Month: November 2006

Or more like a commentary in picture form on one of the major problems with schools today, well, two of the major problems:

1.) Kids who are just plain stupid (no mater their basic “g” scores) to continue wasting school resources with their presence and
2.) Teachers, admins, etc., who don’t just call parents and say, “Your dumbass kid did it again. Come pick him—and the chair he’s stuck in—up. We’ll be charging you $55 for the chair. And $150 for the aggravation of having to interrupt the instruction day to deal with your idiot spawn, minus $5 for the negligible entertainment value of heaping tons of ridicule on his head. Don’t bring him back. Put him in a barrel and feed him through the bunghole.”

*sigh*

Talk about sumbing *heh* dumbing down schools. (Since my typing sticks stinks, I really oughta check for typos more regularly, eh? :-)) And look! It take FOUR “adults” to deal with this time-and-resource sink. Only one out of four is doing anything even remotely useful (a high average for our “prisons for kids”), but at least they gave the poor widdle dahwing a lollipop…

Noted at Diane’s OTA Wednesday.

Oh, and h.t. to Lovely Daughter for the pic. (No, not at her school. Found on the web.)

Just a few off-the-cuff thoughts on the putative “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islamic societies.

First, let me define what may be an idiosyncratic view of civilization that may find echoes of sentiment in some folks, at least. I recognize that “civilization” (a rather recent word in the English language, as such things go) was coined to refer to a society of “city dwellers” and that’s about it. But I would submit to you that any society that is truly civilized must recognize and embody certain fundamental principles. Leading those principles are:

1. Private property rights.
2. Rights of persons to life, liberty and the pursuit of their own goals, insofar as those goals do not infringe on the rights and property of others.
3. A government concerned with protecting these rights against outlaws–both within and without the society.

By any measure, one can see that is Muslims can be said to be civilized at all, it is a most crude, rudimentary and severely flawed “civilization” they own, indeed. Property rights? Islam is clear that property rights are first and foremost for Islamic men, almost to exclusion. Oh, dhimmis can own things in Islamic countries… as long as some greedy Muslim man doesn’t decide they want it instead (following Mohammed’s treachery, rape, pillage, butchery and enslavement of the Jews at Medina, et al.). In Islamic society, regardless the false protestations of “moderate” Muslims, it’s essentially a pack mentality where top dogs rule.

Of course, given human nature, Western societies have a degree of that sort of thing, as well, but property rights (well, until Kelo) were at least protected with a fair degree of evenhandedness under the law for most of the history of Western civilization. In fact, the progress of true liberalism in Western civilization can be fairly traced largely in the restriction of the greed of the powerful to legally “steal” from the weak.

And which civilization has striven to eliminate chattel slavery from its society? The history of the liberation of individuals from chattel slavery canNOT be traced in Muslim societies at all, and in fact, chattel slavery is widely and pretty openly practiced in the Islamic world. Not so in Western society, where the practice of slavery, which sadly still goes on, is at the very least viewed as a heinous crime (which is one reason dhimmi-western eyes are averted from Darfur, the most blatant example of slavery’s open practice in the Muslim world).

Enslavement of individuals goes far beyond chattel slavery in Muslim societies, though. Non-Muslims are severely-curtailed in freedoms (and their goods–the fruits of their labors) are always “in play” for any overly-greedy, powerful Muslim man who may want to “legally” steal them. Oh, and you may have noticed “man” and “men” italicized in a couple of places. That’s because property rights, individual freedoms and liberties, indeed life itself are all extremely circumscribed for women. Indeed, women in Muslim societies are most often simply creatures as good as owned by men as any slave.

And what of government’s commitment to the protection of individuals’ rights and property? Well, until the fake liberalism of the 20th century began to take hold, Western Civilization’s record was one of ever more responsible government doing its proper job of protecting the rights of individuals to live their own lives and own their own property relatively free of predation from outlaws within and without. Of course, now that the fake liberalism of the 20th century has become Western Civilizations consolation as it commits suicide (and a tip o’ the tam to James Burnham for the phrasing), the powerful are grabbing more and more from the weak… with the aid of an ever more grasping and greedy political class, so the advantage in true civilized values the West has enjoyed over the Islamic world is beginning to wane. *sigh*

Let me refer you again to Samuel Francis speaking on the growing threat of anarcho-tyranny.

“…What we enjoy in this country, and to a large extent in most other Western nations, is a bit more complicated than mere anarchy. It is, in fact, the unique achievement of the political genius of the modern era: what, in 1992, I called “anarcho-tyranny,” a kind of Hegelian synthesis of two opposites–anarchy and tyranny.

“The elementary concept of anarcho-tyranny is simple enough. History knows of many societies that have succumbed to anarchy when the governing authorities proved incapable of controlling criminals, warlords, rebels, and marauding invaders. Today, that is not the problem in the United States…

“…Yet, at the same time, the country habitually wallows in a condition that often resembles Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature–nasty, brutish, and short. Crime rates have indeed declined in the last decade or so, but violent crime remains so common in larger cities and their suburbs that both residents and visitors live in a continuous state of fear, if not terror. The most obvious sign of what would normally be called anarchy is the immigration invasion… The invaders–as residents of Arizona, where some 40 percent of illegal aliens enter the country, constantly complain–threaten the lives, safety, and property of law-abiding American citizens; depress wages; gobble welfare; and constitute a new underclass that is an object of demagogic political manipulation by both American and Mexican politicians… The federal government invaded Iraq, although Iraq never harmed or threatened us, but it does virtually nothing to resist the massive invasion (and eventually the conquest) of its own country and the deliberate violation of its own laws by Mexico… “

Let me here highly recommend that you read the entirety of Francis’ article.

Still, growing anarcho-tyranny notwithstanding, the West is so far more civilized than the most civilized of Islamic countries (say, Turkey, for example) that comparing the two as civilizations is similar to comparing a silk purse to the pig’s ear that could never become a silk purse.

Islamic societies can never become really civilized, no matter how many cities they steal from productive people or pay Westerners (or other peoples more civilized than Muslims) to build for them with proceeds of land-rape monies. They cannot, because they follow the precepts of a person who was a savage, brutal thief, murderer, liar and oath-breaker, Mohamed (who rots in hell forever). Absent a complete, total and absolute repudiation of The Butcher of Medina, the people dominated by his life and teachings will always be as he: fundamentally flawed as savage, brutal thieves, liars, murderers and oath-breakers (for an oath, contract, or promise to anyone a.) not a “believer” or b.) less powerful than oneself is easily disregarded by Muslim men).

Outlaws the lot of them, and should the Western world wake up and recognize that fact and proclaim its truth and act accordingly, it might have a chance to survive the Muslim threat, at least.

As to the threat of fake liberalism that seeks to bind all men with the chains of the State and steal from those who work to earn their living “by the sweat of their brows” to give to the indolent, the slackers and ultimately the powerful elite, well, Western Civilization has survived worse. (Though not much worse. Not even the Thirty Years’ War killed as many as the fake liberalism that embraced Rachel Carson’s lies, for example. Heck, Stalin, Pol Pot, Genghis Kahn, Adolph Hitler and all the most evil tyrants of history would have difficulty matching the killing spree of the fake liberals of the last fifty years or so.)

Well, as I said, a few off-the-cuff observations. Make of them what you will. Suffice it to say that I don’t believe the clash between Western Civilization and the Muslim world is really a clash of civilizations at all but more of a slow yielding of Western civilization (at the urging of fake liberals everywhere) to the barbarians at the gates, yea, even open invitations to the barbarians to come inside and rape and pillage and burn and ultimately enslave.

TB-ed to The Random Yak’s Midweek OTP

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by Terry Dillard of The Right Track

Well, the elections are over and I’ve heard everything from “It’s a sure thing” to “No way it’ll even make it out of committee now” regarding the FairTax.

One thing I do know — never underestimate the power of a grassroots movement. Democrats were shown in 1994 not to take their power for granted, and Republicans had that same lesson hammered home to them a week ago. The American people have no hesitation whatsoever about “flushing the toilet” as I prefer to call it.

Whatever your political orientation, it’s been amply proven by now that lower taxes produce a stronger economy — if we can keep spending in check. Giving Americans the ability to choose exactly how much they pay in taxes via the FairTax is a win-win situation for individuals and our government.

I found an interesting blog article that managed to work the FairTax into a post on national security. From “Freedom Is Always the Right Answer”, the post is titled “Defeating China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran in the Cold War of Terror“. The post begins:

China and Russia are allied and using all the tools at their disposal, including supporting North Korea and Iran, and to a lessor extent Venezuela, to defeat us in a new Cold War of Terror. China and Russia have supplied weapons, diplomatic cover, and economic support to these rogue states to drain American resources, our respect in the international community, and generally create chaos. China is stealing our technological secrets through a coordinated program of traditional intelligence and computer infiltration. China and Russia are threatening our satellites. China constantly threatens our ally, Taiwan. We can use the lessons from the first Cold War to figure out how to win this new one.

The author postulates that winning the war against terror and those who sponsor it — directly or indirectly, it would seem — will require the same tactics used by JFK to get the missiles out of Cuba, and by Reagan to defeat the Soviet Union. Part of this, of course, is economic in nature. According to the author’s theory:

Once we put China in this position, it won’t allow North Korea to be the tail that wags the dog. China will be upset with the U.S., as will the rest of the world who will call us dangerous cowboys, like they did Reagan, but China’s only good option would be to work for a nuclear free Korean peninsula. China would suffer the economic pain (no more Kentucky Fried Chicken) of losing the world’s greatest consumer as a costumer, plus it would be in the untenable position of being at the mercy of the madman in North Korea. America could get China’s support for regime change or some other policy to remove the nukes in North Korea.

America would also suffer economic pain (T-Shirt prices would rise) from these trade restrictions, but domestic policy would limit that pain, and turn it into an advantage. By adopting the FairTax, America would begin to return as a manufacturing juggernaut. Reducing government interference in the free market would assist this process. American products, no longer burdened by the income tax, would compete with Chinese made products on the world market, further enriching America and hurting China/NK. This American growth in manufacturing would drive prices lower to compensate for the price increases from restricted trade with China/NK. This would put pressure on China to democratize. [TD – emphasis added]

But aside from National Security, the FairTax is just a good idea. The Kodiak Daily Mirror came out in favor of it because it is grassroots in nature. You know, “We the people” kind of thinking. In “New Tax Act Gives Power to the People“, the Daily Mirror gives its reasons for supporting the FairTax:

A proposed bill, The Fair Tax Act, would change the way our government collects our tax money. It sounds the death toll for the Internal Revenue Service, paycheck withholdings and tax returns. As the replacement, a national sales tax, designed to fund our government at its current rate, would replace our old system. It relieves the burden of an overly complicated tax code as special interests lobby for loopholes.

The national sales tax will be collected on all new goods and services and takes the place of our income withholdings. The system is blind to income levels, yet ensures the basic necessities of life are not taxed through a tax pre-bate system. This prevents the government from dictating what the basic necessities are and affords us the ability to make our own decisions. [TD – emphasis added]

How cool is that? What a novel idea! Letting us make our own decisions! I like it! The Daily Mirror finishes the article by referring to no less a document than our own Declaration of Independence:

As stated so eloquently in our Declaration of Independence, we hold the power, not the government or our elected officials. It is time for a real change offered by the Fair Tax Act to encourage economical growth and investment. It is time to do away with the burdensome taxation system that we detest and political officials use to gain votes.

All I can add to that is a hearty “Amen”!

The FairTax Blogburst is jointly produced by Terry of The Right Track Blog and Jonathan of Publius Rendezvous. If you would like to host the weekly postings on your blog, please e-mail Terry. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll.

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From someone MUCH smarter than I, and much, much, MUCH smarter than our political masters in D.C. Concerning Iraq and the purchase influence of an election at least in part via al Qaeda influence yielding a cut-and-run Democratic Congress. From Jerry Pournelle, Monday:

If we are going to pull out, the Army has to be given a chance to sort out its friends and help them get to places of safety. That probably means some wholesale population shifts of Kurds from southern areas to north, rearrangements by tribes and confessions, and in general a partition of Iraq, with the training of regional militias. This is the only way the Legions can protect their friends. And our political masters are unlikely to allow this.

Weep.

Indeed.

“…our political masters are unlikely to allow this” because, in my estimation, they are stupid, short-sighted, greedy, personal power hungry politicians *spit*. Come to think of it, the modifiers were redundant.

Oh, and read the rest of Monday’s Mail and Dr. Pournelle’s responses. How I wish just a few of the politicians *spit* in D.C. had half enough sense to at least hear him out…

Just put this bumper sticker on your car. Whoever honks is a Democrat, even if they are registered as a Republican.

(CLICK for larger view)

(Oh, and just so we’re on the same page, download and read, “Honk if You Oppose a Fairer Tax“–pdf :-))

By Heidi at Euphoric Reality

Last Tuesday, the Democrats won the majority in both the House and the Senate. Within a day, President Bush was gloating on national TV about how he could now finally pass his Amnesty bill with a Democrat-controlled Congress. This galling statement by the President was reinforced by the White House spokesman:

White House spokesman Tony Snow reacted to the change in House control by allowing they’re disappointed, but that it presents some intriguing opportunities, such as passing comprehensive immigration reform which failed in the previous Republican House.

Meanwhile, conservatives are shocked – SHOCKED! – by this open defiance of the vast majority of Americans’ wishes. “What on earth is Bush thinking?!,” they wonder. Howard Sutherland says there’s no need for such surprise, and here’s why:

If George W. Bush has been consistent about anything it is his determination to keep the United States open to the mass migration of Mexicans and other Latin Americans.
[…]
George W. Bush is a true believer in amnesty for illegal aliens, at least for Mexicans, and perhaps in some sort of EU-style shotgun marriage of Canada, the United States and Mexico as well.
[…]
That he is sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, not the welfare of Mexicans, does not faze him. The amnesty/guest worker program is President Bush’s lodestar, the legacy he sincerely wants to leave America. In the teeth of all the evidence, he believes that we would be better for it and it’s just the right thing to do. It is more important to him than Iraq, so important that he jettisoned the GOP’s best chance to hold on to the Congress rather than back away from it.

So with the President dancing on the political graves of the massacred GOP, it looks like a plan for amnesty is a sure thing. Now pundits everywhere, on both sides of the aisle, are breathlessly calculating where millions of new voters will fit into the political landscape of the future. I’ve watched and taken part in several debates on which party will end up scooping the Newly Amnestied Immigrant vote.

Here are a few viewpoints I’ve seen expressed about the powerful new Latino voting bloc:

Continue reading “Guard the Borders”

(Don’t be concerned about the image above; it’ll all come to focus at the end of this post… )

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I recieved this via email from a real friend, “Hot” (the Sure Shot Hotshot *heh*). Make of it what you will. I certainly did…

Are you tired of those sissy “friendship” poems that always sound good, but never actually come close to reality? Well here is a series of promises that actually speak of true friendship. You won’t see any cutesy little smiley faces in this list just the stone cold truth of our great friendship. And in bold letters so that all of you can read it.

1. When you are sad — I will help you plot revenge against the sorry man who made you sad.

2. When you are blue — I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.

3. When you smile — I will know you finally got a weekend without the kids.

4. When you are scared — I will rag on you about it every chance I get.

5. When you are worried — I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining.

6. When you are confused — I will use little words [and speak v e r y s l o w l y–ed..

7. When you are sick — Stay away from me
until you are well again. I don’t want whatever you have.

8. When you fall — I will point and laugh at your clumsy butt.

Now, that’s a real friend… Back atcha, Hot. As the saying goes, “Friends help you move …real friends help you move bodies.”

For all of the Third World County’s readers who took the time to help with Valour-IT program, I’d like to report to you that the drive is over, but not before the goal of $180K was exceeded by at least $4K+, and the checks in the mail haven’t been counted yet.

That means more than 230 laptops will soon be in service for the use by those who, temporarily or permanently, cannot type. Thank you. You have made a mark on their future, and I would submit, your own, as they are enabled to be productive in the workforce.

If you know people who have been similarly disabled by a car, home of industrial accident, the Valour-IT program may be an model for them to get back into life.

Soldier’s Angels not only has this program, but several others to help support the troops. Take a click over there and see if maybe something resonates with your soul that might inflame a passion of yours once more. These programs run all year, so don’t feel like you have to hang back until someone announces a fund drive!

Recently, the discussion was about the Tet Offensive and how the events of February, 1968 related to current day situations was posted on this blog here and here.

Possibly now, it is the moment to get ahead of the power curve and discuss the big picture that happened 30 years ago, and see if it may relate to what happens next….

So, Richard Nixon was President. The Democrats had control of the Congress. The President, as he promised in his election campaign was pulling our troops out of ground combat positions, yet left the promise of support for the South Vietnamese Army, using the strategy of “Vietnamization,” a process of turning the war over to the ARVNs, as they were able to handle it.

Effectively, in 1972, our ground combat forces were out, safe advisers left the ARVNs. While the president is the Commander-in-Chief, Congress controls the money (you’d think people would quit accusing the presidents, of any time, of what goes on with the budget, but, once more, I digress). So Congress cut off the funding for the supporting arms and the supplies from America going to South Vietnam. Now, the study of history over the ages shows the winner of wars is the country who has the best logistics and can out-produce the adversary in the fight. When “we” (the Democratic Congress) pulled appropriations from the war support effort for our allies, they sentenced them to loss of the war, and, in many cases, death in a very literal sense.

So in 1975, the NVA rolled into Saigon and raised the North Vietnamese flag in that city. It was over. What next? The Communist rebels in Cambodia, led by Pol Pot now had nothing to fear and a totalitarian government came into power and the killing fields became a part of life, as about 1/2 of the population of Cambodia was killed it’s own.

Why did the conquest of South Vietnam and the mass murders happen across the border? There was no nation with the power to let them know this wasn’t acceptable.

What does this mean today?

We already know there is simmering hate in Iraq between the Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds. We have not yet been able to help them understand there’s a better way to solve issues than to murder 75 people a day, using very brutal means.

Add to this, there is at least one neighboring country, Iran, already stirring the pot, for for us to have an ally, let alone a foothold in the region, keeps them in check, unable to carry out their desires to control much of the region. Syria is a player, too, but seem to at least be keeping their head down and themselves out of the media coverage.

So, the time may come, if the Democrats can strong arm their agenda to withdraw, whether by getting the President to acquiesce to this via the “bi-partisan” Iraq Working Committee, or by the pulling of appropriations for any support of our troops. The Department of Defense will end up with no choice to bring the troops hone, or at least out of the battle zone of Iraq.

My prediction: The Sunnis, having been in power for so many years, used to being able to, even as a minority, rape the other cultural groups of the country, literally and figuratively, feeling they have some right to murder and torture as they feel. So, the Sunnis will come back with a vengance at the Kurds and Shiites. Bloodshed…and much of it.

Add to this the military power to the East, the Iranians. They, with their affinity for the Shiites, the majority culture, will now roll across the border and become directly engaged with the Sunnis. Bloodshed.

The Kurds, who have rebuilt much of the infrastructure to the north, and are already prospering from the oil flowing, will most likely get attacked by the Sunnis and Shiites, and the Iranians, as they have valuable resources and are using them.

If we thought we stepped into a hornet’s nest in 2003, we haven’t seen anything that will be like this. The locals of the area will feel empowered to kill and plunder in even more horrific manners and scales than they have, for they now see “we” (and I substantially contribute this to the Democrats and the Liberals) don’t have the stomach for it. Much like asking someone to be an EMT and all they can do at any car accident is to stand by, while people bleed to death, throwing up. Those people, politically, are the Democrats and they, in this scenario, would decide it’s better to legislate against people having car accidents, rather than finding those who can take care of such messy conditions, and wait until things are safe to toss their cookies.

More and more, I am coming to see the Democrats in modern times are the party of death and destruction, with pools of blood running from their hands. They do this, not because it’s the best course of action for the rest of the world, or the country, but so they can ascend to positions of power, where they can rent the Lincoln bedroom out to friends to raise money, so they can buy their way back into power.

I can only figure their deep dissatisfaction with the War on Terror, is they see the revenues of President Bush’s tax cuts flowing towards Iraq, and not into their hands, to bribe the voters of the next election with their largess.

The Democrats and Liberals have never acknowledged they had a part in approximately 3M deaths in SE Asia after 1972. They cannot, for they would have to face their part in mass murder.

They stand on the edge of history and are prepared, with a complete disregard for history, their own, and that of world events, ready to loose the executioners in the Middle East, first, and later in Africa and Europe. They will then turn their face from the horror and go back to their fund raisers, not even consciously aware of their shameful part in the deaths.

My gallows humor would be to think maybe they are thinking of this outcome as a help for the environment, for after all, it’s people and the demands they place on industry, that cause greenhouse gasses and causes desertification and the now, the acidification of the oceans. If we have a few less million of us to cause pollution, let alone perpetuate the species, then we’ll not have to worry about running the air conditioners quite so long at the homes and offices of liberals.

I asked the question earlier “Who should have the franchise?” (yeh, yeh, not in exactly those words)

How about this: change our national/state forms of representation. Our legislative bodies pass too many laws as it is. They simply are not cumbersome enough. Why not propose a Constitutional amendment (and encourage States to follow suit) changing apportionment of the House, at least (and repealing the direct election of Senators, giving us something closer to the Founders’ Constitution)? Say, anyone who can gain the certified signatures of 10,000 citizens would represent just those citizens (and yeh, I know I’m riffing off of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress just a lil bit.). Those citizens could “fire” their rep for failing to represent their views pretty easily by simply refusing to sign on for another term’s representation by that rep. Along with limiting tghe franchise to property owners, like the Founders wisely did, such a move would go far toward cleaning up the mess of snakes we currently have as congresscritters.

Of course, it could just give us a dfferent mess of snakes, but I’d be happy with that.

Let’s see… depending on how “property owners” were defined, the House could bloat up to somewhere between 7,500 and 15,000 members, if I take a purely WAG–cos I’m not digging into the census data for “real” estimates, which could be wildly off, especially since I’ve not set forth a definition of “property owner” in this lil screed.

At any rate, that ought to make Congress unwieldy enough to at least slow down the proliferation of oppressive laws.

Oh, one last thing: either restrict the congresscritter’s (entire family) income by limiting it to ONLY what his personal constituents will pay and REQUIRE congresscritters to live under ALL the laws they enact, or find another mechanism to make the job less attractive to “career” politicians *spit*.

Justathought…