So, ABC is doing a miniseries about 9/11 and the causes... and they're actually doing it from an honest approach! Rather than saying "hey, 9/11 happened, and it's all Bush's fault, since he was there for eight months before it happened", they're saying, hm, let's look at this, logic says that the causes leading up to a major event like that might go back further than eight months!!!
OK. Sarcasm meter off. The Clinton administration's record on terrorism is entirely an FBI-centric, law-enforcement-centric approach: you attack us, and we hit you back with... subpeonas. And arrest warrants ... that any thinking person knows won't amount to a hill of beans, since they're unenforceable, since the targets of those warrants are terrorists who aren't exactly going to be scared by a bunch of arrest warrants! Oh, and we'll fire missiles at an aspirin factory in Africa, calling it a chemical-weapons plant used by terrorists even though, per classified documents since released, we know now that they (the Clinton administration) knew that the factory wasn't a chemical-weapons plant and wasn't used by terrorists.
Osama Bin Laden is on record as having stated that he tested the United States repeatedly throughout the 1990s -- which he did. We were attacked a dozen times, and each time our response was nonsensical and ineffective. Why ineffective? Because had anything we'd done been effective, future attacks would have been prevented, for one. And instead, we got attack followed by attack followed by... more attacks. The original World Trade Center bombings. The U.S. embassy in the middle east. The navy vessel in the middle east... hm, the list goes on. Bin Laden told us in the 1990s that he was testing us, and that the results of those tests convinced him that the U.S. was a "paper tiger" which would do, and I quote, "nothing to protect its own people"... because that was the lesson he'd been taught. The lesson he'd been taught, chronologically speaking, from the tests he conducted (his own words) during the 1990s. I don't recall a "Bush" being President during those tests, those attacks, and the ineffectual responses that taught Bin Laden (again in his own words) "that he could strike the U.S. anywhere, anytime, and it would do nothing about it". 9/11 happened because Osama Bin Laden tested the U.S. repeatedly through the 1990s and found that the U.S. government, then led by the Clinton administration, in Bin Laden's words, "did nothing about his attacks".
I'll disagree partly. They did do things. They erected barriers between intelligence agencies, making it harder for them to share information (FACT: look it up; the Intelligence Committee Report on 9/11 makes that abundantly clear). They issued arrest warrants that were more embarrassing than anything else (ooh, that'll scare them). What they did NOT do was anything that Bin Laden would ever regard as "effective" -- they did NOTHING that would convince him that attacking the U.S. or its citizens would cost him anything. They taught him quite the opposite -- and, again in his own words, he launched 9/11 "precisely because he could; that's what we (the US) had taught him".
So along comes ABC, and they evidently are laying this out - spelling out how Bin Laden tested the U.S. through repeated attacks during the 1990s, how our responses were, to put it politely, ineffective, how Bin Laden learned from those utterly ineffective responses... and how those lessons directly led to the planning and execution of the 9/11 attack.
And up sprout the Clinton Administration figures, complaining that... they're coming off looking bad, ineffectual. Here's a clue, guys: you were utterly ineffectual. Not one thing you did taught Bin Laden anything other than what he himself says were the lessons you taught him: that he could attack us with impugnity, because your policies and reactions meant nothing to him, because they didn't harm him at all.
The worst? That the Taliban of all people offered to serve up Bin Laden on a platter to the Clinton Administration during the 1990s -- and they turned them down, because they didn't want to do business with the Taliban.
So, to ABC, I say, stick to your guns, report what happened. It takes years to create the circumstances and lessons that culminate in something like 9/11 -- not eight months. That doesn't absolve the Bush administration from not moving faster to dismantle the ineffective policies the Clinton administration had put in place (FACT: when your enemy says he's utterly unaffected by your policies, and he keeps attacking you, and you keep not catching him... that's the definition of ineffective)... but it does place the blame, logically, where it belongs: on those who taught Bin Laden that he could attack us and that we wouldn't respond with anything resembling force, or anything effective. We'd just throw more arrest warrants his way.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Wars and changing things
It is interesting, isn't, that the current peace-at-any-costs crowd keep quoting Neville Chamberlain's famous "wars never solve anything" speech. They seem resolutely determined to ignore a few nasty realities:
1) Wars have, repeatedly, solved many things. World War II comes to mind, if only because Mr. Chamberlain played such a huge role in its coming and the nature of it when it did finally arrive. The world that was before World War II was not the world that emerged from the end of that war, and the heinous barbarisms of National Socialism were put to bed. It took war, as in specific and direct willingness to stand up and say "this far and no further" and actually enforce the "no further" part, to end National Socialism/Fascism. It took the Cold War to put sealed to the Soviet Union and its murder of millions of its own citizens during its existence. It took the Civil War... and so forth and so on. We could list the wars that changed the world and it would be a very long list. We can list the times appeasement has solved anything... easily, because the list contains no items.
2) Mr. Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler, his giving over the populations of Austria, the Rhineland, Czechoslovokia to Nazi dominion as olive branches to "keep the peace" (for who? Certainly not the Czechs who were abandoned, etc.)... this peace-at-any-cost effort let Hitler have several additional years with which to build up his war machine. Had Mr. Chamberlain instead confronted Hitler when he moved back into the Rhineland, confronting rather than appeasing, they would have broken a completely unprepared Wehrmacht and removed Hitler. Or, rephrased: Had Mr. Chamberlain been willing to back up peace with actual resolve and used force, he would have fought a foe totally unprepared to be confronted -- a foe counting on, among others, Mr. Chamberlain's "peace-at-any-cost" nature to let him get away with things. Hitler was right, and he swallowed up whole countries with the blessings (which is what appeasing someone who just occupied a sovereign nation against its will is) of the peace-at-any-cost crowd. It is shocking that anyone would want to replicate the fecklessness of the appeasement crowd, yet here we are (again) listening to the same drivel.
Here's a simple primer. The terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in the early 90s -- as a test, we now know from captured writings and speeches from Bin Laden and others, to see if the U.S. would actually react to being attacked... or roll over and do nothing. And do nothing, to them, included such lunacy as "indicting them in federal court" and going after their financial connections. Which is all the Clinton Administration did. So they hit again, continuing to test the resolve of the U.S. administration -- from bombing our embassy, to killing navy soldiers aboard a ship hit by missiles, and more. And at each turn... we rolled over and took it, doing nothing that would actually imperil these terrorists (and in fact, when the Clinton Administration had the opportunity to seize Bin Laden, it refused to take it, and the country that had offered to turn him over had to let him go). The lesson that Bin Laden and others learned through the 90's, by constantly killing American citizens? That we wouldn't do anything that actually hurt them or imperil them in response. Once again, the "peace-at-any-costs" crowd and their mentality taught a very clear lesson to another violent group: that we can be hit and killed and we'll do nothing in response, nothing that actually has any practical bearing or threat to them. (unless you count bombing an empty factory that the CIA told the administration BEFOREHAND was empty as "doing something).
So all those who couldn't foresee the terrorists continuing to escalate their attacks on the U.S., since they'd been taught throughout the 90's that they could get away with it... raise your hand and go back to 1st grade. We taught them they could kill us and we'd do nothing in response. We taught them that lesson through the 90s. Bush was in office for only a bit over eight months when 9-11 went down. The lessons the terrorists had learned and their willingness to attack and kill Americans came before those eight months, in the prior decade. Which is why we have Bin Laden's expressed astonishment at the fact that the U.S., to quote him, "actually did something" in response -- by invading Afghanistan and going after the one country that was Bin Laden's host. Of course he was astonished -- he didn't think a U.S. President would actually, to quote him again, "do something".
And we're headed toward another presidential election, where the likes of John "I'll appease terrorists forever" Kerry will be dominant on the Democrat-side of the aisle. The one criteria, be it Republican candidate or Democrat, we should hold is this: anyone stupid enough to think that appeasing villains will achieve anything other than causing more and worse problems later should be laughed out of the election -- not voted for.
1) Wars have, repeatedly, solved many things. World War II comes to mind, if only because Mr. Chamberlain played such a huge role in its coming and the nature of it when it did finally arrive. The world that was before World War II was not the world that emerged from the end of that war, and the heinous barbarisms of National Socialism were put to bed. It took war, as in specific and direct willingness to stand up and say "this far and no further" and actually enforce the "no further" part, to end National Socialism/Fascism. It took the Cold War to put sealed to the Soviet Union and its murder of millions of its own citizens during its existence. It took the Civil War... and so forth and so on. We could list the wars that changed the world and it would be a very long list. We can list the times appeasement has solved anything... easily, because the list contains no items.
2) Mr. Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler, his giving over the populations of Austria, the Rhineland, Czechoslovokia to Nazi dominion as olive branches to "keep the peace" (for who? Certainly not the Czechs who were abandoned, etc.)... this peace-at-any-cost effort let Hitler have several additional years with which to build up his war machine. Had Mr. Chamberlain instead confronted Hitler when he moved back into the Rhineland, confronting rather than appeasing, they would have broken a completely unprepared Wehrmacht and removed Hitler. Or, rephrased: Had Mr. Chamberlain been willing to back up peace with actual resolve and used force, he would have fought a foe totally unprepared to be confronted -- a foe counting on, among others, Mr. Chamberlain's "peace-at-any-cost" nature to let him get away with things. Hitler was right, and he swallowed up whole countries with the blessings (which is what appeasing someone who just occupied a sovereign nation against its will is) of the peace-at-any-cost crowd. It is shocking that anyone would want to replicate the fecklessness of the appeasement crowd, yet here we are (again) listening to the same drivel.
Here's a simple primer. The terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in the early 90s -- as a test, we now know from captured writings and speeches from Bin Laden and others, to see if the U.S. would actually react to being attacked... or roll over and do nothing. And do nothing, to them, included such lunacy as "indicting them in federal court" and going after their financial connections. Which is all the Clinton Administration did. So they hit again, continuing to test the resolve of the U.S. administration -- from bombing our embassy, to killing navy soldiers aboard a ship hit by missiles, and more. And at each turn... we rolled over and took it, doing nothing that would actually imperil these terrorists (and in fact, when the Clinton Administration had the opportunity to seize Bin Laden, it refused to take it, and the country that had offered to turn him over had to let him go). The lesson that Bin Laden and others learned through the 90's, by constantly killing American citizens? That we wouldn't do anything that actually hurt them or imperil them in response. Once again, the "peace-at-any-costs" crowd and their mentality taught a very clear lesson to another violent group: that we can be hit and killed and we'll do nothing in response, nothing that actually has any practical bearing or threat to them. (unless you count bombing an empty factory that the CIA told the administration BEFOREHAND was empty as "doing something).
So all those who couldn't foresee the terrorists continuing to escalate their attacks on the U.S., since they'd been taught throughout the 90's that they could get away with it... raise your hand and go back to 1st grade. We taught them they could kill us and we'd do nothing in response. We taught them that lesson through the 90s. Bush was in office for only a bit over eight months when 9-11 went down. The lessons the terrorists had learned and their willingness to attack and kill Americans came before those eight months, in the prior decade. Which is why we have Bin Laden's expressed astonishment at the fact that the U.S., to quote him, "actually did something" in response -- by invading Afghanistan and going after the one country that was Bin Laden's host. Of course he was astonished -- he didn't think a U.S. President would actually, to quote him again, "do something".
And we're headed toward another presidential election, where the likes of John "I'll appease terrorists forever" Kerry will be dominant on the Democrat-side of the aisle. The one criteria, be it Republican candidate or Democrat, we should hold is this: anyone stupid enough to think that appeasing villains will achieve anything other than causing more and worse problems later should be laughed out of the election -- not voted for.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
When Politics Ignore Reality
So the Citizen is a resident of the state of Illinois -- what pride one takes for being in a state where the last governor was indicted for corruption, and the current one, the one who replaced the last and swore to be "clean", is also under investigation for corruption. Where the leadership in the state's biggest city is in the middle of a federal investigation into corruption, for trading jobs for political gain. The proud state of Illinois!
Let's get specific. The state has now passed a law, trumpeted by the Governor as a tool to protect "the lives of construction workers" who are "imperiled by speeders speeding in construction zones", that spends millions to put vans with cameras at each construction zone in order to impose new, high penalties on anyone "speeding" in those zones. Again, the purpose our politicians claim is to "save lives", specifically the lives of the construction workers.
So, what is a curious citizen to do with that? The premise is simple. This law makes sense if the following are true: construction workers have died in construction zones; said workers have died because of being hit or by cause of speeding cars. What happens to the solution, if the problem is shown not to exist in the first place -- if the aforementioned "these must be true" items... aren't true?
The Chicago Tribune cites the studies that showed 24 deaths in construction zones last year (2005) in Illinois. That's 24 deaths for all the literally billions of miles driven in the state of Illinois by all vehicles (billions of miles: every car's mileage added together to get the total drive miles in the state during a year's time). We can argue whether 24 deaths against the totality of the driven miles makes sense in and of itself elsewhere. Let's stick with those 24 for now.
So, the solution makes sense if those 24 are all constructions workers who died in construction zones -- right? Turns out the press and our politicians are playing fast and loose with the reality of that number. Of the 24 fatalities in construction zones, only 2 - TWO! - were construction workers. Some 20 of the remaining 22 were drunk drivers -- no construction workers involved, and no law is going to stop idiots who drive drunk from killing themselves.
Okay. So we're down to 2 construction workers killed in a construction zone for the entire year 2005. TWO! Keep looking -- because that's still not the whole truth. It turns out that NEITHER of those two construction workers were wearing the proper and required orange reflective vests.
Okay. So a law that imposes penalties on speeders will at the very most affect... 2 deaths per year, using the # of deaths in the last year as the basis for doing anything at all. While any death is regrettable, it is ludicrous over-reaction to react the way the state is. Our politicians have played this up (with the press being completely in their laps, only driving the hype) as something catastrophic, as though construction workers were being killed so regularly that we have to go to this sort of draconian length to "protect them". Unfortunately for the politicians, that isn't the reality. Unfortunately for the citizens and passers-by in Illinois, the reality is completely unimportant.
The politicians have created a "problem" that they can look good "solving", and the press has stood by silently and let them get away with it (again).
Quick: if you are actually interested in saving lives, which would be a better target for your efforts and for millions of dollars of taxpayer funds -- addressing 2 actual deaths in a year's time, or addressing something that causes literally hundreds and thousands of deaths each year? Logic is pretty simple -- you should address the larger problem, because the smaller problem is utterly miniscule (as compared to the # of hours for the # of constructions workers in construction zones each year, set against the volume of miles driven by all drivers). So... why are we spending millions to address what at most were 2 deaths last year... instead of addressing the things that cause more deaths?
Here's a shocker: if we specifically address drunk driving, we take 20 of the 24 deaths last year and address them, instead of addressing the 2. And we'd be addressing a very real problem, because there were far more than 20 total deaths caused by drunk drivers last year - it just happens that only 20 of that total occurred in construction zones.
Of course, that would require our politicians to address actual, real, tangible problems that are HARD instead of shooting at the low-hanging fruit and wasting taxpayer time and money.
Who is the Citizen the most angry at? The Press. The Press should've taken the statistics apart and revealed the truth to the citizens instead of just parotting the hype. They should have said, hm, how many construction workers died in construction zones last year? Is it a number that actually rises to the level of being a problem that the politicians have argued... or are they just spewing hot air around a problem they could "spin" into a "crisis" and then look good solving? Instead, we get... nothing. Hype. No inquiring minds, no Press to point out the bad policy that laws like these are.
The Citizen expects the worst from politicians, especially over the past few years -- and he's come to expect that from the Press. But it's still worth pointing out when both continue to fail the public by wasting time on small issues when they could be saving MORE lives by addressing real, substantial problems. We don't need them to manufacture a mountain of a crisis from a tiny anthill of a reality -- there are plenty of real mountains out there for them to work on. They won't, because that would require actual work, and it would require actually taking a stand -- and Lord knows our current crop of politicians are averse to taking anything resembling a stand that might affect their ability to get re-elected.
Sad.
Let's get specific. The state has now passed a law, trumpeted by the Governor as a tool to protect "the lives of construction workers" who are "imperiled by speeders speeding in construction zones", that spends millions to put vans with cameras at each construction zone in order to impose new, high penalties on anyone "speeding" in those zones. Again, the purpose our politicians claim is to "save lives", specifically the lives of the construction workers.
So, what is a curious citizen to do with that? The premise is simple. This law makes sense if the following are true: construction workers have died in construction zones; said workers have died because of being hit or by cause of speeding cars. What happens to the solution, if the problem is shown not to exist in the first place -- if the aforementioned "these must be true" items... aren't true?
The Chicago Tribune cites the studies that showed 24 deaths in construction zones last year (2005) in Illinois. That's 24 deaths for all the literally billions of miles driven in the state of Illinois by all vehicles (billions of miles: every car's mileage added together to get the total drive miles in the state during a year's time). We can argue whether 24 deaths against the totality of the driven miles makes sense in and of itself elsewhere. Let's stick with those 24 for now.
So, the solution makes sense if those 24 are all constructions workers who died in construction zones -- right? Turns out the press and our politicians are playing fast and loose with the reality of that number. Of the 24 fatalities in construction zones, only 2 - TWO! - were construction workers. Some 20 of the remaining 22 were drunk drivers -- no construction workers involved, and no law is going to stop idiots who drive drunk from killing themselves.
Okay. So we're down to 2 construction workers killed in a construction zone for the entire year 2005. TWO! Keep looking -- because that's still not the whole truth. It turns out that NEITHER of those two construction workers were wearing the proper and required orange reflective vests.
Okay. So a law that imposes penalties on speeders will at the very most affect... 2 deaths per year, using the # of deaths in the last year as the basis for doing anything at all. While any death is regrettable, it is ludicrous over-reaction to react the way the state is. Our politicians have played this up (with the press being completely in their laps, only driving the hype) as something catastrophic, as though construction workers were being killed so regularly that we have to go to this sort of draconian length to "protect them". Unfortunately for the politicians, that isn't the reality. Unfortunately for the citizens and passers-by in Illinois, the reality is completely unimportant.
The politicians have created a "problem" that they can look good "solving", and the press has stood by silently and let them get away with it (again).
Quick: if you are actually interested in saving lives, which would be a better target for your efforts and for millions of dollars of taxpayer funds -- addressing 2 actual deaths in a year's time, or addressing something that causes literally hundreds and thousands of deaths each year? Logic is pretty simple -- you should address the larger problem, because the smaller problem is utterly miniscule (as compared to the # of hours for the # of constructions workers in construction zones each year, set against the volume of miles driven by all drivers). So... why are we spending millions to address what at most were 2 deaths last year... instead of addressing the things that cause more deaths?
Here's a shocker: if we specifically address drunk driving, we take 20 of the 24 deaths last year and address them, instead of addressing the 2. And we'd be addressing a very real problem, because there were far more than 20 total deaths caused by drunk drivers last year - it just happens that only 20 of that total occurred in construction zones.
Of course, that would require our politicians to address actual, real, tangible problems that are HARD instead of shooting at the low-hanging fruit and wasting taxpayer time and money.
Who is the Citizen the most angry at? The Press. The Press should've taken the statistics apart and revealed the truth to the citizens instead of just parotting the hype. They should have said, hm, how many construction workers died in construction zones last year? Is it a number that actually rises to the level of being a problem that the politicians have argued... or are they just spewing hot air around a problem they could "spin" into a "crisis" and then look good solving? Instead, we get... nothing. Hype. No inquiring minds, no Press to point out the bad policy that laws like these are.
The Citizen expects the worst from politicians, especially over the past few years -- and he's come to expect that from the Press. But it's still worth pointing out when both continue to fail the public by wasting time on small issues when they could be saving MORE lives by addressing real, substantial problems. We don't need them to manufacture a mountain of a crisis from a tiny anthill of a reality -- there are plenty of real mountains out there for them to work on. They won't, because that would require actual work, and it would require actually taking a stand -- and Lord knows our current crop of politicians are averse to taking anything resembling a stand that might affect their ability to get re-elected.
Sad.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
quick take on illegal immigration
Definitions of the word "illegal":
www.answers.com -- Prohibited by law. Against the law.
www.wordreference.com -- Prohibited by law. Against the rules or law.
Further resources with the same definition: dict.die.net/illegal; www.m-w.com; www.legal-explanations.com. www.dictionary.net (which is: "not according to or authorized, as by law or rule").
What's the commonality here? A two-year-old can figure this one out: something that is illegal is against the law. By definition.
What's the point? An ILLEGAL immigrant is by definition an immigrant who is here "against the law". Is someone who CHOSE to BREAK the law in the first place by coming to the U.S. in the manner they came.
Why is it important? Because of the idiocy in the U.S. that says "anti-Illegal-immigrant" = "anti-immigrant". Here's a clue to the American Left: I'm all for immigration -- legal immigration. I like the thought of people coming to the U.S. whose first act ISN'T to break the laws of the land. I'm sort of picky that way. I DON'T like the thought of people coming here whose first choice is to BREAK THE LAW through their method of coming here. If someone is willing to break the law in the first place, because it inconveniences them -- what stops them from breaking further laws that also inconvenience them? Nothing. And there's no argument that can be made against that point -- because, again, for all those who can't seem to process basic English, illegal immigrant choose to break the law or they wouldn't BE illegal in the first place.
Either change the laws to have unfettered and wide-open borders with no restrictions, or enforce the laws on the books. Anything else, anything in-between, will achieve nothing, because it sustains the illegal nature of those coming here. I personally fall on the side of wanting people to come here who do so without breaking our laws to do so -- makes them less likely to break laws again in the future. Strange thing, that: by arguing for illegal immigrants in the U.S., we're actually encouraging the idea that it's okay to break the law because it inconveniences you.
Frightening.
www.answers.com -- Prohibited by law. Against the law.
www.wordreference.com -- Prohibited by law. Against the rules or law.
Further resources with the same definition: dict.die.net/illegal; www.m-w.com; www.legal-explanations.com. www.dictionary.net (which is: "not according to or authorized, as by law or rule").
What's the commonality here? A two-year-old can figure this one out: something that is illegal is against the law. By definition.
What's the point? An ILLEGAL immigrant is by definition an immigrant who is here "against the law". Is someone who CHOSE to BREAK the law in the first place by coming to the U.S. in the manner they came.
Why is it important? Because of the idiocy in the U.S. that says "anti-Illegal-immigrant" = "anti-immigrant". Here's a clue to the American Left: I'm all for immigration -- legal immigration. I like the thought of people coming to the U.S. whose first act ISN'T to break the laws of the land. I'm sort of picky that way. I DON'T like the thought of people coming here whose first choice is to BREAK THE LAW through their method of coming here. If someone is willing to break the law in the first place, because it inconveniences them -- what stops them from breaking further laws that also inconvenience them? Nothing. And there's no argument that can be made against that point -- because, again, for all those who can't seem to process basic English, illegal immigrant choose to break the law or they wouldn't BE illegal in the first place.
Either change the laws to have unfettered and wide-open borders with no restrictions, or enforce the laws on the books. Anything else, anything in-between, will achieve nothing, because it sustains the illegal nature of those coming here. I personally fall on the side of wanting people to come here who do so without breaking our laws to do so -- makes them less likely to break laws again in the future. Strange thing, that: by arguing for illegal immigrants in the U.S., we're actually encouraging the idea that it's okay to break the law because it inconveniences you.
Frightening.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Language and Politics
Well, I'm back. Hard going this year, and unfortunately I haven't been as diligent as I'd like to be about keeping fresh content going here at ThinkingPolitics.
Let's start with something I touched on before: how the use of words, in this case a few specific words, is eroding their value. Certain words have a very real, very potent meaning associated with them, often far beyond the simplest definition of the word itself. For instance, when we use the word "holocaust", it conjures not simply the textbook definition but an array of historical and flavorful meaning. We associate "evil" and "death" and the historical linkage of the word to the Holocaust event, the attempt by the Nazis in WWII to eradicate the Jewish people (and, it should be noted, others as well). The word has a force to it, an emotion, that is beyond its simplest definition.
At least, it does, until we start calling things that don't reach that emotional level, that force, a "holocaust". If the press every day calls each individual bomb exploding a "holocaust", soon the value, the punch, of the word begins to lessen, because we're associating it to lesser events. If we reserve the use of the word to events that match the force and personality of the word, then it retains that original value and original punch.
Which brings me to the two most overused words in society today: Nazi, and the word "right", as in, our "Rights" as citizens. I've addressed the word Nazi before, so today's focus will be on the word "Right."
The Founders put together our Bill of Rights, to be the Rights of each citizen, those things that were truly significant, those things that we would all share that were fundamental in nature. They didn't sit around and add a citizen's "right to a doctor's responsiveness in 24 hours or less" (mocking our present-day, much-repeated "Patient's Bill of Rights") and things that, quite frankly, are not Rights, as the word has been used in the past 40,000 years of human history, but are PRIVILEGES. The word "Right" needs to be left to the force, the punch, of the association to the Bill of Rights -- "rights" like our "right to assembly", our "freedom of religion", and such. These are abstract principles that define how we relate to one another and how the governments relates to us (and with us, and how we relate it it). Something like "we have a Right to health care" isn't quite of the same level as a Right to Free Speech -- and it shouldn't be.
How many things have our politicians called "Rights"? Think about it. "A Patient's Bill of Rights", which is merely layering regulations on the medical industry? Regulations? Equal in significance to the Bill of Rights and those guarantees? Not quite. Not even close. Or, a "Worker's Bill of Rights", in which we add regulations and requirements of businesses to "make worker's lives at work better" -- those aren't "Rights", they're simply regulations, tweaking of business minutae. They're Privileges, the things that we would like to have. They aren't Rights.
The sooner we begin using the language properly, clearly, and begin once again reserving certain words to their proper use, the better. Because as we de-value words (like calling someone who wants to reign in the growth of spending in a government program a "Nazi, just as bad as the Stormtroopers under Hitler" (actual quote from a U.S. Congressman, by the way, about another Congressman) -- there is NO valid comparison of the acts of a Stormtrooper under Hitler or of being a Nazi to anything any Congressman has proposed recently. It merely devalues the word.
On a side note, it's also disgusting. Because it counts on the American public being too lazy, too ignorant, and too willing to believe what they're told without thinking through what they're told or verifying the facts behind what they're told. It counts on Americans being stupid. And it means that our politicians are counting on us to be ignorant -- and are exploiting that ignorance. That should make people mad ... and it's sadder that they aren't. Because far too many wallow in their ignorance, holding up things that aren't factual and that haven't been proven as facts and demanding severe penalties based on... empty rhetoric, oft violent rhetoric. We misuse words, but we forget almost entirely about making sure our rhetoric, our ideology, is actually rooted in facts.
Let's start with something I touched on before: how the use of words, in this case a few specific words, is eroding their value. Certain words have a very real, very potent meaning associated with them, often far beyond the simplest definition of the word itself. For instance, when we use the word "holocaust", it conjures not simply the textbook definition but an array of historical and flavorful meaning. We associate "evil" and "death" and the historical linkage of the word to the Holocaust event, the attempt by the Nazis in WWII to eradicate the Jewish people (and, it should be noted, others as well). The word has a force to it, an emotion, that is beyond its simplest definition.
At least, it does, until we start calling things that don't reach that emotional level, that force, a "holocaust". If the press every day calls each individual bomb exploding a "holocaust", soon the value, the punch, of the word begins to lessen, because we're associating it to lesser events. If we reserve the use of the word to events that match the force and personality of the word, then it retains that original value and original punch.
Which brings me to the two most overused words in society today: Nazi, and the word "right", as in, our "Rights" as citizens. I've addressed the word Nazi before, so today's focus will be on the word "Right."
The Founders put together our Bill of Rights, to be the Rights of each citizen, those things that were truly significant, those things that we would all share that were fundamental in nature. They didn't sit around and add a citizen's "right to a doctor's responsiveness in 24 hours or less" (mocking our present-day, much-repeated "Patient's Bill of Rights") and things that, quite frankly, are not Rights, as the word has been used in the past 40,000 years of human history, but are PRIVILEGES. The word "Right" needs to be left to the force, the punch, of the association to the Bill of Rights -- "rights" like our "right to assembly", our "freedom of religion", and such. These are abstract principles that define how we relate to one another and how the governments relates to us (and with us, and how we relate it it). Something like "we have a Right to health care" isn't quite of the same level as a Right to Free Speech -- and it shouldn't be.
How many things have our politicians called "Rights"? Think about it. "A Patient's Bill of Rights", which is merely layering regulations on the medical industry? Regulations? Equal in significance to the Bill of Rights and those guarantees? Not quite. Not even close. Or, a "Worker's Bill of Rights", in which we add regulations and requirements of businesses to "make worker's lives at work better" -- those aren't "Rights", they're simply regulations, tweaking of business minutae. They're Privileges, the things that we would like to have. They aren't Rights.
The sooner we begin using the language properly, clearly, and begin once again reserving certain words to their proper use, the better. Because as we de-value words (like calling someone who wants to reign in the growth of spending in a government program a "Nazi, just as bad as the Stormtroopers under Hitler" (actual quote from a U.S. Congressman, by the way, about another Congressman) -- there is NO valid comparison of the acts of a Stormtrooper under Hitler or of being a Nazi to anything any Congressman has proposed recently. It merely devalues the word.
On a side note, it's also disgusting. Because it counts on the American public being too lazy, too ignorant, and too willing to believe what they're told without thinking through what they're told or verifying the facts behind what they're told. It counts on Americans being stupid. And it means that our politicians are counting on us to be ignorant -- and are exploiting that ignorance. That should make people mad ... and it's sadder that they aren't. Because far too many wallow in their ignorance, holding up things that aren't factual and that haven't been proven as facts and demanding severe penalties based on... empty rhetoric, oft violent rhetoric. We misuse words, but we forget almost entirely about making sure our rhetoric, our ideology, is actually rooted in facts.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Iraq, WMD's, and never-ending hypocrites
We have been treated to a steady and often violently angry stream, from the media and from the left side of American politics, of the following: "Hussein had no WMD's; therefore Bush lied; deposing Hussein wasn't necessary; deposing Hussein wasn't a good thing."
For many of us able to think and recognize evil when it's blatantly obvious, that position has long been transparently ludicrous. It is constantly amazing that the Left in U.S. politics has a stunning blindness to genuine, proven evil. Let's recount a quick list of Hussein's evils: he used poison gas (those would be WMD's, which he had en masse in the 1980s) on his own people and on the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war; he had stocks of poison gas that were verified after the first Iraq War after the U.S. kicked Hussein out of Kuwait; he invaded Kuwait; and he publicly, since the 1990s, said that he would provide the families of suicide bombers who "kill Americans" with $20,000 (a sizeable wealth to most in the Middle East). The last time I checked, paying people to commit suicide attacks on Americans... constitutes the support and blatant encouragement of terrorists. I'm utterly unclear how the American Left reconciles its statements that there "was no proof that Hussein backed terrorists" (and of course that Bush lied about that, too). No Proof? How about his own words? Paying people to commit suicide with bombs, if they kill Americans while they do it? If that isn't backing terrorists, what is?
And therein lay the greatest tragedy of the American Left: a persistent denial of reality. Confronted with this simple proof, Hussein's own words (see above), the Left simply ignores it and repeats its mantra, as though by saying over and over again that Hussein never did anything to support or encourage terrorists would somehow magically make it factually so.
Let's move beyond just Hussein's own words. General Georges Sada, Iraqi General under Hussein and one of Hussein's advisors in the 80s and 90s, has released a well-written and, more importantly, well- and heavily- documented book that should put an end to the Left's idiotic mantras. General Sada documents, complete with accompanying testimony of the pilots involved (for instance), how Hussein took advantage in 2002 of a natural disaster in Syria to -- very important point coming, read carefully -- move jets loaded with WMDs of all sorts out of Iraq and into Syria. How he used the natural disaster to send the planeloads of WMDs there under the guise of "humanitarian support" to the Syrian people. General Sada doesn't just say it's so (which is firsthand testimony, since he was part of that operation to move WMD's out of Iraq), he provides additional testimonies and the documentation so other people (like, say, reporters who are actually interested in the truth) can find all this out for themselves.
So let's look at this. Some of us have been arguing all along the very obvious proposition: Hussein was proven to have WMD stockpiles in the early and mid 1990s; he used earlier stockpiles against his own people and the Iranians; and he had plenty of time to figure out that it would suit his purposes to hide his stockpiles. Where might he do that? Hm. Rational human beings sit back and think and say, hm, how about Syria or Iran?
The Citizen was utterly unsurprised when the U.S. found no stockpiles in Iraq. Why would I be? It was transparently obvious that: by going over and over again to the U.N. we had given Hussein two things -- the notice that we were coming into Iraq, and the time to prepare for that eventuality. That far too much of the American Left can't put two plus two together and get four -- we gave Hussein time to move his stockpiles into sympathetic Syria or Iran; we told him ahead of time we were coming, by spending months and months stating so before the U.N.; therefore Hussein will move his stockpiles out and proclaim his "innocence", which will convince only the American Left and far too much of Europe.
So now we have additional proof to back up what most of us had already surmised. Proper journalism requires an in-depth examination of an article, if that article proves false. So let's see the mainstream media, which has banged the drum of the Left's mantras for years, now do the proper and honest thing and actually run stories pointing out how FALSE they were before, how their earlier positions were NOT ACCURATE, and what the facts actually are turning out to be.
Don't hold your breath, America. The mainstream press has little interest in going back over their years of falsehoods and assumptions, and the American Left will certainly continue to bury their collective heads and refuse to admit reality. I'm not sure which is the bigger tragedy, since by refusing to acknowledge proven reality, by refusing to admit facts when the facts contradict their assertions, the American Left just cedes the argument to the Republicans.
What we should be concerned about should be obvious to all: since Hussein moved stockpiles out of Iraq and into Syria, that means... hold your breath.. that Syria now has those stockpiles of chemical weapons and other WMDs. The Right has already expressed their concern about this, with the typical reaction from the media and the Left (Syria doesn't have anything, anything more than Iraq did, etc.).
One of these days, the Left will wake up and realise that the testimony of Georges Sada and others actually involved in the goings-on in Iraq at the time is far more valuable than the delusional rantings of the likes of Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, and their ilk. Until then, they'll continue to lose elections, as they've done in the past half-dozen election cycles (most notably, the 2002 midterm elections, where the Left lost hugely, when history almost universally has the party out of power gain seats). And they'll continue to rant and rave and deny reality. I just wish they wouldn't. The world deserves better.
For many of us able to think and recognize evil when it's blatantly obvious, that position has long been transparently ludicrous. It is constantly amazing that the Left in U.S. politics has a stunning blindness to genuine, proven evil. Let's recount a quick list of Hussein's evils: he used poison gas (those would be WMD's, which he had en masse in the 1980s) on his own people and on the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war; he had stocks of poison gas that were verified after the first Iraq War after the U.S. kicked Hussein out of Kuwait; he invaded Kuwait; and he publicly, since the 1990s, said that he would provide the families of suicide bombers who "kill Americans" with $20,000 (a sizeable wealth to most in the Middle East). The last time I checked, paying people to commit suicide attacks on Americans... constitutes the support and blatant encouragement of terrorists. I'm utterly unclear how the American Left reconciles its statements that there "was no proof that Hussein backed terrorists" (and of course that Bush lied about that, too). No Proof? How about his own words? Paying people to commit suicide with bombs, if they kill Americans while they do it? If that isn't backing terrorists, what is?
And therein lay the greatest tragedy of the American Left: a persistent denial of reality. Confronted with this simple proof, Hussein's own words (see above), the Left simply ignores it and repeats its mantra, as though by saying over and over again that Hussein never did anything to support or encourage terrorists would somehow magically make it factually so.
Let's move beyond just Hussein's own words. General Georges Sada, Iraqi General under Hussein and one of Hussein's advisors in the 80s and 90s, has released a well-written and, more importantly, well- and heavily- documented book that should put an end to the Left's idiotic mantras. General Sada documents, complete with accompanying testimony of the pilots involved (for instance), how Hussein took advantage in 2002 of a natural disaster in Syria to -- very important point coming, read carefully -- move jets loaded with WMDs of all sorts out of Iraq and into Syria. How he used the natural disaster to send the planeloads of WMDs there under the guise of "humanitarian support" to the Syrian people. General Sada doesn't just say it's so (which is firsthand testimony, since he was part of that operation to move WMD's out of Iraq), he provides additional testimonies and the documentation so other people (like, say, reporters who are actually interested in the truth) can find all this out for themselves.
So let's look at this. Some of us have been arguing all along the very obvious proposition: Hussein was proven to have WMD stockpiles in the early and mid 1990s; he used earlier stockpiles against his own people and the Iranians; and he had plenty of time to figure out that it would suit his purposes to hide his stockpiles. Where might he do that? Hm. Rational human beings sit back and think and say, hm, how about Syria or Iran?
The Citizen was utterly unsurprised when the U.S. found no stockpiles in Iraq. Why would I be? It was transparently obvious that: by going over and over again to the U.N. we had given Hussein two things -- the notice that we were coming into Iraq, and the time to prepare for that eventuality. That far too much of the American Left can't put two plus two together and get four -- we gave Hussein time to move his stockpiles into sympathetic Syria or Iran; we told him ahead of time we were coming, by spending months and months stating so before the U.N.; therefore Hussein will move his stockpiles out and proclaim his "innocence", which will convince only the American Left and far too much of Europe.
So now we have additional proof to back up what most of us had already surmised. Proper journalism requires an in-depth examination of an article, if that article proves false. So let's see the mainstream media, which has banged the drum of the Left's mantras for years, now do the proper and honest thing and actually run stories pointing out how FALSE they were before, how their earlier positions were NOT ACCURATE, and what the facts actually are turning out to be.
Don't hold your breath, America. The mainstream press has little interest in going back over their years of falsehoods and assumptions, and the American Left will certainly continue to bury their collective heads and refuse to admit reality. I'm not sure which is the bigger tragedy, since by refusing to acknowledge proven reality, by refusing to admit facts when the facts contradict their assertions, the American Left just cedes the argument to the Republicans.
What we should be concerned about should be obvious to all: since Hussein moved stockpiles out of Iraq and into Syria, that means... hold your breath.. that Syria now has those stockpiles of chemical weapons and other WMDs. The Right has already expressed their concern about this, with the typical reaction from the media and the Left (Syria doesn't have anything, anything more than Iraq did, etc.).
One of these days, the Left will wake up and realise that the testimony of Georges Sada and others actually involved in the goings-on in Iraq at the time is far more valuable than the delusional rantings of the likes of Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, and their ilk. Until then, they'll continue to lose elections, as they've done in the past half-dozen election cycles (most notably, the 2002 midterm elections, where the Left lost hugely, when history almost universally has the party out of power gain seats). And they'll continue to rant and rave and deny reality. I just wish they wouldn't. The world deserves better.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Short thoughts for a Monday...
A few quick thoughts:
1) excellent press conference with two senators, both Democrats, and one of them Mr. Murtha. I particularly like when the one Sergeant stood up in the back and thoroughly debunked all the B.S. Murtha and his fellows are spewing. He had just come back from Iraq, and was returning, as were all the troopers whom he led; their morale, and the morale of the troops in Iraq that he visits, is excellent; and not once did they receive any call, letter, or visit from the other Senator sitting beside Mr. Murtha (cannot recall the Senator's name, my apologies) - despite the fact that the Sergeant was one of the Senator's constituents. No visits, nothing -- but a lot of B.S. about how morale stinks, the troops hate their jobs, etc. My congraluations and appreciation to the sergeant for proving how glaring and blatant the hypocrisy of Mr. Murtha and his ilk is -- and for standing up for yourself and for your fellow soldiers against them.
2) Same topic - of course, I could only find that press conference on Fox News and a few mentions here and there on other news sites (that took effort to dig up the stories). I suppose it makes sense that they cover Mr. Murtha when he's in a controlled environment and the "message" isn't distorted by something as horrific as actual experience and actual facts -- and ignore reality when it's slammed into the faces of those who deny it. Liberal bias, perhaps; but a definite bias nonetheless. If that sergeant had stood up and agreed with Murtha, we'd have heard about it on the front page of every newspaper -- and when he stood up and rebuked both Senators, that also should have been front-page news.
3) Corruption. Interesting, isn't it, how Republican corruption issues are front-page news... and the corruption scandal involving Democrats (this time in Louisiana!) that came to light last week was nowhere to be seen, except on back pages and buried on pg. 38? One of these days the newspapers are going to remember that the issue isn't one party's corruption or the other -- it's corruption as a whole, and should be addressed as such, particularly when evidence piles up implicating BOTH parties. But again, whenever someone asks about bias, remember the rule: if the standards are unbiased, the stories will be covered fairly, and a front-page article on one party's corruption charges will be followed appropriately with a front-page article on the other party's corruption/scandal problems when those arise. Otherwise, basic reading-for-comprehension learning tells us that there's a bias or slant involved -- and it's not hard to figure out that bias/slant.
4) Interesting, isn't it, how we're now seeing evidence coming out of Iraq -- ledgers, written documents, and physical set-ups, evidently -- that Hussein did provide for the training of terrorists on Iraqi soil prior to the invasion. It's also interesting that these little facts are being ignored by the mainstream media, who would, I suppose, have to undo four years of the B.S. they've been spouting about how there's "no proof". Try again. Personally, the fact that Hussein, on the record in the 1990s, stated to the world that he would pay any terrorist who blew himself up and took any "godless Americans" with him would be paid $25,000 (to his family, obviously) -- which in the middle east is a massive sum -- is more than enough for me. It puzzles me that anyone would say he wasn't "supporting terrorists" when making this public statement -- since the statement itself is blatant, outright, and well-covered by the international press, and expresses clearly his support and encouragement of terrorist murders. One of these days, the mainstream media... nah. Never mind. It's almost pointless, wishing that the mainstream media would report facts instead of ideology, the truth about things instead of their own slant. Leave editorial opinion and world-view to the editorial page --and report NEWS, which is to say FACTS, in the rest of the paper.
Until tomorrow!
1) excellent press conference with two senators, both Democrats, and one of them Mr. Murtha. I particularly like when the one Sergeant stood up in the back and thoroughly debunked all the B.S. Murtha and his fellows are spewing. He had just come back from Iraq, and was returning, as were all the troopers whom he led; their morale, and the morale of the troops in Iraq that he visits, is excellent; and not once did they receive any call, letter, or visit from the other Senator sitting beside Mr. Murtha (cannot recall the Senator's name, my apologies) - despite the fact that the Sergeant was one of the Senator's constituents. No visits, nothing -- but a lot of B.S. about how morale stinks, the troops hate their jobs, etc. My congraluations and appreciation to the sergeant for proving how glaring and blatant the hypocrisy of Mr. Murtha and his ilk is -- and for standing up for yourself and for your fellow soldiers against them.
2) Same topic - of course, I could only find that press conference on Fox News and a few mentions here and there on other news sites (that took effort to dig up the stories). I suppose it makes sense that they cover Mr. Murtha when he's in a controlled environment and the "message" isn't distorted by something as horrific as actual experience and actual facts -- and ignore reality when it's slammed into the faces of those who deny it. Liberal bias, perhaps; but a definite bias nonetheless. If that sergeant had stood up and agreed with Murtha, we'd have heard about it on the front page of every newspaper -- and when he stood up and rebuked both Senators, that also should have been front-page news.
3) Corruption. Interesting, isn't it, how Republican corruption issues are front-page news... and the corruption scandal involving Democrats (this time in Louisiana!) that came to light last week was nowhere to be seen, except on back pages and buried on pg. 38? One of these days the newspapers are going to remember that the issue isn't one party's corruption or the other -- it's corruption as a whole, and should be addressed as such, particularly when evidence piles up implicating BOTH parties. But again, whenever someone asks about bias, remember the rule: if the standards are unbiased, the stories will be covered fairly, and a front-page article on one party's corruption charges will be followed appropriately with a front-page article on the other party's corruption/scandal problems when those arise. Otherwise, basic reading-for-comprehension learning tells us that there's a bias or slant involved -- and it's not hard to figure out that bias/slant.
4) Interesting, isn't it, how we're now seeing evidence coming out of Iraq -- ledgers, written documents, and physical set-ups, evidently -- that Hussein did provide for the training of terrorists on Iraqi soil prior to the invasion. It's also interesting that these little facts are being ignored by the mainstream media, who would, I suppose, have to undo four years of the B.S. they've been spouting about how there's "no proof". Try again. Personally, the fact that Hussein, on the record in the 1990s, stated to the world that he would pay any terrorist who blew himself up and took any "godless Americans" with him would be paid $25,000 (to his family, obviously) -- which in the middle east is a massive sum -- is more than enough for me. It puzzles me that anyone would say he wasn't "supporting terrorists" when making this public statement -- since the statement itself is blatant, outright, and well-covered by the international press, and expresses clearly his support and encouragement of terrorist murders. One of these days, the mainstream media... nah. Never mind. It's almost pointless, wishing that the mainstream media would report facts instead of ideology, the truth about things instead of their own slant. Leave editorial opinion and world-view to the editorial page --and report NEWS, which is to say FACTS, in the rest of the paper.
Until tomorrow!
Thursday, January 12, 2006
New Year thoughts... Alito confirmation, etc.
Well, the New Year's here, and the Citizen apologizes for his absence over the past month and promises to be more regular with his thoughts.
To-wit, today's thoughts:
1) Watching Democrats during this confirmation hearing didn't even make good entertainment, though it would make an excellent teaching tool: "how not to make good arguments".
-- To Senator Dick Durbin, who chastised Alito for not having a "clear" position on abortion and flip-flopping on it, goes the "look in the mirror" award. Fact: Senator Durbin for the majority of his lifetime, up to the 1990s, was pro-Life and went so far as to write many letters to his constituents promoting the overturning of Roe V. Wade. He "flip-flopped", to use his words, on the issue and now is pro-Choice -- making him scarcely one to criticise anyone else's positions on the issue, particularly when he describes his own process on making that change as "heart-wrenching" and "not simple". I guess applying the standard to himself would make him equally unsuitable, wouldn't it? Then again, that would require the Senator to be fair and honest, and judging from his behavior during the confirmation, I wouldn't expect either of those things anytime soon. And, as a citizen of Illinois, this is particularly disgusting to me, since this man represents me in the U.S. Senate.
-- To Senator Edward Kennedy, who couldn't come up with a policy or philosophical issue with which to fairly attack Alito, goes the "world's greatest hypocrite" and, in a double-win, also the "damn-the-facts-full-speed-ahead" awards. Senator Kennedy led the charge against Alito's brief involvement in an alumni association (involvement = paid dues; witnesses and records have already shown he wasn't active, didn't have any involvement in the management of it, nor did anything to promote it), calling the association "anti-woman" and "racist". First, as we've pointed out, it took ten seconds to look up the facts of the case on the internet and to discover that Alito had no role in the organization, did nothing to promote it, nor had any say in the formation of its activities. Kennedy's argument seems to be, if you pay for something, you're bound by whatever anyone else does who runs the organization -- a logic that would, for instance, require that all subscribers to a newspaper be held accountable for the editorial page of that newspaper and therefore be labelled as supporting and being liable for the opinions of that page. And that doesn't even pass the "smell" test. It's ludicrous on the surface and worse, both liberal and conservative (and media) groups had already looked into the group and found NOTHING untoward that could tarnish Alito. So, the good Senator from Massachussetts ignores all of this and uses this is as his line of attack -- which says more about Senator Kennedy's judgment and fairness than anything else. Secondly, the "documents" that Kennedy wanted, which he claimed would show the "racist and sexist" nature of the group and of Alito... had already been examined by the media and other groups and, as before, had already been put down because there was nothing there. But again, the absence of fact never stops the good Senator Kennedy from using non-existent facts to slander and malign someone. But let's not stop there. Alito is criticised for his actions in college and is required to remember every detail of everything back then -- I submit, let's find out the truth, finally, about why Senator Kennedy, back in his "bad old days" when he was that young, left the young lady to drown in Chappaquiddick. That story? Kennedy, drunk, was driving home with a young woman. He drove off the road and into a lake. He escaped the vehicle himself, made no effort to rescue her, walked home, and didn't contact the police until THE NEXT MORNING. By which time, the citizen would point out, he had already "lawyered up". Let's repeat this, because it's vital: he left a young woman to die, he made no effort to rescue her, he made no effort to contact the police for a dozen hours later and only then after he'd gotten legal advice. THAT is Edward Kennedy's judgment. If we hold Sam Alito to his actions as a young man, let's finally hold Edward Kennedy to his actions, too. I don't expect Edward Kennedy to actually hold himself to the standard he pushes on other people -- that would be fair, and honest, and decent.
-- to the Dems on the Senate panel (and the Republicans): go to a dictionary. Look up the word "brevity". Now look up the word "succinct". Now go re-read the Gettysburg Address. The point: learn how to make your point without the ludicrous bloviating that goes on whenever a Senator opens his/her mouth. I am far more impressed by someone who makes their point and does it succinctly, than when someone like Joseph Biden runs on for almost eighteen minutes while asking his first question.
2) Republicans in Congress and President Bush. Ah, the glory of the party that pushed through a Bankruptcy Bill that screwed over anyone who is in actual danger, who suffers a medical catastrophe that drives them into the poor house -- they passed a travesty of a bill that makes it more difficult on exactly those people. Couple that with the push to get the credit card companies to raise their minimum payments by as much as TWICE what it had been, which went into effect this month, and you've got Republicans behaving exactly as Democrats say they do: all about big business, and screw the individual citizen. A pox on the Republicans in Congress and on President Bush for behaving like this (and I might point out, throwing this sop to the credit industry as it reports record profits year after year WITHOUT this bonus).
3) Repeat after me: saying we went to war "for oil" is nonsensical. If we wanted oil cheap, we would have pushed to lift sanctions on Hussein and gone back to being buddy-buddy with him -- that would have gotten oil cheaply. We didn't do that. If we'd gone to war "for oil", and we ignore the logic of what I just said, then we must certainly have nationalized the Iraqi oil industry and moved to have U.S. oil companies upgrade the Iraqi oil infrastructure, to make it pump oil more efficiently and safely and quickly -- except, we didn't do that, either. We left the control and profits of Iraqi oil in Iraqi hands. So, please, grow up and stop using nonsensical comments like "war for oil". It just makes you look stupid, which is to say, as illogical and stupid as the statement itself.
4) Lesson to Democrats: reclaim the past and find better spokespersons. Gone are the day of such notable thinkers and speakers as Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Instead, the Dems offer up blatant hypocrites like Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, and that paragon of virtue and pristine philosophy, Howard Dean. Gone are the rational, measured, intelligent spokespeople for the Left, replaced by these bomb-throwers who evidently don't care how hypocritical they are or how empty of logical consistency their arguments are. The tragedy is, they don't seem to care, either, if they say something that isn't factually accurate. The absence of information, as in Senator Kennedy's case, is enough to savage another human being and slap labels on them -- even though there's no information to justify that behavior.
5) Basic lesson to all: do basic research before opening your mouth to make a point. Case in point: Senator Kennedy talking about how the Princeton group Alito was a dues-paying member of was "sexist" -- which ignores the fact that, at that time, the organization was run by Laura Ingram (that would be a woman), who was followed by an African-American gentleman (that would be a black man).
Hopefully, we'll see a New Year, 2006, that ushers in a politics that actually PROMOTES the exchange of ideas (instead of one side preaching to its side, and the other to its side, and both sides ignoring the thoughts of the other side... and in many cases, blindly saying that the other side's thoughts don't matter); one that brings in civility (that would require the firing of Howard Dean, among other things), since rational human beings are able to discuss and debate issues without ranting, raving, name-calling, etc. One that sees the Democrats in Congress doing the smart thing for these upcoming elections: 1) rage against the Bankruptcy Bill and make a campaign to undo it, in the name of the "people" and of "Fairness to the people", using rhetoric that talks about "helping people instead of hurting them" -- this is the ideal situation for Democrats, and since it's so obvious I'm equally as certain that they won't do it and will instead keep ranting and raving mindlessly as they've been doing for the past few years; 2) remove Nancy Pelosi and put in an effective leader for the House Democrats, one who actually listens to people other than those who parrot her own thoughts and opinions; 3) admit that, as the Republicans did on many ocassions in the 1990s and the Dems did in the 1980s, the President might actually have a point sometimes, instead of blindly and reflexively opposing each and every step or move. All that the last behavior achieves is to make Democrats look dedicated not to the country's best benefit ... but their own political benefit.
I can pray for civil behavior and measured, rational discourse -- pray for it, but the Citizen is not so blind as to expect it.
To-wit, today's thoughts:
1) Watching Democrats during this confirmation hearing didn't even make good entertainment, though it would make an excellent teaching tool: "how not to make good arguments".
-- To Senator Dick Durbin, who chastised Alito for not having a "clear" position on abortion and flip-flopping on it, goes the "look in the mirror" award. Fact: Senator Durbin for the majority of his lifetime, up to the 1990s, was pro-Life and went so far as to write many letters to his constituents promoting the overturning of Roe V. Wade. He "flip-flopped", to use his words, on the issue and now is pro-Choice -- making him scarcely one to criticise anyone else's positions on the issue, particularly when he describes his own process on making that change as "heart-wrenching" and "not simple". I guess applying the standard to himself would make him equally unsuitable, wouldn't it? Then again, that would require the Senator to be fair and honest, and judging from his behavior during the confirmation, I wouldn't expect either of those things anytime soon. And, as a citizen of Illinois, this is particularly disgusting to me, since this man represents me in the U.S. Senate.
-- To Senator Edward Kennedy, who couldn't come up with a policy or philosophical issue with which to fairly attack Alito, goes the "world's greatest hypocrite" and, in a double-win, also the "damn-the-facts-full-speed-ahead" awards. Senator Kennedy led the charge against Alito's brief involvement in an alumni association (involvement = paid dues; witnesses and records have already shown he wasn't active, didn't have any involvement in the management of it, nor did anything to promote it), calling the association "anti-woman" and "racist". First, as we've pointed out, it took ten seconds to look up the facts of the case on the internet and to discover that Alito had no role in the organization, did nothing to promote it, nor had any say in the formation of its activities. Kennedy's argument seems to be, if you pay for something, you're bound by whatever anyone else does who runs the organization -- a logic that would, for instance, require that all subscribers to a newspaper be held accountable for the editorial page of that newspaper and therefore be labelled as supporting and being liable for the opinions of that page. And that doesn't even pass the "smell" test. It's ludicrous on the surface and worse, both liberal and conservative (and media) groups had already looked into the group and found NOTHING untoward that could tarnish Alito. So, the good Senator from Massachussetts ignores all of this and uses this is as his line of attack -- which says more about Senator Kennedy's judgment and fairness than anything else. Secondly, the "documents" that Kennedy wanted, which he claimed would show the "racist and sexist" nature of the group and of Alito... had already been examined by the media and other groups and, as before, had already been put down because there was nothing there. But again, the absence of fact never stops the good Senator Kennedy from using non-existent facts to slander and malign someone. But let's not stop there. Alito is criticised for his actions in college and is required to remember every detail of everything back then -- I submit, let's find out the truth, finally, about why Senator Kennedy, back in his "bad old days" when he was that young, left the young lady to drown in Chappaquiddick. That story? Kennedy, drunk, was driving home with a young woman. He drove off the road and into a lake. He escaped the vehicle himself, made no effort to rescue her, walked home, and didn't contact the police until THE NEXT MORNING. By which time, the citizen would point out, he had already "lawyered up". Let's repeat this, because it's vital: he left a young woman to die, he made no effort to rescue her, he made no effort to contact the police for a dozen hours later and only then after he'd gotten legal advice. THAT is Edward Kennedy's judgment. If we hold Sam Alito to his actions as a young man, let's finally hold Edward Kennedy to his actions, too. I don't expect Edward Kennedy to actually hold himself to the standard he pushes on other people -- that would be fair, and honest, and decent.
-- to the Dems on the Senate panel (and the Republicans): go to a dictionary. Look up the word "brevity". Now look up the word "succinct". Now go re-read the Gettysburg Address. The point: learn how to make your point without the ludicrous bloviating that goes on whenever a Senator opens his/her mouth. I am far more impressed by someone who makes their point and does it succinctly, than when someone like Joseph Biden runs on for almost eighteen minutes while asking his first question.
2) Republicans in Congress and President Bush. Ah, the glory of the party that pushed through a Bankruptcy Bill that screwed over anyone who is in actual danger, who suffers a medical catastrophe that drives them into the poor house -- they passed a travesty of a bill that makes it more difficult on exactly those people. Couple that with the push to get the credit card companies to raise their minimum payments by as much as TWICE what it had been, which went into effect this month, and you've got Republicans behaving exactly as Democrats say they do: all about big business, and screw the individual citizen. A pox on the Republicans in Congress and on President Bush for behaving like this (and I might point out, throwing this sop to the credit industry as it reports record profits year after year WITHOUT this bonus).
3) Repeat after me: saying we went to war "for oil" is nonsensical. If we wanted oil cheap, we would have pushed to lift sanctions on Hussein and gone back to being buddy-buddy with him -- that would have gotten oil cheaply. We didn't do that. If we'd gone to war "for oil", and we ignore the logic of what I just said, then we must certainly have nationalized the Iraqi oil industry and moved to have U.S. oil companies upgrade the Iraqi oil infrastructure, to make it pump oil more efficiently and safely and quickly -- except, we didn't do that, either. We left the control and profits of Iraqi oil in Iraqi hands. So, please, grow up and stop using nonsensical comments like "war for oil". It just makes you look stupid, which is to say, as illogical and stupid as the statement itself.
4) Lesson to Democrats: reclaim the past and find better spokespersons. Gone are the day of such notable thinkers and speakers as Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Instead, the Dems offer up blatant hypocrites like Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, and that paragon of virtue and pristine philosophy, Howard Dean. Gone are the rational, measured, intelligent spokespeople for the Left, replaced by these bomb-throwers who evidently don't care how hypocritical they are or how empty of logical consistency their arguments are. The tragedy is, they don't seem to care, either, if they say something that isn't factually accurate. The absence of information, as in Senator Kennedy's case, is enough to savage another human being and slap labels on them -- even though there's no information to justify that behavior.
5) Basic lesson to all: do basic research before opening your mouth to make a point. Case in point: Senator Kennedy talking about how the Princeton group Alito was a dues-paying member of was "sexist" -- which ignores the fact that, at that time, the organization was run by Laura Ingram (that would be a woman), who was followed by an African-American gentleman (that would be a black man).
Hopefully, we'll see a New Year, 2006, that ushers in a politics that actually PROMOTES the exchange of ideas (instead of one side preaching to its side, and the other to its side, and both sides ignoring the thoughts of the other side... and in many cases, blindly saying that the other side's thoughts don't matter); one that brings in civility (that would require the firing of Howard Dean, among other things), since rational human beings are able to discuss and debate issues without ranting, raving, name-calling, etc. One that sees the Democrats in Congress doing the smart thing for these upcoming elections: 1) rage against the Bankruptcy Bill and make a campaign to undo it, in the name of the "people" and of "Fairness to the people", using rhetoric that talks about "helping people instead of hurting them" -- this is the ideal situation for Democrats, and since it's so obvious I'm equally as certain that they won't do it and will instead keep ranting and raving mindlessly as they've been doing for the past few years; 2) remove Nancy Pelosi and put in an effective leader for the House Democrats, one who actually listens to people other than those who parrot her own thoughts and opinions; 3) admit that, as the Republicans did on many ocassions in the 1990s and the Dems did in the 1980s, the President might actually have a point sometimes, instead of blindly and reflexively opposing each and every step or move. All that the last behavior achieves is to make Democrats look dedicated not to the country's best benefit ... but their own political benefit.
I can pray for civil behavior and measured, rational discourse -- pray for it, but the Citizen is not so blind as to expect it.
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