The Real Issue

Insensitive Japanese people

It's depressing to hear Presidential candidates quibbling about trivialities like our several wars, our multi-trillion-dollar deficit, and the drug war along our border, and at the same time ignoring the really big issue of our time, sensitivity to the feelings of others.  We know that insufficient sensitivity is the most significant issue facing us, because it's clearly the most significant in the academic world, which is the source of all our progressive wisdom.

Most of us out here in the benighted hinterlands, trying to make a living and somehow survive, are, alas, insensitive to all this insensitivity.  But we have an informant behind the ivy-covered wall who keeps us apprised of what really matters.  I'd say it's about fruit, but "fruit" also has an unfortunate, insensitive double meaning, and we certainly don't want any double-entendres in this blog.  So we'll just say it's about an offensive menu item.  Paul Gottfried sets us straight HERE.

Ron Paul's Foreign Policy

Cartoon by BALOO

First, let's talk about what a Libertarian Nationalist foreign policy is.  The purpose of a nation's government is the protection of the nation.  This involves protecting the rights of the population of the nation, and protecting the nation from aggression by outsiders.  Consequently, the foreign policy of a nation's government should have those two things as its goals, most obviously the second.  In short, our foreign policy should be about our interests, not those of any other country, or mankind in general, or rainbows and unicorns.  The governments of other nations should be protecting their own nations. We don't expect them to act in our interest, and we shouldn't act in theirs.

All this should be obvious, but clearly it isn't.  It first got semi-fuzzy with the Spanish-American War, when the war was partly justified by the idea that we should be rescuing the Cuban people from Spanish aggression.  That is, American soldiers should die, not in the defense of America, but in defense of foreigners.  Mark Twain initially fell for that justification, though he's better known for his subsequent opposition to the war. The point is, he fell for it, because even then there was a streak of thinking in America that it was somehow nobler to get our soldiers killed to benefit foreigners.

Now, I have no problem with the concept of spheres of influence, and definitely don't want hostile regimes set up near our borders, and I think it's a valid responsibility of our government to ensure that such things don't happen.  But I think that can almost always be accomplished without resort to armed invasion.

But it's a long way from Mexico or Canada to Europe, and after our Spanish war, it became all that much easier for our politicians to convince us that we just had to go protect Belgium, or Britain, or something, by wasting American lives and money in World War I.  A libertarian nationalist, in those days — and a great many Americans could be described as such then — would have asked, "What good will it do us to participate in a war in Europe?"  The answer, of course, would have been "none at all."  The same goes for WW II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Libya, etc.

To a libertarian nationalist, our foreign policy has been perverse and self-defeating for over a century now.  It's mostly been determined by liberals or their more well-dressed sisters, the neocons.  The interventionist politicians have exploited our innate feelings of benevolence towards others to seduce us into cooperating with their plans to send our troops all over the world to promote everybody's interests but our own.  Usually, these people or countries we're called upon to help or defend are referred to as our "allies." We don't have any allies, much, if you define an ally as someone who can be counted on to defend you if you're attacked.  Maybe Australia you can make a case for, but hardly anybody else.  We certainly don't have anything of the kind anywhere in the Middle East.

The neocons, who are at the most one generation away from Trotsky, are fond of characterizing those of us who oppose promiscuous foreign adventuring as "leftist."  It is the neocons who follow the leftist paradigm in every respect, calling for permanent revolution and intervention everywhere, destabilizing every country on Earth so that the US can be called upon to fix problems everywhere, with blood and money.

Now, as you can see in the cartoon above from 2008, Baloo predicted that Obama would continue the Bush nose-in-everybody's-business foreign policy, and he has indeed done so.  Handsomely.  Oh, the rhetoric is a little more leftish, while Bush's was a little more rightish, but the consequences are the same, and it's not just continuing, but expanding.  Now it looks like there's a big problem with Syria that we have to get involved with.  And in an attempt to one-up Obama, Hillary is even hinting that maybe we need to interfere with Russia.

So, really, differences between all the Republicans and all the Democrats when it comes to foreign policy and foreign intervention are all rhetorical and stylistic, and the bombs will continue to fall no matter who's inaugurated next time.  Is there any candidate who even hints at a rational foreign policy?

Sure.  Ron Paul.  I don't know if he's a nationalist libertarian or not, but he's the closest thing we've got to it.  He thinks that Iran is a long way from here, and that we've got a lot of problems closer to home that deserve priority.  He thinks we should have a good, strong defense, and cut way back on defending everybody else.  I don't know what you think of Ronald Reagan, but he once said:

"Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country."


Maybe Newt and Mitt aren't the Reagans of today, after all.

Oh, I have my problems with Ron Paul.  I don't think he takes the border or immigration seriously enough, although he takes them more seriously than the other Republicans or Obama do.  I think he somewhat overemphasizes the popular notion that "anybody can become an American," while in actuality very few can.  But in contrast to all the others, again, he never lies about what he thinks, and when he says he's going to do something, he goes ahead and does it.

There's an interesting discussion about Ron Paul's foreign policy over at Steve Sailer.  Particularly it concerns the appeal of his foreign policy to voters, once they get past the smears on the part of his opponents and actually understand it.  Especially you should read the comments, and one commentator in particular, "Whiskey," who perpetuates the zany notion that Obama has some kind of pacifistic foreign policy, when he's at least as belligerent as Bush was.  He proceeds to confuse the issue further by suggesting that Paul's foreign policy is also "pacifistic," when it's actually prudent, and 180 degrees away from the almost identical policies of Obama and the other Republicans.

So, I'll be voting for Ron Paul.  The only guy who I'd more eagerly vote for would be Pat Buchanan, but he isn't running.

Malevolent Muslim Mesirah

I've said many times before that Islam, whatever its virtues (and it does indeed have virtues), simply doesn't fit into the framework of Western Civilization.  It has inherent norms, such as polygamy, that are flat-out morally at odds with the shared values of Western Civilization.  And indeed, some behavior that is widely accepted in the West is intrinsically offensive to Muslims.  Whichever direction the offense goes in, it's there, and it is disruptive to the social fabric.  Added to that is the centuries-old animosity between Christians and Muslims, and it's pretty clearly a terrible social policy to permit Muslim immigrants into the West, or, for that matter, Western immigrants into Muslim countries.

One overwhelmingly inappropriate feature of Islam is the principle of mesirah.  It states, basically, that it's forbidden for any Muslim to inform a secular authority that another Muslim has committed a crime, or to testify against any Muslim brought to trial by a secular authority.  And any Muslim who does so is considered to have broken Islamic law, and may be killed as a punishment.  You have to admit, this sort of wreaks havoc with the rule of law, yes?  In short, in a Muslim community in the West, a Muslim can do just about anything — rape, murder, child abuse, theft — and as long as no non-Muslims are witnesses to it, he can count on Muslim law to protect him from the civil authorities.  And pointing this fact out, of course, can get you accused of Islamophobia, and


(The Blogger is tapped on the shoulder.)


"What is it? — I'm busy blogging right now."
"--------"
"Huh?"
"----------! ----------!"
"Oh... Uh, thanks."


Ahem.  Never mind what I just wrote. Seems I misread something.  I apologize to all my Muslim readers.  "Mesirah" just has a, you know, Arabic sound to it, so I naturally assumed... Well, hell — the actual story is HERE.  Make of it what you will.  I've got to go think up a totally different post.

Piling on Ron Paul

All over the very short spectrum from liberals to neocons, the smearing of Ron Paul continues.  I say very short spectrum because, when you get right down to it, what are the big policy/ideological differences between say, Gingrich and Obama?  Both are for socialized medicine, both are for sending American troops halfway around the world to invade/protect other countries while ignoring our own border.   Both support affirmative action and the massive growth of government.  Both have no problem with multi-trillion-dollar deficits.  Both are into social engineering by an increasingly intrusive Federal Government, backed up by an arrogant, inefficient Justice Department.  Ron Paul is against all that stuff, which makes him an "extremist," or a "nut."  And I used Gingrich, but the same applies to the other Republican candidates to one degree or another, always with the exception of Ron Paul.  And then there are the newsletters.  I recommend you research that question on the Net, and find the actual contents of the newsletters.  I think you'll find them pretty innocuous.  For a summary of the media-wide attacks on Ron Paul, go take a look at what Kevin MacDonald has to say.

Democrats for Ron Paul

This is pretty devastating, isn't it?  From four years ago, and still accurate. Click to enlarge.

Tea Party Mailing

Cartoon by BALOO

From the Tea Party Newsletter.  Read the whole thing HERE.

The Republican presidential primary has become a bit feisty, but it will get downright ugly if Ron Paul wins the Iowa caucuses.

The principled, antiwar, Constitution-obeying, Fed-hating, libertarian Republican congressman from Texas stands firmly outside the bounds of permissible dissent as drawn by either the Republican establishment or the mainstream media.

But in a crowded GOP field currently led by a collapsing Newt Gingrich and an uninspiring Mitt Romney, Paul could carry the Iowa caucuses, where supporter enthusiasm has so much value.

Bar Joke

A black guy, an illegal alien, a Muslim and a communist walk into a bar.

The bartender asks,

“What can I get you, Mr. President?”


Thanks and a tip of the Ex-Army hat to NICHOLAS STIX.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Okay, it's not a dragon, but it's a lot prettier
than any dragon-tattoo illustrations I could find.

I haven't seen the remake, but I saw all three of the original Swedish movies, and it's like this.  They're enjoyable, well done, with an interesting plot, but boy, are they politically correct!  In the first movie, the one they remade, the two good guys are a totally screwed-up, body-pierced and tattooed lesbian freak, and a touchy-feely left-wing journalist.  And the bad guys are... NAZIS!  All evil White guys, who rape and murder for fun.  So all you ladies out there, if you decide to visit Sweden, for goodness sake avoid White men — they're liable to do anything!  If you see one, go hide behind an African immigrant.  He'll protect you.  If none of them are available, look for a nihilistic-looking girl with a Mohawk and rings in her nose.

Two good reviews of the remake, by Steve Sailer and Trevor Lynch.

Late-breaking news.  A very sappy review of the same movie on Counterpunch, by a viewer who swallowed all the Marxist propaganda whole.  Thanks to BrokenSymmetry for pointing this out on Steve Sailer's site.

George Washington — Anti-Semite or Anti-Zionist?

Condemned out of his own mouth!


"So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. 

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. "


See?  Washington was no better than Ron Paul!  I lifted this great quote from the Irish Savant — His site is HERE.

White Nationalism, Again

I've blogged before about White Nationalism, concluding that wherever you find yourself on the real right, you can regard White Nationalists as your allies.  What exactly is White Nationalism.  In a sense, it's analogous to other nationalisms, or ethnic-identity groups.  The NAACP is about the "advancement of Colored People," and if there's nothing deplorable about that goal, what's the problem with the advancement of White people, which is what White Nationalism is all about?  Every ethnic group in the country has one or more advocacy groups of this nature, from La Raza to the Anti-Defamation League, to a multitude of Black groups.  Except, of course, White people — and our wise rulers in the MAG (Media, Academia, Government) shrilly denounce anything that even suggests that Whites as a group have interests, let alone the idea that they be permitted to organize to promote them.

Currently, we have the big Ron Paul Newsletter scandal.  It seems that in the newsletters, which are mainly devoted to economic and constitutional matters, you can find an occasional quote, which, if carefully taken out of context, seem to support the idea that White culture and tradition are actually good things. Horrors!  So of course Ron Paul is constantly berated for all this, and called on to denounce, repudiate, etc., the newsletters, and implicitly go along with the Zeitgeist, which considers White culture and tradition to be bad things, which must be replaced ASAP with cultures and traditions from all over the world.  The more dysfunctional, the better.

Of course, Black Nationalists and Chicano Nationalists and Jewish Nationalists are all solidly behind Obama, except for a few who prefer Neocon Republicans who they think can promote their agendas even better, and the press never asks Obama or Romney or Gingrich to repudiate any of them.  So why is the MAG so hysterical about White Nationalism?  Could it be that they're not in favor of White interests, but actually hostile to them?  And if that's the case, why, oh why would a White person even consider voting for any of the candidates other than Ron Paul?

Well, for a deeper look at White Nationalism, see what Jack Donovan has to say, HERE.

Hatsune Miku Sings "Silent Night."

The Mouse that Roared

Cartoon by BALOO.  For permission to use this, contact him HERE.

What did I tell you?  Now that it's clear to our neocon masters that a lot of voters aren't terribly interested in selecting an Obamaoid to run against Obama, they're bringing all their guns to bear on Ron Paul and using every dirty trick they know to crush him.  With all our 'successes' in the Middle East behind us, having destabilized practically everybody there, the drums are beating for another adventure, financed with borrowed Chinese money, in Iran this time.  All the Republicans are committed to it, except Ron Paul, and so is Obama.  The Republicans will accuse Obama of not being enthusiastic enough about intervening in Iran, though of course he will, because that's what his orders are.  In short, we'll be offered a choice between two candidates who want to do exactly the same thing — unless Ron Paul is available, so he has to be marginalized at all costs.  Listen to what Alex Jones has to say about it:

Invading Iran

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the fact is that Ron Paul is absolutely right about Iran.  All the other candidates, from Obama to Bachmann to Perry, are absolutely wrong about Iran. Some of them, like Bachmann, who thinks the whole purpose of Christianity and the United States is to protect Israel, are probably sincere in their error, but the better-informed ones, like Gingrich, are most likely just sucking up to the Israel lobby, knowing full well that Iran is no threat to the United States even if it did have nukes.

Check out what Pat Buchanan has to say about this HERE.

Ron Paul — the Down Side

Cartoon by BALOO

First off, I will continue to enthusiastically support Ron Paul.  Only way I'd switch would be if Pat Buchanan declared his candidacy.  Ron Paul is good, or very good, on just about all the issues.  His downside is this:  He's wobbly on immigration.  Now, as far as the other candidates are concerned, most aren't wobbly at all — they're just very, very bad and wrong.  Bachmann is, seemingly, an exception to this, (See what Numbers USA says about all the candidates HERE.)  Leaving her out, for the moment, all of the others are explicitly or implicitly totally in favor of open borders and have no interest whatsoever in enforcing immigration laws.

But Ron Paul has been different.  He's actually advocated ending birthright citizenship, which is more than any of the other candidates has done.  But lately, he's been, unfortunately, wobbly, repeating nonsense like illegals "doing jobs Americans aren't willing to do."  Name one.  What they're willing to do is undercut wages for American workers and make up the difference by lining up at the welfare trough.

Libertarians tend to be daffy on the immigration thing, and Ron Paul is, after all, a libertarian, though in most respects, he tends to temper his ideology with a grasp of reality.  Libertarians tend to prize individual liberty above all other things, and I can appreciate that, but they also tend to forget that this value of theirs is unique to Western civilization in general, and its American variant in particular.  And that all these people who "just want to make a better life for themselves and their families" don't have a clue about individual liberty, and are here for the goodies and freebies.  And that their increased presence will just make real individual liberty less and less attainable.

So, my advice to you is to support Ron Paul, and if, against all odds, he gets himself elected, be prepared to put the pressure on for him to get back with the program, end birthright citizenship, deport the illegals, secure the border, and return to a sane immigration policy.  On the other issues, I think we can trust him.

For a deeper look at the Paul/immigration problem, go HERE.  And for an assessment of the Ron Paul Newsletter smear, go HERE.

Sarah Palin

What's Sarah Palin been up to lately?

Homer Nods (Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann)

The clip above disappointed me because it's so stupid.  This would have been a great opportunity for Paul to explain that Bachmann outrageously overestimates the threat from Iran to the point of hysteria, which would have been true, but instead he accused her of hating Muslims, which may or may not be true, but which would be irrelevant in any case.

The unfortunate thing is that such an accusation sounds exactly like what some doofus on the left would say.  Whenever a leftist is losing an argument, he accuses his opponent of "hate." Bachmann's problem isn't hatred for Muslims — it's an irrational worship of Zionism and Zionists, which causes her to take positions contrary to the interests of the United States.  She actually traveled to Israel as a teenager for a voluntary brainwashing.

As I've said before, Ron Paul isn't perfect.  He just comes closer to perfection than any other candidate in my lifetime with the exception of Pat Buchanan.  As above, now and then he falls into the trap of sounding like a leftist when he argues with neocon rhetoric.  Now, the neocons are going to call him a leftist no matter what he does, when they're not busy calling him a Nazi, but that's no reason to give them more ammunition.

What most Americans would like to hear from him is that, except in extreme circumstances, what goes on in the Middle East and the Muslim World is none of our damn business, and certainly not worth our going further into debt to send troops over to meddle in.  How's that for a confusing sentence?  But you know what I mean.

The whole thing disappointed John Derbyshire, too.  HERE'S what he says about it. (I especially like his idea of what Paul and Bachmann have to teach each other.)

Something Silly about Ron Paul

Misconceptions about Ron Paul

I covered lies about Ron Paul in the last post.  Now I'll talk about honest misconceptions.  A lot of people honestly think that we have to "do something" about everything, like Iran and North Korea and places like that.  Ron Paul disagrees about this, and so do I.  As Coolidge said, most of the problems coming down the road go into a ditch before they get to you, so why go looking for trouble?  Seriously, though, I'm a bit of a believer in spheres of influence.  Russia has the Caucasus and Central Asia, we have Latin America, etc.  We should worry about ours and keep an eye on everybody else's.

You can worry about other people's fates so much that you invite them to live in your house and eat your food, and then your own family is in danger of violence and starvation.  Countries are like that, too.  I think Ron Paul thinks that the fate of this country is the responsibility of our government, and it trumps the fate of other countries.  Therefore he's an isolationist, a racist, and an anti-Semite.

There's also the thought that people's lives will all fall apart if the government doesn't tell everybody what to do all the time.  Ron Paul doesn't think that's the case.  He's right.  People, especially American people, are better at making their own decisions.

None of this is to say I don't disagree with Ron Paul about stuff.  I do.  Thing is, everything he's wrong about, Obama and Newitt Gingney are wronger.

I'm all over the map on this one, and I'm losing coherence.  Tell you what, go read what Paul Gottfried has to say about Ron Paul.  He'll set you straight.

Lies About Ron Paul

Ron Paul is scaring the bejesus out of the establishment, and they're getting a bit panicky.  He's quite likely to win the Iowa caucuses, despite oceans of lies against him.  The sleazeball Dick Morris was discussing this with one talking head or another the other day, hinting that Paul is a racist and anti-Semite yadda yadda yadda, and adding that if Paul wins the caucuses, "What does that say about the people of Iowa?"  Well, what he means is that it says they're a bunch of ignorant hicks, I suppose, but to me it would mean that they're independent enough to vote for the candidate who makes the most sense.

As George Wallace said long ago, there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, and it's down to a nickel now.  If the neocons succeed in driving Paul and his supporters out of the Republican party, it'll be down to less than a penny.

Here are some of the popular lies about Ron Paul:

1.  He doesn't understand that Iran is a horrible threat. — Well, he doesn't understand that, because Iran isn't a horrible threat to us.  It's a third-world country that might, just might, sometime come up with one little nuke.  It's bordered by, or nearly bordered by, several countries that have a lot of nukes, like China, Pakistan, Israel, Russia, India, etc.  Speaking of China, Paul doesn't like the idea of borrowing trillions of dollars from China to finance wars for the benefit of other countries.

2. He's an anti-Semite. — He isn't.  Unless you define "anti-Semite" as someone who doesn't take orders from the Israel lobby, like all the other candidates do.

3.  He's an advocate of open borders. — This one has legs, because Paul is a libertarian, and libertarians are famous for advocating open borders, but that's not true of all of them, me for example.  Not to get too technical here, but birthright citizenship, the "anchor baby" thing, has to be eliminated before the problem can even begin to be solved.  Paul has advocated eliminating it, which is more than any other candidate, Democrat or Republican, has done.  He wrote THIS on the subject a few years back.  I've been concerned about this, and have concluded that Paul is the best of the candidates on the immigration problem. With the possible exception of Bachmann, all the other candidates are supporters of open borders.

And there are plenty more lies out there.  Indeed, all the liberal/neocon rags out there are in the process of recycling old lies about him and reprinting them.  Here's a nice summary of that from Steve Sailer.

And if you still need to know more about Ron Paul, I recommend THIS ARCHIVE.

More on Human Differences

Cartoon by BALOO

I've blogged a lot about human differences, most particularly with regard to race, HERE and HERE.  But of course the liberals and neocons continue to deny human differences, or, when that is too obvious a lie even for them, to dismiss these differences as trivial and meaningless for public policy.  But one thing they agree on is that "there's no such thing as race."  Absurd.  The fact that the human races are fuzzy at the edges, with people who are intermediate between two races, is hardly evidence that the human races don't exist.  The very fact that you can say there are intermediate types tacitly acknowledges their existence.  You can draw all kinds of analogies.  Let's say temperature.  Some things are hot, some things are cold, and there are many things in between.  So can you conclude that temperature doesn't exist?  Or that the distinction between hot and cold is "too vague"?  Or that the distinctions are "too arbitrary"?  Clearly, Jackie Chan belongs to the Mongoloid race, Charles Lindbergh to the Caucasoid race, and Jomo Kenyatta to the Congoid race.  Those are the big ones that everybody has always agreed on.  The Australoid race as a classification has been in dispute, with some wanting to classify them as a variant Caucasoid group.  In like manner, the Amerindians were once thought of as a separate race, but most now consider them a Mongoloid variant.  And currently, I understand, some people are classifying the old Capoid race as part of the Congoid race.  None of this invalidates the concept of race.

But wait — what if, against all experience, I'm wrong about that?  What if the classifications were too arbitrary, and maybe it's all too complicated to settle down on the fact that separate human races exist?  Well, actually, that wouldn't make any real difference to public policy, because the human differences are still there, regardless of whether you use them to classify people by race.  For a clear, if technical, description of that, see what Gregory Cochran has to say.

Voting Illegals

We are constantly assured that, while we may have a few million illegal aliens wandering around in the country, they certainly can't vote.  Because they have to show ID's to vote.  Wait — the Democrats are assuring us that asking for voter ID's is racist, so I guess they don't have to show them.  But surely, they wouldn't dare to try to vote anyway, because they fear deportation if they get caught.  But they don't get caught, and even if they did, the chances of deportation are infinitesimal.  Some of us want to change that.  This guy wants to make it legal for them to vote.  Why stop there?  Why not mail out absentee ballots to the whole goddam world, so everybody can vote to re-elect Obama.

This is the Mayor of New Haven.  All in favor of canceling his citizenship, say "Aye."

American Presidents in Uniform

Most of these Photoshop creations are pretty lame, but this one is cute.  If they want to continue this with a Republican President in uniform, it can't be Newt or Romney, draft-dodgers both.  Or any of the others, except Ron Paul and Rick Perry, the only veterans in the crowd.  If I've missed anybody, let me know.  Of course whoever it is will run against a couple more lifetime civilians, Obama and Biden.

So maybe we can add this later:

The Whole Muslim Thing

This isn't simple. Restricting the whole business to current politics, we have two extremes — We have the neocons and their pals, typified by Michele Bachmann, acting like Iran is some kind of Soviet Union, capable of wiping us out overnight.  And the same goes for the Islamic world in general, from Morocco to the Phillippines.  And then we have Ron Paul, who seems to be dismissing the whole Muslim thing as trivial or irrelevant.  Both, of course, are wrong in varying degrees.  This is, of course, all hingeing on the conviction that Iran is getting itself a nuclear weapon.  Ron Paul says so what, and I'm inclined to agree with him.  Lots of people have a lot more than one nuclear weapon, and armageddon hasn't resulted.  You could even argue that it might stabilize the place a little, giving Iran a mini-deterrent to keep Russia and China and Pakistan and Afghanistan, etc. at bay.  I mean, Israel has hundreds of nuclear devices, and nobody's calling for them to disarm, are they?  The usual reply to this is that Iran is run by a madman, and he'll fire the thing as soon as he gets it.  I doubt that.  You don't run a country that size if you're suicidally crazy.  Frankly, given its history, I think Iran is probably more likely than any other Muslim country to get its ducks in a row and avoid doing something crazy, except maybe Turkey.  Anyhow, given that Israel actually can wipe Iran out overnight with its nukes, it's not the sort of thing we need to be concerned about.  So in that respect, Ron Paul is right.  How is he wrong?


He's wrong because while the Muslim world is no military threat to the United States or the West, it's most certainly a threat as far as immigration is concerned.  No sane non-Muslim country should admit Muslim immigrants.  They don't fit.  Muslims belong in Muslim countries.  When Muslims move in, being typical human beings, they try to take over.  They bring all their charming customs with them, including delights like polygamy, female genital mutilation, honor killings, and a profound antagonism to all non-Muslims. That is not the kind of immigrant any country needs.


Did you notice Obama's speech celebrating the pull-out from Iraq?  One of the wonderful results is that we're going to grant a lot more student visas to Iraqis, hence, a lot more Muslim immigration.  This is suicidal.  As Steve Sailer puts it, this is a policy of "invade the world, invite the world."  Invade all Muslim countries because they're just awful, but invite all their people to immigrate, because they're just wonderful.


It's like this.  The family next door smokes and drinks, and you disapprove.  So you do a home invasion, take over, and set up a regime that tries to prohibit smoking and drinking.  But you leave your own door open, so those family members can move into your house and... smoke and drink there.


Here's what our policy should be.  Leave countries alone that don't threaten us.  And severely restrict immigration, and allow only those immigrants who can and will become Americans in every sense.  That, of course, precludes inviting Muslims. Of all the candidates running on both sides, they all seem to have the whole thing wrong, except for Ron Paul, who is half right, so I'll be voting for him.


**************


Late-Breaking News!  As he so often does, Pat Buchanan makes this point better than anybody else.  His column on the subject is HERE.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

The latest Sherlock Holmes movie is, like the first one starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law, a hoot.  I highly recommend it.  Some interesting points that apply to both movies:  The depiction of Victorian scenery and ambience is delicious, at times verging on a steampunk sensibility, so they're worth seeing just for that.  Second, nobody really looks right, almost.  Downey doesn't look like anybody's conception of Sherlock Holmes.  Mine is Basil Rathbone, and there's nothing I can do about it.  And Jude Law is nothing like Dr. Watson in my mind's eye, where he's rather portly and somewhat stuffy.  And to me, Moriarty is a bald-headed vulture-like fellow, built rather like Holmes himself, which I believe I got from one of the original illustrations.  On the other hand, Stephen Fry looks exactly like Mycroft Holmes is supposed to look, though a kinky sexual dimension was added to him in this movie, most likely at Fry's insistence.

A criticism of the first movie, which applies to the second, is that Holmes acts rather more like an action hero than a calm, rational detective, dashing about with nunchucks and walloping the foes.  Now, if you go by Rathbone and especially Jeremy Brett, you might agree, but those are just other interpretations, and if you actually go by the canon by Doyle, you'll see that Holmes was an action hero.  Doyle wasn't given to Mickey Spillane  or John D. MacDonald nitty-gritty descriptions of fist fights and gore, and it was usually something like "Holmes dispatched the miscreant," but dispatch them he did.  That was the style in Victorian prose.  Don't rub everybody's noses in the nasty details, just allude to them indirectly, and let everybody use a little imagination.  Holmes had mastered the Japanese art of Baritsu, after all.*

And, again unlike Rathbone's, and a bit more like Brett's, Downey's Holmes is a little crazy, which makes sense, what with Holmes' addiction to cocaine and shag tobacco.  Maybe he takes it a little further than Doyle would have, but it makes for a very interesting character — and, before I forget, one with rather more of a sense of humor than is usually the case.

And, not to give anything away, a lot of liberties are taken with the plot, which is severely modified from Doyle's original.  Now, some people will object to that, just as they will object to the fact that Holmes and Watson act more like Danny Glover and Mel Gibson than they're used to.  But not me.  Sherlock Holmes is like Shakespeare.  He's big and universal, and the core of the story is so widespread that we don't need a definitive version any more, we have several, and it's perfectly acceptable to ring changes on him.  He's big enough to take it.  Laurie King has done it, giving Holmes a very plausible wife, and by this time, Holmes has probably had more original stories written about him than any other fictional character.

This is one of those rare movies that is pretty enough to justify a trip to the theatre.  Enjoy.

*By the way, I'd always assumed that Doyle had made "baritsu" up, but I did a little research and found out that he didn't, although he did misspell it.  It was a real style of martial arts, developed by Edward William Barton-Wright, who squeezed his own name and ju-jitsu together to name it.  Read about it HERE.

Ignoring Mexico

Some of you may have the impression that the United States shares borders with Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan, given that the MAG (Media, Academia, Government) is totally obsessed with these places, and advocates pouring billions of dollars into them and sacrificing thousands of American lives promoting their security.  But if you look at a map, you'll see that we actually don't share borders with them, but in reality share a quite long border with a mysterious, unknown country called "Mexico."  Now, the MAG is right on top of it whenever a 12-year-old Palestinian kid throws a rock at an IDF soldier, or when there are reports of Afghan tribesmen being unkind to their wives and daughters, but you can have a pretty violent drug war going on in Mexico without them taking notice.  Even when narcotraficantes cross the border to kidnap and murder, the MAG keeps its sights firmly centered on the Khyber Pass or the Negev.  Oh, there's some effort on the part of Obama and his loyal sidekick, Eric Holder, to make sure the Mexican drug dealers have only the finest new American weapons, but that's about as far as it goes.  And we're assured by all of the elite that it's laughably impossible to actually fence that border, when it's child's play to reinforce other borders to protect the Babylonians from the Chadeans, or vice-versa.

So we have to educate ourselves about Mexico.  A good place to start is with Fred Reed, who lives there, and can tell you what's going on.  His latest is HERE.

The War is Over, Sort Of.

Well, Obama has declared the war over, although we sure have a lot of contractors (Newspeak for "mercenaries") left over there, because if we didn't have them there, the place would obviously fly into civil war ASAP, not that it probably will anyway.  Don't worry, though. We're getting another war ready, this time with Iran, and all the Presidential candidates, from Obama to Santorum, are very enthusiastic about it — Oh, with the exception of Ron Paul, who thinks the armed forces are for defending the United States, not crusading around the world. That's why he's a 'nut.'

Since the war was started by a Republican, a comparatively rare event till recently, the idiots in the news media feel compelled to ask "was it worth it."  From there you can segue into the doublethink position that of course the Republican fighting of the war was dumb, but Obama's fighting was really smart.

Well, was it worth it?  Depends on your goal.  If you really hate secular Arab dictators, and want them replaced by whacky Islamists, it worked like a charm.  It's probably going to work in Libya, Egypt, and (sigh!) Syria, too.  It also has the added benefit of creating loads of refugees, who can move here with Government approval, and start little mini-Jihads right here in the USA.  Also, we'll have more belligerent rhetoric from Muslim states, which can be translated and exaggerated if necessary, to justify still more massive aid to Israel, and practically everybody else.

True, we spent billions and got a lot of redneck kids killed, but who cares?  The bloodthirsty draft-dodgers who thought all this up got what they wanted.  Here's an evaluation of the glorious war by the essential man, Pat Buchanan.

More on Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

I blogged yesterday about Joshua Hammerman's obnoxious piece about Tim Tebow.  He hasn't been fired yet, big surprise.  Was what he wrote some kind of accident, or a sort of Freudian slip?  Did he really think it was okay to trash Christians like that?  Yes, he did.  In the incestuous little world he lives in, it's perfectly all right to make fun of Christians.  Please note that there are Jews who don't feel that way.  Many actually respect Christians, and others who do not have sense enough to be more subtle about trashing them. But a big part of the mission of the ruling elite is to drive Christians and Christianity out of the public square, to be replaced by Marxism, Islam, various varieties of Judaism, and just about anything else.  All part of wrecking Western Civilization, you see?

Theologians, help me out here.  Is there any way to defrock a rabbi?  If there is, shouldn't somebody start the ball rolling?

Kevin MacDonald has been studying Judaism for years, and his appraisal of the situation is HERE.

Random Impressions of the Republican Debate

Cartoon by BALOO

There were two Mormons in the debate, Romney and Huntsman, but the one who actually looked like a Mormon missionary was Rick Santorum, a Catholic.

I think Michele Bachmann is for real, meaning that she actually believes all the stuff she says.  That's admirable, but unfortunate, because she couldn't be more wrong about the Middle East mess.  This is an unfortunate thing about Christian Zionism.  Political positions are given religious underpinnings and are therefore unarguable.  Her attacks on Ron Paul were based on the idea that any opponent of Israel is the Devil himself, which is absurd.  But her attacks on Gingrich were completely rational.

Newt is one slick son of a bitch.  His attack on liberal judges will resonate with lots of people, including me, but of course, once elected, he won't do any of that stuff.  You should never believe anything Newt says.  That's important.  And a little encouraging, because maybe he's lying about making John Bolton Secretary of State.

Another one who believes what he says, like Bachmann, is Ron Paul.  The problem is that he definitely comes across as doddering in comparison to the youthfulness of most of them, and he talks too damn fast.  What he says goes over most people's heads.  Of course, trying to explain what's crazy about starting a war with Iran in thirty seconds is pretty near impossible.

One of the talking heads, BTW, framed a question to Paul about Iran by saying that Paul was "to the left of Obama" on that issue.  When did they slip by us the notion that foreign intervention is a right-wing idea?  The old right, the real right, was always in favor of America first and minding our own business.  Most of the foreign adventuring we've done in the past was dreamed up by liberals like Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, and Johnson.

Biggest disappointment of the night, for me, is that Ron Paul didn't get included in the discussion about illegal immigration.  I'd really like to know what his current thinking is, because he was evidently soft on the issue in his last book, but years back, he said we should consider doing away with birthright citizenship, which is absolutely correct.

Newt's corrupt dealings with Freddie Mac should disqualify him completely from the Presidency and any other governmental position.  But the fact that he comes across as the smartest guy on the stage will make a lot of people forget that.

Rick Perry is getting more confortable with the format, and his words about illegal immigration were good, but unfortunately his record shows that he's as bad as anybody on the issue.

I remain a supporter of Ron Paul because look at all those other people, but I have the same problem with him that I have with libertarians in general.  I'm kind of afraid that he's more enamored of the Constitution than he is of the people who produced it.  To me, the country comes first, and the Constitution was made for America, not America for the Constitution.  That's why I worry about his stance on immigration.  No better way to destroy a country than to repopulate it.

If Ron Paul pulls out a win in Iowa, expect the neocons to smear him all over the airwaves.  Neocons hate him, while they consider the Democrats to be honorable opponents who they have niggling differences with.  And they're right.

Speaking of immigration, Congress passed a law prohibiting the importation of slaves in 1808.  Should that apply to 'guest workers'?  I think it should.

What we need in a candidate is somebody who thinks about foreign policy and economics like Ron Paul and like Bachmann about immigration, and who looks like Rick Perry and speaks as clearly as Romney.

And so it goes.

Tebow and the Rabbi

This isn't Joshua Hammerman — this is ANOTHER crazy rabbi.

Sounds like a hit new show on Fox, doesn't it?  But it's worse than that.  We're all conditioned to know how crazy and vindictive imams can get, and the same goes for Catholic priests, and most all Protestant ministers are potential Elmer Gantrys if you give them a chance.  But there are crazy, evil rabbis, too, as you might expect.  What you might not expect is that Jewish Week Online publishes his drivel.  Here's what he said, in part, about Tim Tebow:


If Tebow wins the Super Bowl, against all odds, it will buoy his faithful, and emboldened faithful can do insane things, like burning mosques, bashing gays and indiscriminately banishing immigrants.  While America has become more inclusive since Jerry Falwell's first political forays, a Tebow triumph could set those efforts back considerably.


Nice, eh?  This is what the Rabbi thinks about when he's not urging that American Christians like Tebow be heavily taxed so that money can be sent to Israel where they train more rabbis like himself.  Just try to imagine some Christian publication writing something analogous about a Jewish athlete — by a Christian clergyman?  That would be the end of the clergyman and the publication.  Abe Foxman would insist.


We Christians are such an undisciplined, barbaric bunch, you see.


Well, the nasty little anti-Christian hate piece has been taken down, and they delivered an apology HERE.  And the Rabbi himself has issued a half-assed apology also HERE on his blog. Does that satisfy you?  Not me.  It betrays an elitist, smug, contemptuous attitude that the elites have towards ordinary Americans, and the Rabbi certainly considers himself elite, what with his "speaking out passionately against all forms of bigotry." and all.  Well, as far as I'm concerned, he's disqualified himself from having any opinions about anything whatsoever.  I'm starting to rave, obviously, so for a cooler-headed appraisal of this arrogance all too common among American Jews in general and the Rabbi in particular, check this out from OneSTDV.

Welfare in theory and practice

Cartoon by BALOO

Supporting the concept of welfare is generally thought of as a "liberal" idea, while opposition to it, or at least skepticism towards it, is thought of as a "conservative" idea.  And of course, it's then assumed that people with money are conservative, and people with less money are liberal.  Well, not so. The class structure isn't that simple.  A lot of the really rich are, of course, quite liberal — look at who they give their money to in politics, and the causes they support.  And a lot of us in the huge middle class are conservative, because we know that we pay a lot of taxes and actually produce most of the wealth in the first place.  But part of what is called the middle class consists of people like academics and government workers of other kinds, and quasi-government types like journalists, and they are very liberal for the most part.  Now, the super-rich are all for welfare, because welfare recipients make great customers — much better customers than Joe Sixpack, who tends to be comparatively prudent with his money. So the thing to do to keep the customers buying the booze and big TV's is to tax Joe Sixpack and give the money to the welfare types.

So the picture the welfare boosters want us all to have in our heads is that of middle-class types like us who through no fault of their own, are down on their luck, and who need a hand up, temporarily.  The Marshall Plan concept.  And, people being what they are, you can find examples of situations like that, but that's the minority in the welfare world.

I remember, five decades back, being a supermarket cashier. Even then, you could witness delightful situations like people buying gourmet food and liquor with food stamps.  That's one thing about being in the lower middle class — you get to experience lower class behavior first hand, because you rub shoulders with them all the time.  The more elevated members of our society get to keep the Woody Guthrie concept of honest, hard-working folks who just need a little help.  Further towards the bottom, we see what the welfare types are really like.  We're more likely to encounter them, and even be related to them.

Of course, it hasn't improved.  It's gotten much worse. The country is full of lifetime welfare recipients now,  and they're not inclined to change, because why should they?  You can read about the experiences of a more recent cashier HERE.

The Approaching Newt Disaster

Cartoon by BALOO

No, I don't want Newt to be President, and I'm agonizing over whether to vote for him if he's nominated just to get Obama out.  Newt, of course, isn't conservative in any sense whatsoever, no matter what the talking heads say.  One very non-conservative thing about him is that he's a warmongering liberal.  Yes, again despite the talking heads, overseas adventuring is a very liberal idea, conceived a century ago by the progressives, and the idea has gradually corrupted the conservatives until both parties have the same 'world policeman' attitude.  The only real conservative in the bunch, of course, is Ron Paul.  Newt is what they call a 'big-government conservative' — in other words, a liberal.

Bad Eagle is just as disgusted as I am, if not more, and he calls Newt an 'amphibious liberal,' a term I hope gets traction.  His essay on the subject is HERE.

Why you should vote for Ron Paul

Cartoon by BALOO

The other candidates are terrible. That's it in a nutshell. The big issue, no matter what the talking heads say, is immigration.  Alone among the Republican candidates, Ron Paul has, at least once, questioned birthright citizenship.  A column on that HERE.  I'm well aware that he's somewhat mushy on that, but all the other candidates' records, with the possible exception of Bachmann, show firm support for open borders and amnesty.  True, Rick Perry is making a big deal about border security now, but he record on it looks just like Obama's.  As for the other issues — war and economics, mainly — Ron Paul is right, and the others are all wrong.  Ron Paul supporters are being cautioned that if they vote for him, it'll help Romney, and Romney is bad.  In the first place, who knows who, if anybody it'll help, other than Ron Paul, but it'll certainly help him, so vote for him, for crying out loud.  Especially if you're in Iowa.

I want the Republicans to nominate Ron Paul, simple as that.  If Romney or Gingrich gets the nomination, I'll still vote Republican, because it'll be a vote against Obama, and that's about it.  If I'm not persuasive enough, read what Vox Day has to say about it HERE.

Diversity is Strength

Only yesterday I blogged about how Somali immigrants have enriched Denmark.  But they enrich a lot of places.  New England is such a boring place, with remarkably little rape and murder to liven things up.  But our vibrant Somali refugees are fixing that.  And they're precocious, too.  Even 14-year-old Somalis are capable of making our lives more interesting.  Matthew Richer wonders why absolutely none of the Repubican candidates seems to notice this issue. You know, in time for the New Hampshire primary.  His speculation is HERE.  And special thanks to OneSTDV for the delightful illustration.

Liberal Media

Cartoon by BALOO

Actually, calling it the "liberal media" is a compliment, if you consider what they really are. It's like calling the Pacific Ocean "damp."  Really, they're the absolute scum of the Earth, dedicated to the destruction of civilization.  Oh, some don't care about anything except their ludicrous careers, and go along with the destruction because it helps with that, but in effect, their concerted efforts are to wipe out everything good and replace it with bad.  And it's not just here in the US, of course. It's an international movement.  One of their cuter tricks, as illustrated in the cartoon, is to write editorials and disguise them as news.  The NY Times springs to mind as one of the more obvious offenders in that regard.  For example, they like to do news stories about terribly bright scholars who just happen to be illegal immigrants in some vague danger of maybe getting deported someday, while neglecting to mention murderers and rapists who also just happen to be illegal immigrants, leaving the reader the impression that he's read an actual news story, and with the conclusion that nobody in his right mind could possibly oppose immigration of any kind, legal or illegal.

Another manifestation of this is that when they actually have to mention a crime committed by an immigrant, they usually don't mention that the perp is an immigrant, and when they have to do that,  they segue into laments that there might be a horrible "backlash," and people might begin to doubt the wisdom of filling the country up with Third-World savages.  A nice sample of that is the Hmong mass murderer a few years ago in Wisconsin.  Read about the press's reaction to all this HERE. Nice, eh?  Makes you want to bring in still  more Hmong.

But like I said, it's by no means solely an American phenomenon.  In Jutland, where Vikings used to live before liberal idiots took over, there was a nasty rape of a 10-year-old girl by a Somali immigrant. The reaction of the press?  Total support of Somali immigration, and demonization of the Danes who oppose it.  Read the whole depressing story HERE.

Dead White Men

You know what they say about dead white guys — boring and irrelevant.  But if you make a list of the people responsible for most of what we call modern civilization, it's just about all dead white guys, with an occasional dead white girl, and a few of each that aren't dead yet.  True, White people aren't as good as Kenyans at Olympic sprinting, and at least till recently, were behind the Eastasians at weaponless martial arts.  Now, none of this is to disparage the contributions that nonWhites have made to civilization, but any honest appraisal would have to conclude that the White race has done way more than any other group, with the Eastasians coming in second, and nobody else close.  Before you write in to tell me about the Arabs and algebra, first, Arabs are largely White, and second, it wasn't the Arabs anyway, but the Persians, who are undisputably White.

No, I don't mean to disparage Confucius or anybody like that, but I do mean to disparage the fools who constantly try to make the White race out as somehow deficient and the authors of all the evil in the world.  The moral position most of them come from is itself a product of White civilization, which seems to have pretty much invented the idea of fairness and objectivity.

Anyhow, OneSTDV has done a very good job of summarizing the accomplisments of the White race.  You can read his stuff HERE.

Ron Paul in Iowa

Cartoon by BALOO

Not too many people are watching these debates, and most of the news media is reporting on them mainly with an eye to gearing up to protect Obama from whoever the Republicans end up with, so, as a public service, I've uploaded not the whole debate, because nobody wants to hear Newt and Mitt calling each other names, but the responses of Ron Paul.  Compare what he says to the idiot prattling of the others, and you'll see why I remain a Ron Paul supporter.

Ron Paul and the Republican Jewish Coalition

Cartoon by BALOO

Here's the deal.  Ron Paul, in the video here, explains Ron Paul's attitude towards Israel.  He wants it to be a friend and trading partner.  He's well aware that it has all the military strength it needs to defend itself and its interests.  He does not want to give it foreign aid, just like he doesn't want to give foreign aid to anybody else, and unlike many countries that we give aid to, it clearly doesn't need foreign aid.  It gives foreign aid to other countries itself, so it hardly needs our money.  And he also doesn't want to tell Israel what to do.  He doesn't want to urge it to negotiate, force it to stop settlements, or interfere with its affairs, internal or external, in any way whatsoever.  So why, oh why, does the Republican Jewish Coalition think his views are "misguided and extreme," so much so that they excluded him from their event and invited all the other Republican candidates?  Could it be that they don't want friendship for Israel but subservience?  Do they disagree with Netanyahu and think Israel can't take care of itself?  Do they want the United States to continue participating in bloody quagmires all over the Middle East?  Just what is it about Ron Paul's stance that they are inclined to have such hissy-fits about?

I think Ron Paul is right, and he has a lot of Jewish supporters who think so, too.  I think his detractors, in this instance, are showing either an ignorance of the situation or a pig-headed stubbornness about a foreign policy that's doing neither country any good in the long run.  For a more cynical analysis of it, read THIS.

A Slightly Different Take on Newt

Could it be that the really big problem with Newt is that he thinks too much and is too creative?  Like the charming girl on the right, there. Entertaining and cute, but maybe not terribly reliable. I know people like that.  They're brimming over with ideas but have trouble managing them.  They seldom carry an idea to completion before some other new idea takes over.  Newt, you must remember, is a science-fiction writer.  SF writers are supposed to be astounding us with whacky new ideas all the time, and the world needs them.  But do we want them as executives?  Maybe more as advisors — idea men who come up with crazy ideas that just might work, to be filtered by a no-nonsense executive type who is open to new ideas but who doesn't get carried away with them.  And the fact that Newt has a PhD is a little troubling, too.  Last time we got one of those, we ended up with World War I and a lot of other grief, that a boring old William Howard Taft might have rejected as too far out.  You see, some ideas sound cool and neat, but when executed are disasters.  Obamacare springs to mind, not to mention just about any of the fifty-three or so wars we've gotten our noses into since LBJ.  When you think of a new idea, you need a devil's advocate to tell you what the downside is.  You don't need sycophants clustered around you telling you how smart you are.

Anyhow, Jerry Pournelle is a SF writer, though one of the more cool-headed kind, and he's been associated with Newt for many years, and even he has his doubts.  Read what he has to say on his BLOG.

More on War

Cartoon by BALOO

In my last post, I discussed the honor of war.  The fact that war can be honorable is not to say that it's a good thing in itself.  Oh, it's almost certainly inevitable, humanity being what it is, but it's frequently avoidable, and certainly should be regarded as a last resort, like we consider major surgery a last resort if nothing else serves.  And being prepared for war, never mind the psychedelic posters, is usually the best way to avoid one.  Right now we're involved in a few wars, here and there, and you could easily argue that, given the statistics, Obama is the most warlike President we've ever had.  Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and very close in Syria and Iran.  And the depressing part is, the whole crowd of Republicans, with the shining exception of Ron Paul (who is surging in Iowa), seem to be dedicated to making him look like the peaceful fellow he claims to be.  All of them, other than Paul, showed up at the Jewish Republican Coalition to pledge to harass Iran until we get a good excuse to invade it. (an interesting link on this with Jon Stewart commentarY HERE.)

How about war with Russia?  It's not communist any more, remember?  But that doesn't matter to the liberal/neocon coalition, who have demonstrated that their aversion to Russia was always ethnically-based after all, and not ideological.  You may have forgotten, but the accompanying Baloo cartoon here was drawn quite some time ago, when the dorky little nation of Georgia decided to get cute and try to annex a couple of provinces that preferred to be under Russian rule.  Some of our more flamingly-idiotic politicians, John McCain especially, decided first, that what happens in the Caucasus is any of our business (it isn't) and that the Russians were to be blamed and threatened for the whole thing.

Now, most of us don't know squat about Georgia or any of the Alphabetstans in the Caucasus, the news media being busy keeping us informed about the misbehavior of film stars, but the Essential Man, Pat Buchanan, has been paying attention.  And there's an interesting combination of factors there, involving the so-called conservatives Marco Rubio and John Bolton (who just might be VP and Secretary of State in a Newt administration), and the breathtakingly good Senator, son of Ron, Rand Paul.  The column is HERE.

War and Honor

Cartoon by BALOO

Despite everything you may have been taught, there is indeed honor in war.  Now and then we realize it, usually around Pearl Harbor Day, because that was a good war, or so goes the popular refrain.  And we still more-or-less honor the veterans of that war.  And here and there you see people sort of honoring our troops that are in one of the current meat grinders, though all too often they seem to be regarded as victims rather than heroes in the old sense.  Indeed, the distinction between victims and heroes seems to be getting blurrier all the time.  But of course, we haven't had a war since 1945, if you check the declarations of war by Congress.  So what have we been having?  I've long complained that we shouldn't have wars without declarations, but from a legalistic point of view, because the very laws of war, which help keep it comparatively civilized, can't be applied clearly to undeclared wars.  But there's another dimension to the undeclared-war phenomenon that I hadn't thought of — that such wars diminish honor, not of the troops, but of the nation involved and its government.  But Bad Eagle has thought of it, and written eloquently on the subject HERE.