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Friday, January 30, 2004
Why Global Warming Might Be Good for America
There’s a lot of talk going around about a Fortune article on a study by a Pentagon think-tank which examines the possible effects of drastic climate change. Prepared by the team around Andrew Marshall, the legendary Defense Department Director of Net Assessment, the report discusses in detail a number of the potentially dire consequences of Global Warming (which, oddly enough, would actually lead to cooling in parts of the Northern Hemisphere). Already some are pointing to this study as a reason to undertake the favored anti-growth measures of the left (restrictions on industrial emissions, reduction in Fossil Fuel use, etc). In fact, based on this report and others, I see little reason to do anything. This does not mean that I deny that the report might be potentially true: it means that I don’t see a real downside for the United States if it is.
While it is true that the United States would suffer some negative effects as a result of a drastic change in climate, most of these effects are easily offset by the United States’ large population, physical size, geographical position, and resource base. So what if climate change results in marginally lower crop yield? After all, the United States already produces far more food than it uses in a year and, if needed, could produce substantially more. While there is a danger of a refugee crisis along the Southern border, I imagine that such a crisis would give a future President carte blanche to wall off the US-Mexican border and fortify it with mines and artillery. And if, in the end, the United States has the need for more water or energy, it could always coerce Canada into providing it and, failing in that, it could simply conquer Canada. I do not deny that there would be some negative effects in America but, as the Forbes article explains, the United States, “survives without catastrophic losses.” With the right leadership, I imagine that the Republic could not only come through such a period without substantial losses: it could actually make substantial gains. The real burden of global warming falls on countries outside of the United States: on Europe, Africa, and Asia (Australia, like the United States, is positioned to do well out of the crisis). The same effects which would marginally effect America would produce severe storms, prolonged droughts, and crop failures in China. It would freeze Northern Europe while burning up Southern Europe and causing the flight of millions of refugees. It would utterly devastate the Middle East, thereby ameliorating one of the great problems of the present day. Worst-case scenarios of the results of climate change begin, to me at least, to look like a strange sort of global Passover. The Angel of Death passes over the land, smiting the wicked and ungodly Kingdom’s of sin which defy the will of America while leaving the righteous American Republic standing, untouched and mighty. Some might object to my apparent wish that harm befall all of America’s enemies and competitors. I don’t see how any real objection can be raised: for it is not enough for America to succeed, others must fail. While wealth is not a zero sum game, power is. It is possible for you to gain wealth and I to gain wealth and, therefore, for both of us to be happier as a result. I, however, cannot gain in power without someone else losing some of theirs. In this scenario, then, the United States gains in absolute strength merely by maintaining the same relative strength because everyone else is losing their strength and, therefore, their power. Imagine a world where all of America’s enemies and competitors have been reduced to the status of beggars and supplicants, meekly pleading for a little American aid. It’s almost enough to make one wish that climate change could begin tomorrow. True, it saddens me deeply to think that any harm at all might fall upon faithful Britain, but I see little reason why the United States, armed with increased power by the decline of all its enemies, could not provide major aid to one of the only other nations on the Earth that is worthy of survival. Some mix of subsidized resettlement in America and Australia, combined with extensive aid, could allow the British people to maintain a lifestyle equal (if not better) to that they enjoy today. The same goes for Israel. Naturally, this would lead to all sorts of conflicts between other nations. The report conjures up nightmare scenarios of a three-way clash between India, Pakistan and China, Eastern European invasions of Russia, or inter-European wars. Frankly, I see little reason why this ought to alarm me. After all, if India and China are busy destroying eachother, they will certainly be short on time to plot against America. The best path to victory isn’t to fight: it’s to convince your enemies and competitors to kill eachother. Obviously none of this can be the stated policy of the United States. “We’ll be fine, so the rest of you bastards can all burn in hell” might sound great to me, but I doubt it would sell as national policy. And, in any case, the possibility of serious and sudden climate change actually remains rather small. Given this, why should we seek to make drastic changes in our lifestyle and economy? There is only a small chance of climate change and, even if such change does occur, it will probably be (on the balance) a plus for us: so why sweat it? A policy of benign neglect (combined with covert planning) is what is called for. Let the world do as it wishes, and live with the consequences. It is possible that this may lead to additional anti-American anger, at least in the short run. However, I suspect that most of the angry people will decide to direct their anger at more convenient targets such as their governments and their neighbours. If the rest of the world wants to set out to stop “Global Warming” that’s fine by me: they’ll hurt their own economies more than that of the United States and, thereby achieve our aim absent the chaos. If they don’t wish to, then they shall reap the consequences if and when they come. This is a dangerous world, one in which America is threatened by many foes. We must take, and utilize, whatever advantage we can find. Who knows what the years ahead may bring: we might find that global climate change will bring our Kamikaze, a divine wind which will save us from the rising Chinese threat. Thursday, January 29, 2004
Attack of the Petty
The latest Bush decision to set these people screaming is the call for an increase of between $15 and $20 million in the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts. Yes, you heard that right, $15-$20 million. That’s it.
Now, some of you might still object because of some of the truly bizarre “art” which has been funded by the NEA over the years. What’s this money going towards, then? One word: Shakespeare. Yes, that’s right, people and pitching a fit and threatening to not vote for the President over a few million dollars to bring Hamlet and Henry V to various communities which might otherwise not get to enjoy them. (Actually, the plays being presented this year by the ‘Shakespeare in American Communities’ project are: Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet, which slightly saddens me since Henry V is my favourite play). What’s really funny about this is that most of the people screaming about this are probably the same people screaming over how most of our popular culture has become a cesspool of filth. Its one thing to complain, it’s another do actually do something about it. Now I realize that some people are already preparing to shriek, “No enumerated power!” at me but, seriously, let’s get real. There are plenty of worse ways for the government to spend money than to give a few million dollars to Classical Music, Opera, and Shakespearean plays. Hell, if my memory serves me correctly, I seem to recall that the companies that Shakespeare was a member of were named ‘The Lord Chamberlain’s Men’ and ‘The King’s Men’, suggesting that, without government funding, we might have found ourselves without much of the Bard’s work in the first instance. People like to say, “If people want art, they should pay for it”: but let’s face facts. If the only cultural forms which were allowed to survive were those that could be entirely self-funding then within a few years we’d have nothing left other than Left Behind books, rap music, blockbuster movies, and hard-core pornography. That might be a-ok with a lot of libertarian types, but it certainly isn’t with me. Frankly, if it were my choice, I’d be for raising the money for public broadcasting, the NEA, and the National Endowment for the Humanities- so long as measures could be taken to ensure that they will remain under the control of the right people. The greatest documentary of recent years and, I believe, the greatest piece of patriotic art of the final decades of the 20th century- Ken Burns’ masterpiece The Civil War was made possible through NEH funding. So long as we can have more stuff like that, I see no reason at all why we shouldn’t be prepared to pay something for it. All great nations have subsidized art and other great patriotic and cultural works. Most of the best composers were indirectly funded by the state (of course, technically they were funded by noblemen, Lord, and Kings, but we know where that money came from in the first place). Why not subsidize lavish, epic, patriotic films that the big studios might otherwise never make? Why not make great culture accessible to all of the people? Frankly, I think that it’s time to make a major propaganda push in the War on Terrorism. I see no reason why we shouldn’t have modern day equivalents of all of those movies made during the Second World War: “Twenty-One Days to Baghdad” or something along those lines. The people, after all, need to be constantly reminded of “why we fight”. Frankly, for these purposes, a budget of a few billion dollars wouldn’t be at all out of order. But that’s really aside from the point here. Some claim that, by having the state fund productions, some of us are imposing our taste on others. And, to that, I say: so what? Anyone who claims that there is no objective difference between a generation raised on rap music and a generation raised on the classics is a fool. Wednesday, January 28, 2004
JFK Isn’t the Front-Runner
This is, in some ways, everything that I could have hoped for. John F. Kerry might well, for the moment, be in the lead: but that lead is far too fragile at this time to honestly crown him as the “front-runner” for the Democratic nomination. Nay, what looks likely now is a long and bruising fight for the nomination which leaves all of the contenders broke, battered, and bloodied. This race is moving too fast and is far too confusing to, at this point; make any truly accurate prediction of the final result. It should be recalled that, just a month ago, virtually every major pundit and political insider was proclaiming Howard Brush Dean III the Democratic nominee. We’ve still got more than a month to go until Super Tuesday. That’s a lot of time for gaffes, scandals, and whatever other nonsense can be dreamed up.
Some are living under the false impression that this will be settled within a week. February 3rd will be helpful to Kerry only if he manages to win virtually all of the primaries that day, which seems unlikely. More likely is that, attempting to administer the final blow to his opponents; Kerry will over-extend himself by seeking to run the table and, therefore, will expose himself to a vicious counter-attack. What happens if, next week, Edwards wins in South Carolina and Clark wins in Oklahoma, with the rest of the primaries being variously split and Dean performing well (20% or so) everywhere? Who’s the ‘front-runner’ then? One of the great disadvantages of the short primary schedule is that it allows candidates to survive who would otherwise be driven from the race. In the old system, Clark would have been out of the race after last night and Dean would be tottering on the edge. The rapidity of the season now gives them a second chance. In other words, by giving people less time to think and manoeuvre, the rapid-fire primary schedule gives time for little more than frantic scrambling. The race now must look ahead to March 2nd, which offers the best chance of a decisive day in this contest. If Kerry can beat back the other candidates, if he can raise enough money, if he can avoid getting hit too much, he can emerge as the nominee by winning California and New York on that day. Or, maybe not. Suppose that Edwards wins South Carolina, polls in the teens in the North, and wins Tennessee and Virginia as well. Dean manages to win Michigan, Washington, Maine, and a few other scattered primaries, keeping himself in the fight. Kerry wins the rest, but fails to really emerge with a clear lead. Then, on March 2nd, the fight between Edwards and Kerry over who is more electable manages to hand Dean a narrow win in California, while Kerry takes New York, Ohio, and splits most of the rest of the North with Dean. Edwards wins in Georgia. But then, a week later, Edwards sweeps “Southern Tuesday”, winning Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Who is the front-runner then? And, by this point, there aren’t enough primaries left to really tip the balance to one side or the other. And all of this, I might add, is assuming that Clark is on the way out. Were he to win Oklahoma and Arizona on February 3rd, he’d be right in the fight with everyone else. The most notable thing about this fight is that none of the Democrats really disagree with eachother about everything. The details of their exact plans differ slightly, but those differences don’t matter very much anyways since any of their plans will be mauled and rewritten by the Congress. What does this leave us with, then? Biography and attacks. John Kerry and Wesley Clark will both try and run on their military backgrounds. Watch for this to get truly nasty over the next little while, with Clark and Edwards using various tricks to attack Kerry for his anti-war activism, while Kerry and Edwards will probably seek to attack Clark for his record as NATO Supreme Commander. There probably won’t be ads in the subject, but a lot of people in South Carolina will soon be (or possibly already are) getting some… interesting… phone calls. At the same time, John Edwards will be attacked for having so little experience, while John Kerry will be attacked both for his liberal voting record and his lack of legislative accomplishments in the Senate. At the same time, Dean will attack Kerry and Kerry’s people will suggest that Dean is mentally unstable. John Edwards will have a hard time being heard over all of the attacks. If I were Howard Dean, I would go before a camera somewhere tomorrow and announce that I’d had a change of thought on gay marriage: I’m now for it 100%. In order to sell this, I’d find a really sympathetic gay couple and movingly explain how they convinced me of the moral rightness of “treating all people equally” or some other nonsense. I’d then attack all of the other candidates for opposing gay marriage while, at the same time, I’d tout my record in Vermont. The main reason why Dean and the other major Democrats have yet to take this position is obvious: they fear it will kill their chances in a General Election. But Dean’s got little to lose: he can’t fight in the general unless he first wins the nomination. Polls show that gay marriage is supported by both a majority of Democrats and a majority of young voters. This would put Dean back on the cutting-edge of the race issue-wise and would force everyone else to respond to him. Frankly, it would expose the stupidity of the present position of all the major Democrats on the issue (for Civil Unions, against gay marriage, but opposed to doing anything to try and stop gay marriage because it would be ‘mean spirited’ to do so). In any case, there’s little to do now but wait, watch, and research all of the likely nominees. Hopefully, we’ll have until Boston to do so. Treason
A list has been published of people who were bribed with Iraqi money and oil by the former regime.
From the MEMRI: Canada: Arthur Millholland, president and CEO of the Calgary-based Oilexco company, received 1 million barrels of oil. Then, look at this: Making money first drew Arthur Millholland to Iraq. He thought getting involved in the Oil For Food program would leave his company, Oilexco, in good standing when the sanctions ended. But it didn't take long before he became disillusioned with the program and an outspoken activist. The transformation was simple. ``You can't ignore what you see,'' says Millholland, 40, the company's president, from his office in Calgary. ``It's appalling.'' When he first saw starving children on the streets, he thought that buying Iraqi crude oil - he pays the United Nations which in turn gives Iraq food and medicine - would make him feel like he was helping. It hasn't worked out that way. ``It's a huge problem. The Oil For Food program is just a Band-Aid. It's not going to fix anything.'' Lifting the sanctions is the only way to make the lives of ordinary Iraqis better, he believes. Yep, a real 'activist' there. Here's another one: United States: Samir Vincent received 10.5 million barrels. In 2000, Vincent, an Iraqi-born American citizen who has lived in the U.S. since 1958, organized a delegation of Iraqi religious leaders to visit the U.S. and meet with former president Jimmy Carter. And, then, we find this: Many people are mobilizing to effect a change in this failed international policy. Iraqi-born U.S. citizen Samir Vincent, who has lived in the United States since 1958, calls action on the embargo a “political dead end.” He and Dr. Joseph Ritchie, also a private citizen, decided to go down a different road—away from politics and politicians, toward the world of religious belief and influence. The two businessmen prevailed upon Dr. Billy Graham to invite the Iraqi religious leaders to visit several sites in the United States—and later, London, England. Vincent, a Chaldean Catholic, was with the delegation throughout the U.S. visit. Their travels—to Boston, Detroit, Atlanta, Plains (Georgia) and New York City—began inauspiciously with an hour-and-a-half grilling by U.S. immigration officials. Dr. Ritchie placed his private plane at the service of the three Iraqi churchmen. Later, he remarked that he was most inspired by their interfaith partnership in this quest to end the sanctions. When he is asked if things are moving in a good direction, Dr. Ritchie says, “Anyone of goodwill who listens for an hour to the entire scenario wants to end the embargo, but Americans listen to soundbites. We have to deliver the message in soundbites.” Samir Vincent should be executed for treason. Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Utter Nonsense
The Daily Kos is crowing over how 2500 people in the (uncontested) Republican Primary cast votes for Democrats. This is utter nonsense.
In 2000, in a contested Democratic Primary, 5613 write-in votes were cast for Republicans. http://www.politics1.com/vote-nh.htm In 1996 about 9000 write-in votes were cast for Republicans: http://www.state.nh.us/sos/presprim1996/dsumpres.htm Hell, in 1992 there were 2700 votes for Republicans cast in the Democratic Primary. In 2000, when there was a contested Republican Primary, 2200 votes were cast for Democrats. In 1996, in a contested Republican Primary, 2000 votes were cast for President Clinton. http://www.state.nh.us/sos/presprim1996/rsumpres.htm In short, any assertion that this is somehow a big deal is, to put it mildly, complete bullshit. Vietnam Was Winnable
One of the strangest assertions which has popped up in response to my comments about John Kerry’s treasonous behavior during the Vietnam War is that the war there was somehow fundamentally “unwinnable” and, therefore, those who opposed the war were justified. This is nonsense, the defeatism of the seditionist brigades crystallized into the conventional wisdom and spoon-fed to the gullible and stupid through the state-sponsored leftist indoctrination camps which are laughably labelled ‘schools’. Vietnam was absolutely winnable in a military and strategic sense. It was not won for exactly two reasons: the politicians waging it lacked the will to win and a large segment of the population, their minds diseased by the traitorous ideology of the modern left, deliberately set out to hand victory to the enemy.
There is something about Vietnam which cannot be repeated often enough: the American armed forces did not lose a single major battle in the field. While no reliable count of the number of communists killed by our forces in that war exists, it seems reasonable to assume that more than ten of the enemy died for each loss of our own. Those areas where the military had difficulty (high aircraft losses, poor unit cohesion, etc.) were almost entirely the result of goofy policies imposed upon the military from the outside. The war was not lost because America’s warriors were defeated on the field of battle. It was lost because a disloyal cabal, in keeping with its own agenda, deliberately set out to betray America’s heroes. Seditionists and traitors in America, seeking to advance their own agenda, deliberately stabbed their country in the back. So, how would the war have been won? By aggression, audacity, and ruthlessness. First, all prohibitions against attacks on North Vietnam proper would have had to have been lifted, turning the entire country into a free-fire zone. A major part of the logic underlying the theory that the Vietnam War was ‘unwinnable’ is the idea that the war was a ‘people’s war’, and that such wars cannot be defeated. This is patent nonsense: any insurrection or guerrilla war can be put down by an army in possession of sufficient force and the will to use it. Deploying hundreds of thousands of US troops into the country was a bad idea. A terrible one, in fact, driven largely by the desire of President Johnson to appear to be active as a way of insulating himself against charges that he was soft on communism. The Nixon Administration’s strategy of steadily reducing American forces while training and equipping the South Vietnamese to replace them was a fundamentally sound one which should have been adopted from early on. Additionally, it would have made a great deal of sense to revert to the earliest strategy used in the war: deploying small groups of US Special Forces to individual hamlets to guarantee security and work with the people. This strategy was abandoned because it was considered to be slow, and potentially dangerous (after all, the VC or NVA could overrun a Green Beret Squad, but not an Infantry Battalion). This would, I believe, have gone a long way towards winning the “hearts and minds” of more of the South Vietnamese. Assuming that these tactics were adopted early enough, we’d see the US troop strength in the country rapidly reduced, and never would there be half a million soldiers stationed across the country, making tempting targets for the communists. Other Special Forces would be used to make aggressive raids into North Vietnam itself, ordered to destroy bridges, dams, and other things that aircraft then lacked the precision to destroy. Such missions, obviously, would be dangerous and result in heavy losses. However, they would result in far lower losses than hundreds of senseless air raids which cost hundreds of aircraft for few concrete successes. Instead, I would use the considerable US air power in theatre to make war upon the North Vietnamese people. If we accept the concept that (at least for the North Vietnamese) the war effort was a “people’s war”, then it logically follows that the North Vietnamese people were as much an enemy as their masters in Hanoi. Defeating them, breaking their will to resist, is the key to winning the war. For saying this people will accuse me of “advocating genocide.” Nothing, in fact, could be any further from the truth: genocide would be trying to kill all Vietnamese people; we would simply be trying to kill exactly the number necessary. While it is, of course, necessary to avoid overkill, this ought not to be done at the greater risk of underkill. I would have assembled a fleet of about one hundred and fifty B-52D bombers and supporting aircraft, using this as my main strike weapon. Some attrition would naturally occur, but I would seek to keep this fleet at this strength on a constant basis. Modified to allow them to carry about 60,000 pounds worth of bombs, this fleet would, if carrying out daily raids, be capable of dropping about 1.5 million tons of explosives on North Vietnam in a single year. To put it another way, this fleet would drop a quantity of conventional explosive equal to the Hiroshima bomb each and every week. This fleet would have been turned against the civil infrastructure of North Vietnam. Clearly, hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs did little against isolated jungle trails- so I’d pick a better target: downtown Hanoi. Terror bombing had a strong effect against the Japanese in the Second World War, and I imagine that it would have a similar effect against the communists here. Under heavy escort, this bomber fleet would have been used to systematically destroy the capability of the North Vietnamese to wage war or, for that matter, to function as a civil society. One must recall that, at this time, the US did not have the advanced weapons that it has today. Repeated raids against major bridges did little damage while costing hundreds of aircraft. When attacked with precision-guided weapons late in the war, these same bridges were destroyed in a single stroke. Lacking these weapons, there is little choice but to return to the tactics of World War Two: massive raids. Naturally, these raids would have an official military target but these would, given the technology available, serve as little more than an official aiming point. At the same time, I would have unleashed chemical agents against North Vietnamese food production. The extensive use of various pesticides would, naturally, be a covert operation, but it would nonetheless receive extensive support. The goal of this would be very simple: to force people to set out as refugees in search of reliable crops. The hope here, of course, is that they would therefore disrupt North Vietnamese military activities and that, possibly, they will seek to head south for a bowl of rice and the protection of US forces. Naturally, one reason that such actions were not taken was the fear of Russian or Chinese intervention. Frankly, I think that such fears were often exaggerated or used as an excuse for inaction. Russia, after all, didn’t start World War Three when the United States finally got around to mining North Vietnamese harbours in 1972, and I don’t imagine they would have if the United States had chosen to do so in 1964. The problem wasn’t that Vietnam was unwinnable, it was that the United States- as a result of the actions of a well-organized group of traitors- was unable to take effective and proper action to win the war. Remember this, when you look at John Kerry. However heroic his service in war, he ultimately chose the side of treason. He worked to undermine the war which he now places on the top of his resume, he sought to dishonor and render worthless the sacrifices of the men who he now claims to venerate. If he’s elected President, what will he do? Unlike many others, John F. Kerry has never sought forgiveness for his disgusting and dishonourable action. In fact, he followed them up by fighting for a nuclear freeze, seeking to handicap the CIA, fighting for communism in Central America, and signing on with every other fashionable cause of the treason legion over the past three decades. Already, because of him and his ilk, 55,000 dead American boys have been spat upon. By him, and those who joined him in his immoral cause. What will he do to those who fight the war of this generation? Will he betray them, as he did those other gallant heroes? And to this you might say, “John Kerry served honourably in the United States Navy. He’s a war hero.” This may well be true but, don’t forget, Benedict Arnold was a war hero too. Sunday, January 25, 2004
American Thermopylae
“Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws we lie.”-Inscription on the Monument at Thermopylae
As the armies of Persia swept into Greece in 480 BC, many of the Greek city-states joined together in an alliance to defend their homeland. One of the strongest defensive points on the Greek mainland was Thermopylae, a narrow valley. There the allied armies held off the much larger Persian army for days until, finally, a traitor showed the Persians how to break the Greek defenses. With hours to spare, all of the allied forces beat a hasty retreat. All, that is, except for the Spartan King Leonidas and three hundred of his soldiers. They fought a delaying action, giving their lives that the other Greek armies might escape and fight again. Finally, with a great effort, the Persians overwhelmed the Spartans, killing each and every one. But, by their valiant stand, they had bought enough time for the population of Athens to be evacuated and the great Athenian Navy to be prepared for battle. When the Persians finally sought to make the final assault on Athens, they were met by the Greek Navies at Salamis, where, led by Thermostoclies, the Athenians destroyed the Persian fleet and, in so doing, saved Western Civilization. It would not have happened, were it not for the sacrifice of the three hundred. Most people will tell you that the United States lost the Vietnam War. I, personally, am not so sure if that it is the case. Certainly, given that the North Vietnamese communists were the ones left in possession of the field, it must be conceded that (whatever the reasons) they won the battle. However, viewed in context, Vietnam begins to look less and less like a horrible debacle and more like a valiant delaying action whereby America, by its sacrifice, made possible the prosperity of present-day Asia. Think about it for a moment. If the United States had taken the advice of the Howard Dean’s of that day, and simply allowed Communism to overrun Vietnam in 1964, what would have happened? Does any sane person really believe that they would have simply stopped at their own borders? The horrors of Cambodia would have been repeated in Thailand, Burma, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillipines, and countless other nations of whose existence the average American remains blissfully unaware. Millions, and maybe tens of millions, would have died. I bring this up because I expect that, if John F. Kerry wins the Democratic nomination, we will get to hear a lot about his service in that war. While I do not deny that Kerry served heroically or that his military service was anything less than laudatory, I do assert that his most important role in that war was off the battlefield. The greatest blow that John Kerry struck in that war was not on behalf of the United States of America, but on behalf of its enemies. No objective person can deny John F. Kerry’s treasonous behavior during the Vietnam War, nor can any moral and decent person excuse, rationalize, or forgive it. If we accept the notion that Vietnam was ultimately an American Thermopylae, a delaying action which made possible a later and greater victory, then we must understand that John Kerry’s role in this event was not analogous to that of Leonidas and his Spartans who, despite the certainty of death, fought honourably to the end, but to that of Ephialtes, the man who betrayed them. Little is known about Ephialtes beyond that singular fact. For all I know, he could have been a heroic solider, a wonderful father, and a loving husband. But all of that is stained and, indeed, rendered worthless by his betrayal of the cause of his countrymen. Ephialtes thought he saw the way the wind was blowing, the Persians were going to win, and so he got in line. John F. Kerry, with his finger always in the air, saw his chance: and he took it. He became a national figure by spitting upon the honor of every morally decent man who fought for the American cause in Vietnam. Ephialtes ended his life as a reviled traitor, on the run and with a bounty on his head. If there were real justice in this world the same would hold true for John Kerry and his ilk. How dare John Kerry now try and run on his experience in Vietnam. How dare John Kerry, who threw away his medals (except, of course, he only pretended to do so), now try and be elected President because of them. How dare John Kerry, who sought (and received) an early discharge in order to run for Congress on an anti-war platform allow his followers to attack George W. Bush over a few missed (and made up for) National Guard training days. Vietnam, despite its ultimate strategic utility, was and remains a stain upon the honor of the nation. For all those we saved elsewhere in Asia, we still abandoned our South Vietnamese allies to communist tyranny and doomed the millions in Cambodia who were murdered by communist death squads. We must never forget this, and we should never forgive those who are responsible. By this I refer not to the leaders and soldiers of Vietnam who, however, disgusting and immoral their ideology, we worthy opponents in the contest of war. By this I refer to those Americans who, for reasons of belief or ambition, deliberately sought to undermine their nation while at war. Those very same people, those traitors who stabbed all decent, honest, and honourable Americans and humans in the back by opposing the just war in Vietnam, are still with us today. We do not wish that our present battles in this war should become as Vietnam, bitter defeats redeemed only within the context of history. Rather, we desire victory today. Our enemies in their war are not just “over there”, they are here as well, at home. The most dangerous enemy America faces today is not the al-Qaeda bomber, ready to defend his right to self-detonation. The most dangerous enemy the United States has today are the soldiers of the party of treason right here at home. There is a simple reason for this: the arms and ability possessed by the Islamic world today are so slight that there is no victory that they can win without the assistance of their allies right here, in America. Islamists can kill Americans, but not win the war. The enemy can only win victory by working to break our will and thereby allow the fifth column here at home to take control. The heart of the enemy beats not only within the savage barbarians who would murder us by the millions, but also within the chests of those who would, by design or stupidity, implement policies which would give victory to our enemies. The enemy is not just the terrorist, but the friend of the terrorist: and the terrorists have no greater friend than those who care so much for abortion and buggery that they would wilfully turn control of the nation over to those who would allow the victory of the terrorists. There is a tendency, even amongst my fellow extremists, to distinguish between “loyal” Democrats (like Joe Lieberman) and “disloyal” Democrats (like Dennis Kucinich). But the truth is this: a Democrat is a Democrat, regardless of what adjective is used beside the word. It doesn’t matter whether they elect a peace Democrat on a war platform or a war Democrat on a peace platform, the end effect will be the same: a victory for our enemies. It is the institution, and not the individuals, that matter. The party itself is a disloyal institution which has sought to prostitute itself out to each and every single enemy of America for more than two decades. Patriots want another Vietnam even less than traitors do. We do not wish to, denigrated and insulted, support a desperate holding action whose effect can be seen only in retrospect. We want to defeat the enemies of America now. We want to kill them now. We want to exterminate them altogether. We must now march in unison towards a single goal: the complete and utter evisceration of the enemy. Anything else is a distraction and any opposition to this goal is treason. Saturday, January 24, 2004
Who to Strike Next?
We face many challenges in the War on Terrorism. One of them is maintaining a sense of forward momentum while at the same time not overreaching or overextending our forces. This makes the selection of the first post-Iraq target a difficult task.
Iran is almost certainly out. While it would be technically possible to invade that nation and overthrow the Ayatollahs, doing so would not be practical at the present time because it would require the commitment of virtually all available military resources and would create the danger of a guerrilla war which would span both Iraq and Iran. Additionally, there is a strong possibility that the Iranian government may, in the relatively near future, be toppled from within. Syria makes a tempting target. It is militarily weaker than Iran, and could probably be defeated as easily as Iraq was. However, an invasion of Syria brings with it the risk of extending the guerilla war just as an invasion of Iran does. Moreover, a Syrian invasion brings the risk of drawing the United States directly into the battle in Israel. While I agree that North Korea must, sooner or later, be dealt with: it cannot be dealt with by half-measures and, frankly, I wouldn’t counsel any President to launch a major nuclear attack during an election year. Of course, if the North Koreans were to take further measures to bring about a crisis, it would be an entirely different matter. File this under “maybe.” The Americans perhaps provide the best opportunity for action. We have recently discovered that Cuba provided extensive military intelligence to Iraq before and during the conflict there. So far as I’m concerned, that’s an act of war. If necessary, I’m also quite certain that other causes for war can be found. But communism in Cuba is contained, and will probably die with Castro. While Cuban socialism remains a nuisance, it can probably be dealt with by the means of patience. In any case, Cuba is not the nation most responsible for the renewed spread of communism in this hemisphere, nor is it the nation with the most extensive links to our enemies overseas. That dubious ‘honor’ goes to Venezuela, led by Hugo Chavez. For, while Cuba continues to be active: the money and energy is now there. Frankly, we wouldn’t have this problem if the people who launched a coup against Chavez in 2002 had been sensible enough to kill the guy when the arrested him. But they weren’t, and so here we are. Chavez retains some measure of support among his people. How much exactly, I do not know. People within that country are attempting to recall him, but have yet to be successful. Certainly, by any objective measure, he is opposed by a strong minority, and perhaps even a majority. In any case, action against the Chavez regime in Venezuela would not exactly take the form of a straight invasion. Rather, it would look something like a “Coup-plus”, a well-organized coup supported by American military force, followed by a transition back to democracy. According to his former personal pilot, shortly after September 11th, the Chavez government gave a substantial amount of money to al-Qaeda, disguised as aid to the Afghan people. This is not the only suggestion that Venezuela is aiding terrorism. The former head of the nation’s border-control service says that he was pressured to cover up the identities of “Middle Eastern terrorists” passing through the country and on into the United States. Venezuela is also known to be passing weapons and money on to the communist FARC terrorists in Columbia. The nation has signed alliances with the former Iraqi regime, Libya, and Iran. All in all, it makes the perfect next target. Unlike in many of the other nations we are facing, there is already a large class of people ready to govern the nation after the destruction of a hostile regime. This makes the task of military action far simpler. The Venezuelan military is fairly weak and, in fact, much of it is probably of an anti-Chavez orientation. While it is certain that some percentage of the Armed Forces are pro-Chavez I strongly suspect that, under the pressure of war, they would rapidly be found hanging from every available lamp post and telephone poll. What will be left to deal with then are the various paramilitary forces assembled by the government. These forces could be hopefully dealt with by various means, preferably by indigenous forces. Naturally, it’s also nice that Venezuela has a lot of oil (and, in fact, are the primary oil supplier to the United States in our hemisphere), but that’s decidedly secondary to the removal of a regime that sponsors terror. Also wonderful is the fact that a certain segment of the left has an extreme affection for South and Central American communists which is certainly not shared by the American people as a whole. They would howl very loudly in response to such action, which would further help in exposing their pro-terror and treasonous nature. The time has come to strike against the terrorists again. We’ve hit them in Iraq, we’ve hit them in Afghanistan, and we’ve hit them elsewhere. It’s time to hit them in the Americas as well. Thursday, January 22, 2004
The Judas Legion
The ‘conservatives’ are out to get the President now. Not all of them, to be sure, but enough of them to be worrying. What are they upset about? Broadly, there’s upset about increased Federal spending, the proposed immigration reforms, and a subset of other, decidedly secondary, issues (gay marriage, the PATRIOT Act, etc.). Why are they dangerous? They’re dangerous for the same reason that domestic fifth columnists who have sought to undermine the War on Terror are dangerous: they’re supposed to be on our side, and it’s damn hard to fight a battle with a thousand people seeking to emulate Assan Akhbar hidden in your camp.
Far too many people today are unwilling to make the compromises necessary to get by in political life. There’s a dangerous tendency among conservatives to demand the absolute victory, when such a victory is impossible, and to refuse smaller victories, even when they are. In three years in office, President Bush has waged two successful wars, cut taxes twice, outlawed Partial Birth Abortion, killed the Kyoto Treaty, discarded the ABM treaty, ended the possibility of US participation in the International Criminal Court, forced Libya to surrender it’s WMD programs without firing a shot, conducted the largest government reorganization in fifty years by creating the Department of Homeland Security, announced plans for a Moon base and trip to Mars, begun construction of an anti-ballistic missile shield, captured Saddam Hussein, killed or captured two-thirds of the senior leadership of al-Qaeda, and done countless other smaller things which would take pages to list. Has he done everything that a conservative would want? No, of course he hasn’t. Could he have done everything that conservatives are now demanding? No, he couldn’t have. Come the winter of 2008-2009 (God willing) pundits won’t be talking about how President Bush is “searching for a legacy”, they’ll be debating which of his many legacies is most important. Now, I admit, that I too am concerned about Federal spending. But let’s get serious: what would you have the President do? A President can only do so many things at one time and if he decided to really fight Congress over the budget, as Clinton often did, there would be little room for him to do much more than fight over the budget. Which would you rather have: a slightly lower rate of increase in discretionary spending, or the liberation of Iraq? Because, fundamentally, that’s the choice that you’d be making. During the Second World War, FDR allowed many of his previous New Deal programs to be cut or eliminated (including the Civilian Conservation Corps) in order to gain enough political support to wage the war effectively. In this war, President Bush has clearly made the decision to (temporarily) let Republican mania for budget-cutting fall by the wayside in order to keep together a working coalition with which to wage the war. This is the sort of responsible decision that a statesman has to make from time to time, as painful as it might be. As for the adding of the prescription drug benefit to Medicare: that’s something that was going to be done either way. The fashion in which the Republicans passed it does, eventually, set the way for future privatization. Let’s face it: the American people aren’t going to lose their addiction to universal entitlements without some very careful manoeuvring. Frankly, I’m all for junking Social Security and Medicare- but these are things that cannot be done outright. In fact, the only way I can think of to break these programs is to gradually and deliberately sabotage them. The way to reduce public support for Medicare and Social Security is to reduce the number of people who benefit from them. The way to do this is two-fold. First, higher income will be removed from the rolls by means testing which, of course, will be supported by the population as a whole, who are usually eager for a way to soak the rich. As the opposite end, various programs should be developed (most likely private retirement and medical accounts) which will encourage the young to opt out of the public system. Eventually, people not drawing (and not planning to draw) from these programs will become a majority of the population and these programs will cease to be thought of as entitlements and come to be seen as welfare programs. Thereafter, we will be able to attack and destroy them as though they were conventional welfare state nonsense. But that’s all in the future. For the time being we must face the reality that a prescription drug benefit was going to be passed either way- by one party or the other. Better, I think, to get our version (and the political credit) than to let them have theirs. By passing this, President Bush has done the same thing that President Clinton did when he signed a Welfare Reform bill before the 1996 election: he robbed the other party of a key domestic issue. The conservative rage over the immigration thing is similarly silly. What exactly would they have the President do? A program of deportations, a la the 1950’s era Operation Wetback (sorry, but that was the real name) would be deluged in negative media coverage of the worst sort. We’d get hundreds of emotional, heart-wrenching, stories about poor ‘undocumented workers’ who simply “wanted to have a better life for themselves and their families”, etc. Oh, yes: and we’d end up with Hispanics voting Democrat by the same percentage as blacks do today and that’s about the last thing we need. Another stupid criticism of the President revolves around the myth that the Chief Executive somehow has the power to prevent companies from moving jobs overseas. Frankly, short of nationalizing the companies, I don’t really see what exactly anyone expects the President to do. Seeking to artificially maintain an 20th century industrial economy in the face of the information revolution is every bit as silly as trying to maintain, as some did, an agricultural society in the face of the Industrial Revolution. Of course some jobs are going overseas. But let’s keep things in perspective: the unemployment rate is that below 6%, which used to be the lowest level of unemployment that economists thought was possible without triggering inflation. We’re undergoing economic change here. Now, that isn’t always pretty or fun: but it’s a reality that everyone has to live with. My Grandfather was a commercial fisherman. Had we followed the paths of some families, my father could have then become one, and then I could have become one, and I could be sitting here right now whining about the lack of work for fisherman. But my father didn’t become one because he clearly saw that the future in that industry was less then bright. I hear a lot from men in their mid-thirties who complain of lost manufacturing jobs, and from men in their mid-twenties who used to be computer programmers. This is what I have to say to them: I’m sorry, but your jobs aren’t going to be coming back- ever- and no one can make them come back, no matter what they say. At best, we might be able to bring your jobs back for a year or two by instituting onerous tariffs, but the golden age trigged by these developments would be swiftly interrupted by the Global Depression triggered by the same cause. If you’re going to vote for a Democrat because you think that George W. Bush is responsible for your being laid off- you’re not only a traitor and supporter of al-Qaeda, but stupid as well. The Democrats don’t have a plan to bring your job back, or anyone else’s for that matter. The only jobs that the Democrats will create are jobs for liberal academics who will suddenly find themselves appointed as the Undersecretary of State for Adulterous Affairs and ‘sex educators’ who will be recruited as part of a massive government effort to teach the ins-and-outs of buggery to Kindergarteners. The Democratic jobs plan is a lot like their plan for fighting terrorism: they’re going to talk about it a lot. I can’t think of a single major Democrat who has a plan for creating jobs that extends beyond the level of the need to talk about creating more jobs. The dearly-departed Richard Gephardt (who was suddenly hailed as a statesman, when his failure in the Iowa Caucuses signalled the fact that we’d probably never have to look upon his waxy, Zombie-like face ever again) claimed that zero unemployment is possible and desirable. He didn’t elaborate on that statement, though I’d have liked him to. I know of exactly one system of organization that makes zero unemployment possible and (to the best of my recollection) that peculiar institution is rather explicitly forbidden by the Thirteenth Amendment. As for the gay marriage issue: there are far, far, far more votes (especially for a Republican) in opposition to homosexuality than there are in support of it. Let’s face it: homosexuality isn’t going to be outlawed any time soon. It would be much better (from the perspective of homosexuals) for them to be represented within the Republican coalition than outside of it, for this very reason. So long as the Log Cabin Republicans and people like Andrew Sullivan remain faithful and loyal supporters, there is every reason to listen to and respect their views. But, if they wish to oppose the President, then they can go straight to Hell, so far as I’m concerned. Freed of the need to cater to the homosexual minority in the Republican Party, we shall be free to truly demagogue on the issue and use it to divide and destroy the Democratic Party as well as to purge coward moderates and liberals from the Republican Party. Running a full-throated campaign against gay marriage, with a general overtone of disapproval towards homosexuality, will bring a chorus of approval from a large part of the nation. In the areas where it will bring a real backlash, well, we weren’t going to win there anyways. Once we’ve got control of the Federal Government, we can punish those areas (and their politicians) by systematically stripping them of every single dollar in Federal money. That’s what many of these opponents fail to recognize and understand: we’re playing for big stakes here. The little wins that we are accumulating are all in the service of the ultimate goals to which many of them profess to be devoted. By increasing the Republican base and working to bring about the final destruction of the Democratic Party, we are doing the Lord’s work of bringing about a real victory for the right in America. We will convince people to hand us power, and then we shall make a truly effectual use of that power. In the interim, it’s long past time for all conservatives and Republicans to shut up and unite behind the President. Wednesday, January 21, 2004
The Transformation of the American Political Scene
We are witnessing a transformation of the American political scene unlike any other in memory. The Democratic Party is moving towards a well-deserved death, and the Republican Party is moving towards ‘majority party’ status. For the next decade or so, the Republican coalition will be held together by the crisis of the War on Terrorism. When it is over, I expect that we will have two parties in American again, but that these parties will be ideologically unlike those we know today.
Two ideologies are dying in America: Leftism and Social Conservatism. I say that is a committed social conservative, and I say it in sorrow. Traditional, Pat Buchanan-style social conservatism will dead in America within twenty years. Leftist statism, like that of Ted Kennedy and the other aging grandees of the Democratic Party, will die with its leaders. This means that, in the future America, there will probably be a broad economic consensus behind free markets. In the back of the minds of much of the present-day left-wing of the Democratic Party lurks hostility towards capitalism and the profit motive. This is largely missing among the young (the protests of the anti-WTO crowd notwithstanding). So what will that leave us with? We will be left with ‘social conservatives’ who look broadly like conservative-leaning libertarians today (think of Andrew Sullivan, at least before he started celebrating the virtues of promiscuous sex) and ‘social liberals’ whose ideas are wild even by the standards of today. The social ‘conservatives’ of the future will probably accept homosexuality without the blink of an eye. Instead, they’ll be railing against new social evils: polygamy, a slip in the accepted age of consent, and other things along those lines. The Republican Party of the future will, superficially, look like the Democratic Party of the mid-20th century. This, however, is not the best comparison. Rather, it will be something more of a return to the Whig roots of Republicanism, to Henry Clay’s “National System”. The Republicans will not be, exactly, the party of ‘big government’ so much as the party of ‘big-thinking government’. Over time (and with rising expenses) support for massive social programs will fall and then evaporate, as the payees come to vastly outnumber those being paid. Instead, Republicans will be the party of what, for lack of a better term, I might call ‘internal improvements’. They’ll want government funded space exploration (and, probably sooner than you think, colonization). This is much the long-term direction that President Bush is taking government in now. Republicans, in other words, will be the party of Alexander Hamilton. Republicans will be the party of humanitarian Empire. Even decades from now, small groups will be stationed across the globe for various reasons. Republicans will, in the fashion of many British imperialists, seek to use that power to better the people whom they must guard. Look for a lot of ‘big projects’, like President Bush’s AIDS initiative. Finally, Republicans will be the party of immigrants. This is clearly the long-term goal of Karl Rove and others and, I believe, they will eventually pull it off. Similarly, look for a return of blacks to Republican ranks, though not to the extent that they support Democrats today. Over the course of a generation or two, under changed conditions, I expect it to be a rather easy sell. Look for a lot of “party of Lincoln” talk. The second party will be the more ‘conservative’ of the two. It will be something of a fusion between libertarianism and present-day conservatism. It will be, for lack of a better term, the “party of no.” It will be hostile to government programs, hostile towards (or uncertain about) the Empire, and broadly opposed to immigration. Naturally, it will be a minority party, but it will help to keep the Republicans honest, and manage to win from time to time. It would not shock me if, eventually, these people even ended up under the ‘Democratic’ banner. Fragments of the left and the old right will remain, but they will be isolated and probably hold no more than a few scattered offices across the country. Eventually, most of our old battles will be washed away by demographics. The young, however many of us feel, is largely accepting of homosexuality. Eventually, therefore, gayness will be totally mainstream. The young are broadly pro-choice, but secure enough in that position to avoid the pro-abortion extremism of the present age. Abortion will be available, but more restricted than it is today. Reasonable anti-abortion measures will not be opposed when the fear that abortion altogether will be outlawed disappears. Disputes over biotechnology will all be settled in favor of further development. Aside from a small faction, this generation is the most pro-technology in history, and growing more so with time. While disputes over genetically-modified food will continue in Europe, they will be almost unknown in America. Racial issues in America will be almost meaningless within a few decades. As young minorities replace the old, affirmative action will gradually fade from memory. So, probably, will the Confederate flag. The biggest challenge to all of this will come with the great medical/pension crisis of the next few decades. Baby Boomers will devise big government solutions to their problems. I expect that they will seek to bail out Social Security by seizing the assets of private pension funds and retirement accounts. Social Security will be expanded into a National Pension, which encompasses all other pensions. This idea should surface some time around the year 2015, when the Baby Boomers really begin retiring in earnest, and I think that we’ll probably fight at least one Presidential election over the issue (or something like that). Look for that to be some time after 2020. Naturally, I could well be entirely wrong. If pundits can’t get what’ll happen in an election a week away right, why should we be able to get what will happen in twenty years right? But it’s worth talking about. The reality of demographic change presses the matter on us all. Our politics are changing. I do not entirely welcome this, but we must come to deal with it and plan for the future. Drudge Must Have Something on Edwards...
There's a rather cryptic message about John Edwards on the Drudge site. I don't recall anything like that on his site ever before.
Let Them Starve
Reading the new issue of The Atlantic Monthly, I was once again confronted with the stark truth of the financial crisis that faces much of the West in the years ahead. According to some estimates, the cost of Medicare and Social Security over the long term, will amount to $45.5 trillion. That’s trillion, as in one million times forty-five and a half million dollars. In order to meet this burden, by 2075, Federal spending would have to grow from 19.5% of GDP to 39.7%. In short, the present Social Security system, as well as Medicare, is totally unaffordable.
Few people want to face the realities of what this really means. The abstract way in which we plan for this impending disaster often reminds me of how, during the Cold War, military planning exercises would occasionally uncover disasters so seemingly unstoppable that the planners would respond by simply refusing to think any further about the problem. The reason why we face this problem is simple. We designed these programs when people lived, on average, to less than seventy and when there were far more working than retired people. Moreover, at the time we came up with this stuff, medical care was far less expensive than it is today. Advocates of universal health care often remark on how “everyone deserves the best health care available”. While that sentiment might be noble in theory, it is impossible in fact. For all of our rhetoric, there must be a natural limit as to exactly how much we are willing to pay for health care. Given the wide variety of medical treatment available today, if we decided to actually give everyone the best care possible, we could easily end up spending half of everything we reproduce on medical care. Because seniors use far more health care than anybody else, most of these expenditures would be made with little material return. From a monetary point of view, we’d be (and are) spending vast amounts of money to keep people alive for the sole purpose of allowing us to lavish more money and benefits upon them. As the Baby Boomers pass into retirement and old age, they will expect us, the young, to pay for them. Frankly, I’m at a loss as to why I ought to. If we still get to retire as sixty-five by the time I get to retire, we’ll be close to half-way through the twenty-first century. I don’t expect to be seeing much in terms of government largesse. Why should I pay for Baby Boomers who don’t want to care for themselves? The Baby Boomers are responsible for almost all of the problems that we have in society today. It is they who have created the moral sewer in which we live. It is they who have promoted abortion, homosexuality, and other deviant practices. It is they who worked to undermine the valiant American effort in Vietnam and are working to undermine our cause in Iraq today. Why should we go bankrupt for their sake? Sorry
To those of you who were arguing in the comments section. I've switched my comments software in the hopes of keeping things stable.
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Now there's what I'm talking about
Here's what I'd use for my space-based weapons.
The Fall of a Nation
Canada was a great country once, or so I am told. I don’t remember when it was, but there are still some others living who do. I was born after the start of the decline, after the rise of Trudeau and all the rest of it. There are lessons here for the surviving defenders of the West: you too will suffer the same fate as this country if you are not careful.
This is Canada today: if things go the way they appear to be going then in the next election we will be left with the following choices: a liberal (Belinda Stronach), a liberal Liberal (Paul Martin), and a really liberal liberal (Jack Layton). The candidacy of Belinda Stronach for the leadership of the Conservative Party (and her apparent status as the front-runner) is enough to make any moral conservative sick. Many conservatives, even normally sane ones, will probably support Stronach on the grounds that she “can win”. This is what we’ve come to. We’re so desperate to win that we’re willing to nominate a woman who supports gay marriage, is pro choice, supports throwing more money into the sinkhole of nationalized health care, and the rest of whose political positions are generally indistinguishable from those of our esteemed Prime Minister. Insofar as I can tell, Ms. Stronach’s principal qualifications for the job are as follows: she was born to the right parents and she’s pretty. I hate to point out the latter, but it’s inescapable. The thirty-seven year old Stronach is indeed a looker. This, from what I’ve seen, is supposed to be her main selling point. “Sure,” her supporters say, “her political positions are indistinguishable from those of the people we’re supposed to be defeating, but she’s REALLY HOT!” If this woman is qualified to be Prime Minister of Canada, then Paris Hilton ought to be the next Governor of California. After all, she’s also a rich heiress who is moderately attractive and has spent a lot of time in the news as of late. There’s also the Clinton issue. Oh, yes. Ms. Stronach is a Friend of Bill. Perhaps more than a friend. I don’t really know, though there have been rumors. Frankly, I think that most nations ought to prefer a leader who, at the very minimum, we can be assured, beyond a shadow of a doubt, has not had sexual relations with William Jefferson Clinton. I’m a member of the Conservative Party. In the past I’ve given my time and money to the Canadian Alliance and, at the present time, I fully intend to do so in the future. But, if this woman is elected as the Party Leader, I will not only cease giving any support of any kind whatsoever to the Conservative Party, but I will reluctantly cast my vote for the Liberals. If one must see your home country destroyed altogether, better to have your enemies do it than have it done by people who are supposed to be your friends. A party which elects such a woman as leader is a party that is unworthy of the support of principled and morally decent people. Despite the likelihood that support for Stephen Harper (who I should tell you, in the interests of full disclosure, I plan to vote for) will be strong among the former members of the Canadian Alliance, it remains possible that Stronach could win, even with a minority of the vote. This is because the leader will not be elected on the principle of “one man, one vote”. Rather, the leader will be elected by a complicated system which accords all ridings equality. This means that an Albertan riding, with five hundred voting members, would have the same weight as a Quebec riding with ten. In other words, the election could be thrown to Stronach by a number of ‘rotten boroughs’ in the East, where Conservative membership is light. This does not mean that I regret my support for the merger. Without it, we were going to be killed in the next election. But, as I said at the time, I’m going into this with clear eyes. I, for one, will not accept a party which seeks to bind conservative to the collection of pathetic socialist platitudes which are laughably labeled ‘Canadian values’. There isn’t much time left to save this country. Frankly, unless we make a real comeback in this election, I think that this country is done. This is worth a fight, but we ought not let that blind us to the bigger goal. If we don’t succeed, then let’s secede. Monday, January 19, 2004
Ka-Boom!
Iowa’s Democrats blew up the Presidential race tonight. Forget everything that you thought you know, forget everything that the media said, this is now, as General MacArthur said after the Chinese intervened in Korea, an entirely different war. Contrary to months of assurances, Dean did not have Iowa wrapped up. The Deaniac legions which invaded Iowa have been crushed as thoroughly as those that the Romans marched into Teutoburg Forest. I would not be at all surprised if the post-midnight hours find a drunken Governor Dr. Howard Brush Dean III raging against Varus.
Now, this doesn’t mean that Dean is done. Not yet, at least. He’s got far too much money for that. At this point it is possible that Clark, Dean, Edwards, or Kerry could win the nomination. Within a few days, polls in New Hampshire (which already showed Kerry clawing his way into second place) will probably show the French-looking Senator in the lead. Edwards will probably hit about fifteen to twenty percent, Clark a little under twenty, and Dean about twenty-five. I suspect Dean might well pull out a victory in New Hampshire because he has the money. Look for him to pour it into the state: after all, he raised it to spend it. Anyone who tells you that they can see what will happen next is a liar. This campaign is going to be chaotic and confused through, at the very least, New Hampshire. Tonight knocked Dick Gephardt out. Now, in the next few weeks, we have two more ‘must win’ primaries for other candidates. In order to win the nomination, I think, Howard Dean must win in New Hampshire and John Edwards must win in South Carolina. Wesley Clark and John Kerry will be alright so long as the perform within expectations. A Dean who fails to win in New Hampshire is finished, even if he is unwilling to initially admit it. The one lie we’re going to hear a lot in the next few days is this, “afraid of choosing someone who was seen as unelectable (Dean) Iowa Democrats opted for electable moderates.” Those of us who care about America need to begin fighting this lie right away. I’d bet good money that a majority of Americans will have never even heard of John Kerry or John Edwards before tonight. The next little while will heavily help to shape how the public thinks of them. If John Kerry gets branded as a “heroic Vietnam veteran” and John Edwards gets branded as a “Grisham-esque crusading lawyer” we’re going to have a much harder time of things than if John Kerry gets branded as a “ultra-liberal from Massachusetts who enjoys marrying for money” and John Edwards gets branded as an “ambulance-chasing shyster”. Real patriots need to start smearing these left-wing douchebags before the media gets a chance to begin playing up their “good” qualities. Of the four still-viable candidates, who would we most like to run against? How will we fight them? John F. Kerry, of course, is an individual with treasonous tendencies and a voting record roughly equivalent to that of Ted Kennedy. Yes, I’m aware that Senator Kerry is a Vietnam veteran with a distinguished combat record. That doesn’t change the facts of what came afterwards. John Kerry may have fought well in Vietnam but, the moment he got home, he dedicated himself to fighting equally hard against his former comrades. He was the founder of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, one of the leading disloyal groups of that day. He was a leader of the ultimately successful efforts to dishonor the sacrifice made by America in Vietnam and to rob the South Vietnamese people of their freedom. Never forget that. He might have served in combat, but so did Benedict Arnold. The primary difference between the two, based upon Kerry’s history of opportunism, is that the North Vietnamese lacked the capacity to satisfy Kerry’s ambitions with offers of a General’s commission and titles. We must never forget this. 55,000 Americans died in the defense of freedom and John Kerry helped lead the effort to betray them and render that sacrifice worthless. And why did he do this? Simply to satisfy his own ambitions. In fact, Kerry actually left the Navy early to run for Congress on an extreme left-wing platform that included a plan to, “eliminate CIA activity” and ensure that American troops are only, “dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.” He proceeded to marry well, marrying a very rich woman. Eventually he divorced her and married a very, very, very rich (and older) woman. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Kerry is something of a male gold-digger. He’s always had his eye on the prize. When he graduated from Yale he delivered a speech in which he attacked US foreign policy. When he sought to run for Congress a second time, in 1972, he lived in three different districts in two months, looking for somewhere he could win (he lost). Eventually he ended up getting himself elected as Michael Dukakis’ Lieutenant Governor and then to the US Senate, where he consistently aligned himself with the gathering shadows of treason and subversion. He was against the first Gulf War, he was for a nuclear freeze, and remains opposed to all restrictions whatsoever on abortion. He’s a man who, despite his recent claims to the contrary, has never seen a tax he wouldn’t like to raise. He’s also opposed to the death penalty and was a supporter of the infamous Massachusetts furlough program which let Willie Horton out of jail to brutally rape a woman. The Breck girl, Senator John Edwards (Handsome-North Carolina), on the other hand, is hard to criticize for anything he’s done in public life, because he’s done nothing in public life except shill for his fellow ambulance-chasers and lay the groundwork for a Presidential run. Entrance polls from Iowa showed that he held a strong lead among women. This, insofar as I can tell, is due more to his looks than to any other factor. Frankly, this is the main danger in letting women vote. It would be a danger for men as well, were it not generally the case that more female politicians look like Bea Arthur than Britney Spears. Edwards is the dangerous one, I think, if we let the media give him a nice write up. We cannot ever let anyone forget that he’s a parasite, a scumbag lawyer who made his money chasing after personal injuries. At heart, he’s no different than all of those lawyers who advertise on TV at 2AM promising to get you a better settlement out of that car crash. We can, if we attack with sufficient audacity, turn Edwards’ image against him. He’s all style and no substance. Beneath everything, he’s a far-left liberal. Pro-abortion, pro-gay, and everything else that goes with it. Edwards will be harder to run against for the simple reason that, unlike many of the other candidates, he’s not obviously insane. A campaign against Edwards will be tough, and probably have to be fought on the issues. Luckily for us, Edwards remains a dark horse. Wesley Clark, the third viable candidate, will probably fight Edwards for the nomination all across the South. Clark has more money than Edwards, a stronger base of support, and more endorsements. If Edwards cannot follow up this win with wins elsewhere in the South in the next few weeks, he’ll be finished. He might well be a possibility for the Vice Presidency, but Vice Presidential picks only matter at the margins. For this reason, Republicans in the South ought to get out and vote for the worst candidate with the best chance of winning. In most cases this will be either Dean or Clark. All things considered, I think that we’d rather face Howard Dean than Wesley Clark, and rather Wesley Clark than John Edwards. And, what of General Clark? A large percentage of Democrats seem to be convinced that, simply because he’s a General, Clark will be invulnerable on national security issues. In fact, nothing is further from the truth: if the Democratic nominee is Clark, the campaign will focus in on military and security issues even more than it would otherwise. Clark, in fact, is strong on national security on the outside and weak on the inside. Clark, it must be remembered, was fired from his job (or, to be exact, forced into early retirement under threat of firing) as Supreme Allied Commander Europe for what his boss at the time, General Hugh Shelton, described as, “integrity and character issues.” Think about that one for a second. In American history there have been two fired Generals who harboured Presidential ambitions: George McClellan and Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur was a national hero- one of the victors of the Second World War- who was fired over a legitimate military disagreement in which most of the American people took his side. He returned home to one of the largest parades in American history and gave a speech before a Joint Session of Congress that is remembered and quoted to this very day. McClellan lead the Union Army through about a year of war, organizing it for victory, before being fired as a result of his timidity and constant refusal to engage Southern forces which he claimed (bizarrely) to be vastly numerically superior to his own. In any case, neither became President (with McClellan being soundly defeated by Lincoln) and both were national heroes who, at the least, could claim some real military accomplishments. The theory behind the candidacy of General Wesley Clark seems to be that he American people are so stupid that they’ll assume that any man who gets to wear four stars must be competent. This theory is… not borne out by American history. The only war that Clark commanded was the seventy-eight day fiasco in Kosovo, where the military power of the United States proved largely impotent against the might of Serbia and the air campaign was partially undermined because at least one French officer (apparently on the orders of the French government) was passing military secrets on to the Serbs. Why exactly General Clark would support the concept of fighting a war only with our European ‘allies’ alongside after he went through is somewhat mystifying. In Kosovo the United States did virtually all of the fighting (with, naturally, a little help from the British) while America’s European ‘partners’ found and used various methods of obstruction. In fact, in his first book, Waging Modern War, Clark came off as somewhat hostile to the senseless concept (which he now heartily endorses) of waging war by committee. In fact, by most accounts, one cannot find a single senior officer who liked General Clark. Most, it would seem, were of the opinion that he would never have achieved four-star rank were it not for the intervention of the Clinton White House. Most felt that he was a chameleon, what Colonel David Hackworth calls a ‘perfumed prince’, a politician in uniform. Clark does not scare me. As for the Mayor of Vermont- I’m now praying for him to win. His speech tonight was… something. I’ve made the case against Dean elsewhere, so I’ll be brief here: that fellow ain’t right in the head. Seriously. We cannot let up in the struggle for the American future, this contest in defense of our heritage of liberty. We must never keep in mind what we are really fighting for. If a Democrat wins in November, than al-Qaeda wins the war, and millions of Americans will eventually die as a result. President Bush is the main enemy of the Islamists just as Osama Bin Laden is the main enemy of America. A vote for anyone other than President Bush, then, is a vote for al-Qaeda. We cannot forget this, and we cannot let anyone who would even contemplate the act forget it either. The battle rages on all fronts, and we must be prepared to take and support all necessary measures. Sunday, January 18, 2004
Time to Confront China
In the long term, the People’s Republic of China is a much greater threat to the United States than Islam. This is because the terrorists have only one means by which to beat America and the West: violence. We can meet violence reciprocally. China, however, seems to take the long view. They mean to beat the United States, to become a greater power, by peaceful competition. This is intolerable and cannot be allowed to come to pass, however high the ultimate cost may be.
China, with about 1.2 billion people, a growing economy, and increasing military power, is destined to become a Superpower unless someone stops it. All things being equal, the Chinese economy will catch the American one some time during the third decade of this century. Chinese military power, at least within Asia, will be superior much quicker than that. In a few decades China’s power-projection capabilities will probably equal those of the United States. Due to China’s system of government, its actual ability to use power will probably be stronger than that of the United States. We must declare it openly that it is totally unacceptable that any power other than the United States be a superpower. We must understand that any world system not ruled by the United States, especially one ruled by China, will not be one worth living in. We must know that it is worth dying, and killing, to prevent the Chinese ascent. The rise of China to leader of the world would mean the probable end of Western Civilization and, certainly, the end of human progress as we have known it. It would be the end of our three-thousand year heritage of liberty and the birth of a new, foreign age. The day when a foreign nation comes to be the ruler of the world will be the day on which this world ceases to be worth living in. Any unified and dynamic Chinese polity is, over the long term, destined to power. Therefore, we must seek a solution in China’s past: warlordism. Even today, beneath the surface, there are major regional differences within China. Our ultimate goal, then, should be to see the present Chinese nation partitioned into a half-dozen or so mutually-hostile and preferably perpetually-warring states. This would lead to a great expenditure of Chinese resources: financial, natural, and human, in vicious internal conflicts, which would gradually suck the dynamism and strength of the nation. This strategy begins with five areas that are already evident, but then expands into others. First, Taiwan must be defended and held at all costs. While it is true that, as a general rule, nuclear proliferation is a bad idea, I do not believe it to be so in this case. A nuclear-armed Republic of China would drive the People’s Republic crazy and would be largely invulnerable to attack. Moreover, it could be used as a base for other forms of subversion. Even if a fanatical Chinese government were to ever come to power and determine to seize Formosa, it could not do so without paying a terrible price. Second, extensive aid should be given to pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, including money and, possibly, weapons to more radical groups. This is not so much because I am interested in bringing about democracy in China (which I, for one, believe to be largely impossible), but because I hope to provoke the Chinese government into acting against the activists. What happened at Tiananmen Square probably set back the Chinese efforts at being fully accepted into the international community by at least a decade. Imagine what those same activists could do with a few hundred million dollars in covertly-supplied money. Third, extensive aid should be supplied to the followers of Falun Gong. Again, I have no great love for the followers of this ‘religion’, there’s a group of them who line up every morning in the park I walk thought and, quite frankly, I think that they’re little more than another weirdo pseudo-cult. However, they are clearly a powerful force within China itself and aid to them is bound to increase social disorder and alienation from the government. Fourth, China’s large and growing Christian population should be funded and encouraged to geographically concentrate in areas of potential future value, especially those accessible from the coasts. This will allow these people to provide the nucleus of future pro-Western states in a divided China. Also, an increase in Christianity is likely to provoke an increase in the persecution of Christians which is likely to raise anti-Chinese sentiment in the West. Fifth, extremely covert efforts should be made, through the use of agents placed within Islamist groups, to direct some of the fury of Islam against China. Ideally, with proper encouragement, Moslems in Western China might be incited to launch several terror attacks which, in turn, would hopefully lead to a crackdown on Moslems within China which, finally, would cause al-Qaeda and similar groups to fully add China to its enemies list. After all, while killing the enemies of America is a wonderful thing, getting the enemies of America to kill eachother is truly the Lord’s work. Naturally, if we are to truly break Chinese power, much more will have to be done. Cyber-attacks of China’s emerging electronic infrastructure would, I suspect, have a very strong effect. So might other forms of economic sabotage. Additionally, links will also have to be forged with various malcontent groups in various regions. Of course, we will have to be prepared for economic retaliation. However, at this point such moves would hurt China just as much as it would hurt the United States. If anything, over the long term, China would lose far more in losing access to American markets than vice versa. Military retaliation is also a possible, but less likely, possibility. A firm show of American resolve to confront China should help to curb this. Perhaps the United States could, in concert with some of the other claimants, seize the Spratly Islands. Naturally, this would probably not be an out-and-out US military operation. It would be better to equip Taiwan (who claims the Islands in full as well) to evict the five hundred or so Chinese soldiers stationed on the various little rocks. Presumably this would be done after Taiwan becomes a declared nuclear power under some sort of deal whereby a large percentage of the revenues from the islands (which are believed to have massive oil and gas deposits) would flow to the United States. Some will level various accusations at me for putting forward this plan. Let them. I am fully willing to admit that I consider any outcome which sees the United States cease to be the sole superpower in the world are unacceptable: morally, politically, and militarily. American power is, and must be, eternal. We cannot lose it unless we lack the resolve to keep it. It is America, and only America, that can lead humanity into the stars and its next stage of evolution. It is only America that can carry forward those great traditions of the West, our peculiar heritage, onto eternity. So many have sacrificed and died, that we might be where we are today. Do we truly wish to throw away all of that? Better to die a thousand deaths than to consent to live in such a world. Comments
They're back and I mean to keep them, unless against they cause the site to slow to a crawl.
Saturday, January 17, 2004
Reflections on the Eve of Battle
We’re a little more than a day away from the true beginning of the Democratic Primary Season. Every candidate is marshalling his forces for the attack. They will march at dawn. Frankly anyone who says now that they know how the events of the next few days will unfold is a liar. Everyone has plans for battle, but no such plan survives the first contact with the enemy.
The campaign season to date has led me to two unshakeable conclusions. First, the Democrat Party is a thoroughly diseased and debased institution, one which cannot even command the loyalty of most of its own supposed members. The only thing holding it together today is hatred of President Bush and, quite frankly, even that isn’t working very well. The Democrats are torn asunder by two factions: a ‘moderate’, DLC, faction which is mostly fond of America and another Copperhead faction which actively hates America. More on this later. The second conclusion I have come to is this: Dr. Howard Brush Dean III, the Mayor of Vermont, is totally unfit to be the President of the United States. Forget politics for a second. Anyone who is even vaguely familiar with me knows that I hate Howard Dean and would like nothing more than to see him win the nomination in a bruising fight and then lose to President Bush in a McGovernesque landslide come November. But the health of the Republic is something that, for me at least, transcends politics. Dr. Dean is, by his own account, mentally unfit to occupy the supreme executive office in the land. This must be of the utmost concern to anyone concerned with the nation. In an interview with People Magazine, Dean admitted that, upon hearing the news that the Governor of Vermont had died and that he was now Governor, he began hyperventilating and suffered an anxiety attack. According to anxities.com, a web site which caters to people with anxiety disorders, a panic attack’s symptoms can include, “increased heart rate, dizziness or lightheadedness, shortness of breath, inability to concentrate, and confusion.” Moreover, by many accounts, people who have panic attacks are prone to suffer recurrences of such attacks. Dean says that the attack occurred because, “To suddenly get told that you have responsibility for 600,000 people — it provokes a little anxiety.” Think about that for a second. If this man had an anxiety attack on being told that he had responsibility for 600,000 people, then how on Earth is he ever going to be response for three hundred million people? Think about it folks. Put that good of your country above faction. We live in a dangerous world. ICBM’s can reach this country from another in just a few short minutes. What happens on the day when missiles are flying, the Secret Service is rushing the President onto the National Emergency Airborne Command Post and the Secretary of Defense says, “Mr. President, the first nukes will land on American soil in fifteen minutes”? What happens if the President suffers from hyperventilation and confusion then? Go back to 9-11. Remember the moment when, in that Florida classroom, Andy Card stepped up to President Bush and told him that a second plane had hit the second tower, that America was under attack. How would the world have reacted had President Bush responded to that news by going into convulsions? When Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, Harry Truman was hastily called to the White House, where Eleanor Roosevelt gave him the news. Think about that. In the middle of a global war, the most terrible war in the entire history of the world, Harry S. Truman of Missouri is called in and informed that he is now the most powerful man in the world. How did he respond? By taking command, and taking charge. We don’t demand perfection of our leaders, but we must demand that they not respond to a crisis by passing into an incoherent state. Don’t get me wrong here. I don’t like the rest of the Democrats running for President either, in fact, I hate them. But that doesn’t mean that I’m so crazy that I would prefer to give that man even a chance at the White House simply to keep, say, John Kerry, out of it. Forget policy differences for the moment. After all, even if the worst-case scenario were to come to pass, there’d still be enough Republicans in Congress to keep even say, Al Sharpton from doing something totally insane. We’re talking about a man who is simply unfit to be President due to his temperament and psychological state. When I read about Dean’s “you sit down” outburst in Iowa last week (where he yelled at a man to sit down, after he asked a hostile question) I didn’t think much of it. I’ve been at enough political meetings to know that there are often questioners who are out to make themselves the focus of the meeting. But then I saw the video of the incident. It wasn’t a playful comment, or even a merely firm one: it was one born of fury. I ran for School Board once and had to sit though about twenty Town Hall meetings. I’ve been through a half-dozen or so other campaigns, and I’ve never seen a politician: even some sixth-rate amateur running for City Council is some seventh-rate town, really explode the way Dean did in response to such a relatively innocuous question. Dean wasn’t politicking there: he was really angry and just couldn’t control himself. Altogether, what I’ve observed of Dean over the months suggests to me that he isn’t ready for prime time. After all, there are about thirty Mayors in the United States who are in charge of more people than Dean was as Governor of Vermont. The last Mayor to seek to make a serious run for the Presidency was John Lindsay in 1972, and he was at least the Mayor of New York City. In fact, I would argue that even Dennis Kucinich had a far more difficult job as the Mayor of Cleveland than Dean had as Governor of Vermont. If the Democratic Party is to have any hope of survival, it needs to take this chance to purge the modern Copperheads from its ranks. They are a cancer eating away at flesh of a once-proud institution. While this contagion takes many forms, the largest body of them is the Dean faction (though more and more of them seem to now be spreading to other campaigns as even some of the rats begin to wise up and flee the S.S. Dean). Howard Dean did not create these people. In fact, in a very real sense, they created Howard Dean. The rise of the Mayor of Vermont is not due to the fact that he has any spectacular appeal, it’s due to the fact that the MoveOn.org crowd had to have someone run for President on their behalf, and Dennis Kucinich, what with the bankrupting of Cleveland, the ‘Department of Peace’, his Vegan diet, and all the rest of it was just a little to wacky for them. So the turned to the little-known former Governor of Vermont who, lacking the handicap of having served in Congress, seemed easy to reshape and refashion. Plus, of course, there was the gay unions thing as well. A little-discussed fact is the high percentage of activist liberals who are homosexuals. This, I am certain, was a major factor in the crowning of Dean. Deep down the MoveOn types are filled with a deep loathing for America and Americans. They hate Christianity and they hate the flag. If you talk to them one-on-one over a few drinks, they’re usually honest enough to admit to you that they think America “got what it deserved” on 9-11 or that, alternately, the Bush Administration was somehow complicit in the attacks. One of the greatest dangers of internet politics is the mainstreaming of conspiracy-theorizing, previously limited to the lunatic fringe. A visit to mainstream Democratic web sites today will find countless people ready to swear to the existence of the sort of vast covert plots which were once the near-exclusive domain of Lyndon Larouche and the John Birch Society. This is true on the right as well (or at least was true during the Clinton years) but it was never quite so widespread. After all, no Republican Presidential candidate every suggested that the “Clinton Death List” was an “interesting theory.” Ann Coulter is fond of saying that, if the American people knew what liberals really believe, they would want to boil them in oil. That’s closer to the truth than what most of the far-left these days believes which is, namely, that if the American people knew what liberals believed they would respond by launching a revolution and declaring America a people’s state. Because the far-left is convinced that their beliefs are not only correct, but potentially popular as well, they therefore have come to the conclusion that they thing keeping them down is a conspiracy so vast that is dwarfs the one depicted in the X-Files. They think that the George W. Bush (who is simultaneously dumber than a Chimp and the evil leader of a world-wide cabal) is assassinating political opponents (notably Mel Carnahan and Paul Wellstone) staged the 9-11 attacks, and it behind all sorts of other miscellaneous acts of evil (such as triggering the recent Earthquake in Iran). Because these people are the ones with the energy, they are controlling the Democratic campaign. If given the chance these people will cripple American power and sign the world over to the Chinese. They will end the War on Terror and, in so doing, doom millions of Americans to die in future terrorist attacks and consign hundreds of millions of others to a life of abuse and servitude under increasingly-powerful Islamist regimes. They will assist in the renewed rise of communism in South America and inflict countless other evils upon the human race. I believe that all of this will happen if, by some chance, Howard Dean is allowed to become President because, having secured his election by the support of such people, he will find it impossible to shake free of their grasp. In the Civil War, Copperheads were not necessarily in favor of the South or slavery, they just weren’t in favor of doing anything about them (or to save the Union either). These new Copperheads have no love of Islamists (except so far as they hurt their enemies, Americans and Jews), but they aren’t interested in doing much about them either. I do not suggest that a Dean Administration would bring about the disasters outlined above by action, but by inaction. Now if the time for loyal Democrats, those people who, in the words of Joe McCarthy, are “without a party” to take back what is rightfully theirs. A Democratic Party that once more becomes the party of Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and, hell, even Hubert Humphrey and Lyndon Johnson, is not one that I would vote for but, at the least, one I would respect. Think about all of this, as the days roll inexorably forward. America needs a two-party system to be strong. One party government is, inevitably, corrupt and corrupting. But, given the choice between corruption and treason I, and many others, will choose the former. Mark my words; it will happen one way or another. Either the present-day Democratic Party will revive in a new, patriotic, form or it will die and, eventually, the Republicans will faction- in all probability along conservative-moderate lines. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party. This Man is Unfit to be President
Howard Dean had a panic attack when he found out that he'd become Governor of Vermont? Yeah, he's the one we want as President alright. What the hell would he do if their was a nuclear attack? Or even a 9-11 style attack?
Forget politics: the man is simply unfit to be President. Friday, January 16, 2004
The Fall of Howard Dean
If only he’d kept his mouth shut a little bit longer. Back on December 12th (before, even, the capture of Saddam Hussein) I noted the fact that Dean was seemingly unable to, despite half a year of fawning publicity, break 25% in national polls of Democrats and predicted that Dean was about to follow the course of John McCain, Gary Hart, and all those other highly-heralded candidates who seemingly come out of nowhere and then fade as fast as they rose. Had Dean won the nomination, the general election campaign would have been an awful lot of fun. I suppose that Democrats have begun to see that as well. They might agree with his stances but, looking at some of his gaffes, they must have nightmares about what Governor Dr. Howard Brush Dean III, Democratic nominee for President of the United States, might let slip on October 20th.
The only way for Dean to win the nomination was going to be for him to win Iowa, ride that to a huge win in New Hampshire, then win at least half of the February 3rd Primaries as a way of proving his national viability. As things stand today, it doesn’t look like he’s going to take Iowa and his lead in New Hampshire appears to be in extreme danger. In fact, as things stand today, the Democratic field looks to be almost back at the beginning. I can see Wesley Clark winning the nomination, I can see John Kerry winning the nomination, I can see Dick Gephardt winning the nomination, and I can even see John Edwards winning the nomination. Some of these scenarios, of course, are more likely than others: but all remain plausible to some degree. It is equally plausible that the Primaries might not leave anyone as the nominee. This is, to put it mildly, a Republican dream. It is already quite clear to me that any nominee other than Dean is going to have a hard time bringing onboard Dean’s supporters. Moreover, Dean has the money, temperament, and base to wage a bloody fight, even if his hopes for a knock-out win are shattered over the next ten days. One of the things that makes this campaign so interesting is the ability of the internet to tell us what the core supporters of various candidates are saying. This is true, most of all, of Howard Dean. The machine that has lifted him into power isn’t capable of stopping on a dime. If Dean, as I now expect, loses in Iowa (and perhaps even New Hampshire) his supporters will not accept this as the honest verdict of the people. Rather, they will attribute any such loss to sinister conspiracies, media bias, and various other forms of malfeasance. What we are looking at now is, at the very minimum, a month-long Democratic Götterdämmerung, an apocalyptic battle of epic proportions. If you think that the campaign has gotten negative now, wait until Howard Dean is down five points in California on the eve of the primary there. His followers’ cult-like devotion will be well-tested in the months ahead. Frankly, I now wish that we hadn’t gone after Dean so much as we did. I’m still hoping, against all hope, that Dean will be the Democratic nominee. Bush would probably have won 65% of the vote, up against the guy. It was actually Dean’s rise that was also his undoing. The Clinton Wing of the Democratic Party was determined to get the guy from the start, but it was really the conservatives who did it in the end. People would often say to me, “why, if you think Dean is such a bad candidate, are you spending so much time attacking him?” The best answer I can think of is this: it seemed like a good idea at the time. For a little while it seemed like fawning media attention, combined with the short primary schedule, would propel Dean to the nomination, so we might as well get started with the attacks. The truth is, the guy was just so easy to whack, it was hard to resist. I mean, a guy who leaves a Church over a bike path hardly sounds like Presidential timber. The assaults were so much fun that all of us on the right got a little carried away. Then, seeing how easily Dean would be defeated, the media (which loves a fight anyways) jumped in as well. Now I’m worried that the nominee will be John F’ing Kerry who, versus Howard Dean, has the major advantage of being apparently sane. While I suspect that he’ll be beatable, he won’t get blown apart in the same fashion as the Mayor of Vermont would have. But, perhaps, it will be General Wesley Clark, who might be aptly characterized as General George McClellan II, who will be equally easy to destroy. In any case, whoever the nominee is will be bruised and broke by the time they’ve been crowned. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the coming months. Thursday, January 15, 2004
Into the Stars
When I hear the objections raised by some to the exploration of space, I often recall the story of the great Chinese Admiral Cheng Ho. A eunuch, Cheng Ho supervised the construction of a great fleet and, in the early years of the 15th century, launched voyages which ranged across the Oceans, reaching as far away as Australia and Africa. His ships were massive, the size of a modern destroyer, and would have been easily capable of reaching as far away as the coast of North America, had they so chosen.
Yet they didn’t choose. Why? The reasons are complex but, in short, they can be summed up as such: China’s leaders thought that they had better things to do at home, they feared that such efforts might lead to foreign complications, and that they were excessively expensive. Sound familiar? If China had gone on, the entire history of the world would have been different. Chinese colonies would probably have been planted in Australia, Africa, and perhaps even in the America’s. In the place of European ascendancy, the world may have instead seen a Chinese ascendancy. Those who are opposed to space exploration are petty, small-minded, and unable to see the future that is right before their eyes. Travel into space is more than a mere dream, it is a key element of the further advancement of humanity. We live in a system of planets, all of which are ours- even Europa, despite what some might say. More to the point, space is the key to the American future. Whoever owns the stars will be the master of all humanity. No other nation, no other civilization, or other race can be allowed to take his honor. Space must be American just as Virginia or Colorado is American. It is our collective destiny, our birthright. Because, mark my words, if we do not get there then someone else will do so. The immutable laws of history dictate that, when there is a field for military and strategic advance open- someone will take it. Those who would rely on treaties and UN resolutions forbidding the militarization of space are as foolish as those who once relied upon the League of Nations to bring about the abolition of war. Some will ridicule those who dream of ‘Space Empire’ or speak of the future colonization of the Moon and Mars. Yet these will be the realities of the future, whether we are willing to accept them or not. The control and colonization of space will not only render humanity less vulnerable to the random chances of fate (an asteroid strike, for example) but it will also forever forestall the rise of another great power upon the Earth. Think about it for a moment. A single Star Cruiser, maneuvered into position, could drop dozens of weapons onto a target seconds after launch. Defending against such an attack, short of the use of other space vessels, would be essentially impossible. A handful of such ships could, if necessary, wipe an entire nation off the face of the Earth. In the face of such power, most rational nations would have no choice but to accept permanent American world rule. I do not mean to suggest that this will be a rapid process. It will be an effort of decades, even centuries. But it will, in the end, be worth it. Humans will have colonies in this Solar System and probably beyond, it is merely a question of whose colonies they shall be. It might also be worth pointing out that, if aliens do exist, there is little reason to assume that they will be, as most have postulated, more advanced than we are. There is an equally good reason to believe that they will be less advanced. Would it not be prudent then to be prepared to restrict various alien races to the surface of their home planets? This, of course, assumes that faster-than-light travel is possible. I, quite frankly, have no idea if it is. But, to base our policy on the assumption that it is not would be supremely foolish. It may even be that we will find alien races that will have to be destroyed, lest they pose a threat, or that we will find races of servile aliens which might prove useful to us in other ways. I don’t know if we will, and we won’t know unless we try. I realize that the above might sound far out, so let me point out a more practical advantage: minerals. Once we establish a true human presence in space, we can begin to explore for valuable extraterrestrial resources. The discovery of large, off-world stocks of any number of minerals might prove to be invaluable to the United States, especially if other nations were restricted to the Earth. Imagine if the nation were to explore a massive gold-laced asteroid. Now, were space under American control, it seems possible that such a find could be covered up and the gold quietly released into market, thereby turning a massive profit for the nation. Space-based, zero-gravity manufacturing is also believed to offer a number of advantages, allowing for the creation of goods with greater precision than is possible on the Earth. With sufficient planning, it seems possible that all space construction could eventually take place off-Earth, thereby allowing for the construction of ships of designs which would not be possible were it necessary to launch them from the surface of the Earth. This would also save considerable expense. President Bush is, after three decades of delay, finally placing us back onto the right track. We must sail into the stars with aggression, determination, and vigor. By the conquest of space we will help to realize the goals of man here on Earth. Wednesday, January 14, 2004
The Insanity of Modern Canada
Sometimes there are things happen in this country that shock even me. This week, on the Kanesatake Indian Reserve in Quebec, a series of events transpired in response to the efforts of the Chief to crack down on rampant organized crime that are simply so bizarre as to defy description.
Grand Chief James Gabriel called in Native police from other reserves to respond to drug and contraband cigarette sales on the reserve. How did the people respond to this? Simple: by gathering in a mob, burning down the Chief’s home, and then besieging the police station for more than a day. Now some of the local native ‘elders’ are apparently looking into ‘banishing’ the Chief for his actions. How did the government of Quebec respo |