The Dangerous Line

From such assorted people as Chuck Schumer, Mike Huckabee, Glenn Beck, Mahmoud Amendenijad, Bill O’Reilly, Ted Kennedy, John Hagee, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Michael Moore, Ann Coulter, Lou Dobbs, Keith Olbermann, Osama Bin Laden, three quarters of Western Europe, and Hugo Chavez comes the constant drumbeat of, well, when you add it all up, doom. If one is to listen to these sources closely enough, they either believe that America’s doom is coming soon or it has already begun.

Their reasons are as diverse as these people are themselves: the wrath of God, economic disaster, radical Communists, radical Fascists, radical anarchists, fundamentalist Islam, immorality, despair, arrogance, immigration, free trade, oil-dependency… you name it, they believe it is coming, or is already happening, and will be the end of our nation.

America has turned into a bit of a strange nation, in a way. One of our most successful predecessors, Rome, was very similar yet very different. Rome was a nation that, after a point, believed that it could not fall. America is the exact opposite: for years, we have been extolling, like radicals on the street corner, that “the end is near! Repent! Lower your taxes! Raise your taxes! Secure the border! Plant ethanol! Drill in ANWR! End the war! Win the war! Vote for change! Vote for the other change! Drive a Prius! Get a gun and go to the hills! Vote Democrat! Vote Republican!”

Whatever the lyrics, the music remains the same from the many angles of our doom. This strange asymmetry to our Roman predecessors is an extremely odd difference. The Romans stood by and turned a blind eye to their problems: extreme political corruption, hordes of Germanic immigrants/barbarians (your pick) crossing their borders without control, the Hunnic horde coming out of southern Russia, lowering birth rates, Scottish, Slavic and Nordic incursions throwing Britain, France and the Eastern European provinces into chaos, over-farming and food shortages, lack of economic production, intra-Christian division between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope of Rome, political division between the same two cities, and a military in utter disarray.

Rome watched some of these problems fester. Others, they simply ignored, or resigned themselves to be unable to stop. In any event, the Empire, of course, split into East and West. (It is interesting to note that the Eastern Empire survived another thousand years only by a strong economy, an extremely mobile and powerful military, religious uniformity, and closing its doors to immigrants.)

Many in the media try to draw lessons from these events. It is a worthy goal, to draw lessons from history. Yet what they lack is the balance of the truth: a nation convinced of its inevitable failure stands even less of a chance than a nation convinced of its inevitable survival. Though I do not believe in any case that the American people buy this pulp on the whole, I do believe that having raving idiots in the town square with megaphones decrying every inch of a town’s existence and harking for some kind of change, either a return to the good old days or to the Animal Farm ahead, is not helpful in any way.

This dangerous line, between acceptance of extremely difficult problems being a threat and believing that everything is the gravest threat mounting into Glenn Beck’s “perfect storm,” is enormously difficult to walk. Yet walk it we must, if our country is to survive. We will, of course, survive, I feel it pertinent to note. The question lays only in America’s status as the superpower that shapes the world. I wholly admit that, as always it is with such a position, is in a permanent state of challenge.

And yet, if we will ourselves to confront serious challenges of our time, we may weather the storms to maintain our position as the benevolent big brother of the world. 

A Quick Word on The Reverend…

“… and he’s (Obama) got to ask himself, how can he raise his children in an atmosphere where there is a circus for the media…” – Al Sharpton, regarding Obama leaving Trinity United.

I have but a two-sentence response: how can Obama raise his children in an atmosphere where there is a circus for racism, hatred of your country and your identity, and utterly reckless irresponsibility? And how can Reverend Sharpton turn a completely blind eye to the obvious realities of the situation (don’t answer that unless you want to see the raw, ugly truths of Us vs. Them politics, and racial tribalism at its worst modern form in this country)?

Obama’s Exodus, And What it Cannot Answer

I heard the news that Obama left Trinity United Church of Christ almost as soon as anyone else did, in the post-Pflager (the white Catholic priest who went on a racially-undertoned rant, stopping just short of calling Hilary Clinton a white supremacist) days.

Many seem to want to be satisfied, but thinking people like me, of course, generally aren’t. The primary reason I’m not satisfied regards the reasons Obama listed for leaving during his statement: he felt he was drawing too much attention to his church, making a scene and a frenzy for the media. People couldn’t worship in peace, you know.

It didn’t have to do with the fact that the new preacher, the man he praised as a “great young pastor” not only called Moses and Noah “pimps and thugs”, but furthermore praised Father Pflager after he openly mocked Hilary Clinton and called her racially prejudiced.

It didn’t have to do with the fact that the entire church was on their feet cheering, screaming and raving as their preacher screamed “God d*** America!” or the fact that they reacted the exact same way when he extolled the idea that the U.S. government created AIDS as a race-based killer to keep the black man down via genocide. That they cheered and roared when Wright stated that the U.S. Marines are doing the exact same things of Al Qaeda.

None of this was the reason Barack Obama left. He left because a church member or two got followed by the media as they left church.

I’ve got to say it: it’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard go so unchallenged by moderates and liberals. Conservatives hear it and realize, of course, that it’s a crock. Liberals have to stick by their nominee, so I suppose I can’t blame them for shoving their fingers in their ears and yelling about prejudice, racism and guilt-by-association. But why do the supposedly open and fair-minded moderates and independents ignore the fact that Obama just is not that offended by the idea that our Marines and Al Qaeda are the same? If you were at a church and your preacher, obviously greatly impassioned, stated that the U.S. government invented AIDS, the Marines and Al Qaeda had general moral equivalency, and uttered curses against America, how would you react?

What this all adds to, though, is the mystery of Obama. His mystery truly leads him to be the most apt politician we’ve seen in decades. He is, at his core, a man who is utterly and totally frozen over on the inside. He will stick to his guns no matter what, we have seen this in the Wright controversy. Even when he retreats, like when he leaves the church, he still finds a way to not back down, claiming that he’s doing it for glorious reasons, turning the excavation of truth by the media into errant offenses against mankind and making himself appear to be the bigger man by stepping away.

What is his strength is that he does not bend to public will. What is his deepest wrong, his deepest, most dangerous and pervasive lie, is that he intentionally appears to. Obama is the quintessential fake-listener. He hears, yet does not listen, and only cares so far as he may ride public opinion higher. He blatantly lies when he says he understands what was so offensive about Wright’s comments to Americans.

He does, in a way. He understands the surface: Americans like their country and don’t like it when it’s insulted. But that is where Obama’s fabled judgment, knowledge and genius stop. What Obama cannot hope to understand is that it is more than a simple offense to Americans.

What Americans despise so much about Wright and his preaching is that t is a lie. It is a lie to suggest what Wright has suggested, and furthermore, what Wright has said is the worst kind of lie: one that is born out of bitterness, rage, hatred and demagoguery. It is a lie that Wright tells himself because he finds it impossible to forgive wrong, because hatred has permeated his being and deepest essence. Worse yet, it is a lie that Wright tells children, children who shouldn’t have to grow up, insecure, angry, hate-filled and bitter. Children that CAN have the better tomorrow that true civil rights leaders promised, but are brought up believing that they cannot. They need not feel the angst, the depression, the fear, the anger, and the pain of the prior generations of African Americans. These are children that can have the true hope our country gives, not Obama’s cheap political imitation.

Yet they aren’t given that hope. Reverend Wright, Obama’s friend, mentor, father-figure, and “spiritual” leader, sees to it himself.

The reason we find Wright and that church so offensive is not because we like our country. It is because we deeply love it. We deeply respect it. And we are deeply angered when we see its promise in the children and people that heard those sermons, the Americans that heard those sermons, twisted, torn down and beaten. It is a lie, and furthermore, it is a lie that has no excuse, no explanation, no smooth words can skirt around it, no soothing baritone can assuage the justified outrage.

And that, if you care to listen to the American people, Senator Obama, is what you do not understand.

Look No Further Than Wright

This brings me to another point: to see why Obama is the man we have come to know, one needn’t look further than Chicago and Trinity United. As I just said, Wright crushes dreams, he crushes hopes, he crushes change. That is the core of his preaching.

Yet if he did that, you ask, wouldn’t Obama hate that church?

Not necessarily. In fact, it is my belief that this is what inspires Obama most deeply: he sees America like a large Southside of Chicago, seen through Wright’s lens. He obsesses on a dream, he obsesses on a hope, because he believes that, like Trinity’s constituency and blacks in Chicago, America has none of these things. It is what feeds his campaign, his personal drive, his enormous ego: he’s here to save us, to save this country, and to give hope to the hopeless.

And yet, in a strange way, he fuels hopelessness, for the time being. The more bitter you are, the angrier you are with America, the more likely you are to be voting for the man to fix it. People with guns and Jesus in small towns aren’t bitter; they’re normally bright and cheerful people. The people that sip fine wine in San Francisco with their friends before they drive to their fine home in their Prius are the ones that are bitter and unhappy, because they are voting for the change candidate, the hope candidate. To act like this either implies that you are arrogant enough to believe that you’re the only hope-filled, figured-it-out person in America (as Obama thinks he is), or you are angry and despairing with the way things currently work.

Obama’s entire philosophy is centered around the angst and pain of Chicago, compounded by the religious hacks like Wright as well as the political ones as well. Obama believes he saw the parting of the clouds, he saw the clearing of the fog, and he felt the light, and he realized that America is dying and thirsting for its savior to save it. That’s why he’s going to force you to be involved, he will pry that cynicism from your hands, he will draw you out to “believe again”. That is because, in his heart of hearts, he believes it must be done, and he must do it.

“Arrogance” doesn’t begin to describe it.

Barack Bush

Idealism. Dogged loyalty. Very little outward temper. A quick smile. Either eternally upbeat or deathly serious. Faith in man’s good side and ignoring of his bad. Stubborn as can be. Refusal to flex or compromise. Ultimate conviction that they are correct.

Who am I describing? I wonder myself. For every one of these qualities could describe either George W. Bush or Barack Obama. I’ve noticed, for a long time, that these two men have more in common than anyone has ever given them credit for. Of course, both of them have more numerous and obvious differences. They disagree on virtually every issue, and where Obama comes off as distant and brimming with a barely concealed ego in his speeches and press-exchanges, Bush comes off as friendly but uncomfortable. But their most striking similarity is in handling mistakes: play up everything that they’ve done that is right, and ignore (Bush’s preferred method, but sometimes used by Obama) or ridiculously rationalize (Obama’s preferred method, though sometimes used by Bush) what is wrong.

Barack Obama can’t disown Reverend Wright (or murderer William Ayers) any more than the black community, and Bush can’t disown an old attorney buddy who put two border patrol agents in prison for doing their job. These two cling to their loyalties for as long as humanely possible, no matter how mistaken they are. Both of them despise change, despite Obama’s claims to love it, as shown by the fact that they both recite today what they recited a year or two ago. Both are utterly convinced that they are on their permanent track to righteous victory over their mistaken opponents, and both are driven on by their respective dream-worlds, righteous Crusaders with unshakable belief in the causes they fight for.

I bring this up neither to compliment Obama nor to denigrate Bush. I say it because it is something no one else will say, but it is largely true. These two men, though they are so very, very different in the obvious ways, are subtly yet strikingly similar, when you think about it. So is that good or bad that the man who will possibly be our next president has the same core methodological ideals of our current one?

I happen to think it partially depends on what exactly they believe, and in that case, Bush has quite an enormous edge, obviously. But on the whole, their methods are dangerous at best, and disastrous at worst.

Corporate America

“That’s what we’re asking… We’re asking kids to not go into corporate America…” – Michelle Obama

“… In college, he [Barack Obama] explains, ‘I began to notice a world beyond myself.’ So while his friends were seeking jobs on Wall Street, he applied for jobs as a grass-roots activist. And one day, a group of churches in Chicago offered him a job as a community organizer for ‘$12,000 a year plus $2,000 for an old, beat-up car. And I took it.’”[1] –Excerpt from a William Kristol article in the New York Times, regarding Obama’s recent speech at a college graduation Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

I find something deeply fascinating about these quotes. There’s the obvious professed disdain for money, of course, that both subtly show. That’s fine and well, in one way. It is better to hate money than love it, I suppose, though better still to do neither.

What I find disturbing is that he and his wife don’t seem to think about what would happen if every “kid” followed their advice. They obviously thought enough regarding what would happen if every family followed their advice and ran their heaters less: the energy crisis would be solved!

So what would really happen if everyone followed the Obama’s advice and corporate America died? America would die with it. If there were no tariffs and protectionist legislation enforced, every country’s corporations in the world would move into our enormous market to fill the avoid: China, Japan, Britain, India, Germany, Russia, and Canada (Canada!) would come to dominate the U.S. market. Things would continue as normal, but America would no longer be a sovereign nation, of course.

If the proper radical protectionist sentiments that Obama laughs at Pennsylvanian voters for clinging to whilst he espouses their glory were enforced, then what would happen, would corporations to simply disappear? America probably wouldn’t fall back to the pre-corporations, early-1800s era. Instead, it would fall into the modern second or third world’s level. You could say goodbye to an efficient transportation business, for starters. Furthermore, oil production would drop radically, as would its quality and distributions. Interstate trade, as a result of trucking, shipping, aircraft and train industries utterly collapsing, would be almost completely destroyed. The internet, radio and telephone would be destroyed as effective communication, and postal services would face an enormous spike in prices as a result of more expensive oil.

Agricultural prices would face one of the biggest rises, and the distribution of food from fertile areas such as the Midwest to infertile areas such as much of the Southwest would become much more expensive, and food riots would ensue. America’s military would collapse as an effective force with the logistical ability to deploy overseas, as their weaponry and transportation costs would skyrocket and upkeep would be impossible. It would be all the government could do to move them home.

Next, the medical industry would be destroyed as we know it, and disease would greatly increase across the board, as the drug and medical technology industries would fragment and collapse. Technology like computers would cease to exist due to being luxury products high up in the pyramid, as would the enormous efficiency increases they bring to all life.

In short, America would die. Corporations, despite being hated by everyone in the country, are the most important entity and the greatest advancement and most lasting accomplishment of the Industrial Revolution that began 140 years ago.

Before Standard Oil, kerosene lamps killed thousands of people worldwide every year. It was a risk to read by an efficient, oil-made fire. Pollution made by coal-based fires was more dangerous than any kind of greenhouse gases we omit today. Ships and trains were infinitely less speedy and efficient than they are today, and the new, efficient oil opened the path for both automobiles and aircraft.

Before Carnegie Steel, the very infrastructure of society was frail and disorganized. Carnegie revolutionized his industry and made the entire foundation of every sidewalk and every railroad, the hull of every ship, the frame of every car, the barrel of every gun, the support of every building.

Before New York Central Railroad, transportation was accomplished mainly by simple wagons that took days to carry small loads anywhere. The trains were slow and disastrous wrecks due to disorganization were a constant. Today, we have the fruit of the greatest step forward in the transportation industry’s history due to William Henry Vanderbilt’s largely unsung mega-corporation.

Before Microsoft, there was no efficient way for the layman to operate a computer. Before Dell, computers were a luxury for big businesses. Before Wal-Mart, all kinds of every day appliances were unavailable to Americans everywhere. Before Ford, cars, too, were a luxury for the richest of the rich.

It is these corporations that effectively birthed the modern world. Most did not invent what they sold, but they took their products and made them more efficient than the inventors could dream of. Corporations did more and are doing more for the technological explosion between 1870 and 2008 than government could hope for. None of the men who made them were amongst the richest of the country when they started their corporations, but all ended up so by their dedicated work, a work that has furthered societal advance in the last 140 years than it did in the 2000 years prior to that.

It’s about time Mr. Obama gave them credit.

P.S. Karl Rove wrote an excellent article here, regarding McCain’s and Obama’s views on the Capitalism that drives America here, if you care for a bit more of a read:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121383441884986739.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

The Truth About Energy

Interesting fact I heard from Bill Sammon on Fox News: the United States currently produces 40% of its own energy. The fact that he followed up with is that, if we began to drill and tap the oil resources we have found right now, in 10 years, we could up that 40% by over 10%. Considering the size of the enormous oil cavern recently discovered deep under Colorado, I would guess myself that that estimate surely could be upped by another 10% over the 10 years after that.

By the year 2028, the USA could produce 60% of its own oil, a 1% increase every year. (In fact, with the rising alternative electric and more efficient cars, I suspect we in the USA won’t be needing as much energy in 2028 as we do in 2008, just as we need today exactly what we needed in 1978). Sounds like an amazing start to energy independence to me. The best part? The U.S. taxpayer wouldn’t pay a penny! The government has only to open up drilling in ANWR in Alaska and the Rockies area in Colorado, as well as for the oil underneath South Dakota and off the coasts of California and Florida, and the United States shoots off to energy independence, led by Exxon-Mobile and Shell, those evil, horrible oil companies that politicians like to bash.

Congress stands in the way of the United States opening up its own energy independence, and instead invests enormous subsidies into the fruitless alternative of ethanol, an energy so inefficient that it could not possibly succeed in the free market. All the while, George Bush, who strongly supports the ethanol subsidies, insists that Saudi Arabia increase its oil production, while ignoring the fact that the U.S. could, in 20 years, with his start, enter into the top three oil producers in the world (those three currently being Canada, Russia and Saudi Arabia). Why should our Arabian friends listen to us grovel for more production when we won’t even produce ourselves?

John McCain, too, is deeply disappointing in the realm of energy production. He claims that ANWR province is a “national treasure” like the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone Park.

Let’s get something straight: ANWR makes West Texas look like a pristine lake valley in Montana. It makes Oklahoma look like the Alps. I’ve seen pictures and video of the place on the National Geographic Channel, and it is one of the ugliest pieces of land I have ever seen. Flat, brown grass with permafrost beneath for as far as the eye can see in the summer (excluding the hordes of mosquitos that travel into the land in that time), and a frozen wasteland with temperatures dropping below –50 degrees in the Winter, where even the most adapted land animals to cold in the world, Polar bears, are driven into hibernation by the impossible cold.

ANWR is an irredeemable wasteland whose terrain is near-identical to most of Siberia’s, placing it along with the Sahara Desert and Antarctica as one of the most barren places on our planet. To compare it to the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone Park is, as much as I like John McCain, laughable.

ANWR is just the easy beginning of what we must do, however. An even more difficult cap to open up likes underneath Colorado. I’ve heard conflicting reports, but the first I heard of it is that it is suspected to be larger than every drop of oil combined from the Arabian peninsula. Make no mistake, it is very deep underground and would be difficult to tap for years, but it is the only true path to energy independence.

Yet most of our politicians oppose it. They, eventually, will not. I believe that within the next 8 years, no matter who is elected president, preliminary drilling procedures will begin. Politicians are rarely known for having spine, and as gas prices increase, the people are going to demand action. In this case, they’ll get it. What is sad is that I am not so confident in the situations in Florida, California, and South Dakota oil fields that wait to be tapped.

In any case, we also have reason to be positive regarding the energy situation as well: Saudi Arabia and our other buddies in the Middle East will pump oil for us for a long, long time, as will Great Britain, Nigeria and Canada. We, of course, will pump our own oil as well, and Venezuela is unlikely to stop for no reason. The United States’ oil supply, while in constant threat, is secure and becoming even more so, as the Surge cleans up Iraq and destroys Iranian influence there.

The United States, at least, has highly diversified oil interests around the world, and well-established trading partners providing for a majority of it. Europe, tied to Russia by an oil leash, and China and India, in a constant scramble for new resources to run their burgeoning economies, cannot say the same.

So be wary of oil-scare mongers such as Glenn Beck who have no stomach for the encouraging facts and would prefer to demagogue distrust of foreigners baselessly.

A Lesson in Irresponsibility by Scott McClellan

Perhaps some of you saw Bill O’Reilly’s interview with Scott McClellan on last week. Pretty interesting stuff! They sparred over continuous details regarding the Libby-leak, the Iraq War run-up, etc. (For the record, I have already seen Rob Novak, one of the best and most connected journalists in Washington, the man whom deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage leaked Plame’s name to in the first place, dismantle McClellan’s ridiculous assertions and ignorance as facts, and Karl Rove, too, has provided a strong defense for his part regarding the case).

What was most interesting, though, was when Bill O’Reilly made the point that McClellan’s book was going to be used by the hate-Bush/America crowd to baselessly attack Bush. Classic of a man who has difficulty seeing the world as a sphere larger than himself yet a sphere he can still effect, McClellan claimed that he couldn’t control what others did with his truth, but he had to speak it. O’Reilly first pointed out that McClellan merely was stating his opinion, a debatable truth, as opposed to facts. This, of course, opened it up to abuse by the anti-Bush press. McClellan shrugged.

It could be both admirable and shameful to do such things, and which one of these it is hinges upon motive. McClellan’s motives are incredibly questionable. Just a month or two before the book came out, McClellan communicated to Ari Fleischer, his predecessor as White House Press Secretary, that his book was going to be highly favorable and an effective defense of the Administration’s policies and their implementations.

Later, he admitted that his editor, part of an editing and publishing organization whose ties to ultra-left liberal activist George Soros are strong (O’Reilly’s research indicated that the publishing company publishes liberal books at an 8-1 ratio of conservative ones), tweaked it “slightly”.

Starting to sound shameful.

What McClellan must understand but perhaps does not is that he, as an official deeply involved both personally and publicly with the President, has words that are more notable than the average Joe such as myself, who can spout his opinions without worrying what others tend to think. He knew that the anti-Bush media would leap upon his book if he provided just a little anti-Bush words and just a little clouding of the truth around the Plame leak and its subsequent investigation.

He also must be an intelligent enough man to realize that a president sprinkling a little propaganda is a regular occurrence in war time. I’ve yet to think of a war in which it didn’t happen whatsoever, and truthfully, there’s nothing wrong with it, as long as the propaganda does not become outright lies. Our Executive Government has a right to make its case to its people regarding exterior threats, and to use the same tactics permitted to 527’s, corporations, public relations firms, and other politicians as individuals. Though the Executive Government is held to a higher standard, it has the most educated opinion of any part of America, and it is its duty to express that opinion. That, after all, is why we claim to elect leaders: leaders do not simply follow polls and conventional wisdom, they seek out new facts and truth to communicate to their followers. They educate as they are educated.

McClellan’s book did speak of a couple of truths: the pre-Surge Iraq policy was not effective, and neither was Bush’s Katrina policy. But a 12 year old could tell you that, much less a former White House Press Secretary who let his editor toss in a couple of sentences of non-controversial bashing of Bush (whilst knowing that the media would leap on the chance to turn non-controversial bashing into controversial betrayal).

McClellan was always a poor Press Secretary. I knew that before he wrote this book. He didn’t have Ari Fleischer’s lightning speed that gave him the gift of being able to leave reporters in a dazed silence by always being at least two steps ahead of them, nor did he have Tony Snow’s witty and endearing banter with the media. He wasn’t even the equal of Dana Perino, who hasn’t been a particularly good press secretary.

So why did he do it? Was it the fame he sought? Was it the chance to get back at Bush for wrongdoing? Was it to take out his own anger regarding his poor performance on the Administration? Was it the money he knew would flow into his coffers? Was it that he wanted to tell the truth, but was merely too stupid to do it correctly? Was it a mix of all of these?

I’m not sure. What I do know is that a good motive has a 1/5 chance of being his reason.

A pretty poor chance, if you ask me.

Beck Part 2

So I just saw Glenn Beck have the following exchange with Mary Matalin:

Beck: “So tell me, how will John McCain get a good Supreme Court justice through such a liberal Congress?”

Matalin: “Because John McCain has worked across the aisle before, and he can—”

Beck: “Like I care!”

If you can’t see the problem with Beck’s logic, I can point it out to you. If there is one gun between you and your enemy, and your enemy has it and your goals conflict, then how do you handle your situation? You speak with him and attempt to reason some kind of compromise. You’re not in a position to do anything other than that. McCain doesn’t have the gun, so he’s going to have to negotiate. So would you rather McCain negotiate for a conservative justice or Obama pass a liberal one with flying colors?

Why do I even need to ask that question? Why is Beck so utterly incapable of asking himself that question?

Rational people realize this situation for what it is: McCain will have to resort to soft-power to push his Supreme Court appointees through. He, unlike Bush, will not have a Republican majority (in fact, I feel it prudent to give McCain credit for his Gang of 14’s actions, as they led Samuel Alito, a justice who openly stated that there is no Constitutional right to abortion, to get onto the Supreme Court without a filibuster, a move the Democrats didn’t make because they knew McCain’s 14 moderate Senators and their further-right Republican friends would break it).

This is where McCain’s genius and knowledge of the Senate come into play, as well as his near-universal respect within that body. He may not be the next Lyndon Johnson, but he will know how to work with the Senate better than anyone since President Johnson. Someone who doesn’t do a lot of deep thinking, someone like Glenn Beck, thinks that’s a bad thing, and is reason to reject McCain. Someone who does do a little more thinking, like you and me, realizes that it’s sometimes better to have an effective person who agrees with you on many, many things in a position of power than an ineffective person who agrees with you on everything.

We also must realize that a smart person takes the cupcake that is in front of them now and waits and hopes for the cake, while an idiot rejects the cupcake whilst whining about the lack of a cake.

I’ve spun a bit off course, though. The point is that a conservative who, like Beck, wants conservative Supreme Court justices without negotiating in a liberal Senate, is like the child who wants the money without having to work the lemonade stand. Washington is not evil, unless you call compromise evil. But it is a city where things need to get done, and people in disagreement need to get things done, they’ve got to give and take a little.

We’ve got to work the lemonade stand a little to get a more conservative government. That’s something Beck willfully misunderstands, a willful misunderstanding that is shameful given his prominent standing within the media.

What is even more saddening, however, is how normal it feels to me to put “misunderstanding”, “shameful”, and “media” in the same sentence.

A Word from Krauthammer Regarding Obama

“As public financing is not a principle dear to me, I am hardly dismayed by Obama's abandonment of it. Nor am I disappointed in the least by his other calculated and cynical repositionings. I have never had any illusions about Obama. I merely note with amazement that his media swooners seem to accept his every policy reversal with an equanimity unseen since the Daily Worker would change the party line overnight -- switching sides in World War II, for example -- whenever the wind from Moscow changed direction.

The truth about Obama is uncomplicated. He is just a politician (though of unusual skill and ambition). The man who dared say it plainly is the man who knows Obama all too well. "He does what politicians do," explained Jeremiah Wright.

When it's time to throw campaign finance reform, telecom accountability, NAFTA renegotiation or Jeremiah Wright overboard, Obama is not sentimental. He does not hesitate. He tosses lustily.

Why, the man even tossed his own grandmother overboard back in Philadelphia -- only to haul her back on deck now that her services are needed. Yesterday, granny was the moral equivalent of the raving Reverend Wright. Today, she is a featured prop in Obama's fuzzy-wuzzy get-to-know-me national TV ad.

Not a flinch. Not a flicker. Not a hint of shame. By the time he's finished, Obama will have made the Clintons look scrupulous. ” – Charles Krauthammer

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/the_evermalleable_mr_obama.html

I need say nothing about Obama’s flip-flops of late. Dr. Krauthammer has said all there is to say.

A Word on Fascism, and What to do if Someone Calls You a Fascist

Whilst reading the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, it really hit me how many times America’s ideological foundation has been threatened. The most recent and obvious example, of course, is the Islamic fundamentalists like Al Qaeda. Their ideas are largely unclear to me, to be honest, as they are to most everyone. Their cause is also the first cause rooted in traditional religion to attempt to overthrow American ideas, which makes it even stranger.

When I talk about American ideals, I mean the things that this nation has always held dear to its heart, though we’ve sometimes been guilty of hypocrisy on them. Here they are:

1. The ultimate equality of every man and woman.
2. The belief that the free market is generally (though not always) the answer to economic problems.
3. Our inherent belief that the individual is responsible for his own actions and he must be allowed to choose those actions and take responsibility for them in general.
4. That government must be representative of its people and must be restrained by a system of checks and balances.
5. That government should play a small role in the lives of Americans, whether it be in how they act or believe or in how they invest or spend their money.
6. That church and state ought to be separated and have different areas of power.

Those six ideas, as I understand it, sum up the foundation of this country as well as Classical Liberalism, which is what every one of the Founding Fathers believed in theory (though I must state that they did not agree, largely, with the implication of the first statement with regard to blacks).

These things are obvious enough to many Americans (though there have always been people who have strongly doubted, or outright disregarded, one or two of those principles). In fact, whether conservatives realize it or not, that is what we fight to conserve: Classic Liberalism (ironic, isn’t it?) 

The historical exterior challenges mounted to classic liberalism were most serious in the forms of Communism and Fascism. Now, for definition, Communists and Fascists aren’t all that different. They’re also two words that are thrown around far too much and not given enough context. So to help you understand what they mean, I can explain them both individually:

Communism is the ultimate “left-wing” form of government. Communism’s main tenet is that all property must belong to the community, the collective group. In communist nations there is no individual property, and the ultimate goal is for there to be no individual will but instead a collective one. It is essentially radical socialism, based on the anti-upper-class sentiments of Karl Marx. Communism has always felt that the workers of the world must unite against the oppressors. In this way, it is the most revolutionary of ideologies in that there is perpetual revolution. This is what makes it liberal (liberals, at their core, believe that new change is almost unequivocally good). Most liberals aren’t communists, but all communists are liberals. The quote from Karl Marx that best sums up Communism is this: “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

Fascism, a more complex beast, has often been cast as the ultimate form of “right-wing” government. This is largely untrue. (The ultimate form of “right-wing” government, as the American conservative sees it today, truly is anarchy, meaning no government, but that’s another story for another day.) Fascism’s historical application has actually been quite bipartisan: Italian fascisms of the early 1900s through World War 2 promised a “third way” meaning no partisanship, just what works. Fascism spawned out of people who were intensely practical; namely, the Progressives of the late 1800s (whom modern liberals speak of with nostalgia). The Fascists despised the left-right gridlock of American, Italian, Spanish, German etc. politics; effectively despising legislatures in general. This led to the idea of fascism: a focus on effectively solving problems through a very strong, unified and non-representative government. (Fascists, like almost all extremists, are hopelessly idealistic. They claimed that they could make the kind of good government that would listen to its people without annoying Congressmen and voting.) Fascism was, much like Communism, very much focused on socialism as well and despised the upper-classes. Whereas Communists dream of the workers of the world uniting, Fascists dream of the workers of each country uniting behind the country. Mussolini’s quote that best sums up Fascism is this: “everything within the state, nothing outside the state.”

That leads me to another point about Fascism: it’s extremely nationalistic. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism (Hitler made a strong distinction of himself as a nationalist, not a patriot): nationalism focuses on words like “blood”, “people”, “destiny”, “race”, etc. while patriotism focuses on “ideals”, “country”, “freedom”, and “righteousness”. In other words, nationalists make an odd sort of reversion to tribal instincts and the blood of their people, whereas patriots focus much more on the modern nation and its values. I, a patriot, love America. Hitler, a nationalist, loved the German people. (Most liberals have trouble making the distinction, and so think that Hitler was a patriot like Conservatives are patriots. This is one link they draw between Bush and Hitler.)

Nazism fits into all of this by being an extension of Fascism. It was once said that Nazism is not a coherent ideology or belief, but a torrent of “hatred, passion, rage, prejudice, lust, and strength,” that is disguised as an ideology. Nazism takes racism to the next level, as well as the nationalistic tendencies I mentioned above. Hitler despised Germany as he saw it: he hated capitalism, the upper-classes, the Jews, the Communists, etc. whom he felt were ruining the greatest people (not nation, but people) on earth.

The argument that Hitler was a “conservative” is ludicrous, on two grounds. First of all, the modern right in America believes in less government, Hitler believed in more (with gun control, national healthcare, mandatory public schools, a smoking ban, etc. Hitler wanted more government in everyone’s life). America’s modern right defends vehemently the free market and capitalism on the grounds that it is the most efficient economic system ever made, and it’s completely true. Hitler hated capitalists and the free market, being a socialist. Hitler hated the establishment of rich folks and a government with checks and balances as well as Germany’s constitution, America’s modern right defends all of those American counterparts. Finally, Hitler hated traditional religion (something most modern American conservatives hold dear to them, in both theory and practice) and wanted it to be replaced by his nationalism.

The differences between Hitler (and Mussolini’s Italy) and the modern American right are very clear, and this is why no one should call you a Fascist.

The Truth About Why Obama is Winning

How Obama is winning has been a question of great matter to me lately. I just can’t stop thinking about how on earth he’s still continued this amazing climb of his despite his series of gaffes and things that would destroy any other politician.

His African blood certainly isn’t hurting him: guilty white youths are anxious to atone for the sins of their fathers, black people are dying to elect “one of their own” to the White House, and latte-liberals, too, remain guilty about race. But that alone is not nearly enough for him to overcome all of these things. Obama’s race is also helping him greatly with regards to the ancient problem of the McGovern/Stevenson style latte-liberal, far-left, upper-class Democrat. These Democrats have traditionally had great trouble with a generally cynical black vote. Obama takes blacks instantly while also picking up the students, rich, naïve whites, and, frankly, air headed moderates that the traditional far-leftist can reel in.

One could pass it off on the overwhelmingly pro-Obama media. This, too, has merit: the backlash over the ABC moderators, George Stephanopolous and Charlie Gibson, asking many questions in the debate about the many controversies surrounding Obama. (Rob Novak stated that, having watched every presidential debate since the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon one, he had never seen a candidate challenge the moderator’s authority and grounds for asking such questions; Obama did it at least eight times.) Mainline media bias is definitely aiding Obama. But this, even when combined with his being half-black, is again not enough to make up for all of his mistakes.

The third of the four reasons for Obama’s Teflon jacket is the man’s talent for words and talent for shifting around as much as need be. In every controversy, he has shown the adept ability to slither around it like a snake, mixing excuses, outright lies, and foggy-half truths with the real truth to dilute his whole response to a point of inexplicable elasticity. He can stretch it as far as he needs to (as shown by his claiming to denounce Reverend Wright, when he truly only denounced a few of Wright’s comments) to cover anything. Then, with his questioner and listener sufficiently confused by his foggy answer, he can say, “but you know, let’s move on, let’s move to a politics of hope and not of criticism, etc.” He has done this extremely well with every controversy, and this is another reason he’s been so invincible.

(A slightly less obvious but still great aid to Obama amongst moderates is his voice itself. In the paraphrased words of Mark Steyn, National Review columnist, Obama’s Marxist words about redistributing the profits of the oil and pharmaceutical corporations can all sound so reasonable when he uses his silky baritone, even as we forget the economic foundation of the free market and right to do what we please with our money, one of the pillars of America. Another example is his suggestion that his Supreme Court picks’ most important attribute will be to simply understand the problems people are having, tossing out the entire notion of objective law-enforcement, a second pillar of America and any other good nation in history.)

The fourth and final reason is something most people don’t talk about: this entire nation is simply sick of and disgusted by the Clintons. This wave of Obamania that began in Iowa back in January has swept over the country, and it is in no small part due to the uneasy dissatisfaction with the Clintons within what are now Obama’s three key constituencies: blacks, high-income liberals, and young voters. The Clinton’s great mistake is that they built a domination of the Democratic party on a proverbial throne of bayonets. The problem with thrones of bayonets is that while they’re handy in the short term, you can’t sit on them for long. Sooner or later, some young upstart is going to come out of nowhere and displace you, due to the dissatisfaction the people have with your rule. That is exactly what is happening to the Clintons, and essentially, that is why I believe that this election has been basically over since Super Tuesday: no matter what she says, almost no matter what he does, at the end of the day, he’s Barack Obama and she’s Hilary Clinton.

And that’s why this election is over, when it comes down to it.

Hindsight on Iraq

Republicans don’t often talk about the elephant in the living room of this whole Iraq affair: whether we should have gone in or not in the first place. It’s obvious enough to about 95% of Republicans that staying is a necessity, but should we have gone in? I think some 80% of Republicans supported it at the time, but how many of us are having second thoughts? I know I am. It was highly convincing at the time and I think we made the right call with regards to the intelligence that we had.

But what if we’d known that Iraq evidently didn’t have or, at least, didn’t have nearly as many WMD’s as we had thought (they may have been there, they may still be there, but it looks as if, until further notice, most of our intelligence was flawed)? What if we’d known that Iraq’s ties to terrorists weren’t nearly as strong as Iran’s? Assuming we’d know all that, what would we have done differently?

I now believe that going into Iraq was a mistake. Not a terrible one, but in hindsight, two other countries warranted more serious consideration, in my view: North Korea and Iran. Iran warrants such consideration for its meddling in Afghanistan as well as its attempted bullying of the Persian Gulf Arab states, all U.S. allies. Iran’s continued support of anti-Israeli terrorist organizations is another factor.

Those are all convincing enough on the surface, but most of Iran’s sins didn’t happen until the Iraq war did. (I’m not excusing them or saying they wouldn’t have happened eventually, I’m just saying that we had no idea if they’d happen in Spring of 2003.) That’s why I believe North Korea should’ve been the target of a U.S. invasion, if one had to happen.

North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006. Prior to that, it had been repeatedly beating its chest about its nuclear program and how it would soon have a nuclear weapon. North Korea was bragging about its most powerful of WMD’s while Saddam was suing for his own innocence in that area. Nuclear proliferation is the most important foreign-policy issue of our time. So why wasn’t North Korea’s nuclear program, clearly much further along than Saddam’s WMD programs, given more attention?

Many reasons made North Korea a much more complex issue than Iraq. To start, North Korea’s military was and is infinitely more efficient and competent than Saddam’s in 2003 Iraq. Of course, I doubt it’d last more than 2 months against the combined United States and South Korean forces, but the military casualties on all would’ve been much, much heavier. That’s bad PR, as you know, and ever since Desert Storm, Americans have been spoiled to the kind of low-casualty, quick and clean wars that come two or three times a century.

Even more complicating was the issue of civilian casualties. Though it’s difficult to gauge city’s populations for a number of reasons, I’m pretty sure the general consensus is that the world’s six largest cities are Shanghai (China), Tokyo (Japan), New York (I hope you know), Seoul (South Korea), Sau Paulo (Brazil), and Mexico City (I hope you know this one, too). Seoul is the immediate target of North Korea’s aggression. That’s because it is only about 20 miles south of the North Korean-South Korean border, well within range of North Korean conventional artillery. Seoul would take great damage inevitably and would also possibly be the target of a nuclear weapon (if not, Tokyo, a city which, with its outskirts, isn’t much smaller than California in population, would be next in line).

Basically, it would get very messy very fast, if the United States’ air force couldn’t take out North Korea’s nuclear launch sites fast enough. However, North Korea had no known nuclear weapons in 2003. Conventional weapons could possibly have harmed South Korea and even Japan, but not anything like nuclear ones would.

Ah, but North Korea didn’t have anything to do with terrorists, you might say!

North Korea actually had everything to do with terrorists, simply because they are terrorists. In fact, like the Taliban, they are the worst kind of terrorists: those who have unlimited power to enforce their terror over a large population. Al Qaeda’s most efficient terror is a few car bombs, or, when they’re at their evil “best”, an attack like 9/11. The North Korean government holds an entire country under lock and key. All the horrors of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany combined live on today in North Korea: concentration camps, dissidents being tortured and murdered, the total repression of free speech or religion, the lack of any real press, etc. North Korea gets so little attention for these things because it gets so little attention in general due to its existence as the most sealed nation in the world. What comes in is completely controlled and minimal. What goes out is almost nothing.

The most pertinent point regarding the idea of invading North Korea instead of Iraq is that an invasion of North Korea would not advance the War on Terror. That’s true, in a way. However, I do ask you, in the long term: what do you think North Korea’s going to start doing when it has significant stockpiles of nukes? What would help its permanently-struggling economy? To sell them, of course, or at least their technology. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda, Russian separatists, Hamas, Libya, Venezuela, Cuba… it doesn’t matter to the Koreans.

(The Saudi Arabians will be the first in line, partially due to their great wealth. If a Democratic president is elected in 2008, the Saudis will have extra incentive to purchase a nuclear weapon, as that means that the U.S. has a much smaller commitment to winning in Iraq and protecting them, and it means Iran is almost guaranteed to get nuclear weapons; something that scares the daylights out of the Saudis.)

If Al Qaeda gets its hands on a North Korean nuclear weapon, as difficult as that would be compared to the higher bidders out there, or learns how to build a weapon from North Korean scientists, we’re going to find out just how much North Korea has to do with the War on Terror real fast.

What’s worse is that North Korea is possibly already setting off a chain reaction in the Far East. We don’t know for sure, but it’s not a stretch to imagine South Korea, Japan and Taiwan getting edgy about China and North Korea (one country bent on an empire of sorts and another country with a crazy rogue dictator who cares nothing for his people) being the only two countries with nuclear weapons in their region. Much like with the Saudi Arabian-Iranian relationship, if America is not committed to defending its friends against the bad guys, they’re going to defend themselves, likely by obtaining nuclear weaponry. (I have no problem with countries being able to defend themselves, but you can’t keep increasing the number of nuclear armed nations without limit and expect nobody to use one eventually.) And why should Japan, South Korea and Taiwan trust us when Iraq couldn’t (that is, if a Democrat is elected)?

Make no mistake, I support winning in Iraq unconditionally and don’t regret it too much. I simply feel taking care of the North Korean problem is greater in the United States’ long term interests as well as the world’s. Iraq, however, if we win it, will have turned out to not be the kind of mistake that I wish we could make all the time: we will have drawn Al Qaeda into semi-open conflict and beat them soundly in a country whose religious and ethnic stability is much worse than any other country in the world (a dream scenario for Al Qaeda). If we do that, Iraq may have indeed turned out to be the better choice. If not, it’s going to have been an awful one.

East and South Asia, however, are where the U.S. needs to turn its eyes to next.

Obama’s Wright Problem Returns

Barack Obama’s latest troubles include our old friend, Reverend Wright. Wright has now resurfaced, looking, if possible, even more crazed, angry and ignorant than before. This time, he did it in front of the National Press Club and, whilst cheered wildly on by many blacks present, mocked Dick Cheney’s patriotism, obviously regretted nothing, and reiterated his prior points.

Further compounding the situation, a new piece of a sermon preached in 2003, evidently, has emerged. In this one, our favorite preacher is expressing his hate for the war in Iraq. But that’s not it: he goes on to speak of how the U.S. Marines, or rather our U.S. Marines, are the “exact same as Al Qaeda, doing the exact same things as Al Qaeda under a different flag”. He also says we are doing the same holy war as Al Qaeda and simply praying to a different God. Keep in mind that Wright did not say this newly at any of his recent media engagements, but instead said this years ago. Obama also has not, to my knowledge, denied hearing this directly in the church (I’ve not seen him asked about it).

How has Obama reacted? He’s hurt. Hurt that Wright is personally betraying him and their relationship has now changed. Not because Wright said anything new. (The only thing he said new was the idea that black children have a wholly different way of learning than white children because of a fundamentally different mind, in the context of it as an excuse for black children being less successful than whites in school.) Obama is mad because Wright has now said it likely in direct defiance of Obama’s pleas with him to shut up and go away. This textbook case of narcissism speaks clearly: Obama can tolerate anyone as long as they hate someone or something other than him, but when you take the fight to his door, it angers him. Well, “anger” isn’t truly the right word, I think. “Offended” is much better for describing his demeanor. (I wonder sometimes if Obama is actually capable of any anger, so above-it-all he thinks himself.) Basically, he’s ok with it when his crazed Rottweiler is mauling his neighbors, but it is only when it bites him that he takes it seriously.

Even more telling is Obama’s statement that this Wright is “not the man I knew 20 years ago.”

Oh, really? Because Wright now doesn’t have the grace to keep his radical views to himself and help a brother out, and instead is saying these things repeatedly and in the open to the detriment of Obama? Obama’s sudden repulsion is laughable. Does he think that just because something was said a long time ago, it can be shrugged off, even if the person doesn’t apologize or change his mind? That would be consistent with the fact that Obama has “friendly” relations with an ex-domestic terrorist, William Ayers, who says he didn’t do enough to take down the United States. His excuse for that is “I was 8 years old when he bombed the Pentagon.”

And I was 4 years old when Timothy McVeigh bombed Oklahoma City. If he were still alive, never caught, and wishing he had done more, I would never so much as shake his hand. Not when I’m 17, not when I’m 77. Obama’s calling age as an excuse is essentially making the statement “I didn’t know about it when it happened, so it’s ok for me to continue to pretend to not know about it now, even though I know about it.”

The average six year old has better logic than that.

In conclusion, all of these things are, again, not a question of patriotism but of judgment and perspective. We have a man running for president who’s only offended enough to get off of his rear by “God D*** America,” only offended by “the U.S. Marines and Al Qaeda are the same,” and “the government created AIDS to kill off people of color,” when they are to his harm during a campaign, not when they are made in a sermon to a congregation of thousands, including children. He’s a man who thinks that because he was 8 years old when William Ayers was murdering and destroying out of hate for this country, it’s an excuse for being friendly with Ayers 35 years later.

And he’s the exact same man who wants to sit down and have tea with Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il, and Mahmoud Amendenijad, murderers and dictators all (the last two of which, it is important to note, have attempted to spread nuclear technology to anti-American states and have killed many American soldiers by supplying insurgents with weaponry in Iraq, respectively). He’s the same man that wishes to be the most powerful individual in the world. The same man to run your healthcare, run a war for our freedom, jostle with Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao for global supremacy, keep our military running, and protect this country from Osama Bin Laden and company.

You make the call.

Limbaugh

While listening to Rush Limbaugh today, I heard him have a conversation with a caller who was denouncing Limbaugh’s comments that we Republicans “want there to be riots in the street like 1968” at the Democratic convention. The caller’s points were numerous: he first made the point that people and property get damaged in riots. After that, he stated that it’s going to look bad to the rest of the world if we’re having riots over elections here in the heart of democracy. Finally, he said that’s not what we want because we want unity, not division in our country.

I thought his points were pretty good, on the whole, especially the first and second. Rush, however, decried the second and third. I agree somewhat with Limbaugh regarding the third point: division within the Democratic Party is not the same as division within the country. However, the conclusion Rush further drew is that America is not about unity: it’s about ideas competing and forcing their way through the process to see who will win. That’s only honestly true as it pertains to peace, and that is something we miss here in America: democracy, freedom, and war are a trio of events/ideas that exist extremely tenuously. During all of America’s wars, there have only been three in which Americans did not have a complete outpouring of support for the war: Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. See a pattern? A tie, a loss, and an undecided, as of now.

My point is that in modern war, only the state who controls and combines the political, economic and military forces of its territory may win. Any country who lacks any of these three components will lose a war against an opponent who has them. The Soviet Union combined all three by having them be one, during the Second World War: political propaganda and anger towards the Germans fueled the Russian people to support the war unhesitatingly, the Soviet economy was simply another branch of its government, and its military was easily in the top 5 most effective of all time. The United States created an equally effective military through great support for the war, and an amiable and respectful relationship between government and business.

To call upon division as Limbaugh blatantly does is excellent, commendable and preferable in peace, but in war, it is to invite disaster. Douglas MacArthur, a man who knew a thing or two about war, once said that “it is fatal to enter a war without the will to win it.” Another man who knew something of war, Abraham Lincoln, once famously stated that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” (though perhaps this quotation was targeted not at war but at running a country, it applies to war as well). We cannot win a war without at least 80% of the public behind it, and that is why unity is so critical now.

The caller’s second point, that question of what the world will see when they see the Democrats rioting in the streets, was another highly valid one. Limbaugh, characteristic of his simplistic analysis of foreign policy, said “screw the world!” of course, asking the caller if he was just “trying to please the Europeans.” He took the caller’s point wrong, in my opinion. Of course we shouldn’t make our decisions or care much what the Europeans think: they already hate us. They always will, most likely. Europe is not the world, however. In fact, it is very, very far from it. What does it say to Iraq? What does it say to Afghanistan? What does it say to struggling Africans who wish to democratize their countries? What does it say to Venezuelans? What does it say to the Tibetans who struggle for freedom? What does it say to Russian democrats who are hoping to some day be like us? What happens when Iran and North Korea play videos and show images of the riots to their people as propaganda? Limbaugh doesn’t answer that because he still thinks that when you talk about what the world thinks, you’re worrying about Germany, Britain, and France.

The Europeans may draw whatever conclusions they please: they are allies, trading partners and little else. In fact, it is Limbaugh whose conclusions about Europe’s importance are wrongheaded: their individual importance is already eclipsed by the United States, Russia, Japan, China and India. Japan and China are extremely major U.S. trading partners, Russia still holds the distinction of being the only other major nuclear superpower in the world, and the up-and-coming India is the world’s largest democracy. Indeed, why do we still focus so much of both our like and dislike, approval and disapproval, love and hate, on our Western European partners? I’m not entirely sure.

In any case, though, riots at the Democratic convention, while they may be in Republican’s best interests, are not in America’s best interests.

Beck

There was a time long, long ago, in a living room not too far away, when I saw Glenn Beck’s TV show and found him refreshing, insightful and entertaining. Alas, that day is no more. Beck is known for his passionate warnings (read: alarmism) and fancies himself a great whistleblower when no one else is. I once called Glenn Beck an airhead, and I stand by that statement. Beck is not a stereotypical airhead, understand me, but he is the type of airhead that, like most conservative talk show hosts, has no stomach for facts and objective truth. Furthermore, he’s also a terrible debater (like most talk show hosts), which is why 9/10 guests he invites on he invites on to agree with him. His lack of understanding is especially scary when he doesn’t know his own power.

My biggest quibble with Beck is his handling of our economic “crisis”. He blows the horn every night, sounding the evils of our impending depression (he sometimes says it will be worse than the Great Depression) and warning us all that our economy is going down in flames. By the way, our culture is going down in flames due to illegal immigration, all the liberals are fascists that are trying to take us down, Hilary Clinton is a raging Communist, big business is waging an enormous conspiracy to destroy America’s sovereignty, and Iran has the power right now to annihilate the United States in two weeks. That’s what you’d think if you watched Glenn Beck’s show.

Like any good lies, all of these have some truth to them. Our economy is in a bit of trouble, our culture is degrading slightly due to illegal immigration, some liberals are fascists whether they realize it or not, Hilary Clinton harbors some Communistic tendencies, big business is unintentionally damaging our nation’s sovereignty to some small degree, and Iran is a threat. But that’s the problem with Beck: not only does he hardly ever dwell on solutions, but he overstates problems to such an enormous level that they sometimes are self-fulfilling prophecies.

Take the economy. Beck has been saying it’s all going to crash soon, as have a couple of others, and he complains that others won’t say it in public but know it. No, Mr. Beck, this little slow in growth (that’s what it is, a slow in growth, we have not had net decrease in GDP in years upon years) is not the start of the next Great Depression. It is going to be worse than it might be because of people like you complaining 24/7 about how awful it is, even when it’s not that awful. The market is all about perception: it’s what influences stock purchases, money spending, etc. and that’s what runs the market. Beck and others raging about how awful it is will NOT help under ANY circumstances.

Another smaller complaint I have with Beck is his decrying the raunchy commercials advertising some new TV show on one of those really-high numbered channels that’s pretty sexual. Fair enough. The problem is that he’s showing the ads all over on his TV show, just like Bill O’Reilly does (I can only hope that Beck didn’t show it over… and over… and over… and over like O’Reilly does). How are you supposed to combat them if you don’t show them? I’m not really sure. But I have another question: how are you supposed to combat them if you do show them? Is Beck’s aim even to combat them, or is he trying to turn heads and gain viewers, both of the “Jesus wouldn’t like that, I wish this was the old glory days, America is a bunch of pagans today,” type and the “wow, cool!” type? What’s he trying to accomplish? Raised awareness? What’s that awareness going to do? What is Beck thinking?

Probably not much. Beck has stated that the rationale for his program is that most people already know the news of the day before the 6-7 time slot, they just want to know what to think about it. If only his program acted upon this. When you watch his show, you’re not being told what to think or do about the news of the day, you’re being shown the personal reaction of an entertaining guy to the news that day. That’s all it is.

Perhaps people like that, evidently quite a few do. I, however, watch the news to get a mix of learning and learnt opinions regarding the facts. That’s the same reason I subscribe to the National Review and Weekly Standard: intelligent, well thought out opinions being expressed in a rational ways detailing both a start of a problem or success, the middle of it, and their recommendation to end the problem or prolong the success.

Which is why, I am sad to say, I no longer intend to take Glenn Beck seriously.

 Democracy and Dreams

We in America profess strongly our love for democracy in all kinds of ways. We love our democracy dearly, or so we claim, but why is it that a man who acts as if it is completely ok for someone to be ashamed of our political process is the frontrunner of the presidential race? When Michelle Obama espoused her idea that she had not been proud of our political process since she became an adult (though she initially, of course, claimed to not be proud of our country at all until her adulthood), Obama jumped in to clarify that she meant our political process, as if that would make it all ok.

Why isn’t she proud of it? If you profess that democracy is the greatest system of government in history, shouldn’t one be proud of the most perfected form of it in the world, which is the United States’ political process? But she’s not. Why? I can only produce one answer: because we’re not perfect.

That is the great problem with dreamers in a democracy. They are dissatisfied, disappointed, and ashamed of anything less than perfection in all things. They are particularly dangerous in a democracy or any place that is not rigorously ordered because they will espouse their ideology and ideas, some of which are highly dangerous, everywhere.

Case in point: Russia during World War 1. Czar Nicholas II of Russia had a weakening grip over his vast, heavily populated country after its defeat at the hands of the Germans. Ideological dreamers we now call Communists ran wild, espousing their belief in a perfect government. After the war, the Russian Royal family was too weakened to maintain order, and was overthrown by the Communist rebels. We know the story from then on out, and this is simply one example of a dream, so noble on the face of it, gone horribly wrong.

I’m not making the case for the Czars, though their government was undoubtedly was many times less harsh than Communism. I’m making the case that anyone who says anything, including and even especially government, can be perfect, or even 95% perfect, is wrong and that idea is deeply dangerous. I’m making the case for satisfaction (something I think America has lost sight of entirely for the past 60 years) with the greatest democracy, the greatest government, ever seen by men. Contrary to what Hilary Clinton says, some people have gotten things by dreaming, but these things received were as often evil as they were good, regardless of the moral content of the dreams.

The Obama’s dream is that of a people whose hope is in the Obamas. That is the simple truth of it. Think about it. When Obama says, “I’m not asking people to take a chance on me, I’m asking them to take a chance on their dreams and aspirations,” he’s repackaging the ancient political request, “vote for me” to make it sound much more glamorous (and I wouldn’t go beyond accusing him of playing the race card in that sentence, after all, what other dream could he be talking about than an African-American president?) What are you really doing, by taking a chance on dreams? You’re voting for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Period. There’s no getting around it. He is asking you to take a chance on him, no matter what he says, because that’s where his ideas lead to via a logical progression. You will vote for Obama if you are to take a chance on your dreams because Obama is your dreams and aspirations.

All of this dreaming is dangerous for many reasons. The first of these reasons involves the most fundamental difference there is between liberals and conservatives: liberals believe America is inherently flawed and must be fixed by government, conservatives believe America is inherently good and must be allowed to work its further good by the government. That Obama acts as if his wife’s shame about our political process is completely acceptable puts him firmly inside the liberal side of that divide. The dreaming is dangerous, then, because if our electoral process, one of the cleanest and best in the world, is shameful and must be fixed by government, where does that take us, exactly? How is Obama going to improve it? Given his professed extraordinary taste for politics of any kind but a vague “hope”, I am left with some very dark thoughts.

Should all of this danger stop us from ever dreaming? Of course not. We may dream away, in a realistic context. My point is that this dream that Obama is selling must be scrutinized to the utmost degree, because the dream of his, the dream of a Kingdom of Heaven on earth and a perfect government bringing it, is a dream that has killed millions and destroyed nations. Scrutinized does not meant rejected, necessarily, though it probably will, but it means we must look with a jaded cynic’s eye on everything a politician says. Obama, in fact, warrants heavier criticism than most politicians because he rails against the jaded eye (he favors the hopeful, teary type of eye, and both have a place in democracy, both are necessary to create the irreplaceable balance between truth/fact and hope/faith that they do, but Obama fails to realize this). He professedly can’t stand cynicism and is all about hope, which is all the more reason for cynics to stiffen up. We hope for the best (that he isn’t anything we think he is) but we plan for the worst (that he’s everything we think he is). 

The Olympics and China

As you no doubt know, the Olympics are being held in China this year, much to many people’s chagrin. China is a human rights violator to a large degree, with its militant invasion and repression of Tibet to its southwest being the most obvious violation. Furthermore, it holds no semblance of a democracy, and has perpetually been trying to control, using brutal and soft methods, any religions within its borders (it has a very sizable Christian minority, with smaller groups of Muslims, Buddhists and other religious groups present as well, and all are repressed). Their domination of Tibet, continued threatening of Taiwan, ever-looming threat to Japan, and their ally and step-brother North Korea’s threatening of South Korea are all grave concerns to the United States.

China’s objective is obvious enough: an East Asian empire. But I can save that geopolitical discussion for another day. Right now, the issue is what to do about the crackdown in Tibet. What I believe is necessary is to, like France has openly spoken of, boycott the opening ceremony. We must also threaten a boycott of the Olympics themselves, if China does not open up its western regions to the media and cease the bloodshed. We must follow this up with continued private pressure on China to lighten up on its religious oppression and to begin the start of democratic processes within their government. Traditional, State Department bureaucratic wisdom is that China will become more capitalist and democratic with time. It will likely become more capitalist, as it has. But what we’re seeing China attempt is something that has never succeeded (and to my knowledge, even been tried): capitalistic-Communism with a dictatorship. The only ideology behind these seemingly contradictory doctrines is success, both in economics and military power.

Capitalism is often a given direction that countries and peoples tend towards: it is the most basic of human economies. Capitalism is something that happens when government oppression and control of the market doesn’t happen. Government oppression and control of the market is highly difficult and generally illogical, and this is why every country leans towards capitalism. Democracy, on the other hand, is not something we all naturally move towards. It is something that, for most cultures of the world, thousands of years of culture and sometimes religion lean against. How many times has China been ruled by a democracy? None. How much has China had mostly-free markets? The majority of its history, most likely. The only society in the world where democracy is truly ingrained is in Greece, its birthplace. (Democracy rails against human nature because it is equality, and superiority is in every human’s instinct rather than equality). That is why democracy is not something that happens naturally, it is something that must have a conscious force behind it, whereas capitalism needs only unconscious force (though conscious force helps as well) to succeed.

That is why, this year and for years to come, we must take it upon ourselves to be that conscious force that pushes democracy in China, and we can’t simply expect it to happen. A good start would be a strong showing of pressure to end the terror in Tibet.

Condescension 101

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." – Barack Obama, at a fundraiser in San Francisco.

You have, no doubt, heard of this many times on the news. You probably understand how insulting this quote is as well. As a religious gun owner, I find the notion that I “cling” to these things due to economic depression insane. Americans have been religious and owned guns since the founding of our country, and for good reasons. When one uses the word cling, one spawns images of a person in a shipwreck desperately clinging to a board or a barrel, or perhaps one thinks of a child holding desperately onto their toy as someone tries to pry it out of their hands. Either one of these images used as an explanation of why I believe in my faith or why I own guns is absolutely insulting. Just as insulting is the idea that economically depressed people in small towns are universally bigoted towards “people who aren’t like them”. But you’ve heard of all this already.

What you may not have heard of is the book What’s the Matter With Kansas? This book, by Thomas Frank, asks the question of why Kansans are some of the most conservative people in the nation. It shows a common strain in liberalism’s latest trends that Obama’s comments are in line with: middle-class, religious whites vote Republican because of, essentially, fear of secular progressives, fear of gun control, hatred of abortion, and fear of gays. Basically, middle class whites are too stupid to see the truth of liberalism because evil Republicans blind them with talk of gays and guns. They don’t see the “real”
 issues at stake here, and they have to be helped.

This is what Obama was communicating to his crowd of San Franciscans: that these rednecks in Pennsylvania like their guns and their Jesus and don’t like those Mexicans or gays, and that’s why they vote Republican.

And Democrats wonder why they consistently lose the white, middle-class religious vote? It’s partially because of condescending statements like this. In fact, I might even be willing to go so far as to accuse Obama of prejudice against lower-class whites, something no one else seems to want to do. I saw Pat Buchanan on MSNBC (my brother was in charge of the remote, forgive me) shortly after this happened saying that if it was John McCain in Chicago saying this about blacks, there would be a firestorm, and that it’s only ok to say this type of thing when you’re picking on low-class whites.

As for just what is the matter with Kansas and other people outside the state who may share Kansans’ views, it is not that Republicans blind them with guns and gays issues. How it started is that these people simply decided that Republicans and conservatism represented their views better. So they got to voting that way for some time, and then the liberal attacks started. Liberals and their predecessors, Progressives, have been attempting to belittle their opposition for all time. Indeed, conservatives have been guilty of it often, too. But liberals, unable to see how people can see what they see and disagree, have made this a habit when talking about religious, white middle/lower class voters.

This pattern is only perpetuated by their arrogance, and Barack Obama, contrary to his promises to unite the country, is playing this game once again.

One More Thing…

“You’re only taking two or three sentences and using it to condemn a man who spoke millions upon millions of words in his sermons!” – Everyone defending Jeremiah Wright.

I’ve heard this argument a couple of times lately, and indeed, Barack Obama himself used it. This hypocrisy is palpable. Were these not the same people calling for Don Imus’ head? Were these not the same people demanding Trent Lott resign? I’ll list the comments each man said that inflamed so many people and let you make the call on which statements are more condemning, which ones are more resignation worthy, and which ones are more controversial.

(Italics are used here to denote the emphasis the speaker used in each quote)

“So I was watching the women’s NCAA championship last night… those Rutgers girls looked tough. Like some nappy headed ho’s.” – Don Imus

“If Strom Thurmond had been elected back then, we wouldn’t have a lot of the problems we have today.” – Trent Lott

“Should we sing God Bless America? No, no, no, God d*** America! That’s in the Bible!” –Jeremiah Wright

“Hilary has never been called a n*****!” – Jeremiah Wright

“Barack [Obama] knows what it’s like to be a black man livin’ in a country run by rich! White! People!”- Jeremiah Wright

“[These] Whiteys…” – Jeremiah Wright.

“The government lied about the AIDS virus when they made it to destroy people of color! – Jeremiah Wright.

“9/11 was America’s chickens coming home to roost!” – Jeremiah Wright.

“Jesus was a poor, black man being oppressed by the rich white men!” – Jeremiah Wright

“The Romans, which meant they were Italian, which meant they were white, [simply] stared down their garlic noses at Jesus…” – Jeremiah Wright

I rest my case.

McCain Vs. Obama

Obama and the Democrats have recently been ripping McCain for his 100 years comment regarding Iraq. Obama, especially, has been distorting him ridiculously, claiming repeatedly that McCain wants a hundred years of war in Iraq, when McCain clearly said 100 years “as long as Americans are not being killed and wounded”, meaning that McCain would like 100 years of some kind of U.S. military presence in Iraq, much like we’ve had military presence in Germany and Japan for 60 years, South Korea for 50 years, and Kuwait for 17 years (McCain actually used these examples in his original statement).

What this is, on Obama’s part, is typical election politics. I don’t blame him. It’s what politicians do; it’s part of the game. What I blame Obama for is claiming to be different when, just like a standard politician, he is distorting McCain’s words to the extreme. To say that McCain wants a hundred years of war is an outright falsehood, McCain has already reputed that idea multiple times and clarified himself again and again (even though, if one actually reads or hears his words, his intent is clear enough in the original form). We have a term for a person who claims to be above something and different from something and yet participates in it: hypocrite. In fact, we have two words, and the second is liar.

This McCain-Obama scuffle here is just a taste of what we’re going to see come the general election. But another taste is in Obama’s claim that McCain represents “the politics of the past”. I don’t expect the air headed college students at his rallies to question just what he means by that, and I don’t expect the fawning media to, either. So I am left to wonder just what on earth he means by “politics of the past,” and how on earth McCain represents them. Are the politics of the past compromising sometimes to get things done? Making realistic assessments and suggestions for national security? Leading members of both parties to get things done? Speaking your mind, almost no matter what is on it, to the American people? Staking your campaign on something few others believed in at the time but you knew was right? Fighting against wasteful spending within the federal government?

If all of that is the past for Obama, I’m not sure I want to know what the future is.

Obama doesn’t offer a further explanation, naturally, because he’s just trying to take a cheap shot at McCain. What he’s really talking about is age, here. McCain has, in absolutely no way, been pushing the politics of the past for his life in public service. Rather, he represents many of the timeless values that all Americans hold: individualism, honor, commitment, and honesty. Obama’s only shot boils down to age. You can argue whether that’s a legitimate criticism, if you please, but if Obama wants to critique McCain on age, why won’t he come out and do it openly? Instead, like everything else he does, it’s just sugar coated, knife-in-the-dark attacks against his opponent. Once again, I accept knife-in-the-dark attacks as legitimate enough. But Obama’s claim to be above it, once the pretty surface is ripped off, is outright false, just like his charges against McCain’s 100 year statement. 

The Pakistani Problem

Al Qaeda’s largest stronghold in the world right now is not in Afghanistan, and it’s not in Iraq: it’s in the northern strip of Pakistan. Pakistan, though you probably already knew this, is just south of Afghanistan, west of India, southeast of Iran, and north of the Indian Ocean. It’s a country of about 120 million people, is almost entirely Muslim, has a professional, well-equipped military, and some 60 nuclear weapons. It is a U.S. ally led by the sort of half-dictator, half-elected official, a style of leader that is becoming more and more popular these days (his name is Pervez Musharraf). Musharraf is pro-America and has been a pretty good friend, as far as friends go, to our country and our fight against Islamic extremism.

The problem is that he is lonely in his country: most of them have strong sympathies with Al Qaeda’s cause, for one reason or another, and dislike America to some degree. Now, it’s been said that as long as Musharraf has the support of the three A’s (Allah, the Pakistani Army, and America) he can remain in power indefinitely.

Musharraf wants to help the United States in its war on terror; he realizes it is in Pakistan’s best interests to do so, but his hands are tied by an unwilling populace. Al Qaeda’s sanctuary areas are in the northern and western regions of Pakistan, those regions close to the border of Afghanistan, and Musharraf attempted to send the military in once in order to defeat them. This was a highly unpopular move, however: not only do his people sympathize with Al Qaeda, but his military was uneasy about killing “fellow Muslims”. Musharraf then worked out a deal giving these northern and western regions, infested by Al Qaeda, a kind of semi-sovereignty where he wouldn’t mess with them, and they wouldn’t mess with him.

The problem is that Osama Bin Laden and company are all in those areas, and America needs to go after them. Al Qaeda’s Iraqi regiment is being scattered badly by the American (almost) victory there, and countries like Somalia, Morrocco and other north African countries are where the small remnants are headed. Bin Laden’s wing of Al Qaeda, the older, in-charge wing that caused 9/11 directly, is primarily regrouped in Pakistan once they were kicked out of Afghanistan.

So if Musharraf can’t handle it, who can? Barack Obama suggests invading these areas of Pakistan and hoping the rest of Pakistan just understands what we’re doing. This is idiotic: Pakistanis sympathize with Al Qaeda and they don’t view their country as separate entities at all. If we invade Pakistan, we’ll be invading Pakistan. Musharraf won’t want to fight back, but his people may not give him a choice (even dictators must answer to the mob, if they cannot control it sufficiently). We would win against Pakistan, of course, but it would require a mass draw-down of forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a new occupation and a new insurgency. Obama’s plan, while it sounds nice on paper, is ridiculous in reality when one considers that Obama won’t have the guts to fight an insurgency.

There’s no good answer to Pakistan, in the end. My only idea would be to beef up special operations incursions into Pakistan as well as airstrikes, two things that won’t provoke war but won’t let Al Qaeda off of the hook. Furthermore, some kind of isolation of that region of Pakistan is in order, meaning that our own CIA and NSA intelligence services must work hard to track anything or anyone coming in and out of Pakistan, with Pakistani intelligence’s help. In the long haul, these measures, with continuous pressure on Musharraf to crack down on terrorists as much as he can without upsetting his populace, are the only ways to deal with terrorists in Pakistan directly. Direct military force must be placed entirely on defeating the terrorists in Afghanistan itself, which is something we can and hopefully will do. 

Want to Have a Conversation on Race?

Ever since Barack Obama’s speech on race, people everywhere have been blathering about starting a new conversation on race, or perhaps the first conversation on race. The idea that we have not ever had conversations about race is preposterous: pundits have been talking about race for the last 60 years almost incessantly. But there is no way to have a true national dialogue on race: you can’t have 315 million people (the illegal immigrants surely will want a say as well) talking at once. Each of the 315 million people harbors their own individual opinions upon race, and that is why the term conversation is flawed in and of itself.

Here’s another couple of facts: whites generally don’t care to talk about race. The majority of Hispanics don’t, either, and I’ve yet to see any Asians care about it. In fact, blacks are the only ethnic group that cares to talk about race on the whole, and they tend to only wish to speak of it as it pertains to white racism. Hispanics, a minority group much larger than blacks, and Asians, a minority group that will be larger than blacks in the not-too-distant future, are largely left out of the conversation that blacks want to have. How can you have a national conversation about race when 20% of the country’s opinions are, at the very least, shoved aside?

A factual look at the history of Asian-Americans and Hispanics shows that they have, since Reconstruction, faced almost as much prejudice and racism as blacks have from whites. Many Chinese and Mexican immigrants were not welcomed by employers in the west and southwest, and there were many laws in place in these regions that rivaled Jim Crowe in the south. The internment of Japanese-Americans during World War 2 was one of the greatest civil rights violations in American history, and was committed against Asians only.

I’m not making the case that any minority has faced what blacks have, as a whole. I’m saying that I’ve yet to see many Hispanic or Asian rights activist on TV, definitely not in the numbers that there are for black rights (interesting, considering that Asians and Hispanics combined outnumber blacks 2-1). Heck, you don’t even see any Native Americans on TV complaining. Proportionally speaking, within the last 140 years, Hispanic, Native and Asian Americans have a remarkably low ratio of complaints-to-injustices when compared to blacks.

The reason whites don’t want to talk about race is multi-fold. There is the most obvious of reasons: some blacks often get trigger-happy when it comes to shouting racist. When Don Imus used the term “nappy-headed hoes” to describe a women’s college basketball team of 14 blacks and 1 white, he was publicly executed, in a sense (never mind the fact that he commented that their opposing team of similar racial make up was “pretty cute”, therefore almost wholly nullifying the notion that he, personally is a racist). What Imus said was stupid and insulting, but if a black man said a similar thing about white women, he would’ve gotten suspended a week or two at worst. That’s because there are no white head-hunters whose job it is to race-bait and go after anyone who says anything insensitive, like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. There is no National American Association for White Peoples, either. Though there are similar organizations for Asians and Hispanics, they do not hold nearly the prestige and power that the NAACP and Sharpton do, and in fact, I suspect most Hispanics and Asians don’t care to associate with their ethnic organizations.

I think another reason whites don’t like to talk about race is that it makes us angry and frustrated. This frustration stems from the fact that many blacks, at the same time, beg for rescue from the ghetto and blame whites for their being in the ghetto. Many blacks seem to spend a lot of time looking inward and glorifying their own culture or abilities, and they seem to spend plenty of time looking outward at white racism, but at the same time, they tend to ignore two things: what they are doing wrong, and what whites are doing right. I believe one fundamental difference in white and black American cultures is that while white Americans view their individual identity as superseding their identity as whites on every level, every time, while blacks tend to view their blackness as superseding their individual, or being so fundamental a part of it that it theoretically supersedes their individual. To give it a formula, my description of myself is a person who is an American of Caucasian descent. A black individual might describe themselves as a black person from, or even simply in, America. Being black is much more important to a black than being white is to a white, in other words, as far as blacks and whites see themselves. (I suspect this plays into the hesitancy by many mixed-race people like Obama to call themselves mixed race: the black parent and culture stresses blackness as a virtue and something of importance, the white parent and culture doesn’t really care, partially because they might be called racist if they did, and this hesitancy on the part of most mixed-race people leads me to admire other people like Tiger Woods, who, risking the ire of the black community, acknowledges and embraces his Asian and white blood and doesn’t call himself black.)

Whites are frustrated by this black obsession with blackness because it encompasses a deadly group think mentality: you’re one of us. Whites, as I implied before, tend to be individualistic by culture here in the U.S., and look on with great scorn when Jeremiah Wright and Michelle Obama bemoan the evils of “middle-class-ness” encouraging blacks to stay in the ‘hood, because if you don’t, you’re betraying your community and your race. We see the same thing when blacks excel in school, and are often ridiculed by other blacks for “acting white”. You can blame white racism all you want, but it is the culture of conformity-to-poverty (and the out-of-wedlock births, abortions and drug use that come with it) that truly damages blacks more than anything.

In my opinion, if blacks truly seek to integrate into American society and get to the top of Dr. King’s proverbial mountain, they must shed their confusing of authentic African-American culture with poverty, and if they are to succeed, they must do it themselves by integrating and assimilating into white-Asian-Hispanic culture. If that is not done, then they will continue to be that 10% of America that nobody wants to talk about.

 
Jeremiah Wright and Obama

You all have probably heard about Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s now-infamous sermons. He, of course, is the preacher at Barack Obama’s church, and has been known to say some nutty things. He’s been saying them for years, but apparently, the media was loathe to talk about it (MSNBC, CNN, ABC and CBS because they love the guy, and Fox because of fear of accusations of racism, most likely).

Wright is essentially a black nationalist. He hates America, admittedly so, and like many prominent blacks, honestly seems to believe that race is at the core of every issue. After 9/11, he ripped America for its evils and said it was just punishment, stated that AIDs is a disease created by “white America” to destroy blacks, and says that God Bless America should be changed to “God D*** America”.

Obama has been attending Wright’s church for 20-25 years. Wright conducted Obama’s marriage to his wife and baptized both of Obama’s children. Obama has put out a statement saying that not only was he not there the Sundays that Wright made these numerous statements, but that he disagrees vehemently with him.

What difference does it make whether Obama was there? What would he have done, confronted Wright in front of the entire multi-thousand person church? Walked out? Walking out would be admirable only if it were followed up by leaving the church and never setting foot in its doors again. Obama had to know, one way or another (if the comments Wright made were unusual, then wouldn’t someone in the congregation of 10,000 talked to Obama about them?) And if he didn’t, then he does now, and there’s no excuse for him to NOT switch churches. Wright has recently stepped down as the church’s preacher, but a presidential nominee for this country’s most honored position doesn’t belong at a church that would allow a man so bigoted to preach at their pulpit. Of every Democrat I’ve seen on TV trying to defend this, the best they can come up with is that George W. Bush spoke at Bob Jones’ University, which until recently has had an extremely racist past.

So maybe George W. Bush shouldn’t have spoken there. I understand that position. But does that compare to attending a church led by a racist not one Sunday, not until you figured out about his racism, but for 25 years, and allowing him to baptize your children and marry you to your wife, and accepting him as a spiritual advisor? No, it doesn’t.

As for Obama not hearing the comments, there is new evidence that he actually did know at least some of what Wright was saying. First off, he always states that he wasn’t in the pews when those words were said. That implies strongly that he knew something of what was being preached, because he simply says he didn’t hear the comments, not that he had no idea about them. If he had no idea they were being made, then he would’ve said so openly to resolve himself of the matter. Secondly, the church crowd was roaring and loving Wright’s speeches. Now, my church isn’t as openly expressive as Senator Obama’s, but if my preacher went into, say, an anti-Semitic rant, the only thing you could hear in the church was that stunned, awkward silence, and the preacher would be fired that afternoon. That’s because anti-Semitism is not tolerated in my church (neither would baselessly attacking America be tolerated). Anti-American rants are more than tolerated in Obama’s church: they are wildly applauded.

The next Democratic counterpoint, once again, is not at all a defense of Obama (a logical defense of his actions regarding his church is impossible), but accusations regarding McCain’s acceptance of John Hagee’s endorsement. John Hagee, a San Antonio preacher with what I call “End-Times-Syndrome” (that being the irrepressible obsession with interpreting Revelation and the end times so as to predict when the world will end), has stated that the Catholic Church is the “Great Whore of Babylon” mentioned in Revelation.

I encourage all of you to read the part in Revelation about the Great Whore of Babylon and see just how wrong Hagee is. But that’s beside the point. Hagee’s view of the Catholic Church is religious on every level; Wright’s view of the United States is political on every level. That’s not even mentioning that Hagee happened to endorse McCain, who likely has never attended his church, as opposed to Wright being Obama’s spiritual advisor for 20 or more years.

(I said my opinion on this fairly well here, but there’s a much better appraisal of this issue on The Weekly Standard’s website that I recommend: right here.)

Arrogance You Can Believe in

My prediction is that Obama will not leave his church. Why? Obama has shown a deeply disturbing pattern of arrogance in the way he deals with his problems. When confronted by Hilary Clinton in the last debate about his relations with Louis Farrakhan (the strongly anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam) and his refusal to reject Farrakhan’s support, Obama waved it off as a simple matter of semantics. When his wife faced trouble with her laughably ignorant anti-American comments, she hardly backed down at all, and had no apologies. Now that Obama is under pressure for his Chicago politicking past, he simply blows it off as a bit of poor judgment, and don’t we all have that sometimes? When Clinton confronted him in the debate about h