Less Time To Flatten

Emotion – not reason - drives policy. Reason only serves in support. If we are to understand policy, we must first understand emotion. We use a variety of terms to describe emotion. Often such terms are misapplied. It happens quite innocently in the course of common occurrences: The wife asks, “Do you want okra or green beans for dinner?” I say, “Green beans.” She responds by saying, “I know, you hate okra.”“So why did you ask?” I say, and we’re off to the races.

In truth, I’m indifferent to both. Just because I have voiced a preference does not mean I have strong feelings either way. Yet, the word “hate” has been introduced into the conversation.

It’s no secret that Obama does not have a firm grip on the details that define the Middle East. He sees all Muslims as Muslims and all infidels as infidels - black and white. Simple. It is the same view “The Nation of Islam” here in the U.S. holds. Given such scant knowledge would be enough for any average American president to conduct foreign affairs. Unfortunately, Obama is on the wrong side.

Hatred is often mislabeled as ‘fear’. Islamists in the ME fear the West. They see their culture in danger of being diluted by western ways. That’s why they fight. Islam in the West hates the West as an expression of its own self-loathing. There is a difference.

Islam takes fear and envy and wraps them all in the same cloth and sets it on fire. For simplicity’s sake we call it ‘hatred’. They constantly misrepresent the enemy; to make him out worse than he appears. It is for this reason that Islamic nations do not welcome guests – and if they do, these are treated separately – all to maintain the ridiculous notion that all guests are pollutants.

Israel is seen as a pollutant on what Islam perceives as its land. They do not fear Israel (as Israel poses no existential threat); they fear the influence of a modern, successful, western nation in their midst. They fear not being able to maintain close theocratic control over their own, whom they view as chattel – easily distracted from the straight and narrow and apt to chase anything that glitters. They feel their hold slipping. As such, they will go to increasing lengths to see to it that their sheep, goats, camels and women stay in line.

The frustration that mounts within their populations is building to explode. Even that - by careful, systematic manipulation - can be directed to serve the theocratic regime. All the rage is channeled against Israel and the West (for protecting Israel). In this way the Islamic theocracy shields itself from having to answer for its own failures.

On Aaron Klein’s radio show today, not much was made of NABKA Day. It’s a day like any other for a nation under constant siege. What was interesting, however, was Aaron’s exchange in his last segment with Hussein. Hussein finds it inconceivable that anyone would question Obama’s legitimacy. He asks, how it could be possible for every one of America’s official high legal authorities (plus the media) to give Obama a pass without an adequate background check and takes umbrage at Aaron’s suggestions? He went on to accuse Aaron of fueling hate for hate’s sake.

We have seen other hoaxes before. Some have exploded (‘global warming’), some have not and are ongoing. Maybe freedom and liberty; rule of law; capitalism; a nod to representative governance all are hoaxes. But these are our hoaxes - hoaxes that Americans have chosen to live by. Obama’s hoaxes are entirely different. These are unwelcome. These were introduced into the body politic by stealth. They seek to tear down and destroy everything we’ve ever held dear. All we have to do is just look around: economy is in tatters, foreign policy in tatters; education in tatters; Constitution in tatters; government in tatters; etc.

The long knives are out for talk radio as well. Avlon’s article is one of these. Smerconish’s show is another. Both seek to pour oil on troubled waters. Unfortunately, I have heard, there’s not enough oil. (Can’t you just picture us throwing windmills and batteries into the drink?)

Emotion drives policy. If you hate that sandcastle on the beach with the penis shaped towers, you go over and you level it. It’s that elementary (my dear Watson). Chances are that it will take you a lot less time to flatten it than it took to build.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Guest Contributer: Tom From NJ

Tom replies to my post entitled: "Massacre At Mazari-i-Sharif: It's A U.S. Pastor's Fault."

"We even tolerate the intolerant."

All too true, Peter; at least if the tolerated intolerant hail from one of PC's Most Favored Victim groups. That this is largely PC-driven is proven beyond doubt by the grotesque fact that Muslims as a group -- including the most radical, violent and, yes, intolerant among them -- have achieved full-fledged MFV status among the Liberal Establishment of both parties and the MSM. The latest stomach-turning development here is General Petraeus' mealy-mouthed apology for the Koran burning staged by self-proclaimed Christian minister Terry Jones and his huge throng of tens of like-minded haters.

The good General is no doubt a fine and dedicated officer but he has apparently fallen victim to the military professional's most prevalent occupational malady -- fighting the last war. Petraeus has been trying to adapt the deference to Islamic mores and traditional tribal structures that powered the successful surge in Iraq to a very different situation in Afghantistan, where the shorthand for Islamic mores and traditional tribal structures is most often spelt T-A-L-I-B-A-N. In Iraq, the Sunni elders had their own excellent reasons to morph into active foes of al-Quaeda; in Afghanistan, the incentives for tribal leaders vis-a-vis the Taliban seem almost 180 degrees opposite.

Unfortunately, the response of the General, and the Obama Administration, has been to double-down on an increasingly expensive and ineffective strategy, with his public reaction to the Florida Koran burning being the latest example. Petraeus rightly condemns the Koran burning as an offensive and intolerant act, but he never even mentions, must less denounces, the murderous temper-tantrums of Afghan Muslims that resulted in the deaths of innocent people, even the beheadings of a pair of UN mission officials, nor does he call any attention to the fact that the worst of these tantrums have been whipped up by lying imams who claim repeatedly that burning Korans by the dozen is virtually routine in Great-Satan America.

Now Senator Lindsey Graham, John McCain's poodle, is joining in with a strange and dangerous doctrine that the "loose lips sink ships" ethos of World War II be applied to the "war" that the USA is currently engaged in. Senator Graham, may we dare ask -- what war are we now engaged in, exactly? None has been declared, certainly not in the same way as WW II, and wouldn't we want such a clear legal basis before we limit our traditional American free speech, which in your statement you damn with faint praise as "a good idea, but . . .?"

Never one to miss an opportunity for working a scam, Hamid Karzai is also jumping in on this Koran-burning issue. Admittedly Karzai -- unlike General Petraeus -- condemns the murders as well as the book-burning, but how he and his well-respected, wildly popular regime is going to investigate to describe and explain what really happened. Can anyone doubt, based on the slippery Karzai track record, that the results of this "investigation" will be heavily couched in terms of "blame America first?" Followed by an even larger bill presented to Wash-DC by Karzai for his invaluable and selfless services in "opposing" -- ha, ha! -- the Taliban?

In any case, Petraeus, Karzai, Obama, Graham, the MSM, and all the rest of our dhimmis-in-training will sooner or later blame alleged American "intolerance" as the root cause of murderous anti-Western protests in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Ummah. None will question why, after all the sacrifices in blood and treasure Americans and their Western allies have made to benefit or "protect" -- today's buzz-word -- various Muslim populations, significant percentages of those same populations seem fully prepared to believe any outrageous charge that those same Westerners are nothing more than tools of the Jews and/or Crusaders in sheep's clothing waging war on Islam. Which is to say, could these murderous tantrums actually be the result of MUSLIM intolerance? But to say so is not PC and is, therefore, taboo, unlike willingly undermining our Constitutional protection of free speech, the better to tolerate the intolerant. God save America!
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My comment: They engage in 'murderous tantrums' because it works for them. Can you blame them? Like children, the more they act out, the more we allow. Tolerance only works up to a point.

When The Law Is Eric Holder

Exactly right, Corlyss! This is all part and parcel of the ‘politics of personal intimidation’. That’s why there are no ‘good’ Muslims around. They’re afraid they will be singled out; their neighbors and families harassed.

The emphasis has shifted away from polls and is now firmly entrenched in virtual power. It’s long been the case on the nation’s college campuses; in the media; in the arts; on the cocktail circuit. Never let your conservative sentiments slip. You’ll find yourself disgraced; ridiculed; excluded. I’ve noticed it myself, buried in my bunker as I am. “I’m no longer your friend,” says one. “You’re just plain crazy,” says another. “I think you should see about getting some help,” a third suggests.

A few years back, I thought I might be able to further my career by writing liberal stuff. I tried. I just couldn’t do it. Yet, there are some out there doing it and collecting salaries.

Loved the ‘Arcade Fire’ tune though. I think I’ll post it on my own blog later. Oh, I know they’re all lefties - but, then again, they couldn’t all be that mindless. Most are just putting on an act to stay alive.

With these latest tactics, it only takes a relatively few - enough to fill a camera angle. Everything else drops off the frame. After that, you can say anything you want and have it be everywhere. It’s like these watchdog groups that consist of three people and a fax machine - the ones that caution against treading on cryptobiotic soil. I guess now it’s even gone beyond that.

In India, computer usage is strictly monitored. When you go into a cyber café to check your e-mails, you’re required to sign in and show your ID or passport. “There’d been threats against the Chief Minister,” they say.

It’s about to happen here as well. The government will control the internet in the name of ‘National Security’ and only the ‘right’ people will have full access. It’ll only take one mishap traced to some loony tunes in some basement garage to initiate a crackdown and make it permanent.

The freedom to assemble was included in the United Nations’ ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ in 1948. The fact that it had to be an enumerated right in the first place meant that some countries viewed it as a threat and did not allow it.

Conventional wisdom had it that relatively small gatherings can never be a threat to the enormity of a state. They never envisioned virtual assemblies on Facebook.

Still, a treat is a threat. It might be overt or implied. It’s a matter for the law to handle. It gets a bit trickier when the law is Eric Holder.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

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/

Cutting Off The Nose

“…he was becoming exasperated with his failure to give him a jobs plan he could sell.”

Is that how these people see themselves - used car salesmen? I thought a president was elected ‘to preserve and protect’; to run things (and not into the ground). I guess I’ve been wrong all along when it comes to this bunch. At least they’re still selling - not yet at gun point. Aside from the fact that governments create only incestuous jobs, they don’t seem to understand that selling always involves no less than two parties. Both have to agree for the deal to go through. So far, there is no deal. The public is not buying.

I heard recently in passing that one of the Federal departments got rid of all their Fords and replaced the original fleet with Chevies. The Chevies were termed ‘junk’ (by the insider) and declared unsuitable to their purpose. Clearly, a conflict. Understandable that the government was wanting to push its own brand - suitability be damned.

When the public favored Ford over Chevy, it did so to make its position clear. All things were not equal. The public preferred one over the other . One accepted a government bailout; the other did not. Buying a Ford proclaimed one’s feeling toward the issue.

No matter how intense the advertising (selling), the public will not buy a ‘socialist mop’ - not the American public at any rate. It’s got to be forced down their throats - gavage. Obama and crew may see us as geese, but that’s not how we see ourselves. We will fight back in our own way.

We know their game: They want jobs so they can trumpet success and collect taxes to fuel their agenda. They make it seem like we are the ones wanting the jobs. We don’t.

If we wanted jobs, we’d get it done. Long before it dawned on Republicans to ‘starve’ offensive government outreach (to Muslims, unions, communists and the like), we the people were already deeply engaged: dragging our heels, holding back, starving (if you will) the government’s ability to proclaim a meaty victory.

We recognized long before the government did - before the media did - that only we could create jobs; that we were the only ones with that power. We could turn off the spigot - and we did. They say socialism fails wherever it‘s tried. Socialism doesn‘t fail; the public rejects it. Cutting off the nose is a worthy sacrifice if the face is no longer the face of America.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Joe Manchin Speaks Out: Cause for Celebration

JB makes no secret of the fact that he loves this ad. It takes on Obama and Democrats in two ways: (1) It rebels against a significant bellwether Democrat taking point, and (2) rubs sand in the eyes of those seeking to upturn the second amendment. Both issues taken together can be seen as a frontal attack on the party leadership by one of their own.

Joe Manchin’s effort should be celebrated and rewarded. It marks a break with Democrat orthodoxy. And, recognizing that what is facing this country cannot be solved by merely playing a numbers game - that change must come organically from within - it is important to note that Manchin is the first to speak out forcibly against the radical fringe that has co-opted his party for too long.

For nearly a decade, even while stipulating that the majority of Muslims means us no harm, we have been waiting for someone in the Muslim community to speak out against its radical fringe. While their reluctance to speak out can be understood, their silence nevertheless makes them accomplices.

Where Democrats are concerned, they now have the opportunity to rally around someone who has dared to speak out. I agree with John, it’s a watershed moment. Our fight is not with Democrats per se, most of whom love our nation as we do. It’s their silence that is vexing; their willingness to follow their leadership into the grave.

If we are to survive as a nation, we must root out the extremes and work together to solve our problems. We can no longer afford to depend on the woefully inadequate ‘R’ and ‘D’ shorthand to show us the way. (Note my use of the term ‘bellwether” in the first paragraph.)
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The Nobel Prize committee’s lurch to the Right re its awarding prizes to Llosa and Xiao-bo has veered Left again in announcing its economics prize. Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides were rewarded for their “search theory” which seeks to couch the “new norm” of jobless recovery in new, more politically acceptable terms.

In doing so, they have provided cover for the misdeeds of the Obama administration. The new theory applies the meaningless, asexual term, ‘friction’ to the present economic crisis - such as to housing, trade (in general), and even to marriage - to spin and finesse what is already self-evident to most: that Keynesian economics does not work.

I might also note that Peter Diamond's nomination to a spot on the Federal Reserve Board has been held up by Republicans questioning his qualifications.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

We Have To Pretend...

What’s disturbing is that we’re still in Afghanistan. Our government is running this show. Who knows why? Despite the media’s best effort to put 9/11 on the backburner, it keeps mutating - popping up in most surprising guises. The latest happens to be that pesky mosque our government wants to build in conjunction with Islam near our sacred Ground Zero burial site. This pits our people against the government which seemingly has aligned itself with our self-proclaimed enemy.

Who would have foreseen this twist back in 2001? You really can’t make this stuff up. When the Towers fell, we are told, we had the full support of the world. When Bush came to office he inherited a surplus. Everything that was good, we are told, was squandered by Bush. History started and ended with Bush. Now, poor Obama, our historic messiah is simply trying to put things right.

In order to do this we have to roll back time. We have to pretend 9/11 never happened. We have to pretend that Muslims don’t hate us. We have to pretend that they won’t fight to the last man to get us to submit (to sharia). We have to pretend that they wouldn’t murder every last Jew if given even half the chance. We have to pretend we’re unified. We have to pretend the opposition - defined as anyone criticizing Obama’s policies - has had its tongue cut out; that the noise it generates is mere gibberish. We have to pretend that our president is not a Muslim. We have to pretend that he doesn‘t want to change us fundamentally into some version of Satan. We have to pretend we’re continuing to fight an inherited war without strategy, without history, without reason. (Note: This last point could be true.)

We have to pretend we’re not simply going through the motions of governing. We have to pretend we’re fighting a war we are winning. We have to pretend that we are not the enemy. We have to pretend we are not doing our damnest to destroy the dollar. We have to pretend that the doors to the Trojan horse we dragged into our courtyard have yet to open.

With all we are asked to believe (that goes against everything we know to be true), what are we going to tell the Taliban that will change their precious hearts and minds?

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Midterms: Pyrrhic Victory For Republicans

All this about the "Impossible Kick" by Brazilian Roberto Carlos in a 1997 match of Brazil vs France applies if you have two teams out on the field. In America you have only one team playing. Whatever split can be discerned is only between good players and bad players. There is no goalie guarding the opposition’s net. Even the bad players can make a goal (if the others will let them).

We still pretend we have a two-party system with checks and balances. We pretend we have something akin to a democracy - much as the Left pretends there is still ‘global warming’. The Left’s pretense succeeds precisely because there is no credible opposition.

Republicans winning overwhelmingly in the November congressional elections will not change this one-sided game. The Left will continue to win where it counts. Obama is the Left. He has already succeeded in reducing the legislative branches to ashes. Nothing either one can propose that differs from the official line can amount to more than spit in the wind.

These past two years, congress has broken all the rules of acceptable behavior. It is no longer viable as an institution. Obama has succeeded in essentially carving the guts out of it.

This leaves only Obama and the courts. Therein lies the last remaining friction. But even there Obama is rapidly gaining the edge. Must I remind that the Justice Department also is no longer independent? They don’t even try to hide it anymore.

The media, education, science - they’ve all aligned themselves with the hard Left. The Left is the only team playing. All the rest is BS.

Yesterday evening on returning from dinner in central Chennai, we passed a street along which every single shop sold furniture. Each one was brightly lit. The stop-and-go traffic gave me time to peer inside. The proprietors and their clerks seemed bored and were glued to the windows, idly staring at the steady stream of mechanized humanity streaming past their premises. From what I could see all of them were Muslim.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

A Cry From Hell

“Where did we come from?” I add, Where are we going? Both questions are entirely legitimate. Both require a modestly broader view to understand and formulate a response. Not only are we shutting the door on the physical universe, but we’re closing our eyes also to time (history). I’m not even talking ancient history. I’m talking just three years ago. Who would have thought then that we would have a Marxist Muslim president running the country (into the ground)? (Yes, I said it!!!) So when Mr. Doakes says he didn’t vote for Obama, I am compelled to ask, Who the hell did?!

Just yesterday I was sent a video of Muslims stoning a young girl to death. There were roughly a dozen young men eagerly participating. The rest were busy taking videos. It reminded me of the beating death of Abelino, the Ecuadorian dishwasher, in a wealthy suburban enclave on the Jersey side of New York City, which was also video taped. At the time I thought this the height of depravity.

I have since altered my view somewhat. The video that was sent me was so graphic, it literally turned my stomach. No human being on earth could have committed so serious a crime as to deserve the punishment that this (what looked like a) 14-year old was subjected to. And yet, no one decries it. No one condemns it. Abu Ghraib was the big story in the headlines day after day during the Bush presidency - American prison guards draping women’s underwear over accused terrorist’s heads. Then there was the relatively gentle art of waterboarding. And now there are tomes of restrictions our soldiers have to deal with about how to treat the enemy. It’s no wonder that so many of our own have been dying needlessly, snared by endless regulation demanding tea and sympathy - on the battlefield no less.

True gratuitous brutality is routinely ignored. Every adherent to the Muslim faith should be outraged and condemn the stoning of women in the name of their god. Yet, they are silent. In fact, they demand that all nations adopt shariah. Where are the women’s groups? Where are is Amnesty International? Where is our president? Where is every human being who still manages to maintain a shred of conscience to draw a line in the sand and say this cannot be tolerated in the 21st Century? Where is the UN?

Everyone participating in such a stoning should be hunted down and hauled off to The Hague for prosecution and punishment. Otherwise the phrase 'crimes against humanity' rings empty as a bell. But nothing of the sort ever happens. Instead, the men wearing the white hats are condemned to suffer death by a thousand cuts while the brutality of shariah advances even to desecrate the sacred cemetery of 3000 killed on 9/11.

Still, we watch as our enemy advances - and we say nothing. In fact we encourage his advance. We condemn ourselves instead of him. In another three years, we will look around and see the stain of slowly bled goats spreading on American soil, and we will ask ourselves, How has it come to this? We will read increasingly about honor killings, beheadings and shariah based banking, and we will ask again...

Now is the time to stop it. Just as Barack Hussein Obama should never have been elected senator.

I’ve altered my view of those who video tape such Islamic horrors as the stoning of women, the deliberate amputation of healthy limbs, and public execution in the market square. Rather than a gratuitous wallowing in blood, I now see it as a cry from hell - a warning. “This is how it is here,” they desperately try to tell us. “Please don’t let it happen there. Even if hell on earth is here, we can still maintain the hope that we can escape it. If the whole world should be consumed by this sort of savagery, there will be no where left to run; nothing to do but to strap on a suicide belt in the hope of saving as many as possible from the inhumanity of this, our most shameful experience."

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Sniveling Cowards

Recovery or no recovery - it depends on who you listen to. Even bad numbers can always be worse. I honestly don’t know any more. If Obama is such a disaster, how come roughly half the country still supports him?

There are people who I respect that continue to believe that Obama is leading us along a proper path. They acknowledge that there will be pain in the short run, but are confident that Obama has what it takes to lead us out of the woods - if those pesky Republicans just would let him do it.

Obama has yet to confess outright that he is a communist (or a Muslim) who wants to reduce our nation to ruins. Without that confession it’s hopeless I’m afraid. People no longer trust what they see. Any criticism of the president is seen in significant quarters as extreme, racist, homophobic, fringe.

The major media certainly is buying it. Case and point: Attendance at Glenn Beck’s Washington rally was either in the tens of thousands or upwards of a million. Not counted, of course, are the millions who wanted to but could not go.

We no longer trust numbers. Even science has been perverted. Everything is a lie. We’re flying blind.

Clearly, I remain of the old school. Aside from the numbers, I don’t see how centralized autocratic government can work. History has taught me that much. But history is being rewritten as we speak. The young are taught a different history than I was. They believe they are right. They trust their teachers. They trust their teacher's excuses, their misdirection, their lofty claims.

So, no matter how bad it gets, they’ll always have an out. The entirety of American history has brought us to this point. The chickens have come home to roost.

In my heart, I believe that most people believe as I do. But I can no longer be sure. It’s the ’sitting on the fence’ types that’ve got me stumped. Bill Clinton introduced the concept of ‘triangulation‘. By triangulating he sought to appear as being above the fray.

I don’t think this will work again. Either the Left or the Right - along with the triangulators - will be swept from the pages of American history. The time will come when triangulators will be asked to declare themselves. Those who refuse to, will be left homeless. High principles involving moral equivalence (or neutrality) will not save them. They will be despised by all sides as the sniveling cowards they are.

Something Doesn't Add Up

Look where we were just two years ago. Bush was playing the role of the ruddy, good-natured fireman in the dunking seat at the local county fair. We all cued up to give it our best shot, hurling projectiles at the big, colorful target that was hard to miss. Over and over, he went down into the tank only to emerge wet and dripping. We gleefully continued to play the game even after the sun had gone down and he was shivering. Some of us took cheap shots, aiming our shoes at his face. How we laughed! It was all in good fun. What else are county fairs for?

Little did we know that it all was to boomerang. Now we are the target. Reading today’s opinion columns in the NYT, we are told we are stupid, small-minded, xenophobes for not embracing - among much else - the mosque at Ground Zero.

The game has artfully turned deadly. We suspect something is very wrong - something is happening which we never expected could happen in our country. Elections still seem an eternity away. Midterms. Shrug. It’s bigger than that. As we learn more and more about Alinsky, Cloward, Piven among others too numerous to mention, it gets downright scary. We’re no longer living a James Bond novel in which Sean Connery can be expected to fight for our side - and win. We are the only side remaining, it seems - all the others are against us.

How did Bush do it? We never suspected we were in this deep s**t. “D’ya miss me yet?” Yes we do, Mr. President. We know you’d have just the right words to say concerning the mosque and all. We know you’d get dunked again for opening your mouth. We now know that your erstwhile enemies are now our enemies. We just wish we’d have a man in The White House who’d feel comfortable inviting someone like Rush to dinner, letting him and his wife sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom for a couple of nights and chew the fat over breakfast. He’d then come back to us and tell us it’s all alright, that there’s a plan - a plan for saving our country.

We’d be quite prepared to sacrifice; to do whatever it takes. We’d rally around the flag until the whole lot of these bastards are defeated. (This includes you, Hillary!) We’d even buy government bonds with what money we’ve got left, and work our fingers to the bone in some rivet factory for the slightest glimmer of light.

What I still can’t understand is the women nowadays. Would they really want to go back to a totally male-dominated society without any rights? Why aren’t they up in arms and at the point of the spear? Can’t they see where it’s going? The military is banned from recruiting on campuses because of ’don’t ask, don’t tell’. Why aren’t Muslim organizations banned from those same campuses for their even greater affronts to human dignity?

No. Something doesn’t add up - doesn’t add up at all.

Clash of Civilizations

Paul Harvey used to preface some of his stories by saying, “It’s not one world.” It isn’t. Howard Dean has not suddenly become Republican or conservative. He is and will (most likely always) be a socialist. Hillary Clinton is a socialist. Obama, at the very least, is a socialist. ‘Big government’ is fundamental to socialist thinking.

At the same time, socialists are not suicidal. They do not check their common sense at the door. They know that in order to survive as a viable alternative, they cannot totally ignore certain political realities. For Muslims to build a 13-story mosque in close proximity to Ground Zero is simply a bad idea, unless we fail to understand that Muslims have declared war on us; that they cannot be appeased or bargained with; that any altruistic gesture we might intend will not make them like us, and will be proclaimed a victory for their side, allowing them to propagandize and recruit in continuance of their war against us.

In a recent exchange with a friend about ultimate causes, it came to me that the fundamental difference between man and animal is ego. I had it right, but I did not go far enough.

We’d been putting bones out on the driveway after supper with the expectation of seeing them gone by morning. We’d often wondered just who our nocturnal visitor might be. We imagined any number of the ‘friendly’ animals we’d become familiar with over the years of living here. After an overnight blanketing of fresh winter snow, their various tracks cross the lawn in every conceivable direction. Most of these we can readily identify.

Last night I had to go out for milk. When I returned, I happened to see the interloper in my headlights. I still can’t tell you what it was: larger than a cat; smaller than most dogs; large pointy ears; protruding snout; thin, spindly legs. There have been reports of fox and/or coyote in our neighborhood, but I’ve seen the fox in daylight and it wasn’t that.

I almost felt sorry for the intruder. He looked so frail and wobbly, and nervous to boot. We don’t put scraps out every day. I imagined him coming by on days when we don’t - and being hungry. It also occurred to me that he - as most any animal - had no arms and was obliged to eat directly off the ground. The difference between us, I reasoned, is that we at some point decided to get up on our hind legs and remained that way. This allowed our front legs to develop into arms, hands and fingers with which we could do things. We could now build something and say, “I did that. It’s mine.” - hence, ego.

Thought would develop similarly as well - based on differing assumptions - into different appendages. Ayaan Hirsi Ali in an opinion article in yesterday's WSJ entitled “How to Win the Clash of Civilizations” briefly summarizes the late Samuel Huntington’s assertion that “the essential building blocks of the post-Cold War world are seven or eight historical civilizations of which the Western, the Muslim and the Confucian are the most important.

The balance of power among these civilizations, Huntington argued, is shifting. The West is declining in relative power, Islam is exploding demographically, and Asian civilizations—especially China—are economically ascendant. Huntington also said that a civilization-based world order is emerging in which states that share cultural affinities will cooperate with each other and group themselves around the leading states of their civilization.

Ali concludes: “The West's universalist pretensions are increasingly bringing it into conflict with the other civilizations, most seriously with Islam and China. Thus the survival of the West depends on Americans, Europeans and other Westerners reaffirming their shared civilization as unique—and uniting to defend it against challenges from non-Western aggressors (sic)."

Faisal Shahzad: Nuts and Bolts

And yet we are terribly frightened of these characters, so much so that we are willing to remove even our shoes before boarding a plane. Think about it. We fear their condemnation, their wrath and their sweating bombs. We submit to spending untold sums on security. Yet we hesitate even to address them by name.

I remember being inordinately affected by the picture (in the papers) of a Vietnamese monk on fire. What has changed? Today’s suicide bomber is beneath our contempt. We see him as a collection of nuts and bolts. He is bloodless. We fear only his nuts and bolts. As such, we are incapable of accepting his sacrificial blood and call it victory.

They are winning. They are united in their hatred of us - in their ignorance; in their misplaced anger - while we are fractured along degrees of skill, commitment and the willingness to defeat them. Half of us suffer from Stockholm Syndrome while the other half buries their heads in minutia, busy at building a case - an excuse - to effectively counter their thrusts. If I see another book that tells me that Obama is a socialist; that Muslims want to kill us; that communists want to lynch us by our own ropes, I think I’ll go mad.

Enough already! We know who Barack Hussein Obama is and who is aligned with him. It’s beginning to dawn on us that they all hate America; that we can do nothing to make them love us; that we stand eternally condemned in their eyes. Time to face facts. We are stronger than they. It is entirely possible to defeat them. But we stand no chance if we defeat ourselves first.