Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Random Political Thoughts
New Bumper Stickers
Hillary/Obama/Edwards:
Not George Bush since 1776
Guliani/McCain/Romney:
Not George Bush since 1776
Er... wait...
Those who don't trust anyone else cannot be trusted
I think I've figured out the Left/Progressives. I've been trying to figure out what exactly is the core of the Left's belief system and until now, it's mostly boggled me. But I think I've got it now.
Trust. The Left doesn't trust the Average American. Yes, that's scathing. Yes, it's a blanket statement, but walk with me for a minute as I explore this line of thinking.
Let's go with Gun Control first. The Right generally supports the Second Amendment. There are some that want everyone to have guns. They are idiots. Not everyone (criminals, mentally ill, underage, etc.) should have guns. But the more level-headed realize that it is our right to have guns and that "an armed society is a polite society." (Thank you, Robert Heinlein!) The Left, from what I can generally gather is the polar opposite. No one (except for the military and police) should have guns. Period. There is plenty of research out there that confirms that guns do not cause crime. In fact, that same research explicitly proves that if the citizenry is armed, crime is reduced, and if the citizenry is disarmed, crime increases. It's like magic! This is proven over and over again. So, what's the deal?
Well, I've already made my major point in that it's a matter of trust. The Left doesn't trust "other people" with guns. Right after the VA Tech massacre, there was a short debate about gun control and basically as soon as it was demonstrated that a single student with a gun would have stopped the whole thing, the conversation was pretty much dropped from the news. I was listening to someone talk about gun control and they stated, "I don't think I would feel safe if an entire major American city's population was armed." Er... why? Because they'd all be violent, crime-loving barbarians as soon as they bought the firearm? Hardly. It's because he didn't trust anyone but himself. Rest assured that more people carry concealed weapons than you probably realize.
This is kind of like how, for a long while, pretty much everyone believed that everyone else on the internet was some kind of homosexual, child-stalking, porn-watching pervert or something.
Let's move on to another topic: Poverty and the welfare state. What's the deal with the Left always wanting to raise the minimum wage and put more folks on welfare? Remember, welfare was supposed to eliminate poverty. I guess in one way, it did. Our poor have more stuff/money/resources than the rest of the world's poor. So, we have the richest poor in the world. But it's all relative. The poor (and the Left) measure their "poorness" against the "rich" and their "richness." The average family in poverty has a microwave, TV, cell phone and a car. The average rich family? Well, I don't know. But I can use my imagination and choose to believe that they have a better microwave, a larger TV, more minutes per month on their cell phone plan and better and more cars. Whether that's true... I don't know.
But, getting back to the point, the massive expansion of our welfare state was caused by the Left. Why? Because they didn't trust the Average American to take care of the Less Than Average American. Now, I don't know if that is really true. But what does it matter? The Left scored a huge voting block because of this. However, I am inclined to think that if The Church (yes, the Christian Church) spent more time taking care of the poor then, we wouldn't have so much of a poverty problem now. Basically, and I have no facts to back this up, I believe that The Church fell down on the job and that is why the Government decided to step up. Now, I concede that it is possible that The Church could possibly have been doing very well at caring for the poor and the government just wanted to score that big voting block, but I guess we'll never know.
Next topic: Affirmative Action. In short, the government doesn't trust the private sector to hire enough people of race (whether they are qualified or not) so the government stepped in and dictated how many of every race you must hire. Or else.
Abortion: Well, I haven't quite figured this one out. I do know, however, that calling it a "women's rights issue" is bogus. It's all about the money. Sure, it may have started as a women's rights issue, but that's not the case any more.
So, now that I've given you a prism through which to view politics of the Left, see if you can take an issue and break it down this way. See if you don't get as ticked off as I do about it.
My Dream Republican Ticket
Romney/Gingrich or Gingrich/Romney
Gingrich totally excites me. He's the most intellectual person I think I've ever seen on television. Check out the Contract with America to see some of his handiwork.
Romney is smart, looks good, has great Christian values and doesn't say "nuk-u-lar," at least I haven't heard him say it.
50% of something is better than 100% of nothing
I heard someone say that today on the radio. He was referring to Guliani, and how he is pro-choice, and how many conservatives won't vote for him because of that. Sad, really. Put it this way, you don't have to vote for Guliani in the Primaries, but you had better vote for him the general if he's the nominee. What would you want more:
Guliani, a pro-choice Republican who shares a few of our values, will be strong on terror and crime and will be a strong presence in the White House
Hillary/Obama/Edwards, pro-choice Democrats who share none of our values and will appease and attempt to negotiate with terrorists (including probably passing laws to make it illegal to detonate a nuk-u-lar weapon inside a U.S. city)
What do you get if you don't vote for Guliani because he's pro-choice? A Democrat who is pro-choice. You lose.
If you don't vote, we will lose.
Monday, May 07, 2007
The Tornado in Kansas
As you should be aware, there was a huge tornado in Kansas this weekend. I heard on the radio that at the strongest point, the tornado cut a swath 1.7 miles wide. The whole town is destroyed. Luckily, fewer people died than would be expected from such a disaster.
My thoughts and prayers are with the citizens and family members of Greensburg.
But it didn't take long for the media to politicize this and how the Iraq war has caused the state to not be prepared for a time such as this. Isn't there some kind of psychological term for when everything you see is somehow related to one thing? Isn't that a form of religious fanaticism?
Anyway, the MSM reported this: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius says a shortage of trucks, helicopters and other equipment - all sent to the war in Iraq - has hampered recovery in a US town obliterated by a tornado.
"There is no doubt at all that this will slow down and hamper the recovery," Governor Sebelius, a Democrat, said in Kansas, where officials said the statewide death toll had risen to 12.
"Not having this equipment in place all over the state is a huge handicap."
"Boo Hoo! That meanie President Bush sent all my trucks and planes away and now I have nothing to help my citizens with."
Nowhere does it say how many of the actual Soldiers are deployed. I know for a fact that a lot of Guard units leave their stuff over there when the Soldiers themselves return from deployment. So, we really don't have the full story about who and what is here. It's unlikely we'll get it, too, since 1. The MSM likely won't tell us. 2. They couldn't get that info anyway because it's sensitive information. Troop strength and stuff, you know.
I'm not doubting that a majority of the Kansas NG stuff is in Iraq. But I'm doubting and questioning the reason something else.
We've been deploying the National Guard to foreign soil since Clinton was president, so for at least 10 years. They went with their stuff then, too, and brought it back when the mission was done. At what point did someone ever think, "Hey, a lot of our stuff is gone. Since we're the National Guard, and our main job is to help in times of domestic crisis, and our stuff is not here, shouldn't we get new stuff? Especially since we live in FREAKIN' TORNADO ALLEY! Especially since the EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED TWO YEARS AGO WITH HURRICANE KATRINA?"
I mean, come on. Really. No one had the foresight to think about this? I would love to know whose job it is to think of stuff like this.
I suppose, though, that it would have been a catch-22. "What? You have BRAND NEW equipment here in the States that you aren't sending to Iraq? You sent them to war and now you won't send them new equipment? You Loser."
My thoughts and prayers are with the citizens and family members of Greensburg.
But it didn't take long for the media to politicize this and how the Iraq war has caused the state to not be prepared for a time such as this. Isn't there some kind of psychological term for when everything you see is somehow related to one thing? Isn't that a form of religious fanaticism?
Anyway, the MSM reported this: Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius says a shortage of trucks, helicopters and other equipment - all sent to the war in Iraq - has hampered recovery in a US town obliterated by a tornado.
"There is no doubt at all that this will slow down and hamper the recovery," Governor Sebelius, a Democrat, said in Kansas, where officials said the statewide death toll had risen to 12.
"Not having this equipment in place all over the state is a huge handicap."
"Boo Hoo! That meanie President Bush sent all my trucks and planes away and now I have nothing to help my citizens with."
Nowhere does it say how many of the actual Soldiers are deployed. I know for a fact that a lot of Guard units leave their stuff over there when the Soldiers themselves return from deployment. So, we really don't have the full story about who and what is here. It's unlikely we'll get it, too, since 1. The MSM likely won't tell us. 2. They couldn't get that info anyway because it's sensitive information. Troop strength and stuff, you know.
I'm not doubting that a majority of the Kansas NG stuff is in Iraq. But I'm doubting and questioning the reason something else.
We've been deploying the National Guard to foreign soil since Clinton was president, so for at least 10 years. They went with their stuff then, too, and brought it back when the mission was done. At what point did someone ever think, "Hey, a lot of our stuff is gone. Since we're the National Guard, and our main job is to help in times of domestic crisis, and our stuff is not here, shouldn't we get new stuff? Especially since we live in FREAKIN' TORNADO ALLEY! Especially since the EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED TWO YEARS AGO WITH HURRICANE KATRINA?"
I mean, come on. Really. No one had the foresight to think about this? I would love to know whose job it is to think of stuff like this.
I suppose, though, that it would have been a catch-22. "What? You have BRAND NEW equipment here in the States that you aren't sending to Iraq? You sent them to war and now you won't send them new equipment? You Loser."
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Pacifism isn't what you think it is...
One of my favorite conservative pundits that I have ever known is Michael Graham. (His blog is on my links section.) Back when I lived in SC, he was a radio host on the local station. He was funny, irreverent, but really, he was very, very smart and he knows the business of politics. He's never run for office, that I know of, but I know he has participated in a few campaigns.
So, moving to the point. Somewhere, he got involved in the VA Tech massacre discussion and said something incredibly profound and now there's a bit of a backlash. To make a long blog short, he simply asked the question why no one in VA Tech actually did anything to stop the killer. During that brief time, where he killed 32 students and then himself, he came into contact with dozens, possibly hundreds, of students. And not one of them did anything to stop him.
Apparently, no one tried to talk to him. No one tried to physically apprehend him. No one tried to rush him. No one tried to band together, a la Flight 93, to end his murderous rampage. That is an important question, I think, because it says a lot about what our parents are teaching our children.
In this discussion, he's been placed in the line of fire by a Lefty group, Media Matters. They posted a story, linked in Michael's blog, to what he said and what others have said.
One comment summed up what I think is the crux of how many people feel about violence. "I've never met a parent who did not teach their kids that it's OK to protect themselves and others. My wife was a pacifist and she and I raised our children to never fight, unless there is no other option." Sure, it sounds nice and makes you feel good. But it's dumb.
I've been trying to think of a word for stuff like this, for incomplete thoughts, or positions held about a certain idea that are just so out in left/right field that they are actually dangerous. The best I can come up with is "Not Thought," as in, not thought out, or not educated enough about a topic to be able to think something through. Tune in to future blogs for other Not Thoughts.
First, let me define Pacifism. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines it as:
1 : opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes; specifically : refusal to bear arms on moral or religious grounds
2 : an attitude or policy of nonresistance
So, right off the bat, this is not pacifism. It's non-confrontationalism. Or passiveness. Or just plain wimpiness.
The problem is, pacifism equals no violence. Period. Gandhi was a pacifist. MLK Jr. was a pacifist. They faced personal danger and death many times and at no time did they physically defend themselves. At any time, their opponents could have killed them with no resistance from Gandhi or MLK Jr.
What the person in the comment above is talking about is nonsense. See, in an effort to shield their children (and everyone else) from violence, they have not taught them how to use violence to actually defend themselves. No Karate. No Concealed Weapons permits. Heck, they probably don't even watch the Three Stooges. So, when the time comes to actually defend themselves, they are impotent, incompetent and inept. That is, of course, if they can actually discern when the time is right to defend themselves.
In a effort to pacify others, these so-called pacifists have taken away or paved over a person's primal instinct to defend themselves. (More on that later....) For years, this person has been taught that in no situation is violence appropriate. What do you think is going to happen when the "acceptable" time to use violence occurs? If a person has been trained to not defend themselves at any time, that is exactly what they will do. Furthermore, as we humans are terrible at determining risk to our own safety AND we see others as we see ourselves, it is unlikely that a pacified person will actually know when a situation is dangerous enough to actually defend themselves. And if the situation warrants a defensive action, well, the person has no tools to do so.
But let's go deeper than just conditioning. Let's move into the brain for a moment. There is a part of our brain that separates us from our dogs/cats/fish. It is the fore-brain. It is in the fore-brain that we rationalize, that we set goals, that we experience guilt and have the ability to socialize with others. Our dog can't do that on the level we can.
All animals have what is called the mid-brain. This is the instinct part of our brain, where we have fight-or-flight, or where we process certain instances of danger and how we determine that we are hungry or need to reproduce. Humans are the only animal in the world that can override their mid-brain... because we have a fore-brain.
It is the mid-brain that causes a snake to bite you when you step on it, or a dog to attack with no warning when you enter its territory. It is absolutely instinctual for an animal to react violently when its life is threatened. There is no overriding this because they don't have the capacity to do so.
(Also, as a side-note, nearly every other animal, maybe except for primates, has some method of self-defense: Fangs, teeth, claws, horns, antlers, hooves, etc. Humans have no such defenses. Don't tell me about punching and kicking, either, since most folks have no idea how to do that right without hurting themselves. Our primary method of self-defense is... yup, you guessed it, our fore-brain, since unlike animals, we can generally discern what is truly life-threatening and what is not, unless of course we have been conditioned otherwise.)
Another thing that separates us from animals is that we are virtually the only animal on the planet that kills its own kind. Snakes don't kill other snakes of the same species, even though they could. Dogs rarely kill other dogs. Virtually no other animal will kill another animal of the same species because the most important facet of an animal's being is the perpetuation of the species. There's some really fascinating reading on this subject if you care to go into it. I won't for the sake of time.
That said, in our mid-brain, we understand this. Call it what you want- spirituality, lawfulness, common sense- but we just know that it is wrong for us to kill another human being. It's deeper than that, but if you strip away all of the rationalizations, you basically will come to, "It's just wrong!" with most people. But remember what I said about our fore-brain?
As humans, we can override our mid-brain with our fore-brain, just as our mid-brain can sometimes override our fore-brain. This is why we are virtually the only species on the planet that will kill another of the same species: because we can rationalize it away.
So, where am I going with all of this, and how does our fore-brain overriding our mid-brain have anything to do with pacifism? Simple: we can become pacifists because of our fore-brain.
In other words, it is counter-instinctual to be a pacifist. I'll leave you to figure out the ramifications of the points I have just made. As you may be able to tell, you can go many directions with this.
But specifically pertaining to this point about what was said way up there about raising kids to be pacifists, by continuously overriding instinct, almost irreparable psychological damage has been done to a person. Judgment is altered. Reactions are altered. Discernment of risk is altered.
And that is one reason why no one stopped the VA Tech massacre... even when he stopped to reload.
So, moving to the point. Somewhere, he got involved in the VA Tech massacre discussion and said something incredibly profound and now there's a bit of a backlash. To make a long blog short, he simply asked the question why no one in VA Tech actually did anything to stop the killer. During that brief time, where he killed 32 students and then himself, he came into contact with dozens, possibly hundreds, of students. And not one of them did anything to stop him.
Apparently, no one tried to talk to him. No one tried to physically apprehend him. No one tried to rush him. No one tried to band together, a la Flight 93, to end his murderous rampage. That is an important question, I think, because it says a lot about what our parents are teaching our children.
In this discussion, he's been placed in the line of fire by a Lefty group, Media Matters. They posted a story, linked in Michael's blog, to what he said and what others have said.
One comment summed up what I think is the crux of how many people feel about violence. "I've never met a parent who did not teach their kids that it's OK to protect themselves and others. My wife was a pacifist and she and I raised our children to never fight, unless there is no other option." Sure, it sounds nice and makes you feel good. But it's dumb.
I've been trying to think of a word for stuff like this, for incomplete thoughts, or positions held about a certain idea that are just so out in left/right field that they are actually dangerous. The best I can come up with is "Not Thought," as in, not thought out, or not educated enough about a topic to be able to think something through. Tune in to future blogs for other Not Thoughts.
First, let me define Pacifism. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines it as:
1 : opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes; specifically : refusal to bear arms on moral or religious grounds
2 : an attitude or policy of nonresistance
So, right off the bat, this is not pacifism. It's non-confrontationalism. Or passiveness. Or just plain wimpiness.
The problem is, pacifism equals no violence. Period. Gandhi was a pacifist. MLK Jr. was a pacifist. They faced personal danger and death many times and at no time did they physically defend themselves. At any time, their opponents could have killed them with no resistance from Gandhi or MLK Jr.
What the person in the comment above is talking about is nonsense. See, in an effort to shield their children (and everyone else) from violence, they have not taught them how to use violence to actually defend themselves. No Karate. No Concealed Weapons permits. Heck, they probably don't even watch the Three Stooges. So, when the time comes to actually defend themselves, they are impotent, incompetent and inept. That is, of course, if they can actually discern when the time is right to defend themselves.
In a effort to pacify others, these so-called pacifists have taken away or paved over a person's primal instinct to defend themselves. (More on that later....) For years, this person has been taught that in no situation is violence appropriate. What do you think is going to happen when the "acceptable" time to use violence occurs? If a person has been trained to not defend themselves at any time, that is exactly what they will do. Furthermore, as we humans are terrible at determining risk to our own safety AND we see others as we see ourselves, it is unlikely that a pacified person will actually know when a situation is dangerous enough to actually defend themselves. And if the situation warrants a defensive action, well, the person has no tools to do so.
But let's go deeper than just conditioning. Let's move into the brain for a moment. There is a part of our brain that separates us from our dogs/cats/fish. It is the fore-brain. It is in the fore-brain that we rationalize, that we set goals, that we experience guilt and have the ability to socialize with others. Our dog can't do that on the level we can.
All animals have what is called the mid-brain. This is the instinct part of our brain, where we have fight-or-flight, or where we process certain instances of danger and how we determine that we are hungry or need to reproduce. Humans are the only animal in the world that can override their mid-brain... because we have a fore-brain.
It is the mid-brain that causes a snake to bite you when you step on it, or a dog to attack with no warning when you enter its territory. It is absolutely instinctual for an animal to react violently when its life is threatened. There is no overriding this because they don't have the capacity to do so.
(Also, as a side-note, nearly every other animal, maybe except for primates, has some method of self-defense: Fangs, teeth, claws, horns, antlers, hooves, etc. Humans have no such defenses. Don't tell me about punching and kicking, either, since most folks have no idea how to do that right without hurting themselves. Our primary method of self-defense is... yup, you guessed it, our fore-brain, since unlike animals, we can generally discern what is truly life-threatening and what is not, unless of course we have been conditioned otherwise.)
Another thing that separates us from animals is that we are virtually the only animal on the planet that kills its own kind. Snakes don't kill other snakes of the same species, even though they could. Dogs rarely kill other dogs. Virtually no other animal will kill another animal of the same species because the most important facet of an animal's being is the perpetuation of the species. There's some really fascinating reading on this subject if you care to go into it. I won't for the sake of time.
That said, in our mid-brain, we understand this. Call it what you want- spirituality, lawfulness, common sense- but we just know that it is wrong for us to kill another human being. It's deeper than that, but if you strip away all of the rationalizations, you basically will come to, "It's just wrong!" with most people. But remember what I said about our fore-brain?
As humans, we can override our mid-brain with our fore-brain, just as our mid-brain can sometimes override our fore-brain. This is why we are virtually the only species on the planet that will kill another of the same species: because we can rationalize it away.
So, where am I going with all of this, and how does our fore-brain overriding our mid-brain have anything to do with pacifism? Simple: we can become pacifists because of our fore-brain.
In other words, it is counter-instinctual to be a pacifist. I'll leave you to figure out the ramifications of the points I have just made. As you may be able to tell, you can go many directions with this.
But specifically pertaining to this point about what was said way up there about raising kids to be pacifists, by continuously overriding instinct, almost irreparable psychological damage has been done to a person. Judgment is altered. Reactions are altered. Discernment of risk is altered.
And that is one reason why no one stopped the VA Tech massacre... even when he stopped to reload.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Madam Speaker, come back!
Well, I'm a little late, but I think there's a couple things I could say that haven't been said yet.
If you haven't heard or read any of the story about the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) going to
What you haven't heard in the media is that the whole visit is completely illegal! Read this for more clarification.
The other thing that's not been mentioned anywhere that I've seen is the grave protocol error that she committed. See, in Muslim countries, women don't talk to men that aren't their husband. At least that's the way it's supposed to be. While
Saturday, April 07, 2007
My Political Slant
I think it's only fair that I post my political leanings on my blog (as if anyone reads anyway...) so that the reader can have a fair idea of where I am coming from when I post something political, like my next post will be.
I am a moderate conservative. But, I imagine most people would equate the word "moderate" with "reasonable," so that they themselves are moderate and everyone else to the right and left of them are Kool-Aid drinkers. So, by moderate, I mean that I share some standing with the conservative side, but I also share some standing with non-conservatives. ("Liberal" is apparently an offensive word to liberals, and I refuse to call them Progressives.)
I do listen to talk radio. If you didn't know any better, one would say that makes me unequivocably a right-winger. I listen to Air America when I can... stand... it. But I can barely stand to listen to the top two conservative hosts, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
See, there's a saying: "Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine." I've heard a couple variations of that saying, like replacing "things" with "people" and completely removing the clause about wine. If you've ever listened to those two guys, they mostly talk about people. Rush isn't so bad because he at least has some entertaining discussion on his show. But, Hannity... I can barely stand to listen to him when he has someone on his show with whom he disagrees. He baits them, he personally insults them and the dialogue basically degenerates from there.
Anyway, the two radio hosts I like the most are Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, in that order. There are lots of reasons I like them, but mostly because of their discussions, and Beck is soooo funny. He's got his own show on CNN, and that's very good, too.
For my own personal views, I try very hard to come up with views of my own. I read a lot, and I try to make sure that my views aren't just stuff I heard on the radio or read somewhere. I really try to evalute my opinions against other viewpoints. I do use what I hear and read to shore up my views, but I really try to evaluate my own views against other views, agreeing and opposing.
But, that's all I'll post for now. I'm sure you'll get a good idea of where I stand if you read more of my stuff.
I am a moderate conservative. But, I imagine most people would equate the word "moderate" with "reasonable," so that they themselves are moderate and everyone else to the right and left of them are Kool-Aid drinkers. So, by moderate, I mean that I share some standing with the conservative side, but I also share some standing with non-conservatives. ("Liberal" is apparently an offensive word to liberals, and I refuse to call them Progressives.)
I do listen to talk radio. If you didn't know any better, one would say that makes me unequivocably a right-winger. I listen to Air America when I can... stand... it. But I can barely stand to listen to the top two conservative hosts, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
See, there's a saying: "Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine." I've heard a couple variations of that saying, like replacing "things" with "people" and completely removing the clause about wine. If you've ever listened to those two guys, they mostly talk about people. Rush isn't so bad because he at least has some entertaining discussion on his show. But, Hannity... I can barely stand to listen to him when he has someone on his show with whom he disagrees. He baits them, he personally insults them and the dialogue basically degenerates from there.
Anyway, the two radio hosts I like the most are Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, in that order. There are lots of reasons I like them, but mostly because of their discussions, and Beck is soooo funny. He's got his own show on CNN, and that's very good, too.
For my own personal views, I try very hard to come up with views of my own. I read a lot, and I try to make sure that my views aren't just stuff I heard on the radio or read somewhere. I really try to evalute my opinions against other viewpoints. I do use what I hear and read to shore up my views, but I really try to evaluate my own views against other views, agreeing and opposing.
But, that's all I'll post for now. I'm sure you'll get a good idea of where I stand if you read more of my stuff.
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