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/

Tanning Salons Be Damned

Logic tells us that Ahmadinejad has lots to fear. The same is true of Barack Hussein Obama. Obama is losing his base; alienating his opposition even further, and causing such a stir that has even the disinterested now scratching their heads. Will he moderate his stance; adjust course? No. He will press ahead with his agenda; he will double-down with the full force of his office in support. He will scatter the corrupt seed - his empty words - here and there, and those starving for truth and hope will momentarily be held off only to find that those seeds will not sprout. Yet, it will give him a precious moment to re-group in his stony desert garden, pass another (empty shell) bill with a promising name that his cabal of insurgents can define later and spin into a noose.

Is he frightened? Perhaps a little. But he is a man possessed. He sees himself as historic; a man with a mission. He would readily sacrifice himself, his family, his nation for the improbable vision he holds so dear. His fear is but a speed bump, a mere annoyance, a paper cut. There are enough urging him on; telling him he is right, that he must do more, faster.

Obama, like Ahmadinejad, represents just a sliver of the population that continues to assure him that their cause is just. As such, he lives in an impenetrable bubble of assent. All others - no matter how great their numbers - are infidels who must be brought to heel or be killed. Truth absent, there is no argument, no compromise. The time is at hand to act.

Remaking a nation is no small task. Obama cannot lose faith. The time may never come again for the possibility of a mosque at Ground Zero to even be worthy of contemplation. He is cutting against the grain. The pain he may feel, to him is ecstasy; it is the pain of birth. He is not immune to doubt or suffering. He views these as the price of justice. He cannot conceive of suffering in any other context than wrenching his own into the sun, even if by his own actions that self-same sun should turn blood red in defiance of folly. Tanning salons and democracy be damned.

The New World

Why do we care? Two possible reasons come immediately to mind: With all this talk of our own planet dying and running out of resources it seems plausible for us, as a group, to start looking for somewhere else to pillage. The other is to cement the seemingly permanent, irreconcilable chasms that have developed between us, with the only reasonable option being, that some of us move away. As such, we could toss a coin to determine whether Republicans or Democrats would be required to seek greener pastures on a suitable exoplanet. Or, Islamists could decide that rather than stoning the infidels to death, they could be shipped en masse off to Corot 7b. …you get the idea.

We’re stoking a Deus ex machina fantasy because, in many ways, we’ve managed to turn our fair Eden into a holy hell. Our desire now, when you come right down to the nub of it, is either to escape or expel. Our planet has become too small for us all to coexist and there is no longer a New World to set sail for within the known edges of the earth.

Beyond that, we fear a dousing of fire and brimstone that a significant portion of us feels is just ahead - the just reward for our excess and sin. I dare say, a war is inevitable at this point. It happens when things start falling apart as they have. This, however, is not our fear. We’ve had wars in the past, all of which we’ve been able to win or explain away. The next one, many of us feel, we’re likely to lose outright. How to deal with defeat other than to dream of new worlds, for the opportunity of a fresh start; ironically, with the same parameters in place - the same experiment done over and over again, each time hoping for a different outcome.