Straight Lines

This week we found out (what some of us already knew) that Obamacare will explode the Federal budget rather than save money (as we were told); that repealing it would cost us even more; that all the money in the world would fail to pay for it (along with all the other government programs already grinding our nation to a halt). So, the next step in the puzzle will quite naturally center on raising the debt ceiling once again.

I have a solution: Let’s just set the debt ceiling to quadrillions and get it over and done with. Or, let’s set it to a number that hasn’t even been invented yet; or, let’s set it to infinity and never have to undergo the unpleasantness of budgeting ever again (for as long as we live).

Why not? We now know that Obamacare was never about health; and neither was it (as has now become apparent) about saving money. We’ve been down this road before and have become quite comfortable with it. Tax policy, for instance, also does not seem to be about having sufficient funds to run governments (Federal and state). We’ve long ago managed to crush the life out of the proverbial golden goose. In any number of our states - you know the ones - taxes are so high already that people a fleeing to other states and taking their money with them, much less opening businesses in those afflicted areas most in need of inflating an ever-expanding tax base.

Similarly, science has been elevated to a new level (as some would say “it’s proper place“). The coldest winter anyone can remember is now put down to ‘global warming’ - a virtual treasure trove of carbon credits - and liberally (rhetorically) promoted as such in every college and university of (free) academic standing.

Similarly, it was reported last week that, California ushered in in excess of 700 new laws with the start of the new year. It was suggested that Californians themselves are not even aware of what all these might portend. It may all come to the same end: laws or no laws. Existing laws not enforceable or not enforced. New laws applied selectively and certainly adding to a climate of uncertainty; again, causing a flight to greener pastures particularly by those wishing to escape the choking grip of government regulation which (as has become evident) is out to destroy every last vestige of spontaneity.

We no longer trust each other. Above all, we no longer trust our government; the representatives of which - those young tykes we ourselves put through law school - who have come back telling us that it’s quite alright for us to say that two plus two equals five or any number (as long as it’s bigger than four).

Words too have taken a beating. There’s a whole bunch of them that now pose a personal risk to ourselves (like Limbaugh, Beck and Injun); and, even in private (industry), there are some now charged with exorcizing ‘politically sensitive’ material from books that were once deemed classics.

The word ’enemy’, for example, has taken on a new, much more benign nuance to apply only to ourselves; a nod, perhaps, to a notion that is gaining popularity by leaps and bounds: jihad, popularly defined as the process of self-examination and cleansing - a constant solitary struggle (we are told).

And so it goes. The only ones standing in the way of progress are those fuddy-duddy tea party types who still cling to their religion, guns, and the now thoroughly discarded notion of straight lines.

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/

The Resurrection of Michael Mann

Mann, after seeing himself totally discredited, suddenly realizes that all is not lost. The intelligentsia, the powerful, the establishment, the irascible ueber-elite still support him. They do so, perhaps, in the attempt to mitigate the embarrassment of having been duped. Or by an unwillingness to abandon what they have long considered to be one of the indispensable tenets that supports their nihilism. Even as Mann sees popular support eroding, he has confidence that political realities have progressed sufficiently toward autocracy in which simple (and, in this particular case, blatantly false) declarations hold sway.

Mann must feel as a man reborn to serve a higher cause; one, that can no longer be said to be dominated by the mere search for truth. At the time, nobody foresaw what Obama meant when famously proclaimed in his inauguration speech, “We will restore science to its rightful place…”. Now we know. Science was to become merely a tool - not to beat back the frontiers of ignorance, but - to advance political agendas.

The agenda is to underline that America from its inception has always been wasteful and corrupt; so much so, in fact, as to deserve being knocked down a peg or two; that America’s illegitimate wealth must now be taken away and shared with others, worldwide. The theory of ’climate change’ was to be the narrative that draws it all together and justify the outright theft of our nation.

Back when Dan Rather made up stories about Bush’s military service in order to discredit him, the excuse was that the spirit of the broadcast segment remained essentially on point: that the president is and had always been an ignorant and lazy bum. Dan was made to retire because of this. Today, even the pretense of accurate reporting seems to have slipped by the wayside.

The Whole Ball of Wax

There are really only two ways of looking at things – civilization, modernity, capitalism, politics, science and technology – in short, the whole ball of wax. In order to make a proper assessment, we must put it in perspective. Realize that this would apply only to humanity, a relatively small but, nevertheless, evolving part of what we regard as creation. Secondly, we must recognize all humanity as a single family, members of which are essentially predatory but each also painted with a broad streak of idealism that seeks to embrace eternity on his or her own terms.

The split (hence conflict) arises from a divergent premise: one, that assumes that such evolution has its limits and that we are rapidly approaching the end, that we must turn back at all costs; while the other rests secure in the faith that we can and must go forward by the grace of some higher being.

It came to mind last year, as I watched a bare-bodied Brahman man, dressed only in a loin cloth, rushing out of his gate and halfway into a Chennai street choked with vehicular traffic. There he stood bent but defiant, eyes wide, clearly confused and angry. He was soon driven back against the wall by the blaring horns of unyielding SUV’s and swerving motorbikes. I watched him as he gathered his rags and retreated beaten, back into his walled compound.

In India, where so many seek their sustenance on the top layer of multiple strata of (not yet cold) successive dynastical rule, the social tectonic plates sometimes shift to expose antiquity that is either struggling to catch up or that rejects any notion of what is termed ‘progress’ outright. The impulse is the same: feeling oneself out of sync with present day; spent and hopelessly inadequate, unable to cope.

In much of the world it turns to rage. The gap between rich and poor has grown too wide to be bridged by anything other than suspicion. The elders decide that the relentless bombardment of technological, political and social innovations must be stopped if the family is to survive. “We are being swamped,” they conclude. …and the source of all this evil inequity, of course, is always the lead horse: America.

Even within America itself, this divergence festers. Half the people advocate for free markets, free speech, freedom itself… while the other half is determined to shut it down. Interestingly, the reason given for the latter is to ‘save the planet’. Never mind that the science stinks. America leading the world over the cliff, they maintain, stinks as well. God is dead. We must save ourselves. We must at the very least allow time for the rest of the world to catch up. We must go back and find the lost sheep and bring back them into the fold.

With the whole world, and even with half of our own population, having lost faith in themselves, convinced that we have reached the end of the road, what chance do we - who still believe - have to forge ahead into new and exciting realms of discovery?

The state of our space program today is emblematic of the dilemma we face. The enthusiasm and imagination are still quite sufficient to conquer new frontiers. But it is being curbed by the faithless who insist on turning back. Eventually, even our spirit will yield to what defines the uninspired existence of animals.

Some claim that the human spirit will never extinguish. They point to art as being the next frontier. But even art is wholly dependent on an abundance of freedom and remains suspicious of the man with the plastic doggie bag stealthily following behind.