problem of a downright unlikable personality and history. McCain, furthermore, appeals to independents and moderates everywhere because of his straight-talk style, heroic background and more moderate positions on some things. So while these ideologues bash and hate now, you just wait until he’s running against Hilary Clinton, then see how much bashing and hating they do.

Ah, I can hear the words of Rush Limbaugh even as I type this: “running as a conservative across the board as a mainstream American conservative works every time, [we don’t need to moderate on anything].” Since 1980, when Ronald Reagan made it truly popular to be a conservative, the label “conservative” has indeed defined American politics and American opinion, just like how FDR, in the 1930’s, wiped conservatism off of the political map until the 1964 presidential race. Since 1980 we’ve had 20 years of conservative Republicans and 8 years of a moderate Democrat in the Oval Office. I believe some 30-35% of Americans define themselves as conservative, some 15% define themselves as liberal, and the other 50-55% call themselves moderate. All that said, let’s not forget who the majority is.

The fact is that ideology, in politics, is often only as good as the people who espouse it. “Survival of the fittest” was once a common and respectable doctrine until Hitler took it as a basis for genocide. “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” the basis for all Communism, sounded nice when Karl Marx said it, but is shamed today once we figured out just how it was put into practice behind the Iron Curtain by Joseph Stalin & friends. George Wallace, a longtime defender of segregation, could run for office today with all the same positions Mitt Romney has, but he wouldn’t win because he is George Wallace.

The point is that while conservatism is indeed popular, each election is different, and there is no uniform formula for winning elections. Mainstream American conservatism has proven to be a decent one over the last 28 years, but it is by no means foolproof. Not to mention that there is evidence that the definition of mainstream American conservatism could be changing. Why any old standard conservative won’t work in this election is because any old standard conservative rather describes (at least in the public opinion) George W. Bush and the 2002-2006 Republican Congress, both of which are extremely unpopular at the moment. In an excellent article some months ago in the National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru extolled the coming doom that the Republican party may be facing, citing endless poll numbers that show people’s unhappiness with… well… everything right now. The same old conservative with the same old positions and the same old personality isn’t going to do. John McCain may have been around Washington for a while, but in this case, it helps more than it hurts. The American people know this man, and they like him a lot. They know he hates the pork-barrel spending the Republican congress was famous for, they know he hates the fact that young American soldiers died because President Bush didn’t understand just how bad things were in Iraq for too long. We need someone a little different this time, someone the American people can trust to lead.

As I write this, it’s just a few days until the 2008 election begins. Seven candidates remain: Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Rudy Giuliani (minus Tom Tancredo, who has endorsed Mitt Romney, and Sam Brownback, who has endorsed John McCain). Things have gotten very, very interesting here in the final stretch! A surging Mike Huckabee came up from almost no where to even out the race, and he currently holds leads in three of the first four primaries: Iowa, Florida and South Carolina. In the second state to vote, New Hampshire, Mitt Romney holds onto a lead over John McCain, who is about 8 points behind. McCain is moving upward, though, and many theorize that if Huckabee can upset Romney in Iowa, McCain could beat go on to beat him (Romney) in New Hampshire.

I hadn’t made up my mind in any prior posts about who I support (being too young to vote) in this race, but I now back John McCain. McCain holds stands that are similar to mine on social issues, and I agree with him on economic issues as well. Most importantly, however, McCain is the only person in the race on both sides whom I trust totally, completely, and unhesitatingly to win the war in Iraq, as well as the broader War on Terror. McCain brings experience almost entirely untainted by the give-and-take of the Senate, and his reputation as a maverick who believes what he believes no matter what is well earned: he has come out against government subsidies for ethanol, something that seriously hurt him in Iowa, but he doesn’t mind the damage.

I don’t agree with John McCain on everything, by any means. I disagree with his stance on waterboarding, his questionable involvement in the old immigration bill, and his ideas on global warming worry me a bit. I view these things as largely minor, however, and are far outweighed by his great plusses. John McCain is my choice for the White House.

With that said, there are other interesting issues regarding the election I’d like to talk about. I can’t get into everything here, but Romney’s and Huckabee’s uses of and spats regarding religion do garner attention, as does the ever-fascinating and entertaining Ron Paul. Finally, the decline of Romney and Giuliani, too, I see as important.

The Ron Paul Show

Ron Paul likes to think of himself as the Constitution’s candidate. He’s constitutional, alright! What bothers me is what else he is. For instance, he recently came out as saying that the Civil War was a bad mistake… on the North’s part (or something to that effect). He went on to say how the government should have done some kind of peaceful method to end it, how the government could have just bought all the slaves, etc.

Obvious idiocy of such a stand aside, its hypocrisy catches me even more. There were almost four million slaves in the United States in 1860. Now, Ron Paul touts his own fiscal conservatism and monetary responsibility a lot. I’m not sure how much a slave was worth back in those days, but their total economic value greatly increased via their posterity’s continued working the fields, and they weren’t for sale. Even if they were, I’d like to know how Ron Paul would’ve paid for it, and how he would’ve convinced Southern congressmen to vote for it, were he in Abe’s shoes.

This issue may seem rather irrelevant, but it really isn’t. It just showcases Ron Paul’s delusional ideas perfectly. This may sound harsh, but I think he’s a man so obsessed with ideals that he seems to lack a firm grounding in reality. It shows again in his stance against any U.S. military involvement anywhere, citing that it caused 9/11. This is false, when taken by itself, but is true when put into the larger context. The larger context is that Osama Bin Laden had a multitude of reasons to attack this country: economic, military, social, political, and religious. The economic component is globalism, the free market, and the extraordinary wealth it has brought the West. The military component is the United States bases placed in (volunteering) Middle Eastern nations. The social factor is the natural, non-forceful exportation of American culture around the world. The political factor is largely seen in the separation of church and state as well as democracy in general, and how governments around the world are coming to see the genius of both. The religious ties into the political and social: Islamic fundamentalists like Bin Laden tend to think that a woman showing her head is a terrible, terrible sin, and it is the government’s job to ruthlessly enforce their twisted version of propriety. So it’s rather obvious they’re not comfortable with Western clothing on Middle Eastern shores. They also tend to think that any governmental institution’s existence when not ruled by their Islamic law is another terrible, terrible sin. Therefore it’s no stretch to see that they’re highly opposed to any kind, no matter how minor, of a separation of church and state.

The point here is to not vote for Ron Paul. To his credit, he has his ideas and he sticks to them like a true believer, something to be admired indeed. He has a lot of the right ideas regarding his Constitutional opinions, fiscal ideas, etc. He’s a good man, I think. Yet his foreign policy opinions regarding the War on Terror require a willing suspension of disbelief, if I might borrow the words of a Clinton.

Resisting Ron Paul’s siren song that if we only will return to isolationism, free markets, and 1780 it will all be perfect won’t give you any personal benefits, but this country will be better for it if we all can.

Separation of Religion and State?

Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you heard?! It’s ludicrous, it’s awful, it’s a tragedy, it’s sickening, it’s… blasphemous!

Mike Huckabee had a cross in his Christmas political commercial. He used the word “Christ,” too. Isn’t it horrible that he’d violate our precious, all-seeing separation of church and state by mentioning the name of the man (and showing His symbol) whom some 87% of all Americans believe, according to a recent poll, is the Son of God?

Of course, I’m being sarcastic in the above couple of paragraphs. My real problem isn’t with Huckabee’s use of a cross or mention of Christ. He has a freedom of speech and was simply pointing out that’s the reason for the season. I have no real problem with it, on its face, and all I can truly judge is what I saw. I would, personally, much prefer he make an ad that has something moderately politically substantive, but his goal in the ad is to get his name recognition up and perhaps get someone to vote for him, and the truth is that personal image and personal beliefs do matter to many voters. What I do definitely have a problem with is the way Huckabee says that we sometimes, in the Christmas season, like to sit back and get away from all those stinking politicians and their darn campaigns (granted, those weren’t his words, but they’re pretty close, I think).

George Will once called Jimmy Carter “politically anti-political.” I’m not going to accuse Mike Huckabee of being politically anti-political, but the way he bashed campaigning in the ad he ran certainly was.

Huckabee’s ad, along with Mitt Romney’s interesting speech on Mormonism at Texas A&M, has brought the separation of church and state to light again, though. Romney, of course, is a Mormon, and his religion’s mere name brings division and confusion upon otherwise informed, united peoples everywhere. Some have made the cynical statement that Huckabee is working Romney’s Mormonism to win the election. Perhaps it’s true, perhaps it’s not… who can read the hearts of men?

Romney has his own problem with religion, though: while refusing to say his beliefs or be a speaker for his faith, he says that Jesus Christ is his personal Savior. Hmmmm… let me get this straight. He can’t tell us whether he believes he will get his own planet after he’s dead, but he can tell us he believes Christ is his own savior? I’m not sure I understand where the line between personal belief and church belief is drawn there.

I think it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Romney’s not really refusing to speak for his church out of any kind of ideology. He’s refusing to do it and accepting to do it at the same time by refusing to say certain tenets but saying certain others, with only one pattern: the tenets he speaks of are popular with evangelicals; the tenets he doesn’t speak of are not.

The pattern of religious beliefs being spoken of in the political spectrum should be, in my opinion, this: what is relevant to specific policies? If, for instance, a Buddhist is running for president, I want to know exactly what he, personally, believes about pacifism at a national, foreign policy level. That is a religious belief that may be extremely relevant to public policy. How much time he believes he should spend meditating, however, is not at all relevant to public policy, in my opinion, and I don’t think it should be asked. In the same vein, I don’t care if Huckabee believes the Bible is inerrant. I do care if he believes the American government should dump boatloads of money to every humanitarian cause on the planet due to a belief in Christian generosity. Inerrancy and humanitarianism may be connected in Huckabee’s faith, just as in our model Buddhist’s faith, pacifism and meditation time may be connected. Yet if we are to maintain any degree of privacy or any degree of personal beliefs that are personal, we should not relentlessly pry into every corner of a candidate’s faith. We should DEFINITELY not do it when so many other things need to be talked about. Candidates should express their public policy views, and relate them, if they please, to their religious views. They should be questioned about religious views that may directly and demonstrably effect public policy.

Of course, this is all ideals and is rather foggy. People are free to vote on whatever basis they like. I wouldn’t call it bigotry (like so many other people are doing right now) at all, but I think it is often unwise to hold a candidate’s personal, non-political religious beliefs against him in an election. I say this on the basis that there is no uniform formula for how religion affects a man. Inerrancy may affect Huckabee’s policies in some ways; it may not, but I would much prefer any voter to simply look at the policies, not what affects them. George W. Bush was a compassionate conservative with a big heart, but did that stop him from invading Iraq preemptively? Jimmy Carter could be called, in a bit a stretch, a compassionate conservative, and some would argue that was what made him avoid war or even confrontation at any cost. Ideology isn’t cut and dry, and its effects on policy aren’t, either.

This idea of ideological application applies more directly to Romney’s Mormonism in the way that it is arguable that it affects him in the way of salesmanship (some say that Mormonism has the effect on many of its believers that they care more about the packaging of the faith than the substance of the faith). My issue, however, is not with the Mormonism that MAY cause Romney’s salesmanship because it is so arguable on whether it causes it, and as I said before and will say again, “who can read the hearts of men?” My problem is with the issue of Romney’s palpable and continual habit of saying whatever needs to be said to win, whether it stems from his Mormonism or not, and that is why I will not support him. I can’t claim to know Romney’s faith or how it exactly affects him. I can claim to know Romney is a flip-flopper (more on that later).

The Bigger They Are…

Rudy Giuliani, the longtime frontrunner of the Republican Party, may be in more trouble than any others at the head of the pack. He remains in the lead in national polls, but that lead has slipped greatly, and he does not lead in any of the first five states. History shows us that losing consecutive early states can be extremely fatal to candidates; which is why Iowa is so important. Media hype, funds, and votes all become much harder to get once someone beats you in the first state or two. Giuliani, to win the nomination, cannot expect to lose Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Michigan all in a row. It’s very, very hard to do, especially if one candidate wins two or three of those states, as Mike Huckabee is currently set to do. Giuliani, then, must make his stand in both Florida and South Carolina, as he has no chance in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Giuliani’s fall from grace is a symptom of several things. First of all, that Christian right which the media was jumping over itself in joy to pronounce dead has awakened. I think what they, and indeed myself, I admit, didn’t understand was that the Christian right, like a lot of the country, simply didn’t care to involve themselves en masse so early in the election. They’re making their weight felt now, I think, and a lot of it is coming in behind Huckabee. The Republican Party is a party in which life and gun rights are very important issues, and Giuliani is questionable on both.

Giuliani’s plummet pleases me, to be honest. I love the man’s toughness, his determination to get results, and most of his positions. But I can’t support a pro-choice candidate when there are serious pro-life candidates on the table, and I can’t support a pro-gun control candidate when there are serious anti-gun control candidates on the table. Giuliani’s an open book candidate, and a strong candidate, who does not change with the wind. He has a set of ideals, and I like most of them.

That’s why I’m more pleased by the fall (though it’s not quite as dramatic) of the other frontrunner: Mitt Romney. I’ve called Romney a flip-flopper, and I stand by it. He had been pro-choice for as long as anyone can remember up until 2005. That was the year he officially became pro-life. I’m not as disturbed by this change as some others, though it does discomfort me.

I’m more disturbed by how in 1992, when running for a Massachusetts senate seat against Ted Kennedy, he said these exact words (that Fred Thompson has joyously replayed): “I think abortion ought to be safe and legal.” That’s fine, too: a lot of Americans are pro choice. The problem is that I’ve seen him now, in two debates, tout the fact that he “came down on the side of life” in every bill that came to his desk. Well, hey, that doesn’t sound too bad.

The problem is when you put them together. Romney told everyone in the campaign he was devoutly pro-choice, then became devoutly pro-life (without any warning) in the office of the governor a few years later. That matters to me because I really wonder just how much of the nice, conservative rhetoric he’s going to abandon if he’s president. Romney says he’s for the surge and staying in Iraq now, of course, but seeing the 180 he did from campaigner to governor back then makes me say that I sincerely doubt his solidity on… well… anything. Romney, for all intents and purposes, lied in his campaign in an attempt to win in the 90’s. So why wouldn’t he do it today? I’ve got no real reason to think that he wouldn’t.

That’s why I delight in the fact that Romney is in trouble in the two states he has banked on the most: Iowa (with Mike Huckabee) and New Hampshire (with John McCain). Republicans need not only a man who says what he does and does what he says, but we need a man who isn’t John Kerry reborn with better hair and even more stiffness.

Our Democratic Friends

So what have the Democrats been up to lately? Besides scrambling for gigantic growths in government (specifically in the form of universal healthcare) and tripping over themselves to surrender to the terrorists in Iraq and show the world how weak we really can be, Democrats are squabbling amongst themselves over who can best be the change agent. Hilary says she has results and a record of working hard to bring about change. Obama says he can do it by hoping, a politics of hope, and more hope (nobody can figure out just what he means, so Obama might as well be passing out teddy bears in my opinion). Edwards says he can do it by breaking the evils of special interests and big business, and replacing them with the white knights of federal government.

I say these things harshly, but I’m serious. Democrat’s domestic views are harmful, in my opinion, but not fatal by any means (except to the millions of unborn who die due to their distaste of any restrictions on abortion). What’s dangerous is that the entire Democratic field fails to understand that losing Iraq means not only international humiliation for the United States and our military, but also means handing terrorists and any other a country an exact blueprint for how to beat us: let us win early, drive up American casualties as much as possible during the ensuing insurgency, use stealth and civilian shields to render American air, artillery and armored power useless, and, if ethnic or religious divisions exist within the population, exploit them ruthlessly through mass murder. Rinse, repeat for a few years, and you can count on Democrats and Republicans to tear each other apart, America to get all teary eyed over this “senseless violence,” and an inevitable withdrawal.

This doesn’t at all change the fact that I still believe everything I wrote in one of my previous posts, The Polarization of Politics. I would respect a Democratic president, though I would disagree with him or her strongly. But this all shows just how vital it is that we win this election to win the war, if nothing else.

Wrap-Up

With the election so near, I encourage all of you to pray about the outcome, research the candidates, and vote (encourage your friends to do the same). I remind you that while we may not have any one candidate who is perfect, in any of our opinions, on all the issues, we’ve got a solid pack, all of whom are currently dedicated to border security, less abortions, and winning the war in Iraq (except for Ron Paul).

I give my best wishes to all the candidates and to you as you try to decide whom to vote for, and God bless America.

I’ve been suffering from a bit of an illness, lately. It’s a pesky, annoying, cynical little monkey on my back. I’ve come to call it B.D.S.: Bush Disillusionment Syndrome. I supported Bush back in 2000 (even though, to be honest, I wasn’t the most informed and up to date 9 year old in the world), and I supported him a lot more consciously and strongly in 2004.

But here we are, nearing the end of 2007, and George Bush’s presidency is a little over a year away from ending. It’s taken a bit of a toll on the man, you can tell by looking at a picture of him in 2000 and looking at a picture of him today. That happens to all presidents, of course, but Bush has had to endure a beating worse than most. He was no media darling like Ronald Reagan, and he didn’t have the luxury of a boring, uneventful and prosperous 8 years like Bill Clinton did. No, George Bush has presided over the country in some of its more trying times, and the media (indeed, the country) has not loved him much more for it. Actually, he’s gotten more flak for things mostly out of his control than any other president could imagine getting: if you listen to some people, you’d think that George Bush paddled down to the Carribbean Sea and personally started hurricane Katrina, then steered it into New Orleans because he’s a racist. You’d also think that he secretly likes to eat children because he plans to veto this new S-chip bill, that he loves the fact that American soldiers are dying in Iraq, that he personally started the California wildfires, and, finally, that he rigged 9/11 as an excuse to get to go into the Middle East and help out his rich oil buddies.

All of those things I listed there are ridiculous, of course, and I don’t believe any of them. Yet still, I find myself with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth for George Bush, and if you asked me to rate the president on a 1-10 scale, I’d probably give him a 6.5. He gets points for what so far look like excellent judicial nominations. He gets points for saying that the best defense is a good offense against terrorists. He gets points for the excellent leadership of this country after 9/11. He gets points for cutting taxes, points for attempting to fix social security, and points for his stubborn insistence that democracy is the best form of government.

Now, then, that’s a fairly impressive list. Why am I suffering from B.D.S., then? Because George Bush, while I agree with him on almost every issue, has proven to be a less than appetizing executor. His first and foremost failing is his inability to realize that every successful president in United States history, from the Civil War-onward, has had to work the bully pulpit of the president relentlessly. They made their political enemies and foreign enemies fear them. They made the people of the United States love them, respect them, and support them. For instance, Will Rogers once joked that “if Franklin Roosevelt burned down the White House, people would say, “well, at least he started a fire!” (Whether you agreed with Roosevelt’s policy or not, there’s no denying that he was extraordinarily effective at policy implementation.) With George Bush, on the other hand, if he saved the city of New York from an imminent nuclear attack, people would say, “look how long it took him!”

Part of this is the media’s fault, you might say, and I agree completely. Today’s mainstream media is inadequate, rabidly liberal, shallow, and elitist. Tony Blair summed them up well when he compared them to rabid pack animals looking for a meal. Nonetheless, they have not always hated Bush (and I feel that anyone who tells you that it's all the media's fault that Bush is a bad communicator is just scrambling for excuses), and his secrecy and continued insistence to not take them seriously has them angry.

I’ve heard it said that Bush has “too much respect for the office [of the President] to get into the political fray.” Sounds like a likely story, to me. I suppose I can respect it, in normal times. But these aren’t normal times; and Bush knows this. When America faces a ill-defined, decentralized, flexible enemy like Islamic terrorists, then it is President Bush’s duty to define them as much as he can, to explain why America is doing what America is doing, and to call out those who seem to not realize who the real enemy is. (I’m thinking of John Edwards saying “we… cannot give this president one inch, not one inch!” If only he would show Al Qaeda the same tenacity, and if only Bush would call him out on it).

Conservatives, and specifically those of us who really take Islamic terrorism seriously, have long waited for that big campaign, led by George Bush with the help of other Republicans and conservatives, to explain why exactly we cannot leave Iraq for our own interests, not just for the worry of genocide or ethnic cleansing. And I don’t mean just explain it a few times, spread out over the course of months: I mean launching a campaign like Bush did with the social security issue a few years ago, where he really pounds the point. It might be too late for that, now that the media already has its heart set against him so much. Even if it isn’t, though, I doubt we’ll see it.

If you find yourself disagreeing with my B.D.S. and thinking that I’m probably the only one, I really don’t think I am. Why does Rudy Giuliani continually lead polls in the Republican party despite his questionable stands on gun control and abortion? I think the reason for that is that his executive record is quite unmatched anywhere, and his reputation, which is quite well earned, is that of a man who means business. He’s an aggressive (to the point of being accused of “overkill” in his time as a federal prosecutor, I’ve heard), tough, relentless leader with seriously impressive results; not just ideas and fuzzy but hopeless optimism. A lot of Republicans are convinced right now that Rudy Giuliani is the man to redeem this country after an embarrassing spending spree along with an embarrassing war. A war that should have been won years ago; a war whose second stage should’ve been sold as effectively as its first.

Don’t get me wrong: I still respect George W. Bush a lot, he is still my president, I still support him, and he was a much, much better choice than Al Gore or John Kerry. He still has most of the right ideas. George Bush, any way one slices it, is a good president.

I’m simply disappointed that such seemingly small flaws, that mean so much, hold him back from being a great president.

"If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."[1]

"I mean, they [Republicans] are up at six in the morning trying to figure out which minority group they're going to screw today the hate, they eat for breakfast. They are going to fight and they are going to smear, and they are going to lie, and they are going to hate."[2]

General Petraeus or General Betray Us?[3]

"He betrayed this country! He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place."[4]

"Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of FOX News. Fox news is worse than Al Qaeda worse for our society. It's as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was."[5]

Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant.[6]

Here we have six quotes from various individuals (and one is from an organization) that represent my feelings about what so much of American politics have become. Some of these quotes are worse than others, for sure, as some are simple idiocy. For instance, is it really credible to compare a news organization to a homegrown terrorist group largely responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans, the lynching and torture of possible millions, and the horrible butchering of democracy in the American South for a hundred years? Is it really credible to compare a news organization to a group responsible not only for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens, several thousand American ones as well, and partially responsible for the oppression of all basic human freedoms in Afghanistan for twenty years? Of course not. This is as clear-cut of an example of ridiculousness as Ive ever seen, and the moron who utters it should be ignored.

Nonetheless, he is not. Keith Olbermann continues to host his show on MSNBC. Not only that, but his ratings are increasing recently. Im more saddened by this fact than the quote itself. Every country has its idiots, and in America we tolerate them very well, but we, the consumers, dont have to reward their insanity.

The same can be said of the individual who spoke the first and last quotes: Ann Coulter. I realize this is a conservative blog, and there may be some Coulter fans reading it. I apologize for offending you in advance, but Ann Coulter has gotten a wink and a nod from conservatives (and another group whose identity she claims: Christians) for far too long. Wishing death on an American presidential candidate is something she should have not only never done, but immediately apologized for. As for her second quote, I do wonder just who she defines as liberals when she accuses them of always being against America. Was Franklin Roosevelt really against America? Harry Truman? Lyndon Johnson? Did John F. Kennedy defend the Soviet Union? I didnt think so. Its true that a sadly-high number of liberals do hate this country, but they do not make up the majority of those who we would call liberal.

Ann Coulter is a product, though: her dress style, her cute and punchy lines, her extremely-controversial books and statements all attest to that. Im mainly sad that its working so well (her latest book is 1# best seller recently, according to the New York Times).

The same cant be said for the man who said the fourth quote: Al Gores been raging against just about everything ever since 2000. Im not surprised that he dislikes George Bush. Im not surprised hes still upset over the 2000 election. I can understand that, to be honest. What does surprise me is that a former-vice president had the gall to not only engage in the ridiculous conspiracy theory that the war in Iraq somehow was planned before 9/11 took place, but also accuse the president of treason. Once again, Im saddened.

The second and third quotes are from what may just be the beating heart of the polarization of American politics itself: Michael Moore and Moveon.org, respectively. Theres not been as divisive a president as George W. Bush since Abraham Lincoln, and Moore and Moveon have been leading the hate-charge (ironic, due to Moores characterization of Republicans in his above quote) against Bush ever since the Iraq invasion. Which is not to say they havent hated Bush longer than that, I would guess that they have, but the temporary surge of patriotism around 9/11 forced them to keep lower about it (or, at least, forced the mainstream media to ignore them).

Which brings me to my point: American politics have reached a level of polarization not seen since the ex-Confederate politicians returned to Washington D.C. after the Civil War. Make no mistake, those years, along with the 1850s, were definitely more polarized and angry, and the politicians disagreements stronger, than these are today. The South saw its constitutional states rights being stripped away cruelly by a rapidly growing, encroaching federal government that was bent on taking away their way of life and ideals as well. The North saw the South as a regressive, brutal land of total inequality determined to spread its immoral way of life to the new states.

Todays struggle is more complex, but the fundamental effects are the same: polarization. Polarization leads to irrational discussion, dismissal of ideas often before theyre heard, strong dislike and even hate, and most importantly, disunity. Just how bad is this polarization? I would think the quotes at the top could tell you. But hasnt America always been divided? To this question, I respond with a story:

Wendell Willkie was the Republican Partys nomination for the 1940 presidential election. He was a charismatic businessman, and a fearless campaigner. Franklin Roosevelt, who had decided earlier not to run for the election, was persuaded to, evidently upon seeing the coming struggle and believing that he would make the best leader for the country during it. Willkie lost, of course, but the story of what happened after the election is amazing:

Willkie's lasting service to the nation, however, came after his defeat, and after America's entry into World War II. Almost immediately after the election, Willkie made it clear to Roosevelt that he would support the administration's war efforts, and Willkie became an outspoken opponent of Democratic and Republican leaders who wanted to return America to its pre-World War II isolationism.

In August 1942, FDR asked Willkie to make an airplane flight around the world as his special envoy to show the world that although America was engaged in a vigorous political debate at home, she was united in her desire to combat fascism throughout the world. What better way to do so, Willkie and FDR reasoned, than to have the President's political opponent make a goodwill tour of America's allies. Willkie's 50-day trip included stops at battle zones in Africa, the Soviet Union and China, which he reported on in a radio speech to the nation soon after he returned[7]

How far a cry is this from He betrayed this country? How far a cry is this from the war is lost? How far a cry is this from General Betray Us? It is further than one can imagine. I confess I dont know much about Wendell Willkie outside of that story. But I do know that what he did here was remarkable. It was remarkable from a standpoint of honor. It was remarkable from a standpoint of patriotism. It was remarkable from a standpoint of morality. Here was a man who had respect for his country, a man who knew that even though he might disagree with who was in power, it was his duty as an American to support the chosen authority. (I dont know if he was a Christian, but to those of us that are, this is important from that standpoint as well).

If only Americas pundits, talk-show hosts, and politicians could show that kind remarkable honor, patriotism, morality and respect.

Conclusion:

So there you have it, the official positions of the nine Republican presidential candidates. Now that you’ve read them, I can come clean as to another reason I wrote this paper: I am extremely sick of hearing the continuous whining coming from conservatives, particularly from “Values voters” it seems, about how there is not a real conservative in the race. Don’t be fooled by these pessimists: I’m convinced that any one of the men I listed above would make a conservative president running a conservative government.

What these whiners are really saying, though, is that there’s not a real conservative in the frontrunners, those assumed frontrunners being Thompson, Giuliani, Romney, and McCain. I always wonder, every time I hear this complaint, why these people are too uninformed, too close-minded, or too scared of being in the minority to examine the other five candidates in the race. I wonder what they’d say if they would actually take the time to find out that a former Baptist preacher that stands strongly for the sanctity of life, strongly for the foundation of the family, and strongly against gun control is in the race (and, as you know from reading the summarization, Mike Huckabee is far from alone on those positions).

Which brings me back to the entire point of this paper: to get you, the voter, to examine each one of the individual candidates for what they believe, and to vote with whomever you agree. This isn’t about saying, “Hey, look, Mitt Romney has a bunch of folks holding signs! I’ll vote for him,” as you drive up to the polls. This is about independently analyzing each candidate and voting for who you think is best for the country at this time. If you think it’s Mitt Romney, that’s great. Voting is too important, however, to leave your vote up to whoever has the most signs out, runs the most commercials, or gets the most TV screen time. Think about it: how great would it be if the best man for the country won instead of the best fundraiser?

I hope that this summarization of the Republican presidential primaries has helped you form your opinion on the candidates accurately. If you have any questions, critiques, or comments on this work, I would love to hear them (my email address is uberdawg@grandecom.net).

I’d like to leave you with a list of websites that I recommend not only for accurate political information (though the last four are not known for shying away from partisanship, I will warn you) about the upcoming election, but politics in general as well:

http://www.ontheissues.org/default.htm: a site dedicated to looking at candidates for many federal and state government positions and where they stand/have stood on issues.

http://www.nationalreview.com/: the online home of the weekly magazine National Review (a magazine I recommend strongly).

http://www.weeklystandard.com/: the online home of The Weekly Standard, another magazine I recommend strongly.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/today.guest.html: the website of talk radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh, whose show runs from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM Central time.

http://www.glennbeck.com/home/index.shtml: the website of talk radio broadcaster and TV personality Glenn Beck, whose radio show runs from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM Central time and TV show airs at both 6:00 PM Central and 8:00 PM Central on CNN Headline News.

And finally, the list of the candidate’s own websites, where I got most of my information:

http://www.brownback.com/s/, Sam Brownback.

http://www.joinrudy2008.com/, Rudy Giuliani.

http://www.mikehuckabee.com/, Mike Huckabee.

http://www.gohunter08.com/, Duncan Hunter.

http://www.johnmccain.com/, John McCain.

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/, Ron Paul.

http://www.mittromney.com/, Mitt Romney.

http://www.teamtancredo.com/, Tom Tancredo.

http://fred08.com/, Fred Thompson.

Fred Thompson:

Life story:

Freddie Dalton Thompson was born on August 19, 1942 in Sheffield, Alabama. He entered Florence State College (now the University of North Alabama), becoming the first member of his family to attend college. He transferred to Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis), where he graduated with a double-major in political science and philosophy in 1964. Thompson proceeded to Vanderbilt, where he earned a J.D. in law in 1967. After finishing with college, he spent time on various corporate boards, been special counsel to various Senate committees, and has worked as a lobbyist. He was elected to the U.S. Senate as a representative of Tennessee in 1994, and stayed until 2003. He has also performed many roles as an actor, most notably as District Attorney Arthur Branch in Law and Order.[1]

Thompson married his first wife, Sarah, in 1959, and they had three children together. They were divorced in 1985, and he married his second wife, Jeri, in 1996 (they have two children together). He has been a member of the Churches of Christ his whole life.[2]

Abortion:

Fred Thompson has maintained his pro-life views for some time, saying:

I think Roe v. Wade was bad law and bad medical science And the way to address that is through good judges. I don't think the court ought to wake up one day and make new social policy for the country. It's contrary to what it's been the past 200 years... That's what happened in this case [Roe v. Wade]. I think it was wrong.[3]

He also holds an F rating from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL, a pro-choice interest group).[4]

National Security/Foreign Policy:

Fred Thompsons stand on national security is this:

The first responsibility of government is to protect the American people, the homeland, and our way of life. Today we face the urgent threat of radical Islamic terrorists. Al Qaeda is committed to attacking us here at home, and wants to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to kill millions. We must never give them that opportunity. We must defeat the terrorists abroad, and that begins in Iraq and Afghanistanthe central fronts in this global war. We must show the world we have the will to fight and win. A weakened America - or an America that appears weaker - will only encourage further attacks. We must persevere. As Commander-in-Chief, the president must ensure the United States has the means to achieve victory. Presidential leadership requires talking to the American people about these stakes, mapping out a clear vision for success, and devising a comprehensive strategy for achieving it. I am committed to:

A larger, more capable, and more modern military that can defeat terrorists, deter adversaries, and defend the U.S. and our interests.

A missile defense system that can protect the U.S. and our allies from long-range ballistic missiles.

An enhanced intelligence community, with robust human-intelligence capabilities, focused on terrorism and proliferation.

A robust approach to homeland security that will protect our nation from terrorists and WMD, regardless of where they come from.

A strengthened system of global alliances to better combat terrorists, proliferators, and traditional threats to our interests.

A judicial system that deals with the realities of terrorists and unlawful enemy combatants.[5]

Iraq:

Fred Thompson repeatedly has made the point that America must stay in Iraq to avoid weakness and betrayal of our allies:

We need to do everything possible to avoid the appearance of utter weakness. And that our friends and allies, in the end, cannot count upon us no one wants America and Americas allies to be perceived as weaker, which could cause a dozen situations to arise around the world that might not otherwise arise.[6]

Specifically, Fred Thompson says that, I would do essentially what the Presidents doing. I know its not popular right now, but I think we have to look down the road and consider the consequences of where we are.[7]

Thompson has also continually expressed his disapproval of what Congress is doing with regards to the war, saying this on a radio commentary:

The Houses emergency war-funding bill contains several conditions on how the war should be run. Theyll never become law but they send signals they say. Theyre big on sending signals in Washington. But what I was really surprised to find in the bill was what looked like $25 billion in pure pork. Since a lot of the people who voted for the bill campaigned against pork, I was puzzled.

Im puzzled theres $283 million for dairy farmers in an emergency war-funding bill. But theres also $74 million for peanut farmers so, I figured our soldiers are eating a lot of peanut-butter sandwiches; they need more milk to wash them down with.

Hey, Im trying to keep an open mind, here, okay?

But I also wondered why the bill gives $25 million to spinach producers. Our troops should certainly eat their vegetables, but unless it turns out that theres a scientific basis for that Popeye spinach thing, I dont get it.

Im also trying to figure out what $400 million for rural schools has to do with the war unless that money produces students smart enough to explain why this bill includes over $300,000 for the widows of two ex-House members, and $80 million for low-income rent subsidies.

Theres a lot in the bill I dont understand, but this sort of makes sense. Theres $50 million for repairs to the plant that supplies electrical power to the Capitol where Congress works. To fund and win the war, Congress does need electricity at least to do its job.

Ah, I get it. This bill isnt just about funding the war for democracy and freedom in Iraq. Its a political statement. And its about buying enough votes with pork in order to make that statement. Maybe it wouldnt be such a bad thing, if Congress did have its power cut off every once in a while.[8]

Education:

Senator Thompsons stance on education is this:

A well-educated citizenry is vital to our security, our economy, and our democracy. Despite the tens of billions of dollars spent on education by Washington each year, and the hundreds of federal education programs now in place, our children are still falling behind, particularly in subjects crucial to the global economy in which we live. At a time when America is behind other developed countries in education excellence, the federal role in education is too intrusive and too bureaucratic, and has become part of the problem. State and local governments are closest to the parents, the kids, and the schools, and best situated to implement changes and innovations that best educate children. I am committed to:

Giving parents more choices in education and schools less bureaucracy.

Reviewing federal programs for cost-effectiveness, reducing federal mandates, returning education money to the states, and empowering parents by promoting voucher programs, charter schools, and other innovations that enhance education excellence through competition and choice.

Encouraging students and teachers to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathfields that are crucial to our security, competitiveness, and prosperity.

Promoting transparency to assess performance, promote accountability, and share innovations in education at all levels.[9]

Economy/Taxes:

Thompson expresses strong sentiments in favor of an efficient government and tax system, saying:

The U.S. tax code is broken and a burden on U.S. taxpayers and businesses, large and small. Todays tax code is particularly hostile to savings and investment, and it shows. To make matters worse, its complexity is a drag on our productivity and economic growth. Moreover, taxpayers spend billions of dollars and untold hours each year filling out complicated tax returns, just so they can send more money to Washington, much of it for wasteful programs and the pet projects of special interests. We need lower taxes, and we need to let taxpayers keep more of their hard-earned dollarsthey know best where and how to spend them. And we need to make the system simpler and fairer for all

Our government is outdated, inefficient, and wasteful. It is often unable to perform even the most basic tasks our citizens expect. It is no longer enough just to want limited government; the American people deserve more effective government. Given todays challenges, we cannot affordand shouldnt acceptanything less than a nimble, effective, and efficient government that is able to focus its resources on the important issues facing our country. It must be able act on behalf of the American people and our national interests in a timely manner. The key to competent government is strong, committed leadership from the top. The key to good government is good people who are well-managed and put the national interest first.[10]

Gun Control:

Fred Thompsons record on gun control is solid[11], and is best summed up by this quote:

I strongly support the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which protects an individuals right to keep and bear arms. Gun control is touted as a major crime-control measure. But some of the places with the strictest gun-control laws also have high violent-crime rates. Disarming law-abiding citizens does not prevent crime. The answer to violent crime is smart, effective, and aggressive law enforcement. The real effect of these gun-control measures is to place onerous restrictions on law-abiding citizens who use firearms for such legal activities as self-defense, sport-shooting, hunting, and collecting.[12]

Gay Marriage:

Fred Thompson is against gay marriage, as seen here:

Strong families are the bedrock of our nation and our culture.  They are built around the sanctity of life and the institution of marriage, which is the union of a man and a woman.  To counter coarseness in todays culture that oftentimes victimizes our children and undermines the traditional values parents want to instill, we must not only protect but strengthen the institutions of family and marriage. I am committed to:

Using the Presidency to encourage policies that promote a culture of life, strengthen the institution of marriage and traditional families, and advance freedom of religion.

Returning authority to the levels of government closest to families and communitiesthe statesand then protecting states from further intrusion by the federal government, the judiciary, and other states.

Combating the spread of obscenity over TV and other media by making sure parents can better exercise their responsibilities.[13]

Immigration:

Fred Thompson views immigration as more a security issue than anything else, and says on his website:

The United States is a nation of immigrants. Throughout our history, legal immigrants have brought energy, ideas, strength, and diversity to our country, our economy, and our culture. This must continue. But in the post-9/11 world, immigration is more of a national security issue. A government that cannot secure its borders and determine who may enter and who may not, abrogates a fundamental responsibility. I am committed to:

Securing our borders and enforcing immigration laws. Amnesty is not an option and the toleration of sanctuary cities must end.

Reviewing our immigration laws and policies to ensure they advance our national interests.

Uniting Americans by welcoming legal immigrants willing to learn English, assimilate into our communities, and become productive citizens.[14]

Other Notes:

Senator Thompson dedicates a portion of his site to the national debt and the fiscal tsunami it brings:

In a few short yearsnot a generation from nowa fiscal tsunami that could imperil our security and economic prosperity will hit our nation and place an unfair burden of debt on our children and grandchildren. The tens of trillions of dollars in debt that will be accumulated over the next few decades will do immense harm to our economy. This burden is now estimated at $170,000 per person and $440,000 per family. Time is running out to address this looming crisis. We need market-based approaches to reform that guarantee benefits for those who need them and embrace personal responsibility and cost-effectiveness without raising taxes. Given the scope and urgency of this problem, and the burden it will place on our children, reform is not only an economic necessity, it is a moral imperative that requires action now.[15]

Tom Tancredo:

Life story:

Thomas Gerard Tancredo was born on December 20^th, 1945 in Denver, Colorado. He graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 1969 with a degree in political science. He spent the following years teaching, and was elected in 1976 to the Colorado Congress. In 1981, he was chosen by Ronald Reagan to be the Department of Educations regional representative to Colorado, a post he held for the next 11 years. In 1998, he was elected to the U.S. Congress.[1]

Tom married his wife Jackie in 1977, and they have two children together. He is an Evangelical Presbyterian.[2]

Abortion:

Tom Tancredo makes no bones about his stance on abortion:

The innocent unborn enjoy a God given right to life. Roe is a scar on the moral and intellectual history of the country; but, contrary to popular belief, overturning it would merely permit and not require states to prohibit abortion. To protect life, we also need to educate the public about the second victim of abortion, the mother who is subject to potential life long medical and emotional scarring.[3]

National Security/Foreign Policy:

Congressman Tancredos national security policy includes continued involvement in the Middle East:

In the wake of the September 11th attacks and the ensuing war on terrorism, it has become clear that the United States is facing a new security threat. The war America is already engaged in will not be fought like the wars of the past. After witnessing the tragic terrorist attacks against the nation, it is now time to coordinate the efforts of federal, state, and local agencies to provide better homeland defense. Tomorrow's attacker is more likely to board a commercial airliner bound for the U.S. with a tourist or student visa - or he may simply walk across our porous southern or northern border carrying a device in his backpack. These issues must be addressed.

We are, I believe, in a clash of civilizations. That clash is fought on many fronts-some military, some diplomatic, and still others, ideological. On the military front we have won two significant victories. One was in Afghanistan where we destroyed the Taliban and Al Qaeda's command and control network. The second victory was in Iraq where, by toppling the Sunni dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and creating the embryonic infrastructure of a democracy, we set in a motion a chain of events that could lead to a major strategic advantage for us and for the West. This advantage emanates from the forced political equilibrium that can be brought to the region and Iraq itself now that Saddam has been dispatched. The deep schisms in Islam will force countries in the region to impose this equilibrium. Our continued presence in Iraq as the referee in a civil war inhibits this development.[4]

Iraq:

On the subject of Iraq, however, Tom Tancredo feels that America has largely done its part:

America's noble sacrifice has purchased Iraqis a precious opportunity for democratic change; it is now up to them to ensure success. Setting the President's November benchmark for shifting control as an actual timetable for disengagement will let regional powers and Iraqi factions cooperate to forge a new balance of power.[5]

Education:

Tom Tancredo, as a former teacher, stands against increased federal involvement in schools:

I spent a decade as the Department of Education's regional representative in Denver so I do not say this lightly. Federal involvement should be limited. Educational control is best left in the hands of parents. A no-strings-attached voucher system would promote school choice, while competition for students would drive educational improvements at the institutional level. I also suggest schools return to a more traditional course of study and that the public focus shift to certain non-school factors, like parental involvement, which studies show are the most important determinants of student performance.[6]

Economy/Taxes:

Tom Tancredo is dedicated to cutting spending; but not just any spending:

Government is spending dangerously beyond its means. For years, Congresses and Presidents of both parties have continued to spend more money than they take in. The largest component of this spending spree is entitlement spending.

Simply put, federal entitlement programs are too big and cost far too much. The American taxpayer cannot be asked to continue funding numerous entitlement programs or be all things for all people. Finally, we cannot ask the American people to pay higher taxes to finance this spending spree. We must remember that federal government is in debt because it spends too much, not because it taxes people too little.

There two types of government spending discretionary and mandatory. Discretionary spending, which accounts for roughly one-third of all Federal spending, includes money for things like the Army, FBI, the Coast Guard and highway projects. Congress explicitly determines how much to spend (or not spend) on these programs on an annual basis.

Mandatory spending, on the other hand, accounts for some two-thirds of all government spending. Permanent laws authorize this kind of spending. It includes entitlements things like Social Security, Medicare, and Food Stamps programs through which individuals receive benefits solely because of their age, income or other criteria. Spending levels in these areas are dictated by the number of people who sign up for these benefits, rather than by Congress. In order to reduce this kind of spending, Congress must make fundamental changes to the underlying programs something that few political leaders in Washington have the stomach for.

The only way we can rein in government spending is to take on entitlement spending. And the only way to take on entitlement spending is to fundamentally reform the crumbling and unsustainable institutions of the welfare state. Until Americans demand changes in mandatory spending, we will simply be treating the symptom of deficits rather than addressing the underlying problem of excessive spending. Americans can no longer continue to borrow money from countries like China and allow government spending to run on autopilot. We cannot sit idly by; waiting for the impending fiscal train wreck that we all know is just down the tracks.[7]

Gun Control:

Tom Tancredos position on gun control is this:

I fully and completely support the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The failure of the ACLU to defend this right, and of federal courts to make the second amendment binding on the states, as they have made the first amendment and most others, testifies to their intellectual hypocrisy.[8]

He also was given an A report card from the NRA on his voting record.[9]

Gay Marriage:

Tom Tancredos argument on marriage is simple and practical:

Federalism concerns make a constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage an avenue of last resort, Unfortunately, intellectually dishonest activist judges have left us no choice.

Activist courts have ignored the principal legal argument that the state's interest in marriage is procreation. Population is power. Society needs a young generation to defend the country in battle, to support its programs with taxes and to carry on its culture and traditions. The mere fact that two people are in a loving relationship does not matter to the state. Society supports traditional marriage because it is the only union which, in the ordinary course, leads to children, without the intervention of a third party.[10]

Immigration:

The centerpiece of Tom Tancredos campaign is definitely immigration. He has been a firebrand (in the words of the Washington Post[11]) on the subject, frequently drawing criticism. His official stance is this:

There is no doubt that America is facing an illegal immigration crisis. Currently, there are at least 12 million illegal aliens living in America. I am absolutely opposed to amnesty. In addition to rewarding those who broke our laws, amnesties simply do not solve the problem of illegal immigration. The only realistic solution to the problem of illegal immigration is a strategy of attrition, which seeks to reduce the flow of the illegal alien population over time by cutting off the incentives for coming to and staying in America most importantly by eliminating the jobs magnet. America must also reexamine its legal immigration policies. Since 1990, that number has been roughly one million yearly - and that doesn't count illegal aliens. America should reduce legal immigration to 250,000 people a year, which will allow the newcomers to assimilate.[12]

Tancredo also has a quote from Teddy Roosevelt on his website that he uses to further sum up his position:

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.[13]

Other Notes:

Tom Tancredo also dedicates a part of his website to blasting judicial activism: