Conservatism Needs to Give Up

Fareed Zakaria: Conservatism needs to lighten up - The Washington Post:

I think this column covers the current dominant party/cultural view really well ... except a number of them would add "or else" at least under their breaths.

Things have been gong GREAT ... look at all the "progress" we have made! All these stupid conservatives have been trying to slow us down since William Buckley, but we keep winning everything and things are FINE! What is more they are going to STAY FINE ... we are like ... well, er, "Switzerland".

It is great to see him call out Reagan as some sort of an idiot for opposing Medicare, which is a major element in our 60+ TRILLION in unfunded liabilities along with FICA, but REALLY ironic to see him include the end of the USSR as one of the accomplishments of the left. Somehow I suspect he would have been just as quick to point out what an idiot Reagan was at the point of the "ash heap of history" speech. Being a "Party Member" allows one to think that way.

In the current US you can go to jail for an ever increasing pile of "hate speech" or have the IRS or NSA investigate you because you are on the "wrong list".  Remember, the maker of the anti Islam video that was the BO administrations original lie about the Benghazi attack is still in prison. Lefties will of course say "oh, that is on OTHER charges". Remember, TOTALITARIANISM is called that because ALL aspects of your life are under government control ... your health, your work, your income, your retirement, your speech, etc Breaking "laws" in any of those areas is enough to incarcerate you ... even installing a toilet that flushes too much water is crime in today's US.

But to Fareed, all of this is fine. I wonder when the last person was jailed in the US for anti-Christian hate speech? There is no problem losing your job in the US today for being too open about being against gay "marriage". You can be jailed in a number of US cites (DC, New York, Chicago), for even carrying ammunition, or as a legal firearm owner passing though with your weapon "not properly secured" (often meaning unloaded gun in locked case. Unloaded magazines in locked case, and ammunition in yet another locked case. This is in a country where "The right to keep and bear arms will not be infringed" is supposedly the law if the land.

I could keep going on and on, but what we have here is a fundamentally different view of what America is and was. There is a great book on the topic of Tipping Points ("The Tipping Point") but other than provide more detail, we all know about "the straw that broke the camels back".

There is no bold red line between liberty and tyranny that will be recognizable to all ... or even most. There were a great many defenders of the Soviet way of operation in the US at least right up to the day that the wall fell. College students ran around with Mao's "Little Red Book" in the 60's and 70's while millions were being slaughtered. Hitler was loved by the bulk of the German people.

Reading Fareed makes it clear that for significant parts of our society, we are not "near a tipping point", we are OVER it ... badly.

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Go Ahead, Make My Day

Memo to GOP: If Obama Won’t Compromise, Don’t Raise the Debt Ceiling | Power Line:

In one of my favorite Dirty Harry scenes, the bad guy has his gun pointed at the temple of the innocent waitress and is staring at the business end of a .44 mag with a very relaxed but focused looking Harry Callahan on the trigger. In 5 short words Harry makes it clear that the only question here is 2 deaths or none, but Harry is completely fine with 2.

The linked column makes a good case for the Republicans making BO the same offer as Harry makes relative to the Debt Ceiling. It is long, as things must be in more complicated world, but I'll do the very short summary here and it is worth the read especially if you don't believe me.

No doubt you have heard that not raising the Debt Ceiling is UNTHINKABLE! Remember when Sequestration was unthinkable ... irresponsible, economy killing, etc, etc? Well we have been living under the horror of Sequestration since March 1! In the tradition of Democrat chutzpah very similar to Slick Willie crowing about "a balanced budget" after getting full political hay out of evil Republican cuts IN THE RATE OF GROWTH in federal spending, BO has been shamelessly crowing about the deficit being "under 4% of GDP" ... which it would not be without the "unthinkable" sequestration "cuts" in the rate of spending growth.

1. "Default" is an absolute LIE! The US still takes in plenty of money to service the debt! If BO is petulant enough to graduate from putting up "Barrycades" on uncontrolled monuments to purposely engineering a US government default, then there is no real reason to believe he would not start nuking US cities for "spite" ... give those "bitterly clinging" red state yahoos what BO sees as "justice". 
2. We have no budget. We haven't had one for 4 years. This is al, immoral, stupid and a whole lot of other negative adjectives. The fact that less than 20% of American people (likely FAR less) have a clue about this whole mess shows that we can no longer self-govern. We have completely lost any semblance of truth based mass media, and the bulk of the population is so brainwashed by the combination of left leaning education and swimming in the MSM sewer that they are unable to function as citizens. 
3.  Given the above, a "Cap" is the best that can be achieved. We are hemorrhaging red ink at a rate that were the other party in the WH would be a national scandal / outcry if the level that would be make Watergate, Vietnam and the OJ trial seems like small stories!

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"Dumb" Americans

Opinion: America's problem -- we're too dumb - CNN.com:

Since "dumb" really means "unable to speak",  my rule is that anyone calling anyone else dumb (unless they can't speak) should probably not be speaking themselves.

Some thoughts:

• American's INTELLIGENCE is AVERAGE ... just like every other nation. 
• Our problem is that we don't really do "education" anymore ... we do childcare, indoctrination, self esteem improvement and stifle independent thought (as you can guess, 90% of my teachers hated me!) 
• Our founders, nor any actual student of humanity would ever suggest anything like a real democracy, which we keep slouching toward. Half if the population us BELOW average, and by following the kind of excuse for education that we have been for 60+ years ... left wing liberal union non-competitive democrat indoctrination, rather than actual LIBERAL education ... meaning multiple sided, grounded in REAL history rather than "victim oriented" history ... that "average" is dropping all the time. 
• A REPUBLIC is supposed to let some proper "elite" rise to the top and run the country as "statesmen" rather than "special interest organizers". Sure, the "elite" get elected, but the assumption is that they would be oriented to STEWARDSHIP of the culture, society and history of the people and nation. Our "elite" are those that do an especially good job of soaking up the propaganda ... of which the column author clearly qualifies. We need a TRUE LIBERAL elite ... which means strong education in classics, history, religion, philosophy, business ... essentially Western Culture with a major in American culture. 
• I thought we DIDN'T want to be "exceptional" in the old positive sense? In order to be at the top in these kinds of rankings we would have to have people motivated to think that competition and working hard were GOOD things, not "exploitation". We are totally reaping what we have sowed and now this columnist is complaining? Why, I'd bet dollars to donuts that he is NOT in favor of "exceptionalism". Try to be mediocre, and you usually end up lousy. 
• His solution is to start the indoctrination earlier??? Hello?? This is the old blood letting logic ... if things are looking bad with the amount we are doing, let's do more!

Americans may well now be poorly educated and confused, but it is mostly BECAUSE of our education and media system, and the LAST thing we need is to double down on that disaster!

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Donkeys Hate RINOs?

George Will: Susan Collins’s fiscal compromise leaves Democrats exposed - The Washington Post:

Usually RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) like Susan Collins are the toast of Democrat and MSM Washington. "How reasonable", "How moderate" ... oh, if ONLY the evil Neanderthal  "Tea Party" sorts could be so brilliant and urbane.

Oops ... the Democrat extremism seems to be showing !

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Lies, Truth, Shutdown, Sowell

Thomas Sowell: Who Shut Down the Government?:

I just love and respect this guy to the max!

He does a GREAT job of stating what is FACT and what is OPINION. This exactly what we need if we are ever going to return to the greatness that was once America!

Just read it!

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Barry's Brownshirts

From the Vietnam Memorial | Power Line:

It is hard to believe the combination of arrogance and petulance that brings the leader of what was once the greatest nation on earth to such overt and self defeating measures. If we had a Free Press ... meaning one whose brains could see sides of stories other than left, these kinds of actions would bring the ire of the nation down on BO.

As it is, we have to rely on getting the news from a few bloggers that have left the left reservation.

At the Vietnam Memorial two park ranger goons stood at the entrance to the wall, near the requisite barricades. The intention clearly was to intimidate people from entering the memorial area. Fortunately, many people simply ignored Barry’s Brownshirts and walked down to the wall. My wife Thuy, who was born in Vietnam, accompanied me (photo above left).
These people in DC are dangerous, and we the people need to stand up to these attempts to intimidate and abuse us.

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Cooler Surrealism

Obama "Happy That Cooler Heads at Least Seem To Be Prevailing in the House" - Reason 24/7 : Reason.com:

This "cooler heads" comment was up at the top of CNN yesterday. It just seems completely surreal to me that a president whose position is "I won't negotiate", then says "I'll negotiate AFTER I get an extension with nothing attached", comes out with this "cooler heads" thing relative to the people he would actually be negotiating with.

The House is the origin of all budget bills. Budgets required negotiation, and we are required to have one by law. Only we DON'T!  So the Republican majority in the House that was just as "duly elected" as BO has only the lever of the Budget to use, and BO and the Democrats refuse to have one, so we have shutdowns!

The ONLY choice Republicans have is to be completely irrelevant, or use these few levers!

Would somebody that was actually going to negotiate come out with the "cooler heads" comment against the very people he is supposedly now going to negotiate with?

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The Creation of Pseudo Meaning

When liberals became scolds:

Good column by George Will. Without Religion and the "Chain of Life and Being" that says that the created universe is meaningful because God has a purpose for it, meaning is extremely hard to impossible to come by.

So what we have is human manufactured pseudo meaning, such as the assassination of JFK was meaningful in that it showed how horrible the "Right Wing" in America had become.

Got that? Lee Harvey Oswald had emigrated to the USSR and just a few months prior to the assassination, he had met with the KGB in Mexico City volunteering to be a spy. He was so hapless that they didn't even want to deal with him. He was as much a communist as any ideology, but he was primarily just a kook.

JFK may as well as fallen down in the bathtub, but of course that was unacceptable to the left, so they manufactured a very false meaning, but that is pretty much the standard for leftward thinking.

No God, no truth, no meaning, no peace, no morality. Nietzsche was right about the result if God is gone, WILL is all that remains, and the strongest WILL to create, dominate, propagandize, etc are what remains. For what purpose? To serve those with the strongest will.

Right now, in the age of BO, God seems to be losing and The Will of BO seems to be winning, but my allegiance is still to God. It looked a lot more grim at Calvary, but he won that one.

I disagree that liberals BECAME scolds at the point of JFK, that is one "another fine example". FDR was a huge scold, Wilson and Teddy were at least just as bad. "Progressivism" may as well be called "scoldism", because they are ALWAYS sure that they know better! I mean, don't the laws of physics and evolution guarantee that things will always get better?


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Force, Syria, Negotiation, Debt Ceiling

Politics, Power, and Preventive Action » Would the Syria Deal Be a Coercive Diplomacy Success?:

Ok, which is it? Do deadlines and threats bring about negotiation or do they not??

Here is Jay Carney:

It was the credible threat of U.S. military action that led to the opening of this diplomatic avenue. There is no other explanation behind this rather remarkable change of position by the Syrians and no other explanation behind the decision of the Russians to seek a diplomatic resolution to the problem of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile…I think there’s no question based on what the Russians have said, and the Syrians said, and what we know that the credible threat of U.S. military action precipitated this. And I’m not sure what other source you ascribe it to or it could possibly be.  I don’t think there any doubt that this credible threat of force has produced this change in dynamic.

Seems pretty straightforward ... yet there we have Liar in Chief BO asserting the exact opposite in negotiations with congress. It sounds like they don't have a clue, or their lies have become so common that they can't keep them straight.  

I'd argue that COMPETENCE tends to bring about negotiation. If the administration had thought of brokering a deal through Putin without the abortive "Red Line" debacle, then that would likely have happened and BO and Clown Kerry might even have stumbled into looking like "statesmen". 

We haven't had a budget for 4 years, for the past 3, since losing the House, BO has completely failed to negotiate. Much in the same vein as "red line", the "No talks under threat" line has put BO in a spot that were he not a media favorite it would be impossible to save face from. Congress didn't threaten to bomb the WH, they said that after YEARS of not negotiating, you have to do it prior to this deadline. 

I believe every human knows that "deadlines, being under the gun, etc" DO push individuals and organizations to get busy, especially with hard things. Is that not completely obvious? 

The Debt Ceiling is a DEADLINE, not a "threat" ... of Congress taking some action. It is completely INSANE that CNN even prints such drivel and some percentage of people believe that not raising a debt ceiling is a "threat". 

BO is a "Community Organizer", NOT a politician. These two elements make that obvious. In order to understand what a Community Organizer is you need to read Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals", or at least my summary of same. Here and Here ... 

Alinsky dedicated "Rules" to Lucifer, and our current president venerates Alinsky. Need more really be said??

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Kneeling at the Barrycades, Yes We Cone!

Mark Steyn: Manning the Barrycades of punitive liberalism | government, budget, shutdown - Opinion - The Orange County Register:

It is a crying shame that the MSM cannot appreciate and shields the public to the best of their ability from the irony of a president with a name selected for the moment of his getting aid as a foreign student 20's being so fake and small minded as to close an open monument at greater expense than leaving it as it was.

"Normandy wasn't officially open either". Uttered by a WWII vet to the hapless Park Gestapo. Priceless! Indeed ... the kind of spirit that BO and his minions are golfing tirelessly to stamp out.

The true motto of the BO administration is not really "Change"!  but rather "Kneel"!

Of course as the feds ventilate some poor whacked out woman last week we see some difference in the ideas of "use of force". Black kid on top of you wailing on you with blows and swearing he is going to kill you??  Better just take it and hope for the best. Woman driving around in a car playing Barricade Bumper?? Extreme prejudice baby!

My personal shutdown favorites are the "Barrycades", "Spitehouse" and "Yes We Cone!"

Good Steyn column, take the time.

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Raise My Debt Limit

Raise My Debt Limit | Power Line:

Worth taking the time to watch ... puts the arrogance of the "just give us a clean CR" in some perspective. This was put out at the time of one of the other "serious crisis".  At the end it shows the relationship to the US government. What it doesn't adequately show is how many generations we are passing the buck to ... the little girl's kids and grandkids are going to be debt slaves.

Oh, but why can't we just keep borrowing???

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Thou Shalt Not Covet (Scalia)

In Conversation With Antonin Scalia -- New York Magazine:

The man is crazy intelligent and crazy direct. I shall not covet his gifts! (keep repeating)

It is long, but very very well worth the time. For me, his discussion on Heaven, Hell and the Devil is the best part. The reporter is shocked that an intelligent person would believe at all, let alone ADMIT that he believes. One of the benefits of lifetime appointment!

Other than that part, I loved this:

Had you already arrived at originalism as a philosophy? 

I don’t know when I came to that view. I’ve always had it, as far as I know. Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn’t change. I mean, the notion that the Constitution should simply, by decree of the Court, mean something that it didn’t mean when the people voted for it—frankly, you should ask the other side the question! How did they ever get there?

Indeed, if words don't have meaning, why bother to write anything down?

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The Crime of Existence

Stephen Hawking’s Warped Moral Calculus | National Review Online:

The Jews have been a thorn in the side of much of the world for millennia. The original "chosen people" ... Jewish exceptionalism is very old.

Partially due to the innate nature of Jewishness, and partially due to the "Boy Named Sue" factor of being constantly hated, there is good reason for their difference and distinction.They learn multiple languages as part of a standard education to be able to read and understand their religious texts ... ancient and modern Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Yiddish, etc along with the multiple languages associated with being a "nation without a homeland" for nearly 2K years. Typical family members would have Russian, English, German, Spanish, etc language roots.

One of the best predictors of someone being good at writing software is being multi-lingual. It certainly helps in world commerce and general brain flexibility. On top of that, having a strong religious base for thousands of years has held the Jewish culture in good stead.

So people hate the Jews, and apparently Stephen Hawking is no exception.

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Stealth Ranger Black River Falls, Spooner

After being more tied down than a retired Moose ought be caring for dogs this past week, I flew the coop for a whirlwind tour over to Black River Falls in WI on Friday to see what the Ranger could do on some more extensive trails. It was so much fun Marla and I headed N for a Bona Casa feed with Dad and some Cherry Nut Cake, followed by a day of riding the "long straight trails" up N of Spooner as far as Gordon.

Impressions Positive:

1. It STILL rides like a dream
2. The suspension takes out all that old "don't let me hit a hole with one wheel" fight that I remember from driving the Jeep CJ-7 off the road. Very independent independent suspension, hitting something nasty with one wheel is a real "ho-hum". 
3. The Clark and Jackson County trail system in WI is INCREDIBLE. If you have UTV or an ATV, just get your butt over there! 
4. Whatever the manual says about "low range is the primary range", it doesn't cut it on trails like those ... primary speed 15-25MPH. It is too much RPM and howl at anything over 20 in low, so unless I'm going to poke along, it's HIGH!
5. AWD vs 2WD (turf mode) is a bit of a tough decision. Slightly more speed in 2WD and REALLY nice on blacktop since neither differential is locked. OTOH, in sandy banked corers where you want to be 
6. It will go very close to 50, but 30 is "happy cruise", 40 is "high speed cruise". It is easy understand how people keep going for more power, speed, comfort, etc ... but I mostly want to run things that are more twisty, so 15-25 is more my standard speed range. 
7. The Spooner and N area railroad bed trail system is like an interstate ... 3-400 mile days would be easy even in the 800, in a 900 or 1000 RZR, one could be screaming along at 80 and have a 500+ mile day ... providing you didn't hit anything or anyONE. 
8. WI certainly caters to ATVers! Lots of accessible watering holes, fuel stops and dining. 
9. Having a full cab and roll up windows + heat on cold rainy days tends to get a few "longing glances" from people on out in the open ATVs!

Impressions Neutral / Negative:

1. It is easy to understand why people complain about the heat and the noise in the 800s. In our case, the heat is really not an issue since if it really nice out, we will be using the boat or the motorcycles. The noise is "relative" ... these things are where sleds were in '90. Torque converters work extremely well and are efficient, but they have belt noise. I'm sure moving the running gear under the back like the 900 definitely helps. If I was going to primarily use this thing every day on roads or be a long straight trail rider, then  reducing noise would be a big deal. As it is, I'm happy with it. 
2. Turn signals are high on my list of things to add. Even if not required, I'm reaching for them all the time, and they ARE required in IA for road use, plus some other states, so I'll be going that way. 
3. The fuel gauge is paranoid. I carry a 2.5gal flatpack for reserve. We went on "blinking empty" about 40 mi before we got gas. Put in 7.4 gal in the 9.0 gal tank. I fueled at "a little less than half" indicated in BRF, put in a little under 3 gal. 

It was a fun weekend ... something like 200mi of riding, no problems. Lots of rain and cool, but it "keeps the riff raff off the trail!".

Reality, Politics, The Left

The Emerging Offer | National Review Online:

Good little article covering the current REAL negotiations between the House and Senate. Worth a read, some thoughts:

• POLITICS is part of the reality of a Democratically elected Republic. The budget is to be a MAJOR part of those politics. 
• The solution to politics is Dictatorship ... which is what BO, Reid, and the MSM want. A "Clean CR" simply writes the House out of the process. The people that voted to elect a Republican House would have NO VOICE, and according to the Constitution they ought to have at least a 25% voice ... 50% BO, 25% each for House and Senate ... SCOTUS being "the referee" 
• Most sane people hate politics ... it is like not wanting to be a mortician, or a sewer guy, or a used car salesman, etc. But diversity of thought being a reality, SOMEBODY wants to do every distasteful job  ... and in the back of our minds we know that dead bodies piling up or having a dictator are the outcomes of going with our collective "common sense" ... or at least we USED TO on the politics. 
• Were the House in Democrat hands and the WH in Republican, the media would be LOUDLY making the point that the Democrat Majority (in this example) was every bit as much elected as the President and in fact, since there were MORE OF THEM, and they were "the underdog", maybe a bit more! 

If people ever come to their senses, the kind of reporting in this column might be a good alternative to the current general drivel ... it is pretty much just reporting on what is happening. Doesn't tell you how to think about it, doesn't try to make it dramatic ... "just the facts" like old Joe Friday.

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