Congress just voted to extend the Patriot Act for another 90 days after not voting to extend it at all earlier in the week. Don't ask me why. Don't know, don't care. So far as I know, the Patriot Act hasn't captured a single terrorist, no one's been prosecuted under it, and it's simply been an excuse for the government to do things it really shouldn't be doing, like invading people's privacy without the protection of a search warrant.
It's another one of those (in hindsight) really stupid laws Congress passed in a panic after 9/11 -- you know, like the ones that make it necessary for you to take your shoes off, get a full-body x-ray scan, go without food, water and blankets on some flights, and require you to be at the airport three hours before your two hour flight. Just in case there's a need for a thorough cavity search, and so that some minimum-wage, government-union douchebag can go through your luggage and steal all the good stuff before it gets put on the plane, which is part of a total 'security regime' which has increased the cost of flying, made it a complicated, exhausting and ever-more unpleasant experience than it was before. And even for all this 'security' you still have to, occasionally, band together with your fellow passengers to put down an out-of-control drunk, or wrestle a Zippo from the hands of some doofus about to light the fuse in his BVD's.
Unless you're Muslim -- then for some reason they leave you the fuck alone with all this shit so as to not racially-profile you, this despite the fact that it's because of Muslims we have all this shit in the first place!
So let me get this straight; we have a bunch of odious laws and security procedures on the books which are a direct response to a terrorist attack perpetrated by Muslims, but if we applied the laws to Muslims, we'd be profiling them, and thus violating their civil rights? And then somehow it's not violating MY civil rights to peek into my bank accounts without permission, subject me to a full-body scan -- my other choice is to be groped -- on my next trip to Disney, and deny me a bag of beer nuts on my flight because I've never been part of a terrorist organization, nor ever tried to blow anything up, and neither has anyone I've ever known?
This makes sense...how?
Congress did after 9/11 what it always does after getting caught with it's pants down; it not only reacted to the event that just happened, it overreacted to events it could not predict, and so to cover it's ass (because that's the only thing most Congresscritters are really good at, besides spending money and mugging for the cameras) they tried to craft something that would 'protect America' (i.e. their useless jobs) forever. That it runs roughshod over the Constitution was no big deal -- Congress and the Courts do that all the time, anyway.
Truth of the matter is this: prior to 9/11, the government was already listening to terrorists on the telephone. It was already collecting information of suspected plots. It had data on who the players were, where they might be, and what they might be up to. They didn't have information that specifically gave them any hints about 9/11, but the authorities knew something was up. What was lacking on that day was not the government's ability to eavesdrop and snoop in advance of an attack so as to prevent it, but rather the ability to concentrate, analyze, and then quickly act upon, the information they already had.
The Patriot Act would not have stopped September 11th, and it didn't stop Maj. Hassan, the Underwear Bomber, the Times Square Bomber, or any other attack or attempted attack that we know of. It's about time the damn thing goes away, especially when we live in the Age of The Modern Progressive. There are some people on the Left who, armed with a Patriot Act, would simply scare the crap out of me. The people who usually complain the loudest about Civil Rights being violated are usually the ones who can be counted upon violate the rights of others in a New York Minute if it meant getting, oh, say a single-payer healthcare system, putting Dick Cheney on trial as a war criminal, or finding a reason to give the gold bars in Fort Knox and free plastic surgery to illegal aliens, or something similarly important or useful.
Every time I go through an airport security checkpoint, or have to show my ID to get on a train, or have my backpack searched before getting on the ferry, or can't get a driver's license or passport renewed because of all the stupid new restrictions, or watch the cops in riot gear and gas masks, and bomb-sniffing dogs, still patrolling the train stations and street corners 10 years after the fact, I get the distinct impression that Usama Bin Laden might have actually won, after all.
He's wandering the mountains of Pakistan free as a bird, and I have to practically get naked and bring a note from my mother, just to get on Amtrak, and if I refuse because it's a violation of my rights, I'm either going to jail or walking. Unless I have a headscarf, then they just pretend to hassle me and then put me on the next available flight.
I'm about to suggest a course of action that is so incredibly novel that I just know it has never occurred to anyone who is part of the so-called leadership of this country. Here's my easy-to-remember, 5-step plan, that doesn't require confusing color codes, where no one has to have a pelvic exam at the airport, and carry-on bags could still fly free. Some will point out that it might violate the civil rights of a particular group, but what the fuck; the Patriot Act did that, too, and besides, after Step 1, there won't be any Civil Rights to violate. Here goes:
1. Stop Muslim immigration to the West. If you wear a headscarf, pray to a dusty rock in the desert, have multiple wives, smell of a mixture of camel dung, successive weeks of armpit sweat and unwashed clothes -- with just a hint of gunpowder and sheep urine -- you're not allowed into the United States. Not to visit, not to live, not to work. If your name is Mohammed, you're automatically barred, and if your name has two Mohammed's in it, you're a candidate for immediate lethal injection.
If you're already here, we should just ask you to leave before you or one of your crazy relatives decides God said to bomb the local Dairy Queen, because that ice cream cone on the roof is somehow offensive to that scraped-off-the-bottom-of-my-shoe, sorry excuse for a 'religion' of your's.
See, if you don't let them in and don't let them become citizens, they have no civil rights to violate. Likewise, if you strip them of their citizenship and politely ask them to get the fuck out of the country. No muss, no fuss, no need for a Patriot Act.
2. In Iraq, Afghanistan and Our Relations with the Muslim World: kill everyone, poison the landscape for the next 50,000 years, and piss on everyone's grave before you leave. If anyone in the Muslim world has a problem with that, repeat the process. We have that power, and that we have not exercised it says more about the moral superiority of this country than it does about the so-called virtues of the Muslim world.
We don't have to take your 'feelings' and 'cultural sensitivities' into account in our dealings with you people. Because we're Americans, and you suck. In fact, we've done far too much of that 'outreach' bullshit, and the response has been 40 years of terrorism, 40 years of OPEC jerking us around, I've forgotten how many wars, 'incidents', police actions, and armed confrontations, I can't recall how many hostages have been taken and executed, how much American 'aid' has been squandered or stolen by Muslim leadership, and somehow, you people have the balls to say that we deserve death? The United States has done more on behalf of the Muslim World than the Muslim World ever did for itself, and our reward is to be attacked by cowards who won't fight on the battlefields, acting like thieves in the night, hiding behind women and children.
Fuck you all.
3. Make it a requirement that American politicians must pass a series of examinations in order to obtain a license to run for Congress, or higher office. I want literacy tests (even though a third of our Congresscritters would probably fail). I want to know they can add, subtract, and know what the fuck an isosceles triangle is. They have to pass an American History course -- and not the one they teach at Berkeley which is three-quarters lies and one-quarter some douchebag's 'feelings' -- but the real McCoy. They have to be subjected to an extensive series of x-rays in order to determine that, yes, this candidate does, indeed, have both a brain and a spine.
Once we have capable, qualified, intelligent people in the United States Congress, the sooner we can get rid of the mentality that a) passes something like the Patriot Act, and b) believes spending another trillion dollars we'll have to borrow (again) this year is somehow a deficit reduction program.
Oh, and then have them pass a law making every member of the political establishment have to stand in an airport security line with the rest of us at least once a week.
4. The American business community will simply have to step up to the plate, and begin to seriously invest in finding viable alternatives to the crude oil that we have to import from gritty, smelly little, goat-blowing buttholes named Mohammed. The Middle East only produces one commodity (pubic lice, syphilis, and terrorists don't count as commodities), and by finding an alternative to that single product, we can make the Muslim world irrelevant, poorer and starving to death all that much sooner. Get crackin', boys!
5. Empty the prison in Guantanamo Bay...by tossing the inmates into the Bay, itself. If these guys are too dangerous to be let out of jail, then why are they still alive? Normally, I would be dead-set against the death penalty for anyone (excepting democrats and child molesters, but that's redundant) but I'm also not supporting Achmed in a tropical paradise complete with Halal cuisine and his own Koran. Fuck 'em; I want 'em dead.
Do you think an American captured in what passes for their country would be kept alive at taxpayer expense for life? Getting fat at taxpayer expense? With excellent medical care, when there's people in this country who can't get any? Hell, NO! Make an example of the Gitmo Boys, an educational video, if you will.
Shwo the world what happens to you if you wind up in Gitmo; you get a cement block chained to your ankles, and slathered in bacon grease just before they toss you overboard, so that you can go to meet Allah in an unclean state. No 72 virgins for you!
See, all of that would be too easy, and wouldn't give anyone any power to fuck up everyone's life, which is why we had to have a Patriot Act in the first place, because it was never about keeping YOU safe, but always about keeping Congressman Dingleberry, and Senator Douchebag safe..in their jobs, even though they passed an extremely bad law, which was a direct assault upon the rights of every citizen.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Guess Who's Running For President...Again...
It's Hillary Clinton in all her cynical, pre-primary, re-positioning and re-packaging glory, all over again.
Expect her to resign as Secretary of State really, really soon. Trying to out-right the Right on National Security, though? What's that all about?
Maybe Barack Obama was wrong; you can put lipstick on a pig, -- but only if you believe you can continue to rely on the stupidity and short memories of the American Left, maybe? It only really requires....what was that phrase she used when she tried to grill General Petreus, again? Oh, right...A Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
I'm wondering if Hillary repaid all those debts from the last campaign yet, you know, the ones she had to solicit donations from people who already contributed to her lost campaign to pay off? Only in America could you spend the sort of (other-people's) money that a Presidential candidate is somehow obliged to spend, and then be able to beg for more (of the same people's money) to pay off your own debts.
Sounds like there's an awful lot in common between our politicians, AIG and GM. But, I digress...
Dissecting the 2008 primaries as best I can, it seems that Obama was originally the Ultra-Libtard attempt to get their views to the fore, because so far as they were concerned, Hillary Clinton was simply George W. Bush with a more masculine haircut. No one expected Obama to win so much as to bear the standard bearer of the demented Left. His 'job' was to put their issues on the table, and to warn 'centrist' dems (a contradiction in terms) that the Dingbat Wing of the party could not be taken for granted. Subsequent events, I think, have proven me correct in this assumption; bearing the last two years in mind, does it look like Barack Obama was ever prepared to be President of the United States, or that he ever expected to win?
What has resulted, from a policy perspective, both foreign and domestic, seems to indicate that no, he was not expecting town, and when he actually did, he had no plan. No vision. What Barack Obama actually did was to let Congress do his heavy lifting while he played golf and bought time to learn what being in charge actually means.
In retrospect, Hillary Clinton in the White House was far more preferable, even to a hardened republican like me, if only because if you gave me the choice between Prostate Cancer and Ebola, I'd take the Cancer every time. You can cut a cancer out. You can shrink a tumor. There's medicine for that.
Ebola just turns your insides into a bloody, pulpy, necrotic mess until your sphincter muscles finally rot out and the liquid remains of your guts flow out across the floor.
In any event, Clinton lost an election she had every opportunity to win. It's not like John McCain was the best the GOP could do, you know. Primarily, she lost for two major reasons;
a) She ran her campaign as if she had already won, as if the Office of President was her fucking birthright. She took the Victory Lap before the race even started. She did everything but measure the Oval Office windows for new curtains (on the off-chance the old ones might still have Bill's you-know-what all over them), and plan to return the silverware that she and Bill stole when the Bushes moved (back) in.
Politically, Hillary would have been Bush-like; she would have continued the War, she would have left Guantanamo open, she would have kept the Patriot Act (mostly so that she and Billy could abuse it for personal gain), she would not have advanced the same radical Health Care stupidity that parvenu Obama did. A Hillary Clinton Presidency would have seen someone who took it for granted that she could mollify the rabid left while playing the centrist on TV. She would, at least, not rocked the boat. A vote for Hillary was really a vote for the status quo, only with something like tits. if you were a Whackjob Lefty in 2008, Hillary Clinton was George W. Bush's third term.
It was also a part of her great misfortune that Americans had become so sick-and-tired of the usual bunch of morons treating the Office like a revolving door (the Bush Dynasty wasn't going to be followed by a Clinton Dynasty, if the electorate could help it), and of course, the Financial Meltdown occurred (conveniently, wouldn't you say?) in such a way as to knock the Old Guard in both parties so silly that they couldn't figure out just what to do -- except resort to their old stock response, which was to waste other people's money, pass useless 'reforms' after the fact, and then claim virtue. Hillary Clinton would still have voted for TARP, to bail out AIG, and nationalize GM, she would have done no more than the lesser amongst her (Obama and McCain) did.
If you were a democratic party voter in the fall of 2008, and your choice was between The Crusty Black Pantsuit who talked a good game, but lied to your face, and could be reasonably expected to simply continue Bush's policies with only minor, cosmetic changes, or the Slick Hipster 'Outsider' who had inspired you with lofty rhetoric and a thin resume, but who restored your deluded vision of the heady days of JFK, RFK and MLK, only with a Program of Reparations attached, who would you chose? Especially when the prevailing mood, in both parties, was to Throw the Bums Out?
Ironically, it was mantra of 'Hope', the very one uttered by Bill Clinton on 1991, that drove a stake through Hillary's heart in 2008. It's almost sad to see how badly that man's stench clings to her (I said 'almost'; Hillary Clinton has made her bed, and all that). It has since proven to be every bit as hollow and tinny now as it was in 1992, primarily because there is a huge chasm between the rhetoric and reality. Funny how history repeats itself, ain't it?
b) Hillary Clinton carried far too much baggage. About 200 pounds of it in the form of her husband. When you vote for a Clinton, as we all know, you get a two-fer. What sort of President would she have been with that (alleged) rapist and admitted perjurer hovering over her shoulder, whispering in her ear? A Vote for Hillary was actually a vote for Bill, for he would have been the real power behind the throne, and the Long National Nightmare that was the Clinton Administration would begin anew. As it was, Barack Obambi more or less brought the Clinton Administration back in all it's former glory for you, anyway (Rahm Emanuel, Leon Pannettta, Erskine Bowles, and about 90% of the lesser lights in that panoply of dim stars that was Camelot-on-Little-Rock), so we really did get 1992 all over again, only without it's principal actors.
It didn't really matter which democrat you voted for in 2008, anyway; you were still getting more of the same with abigger price tag, the only argument was over which figurehead was more attractive. Considering Hillary had more-or-less the same experience as Obama (neither has held a real job in their lives) there was no real distinction to be made between the two, other than novelty. And in a country that was in a desperate enough a situation, the Novelty Act spouting tried-and-failed communist boilerplate was seen as better than the Old-and-Tired spouting tried-and-failed communist boilerplate, especially when the Other Side was offering....what, exactly?
After all, your only other choice was to jump ship and...ewwww...vote for the obviously-confused McCain and the Hot-As-All-Hell-Librarian-who-Could-See-Russia-From-Her-House.
In the Great Pecking Order of Worthiest Victim Groups that is democratic (small 'd' intentional) politics, Hillary The Heir Apparent was stunned to learn that (half-) Black Man still trumped Woman Done Wrong By Cheating and Abusive Husband. That's how democrats usually vote, you know; they try to decide which candidate is the more historically-aggrieved minority. It's a pity they don't know any actual history. Anyways, Clinton only took the job of Secretary of State because it was the next, best thing; it gave her a serious job (junior Senator from a state you don't really live in is like being an unpaid intern, and besides, Schumer is an obnoxious boor), and it might even prove a springboard to future success.
Judging from the foreign policy mistakes of this Administration (ones that Hillary will be glad to tell you in the coming primary season were not her doing; she was simply following orders from above...yeah, like that worked at Nuremberg, too) that's not exactly something I would want on my resume. She will pull out her old 'Centrist Democrat' disguise -- something that barely exists anymore, thanks to the GOP-Tea Party romp in the 2010 Mid-Terms -- and run to Obama's right as a New-Old-Centrist-Blue-Dog Democrat (four lies for the price of one) while outhawking the GOP Hawks, and do her damndest to be as indistinguishable as the most centrist Republican come 2012. She'll trot out all the old Clinton Administration bromides with new bells and whistles, harken back to their supposed glories and virtues, cry once or twice for the cameras, and then triangulate her big, fat ass all the way back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, come Hell or High Water.
And you'll never see Bill anywhere near her...unless there's money to raise.
When Hillary Clinton, who voted for the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before she voted against them, who all but called the General in Charge of those wars a liar, who decried the Surge strategy, and almost-religiously followed the Far Left line that the wars were lost, unwinniable, that Iraq was a 'quagmire' and Afghanistan a 'stalemate', suddenly becomes a defender of the national (in-)security establishment, you know something is rotten in the state of Denmark, or at least, in the State Department. The woman has been 'positioning' herself (again) for the last two years for another run at the White House.
Hillary doesn't really give a shit about national security; if she did, she'd be front-and-center in the fight against illegal immigration, and in the trenches for border security. She has been absent on both, because if you plan to run for President on the democratic party ticket you can't afford to offend all the illegal voters in California, your Mother Lode of illegal-alien-and-welfare-mother-supplied Electoral Votes --54 of them. That's 20% of the total required to be elected, you know.
Let's see if the American electorate can still be that stupid two Presidential elections in a row, and fall for someone who's so obviously a poser, or whether the 'Throw The Bums Out' fervor of the Tea Party and the Great Middle continues. Get yer popcorn, folks, there's gonna be a fight on the Left very soon.
Expect her to resign as Secretary of State really, really soon. Trying to out-right the Right on National Security, though? What's that all about?
Maybe Barack Obama was wrong; you can put lipstick on a pig, -- but only if you believe you can continue to rely on the stupidity and short memories of the American Left, maybe? It only really requires....what was that phrase she used when she tried to grill General Petreus, again? Oh, right...A Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
I'm wondering if Hillary repaid all those debts from the last campaign yet, you know, the ones she had to solicit donations from people who already contributed to her lost campaign to pay off? Only in America could you spend the sort of (other-people's) money that a Presidential candidate is somehow obliged to spend, and then be able to beg for more (of the same people's money) to pay off your own debts.
Sounds like there's an awful lot in common between our politicians, AIG and GM. But, I digress...
Dissecting the 2008 primaries as best I can, it seems that Obama was originally the Ultra-Libtard attempt to get their views to the fore, because so far as they were concerned, Hillary Clinton was simply George W. Bush with a more masculine haircut. No one expected Obama to win so much as to bear the standard bearer of the demented Left. His 'job' was to put their issues on the table, and to warn 'centrist' dems (a contradiction in terms) that the Dingbat Wing of the party could not be taken for granted. Subsequent events, I think, have proven me correct in this assumption; bearing the last two years in mind, does it look like Barack Obama was ever prepared to be President of the United States, or that he ever expected to win?
What has resulted, from a policy perspective, both foreign and domestic, seems to indicate that no, he was not expecting town, and when he actually did, he had no plan. No vision. What Barack Obama actually did was to let Congress do his heavy lifting while he played golf and bought time to learn what being in charge actually means.
In retrospect, Hillary Clinton in the White House was far more preferable, even to a hardened republican like me, if only because if you gave me the choice between Prostate Cancer and Ebola, I'd take the Cancer every time. You can cut a cancer out. You can shrink a tumor. There's medicine for that.
Ebola just turns your insides into a bloody, pulpy, necrotic mess until your sphincter muscles finally rot out and the liquid remains of your guts flow out across the floor.
In any event, Clinton lost an election she had every opportunity to win. It's not like John McCain was the best the GOP could do, you know. Primarily, she lost for two major reasons;
a) She ran her campaign as if she had already won, as if the Office of President was her fucking birthright. She took the Victory Lap before the race even started. She did everything but measure the Oval Office windows for new curtains (on the off-chance the old ones might still have Bill's you-know-what all over them), and plan to return the silverware that she and Bill stole when the Bushes moved (back) in.
Politically, Hillary would have been Bush-like; she would have continued the War, she would have left Guantanamo open, she would have kept the Patriot Act (mostly so that she and Billy could abuse it for personal gain), she would not have advanced the same radical Health Care stupidity that parvenu Obama did. A Hillary Clinton Presidency would have seen someone who took it for granted that she could mollify the rabid left while playing the centrist on TV. She would, at least, not rocked the boat. A vote for Hillary was really a vote for the status quo, only with something like tits. if you were a Whackjob Lefty in 2008, Hillary Clinton was George W. Bush's third term.
It was also a part of her great misfortune that Americans had become so sick-and-tired of the usual bunch of morons treating the Office like a revolving door (the Bush Dynasty wasn't going to be followed by a Clinton Dynasty, if the electorate could help it), and of course, the Financial Meltdown occurred (conveniently, wouldn't you say?) in such a way as to knock the Old Guard in both parties so silly that they couldn't figure out just what to do -- except resort to their old stock response, which was to waste other people's money, pass useless 'reforms' after the fact, and then claim virtue. Hillary Clinton would still have voted for TARP, to bail out AIG, and nationalize GM, she would have done no more than the lesser amongst her (Obama and McCain) did.
If you were a democratic party voter in the fall of 2008, and your choice was between The Crusty Black Pantsuit who talked a good game, but lied to your face, and could be reasonably expected to simply continue Bush's policies with only minor, cosmetic changes, or the Slick Hipster 'Outsider' who had inspired you with lofty rhetoric and a thin resume, but who restored your deluded vision of the heady days of JFK, RFK and MLK, only with a Program of Reparations attached, who would you chose? Especially when the prevailing mood, in both parties, was to Throw the Bums Out?
Ironically, it was mantra of 'Hope', the very one uttered by Bill Clinton on 1991, that drove a stake through Hillary's heart in 2008. It's almost sad to see how badly that man's stench clings to her (I said 'almost'; Hillary Clinton has made her bed, and all that). It has since proven to be every bit as hollow and tinny now as it was in 1992, primarily because there is a huge chasm between the rhetoric and reality. Funny how history repeats itself, ain't it?
b) Hillary Clinton carried far too much baggage. About 200 pounds of it in the form of her husband. When you vote for a Clinton, as we all know, you get a two-fer. What sort of President would she have been with that (alleged) rapist and admitted perjurer hovering over her shoulder, whispering in her ear? A Vote for Hillary was actually a vote for Bill, for he would have been the real power behind the throne, and the Long National Nightmare that was the Clinton Administration would begin anew. As it was, Barack Obambi more or less brought the Clinton Administration back in all it's former glory for you, anyway (Rahm Emanuel, Leon Pannettta, Erskine Bowles, and about 90% of the lesser lights in that panoply of dim stars that was Camelot-on-Little-Rock), so we really did get 1992 all over again, only without it's principal actors.
It didn't really matter which democrat you voted for in 2008, anyway; you were still getting more of the same with abigger price tag, the only argument was over which figurehead was more attractive. Considering Hillary had more-or-less the same experience as Obama (neither has held a real job in their lives) there was no real distinction to be made between the two, other than novelty. And in a country that was in a desperate enough a situation, the Novelty Act spouting tried-and-failed communist boilerplate was seen as better than the Old-and-Tired spouting tried-and-failed communist boilerplate, especially when the Other Side was offering....what, exactly?
After all, your only other choice was to jump ship and...ewwww...vote for the obviously-confused McCain and the Hot-As-All-Hell-Librarian-who-Could-See-Russia-From-Her-House.
In the Great Pecking Order of Worthiest Victim Groups that is democratic (small 'd' intentional) politics, Hillary The Heir Apparent was stunned to learn that (half-) Black Man still trumped Woman Done Wrong By Cheating and Abusive Husband. That's how democrats usually vote, you know; they try to decide which candidate is the more historically-aggrieved minority. It's a pity they don't know any actual history. Anyways, Clinton only took the job of Secretary of State because it was the next, best thing; it gave her a serious job (junior Senator from a state you don't really live in is like being an unpaid intern, and besides, Schumer is an obnoxious boor), and it might even prove a springboard to future success.
Judging from the foreign policy mistakes of this Administration (ones that Hillary will be glad to tell you in the coming primary season were not her doing; she was simply following orders from above...yeah, like that worked at Nuremberg, too) that's not exactly something I would want on my resume. She will pull out her old 'Centrist Democrat' disguise -- something that barely exists anymore, thanks to the GOP-Tea Party romp in the 2010 Mid-Terms -- and run to Obama's right as a New-Old-Centrist-Blue-Dog Democrat (four lies for the price of one) while outhawking the GOP Hawks, and do her damndest to be as indistinguishable as the most centrist Republican come 2012. She'll trot out all the old Clinton Administration bromides with new bells and whistles, harken back to their supposed glories and virtues, cry once or twice for the cameras, and then triangulate her big, fat ass all the way back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, come Hell or High Water.
And you'll never see Bill anywhere near her...unless there's money to raise.
When Hillary Clinton, who voted for the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before she voted against them, who all but called the General in Charge of those wars a liar, who decried the Surge strategy, and almost-religiously followed the Far Left line that the wars were lost, unwinniable, that Iraq was a 'quagmire' and Afghanistan a 'stalemate', suddenly becomes a defender of the national (in-)security establishment, you know something is rotten in the state of Denmark, or at least, in the State Department. The woman has been 'positioning' herself (again) for the last two years for another run at the White House.
Hillary doesn't really give a shit about national security; if she did, she'd be front-and-center in the fight against illegal immigration, and in the trenches for border security. She has been absent on both, because if you plan to run for President on the democratic party ticket you can't afford to offend all the illegal voters in California, your Mother Lode of illegal-alien-and-welfare-mother-supplied Electoral Votes --54 of them. That's 20% of the total required to be elected, you know.
Let's see if the American electorate can still be that stupid two Presidential elections in a row, and fall for someone who's so obviously a poser, or whether the 'Throw The Bums Out' fervor of the Tea Party and the Great Middle continues. Get yer popcorn, folks, there's gonna be a fight on the Left very soon.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Happy Valentine's Day...
Here's a roundup of Valentine's Day News You Can Use, with some demented commentary from Your's Truly.
Although today is supposed to be about the expression of love and affection, we're often reminded that this is not always exactly the case. Whatever it's original purpose, or supposed virtues, Valentine's Day long ago ceased to be about Love and Romance, and is well on it's way to becoming one of those things that quickly becomes a hell of a lot more trouble than it's probably worth.
For example, if you live in Malaysia, Valentine's Day is not a holiday for the...ahem...faint of heart. Because instead of a cheeky greeting card, one is much more likely to receive a fatwa (religious edict) warning against the consequences of immoral behavior, defined as: perhaps showing an ankle, a smooch on the cheek given to someone not your spouse, engaging in decadent "Western" behavior.
Because the origin of Valentine's Day lay in the Christian calendar, of course, and because with the advance of time and the relaxation of sexual mores common in Western culture, it's gone from a religious celebration to a full-bore freight train of promiscuity and material indulgence. If you're a Muslim, these things are bad for you, and can get you killed.
Then again, the words 'Malaysian Islamic Economic Development Department' is an oxymoron. Like 'Democratic Party'. There can be no economic development, Islamic or otherwise, without freedom of thought, expression or conscience. Be that as it may, it seems that Allah frowns upon displays of affection that don't involve shagging a goat in a Scriptually-approved manner. One wonders if somewhere in the Middle East today, some poor woman wrapped head-to-toe in a carpet, and subjected to daily beatings, isn't giving her paramour a heart-shaped (that's actual human-heart-shaped, not that vile Westernized thingy that's rounded at the tops and pointy at the bottom) box of plastic explosives with a lovey-dovey note attached that reads "from your Hostage in Love..."
Somewhere, I'm thinking there's a self-appointed Islamic Morality Hall Monitor disguised as a Malaysian Islamic Economic honcho nodding in agreement with that sort of sentiment.
By the way, when anything with the word 'Islamic' incorporated in it's title says it'll be 'carrying out morality checks' what it really means is that they will beat, maim or kill anyone who doesn't live and behave according to their mentally-constipated worldview. Now there's love for you! And really, what does the 'Islamic Economic Development Council' have to do with morality in the first place, unless it's a deliberate obfuscation of both fact and intent?
And, of course, nothing says "I Love You" in the Islamic World like a good beheading. Even if it takes place in Buffalo.
Ah, the things we do for Love, eh?
If 7th-century-inspired notions of what constitutes love just don't float your boat, you can always settle for the 21st Century American equivalent, which, of course, involves computers, Budweiser, a pre-date "compatibility" questionnaire that has all the romance of a job interview and rectal exam rolled-into-one, and a gross violation of your personal privacy. But hey: it'll help you get laid on this special day. That is, after all, the purpose of the whole exercise, right?
This pretty much proves something that I have investigated (and often proved) many times in the last 20+ years: if you asked ten women, at random, to make the Beast with Two Backs, you'll get at least three positive responses on any given evening. Apparently, if you throw some beer into the mix, your odds of success more than double.
I figured that out at the age of 19, and didn't need a freakin' computer to do it. Nowadays, people are so intellectually-lazy and gadget-oriented (read: dependant) that they won't even fart , let alone fuck, unless there's an app for that. If it wasn't for the fact that I, eventually, Grew Up and put on my Big Boy Pants, I'd still be out there when the mischievous mood struck, chatting up would-be conquests ten at a time.
Had it down to a near-science, too.
(Note to all those who think this is a great idea: it gets boring after a very short time. Mostly because it's waaaaay too easy, and the majority of your takers barely have basic brainstem functions.)
Naturally, this would not be America if there wasn't a small minority of deranged dipshits out there who believe that no activity in the pursuit of your 'soulmate' is too extreme. Even a 24-hour murder spree.
I'm certain that somewhere, there's a clinical psychologist who's furiously trying to explain how stabbing your intended to death is just the mouth-foaming sociopath's way of expressing affection, and we just need to be tolerant of this 'different' manifestation of love, and try to extrapolate this stupidity into a pro-Gay-Marriage argument.
We should stab that so-called doctor to death, too.
As for my own Valentine's Day celebration, well...there won't be one this year. The lady who would be my heart's desire is unavailable to me, alas. Mostly by choice, because she's as big a lunatic as I am, and that just ain't healthy for either of us. As for the Other One that I was, until recently, 'keeping company' with, I tossed her overboard just as soon as I heard those words that now make me break out in a cold sweat and want to reach for a flame-thrower;
"I really, really need your help..."
That 'help', incidentally, didn't involve changing a light bulb, fixing a flat tire, or squashing an inconvenient spider in the bathtub, but was rather an attempt to get me to take some responsibility (i.e. do all the heavy lifting) in 'helping' her sort out her (egregious) personal and familial issues. Sorry, but I'm just not equipped for that anymore; The White Knight has finally hung up his spurs for good. If I'm spending all my time taking care of your issues, then I'm not taking care of mine, thanks very much. Besides, I wasn't ever going to marry you, I don't think, and your kid regards me as the next best thing to Rudolf Eichmann.
Romance, it seems, is dead. What a pity.
In a day-and-age where we're sold the idea that the heart-shaped box of Russel Stover's is the end-all-be-all, where 'Every Kiss begins With Kay', Wal-Mart tries to pass itself off as your Valentine's Day Headquarters by flogging cheap jewelry that no one with taste and a median income near the National Average would buy without chemical stimulus, where the Vermont Teddy Bear is sold as the key to unlocking the vault wherein is hidden the Pearl of Great Price, True Romance is but a few mouse-clicks away on E-Harmony, and where "do for me what I won't do for myself" becomes the basis for, and only purpose of, a one-sided "relationship" that will eventually end in disaster for both parties, it's no fucking wonder.
I think back to simpler days when I used to write a young lady who had snagged my affections love letters. She thought they were the Greatest Thing Ever, and a few days before she married someone else, she told me she had kept every last one...and still read them regularly. I wouldn't be surprised to find that she still had and read them all, 20 years later, because what passes for romance these days is kitchy, tied to outrageous displays of grossly-conspicuous consumption, and always contains at least three pathologies that should have half the country on a psychiatrist's couch somewhere.
It's all become way too impersonal, tied to empty display, or centered upon a formulation wherein personal growth is directly proportional to how well you manage to slough your personal problems off on someone else and frame the issue in terms of "if you love me, you'll do it..."
Excuse me while I vomit at the thought of Valentine's Day.
Whatever happened to those simpler times, when the free Expression of Love -- for it's own sake -- didn't come with a commercial, a political stance, religious repression, physical violence, or it's own chapter in the DSM IV?
Happy Valentine's Day, America. See most of you in the local meat market tomorrow...after you've gotten your Chromium-plated Chocloate Diamond pendant, and shaken off your beer goggles, assuming we haven't been marked for death by the local Islamic Economic Development folks for our sinful, lusty apostasy.
Update: What Women Really Want. If you believe this, you're a douchebag. (H/T Closet Conservative). Probably, it's more like some sick bitch doing research on how to snag a queer dude, and 'convert' him into suitable husband material just so that they can share wardrobes.
Also, What Women Really, Really Want: The Ins-and-Outs of the Marriage Proposal.
Personally, if I ever had a chick who demanded that a Broadway production be made of my marriage proposal as proof of my devotion, I'd do it...but only so I could take the ring back and tell her to go fuck herself -- you selfish bitch -- in front of her friends and family right at the moment of her greatest triumph.
Although today is supposed to be about the expression of love and affection, we're often reminded that this is not always exactly the case. Whatever it's original purpose, or supposed virtues, Valentine's Day long ago ceased to be about Love and Romance, and is well on it's way to becoming one of those things that quickly becomes a hell of a lot more trouble than it's probably worth.
For example, if you live in Malaysia, Valentine's Day is not a holiday for the...ahem...faint of heart. Because instead of a cheeky greeting card, one is much more likely to receive a fatwa (religious edict) warning against the consequences of immoral behavior, defined as: perhaps showing an ankle, a smooch on the cheek given to someone not your spouse, engaging in decadent "Western" behavior.
Because the origin of Valentine's Day lay in the Christian calendar, of course, and because with the advance of time and the relaxation of sexual mores common in Western culture, it's gone from a religious celebration to a full-bore freight train of promiscuity and material indulgence. If you're a Muslim, these things are bad for you, and can get you killed.
Then again, the words 'Malaysian Islamic Economic Development Department' is an oxymoron. Like 'Democratic Party'. There can be no economic development, Islamic or otherwise, without freedom of thought, expression or conscience. Be that as it may, it seems that Allah frowns upon displays of affection that don't involve shagging a goat in a Scriptually-approved manner. One wonders if somewhere in the Middle East today, some poor woman wrapped head-to-toe in a carpet, and subjected to daily beatings, isn't giving her paramour a heart-shaped (that's actual human-heart-shaped, not that vile Westernized thingy that's rounded at the tops and pointy at the bottom) box of plastic explosives with a lovey-dovey note attached that reads "from your Hostage in Love..."
Somewhere, I'm thinking there's a self-appointed Islamic Morality Hall Monitor disguised as a Malaysian Islamic Economic honcho nodding in agreement with that sort of sentiment.
By the way, when anything with the word 'Islamic' incorporated in it's title says it'll be 'carrying out morality checks' what it really means is that they will beat, maim or kill anyone who doesn't live and behave according to their mentally-constipated worldview. Now there's love for you! And really, what does the 'Islamic Economic Development Council' have to do with morality in the first place, unless it's a deliberate obfuscation of both fact and intent?
And, of course, nothing says "I Love You" in the Islamic World like a good beheading. Even if it takes place in Buffalo.
Ah, the things we do for Love, eh?
If 7th-century-inspired notions of what constitutes love just don't float your boat, you can always settle for the 21st Century American equivalent, which, of course, involves computers, Budweiser, a pre-date "compatibility" questionnaire that has all the romance of a job interview and rectal exam rolled-into-one, and a gross violation of your personal privacy. But hey: it'll help you get laid on this special day. That is, after all, the purpose of the whole exercise, right?
This pretty much proves something that I have investigated (and often proved) many times in the last 20+ years: if you asked ten women, at random, to make the Beast with Two Backs, you'll get at least three positive responses on any given evening. Apparently, if you throw some beer into the mix, your odds of success more than double.
I figured that out at the age of 19, and didn't need a freakin' computer to do it. Nowadays, people are so intellectually-lazy and gadget-oriented (read: dependant) that they won't even fart , let alone fuck, unless there's an app for that. If it wasn't for the fact that I, eventually, Grew Up and put on my Big Boy Pants, I'd still be out there when the mischievous mood struck, chatting up would-be conquests ten at a time.
Had it down to a near-science, too.
(Note to all those who think this is a great idea: it gets boring after a very short time. Mostly because it's waaaaay too easy, and the majority of your takers barely have basic brainstem functions.)
Naturally, this would not be America if there wasn't a small minority of deranged dipshits out there who believe that no activity in the pursuit of your 'soulmate' is too extreme. Even a 24-hour murder spree.
I'm certain that somewhere, there's a clinical psychologist who's furiously trying to explain how stabbing your intended to death is just the mouth-foaming sociopath's way of expressing affection, and we just need to be tolerant of this 'different' manifestation of love, and try to extrapolate this stupidity into a pro-Gay-Marriage argument.
We should stab that so-called doctor to death, too.
As for my own Valentine's Day celebration, well...there won't be one this year. The lady who would be my heart's desire is unavailable to me, alas. Mostly by choice, because she's as big a lunatic as I am, and that just ain't healthy for either of us. As for the Other One that I was, until recently, 'keeping company' with, I tossed her overboard just as soon as I heard those words that now make me break out in a cold sweat and want to reach for a flame-thrower;
"I really, really need your help..."
That 'help', incidentally, didn't involve changing a light bulb, fixing a flat tire, or squashing an inconvenient spider in the bathtub, but was rather an attempt to get me to take some responsibility (i.e. do all the heavy lifting) in 'helping' her sort out her (egregious) personal and familial issues. Sorry, but I'm just not equipped for that anymore; The White Knight has finally hung up his spurs for good. If I'm spending all my time taking care of your issues, then I'm not taking care of mine, thanks very much. Besides, I wasn't ever going to marry you, I don't think, and your kid regards me as the next best thing to Rudolf Eichmann.
Romance, it seems, is dead. What a pity.
In a day-and-age where we're sold the idea that the heart-shaped box of Russel Stover's is the end-all-be-all, where 'Every Kiss begins With Kay', Wal-Mart tries to pass itself off as your Valentine's Day Headquarters by flogging cheap jewelry that no one with taste and a median income near the National Average would buy without chemical stimulus, where the Vermont Teddy Bear is sold as the key to unlocking the vault wherein is hidden the Pearl of Great Price, True Romance is but a few mouse-clicks away on E-Harmony, and where "do for me what I won't do for myself" becomes the basis for, and only purpose of, a one-sided "relationship" that will eventually end in disaster for both parties, it's no fucking wonder.
I think back to simpler days when I used to write a young lady who had snagged my affections love letters. She thought they were the Greatest Thing Ever, and a few days before she married someone else, she told me she had kept every last one...and still read them regularly. I wouldn't be surprised to find that she still had and read them all, 20 years later, because what passes for romance these days is kitchy, tied to outrageous displays of grossly-conspicuous consumption, and always contains at least three pathologies that should have half the country on a psychiatrist's couch somewhere.
It's all become way too impersonal, tied to empty display, or centered upon a formulation wherein personal growth is directly proportional to how well you manage to slough your personal problems off on someone else and frame the issue in terms of "if you love me, you'll do it..."
Excuse me while I vomit at the thought of Valentine's Day.
Whatever happened to those simpler times, when the free Expression of Love -- for it's own sake -- didn't come with a commercial, a political stance, religious repression, physical violence, or it's own chapter in the DSM IV?
Happy Valentine's Day, America. See most of you in the local meat market tomorrow...after you've gotten your Chromium-plated Chocloate Diamond pendant, and shaken off your beer goggles, assuming we haven't been marked for death by the local Islamic Economic Development folks for our sinful, lusty apostasy.
Update: What Women Really Want. If you believe this, you're a douchebag. (H/T Closet Conservative). Probably, it's more like some sick bitch doing research on how to snag a queer dude, and 'convert' him into suitable husband material just so that they can share wardrobes.
Also, What Women Really, Really Want: The Ins-and-Outs of the Marriage Proposal.
Personally, if I ever had a chick who demanded that a Broadway production be made of my marriage proposal as proof of my devotion, I'd do it...but only so I could take the ring back and tell her to go fuck herself -- you selfish bitch -- in front of her friends and family right at the moment of her greatest triumph.
Foreign WMD's Found in America!
Maybe. There's a lot of hemming and hawing, and the word "maybe" is being thrown about an awful lot. Either the man is telling the truth, or the population is being subjected to a psychological exercise that will probably result in greater government control of everything from the production and distribution of toilet paper, to how many times and in what fashion, you may clench and unclench your sphincter when you hear the phrase "Weapon of Mass Destruction".
And since when did they become "Weapons of Mass Effect"? Is that part of the program wherein "Terrorism" became "Man-Caused Disaster"?
If this story is true, I wonder who the Obama Administration plans to sue in the event of a Man-Caused Disaster created by a Weapon of Mass Effect? Because that's pretty much all they're good for.
I'd also like to know (but I'm afraid I already know the answer to this question) why I have to read about shit like this in a British Newspaper, and not, say, the New York Times? Why doesn't Katie Couric lead with this on tonight's newscast? Where was the "in-depth" investigatory piece by Newsweek or Time?
Oh, right. Can't blame a conservative for it, and anything which might cast multiculturalism in a negative light is to be assiduously avoided. Like the Clap.
So-called journalists in this country wonder why it is that the network news and the daily newspaper are dying breeds? I can promise you this; after something went BOOM! in downtown Los Angeles or Chicago, those same "journalists" would be rushing to get crap to print or on the air in order to "inform" you, and the amount of information and the number of "experts" they would have lined up to fill you in on the why's and wherefore's would be astounding -- and indicative of just how much the Press knew before the event, but sat on for weeks and months so as to not embarrass President Marriot-Suites...and her husband, too...or withheld so as to not "give offense" to specific minority groups with a penchant for beheading and for kneeling to a black rock in an otherwise-empty desert.
Multiculturalism gets people killed. Political Correctness gets people killed. Pumped-up bubbleheads who who couldn't find their own asses with both hands and a flashlight making poorly-informed and personally-biased decisions about what is news, what is acceptable, what is politically expedient, what viewpoints are valid -- under the banner of Journalism -- are going to get people killed.
And since when did they become "Weapons of Mass Effect"? Is that part of the program wherein "Terrorism" became "Man-Caused Disaster"?
If this story is true, I wonder who the Obama Administration plans to sue in the event of a Man-Caused Disaster created by a Weapon of Mass Effect? Because that's pretty much all they're good for.
I'd also like to know (but I'm afraid I already know the answer to this question) why I have to read about shit like this in a British Newspaper, and not, say, the New York Times? Why doesn't Katie Couric lead with this on tonight's newscast? Where was the "in-depth" investigatory piece by Newsweek or Time?
Oh, right. Can't blame a conservative for it, and anything which might cast multiculturalism in a negative light is to be assiduously avoided. Like the Clap.
So-called journalists in this country wonder why it is that the network news and the daily newspaper are dying breeds? I can promise you this; after something went BOOM! in downtown Los Angeles or Chicago, those same "journalists" would be rushing to get crap to print or on the air in order to "inform" you, and the amount of information and the number of "experts" they would have lined up to fill you in on the why's and wherefore's would be astounding -- and indicative of just how much the Press knew before the event, but sat on for weeks and months so as to not embarrass President Marriot-Suites...and her husband, too...or withheld so as to not "give offense" to specific minority groups with a penchant for beheading and for kneeling to a black rock in an otherwise-empty desert.
Multiculturalism gets people killed. Political Correctness gets people killed. Pumped-up bubbleheads who who couldn't find their own asses with both hands and a flashlight making poorly-informed and personally-biased decisions about what is news, what is acceptable, what is politically expedient, what viewpoints are valid -- under the banner of Journalism -- are going to get people killed.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Mubarak Falls...
If you believe this leads to "democracy" in Egypt, keep your powder dry; if what emerges in the near future is a one-party police state in which Islam is enshrined as the national religion, and Sharia Law becomes the Rules of the Road, then democracy is in the Middle East is even further away from becoming a reality than it was before.
Stay tuned.
Stay tuned.
Why The Office of President of the United States Isn't an On-the-Job-Training Exercise...
Barack Obama is a badly-flawed man. When I say that I don't mean to imply that he's an evil person who stomps puppies and raises kittens for their meat and hides. I'm certain that on a personal level, he's rather an amiable gentleman, and by all appearances is an excellent husband and father. He just isn't smart enough to know what he doesn't know, and doesn't really know what he claims he does, and never seems capable of getting the proper help when he needs it, or to be even capable of recognizing when he needs that help.
Look about you. Does it look like someone who knows what he's doing is in charge? Do you feel that your political leaders grasp the reality of your life and the world around us?
When this country is facing economic crisis, exploding unemployment and is teetering on insolvency, Barack Obama spends his time devising federal giveaways disguised as "Stimulus"; Cash-for-Clunkers, Mortgage-Renegotiation Schemes, Green Energy boondoggles, a Healthcare program that somehow puts 30 million deadbeats into the insurance/health systems without raising costs, spouts the usual claptrap about "Education", fosters a Soak-the-Rich , anti-business, anti-growth mentality, recycles liberal (small 'l'' intentional) boilerplate policy that has been historically-proven to be about as useful and efficacious as mammary glands on a bull.
He turned the business of governing over to a cabal of Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and what they wrought was too terrible to contemplate -- a harbinger of the collapse of the federalist system, an assault upon the personal liberties of the individual -- and Obama spent 15 months polishing that turd, trying to convince you that a series of programs that even he couldn't adequately explain were somehow manna from Heaven.
He couldn't explain any of it because he didn't understand it, either, mostly because he had nothing to do with it, of course. Why do you think Nancy Pelosi had to resort to extra-constitutional means to get Obamacare passed, and Harry Reid had to bribe Senators (members of hi sown party, no less!) to make it a reality?
When the Gulf of Mexico was poisoned by BP, and millions had their livelihoods destroyed by an uncontrolled gusher of crude oil, Obama went on vacation. But he did, at least, file a lawsuit, bless his heart.
When the nation is at war with Radical Islam, Candidate Obama announces that it's a war we cannot win (The Surge has Failed, Guantanamo Bay is an affront to the concept of Human Rights, referring to terrorism as a "Man-Made Disaster", etc.), and makes various pronouncements calling GWB, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et. al., War Criminals, Obama goes to Cairo and makes a speech apologizing for America defending itself while Al'Qeda expands into Yemen and Somalia, home-grown Jihadis shoot up Army bases, attempt to blow up Times Square, and try to bring down airliners with TNT boxer shorts. President Obama then repeats and extends the very Bush-era policies he previously decried, and then pretends as if he's still -- somehow -- on the higher moral ground that his predecessors could never occupy.
When the country needs firms, committed, reasoned leadership, Obama reminds us that he's a multi-and-post-racial Messianic figure who should be worshiped and obeyed, rather than held accountable for his actions, or lack thereof. If you criticize him, you're racist. If you disagree with him, you're a Redneck-Bible-thumping-Gun-Clinger. If you point out the glaring disconnect between his rhetoric and reality, you are accused of wanting to "turn the clock back to when the Republicans drove the car into the ditch".
At a time when economic recovery should be the paramount concern of the political establishment, Obama instead ordains newer restrictions on commerce. He imposes new taxes. He nationalizes the automobile industry, attempts to do the same to the healtchcare industry, bullies the banks, and sticks his cronies on a myriad of economic advisory boards.
He wags his fingers at Corporate America for their unbridled greed, their lavish, expensive trips to, and conventions in, Las Vegas, and then jets himself and the Missus on taxpayer-funded "date nights" to see Broadway shows and the best resorts, or plays golf on the best courses in America on a regular basis, or takes 10 vacations in the span of 12 weeks. He sends his wife on a junket to Spain that requires several hundred hotel rooms. He travels to India with an entourage of thousands.
When clarity of purpose and intent is necessary, when people need to be held accountable for the mistakes that were made which put the country in the dire straits it finds itself in, Obama creates a myriad of "czars" who's purposes are nebulous, and who aren't accountable to anyone...except him.
These are either the actions of a man who is determined to implement a New System which is certainly un-American...or they are the scattershot, clueless, hard-headed stupidity of someone who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, and has even less of an idea of how to do even that much.
I would tend to believe it to be the latter, rather than the former. Being a"community organizer" and a temporary, half-term Senator, who never held a private sector job in his life, and was probably patted on the back, unduly lauded, and socially-promoted for being"special" without having to distinguish himself in any meaningful way, doesn't exactly prepare one for the job of President of the United States.
Barack Obama is making it all up as he goes along. He's a second-rate actor playing a part.
And if you needed even more proof that Barack Obama, the President-of-last-Resort, was totally unprepared for this job, and is unequal to the task of performing it at even a satisfactory level, we see all of his shortcomings and lack of experience manifested in the response to the crisis in Egypt.
You didn't need me to tell you this if you have eyes in your head and at least three working brain cells, but it bears repeating every day. If you don't believe me, just ask Professor Hanson. He's smarter than I am, you know.
I don't think Barack Obama is a bad man. Just a very bad President.
Look about you. Does it look like someone who knows what he's doing is in charge? Do you feel that your political leaders grasp the reality of your life and the world around us?
When this country is facing economic crisis, exploding unemployment and is teetering on insolvency, Barack Obama spends his time devising federal giveaways disguised as "Stimulus"; Cash-for-Clunkers, Mortgage-Renegotiation Schemes, Green Energy boondoggles, a Healthcare program that somehow puts 30 million deadbeats into the insurance/health systems without raising costs, spouts the usual claptrap about "Education", fosters a Soak-the-Rich , anti-business, anti-growth mentality, recycles liberal (small 'l'' intentional) boilerplate policy that has been historically-proven to be about as useful and efficacious as mammary glands on a bull.
He turned the business of governing over to a cabal of Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and what they wrought was too terrible to contemplate -- a harbinger of the collapse of the federalist system, an assault upon the personal liberties of the individual -- and Obama spent 15 months polishing that turd, trying to convince you that a series of programs that even he couldn't adequately explain were somehow manna from Heaven.
He couldn't explain any of it because he didn't understand it, either, mostly because he had nothing to do with it, of course. Why do you think Nancy Pelosi had to resort to extra-constitutional means to get Obamacare passed, and Harry Reid had to bribe Senators (members of hi sown party, no less!) to make it a reality?
When the Gulf of Mexico was poisoned by BP, and millions had their livelihoods destroyed by an uncontrolled gusher of crude oil, Obama went on vacation. But he did, at least, file a lawsuit, bless his heart.
When the nation is at war with Radical Islam, Candidate Obama announces that it's a war we cannot win (The Surge has Failed, Guantanamo Bay is an affront to the concept of Human Rights, referring to terrorism as a "Man-Made Disaster", etc.), and makes various pronouncements calling GWB, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et. al., War Criminals, Obama goes to Cairo and makes a speech apologizing for America defending itself while Al'Qeda expands into Yemen and Somalia, home-grown Jihadis shoot up Army bases, attempt to blow up Times Square, and try to bring down airliners with TNT boxer shorts. President Obama then repeats and extends the very Bush-era policies he previously decried, and then pretends as if he's still -- somehow -- on the higher moral ground that his predecessors could never occupy.
When the country needs firms, committed, reasoned leadership, Obama reminds us that he's a multi-and-post-racial Messianic figure who should be worshiped and obeyed, rather than held accountable for his actions, or lack thereof. If you criticize him, you're racist. If you disagree with him, you're a Redneck-Bible-thumping-Gun-Clinger. If you point out the glaring disconnect between his rhetoric and reality, you are accused of wanting to "turn the clock back to when the Republicans drove the car into the ditch".
At a time when economic recovery should be the paramount concern of the political establishment, Obama instead ordains newer restrictions on commerce. He imposes new taxes. He nationalizes the automobile industry, attempts to do the same to the healtchcare industry, bullies the banks, and sticks his cronies on a myriad of economic advisory boards.
He wags his fingers at Corporate America for their unbridled greed, their lavish, expensive trips to, and conventions in, Las Vegas, and then jets himself and the Missus on taxpayer-funded "date nights" to see Broadway shows and the best resorts, or plays golf on the best courses in America on a regular basis, or takes 10 vacations in the span of 12 weeks. He sends his wife on a junket to Spain that requires several hundred hotel rooms. He travels to India with an entourage of thousands.
When clarity of purpose and intent is necessary, when people need to be held accountable for the mistakes that were made which put the country in the dire straits it finds itself in, Obama creates a myriad of "czars" who's purposes are nebulous, and who aren't accountable to anyone...except him.
These are either the actions of a man who is determined to implement a New System which is certainly un-American...or they are the scattershot, clueless, hard-headed stupidity of someone who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, and has even less of an idea of how to do even that much.
I would tend to believe it to be the latter, rather than the former. Being a"community organizer" and a temporary, half-term Senator, who never held a private sector job in his life, and was probably patted on the back, unduly lauded, and socially-promoted for being"special" without having to distinguish himself in any meaningful way, doesn't exactly prepare one for the job of President of the United States.
Barack Obama is making it all up as he goes along. He's a second-rate actor playing a part.
And if you needed even more proof that Barack Obama, the President-of-last-Resort, was totally unprepared for this job, and is unequal to the task of performing it at even a satisfactory level, we see all of his shortcomings and lack of experience manifested in the response to the crisis in Egypt.
You didn't need me to tell you this if you have eyes in your head and at least three working brain cells, but it bears repeating every day. If you don't believe me, just ask Professor Hanson. He's smarter than I am, you know.
I don't think Barack Obama is a bad man. Just a very bad President.
Joe Biden is a Doofus...
Biden vows to jump the Grand Canyon on an Amtrak Train.
If you aren't getting a steady diet of Iowahawk, you should be sentenced by judicial authority to a 72-hour, high-pressure enema.
If you aren't getting a steady diet of Iowahawk, you should be sentenced by judicial authority to a 72-hour, high-pressure enema.
Multiculturalism is Dead...
Passe. Out of fashion. Old-fashioned. Antiquated, Belated, Outmoded, Dated, Obsolete, a Relic. So YESTERDAY. It came, and like a hoarde of locusts, left nothing but a chaotic desolation in it's wake, and it's inherent weaknesses were exposed in such a way that even the densest amongst us stood up and took notice.
And by that, I mean the Europeans.
It began innocently enough; Angela Merkel noticed it first, and declared that German multiculturalism was dead, that it had failed, and that this whole nonsense about being sensitive to other people's bullshit feelings -- particularly when those people arrived on our civilized shores from places where the Elders still dance around bonfires, shaking snakes, a pork-bone stuck through their nose -- was nothing less than an outright scam designed to suck revenue and extra-constitutional rights from the host country.
She was right, of course. Although, I do have to say this; when the Germans begin to rally for monoculturalism, one must begin to wonder just what comes after the pronouncement. The German history of "defending German Culture" usually involves at least an invasion or two, a continental War that fairly explodes outwards, and possibly a string of concentration camps.
Merkel's view was later echoed by David Cameron, Prime Minister of Britain, who basically came out and said (paraphrased) "I don't particularly care if you're a Nomad, Beggar or Bandit who kneels to a black rock in the desert, beats his wives, buggers his livestock, and smells like a World-War-Two sweatsock left to marinate in a vat of onions, vomit and rancid cheese, this is Britain, and we're better than you are -- so get with the program". This was delivered with just a hint of "if you don't like it, then kindly leave". I loved it.
And then it happened. I am left to wonder whether it was just a matter of time, or whether it was the impulsive French desire to jump up and down shouting "ME TOO!", but then Nikolas Sarkozy, The Parisian Munchkin, had the audacity to do something that French leaders haven't been particularly known for: he tells the truth about multiculturalism, bluntly and succinctly.
One wonders just when it is that the morons who run this country will finally wake up and come to the same conclusions their European counterparts have?
Perhaps, one day, that collection of buffoons we call "Mr. Mayor", "Governor", "Congressman", "Senator", and "Mr. President", will finally become aware of what is so glaringly obvious and begin the work of defusing the ticking time bombs in our society, that have, in large part, been built with government funding by a political class that on the one hand (cynically) wishes to be seen as "inclusive", while with the other it set up a system which can be milked for votes, funds, good press, and public support.
Yeah, I'm not holding my breath, either.
Imagine what might happen if this addiction to the drug of multiculturalism went the way of the dinosaurs, and we started demanding assimilation, and equality before the law. Imagine the problems we could begin to solve -- Affirmative Action would be a thing of the past, we'd be serious about rounding up and deporting illegal aliens and then keeping them out, no more bi-lingual education to waste precious funds on, freer-and-cleaner elections with much less voter fraud, lower crime rates, previously-vanquished-but-now-returning vermin and childhood diseases would again become a distant memory, the Welfare Rolls would be be drastically cut, Healthcare would be cheaper and easier to obtain, Taxes would fall, deficits would close, Academia might actually teach instead of indoctrinate, no more home-grown Jihadis.
All of the problems I've just mentioned have their origin in, wholly or in part, the idea of a multicultural society, or more precisely, wholly or in part to the political manipulation of the idea of the multicultural society.
I don't say "cut the multiculturalism crap and all of our problems are solved", I simply say "cut the multicultural crap, demand assimilation based upon True American Principles and Social Norms, turn the recipient and parasite classes into taxpaying citizens, and watch a lot of these problems begin to melt away."
We in the West have put a steadily-declining value on citizenship, and have downplayed, or largely forgotten, the achievements of our own, spectacular and uniquely-successful culture. We have done this in an effort to be seen as "nice", to be seen as "tolerant", and the recipients of all this solicitude are typically people who would cut your throat as soon as look at you, and who have discovered that all this bending over backwards to be seen as "accommodating" has dollar signs attached to it, with the ability to form, literally, countries-within-a-country, and to further dilute the host culture with ideas and activities that are inimical to it, and which will ultimately destroy it from within.
Don't think so? Then consider this: what, exactly, is sooooo much better about cultures that practice honor killings, bigamy, clitoral mutilation, Sharia Law, Cousin marriage, eat "Bush Meat", or put no value upon an education or a work ethic, just for examples?
And we're making these sorts of concessions, devaluing our concepts of citizenship and the corresponding system of rights and responsibilities that come with it, allowing the rape our culture and institutions, the draining of our public coffers, for...what, exactly? A few good restaurants? Cab drivers who don't speak English? Here's the ONE thing you need to remember about multiculturalism;
If some douchebag's host culture was so great, so much better than ours in every measurable way that we don't demand assimilation as the price of citizenship, then why the hell did they ever leave it?
And by that, I mean the Europeans.
It began innocently enough; Angela Merkel noticed it first, and declared that German multiculturalism was dead, that it had failed, and that this whole nonsense about being sensitive to other people's bullshit feelings -- particularly when those people arrived on our civilized shores from places where the Elders still dance around bonfires, shaking snakes, a pork-bone stuck through their nose -- was nothing less than an outright scam designed to suck revenue and extra-constitutional rights from the host country.
She was right, of course. Although, I do have to say this; when the Germans begin to rally for monoculturalism, one must begin to wonder just what comes after the pronouncement. The German history of "defending German Culture" usually involves at least an invasion or two, a continental War that fairly explodes outwards, and possibly a string of concentration camps.
Merkel's view was later echoed by David Cameron, Prime Minister of Britain, who basically came out and said (paraphrased) "I don't particularly care if you're a Nomad, Beggar or Bandit who kneels to a black rock in the desert, beats his wives, buggers his livestock, and smells like a World-War-Two sweatsock left to marinate in a vat of onions, vomit and rancid cheese, this is Britain, and we're better than you are -- so get with the program". This was delivered with just a hint of "if you don't like it, then kindly leave". I loved it.
And then it happened. I am left to wonder whether it was just a matter of time, or whether it was the impulsive French desire to jump up and down shouting "ME TOO!", but then Nikolas Sarkozy, The Parisian Munchkin, had the audacity to do something that French leaders haven't been particularly known for: he tells the truth about multiculturalism, bluntly and succinctly.
One wonders just when it is that the morons who run this country will finally wake up and come to the same conclusions their European counterparts have?
Perhaps, one day, that collection of buffoons we call "Mr. Mayor", "Governor", "Congressman", "Senator", and "Mr. President", will finally become aware of what is so glaringly obvious and begin the work of defusing the ticking time bombs in our society, that have, in large part, been built with government funding by a political class that on the one hand (cynically) wishes to be seen as "inclusive", while with the other it set up a system which can be milked for votes, funds, good press, and public support.
Yeah, I'm not holding my breath, either.
Imagine what might happen if this addiction to the drug of multiculturalism went the way of the dinosaurs, and we started demanding assimilation, and equality before the law. Imagine the problems we could begin to solve -- Affirmative Action would be a thing of the past, we'd be serious about rounding up and deporting illegal aliens and then keeping them out, no more bi-lingual education to waste precious funds on, freer-and-cleaner elections with much less voter fraud, lower crime rates, previously-vanquished-but-now-returning vermin and childhood diseases would again become a distant memory, the Welfare Rolls would be be drastically cut, Healthcare would be cheaper and easier to obtain, Taxes would fall, deficits would close, Academia might actually teach instead of indoctrinate, no more home-grown Jihadis.
All of the problems I've just mentioned have their origin in, wholly or in part, the idea of a multicultural society, or more precisely, wholly or in part to the political manipulation of the idea of the multicultural society.
I don't say "cut the multiculturalism crap and all of our problems are solved", I simply say "cut the multicultural crap, demand assimilation based upon True American Principles and Social Norms, turn the recipient and parasite classes into taxpaying citizens, and watch a lot of these problems begin to melt away."
We in the West have put a steadily-declining value on citizenship, and have downplayed, or largely forgotten, the achievements of our own, spectacular and uniquely-successful culture. We have done this in an effort to be seen as "nice", to be seen as "tolerant", and the recipients of all this solicitude are typically people who would cut your throat as soon as look at you, and who have discovered that all this bending over backwards to be seen as "accommodating" has dollar signs attached to it, with the ability to form, literally, countries-within-a-country, and to further dilute the host culture with ideas and activities that are inimical to it, and which will ultimately destroy it from within.
Don't think so? Then consider this: what, exactly, is sooooo much better about cultures that practice honor killings, bigamy, clitoral mutilation, Sharia Law, Cousin marriage, eat "Bush Meat", or put no value upon an education or a work ethic, just for examples?
And we're making these sorts of concessions, devaluing our concepts of citizenship and the corresponding system of rights and responsibilities that come with it, allowing the rape our culture and institutions, the draining of our public coffers, for...what, exactly? A few good restaurants? Cab drivers who don't speak English? Here's the ONE thing you need to remember about multiculturalism;
If some douchebag's host culture was so great, so much better than ours in every measurable way that we don't demand assimilation as the price of citizenship, then why the hell did they ever leave it?
Monday, February 07, 2011
About Egypt...
For over a week now, my television screen has been poisoned by the pictures of tens of thousands of Egyptians in the streets of Cairo demanding the removal of their President-for-Life, Hosni Mubarak. If there's a silver lining in this particular set of Muslims-rioting-in-the-streets footage, it is this: at least I haven't had to look at or listen to President Marriot-Suites 500 times a day (again) making the case that Reparations-for-Slavery-Disguised-as-Wise-Economic-Policy has been an absolute godsend for the American people.
(I watched some of that much-vaunted Bill O'Reilly vs. Barack Obama interview prior to the Super Bowl, and I will say this about it: Obama hasn't any real core principles. He simply says whatever he thinks he needs to say at any given moment. That has been obvious for the last three years to anyone with basic brainstem functions, so it wasn't as if O'Reilly got anything new out of him, and if it wasn't already crystal clear to you before, it should be after yesterday's tour-de-force of bullshit: Barack Obama has no answers to whatever question or problem is put before him).
What is happening in Egypt at the moment was, up to a point, entirely predictable. Which is why our government, press, intelligence and diplomatic services all seem to have been taken by surprise. Even the dumbest people on this planet, given time, will eventually get fed up with some situation and then decide to do something about it, even if they're not quite certain as to what they're pissed about, or what to do about it. I'm not going to pontificate on whether or not Mubarak is a prince amongst Men, or the worst sort of douchebag, because I have no first-hand experience, and because I know that at least 80% of what passes for information on the nightly newscast is someone's opinion, rather than facts. Mubarak's record, so far as I'm concerned, is not germane to the argument I'm about to make. I'm fairly sure that given the mold from which the typical Middle Eastern potentate is cast, he's probably the second-biggest Dick in the Universe, it being a toss-up as to whether Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, or Micheal Bloomberg deserves that title.
Egyptians are fed up with slowly starving to death. They are fed up with a country that is a police state in all but name. They have tired of a President who's appearance of a democratically-elected term of Office seems to have run nearly one third of his lifespan. He's an old man, now, which in the rough-and-tumble of what passes for politics in that part of the world, makes him vulnerable. Like the aged jackal which can no longer hunt or scavenge and which becomes vulnerable to the hyenas all around it. Yeah, yeah, spare me thee-mails; I did just compare the entire population of the Middle East to predatory canines. It fits. They certainly smell like offal-scavenging, predatory canines.
Anywhoo, the one thing that becomes painfully clear to anyone who is watching and paying attention is that despite all the lip-service being paid to "democracy" by some of those protesters, it's that no one in Egypt actually knows what democracy is, and it's even more apparent that no in in the White House knows what it is, either. So, all you talking heads on television can shut the fuck up about whether Obama makes a "powerful" statement in support of the Egyptian "democracy" movement. For a start, no such movement exists (more on this in a second), and secondly, because Obama talks so much that no one actually gives a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about anything he has to say. There is no "statement" -- "powerful" or not -- that does any good in this situation. More than anything, the moment requires action more than grand elocution, and when it comes to action, well, that's not Obama's strong suit; he's not a doer.
And his elocutions are usually written by somebody else, too.
As to what actions I would take -- since I've opened my mouth -- you don't want to know what I would do. Suffice to say, the only way you'd ever be able to know there was such a place as Egypt when I was done, would be a visit to a museum. The same for Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, et. al. But, I digress.
For those of you who are beginning to buy the "democratic movement arises in Egypt" theme the American Press so fervently hopes to spin you with no actual facts to back that assertion up, I say this: you are engaged in wishful thinking, for there can be no democracy -- as we would understand it -- in the Middle East. There are no democratic institutions, for a start, and they could not be magically created overnight (see: Iraq). Sure, Egyptians could vote, but that's not the same thing. Purple fingers do not a democracy make, despite what George W. Bush and Barack Obama have told us. In fact, if given the chance to vote in fair, democratic elections, Egyptians are likely to do what the Palestinians and Lebanese have done, and....vote for the Terrorists and Islamonazis amongst them.
It's predictable. It's inevitable. It's what their culture compels them to do, because they don't know any better. When the smoke clears, and Mubarak and the other despots in the region who are also under threat from this nascent "freedom movement" are gone, we're likely to see even worse forms of government arise. "The Shah always falls", the saying goes, and what usually follows him is likely to be our worst nightmare. That part is always unspoken.
When someone speaks of "democracy" in the Middle East, what they're really talking about is the means by which people will willingly vote to destroy any vestiges, or possibility, of Freedom. At the moment, all the talk about "Freedom" in Egypt is little more than people using this month's new buzzword. A society which has no history of Freedom, which has gone from Pharaohs, to Caliphates, to Foreign Occupation, to Presidents-for-Life, all of it overshadowed by the threat of force, is a land totally devoid of even the simplest idea of what freedom is.
Primarily, Freedom is the ability to ask the simplest of questions -- Why? -- without getting a less-than-social visit from the Death Squads, Gestapo, or Clerical Authority intent on stamping out heresy. Heresy, in this case, being not strictly limited in it's scope to strictly religious subjects. In a place where it is illegal, perhaps even deadly, to question secular authority as well as religious, Freedom cannot exist. The foundation of Freedom is that ability to ask "Why?", and then get an answer from an authority which is compelled by force of Custom and Law to provide an answer that doesn't involve firing squads or false confessions signed under threat of continued beatings in a dank basement cell.
A very interesting aspect of this whole "What Happens in Egypt Now?" drama being played out on the television is the differences in point of view between so called Conservatives and so-called Liberals. The ersatz-Conservatives worry about "what comes next", while the ersatz-Liberals openly question why their Great Man of History, Barack Obama, has been relatively silent. The differences are mainly between people who;
a) wish to convince us that they're intellectuals, in all ways smarter than we,
b) wish to give the appearance of substance to their act of pretending to be intellectuals
And in neither case does either side come close to accomplishing their goal.
For Conservatives, the question "What Happens in Egypt Now", revolves around a binary star of Right-Wing bugaboos; the fate of Israel, and the need to prove that George W. Bush was right, all along. The Israel question is a difficult one, because it requires that a Right-Wing intellectual balance his Reason while never telling the truth about his real attachment to Israel. On the one hand, he has to argue that Israel is a Western-style, pluralistic society in a region where no others exist, and that on that basis it is the task of the United States to do everything in it's power to protect and support such a state, because in so doing, we live up to our ideals about freedom. Intellectually, this is a powerful argument, and in my opinion, absolutely true.
However, there is a strong element in American Right-Wing politics which sees Israel not so much as a democratic flower in a desert of despotism, as much as it sees in Israel the fulfillment of God's Prophecy, for without the State of Israel to build that Third Temple, the primary requirement for the Rapture cannot occur, and these religious idiots will be stuck here on Earth with all us sinners for eternity. For them, the preservation of Israel is a means by which to bring about Armageddon. Any threat to Israel threatens to delay what God hath ordained. They can't come out and say it, because these are largely the same people who decry the Islamic Theocratic states, and people in glass houses, etc, etc. It's why Mike Huckabee broadcast his weekly dreck from Israel this weekend, you know, when there was apparently no reason to do so (guess who is running for the GOP nomination in 2012, and just burnished his Godbot credentials on the backs of Egyptian protesters?)
Conservatives have a third reason for giving a turd about what happens to the sandy little buttholes in Egypt, too. This has to do with proving the point that George W. Bush was essentially correct without having to tell the truth about how half-assed his efforts truly were, that the Reverse Domino Theory (topple Saddam Hussein, watch the entire Middle East go democratic) works, and that The War, it's expense and it's sacrifices, Guantanamo, Renditions, all of it, was justified; we were on the side of the Angels all along -- even if we didn't find WMD's or direct links between Saddam and Al'Qaeda. The end result of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq would automatically be Democracy, and "stability", and therefore, less terrorism, more Freedom (vaguely defined) and more commerce. What Conservatives of this ilk never tell you, though, is that so far as they're concerned, "Stability" means nothing more than the free flow of Middle Eastern oil to Western Industry. If you've ever needed proof that even fire-breathing-Freedom-for-Everyone Conservatives will deal with the Devil, here's a short list of them: The House of Saud, The Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, The Jordanian Monarchy, Hosni Mubarak.
"Stability" (meaning there is no "trouble") often trumps the call to Freedom, it seems.
For Liberals, the question of "What Happens in Egypt Now" is more about what their self-described Elitist figures of the Mentally-Deranged Cult of Personality do and say. Appearances are always more important than substance in Left-Wing Circles, which is why a great many Liberal Flapping Rectums on the Idiot Box have been gravely disappointed with Obama on this issue. Where are the grand pronouncements from the Oval Office? Why hasn't there been a U.N. Resolution condemning this, but supporting that, and making it perfectly clear that while it apears as if somebody is being admonished and someone is being praised, no one is really taking sides? Where is the Shuttle Diplomacy between Washington and Geneva? Where are the grand-but-empty gestures of Treaties, and Memos and White Papers?
Where are the Kennedyesque, Cuban-Missile-Crisis-Quality, dramatic black-and-White photos of Obama in the White House Situation Room, surrounded by grave-faced dolts who have even less of a clue than he does, passing papers, looking all stern and concerned and Statesmanlike, feverishly "working" to solve a problem they neither understand, or have any workable solution to.
Great Men of History do these things. Whether they achieve anything of consequence is besides the point; they at least have the appearance of Great Men of History, with all the suitable backdrops -- the White House, the U.N. General Assembly Hall, the huddled masses of useless diplomats and sycophantic journalists enthralled by the oratory pearls of a Man Who Speaks Much But Says Little. They go through the motions, only with Drama, and most of that has to be manufactured for strictly domestic consumption.
Liberals don't actually expect Obama to be able to do anything (doing requires action, and ultimately, responsibility, neither quality is in Obama's, nor in the Libtard's in general, character, for that matter), but they wish to be seen as being effective, as being strong, capable, smart, on top of things, when the truth is that they're really just pretending.
Neither Liberals or Conservatives has an answer for Egypt, primarily because they don't understand, or cannot admit to themselves, the reasons why what has happened has happened. Egyptians are dissatisfied with their lot in life, as people usually are, and what they are crying and bleeding for in the streets of Cairo (just as they did in the streets of Tehran, Beirut, and Damascus) is that they at least want to have the opportunity to choose which demented douchebag inflicts their misery upon them, whether despotic secular or despotic clerical, or a combination of both. This is not, strictly speaking, democracy.
The answer both Libtards and Godbots come up with is essentially the same: a newer, kindlier-and-gentler version of the White Man's Burden, in which "enlightened" Westerners gently nudge (on the one hand with bombs and infantrymen, on the other with grand-but-empty gestures and words) our Islamic-nutjob-retarded-cousins in the "right" direction. Both sides ignore the real problem because the means by which it can be solved is too terrible to contemplate and leaves too many open questions which our so-called Elites cannot answer; how does one change an entire culture?
Because that is the real problem. Islamic culture, an oxymoron if ever there was one, is like a disease. Terrorists and despots are merely the visible signs of it, the pustules or the bad rash that occurs upon infection. The Terminal Phase of this affliction begins with shouts in the streets and ends with airliners being plowed into office buildings. One side believes the disease can be dealt with by simple comparison and learning lessons from with the West and calls to reason, and the other believes that it can be cured with good intentions, greeting card slogans, and dreams of Rainbows, Pixie Dust and Purple Unicorns.
Ultimately, the best solution lies in something far more sinister and destructive, which is a Pan-Islamic Asswhipping followed by a 200-year Cultural Enema, delivered by a strong, untied, and determined West. George W. Bush was correct in this assumption, but he didn't follow through and make his War on Terror a Terrible War, which might have begun the process of radically changing Islamic culture (just ask Japan and Nazi Germany how that worked out for them in the long run). Neither side in this Great Debate has to courage or the intellectual honesty to speak that truth, or even to acknowledge it, because in so doing they both trip all over their most cherished dogmatic beliefs, and would have to, necessarily, reveal their true motivations.
Whatever happens in Egypt is none of our business, insofar as Egyptians have the right to be led astray and given the shaft by anyone they chose. So far as I can see, if the protesters are successful, and Mubarak is chased from office, all they will have accomplished is a choice between Bad and Worse; another dictator-for-life, or another version of the Khomeini Revolution, but they will not have fundamentally altered either the source or the severity of the cancer which eats away at them. They will not have changed themselves or their culture.
When the American punditocracy (a.k.a The Flapping Rectums) asks the question in another decade, "Who Lost Egypt?", the first people they'll look to blame will be the American political class, but the real culprits will have been the Egyptians themselves.
Personally, I hope they all turn on each other and spend the rest of the century killing one another (their only real talent), because it saves us the trouble of having to do it ourselves. However, if I'm wrong (it's been known to happen from time to time) and there is a glimmer of hope that what is now happening in Egypt can evolve into something approaching a true democratic nation, then by all means, let it happen. Stay out of it. We can't do it for them; they have to figure this out -- and even perhaps fight it out --for themselves.
(I watched some of that much-vaunted Bill O'Reilly vs. Barack Obama interview prior to the Super Bowl, and I will say this about it: Obama hasn't any real core principles. He simply says whatever he thinks he needs to say at any given moment. That has been obvious for the last three years to anyone with basic brainstem functions, so it wasn't as if O'Reilly got anything new out of him, and if it wasn't already crystal clear to you before, it should be after yesterday's tour-de-force of bullshit: Barack Obama has no answers to whatever question or problem is put before him).
What is happening in Egypt at the moment was, up to a point, entirely predictable. Which is why our government, press, intelligence and diplomatic services all seem to have been taken by surprise. Even the dumbest people on this planet, given time, will eventually get fed up with some situation and then decide to do something about it, even if they're not quite certain as to what they're pissed about, or what to do about it. I'm not going to pontificate on whether or not Mubarak is a prince amongst Men, or the worst sort of douchebag, because I have no first-hand experience, and because I know that at least 80% of what passes for information on the nightly newscast is someone's opinion, rather than facts. Mubarak's record, so far as I'm concerned, is not germane to the argument I'm about to make. I'm fairly sure that given the mold from which the typical Middle Eastern potentate is cast, he's probably the second-biggest Dick in the Universe, it being a toss-up as to whether Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, or Micheal Bloomberg deserves that title.
Egyptians are fed up with slowly starving to death. They are fed up with a country that is a police state in all but name. They have tired of a President who's appearance of a democratically-elected term of Office seems to have run nearly one third of his lifespan. He's an old man, now, which in the rough-and-tumble of what passes for politics in that part of the world, makes him vulnerable. Like the aged jackal which can no longer hunt or scavenge and which becomes vulnerable to the hyenas all around it. Yeah, yeah, spare me thee-mails; I did just compare the entire population of the Middle East to predatory canines. It fits. They certainly smell like offal-scavenging, predatory canines.
Anywhoo, the one thing that becomes painfully clear to anyone who is watching and paying attention is that despite all the lip-service being paid to "democracy" by some of those protesters, it's that no one in Egypt actually knows what democracy is, and it's even more apparent that no in in the White House knows what it is, either. So, all you talking heads on television can shut the fuck up about whether Obama makes a "powerful" statement in support of the Egyptian "democracy" movement. For a start, no such movement exists (more on this in a second), and secondly, because Obama talks so much that no one actually gives a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about anything he has to say. There is no "statement" -- "powerful" or not -- that does any good in this situation. More than anything, the moment requires action more than grand elocution, and when it comes to action, well, that's not Obama's strong suit; he's not a doer.
And his elocutions are usually written by somebody else, too.
As to what actions I would take -- since I've opened my mouth -- you don't want to know what I would do. Suffice to say, the only way you'd ever be able to know there was such a place as Egypt when I was done, would be a visit to a museum. The same for Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, et. al. But, I digress.
For those of you who are beginning to buy the "democratic movement arises in Egypt" theme the American Press so fervently hopes to spin you with no actual facts to back that assertion up, I say this: you are engaged in wishful thinking, for there can be no democracy -- as we would understand it -- in the Middle East. There are no democratic institutions, for a start, and they could not be magically created overnight (see: Iraq). Sure, Egyptians could vote, but that's not the same thing. Purple fingers do not a democracy make, despite what George W. Bush and Barack Obama have told us. In fact, if given the chance to vote in fair, democratic elections, Egyptians are likely to do what the Palestinians and Lebanese have done, and....vote for the Terrorists and Islamonazis amongst them.
It's predictable. It's inevitable. It's what their culture compels them to do, because they don't know any better. When the smoke clears, and Mubarak and the other despots in the region who are also under threat from this nascent "freedom movement" are gone, we're likely to see even worse forms of government arise. "The Shah always falls", the saying goes, and what usually follows him is likely to be our worst nightmare. That part is always unspoken.
When someone speaks of "democracy" in the Middle East, what they're really talking about is the means by which people will willingly vote to destroy any vestiges, or possibility, of Freedom. At the moment, all the talk about "Freedom" in Egypt is little more than people using this month's new buzzword. A society which has no history of Freedom, which has gone from Pharaohs, to Caliphates, to Foreign Occupation, to Presidents-for-Life, all of it overshadowed by the threat of force, is a land totally devoid of even the simplest idea of what freedom is.
Primarily, Freedom is the ability to ask the simplest of questions -- Why? -- without getting a less-than-social visit from the Death Squads, Gestapo, or Clerical Authority intent on stamping out heresy. Heresy, in this case, being not strictly limited in it's scope to strictly religious subjects. In a place where it is illegal, perhaps even deadly, to question secular authority as well as religious, Freedom cannot exist. The foundation of Freedom is that ability to ask "Why?", and then get an answer from an authority which is compelled by force of Custom and Law to provide an answer that doesn't involve firing squads or false confessions signed under threat of continued beatings in a dank basement cell.
A very interesting aspect of this whole "What Happens in Egypt Now?" drama being played out on the television is the differences in point of view between so called Conservatives and so-called Liberals. The ersatz-Conservatives worry about "what comes next", while the ersatz-Liberals openly question why their Great Man of History, Barack Obama, has been relatively silent. The differences are mainly between people who;
a) wish to convince us that they're intellectuals, in all ways smarter than we,
b) wish to give the appearance of substance to their act of pretending to be intellectuals
And in neither case does either side come close to accomplishing their goal.
For Conservatives, the question "What Happens in Egypt Now", revolves around a binary star of Right-Wing bugaboos; the fate of Israel, and the need to prove that George W. Bush was right, all along. The Israel question is a difficult one, because it requires that a Right-Wing intellectual balance his Reason while never telling the truth about his real attachment to Israel. On the one hand, he has to argue that Israel is a Western-style, pluralistic society in a region where no others exist, and that on that basis it is the task of the United States to do everything in it's power to protect and support such a state, because in so doing, we live up to our ideals about freedom. Intellectually, this is a powerful argument, and in my opinion, absolutely true.
However, there is a strong element in American Right-Wing politics which sees Israel not so much as a democratic flower in a desert of despotism, as much as it sees in Israel the fulfillment of God's Prophecy, for without the State of Israel to build that Third Temple, the primary requirement for the Rapture cannot occur, and these religious idiots will be stuck here on Earth with all us sinners for eternity. For them, the preservation of Israel is a means by which to bring about Armageddon. Any threat to Israel threatens to delay what God hath ordained. They can't come out and say it, because these are largely the same people who decry the Islamic Theocratic states, and people in glass houses, etc, etc. It's why Mike Huckabee broadcast his weekly dreck from Israel this weekend, you know, when there was apparently no reason to do so (guess who is running for the GOP nomination in 2012, and just burnished his Godbot credentials on the backs of Egyptian protesters?)
Conservatives have a third reason for giving a turd about what happens to the sandy little buttholes in Egypt, too. This has to do with proving the point that George W. Bush was essentially correct without having to tell the truth about how half-assed his efforts truly were, that the Reverse Domino Theory (topple Saddam Hussein, watch the entire Middle East go democratic) works, and that The War, it's expense and it's sacrifices, Guantanamo, Renditions, all of it, was justified; we were on the side of the Angels all along -- even if we didn't find WMD's or direct links between Saddam and Al'Qaeda. The end result of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq would automatically be Democracy, and "stability", and therefore, less terrorism, more Freedom (vaguely defined) and more commerce. What Conservatives of this ilk never tell you, though, is that so far as they're concerned, "Stability" means nothing more than the free flow of Middle Eastern oil to Western Industry. If you've ever needed proof that even fire-breathing-Freedom-for-Everyone Conservatives will deal with the Devil, here's a short list of them: The House of Saud, The Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, The Jordanian Monarchy, Hosni Mubarak.
"Stability" (meaning there is no "trouble") often trumps the call to Freedom, it seems.
For Liberals, the question of "What Happens in Egypt Now" is more about what their self-described Elitist figures of the Mentally-Deranged Cult of Personality do and say. Appearances are always more important than substance in Left-Wing Circles, which is why a great many Liberal Flapping Rectums on the Idiot Box have been gravely disappointed with Obama on this issue. Where are the grand pronouncements from the Oval Office? Why hasn't there been a U.N. Resolution condemning this, but supporting that, and making it perfectly clear that while it apears as if somebody is being admonished and someone is being praised, no one is really taking sides? Where is the Shuttle Diplomacy between Washington and Geneva? Where are the grand-but-empty gestures of Treaties, and Memos and White Papers?
Where are the Kennedyesque, Cuban-Missile-Crisis-Quality, dramatic black-and-White photos of Obama in the White House Situation Room, surrounded by grave-faced dolts who have even less of a clue than he does, passing papers, looking all stern and concerned and Statesmanlike, feverishly "working" to solve a problem they neither understand, or have any workable solution to.
Great Men of History do these things. Whether they achieve anything of consequence is besides the point; they at least have the appearance of Great Men of History, with all the suitable backdrops -- the White House, the U.N. General Assembly Hall, the huddled masses of useless diplomats and sycophantic journalists enthralled by the oratory pearls of a Man Who Speaks Much But Says Little. They go through the motions, only with Drama, and most of that has to be manufactured for strictly domestic consumption.
Liberals don't actually expect Obama to be able to do anything (doing requires action, and ultimately, responsibility, neither quality is in Obama's, nor in the Libtard's in general, character, for that matter), but they wish to be seen as being effective, as being strong, capable, smart, on top of things, when the truth is that they're really just pretending.
Neither Liberals or Conservatives has an answer for Egypt, primarily because they don't understand, or cannot admit to themselves, the reasons why what has happened has happened. Egyptians are dissatisfied with their lot in life, as people usually are, and what they are crying and bleeding for in the streets of Cairo (just as they did in the streets of Tehran, Beirut, and Damascus) is that they at least want to have the opportunity to choose which demented douchebag inflicts their misery upon them, whether despotic secular or despotic clerical, or a combination of both. This is not, strictly speaking, democracy.
The answer both Libtards and Godbots come up with is essentially the same: a newer, kindlier-and-gentler version of the White Man's Burden, in which "enlightened" Westerners gently nudge (on the one hand with bombs and infantrymen, on the other with grand-but-empty gestures and words) our Islamic-nutjob-retarded-cousins in the "right" direction. Both sides ignore the real problem because the means by which it can be solved is too terrible to contemplate and leaves too many open questions which our so-called Elites cannot answer; how does one change an entire culture?
Because that is the real problem. Islamic culture, an oxymoron if ever there was one, is like a disease. Terrorists and despots are merely the visible signs of it, the pustules or the bad rash that occurs upon infection. The Terminal Phase of this affliction begins with shouts in the streets and ends with airliners being plowed into office buildings. One side believes the disease can be dealt with by simple comparison and learning lessons from with the West and calls to reason, and the other believes that it can be cured with good intentions, greeting card slogans, and dreams of Rainbows, Pixie Dust and Purple Unicorns.
Ultimately, the best solution lies in something far more sinister and destructive, which is a Pan-Islamic Asswhipping followed by a 200-year Cultural Enema, delivered by a strong, untied, and determined West. George W. Bush was correct in this assumption, but he didn't follow through and make his War on Terror a Terrible War, which might have begun the process of radically changing Islamic culture (just ask Japan and Nazi Germany how that worked out for them in the long run). Neither side in this Great Debate has to courage or the intellectual honesty to speak that truth, or even to acknowledge it, because in so doing they both trip all over their most cherished dogmatic beliefs, and would have to, necessarily, reveal their true motivations.
Whatever happens in Egypt is none of our business, insofar as Egyptians have the right to be led astray and given the shaft by anyone they chose. So far as I can see, if the protesters are successful, and Mubarak is chased from office, all they will have accomplished is a choice between Bad and Worse; another dictator-for-life, or another version of the Khomeini Revolution, but they will not have fundamentally altered either the source or the severity of the cancer which eats away at them. They will not have changed themselves or their culture.
When the American punditocracy (a.k.a The Flapping Rectums) asks the question in another decade, "Who Lost Egypt?", the first people they'll look to blame will be the American political class, but the real culprits will have been the Egyptians themselves.
Personally, I hope they all turn on each other and spend the rest of the century killing one another (their only real talent), because it saves us the trouble of having to do it ourselves. However, if I'm wrong (it's been known to happen from time to time) and there is a glimmer of hope that what is now happening in Egypt can evolve into something approaching a true democratic nation, then by all means, let it happen. Stay out of it. We can't do it for them; they have to figure this out -- and even perhaps fight it out --for themselves.
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