Vox Popoli

T writes: No sir. Bush and the Repubs must be given a bit of time to kill the Dems first.. then rise against them…

We’ve been hearing this sad excuse since 1980. In the past 23 years, only Ronald Reagan accomplished anything in terms of moving the country towards freedom, and even his presidency was ultimately a failure, not eliminating a single Federal department, massively increasing debt and leaving a legacy of Bush-league conservativism behind.

If the saying goes: “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”, what does that say for the foolishness of a Republican who gets fooled three, four and five times? What does George Delano Bush have to do to convince you of his lack of conviction in republican ideals, order the confiscation of all private firearms while having sex with Hillary Clinton on Nickelodeon? Personally conducting a polygamous multi-species gay marriage in the Oval Office? Even that wouldn’t be enough for some Republicans, who would argue that now, having locked in both the anti-gun and trans-species votes, the Republican party is really, really, really, really in a position to reduce all of the central government expansion to which the party itself has contributed for the last two decades. Stop judging them by their words, people, judge them by their actions!

LW writes: I agree, Bush and congress are spendocrats. But I do believe any democrat that gets in office will increase spending a great deal more. That is not a defense of what is going on, only a practical assessment.

History strongly suggests that this belief, however strongly held, is nothing more than a naive rationalization. “The greatest increases in average annual domestic discretionary spending over the last 40 years were, except for Reagan, during Republican administrations: Bush II (8.2%), Ford (8.0%), Nixon (6.8%), LBJ (4.3%), Bush I (4.0%), Clinton (2.5%), Carter (2.0%), Reagan (-1.3%).”

Many conservatives commentators who believe in republican ideals call the Republicans the Stupid Party. It’s not hard to see why. For who could argue that it is, without a doubt, the best of all possible political parties.

“[Tolkien’s] Middle-Earth mythology, he hoped, would serve as a wake-up call for the West, to return it to its pre-statist, pre-imperialist, pre-materialist phase. ” – Tolkien vs. Jackson

Like Tolkien, who hated “statism in every form” we Christian Libertarians may be the ultimate reactionaries. It is why I shudder at George Bush’s call to move “forward”, and my first reaction is to ask, forward to what? How is his call to progress any better, or for that matter, any different, than that of the progressives who have brought us so much forcible servitude and slaughter over the last century?

“I look East, West, North, South, and I do not see Sauron. But I see that Saruman has many descendants. We Hobbits have against them no magic weapons. Yet, my gentle hobbits, I give you this toast: To the Hobbits. May they outlast the Sarumans and see spring again in the trees.” – JRR Tolkien, 1958.

In today’s column, I compared George Bush to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The comparison is an apt one. But if the One Ring can be reasonably compared to the State in all its power, there can be little doubt that the president is one of Tolkien’s Sarumans, and that the Republican Party, like those who attempt to wield the One Ring in an attempt to do good, have been corrupted by its power and will be destroyed because of their decision to embrace it.

To the Hobbits, who against all worldly logic, wait for the return of the King.

The Libertarian Party’s Statement of Principles

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual. We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.

We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life — accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action — accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property — accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.

I don’t see anything in there that contradicts my thinking on abortion, since pregnancy is neither a voluntary nor a contractual relationship between the mother and child. And I think Sara is right. The Libertarian Party is hamstrung by its equivocation on abortion. In order to remain agnostic on the matter, as it does, it is forced to implicitly deny that the unborn child is an individual with the same right to life as the mother, which is contrary to Biblical teachings, Judeo-Christian historical tradition and modern science (based on the two distinct DNAs). So, what do we do? Do we stick with the Republicans, who have done next to nothing about abortion and are actively working to oppose the majority of what we believe in? Or do we take steps to help the Libertarian Party wake up to the one area where it falls short of its ideals?

That, my friends, is the question.

Here’s one for Boggie and all the leftist military experts who know squat about the military. From NRO’s Corner: “I worked for Gen. Shelton [chairman of the joint chiefs at the time of the Kosovo conflict], but not for Gen. Clark. My specialty was the transition from the Deep Fight to the Close Fight which is where the Apache [helicopters] operate….

“My comments about Gen Clark’s remarks center on his comment about the offer for the Apaches from JCS: The doctrinal use of that weapon system is well defined and the planners for that part of the battlefield are among the best in the world. (They are referred to as ‘Jedi Knights’ among the staff). I assisted in that kind of planning for General Shelton when he was commander of XVIII Corp. He is very capable of understanding a concept paper unless it departs from doctrine or [is] very poorly written.

“Furthermore, it is odd that General Clark would not have initiated the request for the Apaches BEFORE being asked if he could use them only days out from the Line of Departure, especially if, as he implies, they were so important to his success. It appears to me that he did not understand the use of those systems and was ignoring his planning staff until prompted by the JCS.

“Finally, I recall the most disturbing sight of that conflict, aside from the human horrors, was the footage of a Maverick missile destroying a [light] truck. This was paraded for the media as the success our technology could give us. Using that weapon to destroy a parked truck was not only a waste, but evidence that they did not have a target matrix worth a tinker’s dam. In summary, I expect General Clark is more [of an] expert on gay marriage….”

This was clearly written in response to Clark’s bizarre explanation of the Apache fiasco in an interview. As I wrote previously, more and more evidence of Clark’s character flaws and general incompetence will be forthcoming over the next few weeks. I myself recall hearing that the same Serbian tank was destroyed on multiple occasions, as the Serbs moved it around to give our high-altitude fighter-bombers something harmless to hit. There are many officers from every branch, some at the highest ranks, who have zero desire to serve under him as Commander-in-Chief.

UPDATE: Newsweek piles on: The problem may have been partly a matter of Clark’s tone and manner. As an ambitious officer, Clark gained a reputation among his peers for telling different people what they wanted to hear, without seeming to realize that his listeners might later compare notes and accuse Clark of being two-faced.

That’s not a problem of tone and manner. That shows a weakness of character and an extremely short-sighted point of view. In other words, exactly what Shelton was warning about and then some.

As awful as it sounds, the guy calling himself Mystery knows exactly what he’s talking about when it comes to picking up attractive women. It may, in fact, be one of the strongest indictments of the sickness of our culture that in order to date desirable women, you often must first make yourself interesting by destroying them psychologically.

I discovered the concept of what Mystery calls “the neg” inadvertantly. I was in a tiny bar in Tokyo talking to someone, and another girl kept interrupting me from behind. I was rather short in telling her to take a hike without bothering to turn around, which caused her to become even more intent on attracting my attention. I was quite surprised when I finally did turn around to get rid of this annoying little pest and discovered I was blowing off an international model. Of course, the fact that I was an arrogant jerk in those days probably didn’t hurt either.

The reason, I think, that nice guys lose almost every single time is that they’re just not interesting. Seriously, The Perfect Aryan Male is possibly the world’s nicest guy and about as major a catch as it gets, and he practically needs a construction crane to pick up a woman that isn’t already throwing herself at him. Do you have any idea how many times a beautiful girl has heard someone tell her that she’s really pretty? Figure ten times a day from the age of two – that’s almost 60,000 boring repetitions. No wonder she’s ready to throw herself at the first person who doesn’t immediately begin fawning all over her. Nobody is really comfortable with respect that they haven’t earned, even if they come to expect it over time.



Vox’s Rules for Guys

1. Know your league. You can reasonably date one up or one down.

2. Girls like: Power, Fame, Money, Looks, in that order.

3. You can’t be a nice guy and expect to get a phone number.

4. You can’t be a jerk and expect to keep a girlfriend.

5. No one can see character in the first two weeks, let alone the first two hours.

6. If you’re out to pick up chix, take a pretty girl with you.

7. Don’t even think about using a line. Even the guys nearby are cringing.

8. Vague civility bordering on disinterest is like catnip for most women, but you can’t fake it.

9. Never lie. Men and women alike find brutal honesty laced with irony to be interesting. Answering the question “what do you do?” with “I design computer games” sends the subtextual message “I’m a dork and you will hate yourself for continuing this conversation.” Answering it with “Well, today I was trying to decide which sound was more appropriate for an axe striking human flesh before blowing off the rest of the day by killing hundreds of innocent aliens with a shotgun” will either get you a date or a look of complete horror. Either result is amusing. And if you get the latter, don’t forget to punctuate the encounter with a burst of laughter that’s just slightly too loud.

The ironic thing is that I never had the chance to use any of my finely tuned pickup skillz with Space Bunny. She happened to find the mohawk interesting – it was freshly shaven – and asked if she could touch it. I turned around, saw this slender, gorgeous blonde, and figured, yeah, sure. The next thing I know, I’m calling the Old Fox asking him to hook me up with his international diamond connections.

JD writes: Since the only Linux news I’ve heard from you is the problem with random slides in Open Office, I assume all is well on the Linux front, which is good news.

Yes and no. I gave up trying to solve the problem of getting my wireless PCMCIA card to work in Fedora Core 1 because the motherboard on that Dell laptop is failing and I don’t dare turn it off since it takes up to 20 tries to get it to successfully into either Fedora or Windows. I leave it in Windows since the USB connection broke on my other Dell laptop (which is successfully running Fedora Core 1 and the same wireless card) and I need it to transfer ebooks and documents to my Dana. I also haven’t been able to get Samba running on that other Dell – my work machine – but that doesn’t matter now until I get another computer, as I can access the Windows Dell without any problem from Nautilus.

Hardware-wise, it was a horrific 2003. The motherboard on my HP Pavilion 850 went out, although I always hated that poorly-designed kludge of a machine so it wasn’t much of a loss. Then the motherboard started failing on this Dell, and was replaced under warranty before the USB connection broke post-warranty and then the second Dell motherboard started dying. Three motherboards toast in one year, and I’ve never had a single one go out on me since my first Apple IIe. So, I’m not real impressed with the hardware designers these days.

So, the columns are written in OpenOffice 1.1, email is Evolution 4.5.1 and I’m blogging in Mozilla. There’s still some minor irritants – I can’t get the nice anti-aliased fonts to work in Mozilla 6 so I’m still working with Mozilla 4 despite two whacks at it, the Samba thing and Impress slide shows are less easy to construct than Powerpoint, but on the other hand, I’m not crashing four times a day either. And most importantly, I’m fully functional and 95 percent MS-free.

If anyone has any good recommendations on desktops shipping with Linux, particularly Firewire-friendly with DVD-burning support, let me know.

Despite an increased willingness by elected officials to consider ways to build stadiums for the Twins and Vikings, most Minnesotans don’t think the two pro sports teams need new facilities and nearly two-thirds oppose paying for them with their taxes, the latest Star Tribune Minnesota Poll shows.

And here only three weeks ago, they were talking about how things had changed and how people were surprisingly open to funding a new stadium… again. I hated the Metrodome from the beginning, of course, so while I’d like nothing better than to see it nuked and replaced with a decent stadium that is open to the winter elements, the state should not fund it.

It would be simple for the NFL to fund such stadiums, of course, if they would allow teams to go public like the Packers or any ordinary corporation. But the league won’t do that, because they’ll lose the ability to extort communities into building them free facilities by threatening them with losing their team. One benefit of this is that it illustrates very well how big business and big government work hand in hand against the people; any notion of fundamental conflict between them is utterly misguided.

Of course, no sooner do I rip into Maureen Dowd with a vulgar, if eminently well-deserved attack than my blog is listed as one of the noteworthy Evangelical Christian blogs by a religion writer for a newspaper in Illinois.

Oh well. I meant every word that I wrote, and it was a struggle to keep it that tame. I’m quite laid-back about being attacked personally, but mocking entire nations – including one that was truly grief-stricken over the loss of 17 of its sons only a few months ago – in order to score a petty and inaccurate point against the president was not low, it was despicably subterranean.

I don’t think it’s an accident that JRR Tolkein portrayed evil as seeking “one ring to rule them all… one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.” He was writing at a time when facism was rising – a binding together being part of the etymology of both the word and the concept behind it – and so I suspect that his depiction of evil was no more an accident than the translations of many of his characters’ names.

What is the One Ring of our day, this powerful weapon which, if used, will destroy the wielder? I’m clearly not the only one who sees it as the State.

Wesley Pruden writes in the Washington Times: …the president’s men thought he could safely ignore his conservative base because his best friends wouldn’t have anywhere else to go. Conservatives would reckon they couldn’t even indulge the luxury of staying home on Election Day. The president [Bush the Elder] could chase voters elsewhere…. Even Bill Clinton cut the number of federal employees; George W. added 80,000 new bureaucrats just last year. Every single state recorded an increase.

That pretty much explodes the “a vote for a third party is a vote for a Democrat” defense of the Republican Party, based, as it is, on the idea that a Democrat will make things worse. It is absolutely a fact that George Bush is worse than Bill Clinton when it comes to increasing the size of government and increasing Federal power, and one tax cut based on Keynesian economic justifications doesn’t balance that. Got it, conservatives? Repeat this until it penetrates your brain: George Bush is worse than Bill Clinton. George Bush is worse than Bill Clinton. George Bush is worse than Bill Clinton.

This may seem counterintuitive, but so are many provable truths. A Republican executive combined with a Republican legislature will usually increase government more than a Democratic executive with a Republican legislature. That’s because with nothing to push back against, the legislators feel the need to prove that they’re doing something by passing new laws and creating new initiatives. It’s why Bush wants to go to Mars and the California Republicans will likely give in and raise taxes now that Schwarzenegger is in office when they fought Gray Davis on it tooth-and-nail.

Basic IQ test: when politicians pass new laws, do they tend to:

(A) increase government power

(B) decrease government power.

After all, it’s hard to run on a platform of: “well, we pretty much sat around and drank a lot of cocktails for two years. Vote for me!” It sounds a lot better to be able to say that you spent the term fighting for the children, the elderly and hard-working Americans who deserve a hand.

Pragmatists in politics are always doomed to eventual failure. Only principle will ever win in the end. What is more important to you, your principles or your party? If you believe in party uber alles, then you might as well be the Nazi that your left-liberal friends consider you. Be honest with yourself, are you truly less principled than the natural Democrats who’ve left that party for the Greens? That’s an uncomfortable thought, now, isn’t it.

Your “victory” in the last election brought you a man who is demonstrably worse than Bill Clinton. I submit that in light of this debacle, a new strategy is required.