Vox Popoli

Much has changed since I wrote this column in 2002. And yet, nothing has changed. I can still remember believing in Santa Claus, now I see the anticipation of Santa’s visit reflected in younger, more innocent eyes. This year, I find myself in a warm and happy home, surrounded by love and joy, but thinking of those who languish alone in dark and joyless places. May their hearts be warmed by memories of Christmases past and the promise of Christmases still to come.

The King of Christmas

I love everything about Christmas. The white snow, the rainbow of lights and the dawn vision of presents piled under the tree. It is a happy time for my family, a time of joy. Some of our most cherished memories stem from this time of year. But we also remember the inspiration for the celebration, a truth both wonderful and grim.

We remember that Jesus Christ had to come into this fallen world because it was, and is, under the rule of a cruel and malevolent prince, who tempted Him, who slew Him when He would not submit, and who watched in helpless horror as He rose again in power.

The world is still under the rule of that cruel prince, the results of which can be seen every day in the news. Murder, war and tyranny continue to oppress many millions throughout the world, but we who refuse to submit to the ruler of this world are no longer bound by him, for we claim that truth that sets us free, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the true king of Man, yet I remain convinced His Father is a libertarian. Not only did He send His Son to set us free, but He allows us, no, He forces us to decide between acknowledging His Son or seating ourselves upon the throne of our own lives. And that freedom of choice, in the end, is the central liberty; it is the only liberty that matters.

A friend once asked how I could be so cheerful while America rots from within and endures attack from without. The answer is that despite my love for America and my passionate allegiance to the ideas upon which it was constructed, I know that its fate is immaterial. Our country, our homes and even our lives are all things of shadow which will one day disappear in the light of the glory of Jesus Christ.

Despair is the natural state of the thinking man. This is why intellectuals grasp so readily at even the feeblest straw promising hope for Heaven on Earth. But there will be neither peace nor harmony until the revolution begun in a Bethlehem manger is complete, until the murderous ruler of this world is finally deposed. Then, at last, there will be peace and goodwill to men.

Merry Christmas.

And it seems that I’m not the only one. I had no idea that Tucker Carlson and Donna D’Errico would do so as well, though.

It’s a fact. Babes dig libertarians.

The amusing thing about this correction is that the esteemed columnist is also the author of a book on mathematics:

Let’s see … 3 plus 2 plus 1 plus zero is, er, 6; and 6 divided by 4 is … 2, right? Well, to one significant digit. Sorry about that. A little too much Christmas spirit. I really should stay away from applied. The correct TFR for our Four Horsemen of Godlessness is 1.5, and Sam Harris will have to engender three offspring to get the atheist quartet up above replacement.

As one of his emailers has already pointed out, due to multiple marriages on the part of Messrs. Dawkins and Hitchens, the more important rate per woman is even lower, especially if one were to take Bertrand Russell’s five wives into account.

But even without counting the oft-married Russell, the Four Horsemen of Godlessness average only .86 children per woman.

Unsurprisingly, upon further review, the Bush mortgage bailout plan is only meant to keep mortgage bankers afloat by preserving the loans, it’s not intended to help people keep their homes in any way, shape or form:

Every word in the proposal is intended to maximize the net present value of recoveries, nothing else…. Scheme Part 1: Say the subject property was valued at $100,000 with an 80/20 financing package in place. Now the property is worth $90,000. Using only the 1st lien, the LTV is only 88.9% ($80,000/$90,000), far below the 97% LTV. The idea is to get these suckers (borrowers) to refinance into one of those FHASecure while the 2nd lien holder agrees to subordinate to a new 1st. The old securitized 1st is now home free with a FHA/government bailout while the 2nd, though still in an over-encumbered position, has just received a reprieve. How brilliant.

Scheme Part 2: If the property has dropped to approximately $83,000 or below, then Scheme part 1 is not feasible. So it is best to keep this borrower paying in a 120%+ CLTV property. As you can see, with the property value so low, they know with certainty that a default would be a total wipe of the 2nd and a severe loss to the 1st.

This two part scheme assures that there are no crumbs left on the table for the borrowers. In summary, regardless of its devious intent, this bailout plan will not work.

The greed and shortsightedness of the financial predators is truly astonishing. Even animals usually know better than to ruthlessly wipe out the prey that sustains them.

Ye cats, but that first half was an ugly one for the Vikings.

It seems a bit more prosecutorial than is Tim Russert’s normal style, but that’s to be expected.

MR. RUSSERT: Under President Paul, if North Korea invaded South Korea, would we respond?

REP. PAUL: I don’t–why should we unless the Congress declared war? I mean, why are we there? Could–South Korea, they’re begging and pleading to unify their country, and we get in their way. They want to build bridges and go back and forth. Vietnam, we left under the worst of circumstances. The country is unified. They have become Westernized. We trade with them. Their president comes here. And Korea, we stayed there and look at the mess. I mean, the problem still exists, and it’s drained trillion dollars over these last, you know, 50 years. So stop–we can’t afford it anymore. We’re going bankrupt. All empires end because the countries go bankrupt, and the, and the currency crashes. That’s what happening. And we need to come out of this sensibly rather than waiting for a financial crisis.

MR. RUSSERT: So if Iran invaded Israel, what do we do?

REP. PAUL: Well, they’re not going to. That is like saying “Iran is about to invade Mars.” I mean, they have nothing. They don’t have an army or navy or air force. And Israelis have 300 nuclear weapons. Nobody would touch them.

I’m always amused by people who worry about Iran attacking Israel. They have clearly never read Jane’s and have no idea about the comparative size and construction of the two militaries. It’s rather like worrying about 19th century India invading England based on the former’s greater population.

If you want to worry about someone attacking Israel, worry about Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Of course, if they ever do, they’ll be doing it with arms provided to them by the USA.

Yukonyon appears to have missed my sarcasm when I asked about what was “borderline inappropriate”:

Borderline inappropriate means that you unfairly cast conjecture at the Mormons, without scrutinizing the rest of the Christian mantra. And since you bring it up, let’s call it what it is; sacred, not secret. It is something that the Mormons consider to be very sacred, and you don’t hit any nerves with your conjecture, just infuriate them when you join the other hacks in desecrating what they consider to be so sacred that they don’t talk about it outside of the temple walls. It is nothing special or original, and it gives you no kudos.

One does not need to scrutinize every religious idiosyncracy in order to cast a skeptical eye on the abnormal rituals of any particular group. You’re conflating various commenters with me here, as I never made any reference to anything being secret; as for sacred, I think you know that I am rather well known for being a non-respecter of sacred cows of every kind, even my own. It’s always easy to laugh when someone else’s ox is getting gored; the strength of one’s convictions is revealed in one’s reaction when it’s one’s own ox that’s bleeding.

So, I don’t shy away from the various and occasionally inexplicable oddities of my faith nor do I expect others to do so. It is a testimony to Mormon insecurity that they are so sensitive, even secretive, about what is quite rightly regarded by them as an embarrassing matter. And I note that to talk about something, even in scorn, is not to desecrate it. I’m not a Soviet-style atheist, burning your underwear in front of you as proof that your Mormon god does not exist.

I must vehemently dispute the idea that “Captain Underoos” is neither special nor original. I think it’s almost perfectly appropriate, combining as it does divergent elements of truth, humor, offensivenes and contempt; if Mitt Romney doesn’t look like a figure straight out of Marvel Comics, I don’t know who does. Can’t you see him standing proudly in his temple garments, fists at his side as he juts out his jaw confidently towards the future? His superpower is one that allows him to retroactively change five seconds of the past when he slips on his magic gold spectacles.

Mormons are, for the most part, fine, upstanding people who believe some crazy things. Which is perfectly acceptable and we’d surely be better off with more of them around. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t have a right to laugh at the craziness, and it doesn’t speak well of their collective judgment that they would elect to line up behind a man I hope is a very poor example of Mormon integrity, or rather, the lack thereof, simply because he wears the same sacred underwear that they do.

Yet even if the point were conceded that MLK was a communist, you’d still have a man who was remarkably important for the stand he took against racism and institutional discrimination and for the way he rallied americans behind the cause of desegregation. We are talking about a true American hero.

So, a “true American hero” is one who dedicated his life to destroying the right to freedom of association? Forced desegregation is far more evil than voluntary segregation; while MLK may have only opposed forced segregation, it’s quite clear that the primary result of his cause has been the precise opposite of what it was supposed to achieve.

This may have been unintended, but it was absolutely predictable. And the chief accomplishments King’s campaign against “racism and institutional discrimination” have been to tear down the Bill of Rights and destroy fundamental American liberties while sentencing black Americans to a society full of men in jail and women dependent upon government largesse.

MLK was undeniably important, for much the same reason that Vladimir Putin is TIME’s 2007 Man of the Year. One can only imagine that one day John McCain will be celebrated as a member of the same heroic American pantheon to which MLK belongs, given McCain’s dedicated war against the right to free speech.

In which the New York Times reminds us that Romney has a Clintonian view of the truth being whatever he happens to wish it to be at the moment:

Mr. Romney’s office proposed legislation that would have toughened penalties on those in possession of the drug and chemicals to manufacture it, but the bill stalled in the state legislature. After The New York Times pointed out Mr. Romney’s misstatement in a posting on its politics blog, he made sure to correct himself before taking questions from reporters at his next campaign stop here.

“If I said this morning that we ‘got tough’ on methamphetamines, I proposed we get tough on methamphetamine and I’ve corrected that right here for all of you,” he said. “You don’t need to make any error of reporting that somehow Governor Romney actually got it done.”

His claim of being a lifelong hunter was similar. When asked at town hall forums about his stance on guns, Mr. Romney portrayed himself as a sportsman, a “hunter pretty much all my life,” who strongly supported the right to bear arms…. After the notion was challenged by The Associated Press, Mr. Romney’s campaign initially conceded that those were the only two instances he had really been hunting in his life, but later rushed to add that he had also gone pistol shooting for “varmints” at his vacation home in Utah, although he did not have a hunting license or own a gun.

On the National Rifle Association endorsement, Mr. Romney argued the group phone banked for him, but he conceded it did not formally endorse him.

Captain Underoos is a very strange man with an arms-length relationship with honesty. His religion may be unusual and his taste in literature execrable, but it’s his psychological construction that is far more troubling. It’s pretty clear that for Romney, the intention IS the deed. Those looking to him to nominate conservative Supreme Court justices should keep in mind that proposing to is equivalent to actually doing so for him, as the man is, quite literally, a deceiver.

I neither like nor support Huckabee. Nor do I trust him. But given that Giuliani, Romney and McCain all seem to be legitimately mentally unbalanced to a noticeable degree, it’s not hard to understand why people are gravitating to him based merely on the “probably not clinically insane” factor.

First round playoff results:

67 Masonville Marauders
38 Greenfield Grizzlies

45 Winston Reverends
42 Cranberry Bogs

Masonville looks like the favorite on paper, but the big game from Winston QB Big Ben may have pushed the odds in the Reverends’ favor.