Category: Uncategorized

Apparently not content with the ability to seize bank accounts at will, the US government – along with the EU – is now tracking your cash. Big Brother loves you. I think I’m going to start insisting that people pay me in American Eagles.

This post brought to you by Rat Spleen.

Tait Trussell writes on Townhall: As writer Cynthia Crossen’s research points out, in early America, many men and women had common-law-marriages, living together without the blessings of a church ceremony or approval of a governmental licensing authority. An l843 law declared that “no particular form of ceremony shall be necessary, except that the parties declared that they take each other as husband and wife.”

As I pointed out last week, it hasn’t taken long for government involvement to nearly destroy the institution. More of the same venom that is poisoning you is unlikely to serve as an effective antidote.

BLS writes: Focus on the main question: Is America under attack from terrorist Islamic sects, and if so, who do you want as Commander in Chief – GEB or JFK – and why?

Yes, America is under attack from terrorist Islamic sects that have declared war against it. I don’t want either George Delano or John Francois as Commander-in-Chief for the following reasons:

GD: refuses to declare which terrorist Islamic sects are responsible, much less confront them with military action. The Islamic world revolution is being funded almost entirely by the House of Saud. The Hezbollah and other active terrorist groups are primarily funded by Iran. GD is not fighting either, indeed, his State Department is actively supporting the Iranian mullahs against popular unrest. After Yasser Arafat killed two American officials, GD only cut off the funding that his administration was providing this terrorist leader. If the war is against terrorist Islamic sects – as we both agree it is/should be – GD has failed completely despite presiding over the conquest of two nations. Taking out one minor enabler, which Husseins certainly was, while ignoring the two major players is hardly indicative of strategic competence – quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.

JF: an unknown as C-in-C, although his votes for the various “war resolutions” indicates to me that he will likely follow in GD’s imitation of the ineffectual Israeli two-step. While GD’s Wilsonian nation-building is likely to appeal to him, Kerry is too big a fan of the United Nations to risk upsetting it by invading a third country, barring any further terrorist attacks in the USA. If there is an attack inside the USA, Kerry is as likely to greenlight a third invasion – probably Syria – as Bush. As I mentioned before, Democrats are historically more likely to engage militarily than Republicans, so to tar all Democrats with the antiwar peacenik brush is to focus too much on the bygone Vietnam era. Those under forty of both parties neither know nor care much about Vietnam; our analyses are not colored by it as is the case with the aged mainstream press, which sees Vietnam as the great event of their time.

As is usually the case, the purported differences between the two parties are greatly exaggerated. The first Republican George Bush was the one who did not finish the job against Hussein in 1991. Clinton’s destructive decision to pare down the US military was aided and abetted by a Republican House and Senate.

I didn’t think it scanned well, but I thought the notion was funny so I hope the poet doesn’t mind if I present my own version of his lovely little piece of social incorrectness.



Children are not born to hate,

They learn it only from you.

Be then sure to teach them well

And take care to tell them who.

Bane writes: Suffice to say, he thinks we are not at war, and I think we are… .I note his use of the phrase ‘Police Action’….ahhhh. That little dust-up in Korea wasn’t a war, even though we fought it for years, and continue to ‘garrison’ the DMZ to this day. Viet Nam. Not a war. Semantics. Tell it to the families of our honored dead. Cold War? A journalistic buzz-word that caught on. Lasted decades, as I recall. I don’t think it’s over, either. One stupid wall falling does not the surrender of the Red Menace make. The Great Wall in China is falling apart, but no one in their right mind would posit the demise of China from the decay of it’s wall.

Bane, with all due respect, the point that seems to be escaping you is that when the United States fights these undeclared half-assed little “wars” in which the citizenry is barely conscious that anything is going on and half of them don’t support it even if they do, the problem that brought the so-called war about doesn’t get solved. We did not fight a war in Korea, nor did we finish it which is why the situation is more dangerous to us today than it was 50 years ago. Vietnam’s development shows that we might as well never have sent a single soldier over there, as what would have happened if we had not? The North Vietnamese would have taken Saigon… oh, wait, they did. A country dependent on citizen-soldiers cannot win wars that the citizenry does not understand or does not largely support. As TZ ( I think) commented, a nation that will give up nothing to support its war effort is not a nation at war.

I know you didn’t mean the comment about the honored dead as a cheap shot, nor do I take it as one, but I daresay that I have as many members of my family buried at Arlington as anyone. The Commandant of the USMC himself gave my grandfather’s eulogy there a few years ago, after which my brothers and I carried his casket to the carriage. One of the most vivid memories of my life are of the Marines who stand alone at each crossroads and salute the flag-draped casket as the horse-drawn carriage passes them by. It is precisely because I value the lives of Marines like my grandfather and your sons that I do not wish for politicians like George Delano or John Francois to spend them in playing an endless and ineffectual game of micro military actions.

I agree that China is a danger, even though the president and his economic advisors don’t seem to recognize it. (The more pressing danger from them at the moment is actually economic, as they can shut off our debt-funding at any time.) And perhaps “police action” is a poor description, albeit one no less inaccurate than “war”. War implies a major threat to the nation, and its exaggerated use in this case by the administration is clearly being done in an attempt to distract the populace and excuse its numerous failures on other fronts. Lilypad is at least honest about this.

I think there is a reasonable case to be made for a revival of the medieval war against the Turk, despite my doubts about the eventual ramifications of such a war. Europe is once again being overrun, and America has been targeted. But I see no indication that that any decision has been made to fight that war, the uncharacteristically inaccurate vision of VDH notwithstanding.

I’m stunned. I didn’t see Vox as a Kerry voter. A vote against Bush, or a vote withheld, is a vote for Kerry.

I’m not a Kerry voter. The very notion is metaphorical nonsense, as if I wished to vote for Kerry, there is nothing to prevent me from doing so. Meanwhile, my less easily dismissed response is that a vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil. I will almost surely be voting Libertarian, although I will give the Constitution candidate a fair look before actually putting in my two cents.

The excellent VDH writes: Be that as it may, Americans owe Harry Truman a great deal for overseeing the rebuilding of Europe, his prescient understanding of the danger of Soviet expansionism, and preservation of the Democratic party from the forces of appeasement — and worse — from its extremist Left. Something similar to that landmark policy — a Bush Doctrine — is now emerging to face the threat of Islamic radicalism. Despite the current shrill claims that the United States is hated, hopelessly naïve, bogged down worldwide, and back in another Vietnam, since September 11 we have witnessed a historic emergence of a comprehensive foreign policy to confront Islamic fundamentalism and its parasitic relationship with Middle East autocracy — without which it cannot survive.

The problem with this is that while it may turn out to be true in the future, it simply isn’t true now nor has it been for the 2+ years since 9/11. There is no Bush Doctrine opposing Islamic radicalism, quite the opposite, as the president insists that the War on Terror has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam. Saudi Arabia and Iran are fundamentalist Islamic states, Iraq is not – so how does ignoring the former and defeating the latter comprise a confrontation of Islamic fundamentalism? Furthermore, he has not spoken a single word on the threat posed in France, Germany, Britain, Holland and Denmark by this hypothesized foe.

VDH may prove to be a prophet, but unfortunately, he is an unreliable recorder of recent history in this specific example. I think too many commentators and individuals are concentrating on what they would like to see instead of focusing on what is actually right in front of their eyes.

Alex writes: I’m here to take issue. BLS is correct and I have been troubled by some of the broad assumptions made here. Make them if you want; I would just like to see someone as intellectually honest as you give equal *scrutiny* to Kerry. I understand that you hate Bush. But I would urge you to read Victor Davis Hanson’s most recent article – his knowledge of history and its lessons for our time is highly credible. Other than his last para, with what do you disagree in his article?

I don’t hate Bush. I suspect that I’d quite like him on a personal basis. What I despise is that after years in the wilderness, the Republican Party has shown that it is far more interested in government power than it is in the small government principles that it has historically pretended to uphold. George Bush, more than any other individual, is responsible for this abandonment of foundational principles. As I’ve written many times before, Democrats are more blatant in their naked pursuit of government power. This doesn’t make them less abhorrent to me – the subtitle of Monday’s piece is “Why John Kerry wants to kill you” – but it also doesn’t require much in the way of pointing out the flaws and corruption in their philosophy.

I have a very high regard for Victor Davis Hanson. However, the nation and the nation’s leadership have by no means made the case or even made the decision to fight the great clash of civilizations war that is coming. Calling the present conflict “war” is a pretty serious stretch of the concept, especially considering that the two enemies selected have already been defeated. I can’t remember who pointed it out, but it’s true that if there’s zero chance of the enemy raising its flag over your capital, it’s not a very serious war by historical standards.

Gimli on demographics: “The population of Germany at the end of the century is going to be 56 percent of what it is now. The population of France will decline to about 52 percent.” Meanwhile, Muslim immigrants are having babies at a much faster clip, so that in time, they may become the majority population throughout Europe. “Last year, 56 percent of the babies born in Brussels were Muslim,” Rhys-Davies notes. “In a matter of 20-50 years, we are going to see two to three countries become predominately Muslim — Holland, France, and possibly Germany.”

I suspect one reason for the EU’s fast push for complete control over its member states is in order to have a non-democratic mechanism in place before the Muslim vote becomes the majority in those countries. As one of my liberal friends pointed out over dinner last night, Turkey is an interesting litmus test on this theory. There’s no reason that Turkey should not be admitted to the EU, if the EU’s raison d’etre is truly economic. We’ll see.

Rod Dreher sees both sides: My fellow conservative Dallasite Tara B. Ross has a piece out today warning that President Bush has no idea how much he’s angered his base with all his crazy spending. But James Lileks, waxing Podhoretzian, tells right-wingers considering not voting for Bush to think about the importance of the war and get over themselves already.

Rod’s a good guy. Ross is correct. Lileks is a superficial analyst who blindly swallows the ridiculous Republican excuse. First, we’re not still at war, and only someone with almost complete ignorance of military history would attempt to argue that we are. When you can’t even state with assurance with whom we are at war, when Congress has declared no war, we’re not at war. If we haven’t even bothered closing our borders to thousands of people crossing it illegally every day, then we’re not at war. Yes, our troops are sitting in their bases playing garrison in over 100 countries and performing police actions; yes, there’s still some low intensity combat here and there just as there always is. Yes, some troops are being killed. Were we at war in 1983 when we lost over 200 Marines in Lebanon? Were we at war when we killed 20 or 30 Philippinos getting Marcos out?

Does anyone consider World War II to have continued into 1946? After all, our troops were still in Germany and Japan and there were plenty of Nazi leaders still unfound. To argue that we are still at war months after the complete defeat of the Afghani and Iraqi regimes is bizarre. But even if we accept the notion that this undeclared bug hunt equates to full-blown war, how does it possibly excuse Bush governing Democrat-style? It’s nothing but sleight of hand!

Republicans need to get over the notion that a) we are at war and b) war justifies abandoning your principles. There’s no reason to believe Kerry is less likely to fight a necessary war than Bush – Democrats have gotten us into more wars than Republicans have anyhow. As for me, I’m not considering not voting for George Delano, I’m absolutely not voting for him.

Buck writes: Here is a big thank you for the tips on flash cards for teaching my son phonics. I am having what I consider great success with them which translated means great fun. The instructions said that for a child my son’s age 2.5 not to correct him. That’s just fine as his mispronunciations are hysterical. He loves this game we play. When I get home from work he will go get his cards from his room and run up to me saying “play cards daddy play cards!” What a blast.

That’s great, and I’m glad he’s learning so well, but don’t be afraid of correcting him. Don’t make a big deal of it, just say the correct pronunciation, let him repeat it once, and go on to the next one. I remember “fiveteen” being one that took a while to go away – of course, you kind of miss it once they learn how to get it right.

At this rate, your son will be reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by the time he’s four. Children love to learn, they really do. It’s only after years of sitting around in a classroom that teaches them to hate it – not that a classroom should be confused with actual learning.