“It is an outrage that they should be commonly spoken of as Intellectuals. … It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so. … We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” – C.S Lewis, The Abolition of Man, selected quotes from Chapter 1.

The Sunday before We the People first elected Mr. Obama – and just hours after enduring a thirty minute nationally broadcast campaign infomercial that sent fair warning of the coming deluge of smug Ruling Class contempt for us that we were about to willingly purchase at the ballot box – the inevitable electoral reality was already setting in but at least I was still hopeful that the American character was still alive and that we had just been duped at a time of weakness.  I was so wrong.

Here, in its entirety, is what that naively hopeful Ntrepid had to say (1):

Community Organizer Refuted – The Darkest Recesses of One Nominee’s Heart That Should Appall Voters of Both Parties  (November 2nd, 2008 at 01:27 PM)

Earlier this year, I found myself standing in the delivery room a full three weeks before we expected to be there.  There had been no real emergency but serious concerns during a routine weekly check-up resulted in a rather direct trip to the hospital for induced labor.  For most of the rest of that day, we wavered back and forth between anxious excitement and cautious apprehension.

Shortly after my son’s arrival, I stood alone near the middle of the room with my back slightly turned to my exhausted wife as her doctor was attending to her.  My immediate focus was on the new living soul under the heat lamp who just couldn’t seem to keep breathing on his own.  There was no panic in the room but there was the unmistakable aura that something serious was going on.

After every exhale, there was what seemed to be a very long, silent pause while everyone waited to see the signs of another breath.  Every time there was none.

The medical staff remained calm and after each breathless pause they would rub and jostle him and coax him to summon the strength to take that next breath.  They then worked feverishly for several seconds to help clear his lungs and then repeated the cycle.  After several minutes, his breathing improved and the danger passed.  After a few days in NICU he emerged to be a happy, healthy baby brother now on the verge of crawling.

This was a very powerful experience at the time but was well on its way to fading into the distance behind months and months of sleep deprivation, diaper changes, and much happier memories. That is until I heard about Mr. Obama, in his former life as a state legislator, not being able to find a reason to support something called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.

This issue came to my attention through a first hand account of a nurse who had experienced the very situation that had inspired the legislation (sorry, no link).  Since then, every mention of the subject flashes my mind back to those few uneasy minutes back in the delivery room.  But now I imagine the scene as a weak, beaten, fragile newborn spirit clinging desperately…hopelessly…to its already shattered life.  No doctor. No expert medical staff.  No loving mother or father.  Hell, probably not even the caring warmth of an incubator lamp.  Just the cold cruel world of a somewhat sterile tabletop…maybe even shoved away in a closet…while life slowly drains away.

(Just ponder for a few moments exactly how that whole deal fits into the utopian liberal world of choice and universal health care.  The “life begins at birth” crowd will surely have its hands full now that the living baby has constitutional rights to both.  However, it’s not hard to imagine a governmental bureaucracy’s dream scenario where the intended abortion will qualify as a pre-existing condition and…well, you get the idea.)

Although the passage of a few seconds or minutes makes any attempted distinction meaningless, this is specifically NOT ABOUT ABORTION.  This is about LIFE.  This is about a man…a father…who can somehow reconcile such a vote during his work day against even attempting to save such a baby with his Christian faith and his comfortable home life that evening with his lovely daughters laughing, playing, hugging, crying…and LIVING.

Whether this was an act based on pure conviction or nothing but a cold, calculated political maneuver, I can only conclude that it points to some very dark places in his heart.

So spare me the overproduced infomercial featuring the financially stressed yet over manicured single mom from a battleground state to show me how much you care about real people.  Don’t tell me that you want the keys to the castle to enact some amazing plan…one that you failed to introduce in any form during your current tenure in the U.S. Senate…that will magically help struggling families buy more milk when you couldn’t care enough to vote in the affirmative on a bill to protect helpless, living children…a vote that should have been as reflexive as a New York City firefighter running into a burning building.

I’m not naïve enough to think that the United States will not have pro-choice/pro-abortion Presidents in the future but this man is simply too extreme for mainstream American voters to accept…if only issues like this had been given proper exposure during the campaign.  While every recent Presidential election seemed to have focused too much on abortion politics to the detriment of much more important issues, this campaign season seems to have barely touched the issue leaving Mr. Obama’s wicked policy expansion largely hidden from his sycophantic herd.

I cannot tell you how disgusted I am by any American that would vote for this man while having full knowledge of this issue.  Unfortunately, whether he is successful or not on Tuesday, there is a not-so-insignificant segment of half the American electorate that falls into that category.  (Contemplate those numbers as you are mingling with fellow Americans at your local market or taking a mental accounting of those around you with fading “CHANGE” bumper stickers over the next four years.)

As for me, I am embarrassed for the people of Illinois for electing this man to high office.  I am embarrassed for the Democrat party for nominating him for the highest office and for the American press for providing the cover needed to secure that position.  And finally, I’m truly depressed with the irresponsible direction it seems the people of this country are choosing to head.

I hope you are having a very pleasant Sunday.

Ntrepid

Proud Member for 4 Years and 1 Month

Now, as if the re-election of this little man wasn’t bad enough, recent weeks have shown that we have devolved to the point that discussions regarding the identity of the patient (as if it weren’t obvious that there were now two) after a failed abortion results in a living child outside the womb are engaged in without even the hint of shame during public hearings.  And then there is Kermit Gosnell…and the deafening national and main stream silence.  I weep.

I just finished Coming Apart by Charles Murray and, despite his attempt at a slightly upbeat ending…one that didn’t convince me at all, I cannot summon much hope any more.  Near the end, he rightly identifies but severely underestimates the extent that the American elite are (becoming?) hollow to the core and I cannot resist adding corrupt to the core with respect to the Washington breed.  As for We the People, his words are just too fitting to my context:

“…a significant and growing portion of the American population is losing the virtues required to be functioning members of a [moral] society. …The code of the American [man] has collapsed.  …they have abdicated their responsibility to set and promulgate standards. … The American project is dead.” (2)

Shame on us all.

Ntrepid

Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2008/11/02/community-organizer-refuted/

(2) Selected quotes from Chapter 17 of Coming Apart by Charles Murray.

Actually, times really haven’t changed too much.  They still can’t seem to get concept quite right:

“The program began shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks under the Bush administration, and without congressional authorization. … The CIA and National Security Agency use the program to collect intelligence on Americans who are communicating abroad with foreign ‘targets.’” [emphasis added]

My thoughts on the willfully misleading and/or ignorant phrasing aside, I will note for the record that the last sentence quoted above was clearly written in the present tense.

Interesting.

Ntrepid

Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/12/28/senate-set-to-approve-warrantless-wiretapping-program/

“Attack” actually overstates it a bit, this is really more of a warning from the not so distant past about the road we are on, namely the demise of The Great Republic into a totalitarian-istic façade of its former self. To paraphrase A. Lincoln, “If Obamacare isn’t totalitarianism, then nothing is totalitarianism.”…and that’s just the tip of the blue state agenda iceberg.

Those well-read enough to decipher my title above already know I am going to Orwell, yet again, and this time it is the essay The Prevention of Literature from All Art is Propaganda. It would be worth your time to go straight to that source (I found it much more intriguing than the more often cited Politics and the English Language) and ponder his thoughts and observations on the characteristics of Totalitarianianism (vs. literature and writers) as projected onto present day America. Alternatively, I aim here to selectively reproduce some of the highlighted passages from my copy and add my two cents worth.

But first, especially for those who recognized and appreciated the Hitchens-ian tone to the opening paragraph, I cannot resist a proper and appropriate quote:

“It is told of Huey Long that, contemplating a run for high office, he summoned the big wads and donors of his great state and enlightened them thus: ‘Those of you who come in with me now will receive a big piece of the pie. Those of you who delay, and commit yourselves later, will receive a smaller piece of the pie. Those of you who don’t come in at all will receive – Good Government!’” (2)

Mr. Hitchens then referred to this understanding of American politics as “manipulation of populism by elitism”…I prefer to call Mr. Obama’s current perfected incarnation Crony Socialism but fully recognize it had many compassionate fathers and enablers (i.e. silent opposition and incurious media) long before the current administration.  Unfortunately, we are not talking today about only the current pie but several future pies that don’t belong to us.  Huey Long stories like this aside…they come off as legendary and exaggerated…why do we hear very little about how Harry Reid made his millions on a Senate salary or about Tom Daschle’s “questionable” non-lobbying lobbying since leaving office. I suspect there’s a lot of winking and nodding within ruling class circles about these and countless lower level shenanigans that we will never hear a peep about. At least we’re getting the “Good Government!”…?

Now, on to Orwell from 1946…I’ll start with the great progressive duplicity:

“What is new to totalitarianism is that its doctrines are not only unchallengeable but also unstable. They have to be accepted on pain of damnation, but on the other hand they are always liable to be altered at a moment’s notice. Consider, for example, the various attitudes, completely incompatible with one another, which an English Communist or ‘fellow traveller’ has had to adopt towards war between Britain and Germany. For years before September 1939 he was expected to be in a continuous stew about ‘the horrors of Nazism’ and to twist everything he wrote into a denunciation of Hitler; after September 1939, for twenty months, he had to believe that Germany was more sinned against than sinning, and the word ‘Nazi,’ at least so far as print went, had to drop right out of his vocabulary. Immediately after hearing the 8 o’clock news bulletin on the morning of June 22, 1941, he had to start believing once again that Nazism was the most hideous evil the world had ever seen.” (3)

Simply substitute “American Progressive or rent-a-mob protester” for “English Communist or ‘fellow traveller’” and consider the litany of ignored hypocrisies frequently provided by Victor Davis Hanson…”Guantanamo Bay detention facility, renditions, tribunals, wiretaps, intercepts, predator drone targeted assassinations, preventative detention, and the war in Iraq”.  All were unquestionable evils under President Bush that became acceptable or required media silence just moments after Mr. Obama promised (or was it ordered?) to close Gitmo. It seems so long ago that Progressive Senators (and countless New York Times front pages) shunned the term “Terrorist Surveillance” for the more threatening “Domestic Spying” just to embrace and expand such policies when promoted or rubber stamped into Executive branch positions in January 2009. (It’s interesting that none today can muster the use of “Domestic Spying” to reports of USG drones flying over Nebraska farmland.) To this list I’ll only add the phony outrage over a “leak” nominally known as Plamegate compared to the acceptance / silence with respect to all of the classified leaks under the current administration. At least a quick check of Presidential party affiliation at any given moment will inform us whether leaks of classified material (or the plight of America’s homeless but, I digress) are an important topic of the day. Orwell continues:

“Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial; that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable. It can never…permit the truthful recording of facts…” (3)

Here, I stand by my previous thoughts on the charades presented to us during current and recent budget / debt ceiling negotiations…I’ll resist either of Orwell’s “f” words for now but “artificial” is certainly suitable to my perception. We get irrelevant budgetary charades and not a single serious Presidential budget plan while our financial demise is driven by entitlements that no one is willing to touch at the risk of losing their status…Yes, I’d say our “ruling class has lost its function”. And does anyone believe our monthly employment or housing reports? (…or the revisions?) He expands on the “poisonous effect” of this feature of totalitarian-istic governments:

“… facts are suppressed and distorted to such as extent as to make it doubtful whether a true history of our times can ever be written. … The organized lying practiced by totalitarian states is not, as is sometimes claimed, a temporary expedient of the same nature as military deception. It is something integral to totalitarianism. … In our age, the idea of…liberty is under attack from two directions. On the one side are the theoretical enemies, the apologists of totalitarianism, and on the other its immediate, practical enemies, monopoly and bureaucracy … the immediate enemies of truthfulness, and hence of freedom… are the Press lords, the film magnates, and the bureaucrats, but that on a long view the weakening of the desire for liberty among the intellectuals themselves is the most serious symptom of all.” (3)

The Progressive ruling class, the bureaucracy, the media, the cultural drivers…it’s easy to read all of them into this enemies of liberty list. It is the “weakening of desire for liberty among the intellectuals themselves” that I want to focus on here. While invoking “intellectuals” probably quite different than Orwell had in mind, I cannot help but cringe when I hear company executives, financial analysts, and/or market pundits begging for “a compromise” not because its good policy but because it would offer the least bit of stability on which to work in spite of ongoing “Good Government!” Thus, those – the honest and ambitious alike – that operate on the boundary between citizen and ruling class find themselves bartering away our liberties for just a bit of short term solid ground from which to advance the intended capitalistic republic. Yet, our ruling class insists on maximizing instability as long as possible before compromising into bad policy which they will then lie about though the next election cycle. Ain’t America beautiful?

Maybe today is no different than at any other time in the history of civilization and just the pretense of hiding it is now completely gone but, as fed to us from inside the American beltway, all government is propaganda…and nothing but propaganda.

“The fact is that certain themes cannot be celebrated in words, and tyranny is one of them.” (3)

And with the support of blue state America…we now have the government we deserve.

Ntrepid – Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) This entire paragraph is an adaptation of the opening sentence of the Preface of No One Left To Lie To – The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton by Christopher Hitchens…the formatting and some of the phrasings are obviously plagiarized.

(2) From Chapter 1 of No One Left To Lie To – The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton by Christopher Hitchens

(3) From the essay: The Prevention of Literature from All Art is Propaganda by George Orwell (Compiled by George Packer)

“…from bureaucracy to shining bureaucracy.” (2)

My greater struggle is that there is some threshold beyond which party affiliation is no longer the proper distinction between me and the names and faces of the blue state agenda. Party differences imply a debate about how our society will operate within the framework of this specific constitutional republic. Obama, Holder, Sebelius, Clinton…the list could go on…this crowd has been out of bounds since they high-fived Carol Browner back into the administration after she gave a big middle finger to a federal judge upon exiting her final Clinton administration position. Ever since, they have been hell bent on steamrolling down this anti-liberty “fundamental transformation”. As always, Orwell seemed to know well our current “ruling class”…or as he would call them “the right left people“:

“It is the same pattern all the time; [private*] school, university, a few trips abroad, then [NY or DC]. Hunger, hardship, solitude, exile, war, prison, persecution, manual labour – hardly even words. … To people of that kind such things as purges, secret police, summary executions, imprisonment without trial, etc., etc., are too remote to be terrifying. They can swallow totalitarianism because they have no experience of anything except liberalism**. … [Their] brand of amoralism is only possible if you are the kind of person who is always somewhere else when the trigger is pulled. So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot” (2)

Or just don’t care.

Does that push it too far? OK, step back from “when the trigger is pulled” and substitute “when the plug is pulled”…and don’t blame a “fictional” death panel or Kathleen Sebelius because they will be somewhere else while you’re stuck trying to get through an impossible phone menu system to get an actual human…no doubt a useless bureaucrat that can only read from a prepared on-line script for $175K/year…attempting to save Mother from a completely preventable death.

So yes, I do taste the puke in the back of my throat at even seeing a photo of Kathleen Sebelius as tidbits emerge from her sanctimonious, dutiful implementation of that anti-liberty monstrosity that will now send us down a very dark path. And, despite the Chief Justice’s foolish position, Obamacare is the clearest example of a broader Progressive agenda – blue state agenda – that is beyond the bounds of the Founders framework.

<CLIP> (Removed long diatribe questioning the patriotism and purported Christianity of Sebelius and other members of this administration…particularly those who held the title “Senator” prior to their current Executive branch positions.) <CLIP>

Finally, there is the wide spectrum who awarded their vote to promises of (and the absolute certainty of) four more years of this disaster. Again, there is a threshold somewhere between “duped by the demagogue” and “true believer”…exactly where I do not know…beyond which the phrase “fellow American” is no longer appropriate. [Here in response to lineholder, see link (1)] I do wonder, however, after you (or we) do get our priorities straight, how do we deal with the fact that the opposition has priorities that are wrong, destructive to the country and my liberties, and ultimately evil in nature?

Not Falling for the Charade

Recent history has taught me a valuable lesson that applies to both budget compromise negotiations/deals and Senate confirmation of Executive nominees: The presentation of the particular event or series of events that we see is most certainly a political charade loosely coordinated between both parties to score some points with their respective bases while pursuing the modestly compromised ruling class agenda. OK, I’m sure that it’s not always that overt…and I’m sure there is some level of ruling class–to–ruling class tension…but the joke is always on us.

A wild conspiracy theory? Maybe. But after the last two debt ceiling debacles and the introduction of the word “sequester” into the national dialogue the Republican leadership is going to have to actually move the ball forward just once before I consider otherwise.

And don’t get me started on the possible promotion of Ambassador Rice (4). A few Senators on our side seem to oppose the move on the grounds that she is most likely an unethical, dishonest, liar that continues to give patently false responses to questions about her past. Pardon me but I don’t remember these character police worrying about such issues with the last nominee in late 2008 and early 2009. I have no doubt Ms. Rice is just as described above but I suspect the current flap is nothing more than performance art for us here in flyover country and will amount to nothing once a few cherished moderates take her side. (At least it won’t be Sen. Snowe sticking her finger in my eye this time around.) I say confirm her…it will be a seamless transition of incompetence…and, of course, the alternative could be orders of magnitude worse.

Patronizing Ruling Class Exposed (Revisited)

Speaking of Ms. Snowe, her of “When history calls, history calls” fame, this may be a good time to revisit early 2010 when those glorious moderates stepped up to pummel my liberties once agian. In this case the target is actually Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and a very insulting paragraph from an email response to at least one of his constituents after assisting Obamacare through the Senate:

An important part of my decision was the fact that had this bill not been approved with my vote, the alternative for the Senate leadership was to use a procedure called “Budget Reconciliation.” This procedure would have enabled passage of a much less conservative bill, requiring only 51 votes in the Senate. I supported this bill for two reasons: first, because the reconciliation alternative would have included a government-run plan and would not have been as beneficial for Nebraskans; and second, because it will deliver relief from rising health care costs to Nebraska families, workers, rural communities, and employers. This bill takes a market-based approach, offering tax credits for middle-class Americans to help make insurance more affordable; and it improves the delivery of health care for all of us while reducing the deficit. (5) [empasis added]

To which I responded here on Redstate:

So it appears that the senator agreed to join the invaders as they strolled through our front door to poke us in the eye and steal some of our belongings in order to keep his party leadership from breaking in through the back door to punch us in the gut and steal all of our belongings. Somehow, in the twisted world of Modern Liberalism that is 2009 2010 America, I guess that is supposed to make him some kind of hero as opposed to an accomplice. Mr. Nelson really hopes that you are smart enough to appreciate the nuance of his position…and pull his polling numbers out of the crapper. I’m not buying it.

And to top it off, his last statement indicates that he seems to expect that we don’t understand that he knows full well that the inputs to the CBO scoring have been manipulated to such a great extent that the resulting analysis is all but meaningless to intelligent people. (5)

Intelligent people? That now sounds rather funny as we proceed toward the ridiculous sounding fate known as “Obama’s second term”

Ntrepid

Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2012/11/24/now-watching-the-american-demise-on-mute-an-ntrepid-ramble/

(2) Once again quoting Dave Carter: http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Hope-Change-and-Unemployment

(3) Selective quoting from Inside the Whale, Orwell, 1940. * Actual word was public but in today’s meaning I believe private is correct. ** Orwell probably used “liberalism” to mean something different than today but the word fits here as is.

(4) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2012/11/15/ambassador-rice-legally-changes-first-name-to-senator-mccain-now-supports-promotion-to-state/

(5) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2010/01/01/i-am-ben-nelson/

Anyway, since retiring for the evening on November 6, I have essentially tuned out the sound of American politics…and I expect this will continue for quite some time. Yes, I still get some quick news with daily scans of Drudge-Instapundit-Powerline-Ricochet and I do come through Redstate but, to be honest, its more out of habit, I don’t read much of the stuff here anymore. Cable news and talk radio…even the late night stuff that I really started liking (Red Eye Radio and The John Batchelor Show) have all gone silent. At home and in the car, my free time – which I have minimized to the benefit of wife and kids – has turned more fruitfully to history books of the paper and audio variety. (Yes, paper. I vow to never convert to eReading!)

A few notes from the tuned-out…

Perspective on Demise

Sitting here twenty years later I must admit two things about President George H. W. Bush that I did not sufficiently appreciate at the time. The first is his re-election campaign message centered on “family values”. Hell, today I’d settle for anything truly worthy of the name “values” but it is now more clear to me than ever that cultural values…or the lack thereof…have a much stronger pull on the vote-coveting whores in politics and their policy initiatives than the other way around. On this front we’ve lost and, therefore, “We’re Lost” (2). (Follow the referenced link for Thomas Sowell and a poignant statement about our demise by adhering to mere symbolism and the loss of common sense at the ballot box.)

Secondly, Mr. Bush was the first person I can remember who pushed the theme and inserted the term “demagogue” into the modern political discourse. Unfortunately, the term was correctly used against his opponent in 1992 so the media and the opposing candidate were forced to ignore it into irrelevancy (for our own good, of course). Today, that term would be even more appropriate. The power of this demagogue and his loyal band of Dadaistic supporters will now fundamentally transform America…and few will enjoy the outcome.

I now reject any notion that we are not a nation in decline. Period. And then something interesting comes across my screen:

“AN ENDLESS CYCLE OF success leading to self-destruction. Just remember: The so-called Dark Ages were a period of great creativity. Though scribes and bureaucrats recorded the fall of Rome with horror — because it was terrible for scribes and bureaucrats — the average person’s caloric intake went up. I recommend reading Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies.” [emphasis added] (3)

I’d never really thought of it that way. As a very diverse and divided country with an ever expanding bureaucracy to serve our despicable ruling class over our interests, we are on very different timelines. We are now staring the unknown horrors of the coming Golden Age for Modern American Scribes and Bureaucrats square in the face. I cannot wait for their “dark ages” that necessarily must follow.

Incidentally, I’ve added that book recommendation to my Amazon wish list if you’re looking for a Christmas gift for me.

Expanding the Base by Abandoning Assimilation

Sticking with the themes of “we’ve lost” and demagoguery, I’ll now turn to the irresponsible position on immigration that our current American Progressives promote to our detriment…one they can only cynically hold and maintain because they are sure that we will continue to hold a (slightly) more principled and responsible opposing one. This continued base-expansion through infantile bribery really is brilliant short and medium term electoral strategy as long as you have the adults demanding some level of token sanity. Unfortunately, that game…I fear…is now just about over and the results will probably not be as stable and…well, American…as you think:

“Or it may be that…demographics is destiny and, absent assimilationist incentives this country no longer imposes, a Latin-American population will wind up living in a Latin-American society.” (4)

You’ve won. Now enjoy your prize…you’ve earned the society over which you will now rule. But, as Dave Carter said on a different topic, “You earned it. But my children and grandchildren didn’t earn it, yet you’ve foisted that awful and ghastly fate on them as well. For that, you have my undying contempt.” (5)

American Cataline

While listening to Founding Brothers (by Joseph J. Ellis) for the second time (the first was in 2004), the author recounted the specific insult – among many – from Alexander Hamilton that led to the duel with Vice President Burr. (For what it’s worth, Burr is the only number-two to top Mr. Jefferson on Ntrepid’s list of Worst Vice Presidents in American History.) In what appears to have been a very well understood slight at the time that seems to have lost its punch via my public school education, he slammed Burr as the “American Cataline” referring to the politician of the Roman Republic variety.

This has stimulated my interest in Cataline beyond Wikipedia. Any book referrals on subject would be greatly appreciated.

Final Thought

Our sermon last Sunday instructed me that I cannot allow differences (political, religious, etc.) to divide me from others. There was no wiggle room…and I’ve struggled with this all week. My rambling above could be boiled down to nothing more than petty American politics but, when you think through the implications of what blue state America wishes and the effects on the world that my kids will grow up in, it is much more. I cannot think of the taking of the American birthright from my kids as anything less than evil and, thus, the contempt expressed above cannot be that easily wiped away. It still stands…and I fall short once again.

But is that really evil? In a more blood-boiling example of falling short, last week the Gen. Patraeus scandal led Micheal Yon to re-link to a 2007 story that explains “true evil” in our world:

During a meeting, an Iraqi official in the room—who asked to remain anonymous—provided a narrative of how al Qaeda took control of Baqubah and much of Diyala Province. The paragraph that generated controversy follows:

The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

…

I sit writing these words in Diyala Province just a short drive from where the self-proclaimed leader of al Qaeda in Iraq was killed by a bomb delivered by a US warplane. Al Qaeda: the organization that gleefully bragged about murdering roughly 3,000 people by smashing jets full of civilians into buildings and earth. Al Qaeda in Iraq: who proudly broadcast their penchant for sawing off the heads of living breathing people, and in such a manner as to ensure lots of spurting blood and gurgles of final pain, in some cases with the added flourish of the executioner raising up the severed head and squealing excitedly.

…

In the more than two years since that awful day in May 2005, I’ve witnessed innumerable instances of the work of terrorists of many stripes. One clear indicator of just how bad a terrorist group is, is when battle-hardened soldiers—and writers like me who travel with them—don’t find it hard to believe a story which purports that al Qaeda had baked a child and set his roasted body out as the main course at a lunch for his parents.

People at home might find it incredible, improbable, even impossible. Yet here in combat with al Qaeda, the idea is no more improbable-sounding than someone saying “The chicken crossed the road.” Maybe the chicken crossed the road. Maybe not. The veterans I’ve been talking with here have no difficulty imagining the chicken crossing the road, or al Qaeda roasting kids. Sickening, yes. Improbable, no. (6)(7)

As I said: “true evil”…and obviously orders of magnitude more physically violent that the previous example. But both American Progressives and Radical Islamists are evil…they both wish violence on my liberty…and both are “them” to me…and I remain divided from them.

For nearly four years now I’ve been pretty “vocal” around here about the dark clouds ahead and much smarter people than I continue to point that out to much bigger audiences. I already see it very clearly.

So for now I’ve put the political world on mute until further notice.

Ntrepid

Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) Preface of No One Left to Lie To by Christopher Hitches, 1999

(2) http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Thomas-Sowell-An-Anticipatory-Epilogue

(3) http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/158082/

(4) http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/percent-377975-america-vote.html

(5) http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Trading-Their-Birthright-For-An-Obama-Phone

(6) http://www.michaelyon-online.com/second-chances.htm

(7) http://archive.redstate.com/blogs/ntrepid/2007/jul/06/tears_of_rage_and_i_spit_in_the_face_of_the_anti_war_american_left

McCain: Susan Rice “not qualified” to be Secretary of State after Benghazi (1)

Where was this guy (and his posse) in early 2008 when the nominee wasn’t just “not qualified” but demonstrably not suitable for “any future position of public or private trust” (2).  Let’s go to the transcript of the Senate confirmation hearings…no, I’m not even going to look for a transcript ‘cause I’m pretty sure there weren’t any hearings.  Of course, if there were, Senator Rubber-Stamp may have heard testimony such as this from the mid 1970s:

“…she was a liar,” … “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.” (2)

Or this from the 1990s:

“…her testimony under oath during the Travelgate investigation…you know, the testimony in which her statements, under oath, were patently false…” (2)

So I did happen to watch Ms. Rice on at least two of those Sunday morning chat shows…it was an appalling display.  Yet, does that in any way prove that she could be any worse than the current Secretary?  (By the way: she’s a joke! Take that Mr. Brooks. (3))  No, I don’t think it does.  I suspect this new liar might even be an improvement at that position.

And, if Mr. McCain gets his way, who’s to say we wouldn’t get someone worse…like maybe Vann Van Diepen? (See (4) and (5).)

Finally, (just to follow through on my larger point) don’t expect this kind of principled opposition to a SecDef nomination for an equally “not qualified” Senator Kerry.

Ntrepid Proud

Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57549514/mccain-susan-rice-not-qualified-to-be-secretary-of-state-after-benghazi/

(2) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2008/12/21/slouching-towards-change%e2%80%a6and-the-american-politburo-being-assembled-to-make-sure-we-get-there/

(3) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2009/11/20/hey-beltway-elitist-snobs-shove-that-smugness-up-your-david-brooks/

(4) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2009/01/03/january-presidential-to-do-list-pardon-van-diepen-fingar-and-brill%e2%80%a6then-fire-them/

(5) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/11/20/passing-the-torch-twelve-words-that-should-terrify-the-civilized-world/

But I do temper my ire slightly. Gozer had not commanded “CHOOSE OR PERISH!”. The Destructor clearly said “CHOOSE AND PERISH!” The future result was already inevitable.

With that in mind, the handy Ntrepid archives take me back to my state of mind earlier this year…before I went all-in (emotionally) with Mr. Romney and his general election message. (To stick with the Ghostbusters theme and script, “(desperately apologizing) I tried to think of the most harmless thing … something that could never destroy us…“.) Back in January, I ended a dairy titled “Facing Unpleasant Facts: My Country Right of Left” (2) with this:

To get even more serious, I return to 1940 and Orwell:

“I don’t quite know in what year I first knew for certain that the present war was coming. After 1936, of course, the thing was obvious to anyone except an idiot”

I’ve touched on this before but the point should be stated as bluntly as possible: Our country and our world will be in worse shape in 2016 than it is today…no matter who occupies the White House a year from now. We are well beyond quick fixes; the questions we are answering this year have to do with the stability and trajectory of that future condition. It must be said with very little uncertainty that a second Obama term will find us in a continued, accelerated socialist death spiral. If you cannot see this today…for even all but the most extreme cheerleaders in the media hint at it frequently (at the very least, it shows in their eyes)…then you may very well be Orwell’s idiot. As for a Republican administration from the current viable crop, I don’t pretend for a minute that I wouldn’t be sitting here in 2016 greatly disappointed with what a President Gingrich or President Romney had done for four years but, at worst, the death spiral would be less steep and there would at least be some upside potential.

My greatest fear, however, it that the massive debt, uncertainty, and lack of leadership here and around the civilized world has already dealt war into the cards and that in 2016 all of us, like Orwell then, will know for certain it is coming. And then we will look back and realize that the big events…the misuse of TARP, the rape of the Chrysler bond holders, the quiet implementation of Obamacare under cover of blackmail/waivers, did not sufficiently stir us at the time but we were greatly exercised over the uncorroborated claim from the most biased of sources of a decade old request for an “open marriage”. Will our view through that filter allow us to see 2012 clearly or will that be re-written by then for our most comfortable consumption?

Once again, my expectations for my party and my country are very low in 2012.

Upon waking last Wednesday morning, my mindset is now mostly back to that very point. And if you wish to see the early symptoms of that “accelerated socialist death spiral” just scan through the list of layoffs announced “Within 48 hours of the takers overpowering the producers at the polls…” as assembled by Dave Carter (see link (3)).

I cannot resist quoting Mr. Carter yet again:

I’ve seen some back slapping and mutual congratulations amongst a few of my brethren on the road now that their guy won the election. I can’t help but look at the list of companies who are down sizing and notice those whose freight we carry. I wonder how many of these cheerful drivers just voted themselves out of a job? I wonder how many people look at the above list and notice the amount of cuts taking place in the medical industry. That can’t be good.

No worries, though, because even as all reality breaks lose, Dear Leader is on the case. He announced today that his flexibility includes the inflexible demand that tax rates go up for the people who do the producing and the hiring, virtually insuring still further layoffs and closures as businesses fight their government just to survive. “You know, at a time when our economy is still recovering from the great recession, our top priority has to be jobs and growth,” said the President, even as pink slips rain upon hapless hopey changers across the land, from bureaucracy to shining bureaucracy.

Alas, those last eight words…”across the land, from bureaucracy to shining bureaucracy”… provide a rather cumbersome ode to our very own Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

I repeat, foolish indeed. (4)

Ntrepid

Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/Ghostbusters.txt

(2) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2012/01/22/facing-unpleasant-facts-my-country-right-of-left/

(3) http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Hope-Change-and-Unemployment

(4) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2012/11/03/at-the-threshold-of-a-reckoning-the-great-mistake-and-the-soul-of-americanisms-discontent/

“When the course of civilization takes an unexpected turn – when, instead of the continuous progress which we have come to expect , we find ourselves threatened by evils associated by us with past ages of barbarism – we naturally blame anything but ourselves.”

…

‘We are ready to accept almost any explanation of the present crisis of our civilization except one: that the present state of the world may be the result of genuine error on our own part and that the pursuit of some of our most cherished ideals has apparently produced results utterly different from those which we expected.” [emphasis added]

Substitute “ruling class” for “socialists” in that dedication to properly account for our current domestic variant of the central planner and Hayek’s masterpiece then explains perfectly why Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit.com) appears to have shortened the last eight words of the quote above to a sarcastic “unexpectedly” and used it about seven thousand times in the last three and a half years in reference to what this administration has produced. Clearly, the lineage of our misguided progressive “ruling class” predates Mr. Obama by more than a century and many of them over the years, not just the household names…Pelosi and Reid, just to call out a few current examples…constitute a very long, disgraceful list of small-”m” mistakes (in reference to my title) that various subsets of American voters have imposed on us to great, erosive detriment. However, today the focus is on The Great Mistake and the hope that the 2012 national electorate is willing to face and correct their 2008 error.

Underestimating the Consequences

While I (thankfully) cannot take any part of the actual blame that rests on the shoulders of that fifty-two percent from 2008, I will cut some of them a bit a slack. It seems that four and a half years ago this then Fred-head greatly underestimated the downside to four years of a truly bad president:

“There seems to be a prevailing piece of conventional wisdom that holding the White House from 2009 to 2013 is vital to the future of the Republican Party and the country as a whole. Given the events of the last seven years, a very strong case can be made for that position. However, taking the ‘vital’ part of that too literally is more than a bit vain given the great events and great individuals that have created and shaped this nation over the last 231 years.

I do believe that the country would be in much better shape in January of 2013 with any Republican taking the [reins] from Mr. Bush next year. However, would the party and the country be better off over the following couple of decades if just ‘any’ Republican filled that slot? I think the answer is NO and in my opinion a President McCain would be the perfect example of that.

My historical standard for this is none other than President Carter. His term in office shows that this great nation CAN survive four years of a truly bad executive and Commander in Chief…even in wartime. (Some here may not have learned that bit of ancient history but the Cold War of the late seventies was probably just as critical…and dangerous…a time in world affairs as today’s War on Terror.)

…

My position on Mr. McCain is that he would be a poor one term President. This would be accompanied by congressional losses at the mid-term and probably again in 2012 when a Democrat would most likely be swept into office. This unfortunate turn of events would leave the conservative movement…in whatever form is still exists in 2012…in a very weak, defensive position for the better part of the following generation. This would be very bad for the country and that’s not how I wish to leave it to my children.” (1)

While I still stand by my assessment of a “President McCain” it is clear today that the word “vital” was discounted too much. Time will tell if we have really survived the structural-bureaucratic disaster of “Obama-Reid-Pelosi” but this time it is vital to win the big office…with long coattails.

Community Organizer Refuted

Thankfully, by this point in that last presidential election cycle I had swallowed my pride and voted for McCain-PALIN. I was also thoroughly disgusted with the direction we were obviously heading. This final weekend of the 2008 campaign treated us to a preview of the narcissistic trip we were choosing to board…all while most voters remained willfully ignorant of the Democrat candidate’s past and his public record with respect to not supporting the “Born Alive Infants Protection Act”. At that point I ranted:

“Whether this was an act based on pure conviction or nothing but a cold, calculated political maneuver, I can only conclude that it points to some very dark places in his heart.

…

As for me, I am embarrassed for the people of Illinois for electing this man to high office. I am embarrassed for the Democrat party for nominating him for the highest office and for the American press for providing the cover needed to secure that position. And finally, I’m truly depressed with the irresponsible direction it seems the people of this country are choosing to head.” (2)

And to this day it is a national embarrassment that more of us don’t know about or even care to fully comprehend this complete moral bankruptcy that is willing to allow a weak, beaten, fragile…yet, living, breathing…newborn human being to cruelly expire with “No doctor. No expert medical staff. No loving mother or father. Hell, probably not even the caring warmth of an incubator lamp. Just the cold cruel world of a somewhat sterile tabletop…maybe even shoved away in a closet…while life slowly drains away.”

All semantic games and denials aside, is it so hard to predict what such a position on LIFE will lead to once such people have their hands on the control levers of the various health care boards and committees? No, “Death Panels” is probably just political hyperbole.

Failure: The Sum of His Grievances

Several times over the last three-plus years I have touched on a common theme about our current President: “I do think history will not be kind. Given the shortage of notable Presidential speeches, the words of others will fill the void. I suspect the smart people have already got a jump on preparing those texts.” With that, I give you just over 200 words of linguistic gold from Dave Carter over at Ricochet.com:

“And so it is that a man of talent and intellect, who overcame the obstacles in his life to reach the pinnacle of political leadership, chose not to celebrate and inspire the nation that made his meteoric rise possible, but chose instead to grind his axe upon the citizenry and deliver the nation its comeuppance. Our country is in decline and its divisions have deepened while the mistrust of fellow citizens grows daily. Instead of encouraging excellence and achievement, the president’s policies encourage resentment and dependence, pitting one group against another. … With the Mideast in flames, American embassies under siege, and an American ambassador and his staff murdered in a terrorist attack, Barack Obama manages to garner the endorsements of Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin, who know a bargain when they see it. Why exert the effort to take the United States down when an American president so enthusiastically does the work for them?

It is an awful drama when one becomes the sum of his grievances, but it is made more awful still when the drama unfolds at our expense. It’s time to politely show the President the exit and allow him the time and space to work out these issues in private.” [emphasis added] (3)

From Oprah’s stage-side tears to complete public exposure as “not only intellectually, but also morally unfit to hold the office of President” (4) …all at our expense? Yes, but also by our own hand.

Empty Chair Exposed

No, not Clint Eastwood…Ann Althouse:

“Then came Benghazi, and a door closed.” (5)

The Reckoning

So, again, today is all about The Great Mistake and hope that the historic soul of Americanism…that seemed to acknowledged the error more than two years ago…stands poised to correct that misstep through proper constitutional means in the coming days. As I sit here today, I have hope that it’s not too late…that another Obama term is not already baked into the redistributional-electoral cake…but I mourn that it will even be close. The fact that a civilization is free to see the economic reality all around and a near voting majority can eat up (or at least ignore) the blatant class warfare demagoguery to support this sophomoric intellectual lightweight (or, would “fraud” be out of line?) means that even a Romney win with some coattails next week leaves us poorly positioned for the historically probable 2014 mid-term fall-back. This soul – the great army of Americans recently energized by Pelosi-ism that includes the vocal Tea Party-types but also the many, many quiet, hard working, just-plain-tired-of-the-condescending-arrogance-of-the-ruling-class people that don’t show up in polling and can’t be broad brushed by juvenile (“Teabagger?”) media-types – needs to prove more massive and powerful than anyone expects…landslide…complete repudiation…mandate!

Now that last word is important. I feel Mr. Romney has run a campaign properly poised to govern effectively with a mandate but, alas, my capacity for that much hope…a “landslide?”…falls a bit short.

So, I’ll take what I can get and President Romney is a good first step. Hayek may agree:

“The important thing now is that we shall come to agree on certain principles and free ourselves from some of the errors which have governed us in the recent past. However distasteful such an admission may be, we must recognize that we [have]…reached a stage where it is more important to clear away the obstacles with which human folly has encumbered our path and to release the creative energy of individuals than to devise further machinery for ‘guiding’ and ‘directing’ them – to create conditions favorable to progress rather than to ‘plan progress’. The first need is to free ourselves from the…obscurantism which tries to persuade us that what we have done…was all either wise or inevitable. We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.” [emphasis added] (6)

Foolish indeed.

Ntrepid

Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://archive.redstate.com/blogs/ntrepid/2008/jan/29/and_i_reject_your_shallow_analysis_of_my_never_cast_my_vote_for_mccain_position

(2) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2008/11/02/community-organizer-refuted/

(3) http://ricochet.com/main-feed/The-Sum-of-His-Grievances

(4) http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/148291/

(5) http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/11/althouse-if-you-could-write-your-how.html

(6) From the “Conclusion” chapter of The Road to Serfdom, Hayek.

“He hasn’t had a lot of practice dealing with criticism and frustration. And — judging by the whole constellation of actions coming out of his operation — they know something I don’t that’s got them genuinely nervous.” (5)

That was in April and while the greater context was referring to his anger, I now suspect that the polling will start to show what Team Obama’s internal polls have been indicating for quite some time…and I think the near future will ring more of desperation and draw even more attention to the smallness of the man.  Some are already (correctly) touching on that theme after tonight’s debate.  I’ll take the opportunity to repost my take on it from two months ago from where I stole the above title quote:

The Smallest of Men… (August 17, 2012)

[…and really just a reason to post a few jabs that make me giggle at the expense of the most powerful "man" on Earth]

If memory serves, it was still relatively early in 2009 when comments were made on the Hugh Hewitt radio show to the effect that “no incoming President is as big as the office he is entering but most grow into it…and that it was clear even then that this President was going to shrink the Presidency to fit him.”

Even after he had posed confidently behind a toy “President-Elect” emblem for more than two months, I don’t think many of us were quite sure how little this man really was.

Two years in, smart people were still taking the time to craft linguistic gold to mock the obviously shallow “Constitutional academic”…such as this “direct shot at [President Obama’s] ruling class elitism and rather arrogant and simplistic ‘not Bush’ approach to leadership (think Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, etc.)” (1):

“Wanting something to end, and being the right sort to want something to end, surely were to be synonymous with something ending.”

Even earlier this year, a modicum of (undeserved, in my opinion) respectfulness remained as actual smart people weighed in…such as this from Richard Epstein via Instapundit (2):

“I like Obama but I reject the suggestion that he is an intellectual. He is an activist merely mimicking the mannerisms of an intellectual.”

Things seemed to nose dive rather quickly from there.  Earlier this month, a real Law Professor put it rather bluntly (3):

“It is becoming clear that Obama is not only intellectually, but also morally unfit to hold the office of President.”

And, finally, earlier this week The Chicago Tribune…the home town news!!!!…chimed in with this via Instapundit (4):

“Team Obama tried to defend Biden, but it was nonsensical babbling.”

I dare say that none of this is radical right wing ranting…and the fact that people with real resumes can so easily say such biting but true things about a President and the administration that will carry his name into the history books has got to irritate the thin skinned to no end.  (Sure, the media said some really nasty things about Mr. Bush – who, by the way, was thick skinned to a fault – but that was really just the crass left-wing political Dadaism of those mid-decade years.  It sure had destructive short term electoral impacts but it will not define the man in our history…he went a lot further in that realm with his own words.)

Then again, I could be wrong.  It’s hard to gage those that do not see the shame in advancing “Leading from Behind” as their foreign policy doctrine.

I do think history will not be kind.  Given the shortage of notable Presidential speeches, the words of others will fill the void.  I suspect the smart people have already got a jump on preparing those texts.

I can think of no better prize for such a small, small man.

Ntrepid

Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/02/04/smashing-world-views%e2%80%a6or-at-the-very-least-picking-on-the-defective-ones/

(2) http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/145468/

(3) http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/148291/

(4) http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/148713/

The real kicker for me is an American President who continually holds his head high while telling of “ending” the war in Iraq and “ending” the war in Afghanistan as if the mere thought of “winning” such a conflict had never crossed his mind.

Embarrassments galore.

Ntrepid

Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(5) http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/140216/

If memory serves, it was still relatively early in 2009 when comments were made on the Hugh Hewitt radio show to the effect that “no incoming President is as big as the office he is entering but most grow into it…and that it was clear even then that this President was going to shrink the Presidency to fit him.”

Even after he had posed confidently behind a toy “President-Elect” emblem for more than two months, I don’t think many of us were quite sure how little this man really was.

Two years in, smart people were still taking the time to craft linguistic gold to mock the obviously shallow “Constitutional academic”…such as this “direct shot at [President Obama’s] ruling class elitism and rather arrogant and simplistic ‘not Bush’ approach to leadership (think Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, etc.)” (1):

“Wanting something to end, and being the right sort to want something to end, surely were to be synonymous with something ending.”

Even earlier this year, a modicum of (undeserved, in my opinion) respectfulness remained as actual smart people weighed in…such as this from Richard Epstein via Instapundit (2):

“I like Obama but I reject the suggestion that he is an intellectual. He is an activist merely mimicking the mannerisms of an intellectual.”

Things seemed to nose dive rather quickly from there. Earlier this month, a real Law Professor put it rather bluntly (3):

“It is becoming clear that Obama is not only intellectually, but also morally unfit to hold the office of President.”

And, finally, earlier this week The Chicago Tribune…the home town news!!!!…chimed in with this via Instapundit (4):

“Team Obama tried to defend Biden, but it was nonsensical babbling.”

I dare say that none of this is radical right wing ranting…and the fact that people with real resumes can so easily say such biting but true things about a President and the administration that will carry his name into the history books has got to irritate the thin skinned to no end. (Sure, the media said some really nasty things about Mr. Bush – who, by the way, was thick skinned to a fault – but that was really just the crass left-wing political Dadaism of those mid-decade years. It sure had destructive short term electoral impacts but it will not define the man in our history…he went a lot further in that realm with his own words.)

Then again, I could be wrong. It’s hard to gage those that do not see the shame in advancing “Leading from Behind” as their foreign policy doctrine.

I do think history will not be kind. Given the shortage of notable Presidential speeches, the words of others will fill the void. I suspect the smart people have already got a jump on preparing those texts.

I can think of no better prize for such a small, small man.

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/02/04/smashing-world-views%e2%80%a6or-at-the-very-least-picking-on-the-defective-ones/

(2) http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/145468/

(3) http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/148291/

(4) http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/148713/

I often reference back to the old days…before Mr. Gore’s Nobel and the collapse of the hoax he served…when, what seemed like nearly every weekend, a Red State diary or two would delve into the issue among a few resident supporters, the hard core deniers, and (many times) several compromising / tepid deniers.

Once again, I just couldn’t resist the search through my electronic memory for a comparison after I read the following on Powerline this morning [emphasis added]:

Have you ever wondered, when you see an assertion along the lines of “The Earth has warmed by 1.62 degrees over the last 100 years,” how anyone could know that? The literature of global warming alarmism is littered with faux precision; the truth, as you might imagine, is that it is very difficult to get reliable data for the whole Earth over a period of decades if not centuries.

Climate realists are generally willing to assume, for the sake of argument, that the Earth has warmed somewhat in recent decades. In fact, though, it is not obvious that even this modest claim is true. Satellite data show no net warming for as long as such data have been collected, i.e., back to 1979. Ocean measurements show no net warming over that period, either; the evidence for warming is based on land measurements. But the accuracy of land measurements depends on proper siting and maintenance of weather stations. (1)

That sent me to the archives for a specific Ntrepid reference…but first, the quote that may have pushed me further into the debate than I intended and really shows the arrogance of the alarmists at the time:

This is where I find myself as I reread Jason Lee Steorts recent NRO article (Link) and this passage keeps jumping out at me:

“…that ‘global average temperature has risen by about 1 degree Celsius or less since the late 1800s.’ No serious person on either side of the global-warming debate questions this.”

More precisely, it’s the words “global average temperature”.  They just float on by as the universally accepted standard of measure for assessing overall “global climate” health and everyone is off debating their favorite pet angle, topic, or related statistic.  Sure, this may all make for livelier (and by now mostly rehashed) discussions but maybe it’s worth the time to step back and be more skeptical about some of this stuff.  Take back some ground if you will. (2)

“No serious person”…really?

Ok, what I was really looking for came up twice about six months later:

Unfortunately, it’s the behavior of those who generally fall on my side of this debate that causes me to chime in so late to this discussion. The nearly universal reflex to concede something along the lines of “we all agree that there has been some warming…blah, blah, blah” based on no real scientific data is really starting to irritate me. Your “memory” of colder winters and milder summers wherever you happened to be at the time is not science and certainly not a measure of “Global Climate”. (3)

…and…

My current issue is with the all-to-common urge by even honest and reasonable people to make statements like this:

“I am willing to concede the earth has warmed 1 degree over the past 100 years…”

Ultimately that may be true but it is far from established fact so why concede anything at all? The available data doesn’t support anything near that much of an increase (if any at all). I also believe the “consensus” among the general public that things “just seem” warmer now is flat out wrong or that any increase is so negligible that no one could honestly detect a trend over their lifetime. (4)

As with so many other issues, it’s nice to have been on the right side of history…and science.

[If you are bored enough this weekend to actually peruse these archived links, there is some interesting commentary by smarter people at this final reference.  Note also the early attempts to examine real data by this amateur blogger/denier with no online plotting skills. (By the way, I still don’t have that know-how.)]

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/08/how-bad-data-contribute-to-global-warming-hysteria.php

(2) http://archive.redstate.com/story/2006/6/2/214910/1057

(3) http://archive.redstate.com/blogs/ntrepid/2007/jan/20/silly_climate_change_hyperbole_vs_the_data

(4) http://archive.redstate.com/blogs/ntrepid/2007/jan/26/my_struggle_part_1/

“…an act…gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects.  Of these effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously with its cause – it is seen.  The others unfold in succession – they are not seen: it is well for us, if they are foreseen.” (1) [Emphasis Added]

In recent days I have seen sporadic coverage and commentary on Edward Klein’s “The Amateur” (2) and, while the book itself is probably worth reading, the title strikes me as giving too much credit to the maturity of the subject. In the past, some may have more accurately labeled it as sophomoric (3) but the passage of another thousand days renders that somewhat overstated.  As it happens, today’s news greets us (via Drudge (4)) with our chief clown entertaining his base with an all too cleverly timed pregnant pause accompanying his double entendre about his wife’s push-up technique (see also (5)) with all the sophistication of so many who have advanced beyond lowly freshman humor.

I wish my concerns today were just that frivolous.

I suspect that it is much earlier in childhood development that one grasps that there are secondary effects of one’s actions.  That makes the immaturity of our current President (and those around him)…witnessed by the obvious pattern of security leakage touched on by Misters McCain (6) and Krauthammer (7)…that much more unbelievable and outrageous.

So, given the “it is well for us, if [the not immediately seen effects] are foreseen” wisdom quoted above that we should celebrate the straight talk from Mr. Donald Rumsfeld (8) regarding the easily foreseeable* fallout of this childish leaking:

“…if I were an Israeli leader, I think I’d have trouble coordinating with the United States government about something like that for fear it would be leaked.” … “And if you tried to coordinate with this administration, I would think that there is at least a reasonable chance that it would leak out. So I would anticipate that a responsible Israeli government, given the relationship, would very likely have to make a decision on their own, and proceed.”

Bastiat went on to say “…for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorourable, the ultimate consequences are fatal”.  I suspect both Rumsfeld and Bastiat are correct…when the big events happen with respect to Iran’s nuclear ambitions the White House will be out of the loop and that is not good for anyone in the civilized world.

And when that happens, I reserve a special damnation for the authors of the 2007 NIE (9).

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

* Using mature adult reasoning, of course.
________________________________________________________________
(1) “That which is Seen, and that which is Not Seen” by Frederic Bastiat, 1850, http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
(2) http://www.amazon.com/The-Amateur-Edward-Klein/dp/1596987855/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339077874&sr=1-1
(3) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2009/04/18/sophomoric-wilsonianism-and-the-soul-of-growing-discontent/
(4) http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/06/obamas-risqu-joke-125518.html
(5) http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/06/did-president-obama-just-make-blowjob.html
(6) http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7410748n
(7) http://nation.foxnews.com/security-leaks/2012/06/06/krauthammer-slams-obama-administration-security-leaks
(8) http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog/g/97ddcb2a-b680-4ac6-983b-900a2634744c
(9) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2009/01/03/january-presidential-to-do-list-pardon-van-diepen-fingar-and-brill%E2%80%A6then-fire-them/

Way back then, in March 2010, ill gotten scores from a more than willing CBO were nothing but cynical political cover and every United States Representative who used that cover knew full well then what the same whore now reports to WE THE PEOPLE.

So, for even the most politically dense, the jig is up…the law and its implementation are and have always been a sham.  But we must not forget the putrid process that served it up to us.  The Senate shenanigans back during Christmas 2009…the intentional stalling that forced weekend sessions with no time to actually prepare or read the legislation…and Speaker Pelosi’s rape of proper legislative processes.  Her mocking stroll past those assembled in opposition with oversized gavel in-hand should still be burned into everyone’s memory.

Conveniently, my memory is recorded here at Redstate just hours before the deed was done (1):

The Eternal Stamp of an Irreversible Act
Sunday, March 21, 2010, 11:12 AM CDT

You don’t undrop The Bomb.

Thankfully, wisdom and character were rightly placed in history…the right decision came rather easy for Mr. Truman.  (Just months removed from a post in the Senate, this may be the most fortunate and timely promotion…aside from General Grant to the Potomac…America has ever seen.  If the Senate of the mid-1940s was anything like today’s, I wouldn’t bet two cents we could roll the electoral focused dice at the convention and find one with a spine.  But, I digress.)

When it comes to irreversible acts, history brands some figures…some names…some decisions…forever: Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, Robert E. Lee.  In more generous cases, history mostly just writes them out…James Wilkinson.  When your actions are just votes and you are but one of 435 it is usually safe to assume a large amount of anonymity in your shame.  On Sunday, March 21, 2010…DON’T COUNT ON IT.

With hours to go before the big vote even occurs, some have already crossed the threshold and earned their eternal brand.  President Obama owns this.  Senate Majority Leader Reid owns this.  Speaker of the House of Representatives Pelosi owns this.  And to be perfectly clear, “this” is not a bill or a law…”this” is this the putrid fourteen month process that has torn mightily…and so destructively… at the very fabric of American society.  The extensive collateral damage, primarily the credibility of the Congressional Budget Office, will plague DC for decades…maybe forever.  Their shame is total.

Others carry quite a stain…Nelson, Landrieu and, yes, Snowe.  (“When history calls, history calls”? Holy crap, that ranks right up there with “Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?” and “Joey, have you ever been in a… in a Turkish prison?” coming from a sitting US Senator.  Unbelievable.)

Many more will chose a place in history very soon.  They have but one duty…a vote…executed while under the following oath:

“I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Nothing about an obligation to the Speaker…or to the President…not even explicitly to constituents back home.  This is a pledge of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States not a vow to grasp for unlimited power when majorities allow and to grant new rights and redistribute property on a cynical legislative whim.

The simple fact that there are 180 or so solid “Yes” votes on the “reform” bill says a lot about how low our collective standards have become for federal representation…and makes you wonder what exactly these individuals have in mind when they repeat the phrase “So help me God.”   Unfortunately, after this weekend, they will remain mostly anonymous outside their districts.  Unfortunately, to the extent that a majority in those districts has sent such lacking character to DC, I expect no shame to be placed on them.

On the other hand, there are undecideds, late deciders, and flippers.  These names will be branded and they will be remembered.  The new media are everywhere and they have long memories.

So when the true costs of this are finally known…you will be remembered.  When Speaker Pelosi admits that abortions actually will be funded brags that this is the ultimate victory for women’s reproductive rights…you will be remembered.  When Americans go to the voting booth this November…you will be remembered.

Votes have consequences…long lasting consequences.

Remember the history.  Remember the names: Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Snowe, Nelson, Landrieu, Stupak, …

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2010/03/21/the-eternal-stamp-of-an-irreversible-act/

More, I am a (hopefully) recovering political masochist of sorts.  In the worst of times I forced myself to sit alone on a yearly basis and watch every Clinton State of the Union speech.  That kind of character building continued through the end of the Obama victory speech on November 4, 2008.  At that point, I realized the entirety of the American political class is beneath me.  As a result, I have devoted less than five cumulative minutes to these so-called debates this time around and have largely tuned out all of the detailed coverage…I get highlights only.  This long awaited and highly coveted endorsement comes from the gut.

The Set-Up

In the final hours before the most embarrassingly thin resume gained election to the world’s highest office with the support of 48% of voting Catholics (1)…and not long after we were all subjected to an insulting thirty minute infomercial in support of that candidate…a wise RedStater posted this:

“…until I heard about Mr. Obama, in his former life as a state legislator, not being able to find a reason to support something called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.

…

Although the passage of a few seconds or minutes makes any attempted distinction meaningless, this is specifically NOT ABOUT ABORTION. This is about LIFE. This is about a man…a father…who can somehow reconcile such a vote during his work day against even attempting to save such a baby with his Christian faith and his comfortable home life that evening with his lovely daughters laughing, playing, hugging, crying…and LIVING.

Whether this was an act based on pure conviction or nothing but a cold, calculated political maneuver, I can only conclude that it points to some very dark places in his heart.

So spare me the overproduced infomercial featuring the financially stressed yet over manicured single mom from a battleground state to show me how much you care about real people. Don’t tell me that you want the keys to the castle to enact some amazing plan…one that you failed to introduce in any form during your current tenure in the U.S. Senate…that will magically help struggling families buy more milk when you couldn’t care enough to vote in the affirmative on a bill to protect helpless, living children…a vote that should have been as reflexive as a New York City firefighter running into a burning building.

I’m not naïve enough to think that the United States will not have pro-choice/pro-abortion Presidents in the future but this man is simply too extreme for mainstream American voters to accept…if only issues like this had been given proper exposure during the campaign. While every recent Presidential election seemed to have focused too much on abortion politics to the detriment of much more important issues, this campaign season seems to have barely touched the issue leaving Mr. Obama’s wicked policy expansion largely hidden from his sycophantic herd.

I cannot tell you how disgusted I am by any American that would vote for this man while having full knowledge of this issue. Unfortunately, whether he is successful or not on Tuesday, there is a not-so-insignificant segment of half the American electorate that falls into that category. (Contemplate those numbers as you are mingling with fellow Americans at you[r] local market or taking a mental accounting of those around you with fading ‘CHANGE’ bumper stickers over the next four years.)

As for me, I am embarrassed for the people of Illinois for electing this man to high office. I am embarrassed for the Democrat party for nominating him for the highest office and for the American press for providing the cover needed to secure that position. And finally, I’m truly depressed with the irresponsible direction it seems the people of this country are choosing to head.” (2)

Nearly forty months later, the contempt is still intact.

The Endorsement

I have been intrigued by…if not a fan of…Newt Gingrich since I first became aware of him in late 1994 but, always in the back of my mind, I realized that that man…Speaker Gingrich…was not quite Presidential material.

This week we saw yet another devastating roundhouse from Candidate Gingrich with his quip at both the press and Mr. Obama regarding the former’s spinelessness with respect to protecting babies alive outside the womb.   As they say, he fights.  But this really is not new.

What is new is a (maybe) subtle but not insignificant change in character.  Maybe it’s an aging that brings wisdom and perspective and a sharper focus.  There is obviously a past…a record…and some dirt…accumulated over a life within the walls of power, temptation, and corrosiveness. Occasional modern missteps continue to make me cringe.  However, it is this older Newt…Grandpa Newt…that still retains this fighting spirit and, dare I say, mean streak that draws my attention and my support.  I want this type of fight in the man to support his Supreme Court nominees against Borkian attacks and every manufactured Abu Ghraib / domestic spying / Valerie Plame –type scandal.

No, I don’t doubt there is similar character in both Misters Santorum and Romney but I sense both would be more calculating in their expenditures of political capital than the Grandpa Newt I see on this campaign trail.  Any of the three would be a huge step up from the coward skewered by Mr. Gingrich’s debate comments but I sense a “leave it all out on the field” mentality coming from the man with the fortitude to put that on the table in such a big way.

So there you have it…however thinly supported or misinformed it is…the official 2012 Ntrepid endorsement for the Republican nomination for the office of President of the United States:  Grandpa Newt.

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

PS. Sorry Senator Santorum but I have a long memory…the robbery that was Nebraska vs. Penn State 1982 still requires points to be deducted.  Keep fighting…that stain may yet fade.

(1) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2009/05/17/fifty-four-percent/

(2) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2008/11/02/community-organizer-refuted/

“…the economy, according to the CBO, shuts down in 2027 on this path.” (1)

Despite the reference to that three lettered evil whore (see Obamacare), I draw attention to this quote…lifted from an excellent blog post whose title included the phrase “the debt chart Obama and Geithner should be ashamed of”…because it signals much more than even the rare serious discussion of unavoidable financial doom-ism affords.  We do, after all, still have our foot on the accelerator.

I presume the referenced “economy” is the U.S. economy and, whether or not the analysis claims any accuracy in timing I neither know nor care (plus or minus 5 years is irrelevant), the signaled impact…even as a mentionable potential outcome…should shake Americans to their core.  To be clear, I suspect “shuts down” in this sense means the parameters become so out of balance that even the CBO admits the models are no longer valid.  The implications of this…how this would manifest itself in our lives and our society…would be a nightmarish rabbit hole to go down but is not really relevant to our future.

I wonder how much sooner that projected “shut down” would come if the analysis was extended to include the complexity of the economies of the civilized western world.  (How many random number generators would be in the Greece subroutine alone?)  To be generous, I would really start to worry around 2020.

Unfortunately, the larger point is more serious.  This tidal wave of economic collapse would obviously not hit everyone all at once…if it was allowed to get here in a vacuum, the instability created as more and more of the weaker component failed would spread panic and chaos…and opportunism.  Consider where this would most likely head…(think Europe).

My unchecked pessimism on this issue leads me even further.  Once we get past this period where “an all-powerful government would distract from its looming bankruptcy by introducing a universal contraceptive mandate” (2) and the obvious cannot be ignored by leaders or hidden from even the most loyal of subjects any longer, the horizon will darken in an all too familiar way for the first time this century.  I don’t need a new CBO score to see this tinderbox scenario as early as the end of the next American administration.  Do you really think that spark…accidental or intentional…facing certain economic calamity…would not come, sooner rather than later?  Did I mention we still have our foot on the accelerator?

This week Mark Steyn “reject[ed] association with American declinists, and instead announced himself an American collapsist” (3) to which I say welcome to the club and thanks for giving us a catchy name.  I, however, have sunk even lower since last July when I shortened a Victor Davis Hanson post titled “Unchained World” to the following:

“…the world will shortly become an even scarier place… In short, we will be back soon to about 1937. The old rules are disappearing… soon, we will learn what we learned last time in 1941…The world by 2016 will be a very dangerous place…” (4)

As usual, I ramble and have no solutions.  I would say take the lead foot off the accelerator but we are probably already inside the doom-ish window I outline above and a near voting majority sits poised to blindly vote itself more plunder.  At least a rightward landslide in November would result in a more favorable divvying up of sides for the reckoning.  That would be a small victory…but a victory nonetheless.

My message really is just clarity (and, more accurately, just therapy for me at this point).  I want my friends here to realize that this isn’t just about how embarrassingly unserious our current administration is or unavoidable astronomical tax rates for our kids and grandkids.  In a historical sense, even as our Treasury Secretary smirks off congressional inquiry about such dire predictions, events are going to start happening very fast.  Between distractions dutifully choreographed through the MSM and our own inside-baseball discussions about our candidates, the conversations…if not depressingly overt as I seem to prefer…had better continue with at least a common understanding of where this is all headed.

I hope I’m wrong but, I fear, we will all be collapsists soon.

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://blog.american.com/2012/02/this-is-the-debt-chart-obama-and-geithner-should-be-ashamed-of/

(2) http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/budget-340815-debt-down.html

(3) http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog

(4) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/07/30/that-same-old-contemptible-charade/

“Twitter and Facebook speed up communication, but slow down thought” (1)

I must admit that I came into this election year with the lowest of all expectations for my party and my country.

On a personal level, I vowed to pay less attention to news…at least the finer details and (mind numbing) chatter associated with so many stories blasted out in the daily news cycle. Unfortunately, this meant significantly less time on RedState.  (I seem to have acquired a sensitivity…a near allergic reaction…to repeated multi-hundred comment threads that suck all of the oxygen out of the site.  Sure, there are nuggets buried in each but I now gag at the thought of wading through so much…other stuff…that I usually just move on.)  My intent is to spend more time reading “substance” (as defined by me, of course) and it is that path, along with my more remote view of today’s news, that brings me here today with Orwell on my mind.

(Quick note: I highly recommend the VDH Works and Days column that the opening quote was lifted from.)

Yesterday morning, while reading the book and essay referenced in the title above, I came across the following passage:

“Contrary to popular belief, the past was not more eventful than the present.  If is seems so it is because when you look backward things that happened years apart are telescoped together.
…
But if you were alive during the war [WWI], and if you disentangle your real memories from the later accretions, you find that it was not usually the big events that stirred you at the time.  I don’t believe that the battle of the Marne, for instance, had for the general public the melodramatic quality that it was afterwards given.  I do not even remember hearing the phrase ‘battle of the Marne’ till years later.  It was merely that the Germans were 22 miles from Paris – and certainly that was terrifying enough, after the Belgian atrocity stories – and then for some reason turned back.
…
If I honestly sort out my memories and disregard what I have learned since, I must admit that nothing in the whole war moved me so deeply as the loss of the Titanic had done a few years earlier.  This comparatively petty disaster shocked the whole world, and the shock has not quite died away even yet.” (2)

The first segment has a somewhat unrelated but local (Redstate) appeal to me…and may be a good example for other topics.  As we sit here today, looking back through the flattening filter of 2009 and “Climategate” there is – and will increasingly be – the sentiment among right thinking people that it was always clear that Mr. Gore’s Global Warming was an obvious hoax.  But that misses the largely ignored discussions among the great continuum of deniers to partial acceptors to believers that took place in 2006 in out of the way places like RedState. (And for some of us…deniers that is…as far back as the mid to late 1990s.)

The larger point I take from Mr. Orwell is that the importance of certain events (or issues) is often assigned long after the fact.  What he doesn’t necessarily touch on is that the “assigners” most likely have an agenda.  In his example it may simply be the winners writing the history for their own consumption…and largely harmless.  In other arenas this phenomenon may be the cynical process of selectively focusing a candidate’s distant past for modern consumption.

To be more specific (with no endorsement intended), let’s look at the exposure of a candidate’s marital issues from more than a decade ago…laced with un-provable, targeted, inflammatory language…pushed out into public view just prior to a critical primary election.  It is worth noting that in times contemporary to these alleged events, this same press worked feverishly to muddy the waters around marital infidelity and worse (sexual harassment, what constitutes sex, and direct accusations of rape) to protect a politician of their liking from negative public opinion.  In particular, this past manipulation was very much like the present example; it sought to manipulate WOMEN VOTERS.

Unfortunately, this kind of stuff works and, as I said above, my expectations this year are very low.  My only hope resides in what I call the “Doctor Scenario”.  That is meant to contrast the urgency between normal, healthy times, when one can take the time to fully assess the character of their general practitioner and weigh his number of ex-wives versus the marginal quality of his abilities and the time critical moment in life when one is being wheeled into the emergency room and doesn’t (shouldn’t) really give a rat’s rump how many ex-wives the best surgeon on staff has or what they may say about him.  Which situation are we in today?  As a voting bloc, I don’t expect women to defy human nature and the blatant manipulation of their emotions; I just hope enough of them do to do the right thing.  (Again, no endorsement here but I do lean Newt…or at least a proper, extended primary race…at this moment.)

To be clear, I believe a candidate’s past should be part of the full assessment of his positions and his character.  But that alone is not…cannot…be the full measure of the that person today.  Whether in marriage or business people change.  They are necessarily tied to their entire past but each stand before us today in circumstances unique and critical to our future as a republic.  This decision is too important…is should not be swayed by the shallow, cynical manipulations of a biased media machine that is really working for the other team.

To get even more serious, I return to 1940 and Orwell:

“I don’t quite know in what year I first knew for certain that the present war was coming.  After 1936, of course, the thing was obvious to anyone except an idiot” (3)

I’ve touched on this before (4) but the point should be stated as bluntly as possible:  Our country and our world will be in worse shape in 2016 than it is today…no matter who occupies the White House a year from now.  We are well beyond quick fixes; the questions we are answering this year have to do with the stability and trajectory of that future condition.  It must be said with very little uncertainty that a second Obama term will find us in a continued, accelerated socialist death spiral.  If you cannot see this today…for even all but the most extreme cheerleaders in the media hint at it frequently (at the very least, it shows in their eyes)…then you may very well be Orwell’s idiot.  As for a Republican administration from the current viable crop, I don’t pretend for a minute that I wouldn’t be sitting here in 2016 greatly disappointed with what a President Gingrich or President Romney had done for four years but, at worst, the death spiral would be less steep and there would at least be some upside potential.

My greatest fear, however, it that the massive debt, uncertainty, and lack of leadership here and around the civilized world has already dealt war into the cards and that in 2016 all of us, like Orwell then, will know for certain it is coming.  And then we will look back and realize that the big events…the misuse of TARP, the rape of the Chrysler bond holders (5), the quiet implementation of Obamacare under cover of blackmail/waivers (6), did not sufficiently stir us at the time but we were greatly exercised over the uncorroborated claim from the most biased of sources of a decade old request for an “open marriage”.  Will our view through that filter allow us to see 2012 clearly or will that be re-written by then for our most comfortable consumption?

Once again, my expectations for my party and my country are very low in 2012.

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) Why Read Anymore? by Victor Davis Hanson, January 16, 2012 http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/so-why-read-anymore/

(2) Facing Unpleasant Facts – Narrative Essays (by George Orwell), Compiled by George Packer, pg 52.

(3) Facing Unpleasant Facts – Narrative Essays (by George Orwell), Compiled by George Packer, pg 56.

(4) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/04/30/a-curse-reserved/

(5) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/03/27/the-republic-expires-in-silence-%e2%80%9c%e2%80%a6but-the-supreme-court-declined-to-hear-their-case%e2%80%9d/

(6) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/04/16/anti-liberty-america%e2%80%99s-expanding-functional-tyranny/

“This little book has no ‘hidden agenda’. it is offered in the most cheerful and open polemical spirit, as an attack on a crooked president and a corrupt and reactionary administration”

With that as the opening line in the Preface of his 1999 book “No One Left To Lie To (The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton)“, I quickly became a fan of this author…Christopher Hitchens.

I was very sad to see the news of his death pop up on my computer screen this morning.

To be honest, I only read three of his books.  The other two – “Why Orwell Matters” and “Letters to a Young Contrarian” – made it to my bookshelf just last year.  And, even more honesty, I’m not real sure how often I really agreed with him.  There are certainly a few very Big Concepts that he and I would have never come to any kind of agreement on but that really wasn’t the point.  He was a true thinker and, whether in print or in person (on my TV), Mr. Hitchens always made me think.  His points…his arguments…were blunt and always delivered with more than sufficient force.  On many levels…around work, among friends, or even on your favorite insufficiently conservative blog site…we all need fewer talkers and more thinkers in our lives.  His contributions to serious discussions around the world will be missed.

Just because I can, here are a few random bits of wisdom…just a taste… from the underlined passages in my copy:

“I cringe every time I hear denunciations of ‘the politics of division’—as if politics was not division by definition.  Semi-educated people join cults whose whole purpose is to dull the pain of thought, or take medications that claim to abolish anxiety.  Oriental religions, with their emphasis on Nirvana and fatalism, are repackaged for Westerners as therapy, and platitudes or tautologies masquerade as wisdom. ”

…

“Bear in mind, however, that Utopia itself was a tyranny and that much of the talk about the analgesic and conflict-free ideal is likewise more menacing than it may appear.”

…

“It is only those who hope to transform humans who end up by burning them, like the waste product of a failed experiment.” (Letters to a Young Contrarian, pages 31-32)

and…

“I suggest you learn to recognize and avoid the symptoms of the zealot and the person who knows that he is right.  For the dissenter, the skeptical mentality is at least as important as any armor of principle” (Letters to a Young Contrarian, page 33)

There is much more where that came from.  I recommend you take some time away from here over the Holidays and read something…maybe even some Hitchens.

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

Just as the first section of Mr. Douglass’s story gives powerful insight into parts of slavery not often discussed…a topic I hope to return to in some detail in the final installment of this exercise…Mr. Thomas ends with his passage through the conformation process for the Supreme Court.  Much of this section is devoted to that episode.

First, some firsthand insight from Mr. Douglass and proof he knew Joe Biden long ago:

“It is easy to whip a man when his hands are tied.  It requires little courage…” (2)

At least, thanks to the previous Bork experience, Mr. Thomas knew his hands were to be tied going in and the cowardly machine he was about to face (emphasis added):

“…there was nothing to be gained from engaging in extended debate with the members of the Judiciary Committee.  A confirmation hearing…is something to be endured, not an opportunity to engage in thoughtful public discussion.” (3)

Once again, Mr. Douglass provided a preview a century earlier…and where you see the word “popular” think “cynical liberal”:

“…I was under a considerable cloud not altogether free from angry lightning.  False friends of both colors were loading me with reproaches.  No man, perhaps, had ever more offended popular prejudice than I had then lately done.  I had married…a wife a few shades lighter than myself.” (4)

And once again, Mr. Thomas knew the coward’s playbook…the coming smear campaign to provide cover for targeted voters to not support him:

“…by making discreet, strategically placed mentions of the fact that my wife was white” (5)

Oh, and he also knew who the cowards were.  When asked if anyone would be bothered by his interracial marriage he replied:

“Only bigots and liberals!” (6)

On that note, a quick aside for my take on the Cain takedown that seems to have reached an unfortunate end game as of yesterday.  The truth is that the long, drawn out circus was not the intention of the perpetrators of this political assassination but the product of a MSM that used it for their own sensationalistic purposes…a Frankenstein’s monster wholly owned by our ruling class.  In a way, the whole thing reminds me of a friend of a friend who once took his talents to open tryouts for an NFL team and the better he did the more blatant the efforts by the insider class…those drafted into the system…became to end his year (if you know what I mean.)

Anyway, putting the whole circus aside, the Cain takedown was intended to be a much quicker and quieter affair…it was actually executed to near perfection in the first couple of days…the discreet, strategically placed leaks and then the face of a white woman “accuser” plastered on front pages all over the country…now the targeted subsets of voters had the cover needed to withdraw their support.  This was supposed to be a three day story…a quick cut to his Achilles to let him limp to the side of the road and out of the race.  As Mr. Thomas puts it:

“I’d warned her that some of my opponents would try to kill me.  Now we both knew what their weapon of choice was to be: the age-old…instrument of accusing a black man of sexual misconduct.” (7)

The rest has all been fluff…partially brought on by Mr. Cain’s refusal to go quietly…and nothing more than a MSM game.  As a similarly proud and defiant character, Mr. Thomas already had his back:

“This is a circus.  It is a national disgrace.  And from my standpoint, as a black American, as far as I am concerned, it is a high tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that, unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you, you will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured [by cable TV schmucks] rather than hung from a tree.” (8)

For the record, I believe Mr. Thomas.  I believe Anita Hill is a liar…but I also believe she was a sinful pawn in this matter.  The real evil resided in the Senators on the Judiciary Committee (and the liberal establishment en masse) and probably even more so, by reading a bit between the lines, in the nameless, faceless committee staff that orchestrated the entire charade.  Per Thomas (bold emphasis added):

“Hypersensitive civil-rights leaders who saw racism around every corner fell silent when by liberal enemies sneered that I was unqualified to sit on the Court; editors and reporters who claimed to be objective substituted a pretense of balance for true fairness, presenting outrageous, wholly unsupported allegations side by side with sputtering denials.  The implausible was now being treated more favorably than the obvious.”

“As for the Senate, it had abandoned all semblance of decorum to consider a set of trumped-up charges better suited to the tabloids than the Congressional Record.  I know of at least one senator sitting in judgment of me against whom accusations of sexual improprieties had been leveled that made Anita’s charges look mild. … I was sickened by their hypocrisy as I was mystified by the sequence of events that had set this hideous farce in motion.” (9)

Hypocrisy…hideous farce…for some reason the names Pelosi and Reid come to mind.  As for back then, those Senators and their staff are truly despicable people.  And, in case you haven’t noticed, Joe Biden is a schmuck.

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/07/15/remedial-book-notes-volume-1-primary-american-character/
(2) The Life and times of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass.  Page 400.
(3) My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir by Clarence Thomas. Page 232-233.
(4) The Life and times of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass.  Page 391-392.
(5) My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir by Clarence Thomas. Page 232.
(6) My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir by Clarence Thomas. Page 210.
(7) My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir by Clarence Thomas. Page 243.
(8) My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir by Clarence Thomas. Page 271.
(9) My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir by Clarence Thomas. Page 257-258.

Previous Installments:

Volume 1.1: http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/08/20/remedial-book-notes-volume-1-1-%e2%80%93-evolving-expectations/

Volume 1.2: http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/09/30/remedial-book-notes-volume-1-2-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%9ci-had-better-things-to-do-than-be-angry-%e2%80%9d/

Volume 1.3: http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/11/11/remedial-book-notes-volume-1-3-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%9cslavery-was-a-state-of-war%e2%80%9d/

Volume 1.4: http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/11/18/remedial-book-notes-volume-1-4-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%9ca-tonic-like-no-other%e2%80%9d/

Volume 1.5: http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/11/19/remedial-book-notes-volume-1-5-%e2%80%93-douglass-decimates-obamacare/

“…Van Diepen, whom Secretary of State Clinton has taken under her wing…”

Those who know me best may initially think that I am referring primarily to the four word cabinet official description but they would be wrong. It is as backhanded as I can possibly make it but she is arguably the most respectable among any cabinet member who has served this President.  However, as I’ve discussed before (2), her in that position is still a joke of epic proportions:

“My focus is on two occasions when this woman was presented with positions of either great responsibility and/or great importance in deciding the path history would take in both legal and political realms and the decisions she made.  The first revolves around her highest profile experience to utilize her ‘brilliant’ legal mind.  Her Watergate experience had potential to be celebrated on high by lefties everywhere but, instead, it earned her the recommendation of being not suitable for ‘any future position of public or private trust’ (3) and is mostly forgotten to history.   A few more details from her boss to complete the picture:

‘Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.’ (4)

The second occasion is her testimony under oath during the Travelgate investigation…you know, the testimony in which her statements, under oath, were patently false (5).  Again, she’s a liar and both situations demonstrated her complete contempt for the American systems of law and government.”

But, I digress.

No, this time my focus is on the (unfortunately) anonymous sounding two words “Van Diepen” and the implication that the good Madam Secretary is passing the not-suitable-for-any-future-position-of-public-trust torch to a hand chosen successor who is demonstrably worthy of the badge.  If the words “Van Diepen”…as in Vann H. Van Diepen…are not familiar to you, unfortunately you are not alone.  Along with a Mr. Thomas Fingar and Mr. Kenneth Brill, Mr. Van Diepen bears responsibility for the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate.

For those not familiar with this fraudulent document from the tyrannical senior bureaucratic chambers of our own government, I strongly urge you to familiarize yourself with the first chapter of Bill Gertz’s book “The Failure Factory – How Elected Officials, Liberal Democrats, and Big Government Republicans are Undermining America’s Security and Leading us to War” (6).  Here, however, I’ll stick with Mr. Rubin’s words (emphasis added):

“Much of the 2007 NIE was fiction. The biggest difference between the 2003 NIE and its 2007 counterpart was the conclusion that Iran had stopped its weapons program. The 2007 NIE, however, went beyond normal intelligence analysis and actively sought to guide policy. Against a backdrop of speculation that Bush might use military force against Iran, the 2007 NIE concluded that Iran’s supposed decision to cease nuclear-weapons work was a result of diplomacy. Therefore, the estimate concluded, Iran was susceptible to diplomatic persuasion. If this was the consensus opinion of the intelligence community, it was a deeply flawed and tenuous conclusion. After all, 2003 also coincided with Iran’s shock at the speed with which American troops occupied Iraq and ended Saddam’s quarter-century rule. American troops had done in three weeks what Iranian troops had failed to do in an eight-year war. By falsely endorsing diplomacy’s effectiveness, committing America to an ineffective strategy for years to come, the 2007 NIE represented an intelligence failure whose repercussions may be even more devastating than the CIA’s failure to accurately access Iraq’s weapons-of-mass-destruction programs ahead of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The 2007 NIE’s conclusions led the Bush administration to reinvigorate diplomacy. This enabled Tehran to run down the clock to the verge of nuclear capability.”

Read the whole thing.

Mr. Gertz refers to this episode as “bureaucratic betrayal” but that is just too soft for me.  These men didn’t betray  just a person…their boss…the President…they “betrayed” the lawful workings of the United States government as chosen by We the People.  They assumed responsibility far above their pay grade…they betrayed their country…and there is a much stronger word for that.

And did I mention that the Secretary of State seems to see (and want to groom) a bright future in one of these schmucks.

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/282466/iran-s-nuclear-project-michael-rubin
(2) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2008/12/21/slouching-towards-change%e2%80%a6and-the-american-politburo-being-assembled-to-make-sure-we-get-there/
(3) http://sweetness-light.com/archive/hillarys-watergate-scandals-part-1
(4) http://sweetness-light.com/archive/hillarys-own-watergate-scandal-part-three
(5) http://old.nationalreview.com/york/york061303.asp (Link from the original dairy…no longer available…why?)
(6) http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Factory-Bureaucrats-Republicans-Undermining/dp/B002T450LO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321807885&sr=1-1

I cannot stop myself from another Douglass-only aside…please stick with me here.

With the recent news that our current Supreme Court will make some sort of (surely unsatisfying) decision on the legislative farce frequently referred to as Obamacare, I found it more than a bit interesting that six score and one year ago, Mr. Frederick Douglass made the perfect case in just over 200 words, if not necessarily for declaring it unconstitutional, for exposing its illegitimacy beyond the pale. Here, ironically, he is arguing against the court’s actions in declaring the Civil Rights Law of 1875 unconstitutional:

“Now, when a bill has been discussed for weeks and month and even years, in the press and on the platform, in Congress and out of Congress; when it has been calmly debated by the clearest heads and the most skillful and learned lawyers in the land; when every argument against it has been over and over again carefully considered and fairly answered; when its constitutionality has been especially discussed, pro and con; when it has passed the United States House of Representatives and has been solemnly enacted by the United States Senate (perhaps the most imposing legislative body in the world); when such a bill has been submitted to the cabinet of the nation, composed of the ablest men in the land; when it has passed under the scrutinizing eye of the Attorney-General of the United States; when the Executive of the Nation has given to it his name and formal approval; when it has taken its place upon the statute-book and has remained there for nearly a decade, and the country has largely assented to it, you will agree with me that the reasons for declaring such a law unconstitutional and void should be strong, irresistible, and absolutely conclusive.”

“Inasmuch as the law in question is a law in favor of liberty and justice, it ought to have had the benefit of any doubt which could arise as to its strict constitutionality.” (2)

Line-by-line, right up to the President’s signature, the passage of The Affordable Care Act of 2010 fails every “and” logical operator condition in this Block IF statement.  Starting here:

“…when a bill has been discussed for weeks and month and even years, in the press and on the platform, in Congress and out of Congress;”

Notice the subject is not “idea”, “concept”, or “desired earmarks or cynical promises for irrelevant Executive Orders”, he specifically says “a bill” as in legislative language, a document, a tangible, complete document.  It should be clear to all that nothing of the sort even existed as the President gave is “name and approval” to this massive anti-liberty bastard.

“…when it has been calmly debated by the clearest heads and the most skillful and learned lawyers in the land; when every argument against it has been over and over again carefully considered and fairly answered;”

Remember the weekend, late night sessions with no real bill to debate…we were told it must be passed for us to then see what was in it.  Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Collins, Nelson, Landrieu, Stupak, the CBO…this bastard has many “skillfull and learned” mothers.

“…when its constitutionality has been especially discussed, pro and con;”

Three words: “Are you kidding?” (3)  (Yes, go to that link below.)  The words “Speaker Pelosi” should forever be remembered as the vomit that choked every remaining ounce of credibility from the Party of Jefferson.

“…when it has passed the United States House of Representatives and has been solemnly enacted by the United States Senate (perhaps the most imposing legislative body in the world);”

I assume a man of character like Mr. Douglass had an understanding of the word “passed” that would be left wanting in Ms. Pelosi’s House as would the parenthetical above in Mr. Reid’s chamber.

“…when such a bill has been submitted to the cabinet of the nation, composed of the ablest men in the land; when it has passed under the scrutinizing eye of the Attorney-General of the United States;”

I am comfortable that history will soon record that “ablest” and “scrutinizing eye” will not be acceptable words for this administration and Mr. Holder, respectively.

Finally,

“…when it has taken its place upon the statute-book and has remained there for nearly a decade, and the country has largely assented to it, you will agree with me that the reasons for declaring such a law unconstitutional and void should be strong, irresistible, and absolutely conclusive.”

Near immediate rejection by many states, the 2010 elections, and politically motivated waivers flowing from the crack house of the bastard’s father…I agree, “the reasons for declaring such a law unconstitutional and void [are indeed] strong, irresistible, and absolutely conclusive.”

Finally, the timeless wisdom of Mr. Douglass that is flatly rejected by ninety-odd-percent of the heirs to his life’s work:

“I knew that however bad the Republican party was, the Democratic party was much worse.” (4)

I imagine that this current ninety-odd-percent would cheer the court’s 1883 logic – “although the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination by the state, it does not give the state the power to prohibit discrimination by private individuals” (5) – just as much as they surely will the intellectual contortions that will soon result in a constitutional affirmation of severability and the individual mandate.

Not.

Ntrepid
Proud Redstate Member since April 2006…?

(1) http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/07/15/remedial-book-notes-volume-1-primary-american-character/
(2) The Life and times of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass.  Page 398.
(3) Powerline Archive: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/03/028508.php
(4) The Life and times of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass.  Page 407.
(5) Civil Rights Act of 1875, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1875

Previous Installments:

Volume 1.1: http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/08/20/remedial-book-notes-volume-1-1-%e2%80%93-evolving-expectations/

Volume 1.2: http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/09/30/remedial-book-notes-volume-1-2-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%9ci-had-better-things-to-do-than-be-angry-%e2%80%9d/

Volume 1.3: http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/11/11/remedial-book-notes-volume-1-3-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%9cslavery-was-a-state-of-war%e2%80%9d/

Volume 1.4: http://www.redstate.com/ntrepid/2011/11/18/remedial-book-notes-volume-1-4-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%9ca-tonic-like-no-other%e2%80%9d/