Friday, May 25, 2007

Honoring the Fallen on Memorial Day

We honor by our actions, not our words. Through our actions we honor those or dishonor those who made us, those who taught us, those who invested in us, those who shaped us.

As we make the politically correct noises on this Memorial day, we ask ourselves why the fallen fell, why they were willing to fall, how we feel about why they fell, and what we are willing to do to keep their dreams alive. Are their dreams our dreams?

Every soldier who has taken up arms has known all too well that their death was part of the equation. They knew it in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War (1991), and the Iraq War (2003). They knew it equally well during the many preparatory operations, other battles and skirmishes, such as the various rebellions, interventions, and unanswered attacks such as the attack on the USS Cole. Those of us who were not asked to pay the ultimate price knew it and honor our comrades by remembering it always.

They served in all cases to preserve and strengthen the United States. We honor them when we do everything we can to continue that goal, assuming we believe it a worthy one. I believe it to be.

I believe that all who fight to achieve these goals (soldiers, politicians, and citizens) honor them by acting. I believe that all who don’t fight to achieve these goals (soldiers who refuse to fight, politicians who surrender and signal weakness to the enemy, newspapers who report state secrets unauthorized on their front pages, citizens who remain uninformed, refuse to vote, and demean the leaders who have stepped up in the hour of America’s – and, by extension, our – need) dishonor them.

Remember that on your Memorial Day picnic on your day off and reflect whether it is just another paid holiday or something more meaningful. Honor them as you would your parents, your favorite teachers, your God. Honor them by doing those things that they valued, taught, and sacrificed for. And not just on Memorial Day – from this moment on.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Suicide Bombings Are Apparently OK Now?

I guess all is right with the world then, isn’t it? According to the Pew Research Center poll of 1,050 young Muslim adults in the United States, 26% said that suicide bombings are an acceptable tactic to defend their religion.

When you break that number down, 2% say that it can be justified often, 13% say sometimes, and 11% say rarely. That 2% is still a lot of potential suicide bombers, and that is cause for concern.

This same poll shows 5% expressing favorable views of Al Qaeda with about 25% abstaining. Why abstain? There is only one reason that I know of, and that is fear of the 5% becoming 30%, which I now must assume to be the real number. Additionally, only 40% believed Arab men carried out the attacks of 9/11/2001, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The implication is that we need to resume strip-searching little old lady grandmother types. Yeah, right!

This group also favors the Democratic Party by six to one. What does that tell us? Let’s see. 86% of a group deluding itself about the worst attack ever by foreigners on American soil and has a 30% favorable view of Al Qaeda favors Democrats. That tells me that the Democrats are perceived as BFFs (Best Friends Forever) of Al Qaeda by the Muslim community. I agree with that, incidentally, and I don’t come to that conclusion lightly or based only on the Pew Survey.

Recall the interview of left-wing producer Michael Moore by libertarian Bill O’Reilly. During that interview, Moore at one point asked O’Reilly if he would sacrifice his child to go die in Iraq. Ignore for the moment the incredible irrelevance of the question (since the fate of O’Reilly’s child is in the child’s hands – not O’Reilly’s) and focus on the implication. The tactic is one common among anti-war interviewees. Could that indicate a dearth of actual logic? Let me save you the trouble; the answer is yes.

The trap is to fall for an irrelevant premise, another indication of just how stupid we here at the bottom are perceived by the left-wing in America. Say “No” and you are a hypocrite. Say “Yes” and you are a hateful, unloving parent, but at least you have a conviction and may be respected for it. The 26% of the Muslim community as represented in the Pew poll has said yes to their Iraq-equivalent question, and are therefore, by implication, worthy of respect from the left wing. What does that make the left wing? In my view, it makes the left wing Al Qaeda’s BFF.

Other indications are there as well, ranging from the retreat from fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, to protests that blame America for 9/11.

There is one more troublesome point about the Pew poll. It does not define what constitutes an attack on Islam. I think we can safely assume that Osama bin Laden would be among that 26% suicide bombing enthusiast number. In his view, not being what most of us consider to be radical Muslim fascist would constitute an attack on Islam. What is the definition for this 26% - make that about 273 potential suicide bombers? That’s a lot of potential innocents’ death, and it’s just a small statistical sample. And as for that 2% - about 21 people – look out. That’s more than it took to kill 3,000 innocents in the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon on 9/11.

Still, let’s all join the lunatic conspiracy theorists and the Muslim community that denies that 9/11 was executed by Arab men despite the crowing by the Arab men who executed it. And while we’re at it, we had better leave our borders open for a few more decades and step up our strip searches of grandmas before it’s too late.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

What’s Wrong with Iraq Again?

Call me stupid if you must and think you are able to defend it, but what is the problem with the Iraq war again? As far as I can see, Iraq is THE right war at THE right place and THE right time. All the criticisms I hear daily are hollow, oft-repeated lies and/or irrelevancies that gain traction with weak politicians incapable of fighting for principle any more and people stuck in the sixties. Live in the now, people.

Let’s review the criticisms one by one.

  • Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction: So what? That wasn’t the basis for the attack. The basis for attacking was that the dictator who lost the first Gulf War that he started 12 years earlier ignored the terms of his surrender. Prior to being invaded, he led us, and the world, to believe that he would retaliate with WMDs in hopes of preventing the enforcement of 17 U.N. resolutions. Anyway, we know he had WMDs because he used them on the Kurds in the 1980s. Verdict: criticism is an irrelevant lie.
  • Saddam was not in league with Al Qaeda: Again, so what? That wasn’t the basis for the attack either. Besides, who says that Al Qaeda is the only enemy we should attack? In any case, they follow the same philosophy of ruling the world through terror. It’s a little like the triple-Axis of WWII where if you pay too much attention to Germany, Japan would come after you. Yeah, we should have waited for that to happen (heavy sarcasm). Verdict – the criticism is irrelevant, but given past human history, would probably have become a lie given a few more years.
  • We should be going after Al Qaeda; they are the ones who attacked us: You might want to wake up and see that Al Qaeda is who we are fighting in Iraq. Oh sure, there is the Iranian influence aiding and abetting Al Qaeda, but without Al Qaeda, the Iranian government is nothing. Verdict – the criticism is a denial of what we are already doing – a flat-out lie.
  • Soldiers are dying in Iraq: That’s right. Soldiers die in wars. The only way to prevent soldiers from dieing in a war is to surrender. The real issue is whether the current engagement and risk of lost treasure is worth the cause. The cause is the survival of civilization since there is no civilization on earth that does not violate Islamic law as interpreted by Al Qaeda. Verdict – True, but irrelevant, fact based on all the other factors on this page and elsewhere.
  • We are less safe now than on 9/11/2001 – 3,000 Americans died on 9/11/2001; 0 since then to-date. Verdict: A lie told to you by people who believe you are a retarded, cool-aid drinker. Don’t be.
  • The world is less safe now than on 9/11/2001 – Since 9/11/2001 there have been a number of attacks around the globe by terrorists in Madrid, London, and elsewhere. Most of the socialist governments in Europe have lacked the balls to deal with internal threats and many have paid the price. If they haven’t had an attack yet, they will. Russia has seen the terrorist threat to the United States as an opportunity to attempt to revive the old Soviet Union, by making our task more difficult, blocking efforts at every turn. Vladimir Putin, like all socialists, is just not smart enough to realize that he also is a target of Al Qaeda. Verdict: This one is true, but not because of the Iraq war.
  • World opinion is against us – Who gives a rat’s ass? Do we have the moral courage to stand up for what is right and, in the process, our own survival or not? The United States is the greatest country the world has ever known, and it did not get to be that way by following world opinion? We ought to be ignoring the U.N. like Saddam did. We, except for the liberal Democrat leadership, are unlikely to attack ourselves over U.N. resolutions, and nobody else has the resources or the guts. Verdict: irrelevant.
  • If we stopped the aggression in Iraq, everything would be OK: Yeah, because that worked so well in the days leading up to 9/11/2001 (heavy sarcasm). Incidentally, what is going on in Iraq is not aggression; it is the enforcement of 17 UN resolutions. If you like the U.N., you should be happy that someone is giving it teeth. If you don’t, then let me hear you argue for U.N. dissolution. Verdict: doesn’t deserve a response, but here is one anyway. Try not to criticize while on hallucinogenic drugs from now on.

So I ask again, what is the problem with the Iraq war? It is none of the above for sure. The only real problem is that the Iraqi people have not yet won it. And if WE surrender, THEY never will win it and we all lose.

Wake up and defend your world while you still have one to defend.

Saturday, May 5, 2007

The Iraqi Parliamentary Vacation

So the Iraqi Parliament wants to take a vacation. From what, exactly are they taking this vacation? I’ve seen some blogs implying that they have been on vacation for the past few years. I have seen others calling this a “2-month, Bush-style” vacation. Well you all might just want to take a step back and grow up for a few minutes.

Let’s talk about Bush first. It doesn’t matter how long his “vacations” are. They aren’t vacations as we at the bottom know them. They are work-at-home days. The press camps out on his lawn, not far from where Cindy Sheehan protests, while his staff and cabinet prepare him for a press conference every few days. If any of you out there do any less that that on YOUR vacation (and you and I both know you do a lot less) then please just shut up about Bush’s vacations. However, Bush is not entirely without fault in the Iraq vacation matter, as we will see shortly.

As we try to Americanize the Iraqi government, what is the example the U.S. Congress provides? It took a 2-week Easter vacation. The Democrat-led Congress left town after half-passing a bad surrender bill that everyone in the world knew had no chance at all of being signed into law. Anyone care to guess who the first people were to whine about the Iraqi Parliament following suit? Yup. It was leaders of the Democrat-led Congress. Score one more for the U.S. Congress.

Now back to Bush. As I wrote in my 3/31/07 article “Congress Doesn't Even Disgrace Itself Well” the President could have called an emergency session of Congress to get this urgent work done, thus depriving Nancy Pelosi of her Syrian vacation. He didn’t. His de-facto support of the Congress’ disgraceful vacation further sent the message to Iraq that this is an OK thing to do.

I would be curious to know when the founding fathers of the United States went on vacation. I doubt that there were many during the revolutionary war and was unable to find any, although I am not enough of a scholar to say definitively that there were none. If anyone knows, please share.

Perhaps the poetic justice on the subject of an Iraqi Parliamentary vacation is found in the following question(s) to Parliament members. Where will you go on vacation? Syria (You might want to get some tips from Nancy Pelosi)? Iran (I think Vladimir Putin might have some info you could use.)? Israel (You might get killed by your fellow mosque-goers.)? Please let us know where you went and how that worked out for you, especially if you were able to make it back alive.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Why We Put Up with Hollywood

Americans are the most generous people in the world, despite what the decidedly anti-American Kofi Annan claimed in late 2006 in a particularly idiotic moment – even for him. There is good reason for Americans to be generous. We have been the most blessed in the world as far as material things are concerned, and the breathtaking vistas in many part of the United States cannot help but make the most ardent atheist wonder whether God dwells in their majesty (or at least has a vacation home there).

But the statistics on how much Americans give to charity is incomplete. By most standards, big government, pushed by bleeding heart liberals since the 1960s to give our tax dollars to the poor, has screwed this up as it does with everything that falls outside its three real jobs. It has also skewed the picture dramatically, by taking away some of the money we used to give to the charities we deemed most worthy, and giving to those that liberals deem most worthy.

So what does this have to do with Hollywood? Everything. Hollywood is filled (mostly) with liberal, high-income, entertainment industry types who most of us at the bottom recognize as having unique talent. Most of us also don’t believe that it’s really worth $20 million per movie. But we do pay the ticket and DVD prices that give them that money. So why?

There is a piece of the American psyche that sympathizes with the socialist principle of “from each according to their ability; to each according to their need.” It’s not a huge portion of the American psyche, but it is there. That portion is heavily represented by the entertainment industry.

We conservatives might get extremely irritated with the likes of Rosie and others from time to time, but it is hard to deny that there are many (including Rosie) who do good, noble, and spiritually uplifting work outside the political arena.

Their role in American society is to redistribute a portion of income. That’s what socialism does; it redistributes income. That is what people in Hollywood do. They earn large sums of money from people who can afford their services and redistribute it to those they deem worthy. It is, essentially, the socialist arm of our capitalist society.

Adam Smith’s invisible hand has guided the course of Capitalism in the United States for the 200+ years representing the greatest (and by greatest I mean the most successful and most far-reaching) economic and political experiment the world has ever known. The genius of the invisible hand continues to exert its influence in the charitable sector of our society as well as it reflects the American psyche in matters of money, whether we utilize that money to improve our lives through the enterprise that earns more money or use it to improve our lives through helping our neighbors.

The rants and raves of Rosie O’Donnell, Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, and on and on are part of the price we pay to run the socialist arm of American Society. We need to remember that when we observe them behaving in this fashion.

I desperately wish that I could formulate the same sort of cost/benefit analysis that would allow me to tolerate the bad behavior of liberals in Congress and the media. I can’t.