Catch-22

I finally made it through Catch-22. I knew it was going to be lefty, but I really didn’t know how much. Most of us have used the term “Catch-22” at some point, and understand it’s meaning as “a self-defeating paradox”. In the book, if you ask to be grounded from flying missions because you feel you are insane, you can’t be grounded, since it is obvious you are sane if you will ask to be grounded from the dangerous missions. Unless you have the intellectual curiosity to try to grasp the liberal mind, that would pretty much cover the goodness in the book. I’m amazed that it is a “classic”, I’ve never seen the movie, but it can’t be true to the book or it would border on an X vs an R rating with all the connectionless sex involved.

Sometimes fiction can be quite expressive of beliefs and Heller does a good job of covering a lot of standard liberal thought in one novel. There is no God, nearly everyone is “crazy”, the world is entirely wrong and messed up, war (in this context WWII) is meaningless and not justified (no apologies are made to the Jews), capitalism, business, profit … all obscene and bad. Hookers, random sex, “good”, in that it is something to try to get more of because it feels good, but still meaningless. The bottom line is always pursuit of pleasure in the face of meaninglessness and foolish authority. Why can’t there just be more “random fun”?

The “hero” of the book is Yossarian, a bombardier that keeps trying to get out of flying any more missions via various schemes and interacts with all the other characters. Milo Minderbender is sort of a stand-in for capitalism. He is ostensibly in charge of providing food, but is sort of a cross between Radar O’Reilly and the head of Enron in that he creates one big syndicate that involves everyone in the war including the Germans and “everyone has a share”.

I keep trying to think back if I would have bought into this book more if I had read it when I “should have” … say college or shortly after. Very hard to say in that youth tends to be a time of confusion and questioning of meaning, and this book certainly has plenty of that. On the other hand though, this book was published in 1961. One of my “overall theories” is that once the “dominant thought” gets too strong, it can’t help but create it’s own opposition in a free society. The calm and comparatively peaceful (to WWII) 50’s with the “Father Knows Best” look and relatively doting and prosperous families gave rise to the rebellion and churn of the sick 60’s.

One could look at the odd little TV show “Family Ties” from the ‘80s and at least get the hint that in order to be a “rebel” in the face of parents that came of age in the ‘60s you would have to be a Conservative. Out on vacation I saw a bumper sticker that said “Annoy a Liberal. Work Hard, Succeed, Be Happy”, and I often suspect that we have shifted just about that far in America. To be a “good liberal” in this country you have to at least question the value of hard work, success, and replace happiness with anger it seems.

While the electorate as shifted ever so slightly to the conservative side, the dominant culture certainly remains liberal. The youth will always have a tendency to rebel against the dominant culture. When Catch-22 came out that meant rejecting God and religion, marriage and family, nationalism, the morals of society, and the idea of life having purpose. It seems to be at least worth a little thought that the 60’s liberals succeeded so well that the youth of today after being faced with the mass media and public education can “rebel” by accepting God and making religion a part of their lives, getting married and being faithful to their vows, loving and supporting their country, following a moral code, and believing in the meaning and sanctity of life.

For a liberal like Heller, it might be a bit of a Catch-22.

Post Vacation Blues

I’m back from the trip to Estes and having those usual “vacation is over blues”.

I won’t bore readers with any details of my attempted hike to Sky Pond that resulted in a difficult trip back to the trailhead from 4 miles up, and a night in the hospital in Estes Park, other than to make the points that giving blood a week prior to heading to elevation is not good idea, and they are really serious about altitude and hydration. I’ll find out more this week if there are any problems beyond the single event.

Estes Park stays at the top of our list of mountain destinations. We went to Jackson WY last year. The Tetons are very beautiful from the valley, but they are “up there”, and you are “down here” … in order to get up into the mountains it is more of a hike, and harder to get to the really great scenery. From the shorter hikes, a lot of the viewing is looking back out at the flat valley. There is a lot of taste in scenery, but my real problem is that Jackson seems to be becoming an ACTUAL example of what liberals claim America is, a place that is good for only the very wealthy.

Jackson has an airport that can handle all the private jets, and the land prices and the kinds of galleries and restaurants that are there show it. The place keeps moving up the dollar scale, and moving to the political left as well as more of the Hollywood types come in to act like their view of a cowboy and move the real cowboys out. Estes has everything from the KOA / YMCA / Super-8 that is actually cheap, to the Stanley Hotel where the Presidential Suite goes for $1,500 a night. Estes is like what America ACTUALLY is … a place where there is a bottom, a big middle, and a good sized top, and they can all get along and enjoy the scenery together because they know they are all generally where they are at because of the blessings and trials they have received in life, and what they have done with them.

Aside from the hike to Sky Pond that ended at Timberline Falls, we did get in a short hike up to Calypso Cascades which caused me now ill effects, and traveled over the Trail Ridge Road to search for Moose on the Grand Lake side. Two Moose were spotted, it appeared to be a cow and a calf, but they were not very cooperative relative to viewing. I have to give Jackson the nod for viewing of the Moose … we had a cow munching away outside our condo one night up there, and saw 3 large bulls on hikes up in the park last year.

So vacation is officially over and one day of work is under the belt

Wow

Like all mountain pictures, this one falls way short of capturing the view. We are up on a mountainside outside of Estes Park CO facing the range at Rocky Mountain National park. This is the view off the deck of the place we have rented for the week. The place is http://www.windcliff.com/ for any that want to look in more detail. Much more in reach to rent one of these for a week than to buy it, but fun to dream.

The Blog might be a little slower this week, the views are just too good for writing, although sitting and looking at them with the laptop and a cup of coffee isn't bad either ;-)

Give Death Meaning

I touched on a subtle method the media uses to sway public opinion in “a bit fruitless”, the coverage of the mother of a KIA solider that is camped out at the Bush ranch wanting to see him shows how the media gets on message and stays on message. By picking the stories that get the news, they get to give the country the impression they want, and as evidenced in our local paper the other night, this then allows the local Opinion Editors to pick up the strain and press it further.

First of all, there is ALWAYS some protester type around a President of either party wherever they go. During the last couple years of the Clinton Presidency there would almost always be one or more young women that would dress up in berets like the one Monica Lewinsky wore in one picture or a set with knee pads on in the front row. The mainline media almost always ignored them, and one needed to get on a “Drudge” or other source that was willing to report it in order to be aware of it. 

There are always “the insane” on any issue from insanity to space aliens to saving the one toed newt.

There are few sadder things in the world than a mother that has lost a child, but a mother that has lost a child in the service of our country that has to ask “why” is one. Last fall a 17yr old Eagle Scout fell off a bluff up by Red Wing and died, we contributed to a memorial project that will be done for him. In the past week or so, one young man of 21 was killed in a motorcycle accident in the area, and another 17 year old was killed when his car drifted over the center line and was struck by a semi. If one has faith in God in those cases, we trust him to have a reason, for those that have no faith, this is a random world, and death is just part of the random process. Meaningless.

I’m often struck by the difference between the way a conservatives and liberals generally look at some kinds of death. First, 9-11. I’ve heard multiple liberals utter some version of “Only 3K people died on 9-11, yet over 40K die on our highways every year, and nobody is going to war over that”. Somehow they equate a willful act of terrorism with an accidental result of a transportation system, and at some point I’ll blog on that. While conservatives tend to not say it, I believe because it is completely obvious, a death in service of our country is considered to be hugely more meaningful and easy to understand than a death on a highway, from a fall, or a host of other reasons that we hear of all the time which befall people at young ages and other.

The point of the media though is that they WANT the deaths of servicemen to be seen as “meaningless”. Dying on a road when your “mission” was to get some milk and it was a “failure” since you didn’t get the milk home is easy for a liberal to understand. It is meaningless, the way that life and death should be to a liberal. Volunteering to serve your country, removing a man that murdered 10’s of K from torture, started two regional wars, used poison gas on his own people from power, and taking part in a giant effort to form the first stable democracy in the middle east, that is very hard for a liberal to understand, since it seems to give “hints” of higher purpose.

This is an area that it is hard for me to plumb the depths of the liberal psyche, but I believe the answer lies in the importance of meaningless to a liberal. If there WAS anything such as “shared meaning”, or “higher purpose”, it could mean that many of their assumptions for life were flawed. The phrase “God and Country”, often used in concert with the idea of a solider going to battle comes to mind. If people really do believe that some beliefs, some thoughts, some ways of living are “better than others”, than there might be some legitimate reasons to go to war. To protect our way of life from random terrorism to the extent possible, to save others from tyranny, to stop genocide, to provide the chance to others for freedom, these might all be causes worth giving your life for, or taking another life for.

The battle of the liberal is often a battle against meaning, so it becomes especially strong when the issue of “what is worth fighting and dying for” comes in. To the liberal, that is easy, to coin a phrase from a 60’s anti-war anthem; “Absolutely Nuthin”. There are no values or thoughts that exceed the value of a meaningless life. Suicide, abortion, or euthanasia are all “freedoms” that the liberal seeks to maximize, because since life lacks higher purpose, it is “enjoyment” that gives it “dignity”, and war not only can shorten the party, it isn’t enjoyable. 

There is no “miracle of life” to protect and cherish, only a vast series of random actions that caused a meaningless consciousness to arise. The thought that one group of people would hold their random thoughts and values to somehow be so much “better” than another group that they would go to war is completely indecipherable to the liberal mind.

So they battle to reduce the deaths of all soldiers to meaningless. A mother’s cry that her son’s death is meaningless is magnified across the nation since it meets with the liberal’s view of the war, and the President is asked to “explain again”. Thus, the never ending battle between meaning and the abyss continues on as it has since Lucifer first fell from the heavens and God first called order from chaos.

Lambeau

Friday night the family made the pilgrimage to Lambeau field for “Family Night”. The tickets are sold locally in Green Bay for $8 each. We were able to score four nice seats for $180 on e-Bay. The stadium was packed, the weather was perfect and we were at Lambeau, it doesn’t get much better than that. The renovation of Lambeau was completed for the start of the ’03 season, and it is a thing of beauty. Besides the tickets we spent $5 to park at a church 5 blocks away, $70 or so, on food and drink, $180 for a hotel, $100 or so on souvenirs, and a few other sundry items around town. I mention this because I know that neither us or any of the 60 thousand fans there for a team scrimmage, nor any of the few hundred people at the Pro-Shop and Packer Hall of Fame Saturday had any positive impact on the local economy at all.

How do I know this? I’m no dummy, I listen to MPR, and every time they discuss the issue of stadiums they point out that there are NO STUDIES that show ANY positive impact of pro sports on the local community. Green Bay would be the same identical city without the Green Bay Packers, it has been economically proven. I’m not sure why we would have been over there spending money without the Packers, but MPR tells me it is so, so I would likely have traveled over to tour a paper plant or something. Life could be so confusing without MPR, I’m glad I have them to keep my mind right.

Having been born in Packerland is one of those blessings like being born in the USA that one would need to be a liberal to not be thankful for. If the Packers and the Packer story didn’t exist, they would be unbelievable as fiction. Even now, only a city of 100K people, it is the smallest town in the NFL. They have 12 NFL Championships, including 3 Super Bowl Trophies. Even more amazingly, the NFL Championship trophy is now the “Lombardi Trophy” in honor of Vince Lombardi, Coach of the Packers from 1959-1967.

Having lived in MN for 27 years, the first 14 of which the Packers stunk, the joy of the recent return to glory is especially sweet. The favorite Vikings fan approach during the era was “The Pack will NEVER be back !!!” … followed by some version of “ALL Green Bay has is history” … “and they ARE history” …”small market teams can’t compete any more” … “enough minorities will never play in Green Bay”… a team has to have an owner, a town can’t run a modern team” … and on and on. I’m sure that over those decades of abuse in the 29 years between titles, some few gave up, but the vast majority kept the faith. When the existence of your team is itself a miracle, it is very hard to lose faith in miracles.

Which brings me to my favorite Packer/Viking joke; The coach of the MN Vikings dies and goes to heaven (We’ll call him Mike Tice). Having been up there for a few weeks and settled in, he leaves his nice little house and goes out looking for the coach of the Green Bay Packers, who he also knows has died fairly recently (Mike Sherman), just to see how he is getting along. It doesn’t take him long to find that right in the middle of everything is this MONSTROUS place that is a replica of Lambeau field with huge spotlights shining the giant G, all decked out in garish green and gold, with a ton of Packer pennants, signs, and symbols all around.

It is more than Tice can take, so he goes to the administration building and looks up God. “God, I know I’m supposed to be happy here, but I can’t understand why I have the house I have, and Mike Sherman, who as far as I know, didn’t do anything at all that would justify that huge place that looks like Lambeau field that he has”.

God looks at him with a puzzled expression and says; “What do you mean Sherman’s house? That’s MY house!”.

A Bit Fruitless

This AM my daily perusal of CNN Web headlines turned up this one; “Dad: Marine Felt Mission ‘a bit Fruitless’”. 

Such a headline certainly lets one know what CNN thinks of the mission in Iraq. The power of the mainline press to shape public opinion remains large, and one of the reasons it remains large is that it is subtle enough for a lot of people to not even understand they are being manipulated. CNN can decide what family views they decide to put on headlines, but unless they make an explicit attempt to “poll all military families that have lost soldiers”, or some other likely equally heartless technique, it is unsurprising to see headlines like the above. 

The press and the left likes to point out that “talk radio”, “Karl Rove”, or other forces have “manipulated Americans”, which is of course true. We are surrounded by a LOT of forces that manipulate our opinions, some because they believe what they say, and some explicitly to manipulate for other purposes. 

In the world of ideas, “buyer beware”, and “comparison shopping” is far more critical than even the consumer world. It is no surprise that the media dislikes any competition in the realm of ideas.

What would the ratio of headlines like the following be to those like the above if a “fair method” was used?; “He was doing what he wanted and believed we had to protect freedom”, “He cared about the Iraqi people, and wanted to do whatever he could to give them a chance at freedom”, or “eHe believed in the mission and what he was doing, he knew the risks” . 

There is very little way we can know, although most of us that pay attention to local news, and some non-headline stories at the national level have seen sentiments like those I manufactured. That is somewhat unsurprising since we have a volunteer military force that at least in some cases likely had reasons for going into the military that might even come close to the honorable reasons all journalists have for going into their profession ... admittedly the highest calling of mankind, worthy of special honor and much constitutional protection if the papers are to be believed!

We all have biases, but the mainline media never admits to their biases, while the conservative media does. Fox is a new odd case … an outlet that attempts to show both sides, often in an explicit point-counterpoint format, but they make an attempt. The fact that NY Times, NBC, CBS, etc consider Fox biased for even providing a conservative perspective gives a pretty good indication of the level of their own bias. They find it an affront that somebody out there is willing to present a conservative view in anything other than a purely negative light.

For the “general public” though, it is the more subtle bias as in the headline of this news article that has the greatest effect. The constant “little stories” in which the bias is in what is selected to be reported vs what is not selected, and in what is the headline vs what is buried at the end of the piece. Day in and day out, the views of the reporters … that Iraq is hopeless, that the economy is bad, that the administration is corrupt, that the country is being run by the religious right, that things are “generally bad”, becomes the “common view” for those that are not selective in the ideas that constantly bombard their minds.

Don’t believe anything that you read at face value, even this blog. At BEST, it is someone doing their utmost to find the truth by looking at reality with all the honesty and capability they have. Since it is just one foolish human doing that, multiple sources are REQUIRED.

Criminal?

My short ride to work this AM was rewarded by an MPR segment that I think provides huge insight into the problems of us “all getting along”. The segment pointed out that; “In a study done up in Minneapolis, it was discovered that a very high percentage of stolen handguns fall into the hands of criminals.” This was straight news, it wasn’t April Fools, and they were not joking, it NEVER dawned on them that stealing a gun was a crime, so anyone that stole a gun was by definition a criminal

As I’ve said before, I refuse to follow the same thought pattern that liberals follow with conservatives (“conservatives are stupid”). I don’t believe these people are stupid, I believe that their mental model is SO different from someone with even a moderate conservative bent, that communication is very difficult. My “guess” is that they see stealing a handgun in much the same way that a conservative (normal person?) would see getting a speeding ticket, or even a single drunk driving arrest. “Breaking the law”, yes, and worthy of punishment, but not “a criminal”.

To the liberal minded folks doing the news, and to the folks doing the study, “criminal” had some other unstated definition, but it was assumed to be understood by listeners, and it certainly didn’t include stealing a handgun and not getting caught. Any person with a set of values by which “a crime” is something beyond “getting caught and getting convicted” tends to look at such a study, and reporting it without laughter, as “stupid”.

A liberal looks at many things that same way, just from the opposite perspective … the price of oil, the war in Iraq, the economy, judicial appointments, and a whole host of items with the mindset that “well of course they are THIS way, and if you don’t see it that way you are STUPID” … and they often get quite exasperated and usually angry if they are confronted with someone that seems to have rational reasons that they can’t refute, but they KNOW they have to be refutable since they have the right answers!

Why is the country more polarized? Because our ability to select the news we hear is greater than ever before. Many liberals listen to ONLY Public Radio, and read ONLY the NY Times and/or something like Time or Newsweek. Since the 80’s, there are also plenty of Conservatives that ONLY listen to some type of talk radio and get news from Fox News (actually, there they hear BOTH sides … but that tends to make the liberals even angrier), and then pick up a conservative publication or Web sources for the rest of their news.

The schools are less of a mixing area then they used to be … the constant removal of any mention of God, and the focus of teaching “values” like gay sex and promiscuity has led more and more conservatives to private schools or home schooling. Issues like Abortion and Gay Marriage have segregated the churches so the liberal churches tend to be forced further and further down the path of a social message outside the Bible, which drives Christians toward churches that teach the Bible. Thus segregated, the Bible based churches tend to identify with Republicans, and the society based churches tend to identify with the Democrats. (with the Catholics split right down the middle between those that follow the teachings of the church, and those that don’t … but like true liberals, still want the benefits of course).

So we have people listening to different stories and generally not mixing with each other. Amazingly, they become polarized, and start looking at the world in such different ways that they can’t seem to make sense of what each other is saying. My answer is “you have to listen to the people on the other side, and AT LEAST try to understand how they are looking at things. Unfortunately, it looks to me like the division will keep getting wider for at least a good long while, and since not even something as elementary as 9-11 was able to significantly bring the country together, I’m not sure what is likely to change it.

Recess

Politics seems to mostly remain blessedly on vacation. Bush has made a “Recess Appointment” of John Bolton, who the Democrats successfully filibustered, preventing confirmation. The web is great, Bill Clinton made 144 recess appointments, including an Attorney General for Civil Rights, and an openly Gay Ambassador to Luxembourg. I’m not sure which is the more important ambassadorship, the UN or Luxembourg, but it seems close. How well will the press do at providing some context for a recess appointment?

One of the dings on Bolton of course is that he is “mean”. Ten years ago he yelled at a subordinate, and rumor has it he hung up on somebody at some point. People have mentioned that those items would have gotten him fired in “any corporation in America”. From my experience, those kinds of comments only prove they have clearly never worked in ANY corporation in America … nor based on my limited experience with dealing with global corporations (usually when a computer was broken, and people were unhappy) … at any corporation in the world either. The likely answer would be that either they have never worked ANYWHERE, or that they are simply making the statement up for political purposes, which is the most likely answer.

I heard second hand that Charles Krauthammer was pointing out that when one looks at the 190 countries in the UN, a good deal of the countries are not the kind of garden spots with excellent manners and civility that your typical very nice Democrat is used to. Bolton may have yelled at someone or even hung up on them, but likely a significant number of the ambassadors to the UN have killed more than one person in cold blood, or been involved in ordering such in order to get their plum assignment living high in NYC with diplomatic immunity. It is quite common for the tin-pot dictator de jour to name some crony or another to the post at the UN for “services rendered”. In a lot of the world, those “services” aren’t all that pretty. That is the kind of perspective it would be nice if the general media provided … but somehow I doubt they will get around to it.

Model of Perfection

It seems that politics has taken a vacation for awhile, which is just as well. The Shuttle is in space, docked with the Space Station, and summer is being enjoyed in MN. Some discussions this week and happenings in my personal life have brought me to reflect on my “basic model” for liberals and conservatives.

One of the key features of liberals is that “consistency is not an issue”. They will allow a Ruth Bader Ginsberg to answer very few direct questions in hearings, but are very likely to turn around and demand that John Roberts answer all direct questions. Like all humans, conservatives are not consistent either, BUT, the difference is that for a liberal any such discussion will bring a blank stare. They simply can’t understand that there would be an issue with being “inconsistent” … Ginsberg is good, Roberts is evil. Why would you treat them the same?

While a liberal may be unable to discern “evil” in terrorists flying planes into buildings, pedophiles raping and killing children, or a Doctor partially delivering a baby and then sucking it’s brains out to both insure death and an easy remaining delivery, there are certain areas that they make exceptions. If one faces a liberal and tries to get them to admit to evil in such things, they will quickly point out “different points of view”, or “everyone’s right to see things as they want”, or “you don’t know what kind of background / thought process / brain chemistry, etc drove this person to do that which you judgmentally call “evil”.

One of my theories on why this is so is what I would call “the deity of the liberal mind”. Liberals tend to believe in no God, or in a God that is “unknowable”, “unrelated to us”, or “universal” in that sense that whatever you do would be OK with “*IT*”. Once one believes this, then what one person believes is no more valid than what another believes … but in the human equation, that quickly resolves to “my ideas are better” and ultimately "might makes right". 

When one is god, it is reasonable to expect that your model of the universe is correct and OUGHT to come to pass. It seems that most liberals have a rather abstract and rigid model of what the world ought to be. Since they don’t really believe in any concept of “original sin” and nearly always believe in the perfectibility of man, then the force of “evil” in the universe must be that which is preventing their abstract model from coming true.

This evil typically turns out to be “conservatives” or “Republicans” in some form. The “evil forces” will have names like “religious right”, “big business”, “the oil companies” and “the rich”. The abstract model in the liberal’s mind of a society that is “just”, “free”, “fair”, “peaceful”, “environmentally sound”, and “less filling” is something that would happen NATURALLY if it were not for those forces that are blocking it. Anyone blocking “heaven on earth” must be doing it for an evil purpose.

Once a liberal arrives at their “perfect mental model”, it is very hard to have allegiance to anything in this world and likely least of all the USA. It is a classic case of the “good being the enemy of the perfect” … and of course once it is identified as “the enemy”, it is hard to see it as “good”. Many may see the USA as the best of the best on the planet for governments, but since it falls far short from the abstract perfection inside a given liberals god-like brain, it is worthy of only scorn and derision. Americans being willing to “settle for” what the liberal sees as a sorry state of affairs earns them the derision of a Michael Moore to say about his fellow Americans; “They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet... in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks.”

While it might be easier to just respond to the left in kind, my guess is that they are actually thinking SOMETHING. Michael thinks Americans are dumb because many believe in odd things like God, Family, individual responsibility, morals, hard work, and a reasonable level of personal hygiene. Meanwhile, Michael neither believes in, nor practices any of these and makes millions of dollars while calling himself a “common man”.

I doubt that there is one iota of difference in the “hardware” (IQ) between the right and the left, but there is a significant difference in the “software” (mental models) that many of the people on either side are running. I’d rather accuse the left of “incorrect mental models” than being “stupid”. But I suppose that is only because I’m less sophisticated than the typical lefty.

Seven

Lance Armstrong wins his 7^th Tour, what an incredible achievement. I’ve enjoyed watching him the past few years on OLN, and I really enjoyed reading his books … “It’s Not About the Bike” is a great one. There are so many moments in that book that make a chill run up the spine.

 My favorite is after he has recovered, done a decent job at a comeback placing 14^th in a big race in Spain, given up cycling and hung around Austin playing golf, eating at Chuy’s and drinking Shiner Bock (BTW, having traveled to Austin a good deal on business, I can say his taste is pretty good on the Chuy’s and Shiner ;-) )

He has decided that biking is just too tough, and he wants to “enjoy life”. At one point, he makes the statement “… the old saying, that you should treat each day as if it might be your last, was no help at all. The truth is, it’s a nice sentiment, but in practice it doesn’t work. If I lived only for the moment, I’d be a very amiable no-account with a perpetual thre-day growth on my chin. Trust me, I tried it.” He was locked in the “what do I want to be when I grow up” black hole and going nowhere.

His wife, manager, and friends convinced him that he needed to race in a local Austin race called “Ride for the Roses” that he had set up for Cancer survivors, and if he didn’t train “a little”, he would embarrass himself. Chris Carmichael talked him into going to Boone North Carolina where he had won a couple of races and train. There is a peak there called Beech Mountain, and on the last day of the training he would climb that with Bob Roll, his training partner for that trip. For those of you who watch OLN during the Tour, Bob Roll is one of the commentators.

He buried Bob early on the ascent, and he started to get better and faster as he went up. “That ascent triggered something in me. As I rode upward, I reflected on my life, back to all points, my childhood, my early races, my illness, and how it changed me. Maybe it was the primitive act of climbing that made me confront the issues I’d been evading for weeks. It was time to quit stalling, I realized. Move, I told myself, if you can still move, you aren’t sick!

… As I continued upward, I saw my life as a whole, I saw the pattern and the privilege of it, and the purpose of it too. It was simply this: I was meant for the long hard climb.”

He certainly was, and he has certainly accomplished it. “The privilege of it”. There is something in that line that separates the real “winners” in their hearts from the “losers” of this world. If you are reading this, you are drawing breath, so the privilege is yours. You are one of the privileged. 

One of the top surgeons from Mayo ran a stop sign on a country road that I know pretty well Friday AM and his privilege came to an end. A friend that used to live a across the street from my Grandmother was hit head-on by a drunk driver at 24, and her privilege came to an end.

There will be a ton of people, causes and even political parties that will try to tell you that you don’t have a chance in life and that the deck is all stacked against you. They may be your parents, they may be your “friends”, they may be the group you have always associated with and believe that there is no way you can ever think any differently. They will tell you that some other group will prevent you, that you don’t have “enough” … intelligence, connections, emotional stability, family background, money, etc. 

They will give you the message that you are “lacking”. The reasons they present it to you may vary a lot. They may just believe it, and misery does love company. They may feel that they would be invalidated by your success … that if you had success it would somehow mean that the powerlessness they peddle was somehow more of their own doing than that of some “other”. They may want to convince you to “join their cause”, because adding you to their roster will somehow improve the power of the powerlessness lobby.

Don’t buy it. 

Lance Armstrong was in the bottom 3% of the cancer patients that a noted oncologist had ever treated for SURVIVAL … not for winning the Tour de France 7 times, but for continuing to draw breath. As he says, “success” isn’t about winning the Tour 7 times. That was part of what it was about for HIM, but there are all sorts of success that are possible as long as you realize that as long as you have that privilege of drawing breath.

Thanks Lance, it has been a privilege.

100 People Screwing Up America

I couldn’t resist Bernard Goldberg’s “100 People Who are Screwing up America”. Fun and easy read, and no, all the people in the book are not from the left … Ann Coulter, the Enron, World Com, and other Corporate excess types get roasted as well. It is however mostly predictable … the bias of the press (his first very good, and very successful book was called “Bias”), the extremes of the left, and the excess of sports and the media all get their turn.

His number two pick was Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times, and he included a revealing editorial that does a good job of showing the lunacy of press bias. 

On January 1, ’95, the Times provided this editorial:

“In the last session of Congress, the Republican minority invoked an endless string of filibusters to frustrate the will of the majority. This relentless abuse of a time-honored Senate tradition so disgusted Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from IA, that he is now willing to forgo easy retribution and drastically limit the filibuster. Hooray for him. Once a rarely used tactic reserved for issues on which Senators held passionate views, the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser, … an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose.”

On March 6, 2005, they provided the following:

“The Republicans are claiming that 51 votes should be enough to win confirmation of the White House’s judicial nominees. This flies in the face of Senate history, … To block nominees, the Democrats’ weapon of choice has been the filibuster, a time-honored Senate procedure that prevents a bare majority of senators from running roughshod. … The Bush administration likes to call itself “conservative”, but there is nothing conservative about endangering one of the great institutions of American democracy, the United States Senate, for the sake of an ideological crusade.”

Notice any difference? I suppose the true lefties will find some fig leave to cover the nakedness of that bias, but those that are that far gone won’t be coming back to reality anytime soon in any case.

Teddy, secretarial swimming coach, Kennedy was only #3. I really liked Bernie’s analysis of a famous Teddy bloviation on the Iraq war: 

 “a fraud made up in Texas to give Republicans a political boost”.  (Teddy) 

“This is pretty serious stuff-charging that the president of the United States went to war to win reelection. And exactly how would that work? Let’s see, President Bush takes a nation to war, an enormously risky political proposition, says the reason that we’re going to war is that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, even though the president KNOWS the weapons don’t really exist, and that sooner or later, certainly before the election, EVERYONE will know they don’t exist … and he does this to “give Republicans a political boost”? Am I missing something?”

Very well put I think, and the kind of logic that fortunately 51% of Americans had no trouble parsing. The idea that Americans are going to re-elect a President because we are war is of course also absurd. We only need to go back to LBJ, which is likely a major reason that the Democrats and the media spent so much time in ’04 trying to tie Iraq to Vietnam. Other than just not having anything else to run on after a wasted 20 years in the Senate, I’m pretty sure that is another reason that Kerry wanted to talk so much about Vietnam, and to make a connection to Iraq in every way he possibly could.

The book was entertaining, and I like his writing style. Michael Moore was #1, and as it says on the cover Al Franken was #37. High in entertainment, low in significant content, perfect for a nice summer read.

Vegas Prosecutes Gamblers

CBS News putting a prime time hour long show on during an election year that trashed a sitting President with no counterpoint was a milestone in press bias even if all the “important evidence” had been irrefutable. When the evidence turned out to be bogus, the fact of media bias was made clear enough that even very moderate people realized that the mainline press can’t be believed.

The press working day after day to try to get Karl Rove fired is a sign that they continue their move away from journalism and into extreme partisanship with no remorse. While it isn’t likely that most Americans will care enough to even notice the current adventure in press partisanship since the story is idiotic and it isn’t an election year, nobody should be surprised to see more news outlets of the Fox and further to the right gain success as the future rolls on

The press pushing to see a leaker punished is like Vegas trying to punish gambling. The press LIVES on “off the record sources”. “Deep Throat” was a secret source leaker that broke the law every time he talked to the press. In his position he was sworn to not go to the press or anyone else with inside FBI information, BUT, when he recently was identified the press treated him as a hero, which is exactly what would be expected. If the press wasn’t left biased, they would treat a leak from a Republican the same. Leakers are critical to the press, when they bite the hand that feeds them, one can see their true stripes.

If the DEMOCRATS were working to get Karl Rove out of office … hearings, interviews, talking to the media, etc, then we would have plain old garden variety press bias as the press did all it could do to help them. It is important to contrast however what happens when the Republicans see blood in the water and go after a Democrat, as in the case of Clinton. In that case we get a bunch of press navel gazing about “oh, is this really important?”, “how can anyone be in office if we expect “perfection””, etc.

This is different though. Much as in the CBS memo story, the press is driving this thing. It is Joe Wilson that shows up on the news shows, it is the press that finds some memo and tries to make it news even though there is no evidence that Rove even saw it. This is the press telling the Democrats to just get out of the way, THEY can get this job done!

The story itself is completely uninteresting to anyone but the most political partisan on either side. Even if Rove would be fired, it would be a “ho-hum” for all but the most partisan on the Republican side. On the left, it seems hard to imagine that anyone but a rabid Democrat would care about Rove for anything but “revenge”, and everyone knows they care nothing about CIA people, even REAL covert ones. When Phillip Agee, published “Inside the Company”, and covert agents WERE in fact killed, the left and the mainline media loved it. They hate the CIA, they just hate Bush more.

The meta-story here is “how biased can they be”? They have proved they can be biased enough to run a smear job on a sitting President during an election based on fake memos. They can be biased enough to use false information to claim that US soliders are desecrating the Koran, causing riots in which people are killed. Some interest remains, how biased can they be this time?

Responsiveness

Having not had many posts from readers to deal with up to now, I’ve not thought much of what I would do relative to responding to such posts. Like a lot of things, it will likely vary depending on workload, the weather, my mood, and a host of other topics, but this entry is my “general thinking”. I think the general policy will be to ignore the fray at the post level, and provide feedback from a blog entry if I think there are things posted that I feel like commenting on.

One poster seems to put a lot more meaning in “Republican vs Democrat” than I think was warranted prior to the 60’s, or maybe even that ‘70s. The election of Ronald Reagan ushered in a new Republican era in which Republicans were that party of less Government, free market capitalism, strong defense, and a set of values that prior to the ‘60s would have been “American” rather than have any chance of being “owned” by one party or another … pro-life, pro-family, pro-religion, pro-sexual morality, pro-individual responsibility, pro-hard work, etc. As Reagan said, he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left him. It left a lot of Americans.

Some attempted list of “this is all the good things that Democrats have done” is meaningless to me, especially prior to Reagan. I wasn’t old enough to know anything directly about JFK, but from what I understand … cutting taxes, anti-communist, let’s put a man on the moon, etc, he would have made a good post-Reagan Republican. Reagan himself was an FDR Democrat, and nearly everyone supported the President in wartime in those days. There were a lot more issues that were “American” rather than owned by one party or the other. In the “big picture models”, my sense is there used to be a lot more agreement between Americans because they were Christians, Americans, members of a community, a profession or type of work (farmer, labor, shopkeeper, etc) and loyal to family and friends before they were members of some political party. Perhaps I believe in a time that never was, but those are my impressions … many core values of being an American were pretty much shared by both parties.

From 1865-1930, the “Party of Lincoln” Republican party held general sway. The party of Slavery, the Democrats turned the corner with the Depression and the election of FDR. The question of whether FDRs programs would have ever gotten us out of the depression without WWII can never be answered scientifically without some sort of an alternate universe time machine, but the fact is, he got credit for winning WWII and for the policies that ended the depression. There isn’t anything wrong with that for me. America ended up better, and if Democrats get credit for that, that is just fine with me. Americafirst, party loyalty should always contingent on what is better for the country. I've never cheered for America to do bad in Bosnia, or have a poor economy when Democrats are in control. I will live my life out as an American no matter what party is in charge.

It took the sixties and the “youth revolution” before one could concive that a US Political Party could be anti-family, anti-military, anti-religious, anti-life, anti-business, and in general “anti” and still have any viability at all. The Democrats, the party of slavery and the party of Jim Crow, with KKK members like Robert Byrd finally allowed the civil rights act of ’64 to pass 73-27, with 21 Democrats, and only 6 Republicans against. Modern Democrats (and thankfully for them, the media) don’t seem to like to point out that one of the great historical uses of the Filibuster was the Democrat party preventing anti-lynching and voting rights legislation).

The conversion of the party of slavery and Jim Crow into the party of Black Americans is one of the great government vote buying stories of history. By maintaining the idea that Blacks could not be successful on their own, breaking their families by having the Government replace their fathers as “the welfare father”, Democrats were able to enslave the same people that they had held in actual slavery, the slavery of Jim Crow, and finally the slavery of welfare. I find it to be one of the most amazing stories in American politics, and one of the saddest.

The idea that Republicans are “the party of the rich” is a pre-60’s idea that the media and many Democrats seem to remain fond of. Take a look at the very liberal book “What’s The Matter with Kansas” to see a long lament of how the “stupid poor” have hooked up with the evil Republicans and voted against their own pocketbooks”. I guess I’ll accept that Republicans are “the party of the rich” if rich in spiritual life, rich in work ethic, and rich in devotion to America (the real one, not some “hoped for America”) is included in “rich”. If Republicans must be the party of the rich though, then Democrats remain the party of slavery … slavery to old dead socialist and communist ideas that centralized government can provide, slavery to the belief that the economic pie is only so big so we must all beg the Government to cut the pieces so we benefit at the expense of someone else, and slavery as in the mold of enslaving special interest groups like Blacks, NEA, Government workers, and others through the purchase of their votes.

The term “liberal” used to refer to those that wanted less government of all types, as in “libertarian”, but when the “Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics” and the “National SOCIALIST German Workers Party” (Nazi) ended up making the name look less than stellar, the left decided that the term “liberal” sounded better than “Socialist or Communist” and made the switch. The Government staying away from your property … be it your house or your paycheck is one of those “basic liberties” that the modern “liberal” isn’t very interested in protecting. Rather than fight the standard terminology, I go ahead and tend to use “liberal” for the left and “conservative” for the right, since that is what people expect to see.

Oh yes, and on the old “am I better off” question. It is a Henny Youngman world. When asked how his wife was, he would answer “compared to what”. The stock market crashed in March of 2K when Clinton was still the President, the recession hit in 1Q ’01 when there wasn’t a Bush policy to be had, and of course we know about 9-11 (well, I guess conservatives do, most liberals seem to have forgotten it). Bush only needed to do better than the imagination of Al Gore’s potential to pass the “are you better off” question. It seems pretty clear that not even the DEMOCRATS never gave a second thought to putting Al up against Bush again to say “see America, you made a bad decision, you could have had **AL** !!!”. I rest my case.

All a Schorr

I was able to hear a Daniel Schorr piece today on NPR, the thought that it brought to my mind was “The Hopeful Gospel Choir” from Prairie Home Companion. The subject was the evil Karl Rove. Whenever I hear the media talk of him I’m reminded of the movie “Spaceballs”, where the character “Dark Helmet” is a spoof of Darth Vader played by Rick Morainis. Rick is short and doesn’t look very evil, and his helmet is ridiculously large … one just can’t buy him as the nexus of evil, which is exactly the problem the media has with Carl Rove.

 It is clear they hate him, and why not? He was at least partially responsible for the election and re-election of the hated George Bush. The hatred drips a little too thickly though to try to retain any fig leaf of “we are unbiased”. When a picture of him is shown the thought of a cross between a cherub and Porky Pig comes to mind … not flattering of Karl, but not easy to picture as the nexus of evil.

I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the reasons that the media hates W so much is because they THINK that he does exactly what they do. It doesn’t dawn on them that he may believe, have evidence, or in a lot of cases be “right”, they assume that he is making it up and just saying it over and over like they usually do. A few examples:

1. “Clarence Thomas sexually harassed Anita Hill yet …”. Actually no, he made a couple of comments that nearly nobody would define as sexual harassment, even if the comments were made to their wife or daughter. 10 years before the accusation and she moved to two different jobs with him AFTER the supposed “incidents”.
2. “Bill Clinton was never guilty of anything but an affair between two consenting adults yet …” No in many and varied ways. The Paula Jones accusation, finally agreed to and apologized for and paid off by Bill was a case of a male governor dropping his trousers in front of a female employee and asking her to “kiss it”.  Even many liberals would find THAT to be sexual harassment if it was their wife or daughter. Not to mention perjury about the incident and others, forcibly fondling Kathleen Wille in a hallway at the White House and a host of other stuff. The media keeps repeating though … “meaningless waste of time”. 
3. “The Soviet Union is pretty much like the US and will be around as long (or longer as we are). We need to work with them rather than have some fantasy that they are an “Evil Empire” or “Are going away” … nuff said.
4. “There has never been any connection between Iraq and Al Quaeda” … “Iraq was never a threat to the US” … They may or may not believe some of these things, but repeating them over and over is no different than Bush using the opposite in a speech. There is certainly ample evidence to believe that there were and are connections, there may also be enough evidence for some to believe that there were and are none.

What the Schorr commentary does is postulate that:

1). There was never any evidence that Saddam was buying yellowcake in Niger (of course the British investigation, and in fact Joe Wilson himself reached the opposite conclusion until he started lying about it).

2). When Wilson made the claim that there was no evidence (even though it was later proven that he knew and reported that there WAS evidence), the Bush administration decided to “retaliate”.

Based on those two ludicrous assertions, stated as facts, it is “obvious” that the Bush administration would want to retaliate by “outing” a CIA agent that was not undercover and in fact drove into CIA headquarters every day ( I guess that would be DEEP cover) … if you are actually going in to work at a government agency, it is OBVIOUS that you don’t work there … government workers don’t actually go to work, they call in sick and goldbrick. The fact that she was driving into CIA headquarters would PROVE to anyone observing her that she was NOT a CIA agent … therefore the perfect cover for an actual undercover CIA agent. SIMPLE ! 

This is likely one of those things that those "inside the beltway" are aware of that those of us outside just don't understand.

The power of the media is great, but one would hope that this fantasy is a bridge too far. The idea that they are reduced to trying to take down Rove AFTER the re-election does a lot more to expose bias of an extreme nature than it does to shed any interesting light on anything else.

Listening Left

It is deep summer here in MN, temps in the 90s, no rain, lots of outdoors work and play, so I have been “listening like an average American” to the standard left media and have some thoughts.

If one even just watches the mainline media (closely), a veritable barrage of good news is streaming by, but since it only shows up for a second, and there is never any commentary on it (at least the good news), it is very easy to miss.

· 8 straight quarters of growth above 3%, first time since mid-80s. If there was a Democrat in the WH, this alone would be enough for media happy snoopy dance. As it is, buried on page 4-5 one day, and then the funeral dirge plays on.

· The CBO deficit projection for fiscal year ’04-’05 is down to well under $350 billion and may be under $325 http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/08/budget.deficit.ap/index.html

Contrast this with a Washington Post headline of January
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35029-2005Jan25.html that stated it would be $427 Billion. There has been a lot of media and democrat hand wringing about how unrealistic the Bush campaign promise to cut the deficit in half was without the all-purpose media solution on massive tax increases. Expect the story of a lower deficit to see minimal coverage with many caveats about “the numbers being bad”. Next time you see a negative number; see if they tell you about the potential that “the number is bad”. Wonder why that is?

· Unemployment hit 5.0% in June, the lowest since 2001. http://money.cnn.com/2005/07/08/news/economy/jobs_june/

One of the reasons that it truly is sad to have a Republican in the White House is that we never get to enjoy any good news. If we had a Democrat in there, it would be wonderful happy times.

The good news of free market capitalism isn’t just for the USA though. Thomas Freidman had an Op-Ed last week where he pointed out that Ireland, the perennial land of famine and poverty is now the 2^nd highest GDP per capita in Europe. Why? In the early ‘90s they looked at what was working and created a business friendly environment … cut corporate taxes, high individual rates, and reduces socialist kinds of rules that prevented business flexibility, on the “liberal side”, they made even secondary education essentially free to those that were willing to maintain grades. Now Dell, IBM, Motorola, and a host of other business has come to Ireland, while Germany, France, and those in Europe that maintain a socialist bent, slip ever lower. 

As a side effect, it is a lot harder to recruit bombers in a growing economy … people are more interested in living a better life than in blowing it up. The media generally likes to ignore these sorts of facts … the right kinds of decisions might be reached, more people would move up the income ladder and vote Republican … oops, I guess that has already happened. Well, they can try to slow it down at least!

Here in MN the media is intent on blaming Pawlenty for the State shutdown, which was the Democrat strategy from the beginning. One article that you will never read in the local media is that the Governor is part of the EXECUTIVE BRANCH … interestingly, they don’t write legislation, they sign it, and Pawlenty never vetoed a bill during the special session. Which means … drum roll please … that the legislation never got out of the legislature! Let’s see, there are two branches in the legislature, the House (Republican), and the Senate (Democrat). For some odd reason though, this startling fact never made the media, and all we heard about was “Pawlenty’s No New Taxes Pledge”.

There are few things that the media hates more than some limit on taxation, even when a God forsaken Midwestern state with a horrible climate, no mountains, and a bad business climate. However, we do a great job of taxation and always manage to make the top 5. From a liberal POV, high taxes on their own mean a great quality of life … as long as someone else is paying them.

The MN Democrats prevented any bonding bill from passing in ’04, and they were rewarded by picking up 13 seats in the House. Nationally they are obstructing well enough so that a UN Ambassador can’t even be approved. It remains to see if they will be rewarded at the ballot box for their efforts, but if they are one can only guess that even the dense Republicans will learn that obstruction pays and at least give it a ham handed try. Oh how the media will yell at that tactic, but I may be just wishful thinking, look at the Supreme Court.

The Democrats successfully Borked Robert Bork and prevented his confirmation, they carried out their high tech lynching on Clarence Thomas and he squeaked out a confirmation. 

We now hear the opening whine salvos of “Bush didn’t get enough of a majority to appoint anyone conservative”. Clinton NEVER got any majority at all (43% in ’93, 49% in ’96), and yet Ruth Bader Ginsberg sailed through 96-3. What would someone that is as far right as Ginsberg is left believe? I don’t think we can find anyone anywhere in the judicial system that comes close … an equivalent conservative judge would have to believe that Roe should be overturned ASAP, affirmative action / Gay Marriage / restrictions on the Ten Commandments and a host of other things would be constitutional abominations that would need to be fixed immediately. I’m not sure such a candidate exists, but if they did the media and the left would go to filibuster and manufacturing personal charges against the person for certain. 

Yet, the foolish Republicans let Ginsberg sail through AFTER Bork and Thomas. Did they think that the Democrats and the media would give them credit for civility? Of course not, it is the Republicans that have “destroyed the tone” in Washington, and Bush ought to appoint a liberal to “prevent a fight”.

I got a chance to listen to a little of “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross on MPR this evening as I journeyed home from a Church board meeting, and was rewarded with some great humor for my efforts. She was interviewing a Marine reserve Doctor that is head of some University Medical school as well as having served in Iraq. She did her best to try to get him to say something bad about the politics, the efforts, ANYTHING to do with the war, but he remained dedicated to the service, dedicated to the soldiers, and not willing to take any political bait.

She finally got down to a question like “Well, the war in Iraq is a very unpopular war, do you feel that has reflected badly on you as you have returned?”. He had served at the time of (not in) Vietnam, and responded that his experience to the contrary was that they had a lot of support, people sending them letters, treats, helping their families, and telling them how much they appreciated their efforts when they got home. That was the end of the interview, her disappointment was palpable.

It is a great country. He goes to war to fight for the freedom of a tax subsidized woman whose high moments are if someone with Tourettes syndrome comes on and says something inappropriate or she can giggle about gay sex with a guest. If the Muslims that she respects and loves to talk positively about (as opposed to disgusting closed-minded Christians) ever were in charge, they would take her out and cut her head off,  with some unfriendly treatment on the way to getting to see her headless body from a "unique perspective" for her 2-7 seconds of remaining consciousness that science postulates a severed head "enjoys" (providing her head falls in a "lucky" perspective).

How out of touch with reality can a reporter be to think she will get the better of a 30+ year military veteran, Medical Doctor, and head of a University Medical center? She was completely out of her league, but apparently her obliviousness knows no bounds as seems to be the case for most of the mass media.

Terror in London

We awoke this AM to news of terrorist attacks on the transportation system in London. The media breathlessly waiting and anxiously searching for blood, gore and body counts, the stuff of which headlines are made. Over the next few days we will no doubt be treated to statements of; “See, the price of taking on terrorists is too high, we should get out of Iraq, we should retreat and they will leave us alone”.

Such thoughts make the naiveté of Neville Chamberlain signing an agreement with Hitler and talking about “peace in our time” seem like the height of sophistication. Hitler may have been a bloodthirsty monster, but he at least had the PR sense to try to hide it. Al Qaeda has been very clear of their objectives, and even if they hadn’t, their actions have been more than clear. We certainly weren’t in Iraq on 9-11, nor when the Cole was bombed, nor when Kovar Towers were bombed, nor when the WTC was truck bombed in ’93. Bali had no troops anywhere, let alone Iraq in October 2002 when a nightclub was bombed by Al Qaeda, killing 180 people. One doesn’t even have to be looking at them to have them shoot you in the back. They are very capable of being outraged just by our very existence.

The facts may be 100% against them, but we know the liberal mind, and the facts will yet again be ignored and the cries will go out; “If only we are compliant and do as they say they will leave us alone”.

I often wonder if liberals exist on the same planet. They will wail this cry at the same time as the press discloses the details of a sex offender from MN, captured in Idaho with an 8-year old girl he had been molesting for months, along with apparently tying up and killing her family, along with kidnapping, molesting, and killing her 9-year old brother. Do liberals assume that these kids and this family threatened this man? By what odd view of the universe do they believe that terrorists are going to make some rational choice about what they find “threatening” or they “dislike”, and only attack those targets? Do they find that the men that fly planes loaded with people into buildings full of people, or plant bombs on busses and trains loaded with innocent people are somehow less evil than this child molester murderer? Evil has many faces, and for those that are awake, it is quite easy to spot.

To the extent that they are rational, I can only assume that liberals fail to see the existence of evil in any of the above. They see all people (with the likely exception of Republicans) as basically “good”. At times they “do bad things”, but there is always some justification … the crusades, too many oil profits, Bush is arrogant, I had a bad childhood, I was drunk/on drugs/crazy/ etc. The bottom line is always the same … there may be some “bad actions” out there, but there is nothing we can do to prevent any of them, and if we would just throw our arms into the sea, wear tie dyed clothes and listen to folk music, the people that might need anger management, counseling, or better drugs would likely get some and the world would be a sunny place.

Unfortunately, the universe that liberals live in is not the real one, and so we have to go on in spite of them. Prayers for the victims and the people of England, and prayers for the police and military forces of the world as they continue to hunt the evil that is Al Qaeda in whatever hole it chooses to hide in. All that is required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing. No doubt we will hear a strong round of support for doing nothing from the left in the next few weeks.

Find the Leaks, But Don't Ask Us

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The Sadness of the Liberals

Our local paper graced it’s Op Ed page with an editorial from Ellen Goodman and one from Paul Krugman this evening. Nothing like having some balance! Neither editorial was really worth the waste of good trees and ink. Ellen was lamenting that Bush has “co-opted symbols”, and her special ire was directed at the yellow ribbons on the backs of vehicles, and of course ESPECAILLY those on the backs of SUVs. I don’t have one at this point, but if they bother Ellen that much, they might we worth sticking on.

She sees “support the troops” as a proxy for “support their commander in chief”. She wants to be clear that she supports the troops, is very patriotic, she just doesn’t support what they are doing … and of course even though we live in a democracy where we have elections and Bush won, she doesn’t support him either. He keeps talking about “War on Terror”, and “911”, and he should just stop, it is awful and disgraceful, and it just bothers Ellen SO much!

I think can understand. It would be like if I had a “Support the NEA” sticker on my vehicle, but my real position was that public schools are a disaster, the only thing they are good at is teaching kids gay sex, rap music, and crime, and any student wasting their time going there was doomed to failure. Oh, and I hate the Democrats saying “it’s all about the children”. BUT, I’m really pro-public school, and VERY pro-teacher. All my criticism is based on “support for teachers and public education”. I support them, I just don’t support what they are doing. Not that many teachers die in the line of duty though, so I guess the analogy isn’t quite exact.

Krugman was in his usual “all is lost mode” relative to Iraq. It is wrong, it was always wrong, there isn’t anything right about it, it can’t get better, it can only get worse, Bush is stupid, Bush is a liar, we should get out ASAP, we have lost, lost big, the sky has fallen, might as well just kill ourselves as wait for the terrorists that we are creating to come and do it for us. There just isn’t any doom and gloom dark enough for Paul. I’ve always been against assisted suicide, but if only we could elect Bush to a 3^rd term I’d say that would have to be the best idea for Paul.

I think holidays bring out the worst in liberals. Thanksgiving and Christmas are always hard on them … things like God and family involved. They don’t believe in the God part, don’t like the fact that some people that celebrate the holiday DO believe. Usually don’t like the family thing … lots of imperfection, probably some idiot relative that watches Fox and listens to talk radio, nobody should have to be exposed to that. People aren’t genuine, how can anyone be happy when Bush is President? Holidays make no sense.

July 4^th is a really tough one. Patriotism and liberals is always a touchy subject. They are absolutely sure that they are really the only TRUE patriotic Americans. They just don’t like flags (too showy), or fireworks (pollution and noise), or grilling (pollution, People Eating Tasty Animals (PETA)), marching bands (too military, too regimented, too “Red State”) and most of all, that whole “rockets red glare” thing. The idea that America was born in war and war is often required to preserve their freedom to constantly find the worst in the country. That is a tough concept for them. They have a hard time really coming to grips with what they like the least, but the whole experience is very uncomfortable, and doesn’t feel like a holiday to them.

Liberals like MLK day. They can march in the streets and talk about how bad it still is in America, it is a celebration of badness and struggle. It is a celebration of the flaws of America, and those they love to celebrate. They love Earth Day. Again, they can point to pollution and all that isn’t right. We haven’t signed Kyoto. Labor Day is probably the most major holiday that liberals love. It celebrates labor, how hard labor has it, and how much we all need unions. More unions, more union dues, more money for Democrats. They like Halloween; witches worship nature, and trying to scare the weak is the favorite liberal strategy of all.

The plight of liberals is tragic. All those holidays celebrating God, home and hearth … Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and those celebrating country in a positive light … Memorial Day and July 4^th tend to get much more attention than the liberal holidays. Yet another part of an unfair world in which liberals are forced to make their sad way.

Congratulations Canada and Bush

Public Radio is often the source of news that they really don’t even realize is news. For years we have been hearing how backward and conservative the US is for not recognizing gay marriage. Republicans want to “turn back the clock” to the bad old days before liberals around the world made marriage for gays a standard right.

Driving to work this AM I hear that Canada! That bastion of socialism and amorality north of the border has JUST voted to officially recognize gay marriage as a nation. Today! Not in the 19^th century, but TODAY, 6-29-2005! What is more, this makes them the THIRD (3^rd) nation on the planet to recognize this important union. The other two are the Netherlands and Belgium. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany? They are all as “backward” and “19^th Century” as the poor old stodgy USA? Even if every other country on the planet had recognized marriage between gays, bi-sexuals, random mammals, and space aliens, it would really make no difference in the morality of the issue, but the media has once again managed to hoodwink even those of us that don’t generally believe in it to believing that the US was really “behind the times”.

Next topic, the economy. It is always amazing how negative the media can be on the economy with a Republican in the White House. The Economy grew at 3.8% for the first quarter of this year, matching the rate for the final quarter of ’04. Remember Kerry and most of the media talking about how the economy is “abysmal”, and “Bush is lying about the economy”? Apparently he was lying in exactly the same way he was lying that elections would be held in Iraq in January 2005. What is more, the Growth now has exceeded 3 percent for eight straight quarters, the longest stretch in almost two decades. Hmm, almost two decades … that would put it back in the times of ??? wait, RONALD REAGAN.

Now there is an odd thought, I could swear there was another president in between there? Some guy that had trouble keeping his mind on work at the office? Oh yea, President Bubba, he was supposed to have a GREAT economy … but strangely the growth rate over a lot of his presidency was quite anemic. He DID preside over a marvelous stock market bubble and super things like Enron, but somehow he was never able to achieve 8 straight quarters of over 3% growth. Somehow, I would expect that this story will not be one of the “biggies” that the media chooses to focus on.

A lot of understanding the news today in America seems to rely on getting “the rest of the story”.

Lost Property, Kelo

Today’s Supreme Court decision in “Kelo vs The City of New London” isn’t really getting a lot of media play, but is a giant step for the left down the road of removal of property rights. The decision allows government to use the power of “Eminent Domain” to take property from private individuals and groups for “public good”. “Public good” is not now limited to roads, bridges, or civic buildings, but the property taken can be given to another individual for development simply because the government deems the new use to be for “greater good”. Higher property tax revenue was one of the “greater goods” listed.

While this ruling is horribly serious, and this site is serious as well, there is a little humor involved. http://www.freestarmedia.com/index.html has a pointer to a press release where guy named Logan Clements is moving to petition the town of Weare NH to allow him to build a hotel on the current site of Judge Souter’s home. The Hotel would have more tax revenue, and bring people into the community as tourists, which would be better for the community than the Judge’s home. Identical justification to that the city of New London used in it’s successful argument that the homes of Susette Kelo and others should be taken to make way for a Hotel and Office complex. The Hotel would be known as the “Lost Liberty Hotel”, and would contain the “Just Desserts” dining room. Rather than a Bible in each room, there would be a copy of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. Clements says it is “no hoax”, they really want to build a hotel.

The justices that voted for this one were Souter, Ginsberg, Stevens, Breyer, and Kennedy. Kennedy was the “swing vote”. The fact that the left of the court went for this one shows that removal of property rights remains a part of their agenda. “Unlimited Government” is their consistent cry, and this decision provides them a huge lever. In many cases it will be the poor that suffer because tracts of housing where they live can be gobbled up by developers that will provide new uses that will be more lucrative for the city. One of the constant lies of the left about “caring for the poor” is exposed by this ruling. The left “cares” in the fact that they want to maintain a significant, and if possible, increasing number of poor, to vote democrat. Their real allegiance is however to unlimited government. If some poor folks are damaged and some rich folks benefited on the way to the removal of property rights and ever greater government control, then they accept that as part of the bargain.

Kelo allows local governments to take private property for what they deem to be “better use”. The potentials for abuse on MANY fronts are many, but here are two from opposite sides of the spectrum. There is a little town to the south here that has an adult book, movie, etc store that snuck in under zoning restrictions. What stops the local village from going in and taking the property and getting a developer to put a gas station or truckstop there? Nothing now. However, while I might applaud that action, what about a church (such as the one that I attend) that sits on prime real estate next to a park with great views and close to downtown? The church provides zero taxes to the community, a set of luxury condos could be a nice tax base. A whole other set of folks would applaud that action. Our founding fathers abhorred government having that kind of power because it encourages abuse. It took the 5^th amendment for there to be eminent domain at all, now we have the power released for whatever whim local governments may have.

The leftward legislative action of the court continues unabated, and sadly, Souter a Bush Sr appointee is consistently on the left. O’Connor and Kennedy regularly provide the swing votes. The media constantly calls THIS a “conservative court”, but rulings like Kelo show that to simply be a lie. Remember 2000? All the claims that O’Connor “elected Bush because she was going to retire”? Bush was going to be able to “stack the court” in even his first term? No vacancies, O’Connor is still there. Even if a very conservative judge is able to be confirmed and replace Rehnquist, we are no better off than today. It will take at least one, and likely two appointments beyond Rehnquist to simply stem the tide of new legislation from the bench, let alone have any sort of a chance to overturn some of this trash.

Miles Gone By

Not even slow savoring could prevent getting to the end of “Miles Gone By” by William F Buckley. Very hard to imagine a life more blessed than his, and hard to picture someone making better use of that blessing than WFB. Intelligence, faith, fearlessness, great family, wealth, super education, exciting and rewarding work, great experiences in life, and the list just goes on and on.

Born to privilege, his youth was spent in Mexico, Paris, England, and much at a mansion in Connecticut called “Great Elm”. By virtue of time spent in his youth, he always spoke fluent Spanish and French as well as English, with a good deal of Latin and German thrown in from his education. Lots of horseback riding, including being in events at Rhinebeck, NY, just north of Hyde Park, where the box alongside his fathers, was that of FDR. Much sailing as a young man, a passion that he never gave up.

He did prep school at St Johns, Beaumont, in Windsor England … the very same Windsor where the name “Windsor Castle” comes from. His father took him to the airport to watch the plane of Neville Chamberlain land when he returned from negotiations with Hitler to announce “peace in our time”.

He was in the military service stateside towards the end of the War, and then on to Yale, graduating in 1950, as the class orator, I suspect with some level of honor.

 He wasn’t all business, he learned to fly in college and had a number of misadventures in airplanes, including deciding after only a couple of flights with the instructor that he would let a friend that had been a pilot in the war fly himself to Logan airport in Boston, and WFB would just fly the plane back, his first solo! The trip in was uneventful, but Buckley didn’t know how to use the radio, so took off without telling the tower, had navigational difficulties, and night was falling too fast, so he luckily found an airport, made his first solo landing and hitchhiked back to Yale. The kind of foolish and fearless personality that would perform a stunt like that often ends up dead, but sometimes they end up famous.

His first book at age 26 was “God and Man At Yale”, and it caused a huge stir. It was the first book to explicitly make that charge that higher education in the US had become anti-Christian, anti-Capitalist, and in many cases Anti-American. Leading edge thought in those days. The formulation; “I believe that the duel between Christianity and Atheism is the most important in the world. I further believe that the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle produced on another level.” is a brilliant summary of a lot of what has happened in America and the world since the 50’s.

His list of friends, associates, acquaintances is utterly amazing. Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, Whittaker Chambers, Roger Moore, John Kenneth Galbraith, Milton Friedman (nice pair of economists there), Claire Booth Luce, Alstair Cooke, Princess Grace, Vladimir Horowitz, Tom Wolfe, Barry Goldwater, Walter Cronkite, and on and on.

More than any other conservative of the era 1960-1980+, he was THE intellectual powerhouse of the movement, National Review was the publication of record, and “Firing Line” was the ONLY place where one could learn that there were at least one other side to most things presented in the media on TV. Liberals often loved to hate him, but they could not ignore the force of his intellect. He points out in one place, relative to his being in debates when running for Mayor of NYC; “It was widely speculated that I had an advantage, having in pursuit of unpopular ideas been frequently been required to face the opposition. I suspect-and admission against personal interest-that those points I have scored are primarily on account of their own cogency, rather than on account of any personal adeptness at formulating them.”

While he isn’t known as a modest man, in this case he is being a bit too modest, but he has a point as well. Since liberalism remains the dominate thinking in the mass media, not very many liberals have a solid understanding of how to defend their points. Their ideas are presented as the "universal"  ideas, why do they need to be defended? What WFB understood, and was able to articulate well is that the conservative position attempts very strongly to be CONSISTENT. Consistency means that there is a lot less to learn. 

Liberals need to recall that an unborn child has no right to any sort of life, but a Snail Darter in a stream somewhere has nearly unlimited rights to stop all manner of development. Kosovo is a great place to go to war without UN backing, Iraq, a few miles down the road is a TERRIBLE place to go to war without UN backing … oh, and by the way, genocide is an excellent justification in Kosovo, but it is a “who cares” in Iraq. It could go on for pages, but the point is when most of your positions are made up out of feelings, the phase of the moon, and political considerations on a given day, keeping it all straight can get very difficult. The best strategy is to curl your lip and look like you are going to cry like Bill Clinton. 

From the right though, one can lean back in their chair and pounce on the liberals like the intellectual tiger that was Buckley, and is not likely to be soon duplicated.

While he had a huge positive impact on history, the point that strikes me the most from the book is the intellect, the wit, the faith, and the pure joy of his life. His short essay on a pilgrimage to Lourdes is alone worth the price of admission. His experiences at sea, his love of sailing, boats, navigation, skiing, wines, racing at sea, and his trip to the Titanic aboard the Nautile are all captivating and so well written. He recounts how he had been told that; “Offshore yacht racing is like standing in an ice cold shower tearing up thousand dollar bills”.

I write this on a day when one of the Walton heirs, number seven richest in the world, died in an ultra light aircraft near Jackson Wyoming. Many of the wealthy realize that challenge, risk, and loss of physical comfort are an unavoidable part of living a worthwhile life. You can’t really buy the skill to compete in an off shore yacht race, and you certainly can’t buy the weather.

I’m very glad I bought a high quality hardcover of this one. I hope to pull it down off the shelves and give it a read once every decade or so as long as I’m around!