Pelosi's Rhetoric

It is like the Democrats have no understanding of the English language. Or, perhaps, their command of the language is far greater than mine. In a matter of two sentences, Nancy Pelosi extends a "hand of friendship" while simultaneously extending a middle finger.

Maybe Pelosi recognizes, as have many politicians before her, that words can often be used not as a conveyance for reality, for ideas, or for truth, but rather words in context can be made to communicate something that would otherwise be inherently irrational. "There's a new congress in town" is provocative. It stirs up images of the Old West mythology, of Wyatt Earp riding into town, giving notice to the Cowboys that Tombstone was no longer their private pervue. Yet Pelosi wants us to think she's offering friendship.

Nancy Pelosi is no more offering friendship to President Bush than Earp did to Ike Clanton. And I have full faith in the American people that they won't fall for it, if they just listen to the words that she is using.

Resistance and Agitation in the Birthplace of Freedom

Philly has a problem.

Like the leaders in most major metropolitain areas, the leaders of Philadelphia have decided that it should be against the law to smoke in a resturaunt. Motivated by millitant anti-smokers, backed up by doctors who have been politically radicalized, and leftists whose sole motivation is to concentrate government power, these bans have gone off in way too many places around the country.

Now, by way of disclosure, let me tell you that I used to be a smoker. I didn't start smoking until I was in my 20s, and I've quit and restarted a couple of times. I'm not smoking now, and have no intention of starting again. Any time someone cordially asked me to put out a cigarette, I did so with a smile. Anytime someone was nasty to me about it, I blew smoke in their face. Sometimes, being polite is really all you need to do to get your way.

But here's the thing: smoking is an individual choice. If I don't want to be around smoke, I don't go around smoke. If I don't want to eat in a resturaunt that has smoke, I don't go to that resturaunt. It is as simple as that. In this regard, I vote with my feet.

But this isn't good enough for some. No, they "look forward to the day when we can just say 'it's all smokefree, why bother?'"

I'll tell you why bother. Because this is America. This is a country that was founded on the freedom of individuals to do as they please. This is a country that prides itself on the liberty of its citizens to make sometimes stupid and irrational decisions.

The good news is that, just like those boys down the road in Boston who decided to make a big stink over some tea a while back, there are those in Philly who have the fortitude to stick it to the man, say "screw you, hippie, I'm letting people smoke in my four walls if I want to, you Nazi leftist pig!"

May their spirit, and the spirit of Edgar Friendly, wash over us all.

What the Brits Don't Get

Tony Blair has suffered major political fallout for his willingness to stand up against Sadaam's regime of terror. As such, we know that the UK is pulling troops out of Iraq, and won't be there much longer at all. In the minds and words of many liberal anti-war activists, being in Iraq only makes the UK a target for terror. So, if the UK pulls its troops from Iraq, terrorists will not target the Brits.

But the don't get it. Radical fundamentalist Islam is, at the end of the day, a movement that attacks based not on a demonstration of strength, but a demonstration of weakness. The Iranians capturing British soldiers, detaining them, and, one assumes trying them and eventually killing them (if London doesn't do something drastic). No, this move to take troops away from the War on Terror only makes the UK look more vulnerable.

The same thing happened with the train bombings in Madrid. It was obvious that Spain was on the edge about whether or not it would stand up against these thugs and murderers. Radical Muslim extremists blow up a train and the next thing you know Spain is out, AND they have a new shiny socialist government.

It's the same thing that Bin Laden figured would happen on 9/11. It's been well publicised that Bin Laden saw the U.S. as a "paper tiger" that would fold under pressure. But, the opposite happened, at least initially. And thank God for George W. Bush's steadfastness in the war on terror, too.

Of course, now the Democrats in the house are trying to fulfill Bin Laden's prediction, if a bit late. They are demanding we get out of Iraq, and are, like much of the rest of the world, demanding that a millitary solution to Iran's nuclear crisis be taken off of the table.

Look, appeasement didn't work when we tried it with Hitler. It didn't work with Stalin, either. These maniacs don't respond to guestures of kindness; they only respond to a show of force. If we back out of Iraq and refuse to disarm Iran of its' nuclear program, that will send a clear signal to the terrorist organizations, as well as rogue states, that we don't have the will to see it through. We will have many more 9/11's, and eventually one of them will be nuclear.

Democrats are hypocritical

Hoyer is, at least.

Oh, and water is wet.

The sky is blue.

Grass is green.

The sun is hot.

We taught the Dems a lesson

And that lesson is this: under oath, everyone is eventually going to say something that isn't true. When that happens, they are toast.

This thing with the U.S. attorney firings is laughable. I've read the supposedly damaging portions of the documents being bantered about. There is nothing in any of them that is any different from any other Washington memo. The democrats know that there is no way in hell that they are going to convict Al Gonzales or anyone else in the Bush administration on these firings. Nothing illegal was done, and it is starting to look like nothing particularly immoral was done, either.

No, the Democrats are not issuing subpoenas to get to the bottom of the firings, regarless of what Leahy the Leaker says. They want Karl Rove's head on a platter, and the lesson of Scooter Libby is that, eventually, you're bound to flub something, whether intentional or not, under oath. Doesn't matter if it is even related to the case.

Not that it hasn't happened to the Dems before. After all, lying under oath is what impeachment was all about. Still, Clinton's lie was, very obviously, a self-serving and bold-faced lie directed at the American people. Libby's perjury was, at worst, a goof on some factual details. Clinton stared directly into the camera and told the American people the same damned lie that he told under oath. Getting facts out of order is a hell of a lot different.

Nazis, art, and flags

I am a Northerner. I was born and raised in Michigan, and I have lived in just two states: Michigan and Indiana. I've spent maybe a total of 60 days in my life in the South, mostly in Florida and Georgia. When the Younces arrived from Germany in South Carolina in the 1780s, they came without much of anything at all, and they certainly didn't own slaves. As a matter of fact, they were Brethren ministers opposed to the slave trade. Many from the second generation, including my forefathers, moved North to Ohio. I married a Hoosier whose family history does dip down into a border state, Kentucky, before her mother was born. In terms of pedigree, with the exception of the Northern colonial descendants, I'm as pedigree a Yank as there are.

In terms of racism, it is a somewhat difficult thing to talk about one's own record. It always comes across as so defensive, so forced. But, I'll say it clearly anyways: I'm no racist. It's cliche, but I've "had several black friends" and any one of them would tell you that I'm not racist. I've done volunteer work at a camp for troubled African-American boys, I've spent a week at a time on "home missions" trips repairing houses in predominantly African-American neighborhoods, and my denomination was one of the most anti-slavery churches of its day. I'll go toe-to-toe with anyone who suggests that I am somehow racist.

But, I am still offended when someone desecrates the Confederate Battle Flag.

I understand some of the outrage among portions of the African-American community over the Confederate flag. To some degree, you could compare it to how the German Jews must have felt under the Nazi flag. Still, I don't believe that this is a good comparison. The Confederate flag, in one form or another, only flew between secession and the end of the Civil War. It doesn't represent the oppression of the African-American under slavery, any more than the U.S. flag represents slavery - after all, slavery was implicitly recognized by the Constitution. (I'm fully aware that there are radicalized elements in the African-American community that would like to do away with the U.S. flag for that reason, but these voices are, thankfully, few and far between).

The confederate battle flag, rather, represents, in the eyes of the South, the oppression of the South by the Federal government, and the struggle of the South against that oppression. As such, it is no coincidence that Hillary wants the Confederate flag removed from the South Carolina statehouse: more federal oppression.

Yeah, slavery was wrong. It was a moral evil that was, thankfully, wiped from our nation's landscape. But the way that it happened was through Federal oppression of the Southern states, and that was just as wrong. Tying the ideals of the Confederacy only to slavery, or suggesting that the Confederate battle flag should somehow be lynched, is to distort history. It is to miss the one remaining lesson of the Civil War that still faces us today: the Federal government does not have the right to citizens to states how they run their own lives. Of course the liberals want us to connect the Confederate flag with slavery; to connect it with government oppression would only reveal their true agenda.

Why the Party is hanging Al Gonzales out to dry

I think I've figured it out. It's starting to make sense.

It's the same reason that Nixon didn't dispute the election in 1960 and Gore did 40 years later. It's the same reason that Nixon resigned and Clinton didn't. (That's an intentional comparison, by the way, for you liberal readers. I know you guys hate being compared unfavorably to Nixon).

It's the same reason that Republicans always seem to balk at defending their own from wrongdoing. And here it is: Conservatives are morally superior to liberals.

Now, I know. The liberals always lambaste conservatives for claiming to be, or feeling, morally superior. Yeah, it has a negative connotation. But, I don't think that it has to be all that bad. I think that it is all right to have a higher moral standard. I think that it is OK to call a spade a bloody shovel. If someone does something wrong, liberal or conservative, a conservative should be able to stay true to conscience and say, "you did something wrong."

Does this mean that conservatives don't have moral failings? Nope. Does this mean that they don't have just as many moral failings as liberals? Not at all. But it does mean that they have a sense of guilt. They have a sense that behaving badly is not all right, even when they do it themselves.

Just because Newt was having an affair at the same time as Clinton doesn't mean that Newt was right to do it and Clinton wasn't. Both were abhorrent. But, eight years on and Newt has said, "my affair was a moral failing on my part. It's something I've had to repent of and make up for." Bill's wife is still talking about the "vast right-wing conspiracy" who outed her husband's affair. Clinton has done nothing that would suggest contrition. Newt has.

Does contrition make it right? Again, no, it doesn't. Nothing makes it right, that's the point. Just like firing judges on a purely political basis, if that's what Al Gonzales did, was not right. No, it's not as bad as firing all 93 judges, including one who was investigating your business dealings. But the conservatives have this moral compass that tells them that corruption is corruption regardless of who commits it. Liberals don't.

Now, is it premature for Sununu to call for Gonzales to resign? Yeah, it is. The facts aren't all in yet. There is no reason that he should see Gonzales as red meat, at least not yet. That's at least as political and reprehensible as firing judges on political grounds.

I would love to blog about something other than Hillary

But when she declares that she'd keep troops in Iraq just weeks after telling Bush he'd better get the troops out of Iraq before he leaves office, I can't let it go.

One of two things is going on here: Either Hillary just says whatever the hell she feels like saying depending on her audience or the direction the wind is blowing, keeping her real agendas secret, or maybe 2 + 2 really does equal 5, as long as Hillary says so. In the end, the logic of her position demands it..

Hillary is Nucking Futs.

The woman has lost it. Again.

She's declaring another "vast Right-wing conspiracy". This time, however, the conspiracy isn't out to make it look like her husband had sex with an intern. No, this one is to make sure that black people don't get to vote.

Becuase, as we know, that conspiracy was so successful that it actually got Bill Clinton to have sex (sorry, oral counts in my book) with Monica Lewinsky.

I suppose it's a vast Right-wing conspiracy that prompted Hillary to criticize Alberto Gonzales when he fired 8 U.S. attorneys, as opposed to the 93 that her husband fired.

Ron Paul in '08 is our only hope.

By training, if not by trade, I am an historian.

Now, I'm not claiming to be James McPherson or even David McCullough. Heck, I'm not even claiming to be my late history professor Glenn Martin, or even my most recent favorite professor Jennifer Green. Still, I am, by training, an historian. Just because I am not one by trade does not invalidate my credentials.

Having said that, as an historian, I am able to look at the movie 300 without trying to dissect the historical inaccuracies. You see, I'm also a fanboy. So, I know that 300 is not intended in any way to be historically accurate. It is intended to represent a graphic novel, a comic book.

I suppose, though, what disturbs me about Professor Lytle's review is that it doesn't focus as much on the true historical details, but it contains phrases like "brutal apartheid state" and words like pedastry.

Now, I know the conservative bloggers and commentators have been all over "revisionism" in history for years. As an historian, I don't have a problem with the ideas behind revision. I fully believe that our stories need to be retold and reinterpreted if they are to be meaningful to each generation.

However, in practice, revision becomes a bad thing when it is only done a certain way. In other words, today's historical revisionism is based around the "holy trinity" of historiography: race, class, and gender. But, by revising only along these lines, we miss much of what history has to say to us.

In this way, Frank Miller may have been a better historian than professor Lytle. Miller tells us that, sometimes, you can beat the odds. That sacrifice can have rewards. That war doesn't have to be meaningless. These are the lessons of history, not whether "to spartanize" used to mean "to bugger."

Manufacturing Dissent

The AP has an interesting piece today on a documentary film made about liberal filmmaker (redundant, I know) Michael Moore. Among the more interesting nuggets:

• Roger Smith, then-CEO of General Motors and the focus of Moore's debut Roger & Me, actually met with Moore, not once, but twice.
• These meetings were not reported in the media until three years after Roger & Me was made.
• Michael Moore proved even more elusive than Roger Smith, with the two documentary makers making multiple attempts to interview Moore with no success.
• The two documentary makers are both self-proclaimed liberals who are, as a result of making this film, disappointed and disillusioned with Moore.

The most amazing part about this to me? That anyone could be "disappointed and disillusioned" with Moore in the first place, as it implies some sort of admiration to begin with. Most sane liberals abandoned Moore after Farenheit 9/11.

The Lunatic Fringe

From the Las Vegas Review Journal:

But the socialist, Web-addicted wing of the Democratic Party was apoplectic. The prospect of having to watch Fox News to see their own candidates would have been torture in itself. So they set the blogosphere aflame with efforts to kill the broadcast arrangement, or at least have all the candidates pull out of the event. Before Friday, the opportunistic John Edwards was the only candidate to jump on that bandwagon.

Now, I don't know who the editors are at the Las Vegas Review Journal, but it is nice to see that someone else out there gets it. I mean, for crying out loud, if Republicans had sworn off every left-leaning media outlet, there would be no White House press corps.

What is it that these nutjobs at Moveon.org are afraid of? They claim that Fox News is not a legitimate media outlet, yet the bureaucratic mouthpieces of NPR and PBS are somehow direly needed. Moveon.org claims to want NPR and PBS to be free of "partisan meddling," but they just don't get it: ANY outlet that is controlled by government is, by its very nature, partisan.

It's like the same loonies that think that funding elections publicly will remove corruption from the process. Hello? Is there any government-funded program that is not inherently prone to corruption? These dingbats disparage our Armed Forces during a time of war, and seek to defund our mission in Iraq.

Look, I'm all about liberty. Really, I am. I believe that we get the government that we deserve. But the fact of the matter is that there are a hell of a lot of really, really stupid people out there on the left, and they've got a much sexier message than those of us on the right.

After all, what sells better to the working class: "We want to raise your wages through the force of law," or "if you work harder to improve your station in life you can?"

The truth isn't always easy, and it isn't always popular, but it is still the truth.

The Daily Kosmonaut

I'd just like to see liberals live by their own rules for once. They can say "faggot" but Ann Coulter cannot. They can create fake polution offsets and burn more electricity than anyone, but God forbid I run my furnace above 68 degrees.

Liberalism is the embodiment of hypocrisy.

Why the Dems want a timetable

Democrats want us out of Iraq. That's not news. A millitary withdrawal would make for the ultimate black eye on any administration. Just ask LBJ's ghost, he can tell you all about that.

But, this timetable thing is especially interesting. Hillary, of course, previously said that Bush shouldn't leave Iraq for his successor to clean up. That would mean, then, that we should be out of Iraq by January of 2009, right? Nope. The Democrat timetable for the pullout of Iraq is August, 2008. Why?

It is simple. The Dems don't want the war on terror to be an issue in the 2008 campaign. The fact of the matter is that, unless Lieberman decides to run for prez as a Dem, they don't have one candidate on the block that is strong on defense. And the Republicans are overflowing with them. And, while I don't personally like McCain because of his encroachment on free speech (which was initiated and executed by the Democrat Feingold, by the way), you damn well better believe I'd rather have him at the helm during war than Barry or Hillary.

The Democrats know it. Even if support for the war is at an all time low, none of their candidates can get elected if we've got troops deployed in an active conflict zone.

This is also, by the way, the same reason the Dems want to negotiate with a guy who denies the holocaust ever took place. God forbid that we should be in active conflict with Iran in August of '08, just three months before the presidential elections.

The web is not perfect

I'm not sure why I didn't find this sooner:

A response to Annie Defranco from 1993.

Could not have said it any better myself.

Soviet-Era Video Games

Sometimes, you just need a good laugh. Check out OMGLMAO's blog feature today:

http://omglmao.blogspot.com/2007/03/comunist-mario.html

Tremendous, my friends.

Sometimes, you gotta roll a hard six. Or, maybe three of 'em.

You have got to love public education.

If "separation of church and state" is to be applied in an absolute sense to public education, we've only hit the tip of the iceberg. If a woman can be fired because she is "enticing students to practice witchcraft" by letting them read Harry Potter, things have truly hit the fan. Soon, teachers who believe in Marxism will be fired for trying to teach that religion.

You see, there's no good answer here. All that has happened in New York is that a principal, who is probably a Christian, recognizes that he's not allowed to integrate his faith into his job. He then takes the approach (which I think may be correct) that "if I can't do it, neither can she."

The only way we will ever get past this is to defund and defunct public education. No, it can't happen overnight. Any true market reforms, whether concerning education or industry, must happen gradually, with transitional institutions, like vouchers and charter schools.

So, what do you think? Is it reasonable to think that public education will ever be free of the Church/State conflict?

What's wrong with this country is what's right with this country

So, the other night, I was writing a blog post on some nutbag professor who seems to be guilty of treason. My wife, who conveniently sits at the computer next to mine, was doing something else. Just as I finished my post, she turned to me and said, "Well, they finally buried Anna Nicole Smith."

I stared blankly in the pretentious way I'm known to do and I said, without thinking "You know, you are what is wrong with this country. We're in the middle of a war, and our college professors are giving training manuals to our enemies. But somehow, it still matters to you where some dead celebrity is buried!"

Just this morning, she started speaking to me again.

I've had a lot of time to think about things while I was getting the silent treatment, and I think I've figured something out. Maybe, just maybe, it's not all that bad to be concerned with Anna Nicole, or with Paris, or Britney, or TomKat or whatever the flavor of the day is. Even in a time of war. These kinds of distractions are, in some way, a nice little fanciful escape from the cold hard reality that surrounds us. It may well be that we need these kinds of stories to keep us sane at times.

Add something else into the mix. America is the one place in the world where you don't, for the most part, have to worry about the Government running your life. Sure, there are incursions that we strive to beat back every day. But we still enjoy a relative amount of liberty in the United States. Our obsession with Anna Nicole, while a sign of our decadence to the parts of the world that hate us, is in some ways a representation of our freedoms. We have a right in the United States to escape from the serious issues every now and again, or even to not give a flying crap about the serious issues.

However, I have to agree with Drew: it's not news. It's fark.

Defining Censorship

Bill Maher who, by the way, is no Dennis Miller, thinks that Dick Cheney's death would mean that other lives would be saved.

Maher's invective, in my opinion, is over the line. Should he have a right to say it? Sure. But, should HBO have the right to fire him if they want? Abso-fracking-lutely.

Censorship is not, you see, a company or a person telling someone else to shut up; it is when the government tells someone to shut up.

Meanwhile, I'm confused when someone compares wishing death on the Vice President to calling John Edwards a faggot. Yeah, I think Ann Coulter's comments were over the top. But, implying that our Vice President should be dead is not just bad manners; it borders on treason. As much as I despised Clinton (even before Monica) I never wished him dead. He was our president. (Plus, it would have meant Al Gore would have become commander-in-chief). Calling someone what was just ten years ago an acceptable playground slur, while immature at best, is a heck of a lot different.

You've GOT to be kidding me.

Mike Adams has an interesting piece at TownHall.com today.

It amazes me what goes on in the name of intellectual freedom. Like I said before, there ought to be few limits on the freedom of speech. It comes down to the issues of relatively minor violations of the law (in the case of libel) or relatively major ones (in the case of treason).

So, would you think that someone who provides training manuals and videos to our enemies would be guilty of treason? Apparently not in Ohio. There, they let you teach at Kent State.

This guy needs to be arrested publicly (not in the middle of the night, like the Taliban would do), given a fair trial (unlike what would have occured under Saddam), and given a death sentence (Via a relatively painless lethal injection, unlike Nick Berg's death sentence) if convicted of giving aid and comfort to our enemies.

Can anyone honestly defend this guy? I'd love to hear anyone try it. Please. Five bucks (via Paypal) to anyone with even a slightly reasonable argument.