All Saints Day Scare

Anne Rice comes to Jesus - CNN.com

One doesn't need to read this with much care to see how non-serious the journalist and reviewers see a noted vampire author turning Christian. The idea of "redemption" so goes against the popular culture; "You are what you are", the best you can do is "be authentic". How the random universe managed to somehow give each person this "are" is not explained, but randomness is very witty in in the popular view.

Christianity is not popular with the elite -- believers are fools, they don't "get it", and the secular intelligentsia in every age KNOW that THEY have "got it". The "it" of that age is always "the latest it"--so therefore it must be "best". Even though evolution for example says NOTHING at all about "perpetual improvement", and we well know that natural systems in which something that at least WE currently "explain" as "randomness" is at work are just as happy to kill as to cure. To the random system as a whole, even "survival" would only be "it happens to work as long as it works" kind of thing--a random universe has no "desire" or "bias" for there to be life at all, let alone our assumed individual "random self to be true to".

The idea that there are no guarantees whatsoever that "the latest knowledge is best" doesn't fit very well-the fact that we are "here now" seems like it OUGHT to mean that this is the best time we could have been here! The idea of any "discoverable transcendence" or even worse, the idea that lives could be changed by this "thing that doesn't exist" is especially scary to the vast secular world. I still argue that one of the core hatreds of Bush is that a late bloomer with a drinking problem could find Jesus, change, and become President. Right off, it hits most secular folks as "phony and simple minded". If such redemption is possible, wouldn't we have a better secular pill or procedure to pull it off without resorting to the messiness of God?

Maybe Ann Rice sought out Jesus because she "had hard times"--her husband died and she got diabetes. Well, maybe so--I suspect that even the most secular of reporters will note that all humans face the "hard times" of death. Some of us need something to make us realize that and some of us don't. Life is very short and death is very long, whatever the circumstances that help one realize that fact, it seems that it is worth giving some thought. You will be dead much longer than your career, marriage or how long you live in your current home. Probably you spent some time thinking about those decisions, some people never own a home, get married, or have a job, but I gaurantee you that death will not be avoided.

Arrogance and Inexperience

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Ego and Mouth

Thomas Sowell on what we are getting into.

Anyone who has actually had to take responsibility for consequences by running any kind of enterprise-- whether economic or academic, or even just managing a sports team-- is likely at some point to be chastened by either the setbacks brought on by his own mistakes or by seeing his successes followed by negative consequences that he never anticipate

The kind of self-righteous self-confidence that has become Obama's trademark is usually found in sophomores in Ivy League colleges-- very bright and articulate students, utterly untempered by experience in real world.

The signs of Barack Obama's self-centered immaturity are painfully obvious, though ignored by true believers who have poured their hopes into him, and by the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that Obama represents.

MSM Bias As Editor Career Extender?

ABC News: Media's Presidential Bias and Decline

This is a good short story on media bias, The fact of bias is obvious to all but the most ardent and credulous lefty and covered in nearly excruciating (though recommended) detail in the "Bias" books by Bernie Goldberg, but this is still well written and much shorter than the books.

It has a twist at the end that I hadn't fully considered relative to the "perfect storm" that seems intent on electing BO. I'm sure that much like major corporations, the average age in the news room is getting a bit long in tooth and there are too many folks "running out the clock". The "Fairness Doctrine / Return of Unions for 50+ers in the newsroom" is an interesting angle--especially to a 50+er at a corporation.

Gee, maybe I need to look on the "bright side"--protect my job for another decade with a union? Sure, it would destroy the company, but so what? Don't I have a RIGHT to employment in my golden years?

Special thanks to the Vegas readership for pointing this one out.

In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -- and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway -- all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.

And then the opportunity presents itself -- an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career.

With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.

And besides, you tell yourself, it's all for the good of the country …

The Cloward-Piven Strategy

American Thinker: Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

One of my maxims on understanding the left --- When they accuse the right of something, it usually means that the gambit that they are making accusations of is well known and heavily used by the left already.

One of the accusations by a surprising number of lefties was that "The War On Terror"  is a manufactured crisis to keep the right in power. It seems a little hard to imagine that 9-11 was an "inside job", but a shocking number of lefties buy that, or the only slightly less harder to swallow idea that "Bush lied about WMD" -- since the "lie" would have involved Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Colin Powell, the entire CIA and DOD and only about 90% of all intelligence agencies in the world plus the UN. They agreed Saddam had WMD, they just disagreed over the US doing something about it.

The Subprime debacle and subsequent financial meltdown doesn't require a lot of imagination to fan into a "conspiracy theory", but more accurately it fits into a whole series of overall left activities that had the objective of "breaking the capitalist system". They didn't know exactly which one would malfunction, but they were pretty sure that one or more of them eventually would. A look at this site can be a bit scary. The specifics of the Cloward-Piven Strategy are here. In short, "manufactured crisis to achieve a result".

The whole idea of the "radical left" is something that the MSM would have you believe doesn't exist in this country. In their narrative, the "far right" (America's constant danger) chased communist spies that never existed in the McCarthy era, hung around with "The Military Industrial Complex" to manufacture a cold war with the benevolent USSR and hideously morphed into the "Religious Right", "Neocons" and other "well documented" elements of the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy"--an organization so well known and factual that a First Lady could talk about it in all seriousness on NBC's Today Show in the '90s and still be elected Senator from NY.

The "organized right" with all it's nefarious connections to "The Trilateral Commission" and all manner of corporate and religious connections involving "Jews", "The Pope", "The Military" and all other elements is well known by the MSM. Utter the phrase "Un-American" --  as Michelle Bachmann was led into doing by Chris Matthews, and the specter of "McCarthyism" is roused from its grave in an instant.

Strangely, one can go through a bunch of schooling and live a long MSM fed life and come to the conclusion that "there is no organized left". Strange.

I'd argue that the main reason that Americans don't realize anything about "the left" is the same reason that a fish is going to have a hard time telling you what it means to be "wet". Post FDR, we have been so far toward the left and fed by a MSM that finds the views of the left to be way more factual than the average "Sunday Christian" finds the teachings of Christ, so that like the fish, we just don't know about being "left".

We live in the "Obamanation", that I often refer to as BOistan.

False Optimism Based on Facts

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Obama's Economic Mythology

Great article that covers the fact that the MSM, BO and the Democrats are lying about what has happened to the poor and middle class over the past 30 years. ALL Americans have had stunning success in that time, BUT, since the MSM / Democrats have managed to convince everyone that they HAVEN't had good times, a bunch of actions that are nearly certain to kill prosperity are going to happen.

How To Create More Democrats

Why Democrats Will Target the Investor Class in 2009 - Capital Commerce (usnews.com)

We pretty much know what creates Republicans--belief in God, Family, personal responsibility, hard work, thrift, etc

So what will Democrats likely do once they get in? Well, naturally:

• replace religion with "unity and support for BO"
  
• replace family with "domestic partners", mandatory head start, "youth programs"
• replace responsibility with government "rights" of all sorts so there is no sense of responsibility to work
• replace hard work with union seniority, government restrictions / incentives / disincentives for job actions
• and thrift ... well, that is the subject of the linked column, the coming attack on the investor class.
  

I'd say there are 3 things that give you an 80%+ odds of being Republican:

1. Practicing Christian (you go to church, do your best to follow Christ)
2. Married with kids--especially one marriage.
3. You have consistently invested something from say 5-10% of your income in the stock market
   

The linked article covers what Democrats are likely to do to try to destroy #3. Essentially, increase taxes on investing at the front end and at the back end and provide incentives to take government alternatives that create more dependency on the government. They will go further by putting "government money" into business to crowd out private capital ... socialism/fascism that politicises business so business becomes just one more part of an oppressive and inefficient state.

Why does #3 tend to make you a Republican? He touches on this in the article. If you actually believe in the ideal of America, you believe in WE THE PEOPLE ... NOT, "We the Government". Free people freely interacting in a free market has created the greatest standard of living for the greatest number of people in world history. If you believe in that, then you invest in it and discover the truths of the real world of which markets are just a part.

• It is HARD (in fact impossible) to predict what will go up and when and when it all will go up
• Nobody is "in control" ... not the rich, not labor, not the government, NOBODY. The force of human ingenuity is greater than the comprehension of any person or persons if it is allowed to operate relatively freely.
  
• Markets ... and luck, weather, business, prices, opinion, sports teams, etc WILL "fluctuate" ... the only way to rid yourself of the fluctuation is "least common denominator, little or no growth or opportunity"

How To Judge BO

CONCEDE!!!

Joe the Plumber "Public Notoriety"

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Ohio official OK’d records search on Joe the Plumber


If you are Bill Clinton, BO, or John Edwards, then the media has so little curiosity about looking at your background or activities that even when obvious difficulties arise, it is difficult to see the MSM cover them. If you are Sarah Palin or even Joe the Plumber, then the MSM is going to dredge through all sorts of stuff including "sealed records" finding whatever dirt they can.

Simple!

Libertarian Right Republican Disenchantment

Instapundit.com

This from an Instapundit reader, I think he has it exactly right. We are ALL heavily influenced by the MSM--sometimes just in attempts to think differently from them if you are an iconoclast like me, but one has to realize that "I disagree with everything that X says" is a VERY profound form of inflence. I certainly try to avoid that as well, but I'd be an even bigger fool than I already am if I thought I typically succeeded. I've long thought that essentially what happened to Bush / Republican party is that the far right of the party got ticked about what "actual governing" was like rather than "criticizing the opposition". Was there a lot to criticize about the last 8 years? Absolutely, it is SUPPOSED to be conservatives that realize that there is ALWAYS going to be PLENTY to criticize about government!! The question is a bit like a root canal or procto --- the idea that a "good one" is going to be "everything you hoped for" is a bit unreasonable!!! HOWEVER, what we tend to forget is that a bad one can be really bad ... eg 30's, 65-82 kind of deal.

If the libertarians are disgusted with the GOP and conservatives are disgusted with the GOP (see e.g. Mark Tapscott and others who have floated the idea of a new party), is there a theory which would explain both trends? Yes. I think you can blame the MSM. Seriously.

GOP politicians are still politicians and they learn early not to fight with those who buy ink by the barrel. Conservatives who expect that the GOP is going to step in front of the MSM-driven train to defend principle are destined for a letdown. Few are going to commit political suicide and those who do aren't around next term to do it again. Conservatives don't need a new party. They need a new news media.

I think the libertarian discontent with the GOP is also driven by the MSM. Let's face it, libertarians who voted for Reagan are not leaving the GOP over gay marriage. Can anyone summarize all the legislation and regulation that the GOP has enacted which has alienated libertarians? There's nothing much there. What there has been is a constant drumbeat from the MSM and Hollywood to demonize conservatives. The standard cultural portrayal is a cartoon. But over time, it seeps into the subconscious and becomes perceived fact. I really think the disenchantment is due more to the cartoon than reality.

Part of History That Won't Get Told

Orders for durables rise 0.8% in Sept., lifted by aircraft - MarketWatch

The longer I'm alive the more I suspect that most people that lived through an era and paid reasonable attention to what was actually happening would scarcely recognize the "general historical view" that ends up being accepted by people in the future reading history. Part of this is simply the need for humans to arrive at a "story" that has a narrative form that "makes sense to humans". We know that everything no longer revolves around us, but we live in the constraints of our gray matter and existence which needs to have a "simple, historical, narrative story that"makes sense".

In many cases, that alone is enough to make the "story" wrong in a lot of significant ways, add some biases (which we all have), sprinkle in the fact that everyone's picture (including mine) is RADICALLY incomplete, and pretty soon, "historical reality" starts to look more like a cartoon of something that might not even be recognizable to those that were alive and not total sheep during the era.

It appears that the fact is that we never had a recession prior to the 4Q of 2008 (two successive quarters of negative growth) -- it seems unlikely that with a lot of corporations reporting reasonable numbers in 3Q that GDP is going to be negative. HOWEVER, kind of like Katrina, Valerie Plame, Global Warming, "lying about WMD", Bush/Cheney supposedly "creating" connections between Iraq and 9-11, etc, we live in an era when manufactured reality IS reality for 90% of the population. Therefore, "We have been in a recession" for something like a year now, so when we now have what appears to be a real downturn at least impending, it CAN'T just be a "recession" -- therefore, "Depression".

Kinda like the little kid that lies about what happened to his homework, the lies just have to keep getting bigger. The PROBLEM is that with the economy, a major part of economic activity depends on what people think! When 90% of people believe we are in a recession ... and then a bunch start to think we are in a depression, that can have a really big effect on how they behave.

Worse, when they are told that the "fault" lies with "capitalism and too little regulation", and they start to believe that as well, then LESS capitalism and MORE regulation is likely to be the "fix"--which of course makes the situation worse, and now we have what is commonly referred to as a "death spiral".

The Meaning of Joe the Plumber

Everyone knows about "Joe the Plumber", the guy that asked BO about why he wanted to raise his taxes, to which BO said "He wanted to spread the wealth". Since I've read BO's own book and some other analysis, I think it is VERY safe to say that BO believes that taking money from the set of people that earn it and giving it to some set that government feels is more "deserving" is EXACTLY what is coming -- I'm trying out "BOcialism" as a good name for it. But that isn't really what I think the concern is.

The press wasn't very interested in the answer given by the guy that is running for president. No, they didn't like the question, so they went after Joe. They found out he had some problem with his plumbers license, owed some back taxes and was divorced. They tried to insinuate he was a wife abuser because he had made a donation to a woman's shelter (seems like an odd thing for abusers to do), but it turns out that giving some money to woman's shelter is just something they do in divorce cases where he lives -- go figure.

After 8 years of hearing "chilling" whenever some singer got booed for saying something stupid about the ware or some company didn't invite someone to speak that called Bush a war to criminal, 9-11 an "inside job" or a ton of other things, the MSM going after a guy that ASKS BO A QUESTION doesn't concern anyone??

All these other folks were PUBLIC FIGURES that took it on themselves to pop off at the mouth about the president or the war and what happened to them was a direct result of a position that they explicitly took.

Joe ASKED A QUESTION!!! Now I'd be embarrassed too if a plumber was more able to get an isightful answer out of BO than any official media person, but folks are so smitten with BO they don't see any problem at all with our lovely national media going on a fishing expedition to discredit a PLUMBER because he asked a legitimate question of a guy that wants to be PRESIDENT???!!! Golly, the question from a PLUMBER was just too tough and got old BO to tell the truth, now THAT is something that can get those old MSM folks really riled up.

Note the "slight" difference here. They have armies of reporters digging through the garbage and interviewing everyone that they can get their hands on in Alaska frantically trying to dig up dirt on Palin, but BO, their "shining star" needs their HELP to deal with Joe the Plumber! Oh, and BTW, no concerns about a "chilling effect" when a private citizen is investigated because he asked a questions of his supreme odiferousness BO!

Welcome to the Depression

The Age of Prosperity Is Over - WSJ.com

Actually, they won't remember "This Administration and Congress", much like "Hoover" it will be "The Bush Depression". The panic of the right wing of the Republican party in '06 that ushered in Democrats in both houses had a huge effect. Once most of his own party abandoned him, Bush was REALLY a lame duck and unable to do anything but fortunately virtually stand alone and win the war in Iraq.

People forget that Democrats really look to the 30's as a GREAT ERA! It ushered in a much larger government and policies that allowed Democrats to hold sway for a very long time. Democrats love to tinker with big government, they don't really care if it works, it is what they like to do, just like us computer programmers if left to our own devices will often just "write some code" to "see what happens".

Welcome to BOcialism

Shame, Cubed by Bill Whittle on National Review Online

Kind of like "Bolshevism" ... BO socialism. Trying that one on for size.

One doesn't really need to listen to old radio broadcasts to realize that this BO is an old fashioned re-distributor that will reduce the size of our economy and keep trying to pass the smaller and smaller remaining pieces around to buy votes for his coalition. But apparently Whittle did, and now he has got it and is worried.

Hugging and Guns

It was a weekend when there wasn't a ton of "must do" items, so some fun was had. Friday evening we had a nice steak dinner with another couple and then went to the John Hassler Theater in Plainview to see "Don't Hug Me". Lots of fun poked at Scandinavians, cold winters, little towns in MN, marriage and romance and a few other topics. Lots of corny little songs like "I'm A Walleye Woman in a Crappie Town" and "I Want to go to The Mall of America".

Saturday AM it was up to Froyum's Sports just West of Zumbrota to look over some firearms with an eye toward picking up potentially the "last of an era" with potential gun bans likely if the outcome of the election is as expected. Froyum's is just "a bit" off the beaten path so to speak, and the organizational structure of the store is "eclectic" shall we say, but Eric and his wife are folks for whom guns and shooting are a passion and not just a business. Besides, their "shop cat" is very friendly!

Gander Mountain got my Remington 870 20GA drilled and I mounted my Bushnell Red Dot and headed out to the range. I keep forgetting how much shotguns kick ... I put a lot of slugs through the Remington and my single shot rifled 20 GA backup open sight backup gun, but by the end of the day I was feeling confident and did a little "recreational shooting".

I took the Bushmaster .223 out with some 2 new 20 round and a 30 round Brownells magazine that I had picked up in the AM. Was shooting Wolf steel jacket rounds that are nice and cheap and everything fed through the gun with no problems. I got into the 30 round mag, had an "orange peel" target out at 50 yds and started working on my rapid fire. It is clear why they worry about "assault weapons" ... very little kick, lots of sound, but with the slotted muzzle brake keeping it on target as fast as one can pull the trigger is relatively easy. It tore the bull out of the target and it looked like 25+ of the rounds made it through inside the rings--maybe more, some of the holes were clearly multiple rounds. As I set it down with a nice warm barrell I got a round of whoops and cheers from folks at adjoining benches. In at least that crowd, the "Assault Rifle" is a cool toy.

Finished off the day finally watching "Office Space" after so many folks have told me that I just had to see it. It was a funny film, although I think I found it much more humorous now that I don't live in a cube any more!

The BO Temptation

This one is just so good I pulled it in off NRO. Levin is sure that "a changed America will survive". Is he adequately considering the potentials for destruction of the conservative voice in the media and on the web? How about direct government control over vast swaths of American business and potentially much greater dependency on government but huge swaths of the American public?

Just read it!!

Saturday, October 25, 2008

The Obama Temptation [Mark R. Levin]

I've been thinking this for a while so I might as well air it here. I honestly never thought we'd see such a thing in our country - not yet anyway - but I sense what's occurring in this election is a recklessness and abandonment of rationality that has preceded the voluntary surrender of liberty and security in other places. I can't help but observe that even some conservatives are caught in the moment as their attempts at explaining their support for Barack Obama are unpersuasive and even illogical. And the pull appears to be rather strong. Ken Adelman, Doug Kmiec, and others, reach for the usual platitudes in explaining themselves but are utterly incoherent. Even non-conservatives with significant public policy and real world experiences, such as Colin Powell and Charles Fried, find Obama alluring but can't explain themselves in an intelligent way.

There is a cult-like atmosphere around Barack Obama, which his campaign has carefully and successfully fabricated, which concerns me. The messiah complex. Fainting audience members at rallies. Special Obama flags and an Obama presidential seal. A graphic with the portrayal of the globe and Obama's name on it, which adorns everything from Obama's plane to his street literature. Young school children singing songs praising Obama. Teenagers wearing camouflage outfits and marching in military order chanting Obama's name and the professions he is going to open to them. An Obama world tour, culminating in a speech in Berlin where Obama proclaims we are all citizens of the world. I dare say, this is ominous stuff.

Even the media are drawn to the allure that is Obama. Yes, the media are liberal. Even so, it is obvious that this election is different. The media are open and brazen in their attempts to influence the outcome of this election. I've never seen anything like it. Virtually all evidence of Obama's past influences and radicalism — from Jeremiah Wright to William Ayers — have been raised by non-traditional news sources. The media's role has been to ignore it as long as possible, then mention it if they must, and finally dismiss it and those who raise it in the first place. It's as if the media use the Obama campaign's talking points — its preposterous assertions that Obama didn't hear Wright from the pulpit railing about black liberation, whites, Jews, etc., that Obama had no idea Ayers was a domestic terrorist despite their close political, social, and working relationship, etc. — to protect Obama from legitimate and routine scrutiny. And because journalists have also become commentators, it is hard to miss their almost uniform admiration for Obama and excitement about an Obama presidency. So in the tank are the media for Obama that for months we've read news stories and opinion pieces insisting that if Obama is not elected president it will be due to white racism. And, of course, while experience is crucial in assessing Sarah Palin's qualifications for vice president, no such standard is applied to Obama's qualifications for president. (No longer is it acceptable to minimize the work of a community organizer.) Charles Gibson and Katie Couric sought to humiliate Palin. They would never and have never tried such an approach with Obama.

But beyond the elites and the media, my greatest concern is whether this election will show a majority of the voters susceptible to the appeal of a charismatic demagogue. This may seem a harsh term to some, and no doubt will to Obama supporters, but it is a perfectly appropriate characterization. Obama's entire campaign is built on class warfare and human envy. The "change" he peddles is not new. We've seen it before. It is change that diminishes individual liberty for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social policies and government corruption (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a justification for a massive expansion of centralized government. Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the "the proletariat," as an infamous philosopher once described it, about which a mythology has been created. Rather than pursue the American Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits Obama would set for the rest of us — today it's $250,000 for businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he's now officially "rich." The value of his physical and intellectual labor must be confiscated in greater amounts for the good of the proletariat (the middle class). And so it is that the middle class, the birth-child of capitalism, is both celebrated and enslaved — for its own good and the greater good. The "hope" Obama represents, therefore, is not hope at all. It is the misery of his utopianism imposed on the individual.

Unlike past Democrat presidential candidates, Obama is a hardened ideologue. He's not interested in playing around the edges. He seeks "fundamental change," i.e., to remake society. And if the Democrats control Congress with super-majorities led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, he will get much of what he demands.

The question is whether enough Americans understand what's at stake in this election and, if they do, whether they care. Is the allure of a charismatic demagogue so strong that the usually sober American people are willing to risk an Obama presidency? After all, it ensnared Adelman, Kmiec, Powell, Fried, and numerous others. And while America will certainly survive, it will do so, in many respects, as a different place.

10/25 09:29 PM