Piggy's Broken Glasses

While it’s entertaining to indulge in clever segue; delicious irony; add to it a dash of cynicism, perhaps; and execute astounding word pirouettes - the time has come when we long for a voice, saying clearly and distinctly, “Look, the house is on fire; get hold of some buckets; and some of you go out and find these bastard pyros before the whole town burns down to the ground. And make sure you catch at least one of them alive so we can waterboard him and find out who the hell’s behind it.”

If every world leader friendly to America were brought down by some sin, what would it prove? That the wages of sin only work one way? That the sinners on the other side are automatically absolved forever? The point is that Berlusconi is about to be brought down – to be replaced by whom? Anarchists? Leftists? America haters?

Our instincts have been right all along: close the borders before starting to consider amnesty; plug the leak in the bottom of the boat before we start arguing about who does the bailing - and how.

We all admit that our economy is broken. Obviously, the track we’ve taken of appointing those who broke it in the first place to fix it hasn’t worked. It’s time to regroup and try something else.

In the same way that finding bin Laden would have meant eternal salvation for George W. Bush; in the same way as unmasking Obama would give Trump the American presidency; in the same way Obama envisions handing Israel over to the Islamists would secure for him a luxury apartment in downtown Mecca - the only plan right now must involve stopping the hemorrhaging.

We’re bleeding trust, confidence, talent, savings, jobs, respect… Take a look at the video that’s up on Drudge right now. Is this not an apt metaphor for where we now find ourselves? Union thugs. Tea parties. ACLU. ACORN. “Lord of the Flies”: “The chief led them, trotting steadily, exulting his achievement. He was a chief now in truth; and he made stabbing motions with his spear. From his left hand dangled (not the conch, but) Piggy’s broken glasses.”

Time for some adults to step into the ring. We’ve already - long back - agreed to put cops in our schools. Better start hiring more. People will soon be demanding protection in every fast food joint on the planet. And there are a lot more of them around than there are schools.

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Being There

It has been duly noted that once again we seem to be on the wrong side of things. We’re supporting a rag-tag army of assorted leftists and Islamic radicals, and throwing Mubarak - a U.S. ally - under the bus (so to speak); that, for all our efforts to help lift the Egyptian people out of the tyranny of what essentially amounts to (we are told) U.S.-sponsored poverty, we are inadvertently abandoning them to another kind of tyranny - one of Islamic fundamentalism which would likely put Israel - another so-called U.S. ally - at risk, as well as the Suez Canal, a major shipping lane (primarily for oil) which is likely to affect even Europe - more U.S. ‘allies’ - adversely.

Nobody asks why the people of the Middle East are in perpetual poverty, despite untold billions pumped in by the West (for oil). Nobody asks why conditions for Muslims in India continue to be markedly worse than they are for Hindus (and others), despite government efforts to give them every possible advantage.

Perhaps we haven’t exactly thought it through all that well; perhaps we haven’t considered all the implications of embracing shariah and treating it on par with what our own sacred texts espouse. Perhaps we thought that by siding with a seemingly ‘popular’ movement all else would fall into place; and we would be loved as we’ve never been loved before.

Such miscalculations are easy to make. Carter miscalculated Iran and we’re still paying the price. They still hate us. But he meant well. At least, we think he did.

We’re also giving Obama the benefit of the doubt in the current situation. We seem to have forgotten his stance on the Iranian popular uprising a year or two ago. We seem to have forgotten his stance when Honduras went through its constitutional travail, as well as so much else that has been plaguing us domestically since this man assumed power. We’ve refused to connect the dots.

I still remember as a child, the seemingly endless wait at restaurants for the waitress to bring our food was made tolerable by the table mats I was given. The ‘connect-the-dots’ game was always a part of it. The game was relatively easy. The dots were always numbered; and I knew my numbers. I knew what order they came in. Yet, I would always hesitate to start, trying to predict before-hand what figure would ultimately emerge.

Today, connecting-the-dots seems to have become a lost art. While it’s true that the dots are no longer numbered, they are self-explanatory nonetheless. We have been reading the newspapers, after all. We can remember what has happened previously and in what order it happened. We have seen enough of it to know what is likely to happen next - and afterwards…

Still, we act like every day is a new day. All events are random and unexpected. Obama has been in office two years - and unpleasant things have happened and are continuing to happen. Where is all this ‘hope and change’ thing taking us?

While all our problems have been attributed to Obama’s inexperience (including, of course, his constant hectoring of Israel to mind its ways), a pattern seems to be emerging.

Heads of state are beginning to notice and draw conclusions. While we gnash our teeth, seemingly finding ourselves at the mercy of unrelated events, our enemies are beginning to take liberties. Our friends are beginning to distance themselves. Our economy is going to the dogs. Our ‘fixes’ only seem to be making things worse. And throughout it all, our government media tells us that all is hunky-dory; that we are doing just fine; and that the light at the other end of the tunnel is straight ahead (under the inspired leadership of Imam Obama).

Things are falling apart. Despite removing ‘mother’ and ‘father’ terminology from U.S. passport applications and replacing it with gender neutral verbiage (‘parent one’ and ‘parent two‘), junior Obama is finding that it still takes either Mom or Dad to drive the fambly (sic) sedan.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Hanging Chads

On the other hand, gridlock is the only real remedy left to us. It’s the price we, the bourgeoisie, must pay after we have allowed our government to go rouge. “…the bourgeois treasures nothing more highly…than a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty… The bourgeois is by nature a creature of weak impulses, anxious, fearful…and easy to rule. Therefore, he has substituted majority for power, law for force, and the polling booth for responsibility.”

Unfortunately, as I see it, such half measures will not be enough to remove the leftists from power. They have studied us as we are only now beginning to study them. They know our weaknesses better than we know them ourselves. They know exactly what moves we will make; how we will react to provocation and such. They’ve got it all planned out: a bomb here, shortages there, a racial incident…

Leftists will write the operatic score and the media will play it over and over again. We will be tempted to puncture our own eardrums just to make it stop.

Unless we can convince them that we too are a power to be reckoned with; that we can think outside the box; innovate; surprise; ambush; strike …and then melt back into ominous shadows, they’ll walk all over us. Look at New York’s primary election fiasco; look at Philadelphia, Chicago… Look what they’re doing with the votes of those serving overseas! With today’s Justice Department being what it is, who is there to complain to. And, as I’ve said before, what does Congress matter anyway when the president holds the veto pen in one hand and executive privilege in the other?
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Italics loosely translated from Hermann Hesse’s “Steppenwolf” to fit.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

A Bad Joke

Secession. An interesting idea; one, among several, the states may have to consider if they are to have any hope of rolling out from under our suffocating government monster. Expect a slew of law suits originating from within our various states, challenging federal mandates. As long as the Supremes remain split 5 to 4 we have a chance. We’re hanging by a thread.

Those of us who predicted this back during the last presidential campaign were called all sorts of names. Now it’s happened. What to do? Secession? Impeachment? It’s not that McCain would have been better. In some ways he might well have been worse. It would have given the Left even more time to arm and organize. Just the fact that they don’t yet own the Court means that they jumped the gun.

The problem with the Left is that ‘they have distilled a kind of world history to suit certain purposes. It consists of nothing but the chronology of ideas. It is bloodless and lacking in reality …nothing but laws and formulas, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow academic construct‘.*

‘Suppose an anatomist is dissecting a body. He does not confront wholly surprising discoveries. Rather, he finds beneath the epidermis a assemblage of organs, muscles, tendons, and bones which generally conform to a pattern he has brought to his work. But if the anatomist sees nothing but this pattern, and ignores the unique, individual reality of his object*, he has lost touch with an essence.

Similarly, today’s Leftist relies on the power to manipulate data (the bones) to suit some highly improbable Utopian purpose, quite without regard to the spirit that girds it.

When we elected Obama, we essentially decided to attach a Rolls Royce logo to a Yugo. It made people sit up and take notice without making the car run any better. Now it’s become just a bad joke.
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*roughly translated from passages in Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game.

Think Again

If you’re looking to the future when all things will be possible, look again. At the moment, it appears we exist in daily peril. Nuclear war is still not entirely out of the question. Al Gore and his ilk pose quite a different argument. And then there are Iran’s mullahs whose theories extend well beyond temporal life itself. It all involves our stepping back from the brink of modernity; self-expression, exploration and innovation. The fabled “greater good” does not allow for thinking “outside the box” as Galileo found. Whichever faction triumphs, we can expect either a retreat to the dark ages in which “nose to the grindstone” defines the limit of human potential or the outright extinction of our race.

Such circumstance is clearly not conducive to technological advance. While we may wonder what lies beyond the stars, while we may continue to fantasize about space travel, our day-to-day survival in a virtual blizzard of threat and onerous regulation (liable to change at a moment’s notice) will be our first concern. It is the beauty of a meritocracy that produces flamboyant results like the Shuttle program or Hubble. It also can provide a space within which to simply sit back and marvel at the miracle of creation and our unique partnership with it.

Leftists hate this space in which freedom and liberty commonly take root. They are the Puritans re-born to squelch and condemn every human impulse that seeks to rise above the dead ash of enforced dogma. Why do the Islamists hate us so much? It is because, after a promising start, they have been left far behind. If hatred stems from fear, their fear is justified. Their superstitions stand no chance when pitted against modernity. Rather than change, they aim to drag us down to their level – or kill us.

Capitalism itself is a star under which a free and vital people advance and prosper. For it to succeed it must be given space to breathe. It is not a wildfire that threatens to consume us. It is self-regulating and offers us unlimited opportunities for redemption. No single person can be said to be responsible for the successes or failures of capitalism. It is a group effort. That is why the political class hates it. Capitalism fares best when politicians keep their grubby hands away from it.

Replicant Children vs. Tyrell

Time is a critical disciplinary element in what defines the human condition. As Jorge Luis Borges wrote in ’The Immortal’: "Death (or its allusion) makes men precious and pathetic. They are moving because of their phantom condition; every act they execute may be their last... Everything among mortals has the value of the irretrievable and the perilous."

Time, often said to be illusory, provides the framework within which we exist. Our ability to manage time effectively provides a measure of our effectiveness as human beings.

Even for those of the leisure class for whom time seems not to be of the essence, the need for precise scheduling somehow tends to assert itself. In William S. Burroughs’s book (and presumed semi-autobiographical) “Junky” (1953), the protagonist voluntarily submits to the timetable of his addiction. Also, often times, a child reared in an undisciplined parental environment, will later seek out the implicit discipline associated with some branch of the uniformed services in an effort to maximize his or her human potential.

It is significant that the Tyrell Corporation’s replicant slaves have been engineered to have only four-year life spans as to prevent them from developing emotions and the desire for independence – in other words, to become fully human.

Corporations – like the fictional Tyrell or the factual BP – clearly remain unconstrained by time. They - like the undisciplined young (and often reckless) - see themselves as eternally immortal. Yet, they too have need of a framework within which to operate and test their mettle. This framework is profit.

Leftists are quick to point out that the profit motive is rogue, out of control, and basically anti-life. When, in fact, profit is depended on a set of the strictest, most uncompromising laws in the universe. A business that is run badly cannot succeed. Going forward, a business plan is self-correcting at every turn. It is inexorably tied to the law of supply and demand and well managed risk which, in turn, is tied in no small measure to performance and customer expectations. If left to their own devices, corporations provide real value to their customers (which is you and I).

If corporations are interfered with for criminal or political purposes, they become cancerous. It is much more likely that corporations become rogue by political interference than the other way around.

It is unreasonable to blame BP for the oil spill in the Gulf. For one thing, anyone would be hard pressed to prove malicious intent. Such intent is infinitely more likely to have originated with some hard-nosed political agenda concern (of which BP may have become an unwitting victim).

Right now it seems that the stunted emotional growth of the replicant children that are presently running our government are far more culpable for the multiple messes that have accrued on virtually every front.