One steps down, another steps up...

John Allen Muhammad has left the auditorium.

He departed at 9:11 EST last night. Witnesses say he died much more peacefully than his victims.

Y’all remember Mr. Muhammad and his sidekick, Lee Boyd Malvo. They pioneered Islamic terrorist shooting sprees in the United States. All eyes are currently on Major Nidal Hasan, but seven short years ago Muhammad and his teenaged accomplice held the DC area in a reign of terror with their sniper attacks. (In keeping with my personal policy, I won’t mention the kid’s name again…ever. He’s doing life without parole, at least until the Supreme Court rules such sentences to be “cruel and unusual punishment.” I’m sure the little git has a fan club, but to my archaic way of thinking, cold-blooded killers should be deemed non-persons and relegated to total anonymity.)

I believe in redemption, for most people for most things. We are our own best judges of the wrong things we’ve done in our lives, and anyone over the age of fifteen or so probably has something relatively evil they wish they’d never done in their background. “Normal” people, when they acknowledge their transgressions, feel remorse for their actions. Sociopaths like Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson, and John Muhammad portray themselves as victims of…something, and remain defiant to the end.

I don’t have a lot to say about John Muhammad. He shot people in cold blood. Some cases that are linked to him will never be fully closed. He showed no remorse. He had no final words as he was plugged in for The Really Big Shot. While redemption is available, and comes to most of us, there was none for him. We have a saying in Georgia that applies to people like John Muhammad: “He needed killin’.”

An informal poll run on FOX News yesterday between seven and eight o’clock indicated that 96% of the respondents agreed with this saying.

My father was murdered by a serial killer in 1985. I have zero tolerance for killers. I have known a few people convicted of murder, and knowing the circumstances of their cases, I’m willing to cut them some slack. Their motives were all different, but what they all had in common was recognition that they had committed a mortal sin, and they possessed enough humanity to feel remorse. They vowed—not to some parole board, but to themselves—to never do anything remotely like that again. By retaining and increasing their decency as human beings, those convicted murderers are worthy of redemption. I hope they find it.

People like Muhammad, his punk sidekick, and Nidal Hasan don’t seek, nor do they deserve, redemption by God or by man. I believe that there is an inherent spark of goodness in almost everyone, no matter how badly they may comport themselves. Sometimes, though, people will manage to extinguish that spark, through spiritual enslavement to an errant ideology, subversion of personal morality and responsibility, or sheer dogged meanness. When they do, they become nothing more than a waste of protoplasm, and should be returned to their component elements as soon as possible.

Dealing with terrorists is like playing one of those whack-a-mole games. As soon as one is dealt with, another pops up. John Allen Muhammad has received his final judgment here on earth. Now it’s between him and God. I’m betting on The Deity. About the time society deals with Nidal Malik Hasan in whatever politically correct manner is the expedient of the day, another mutant will show up. Let’s hope that our willingness as a society to deal with these affronts to humanity never falters.

I don’t feel like I’m gloating over last night’s execution, but I wrote this little screed just because I wanted to paraphrase the good-night line from Elvis’s concerts:

“Muhammad has left the auditorium.”

Thank you and goodnight.

Too much news...

This was going to be specifically about last Tuesday’s off-year elections and what they might—hopefully—herald, but once again more pressing news has overridden the thoughts of the moment. We’ll keep the optimism brief.

National attention was focused on two governor’s races and a congressional election. Conservatives went two-for-three on those, a batting average of .666. Not bad for people who were declared totally marginalized after the great hoodwink of last November. The symbolic significance of that batting average is not lost; the “666” Number of The Beast is also associated with apocalypse, which is what the Democritters are facing next November if they don’t cure their cranial-rectal inversion and become responsive to the people of this country. I’ve been hearing phrases like “mid-term revolution” and “electoral bloodbath” tossed about; it is to smile and hope.

What broadened my smile was the denial coming out from Madame Botox and the White House. Robert Gibbs, speaking for The Red Herring, said the elections were local, and don’t portend anything. Nancy Pelosi went several solar systems further, claiming Democritters “won big” by gaining one congressional seat in upstate New York and saving another one in California. If having a couple more rats run aboard a sinking ship is a big win for Those People, then I have no complaint. The arrogance and narcissism of our elected leaders right now is unparalleled. I can’t remember any time in my adult life that the government has been so unresponsive to the will of the people. Granted, this is a nation of laws, not a mob-ruled democracy, but this is a democratic republic, and the laws that govern us are supposed to be in accordance with the will of the majority, not some whimsical legislation dreamed up by pie-in-the-sky ideologues seeking to emulate failed social systems like socialism, fascism, and communism.

In my red neck of the woods, you’re either “fer” something, or you’re “ag’in” it. If Madame Botox wants to channel Cleopatra and be The Queen of Denial, then I’m all fer it. Today or tomorrow is a big vote in Congress on the socialized medicine bill that Dudley Do-nothing is staking his political fortune on. The word is that even with their majority, Those People are hoeing a hard row to come up with enough votes to pass the thing. The Manchurian Candidate’s campaign promise of “transparency” has long since gone into Orwell’s “memory hole” of oblivion; the 1900 page bill—longer than Atlas Shrugged, War and Peace, or The Lord of the Rings trilogy—hasn’t been posted online as Obama and Pelosi promised. I once read Atlas Shrugged in a week, but I was jacked up on acid and speed at the time. (Some books, like Ayn Rand’s novels and Lord of the Rings require re-reading every three years or so. I mostly do this sober and straight these days. War and Peace was a one-shot read.) Even if Those People had bothered to put the bill online for the promised 72 hours, it’s so obtuse and convoluted that no one—even those freakish speed readers who can handle a page every five seconds—could understand the ramifications of it. Hopefully, when they ram this legislation down our throats and commandeer one-fifth of the nation’s economy, it will further outrage and energize voters to turn out next year and tell the administration exactly what they think about this political colonoscopy. I have the traditional $100 bill under the paperweight on my desk, and if anyone wants to bet that the status quo will continue past next year to when we un-elect The Red Herring in 2012, I’ll take even money. I’m betting on the American people, not the power-mad spin-masters in DC, to initiate real change. My liberal friends know better than to bet against me, so please be advised.

If Those People want to continue believing that everything is dandy and they have some sort of imaginary mandate for their social engineering experiments, then I can’t wait to see the expressions on their faces next year when a lot of incumbents suddenly have to join the ranks of the 10% unemployed in America.

Two things close to home give me even further confidence in the common sense of the people to overcome the fraud of “progressive” ideology. The first is several conversations I’ve had recently with Miz Possum, who is notoriously apolitical. She has admitted to being uncertain, frightened, and disappointed about “change we can count on.” The second is from The Older Daughter, who lives on The Left Coast and is cast more in the mold of Madonna’s Material Girl than in Sarah Palin’s earth-mother persona. In a telephone conversation last week, she griped that unemployment in California is at 20%, outstripping her mom’s home state of Michigan, which is publicly proclaimed to be the nation’s highest at 15%. When asked if she thought Obama would be re-elected in 2012, the reply was an emphatic “Hell NO!”

I rest my case.

In other news, the horror at Fort Hood is still unfolding. The Red Herring has already been on TV urging the public to “not jump to conclusions” about the shooter. I have a policy of not mentioning the names of mass murderers or serial killers, because some deformed gene in the public consciousness makes us treat them like rock stars, and I don’t want to add to that sickness. However, it’s germane to state the name of the Ft. Hood shooter: Nidal Malik Hasan. He is a lifelong Muslim. According to eyewitnesses, he allegedly shouted “Allah akbar!”—“God is great!”—while shooting over 40 people. He gave away most of his material possessions prior to his rampage, indicating premeditation. His pistols weren’t just lying around waiting to be picked up and used in a sudden act of madness, they had to be smuggled onto the base. Is there some conclusion besides the obvious that we should not jump to? This was as much an act of terrorism as flying an airliner into a skyscraper.

Time, Newsweek, and Dr. Phil are already trying to spin this tragedy away from the obvious motive. They seek to somehow blame George Bush, the horrors of war, and secondhand PTSD for this man’s insanity. Hasan’s uncle Rafiq expresses amazement that his nephew even knew how to handle a firearm, and then laments that the American-born Army Major couldn’t read the Koran in Arabic. (Hello, Rafiq! Last time I checked, every member of the American military is given some rudimentary weapons instruction in basic training. The Marines train everyone as a rifleman first, with any other MOS as a necessary option. During the Battle of the Bulge, the Army clerks and cooks were grabbing their rifles and heading to the front lines to stop the German onslaught. If every 12-year-old kid in the Third World has an AK-47 and knows how to use it, why is it a surprise that a US Army officer knows how to lock and load a weapon?)

If anything contrary to my conclusions about Major Hasan’s actions comes out, I will be truly amazed. I have been wrong about many things before, and I wouldn’t mind being wrong about this. If Hasan acted out of cowardice and madness, it would take some heat off the four million innocent Muslims living in America. By their failure to speak out condemning terrorist acts by Islamic radicals, such homegrown Muslim groups as CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations] and others have added to the inherent suspicion and prejudice against Muslims in general since the 9/11 attacks. This is unfortunate in a country where one of our guiding principles is freedom of religion. No one should be persecuted because they call The Higher Power “Allah” instead of “God”, but when all one sees on an almost daily basis is murder and condemnation coming from one religious sect targeting another, it gets difficult to remember that many don’t believe in that aspect of Islam. In these matters, silence equals tacit approval, and will be interpreted as such by a majority of “non-believers” in The Prophet. Americans are not known for subtle or nuanced responses when things become too much to tolerate, and the eventual backlash may be as tragic as the event at Fort Hood.

To close on a lighter note: They’re commissioning the USS New York today! I take a kid’s delight in this; it’s so cool! The details of the ship’s crest, with the bars signifying the Twin Towers and the motto “Never Forget” denote the spirit of America before The Manchurian Candidate’s fraud. The bow being made from steel salvaged from the World Trade Center is an outstanding message to the rest of the world. I supported an earlier idea that was floated to strike service medals for the military out of the scrap metal from the WTC; the New York is a beautiful ship, and this is a better idea. Medals get lost over time, whether they mean little or a lot to the recipients. An earlier battleship bearing the New York moniker was sunk by friendly fire after War II; I doubt we’ll use the new incarnation for target practice when it’s outmoded for the fleet. Perhaps they will strike those service medals when the New York is retired. Meanwhile, sail on, brave ship!

Good to be back...

How nice to return to cyberspace after an enforced absence, and find the Internet as we know it still here! I was vaguely worried that one of The Red Herring’s czars—specifically Cass Sunstein, the Minister of Regulation—might have jumped in to shut down freedom of speech and dissent from the Fourth Reich. We take so many cues from China and North Korea, where children sing praises to Fearless Leader in government schools; I wouldn’t have been totally amazed to find this blog shut down as somehow seditious.

As Constant Readers already know, I had to go on hiatus over Halloween. My much-abused computer, HAL-9000, developed a problem. The hard drive finally gave up the ghost, and had to be replaced. I had my intrepid computer technician/chainsaw mechanic install a new one with five times the memory, and quadruple my RAM while she was replacing stuff. (My local computer store really does repair chainsaws as well; it’s a mom-and-pop operation in the same building. She works on computers and he does the chainsaws and other power tools in a separate workshop.)

There was a lot to comment on while I was away. It seemed that every day I would wake up to some new governmental outrage. Some were absurd, and some were critical. There was nothing to do but shrug, mutter “Why are you surprised?” and go back to reading an old-fashioned book or watching the news. The tsunami of socialism continued to wash ashore unabated.

During that time—when computer withdrawal manifested itself physically with boredom, anxiety, insomnia and depression—I came up with yet another affectionate name for President Obama. When it was announced that he is considering sending 20,000 new troops to Afghanistan, instead of the requested 40,000, I flinched and rolled my eyes. “Great! Dudley Do-nothing is weaseling! He’s going to have it both ways. He’s going to provide half of what his general says he needs, and when that fails and he declares defeat, he can whine that he sent more troops when they were requested.”

As yet, the president has done nothing at all about the escalating war in Afghanistan, preferring to blame his predecessor for opening a second front in Iraq and “ignoring” the requirements of the war in Afghanistan. So, my new name is even more appropriate for Obama: Dudley Do-nothing.

This is a president who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize after only twelve days in office. When asked, the Nobel Committee said they decided to award him the prize based on his campaign rhetoric. This was unprecedented, like Obama’s election. Alfred Nobel spun in his grave. He intended his award to be for accomplishments toward world peace, not for someone writing checks with his mouth that his ass can’t cash.

After a year in office, I can recall only one thing that I regard as genuinely presidential to be forthcoming from Barack Hussein Obama (“Mmmm…mmmm!” as the indoctrinated schoolchildren sing). Remember the Somali pirates who seized the Maersk Alabama earlier this year? Do you remember how that affair ended? Navy SEALs were in place, ready to do what they do best, and Commander-in-Chief Obama gave them the “weapons free” order. Seconds later, the pirates were dead and a courageous ship commander was free and unhurt. I was still in “give him a chance” mode, and gave credit where it was due. It was a flash-in-the-pan moment illustrating the kind of power the president must occasionally deploy. Unfortunately, it was a fluke. There wasn’t a photo opportunity, but it was as much a public-relations ploy as the recent photo-op posing at Dover Air Force Base where Dudley Do-nothing solemnly saluted the incoming caskets of servicemen killed in Afghanistan. Later, when he surrenders in Afghanistan and gives Al Qaeda a home base for bringing jihad home to America, he’ll say with a straight face that he couldn’t bear the sight of all those coffins coming back. I guess it’s more progressive to have caskets coming from domestic terror scenes than from foreign wars.

If Osama Bamalama wasn’t so busy feuding with FOX News, pushing an economic takeover agenda that no one besides George Soros wants, and posing for photos with losing Democrat candidates to forestall the inevitable, he might find the time to actually address some of the urgent issues on his desk. That desk is the one where Harry Truman had that little sign saying “The buck stops here.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there was—literally—yesterday’s news about the gubernatorial elections that garnered so much national attention. The pundits have lit up the airwaves with what that may or may not mean. I think it’s important enough to deserve a separate post, which will appear above when it’s posted.

The Occasional Subjective

As with a great many of my ramblings, this began life as an unsolicited e-mail to my Constant Readers. I am reluctant to bump the previous post out of the “headline spot”, but new product is essential to keeping folks coming back. I’m essentially lazy, and every time a burning desire for a new blog post ignites, it gets overridden by the rapidity of breaking news. I also work painstakingly slowly, as though each new post is another chapter in The Great American Novel that every wannabe writer thinks they're going to produce next year. (Rumor has it that I’m up for the Nobel Prize for Literature; not for anything I’ve written here in the last four years, but for the earth-shattering sequel to Atlas Shrugged that I plan to churn out in the next 12 days…)

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury…”

You remember that quote. I've done two blog posts on it. I consider it a succinct assessment of where we’re going, and there are a lot of Zen lessons in there. I take a lot for granted, including the fact that my Constant Readers—y’all—know something about the essence of Zen, and are hip to most of the cryptic cultural references I make. I also assume you understand that when I make offensive remarks, they’re usually a literary device to convey the voice of the person I’m trying to exemplify. If I’m sorely aggrieved at someone, I’ll convey my sentiments in drill sergeant language that will curl your toes and straighten your hair, or vice versa.

Early Wednesday morning, I had occasion to use such language directed at Glen Beck. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that Beck reads United Possums International. I was up at some ungodly hour, and thought to catch up on the last re-run of Mr. Beck’s civics lesson from Tuesday, 13 October. He has a nice way of putting things together, and we share a pedantic attitude. He is also self-effacing and a recovering alcoholic. I like Glen Beck. He’s my kind of people in a lot of ways.

What led me to suggest aloud that Mr. Beck engages in sexual congress with his mother was something he did involving the last part of the quote above, cited in full in the footnote at the end of this piece. My previous post—“‘Something to Think About’ redux”—contains my explanation and breakdown of where I think we’re at in the progression from bondage to spiritual strength to courage to liberty to abundance...etc. and back into bondage. You can read the full text of the quotation and my commentary in the post just below this one.

For those of you who don't watch Beck, he took a printed poster of the progression, and underlined key phrases and scrawled in his comments as to what he alleges they represent on our national timeline. With only two minor variations, he said exactly what I did on 30 September 2009!

I know I only have about 20 Constant Readers, and a few drive-by gawkers. My site meter claims 10,316 visits as of 9 October; I don’t know where they came from. I don’t garner kudos from Rush Limbaugh, and the closest thing I get to national exposure is Scott Ott’s indulgence when I insert a UPI link in a comment at ScrappleFace. Whenever I post a new rant, I mutter “You’re so full of yourself! No one gives a damn what you think!” For the last four years, this blog has been a way of amusing myself that is one notch above talking to my dogs. There are not a lot of delusions of adequacy in play here.

Perhaps my anguish about Glen Beck breaking down the “...democracy cannot exist...” quote is misplaced; likely it’s a case of great minds thinking alike, so to speak. I would be enormously flattered to think Mr. Beck reads this blog; I would be more exalted if he gave my analysis of the progression an attribution, and maybe gave UPI a plug. If he came upon his thoughts originally, then we are not far from Biblical truth: “Well, Master, thou hast said the truth...” Mark 12:32. (If you’re fact-checking me like CNN reviewing the “Saturday Night Live” sketch last week, skip down to Verse 34; it's what brought me back to faith in God: “And when Jesus saw he had answered discreetly, he said unto him, ‘thou art not far from the kingdom of God.’ And no man after that durst ask him any question.” Standard KJV text; I like the elegant syntax.)

I hope Glen Beck got his point across when he extrapolated his meaning of the progression of democracy as stated in the quotation.* I often feel like I’m lighting soggy matches in a hurricane when I espouse a serious idea.

There are a lot of good ideas floating around on the Internet. Rational people are already tuned in to most of them, and personally reject the socialist totalitarianism we're careening towards. I sometimes have to bite my knuckles to keep from replying to e-mails with a reminder that the correspondent is preaching to the choir. Conservative ideas have no traction in today’s cult of personality. I have an almost-prescient perception of what’s going to happen with a lot of socio-political trends; it’s what kept me employed through years of skepticism, moral crises, insubordination to my bosses, and frequent unpaid absences to sky off in pursuit of pipe dreams like working in the movies. It’s not a supernatural or superhuman ability; I dismiss it as bad re-wiring of my internal circuitry with LSD and cheap whiskey when I was young and stupid. Still, all too often, when the phone rang at 0400, the voice on the other end was saying “You were right and the conventional wisdom was wrong! What do we do now?” This saving grace not only amazed my superiors, it scares the hell out of me. The fact that I broke down my analysis of the quotation in question on 30 September, and Beck did it on 13 October in an almost identical fashion, speaks for itself.

Meanwhile, I’d like to make a serious request to all of my “subscribers” and any drive-by readers: if you think there is any veracity in what I write at UPI, and if you know other like-minded people—strangers to me; known to you —who might obtain some amusement or cheap thrills from my lurid prose, please send them a link to United Possums International. Please do this in lieu of telling me that I’m the next Hemingway, or Hunter Thompson, or Larry the Cable Guy. I am very uneasy with compliments, and blushing makes my head explode. There was a record-breaking spike in readership on 25 September. My post of 24 September was almost a throwaway commentary; I’m mystified as to what grabs peoples’ attention. Still, subsequent reader comments have been more in-depth and thoughtful, and I’d like to keep the trend up.

I’m not into self-aggrandizement, but I’d like a wider readership. After listening to Dan Whitney [Larry the Cable Guy] talk about personal promotion, I’ve momentarily become less shy about approaching others as to what I'd like. I’m not running for public office—the only one that could tempt me is local sheriff, and in addition to not being qualified, I couldn’t bear the thought of arresting my neighbors—and I’m not looking for a publishing deal on my aggregate blog posts as some kind of memoir. I was enormously flattered when a new Constant Reader stated I write “with a sense of purpose”; if you honestly believe this is what I do, then kindly tell your friends about it.

And, if Glen Beck is reading my blog, please get in touch. There's an e-mail link in my profile.

*I like this piece of wisdom so much, I’m going to throw it at you one last time:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back to bondage.”

"Something to think about" redux

A while back, I put up a post titled “Something to think about.” (See second previous post below.) What I wanted you think about and comment on was this widely attributed quote:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back to bondage.”

The response was underwhelming. Only four Constant Readers bothered to put in their two cents’ worth. However, those responses were thoughtful and well-reasoned. I was reminded that America is a republic, a nation of laws. (That was a matter of semantics in the context of the quote.) I was also taken to task on the inherent moral goodness of the majority of American people, and my apparent lack of faith in that goodness. Sorry about that; I’ve become a bit more cynical since The Red Herring was elected. However, the traditional $100 bill is back under the paperweight on my desk, pending the outcome of the 2010 elections. Anyone want to go even money with me that the people won’t be turning a lot of these incumbent bastards out to pasture next year?

In “Something to think about” I promised to give my humble opinion as to where we are in the transitional phases from bondage back into bondage. Here is my analysis of what the quote means, with my thoughts in boldface:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government...[This nation] has progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith—this would be America’s transition from a collection of English colonies into a unified people; the faith of The Founding Fathers is abundantly obvious in everything they wrote and said—from spiritual faith to great courage—it was the spiritual faith of the colonists that gave them the courage to revolt against England and break away, forming a nation unique in the history of mankind—from courage to liberty—this would cover much of our early history, from defending our sovereignty in the War of 1812, to becoming irrevocably unified after the War Between the States, all the way to liberating millions of people during and following World War II—from liberty to abundance—following War II, America grew from an isolated “sleeping giant” into the most powerful nation on earth, not through military conquest and oppression of our enemies, but by promoting our principles of liberty and democracy—from abundance to selfishness—from post-War II until the early 1970s, the great abundance of our burgeoning power, coupled with societal changes and disillusionment with the status quo brought us to the “Me Generation” mentality of the disco era through the ‘80s and early ‘90s—from selfishness to complacency—and who could epitomize pre-9/11 complacency better than the Clintons, with their Hillary Care, midnight basketball, and refusal to deal with the growing terrorist threats? George W. was elected as a kind of caretaker president; no one expected great or dynamic things from him, until the world shifted on its axis nine months after his inauguration—from complacency to apathy—after the immediate flashback of great courage and unity following 9/11, we slipped into turmoil, divisiveness, and polarization surpassed only by the upheavals of the Vietnam generation, to the point that everyone grew weary and fell prey to ignorance, apathy, and indifference: “I don’t know, I don’t care, and it doesn’t matter anyway.”—from apathy to dependence—in our apathy and weariness, the American people were hoodwinked into electing one of our greatest frauds of modern times; a president and congress whose principles—such as they are—are totally antipathetic to the values, faith and courage this country was founded upon. Now we find ourselves becoming totally dependent upon this unresponsive, uncaring government to support us in every aspect our lives, from the cradle to grave and all points in between—from dependency back to bondage.”

We already have a shadow government of “czars”, the G-20 economic cabal, and the United Nations. The G-20 and the UN may not directly dictate our national policies, but our increasing dependence on the opinions of dictators, monarchies, and theocracies is placing us in thrall to the failed social systems of lesser powers.

My bottom line; my answer to the question: we are somewhere in the transition from apathy to dependence. The best example of this is the current health care debate, wherein we’re going to decide whether to turn over another 20% of this nation’s economy to government control. The failed “stimulus” spending and subsequent governmental takeover of the automotive and banking industries is another good example. As a people, we've lost our collective faith—in capitalism, God, and the inherent power of liberty to overcome all evils perpetrated by mankind—and we’ve lost our will to stand up and make the changes needed to halt and reverse our downhill slide into bondage to some dictatorial form of government based on the acquisition and retention of absolute power combined with some bizarre perversion of mob rule.

You don’t have to agree with this; unlike our arrogant, narcissistic leaders, I welcome dissent and differences of opinion. I only wish there was more of it. One has only to look at any given pork-laden congressional budget bill, or the wasteful, fraudulent dissemination of the taxpayers’ “stimulus” money, to realize that we, the people, have indeed learned to vote ourselves money from the public treasury. If anyone honestly believes the tired liberal line that “elimination of waste and fraud in Medicare is going to pay for the new [socialized] health care,” I have only one question, channeling pundits and town hall citizens: “Why hasn’t it been eliminated already?”

God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Think about it...

Keeping up with the news (or trying to!)

Wow!

The news is skating past so fast, every time I have what I imagine to be a bright idea for a blog post, it’s overridden by current events.

Let’s see…

In the past week or so, The Red Herring has essentially eliminated our missile shield in Eastern Europe, betraying our NATO allies and weakening America’s overall posture in the world. This is exactly the message to send to Iran’s Ah’m-a-madman when intelligence reports indicate that Iran is closer than ever to producing nuclear weapons.

Going back to his highly successful Manchurian Candidate mode, the president also showed up on four liberal news networks and the Latino UniVision entertainment network to tout his vastly unpopular health care program. Chris Wallace at FOX news was snubbed, because he is an objective journalist who asks tough questions that might demand answers, and Obama has none. Unlike the Clintons, Obama is not poll-driven; he doesn’t care what the public thinks. In his narcissistic haze, he is relying on his cult of personality to enable him to pull off any radical hijinks he cares to indulge in. Hence his appearance on David Letterman’s program the day following his “news show” blitzkrieg.

Watching his pathetic appearance before the United Nations, I got the impression a large number of the ambassadors from the America-hating nations were playing Solitaire on their laptops and waiting for him to finish so they could report back to their masters that America is continuing its downward spiral into fatal weakness.

Also, Congress seems to have de-funded ACORN, the election-stealing newcomers to the “culture of corruption.” Damn! There goes my plan to import several dozen pre-pubescent Mexican whores and set up a brothel in this area for all the illegal aliens working in the construction trades, carpet industry, and chicken plants here. Maybe I can still work something out with the Service Employees International Union [SEIU]; after all, prostitutes do perform a valuable service, don’t they?

At least next year’s census is safe from “creative tweaking” now that ACORN won’t be involved in determining who counts as a legitimate citizen of this country.

(By the way, whatever happened to Madame Botox’s pre-election promise to “drain the swamp” and eliminate that “culture of corruption?” Why has Nancy Pelosi not instructed Charles Rangel to step down from the House Ways and Means Committee, where he apparently found lots of ways and means to not pay taxes on all the swag he’s accumulated in his—too many—years in Congress?)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, some of the president’s myrmidons held a telephonic conference call with 21 members of the National Endowment for the Arts. Sixteen of these “artists” have received taxpayer endowments of more than $2,000,000, and it’s time for the quid pro quo. It was strongly “suggested” to these paragons of creativity that they apply their dubious talents to producing propaganda for the administration’s policies in their respective mediums.

(The NEA has to be one of the most egregious federal agencies ever created. Here’s a hint: if you’re an artist, musician, or otherwise engaged in creating something that’s allegedly pleasing, if your work doesn’t sell in a free market to people who might actually desire to be stimulated by it, don’t quit your day job just yet. Beethoven had a patron; the Pope subsidized Michelangelo to do a bit of interior redecorating in the Sistine chapel. In both cases, the work of those artists was highly desired by the purchasers of the end products. If you can’t place your work in a gallery, or get a recording contract, or hawk your talents on the sidewalk for a few bucks, then don’t go sniveling to the government to underwrite your creative endeavors. I don’t want to see crucifixes submerged in urine, images of the Virgin Mary splattered with elephant dung, or gay men with bullwhips protruding from their nether regions. Stuff like that doesn’t inspire me to think, and if it’s reflective of an element of modern society, that’s not an element I’d care to exalt. An NEA endowment is your tax dollars at work, most likely funding something you’d just as soon not see. If you’re into scat-chasing, golden showers, or gay bondage, there is something for everyone on the Internet. Just don’t call it “art” and pick my pocket to pay for someone else’s cheap thrills.)

You have to admit, though, using tax dollars to propagandize the taxpayers into paying for a government program that few people want is a stroke of genius right out of the Third Reich playbook. Will we now be confronted with posters at government offices and the local supermarket that are eerily reminiscent of 1940-Germany’s Aryan supermen and Soviet Russia’s heroic workers?

I’m all over the place, so let’s consider for a moment President Obama’s latest unelected “czar”, Cass Sunstein. Here you have a man who has suggested that “hunting be outlawed, except for sport [sic]”, and posits that animals have the “right” to retain attorneys and sue…someone. (Who? Their owners? What if they’re not domesticated animals? If they’re wild animals, and subject to being hunted, do they get to sue the hunters? And what’s with the “…except for sport” business about outlawing hunting? “Sport” suggests wanton killing, while most serious hunters go by the maxim of “you killed it, you eat it.” Wouldn’t it sound wiser to advocate outlawing hunting “except to obtain food”?) In his fiefdom of “Regulatory Czar”, Mr. Sunstein is now in a position to wreak unimaginable harm on many aspects of our lives as we now know them. He is answerable to no one but the president. If his views on administration policy differed too much from his master’s, I doubt he would have received his sinecure.

(And yes, I realize that the “outlawing hunting” rubbish is just another back-door tactic to implement the seizure of all firearms not currently held by the military, the civil authorities, or the outlaws.)

I know I’m leaving stuff out here. That’s all I can think of for the moment, thanks to a total derailment of my thought process by the local EMC, who managed to lose power for the third time in 36 hours and destroy a more coherent draft of this post.

On the home front, the electricity is sporadic, telephone/Internet service has been disrupted by the weather, and it looks like the lower half of Georgia is underwater. Personally, I have been afflicted with chronic nosebleeds of unknown origin—no violent sneezing fits or nose-blowing, my blood pressure is consistently perfect, and I don’t go “gold mining”—and a severe, persistent headache caused by the ENT specialist probing my sinuses with a needle-like video thing.

There has also been some severe nausea today, but I know the cause of that. When I saw a tape early this morning of New Jersey schoolchildren being compelled to sing a song of praise to “Barack Hussein Obama…equal work for equal pay…mmm, mmm!” I became physically ill. Watching Hillary Clinton pimp kids’ welfare to advance her policies as First Lady was bad enough; now we’re into outright indoctrination. I refer you back to the concept of AmeriCorps, which is still looming as The Next Big Thing. We, as reasonable adults, can make our decisions on any given issue based upon empiricism and rational determination. When you raise a generation of children on a liberal mindset with no alternative—thanks to “political correctness”—you are going to have a power base with a specific outcome.

If you’re a liberal fascist with no aim but the accumulation of power, and no vision beyond the day after tomorrow, this is dandy. For the rest of us…well, pardon me. I have to go puke.

Something to think about

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back to bondage.”

This quote has been attributed to a number of different historians and authors, among them Alexander Tyler—or Tytler, if you please—Benjamin Disraeli, Arnold Toynbee, Lord Thomas Macaulay, Jack the Ripper, and others.

Regardless of the source, I consider the idea to be correct and profound.

I don’t do this blog as a sop to my vanity, although ego is an inherent aspect of anyone’s blog. Readership here passed 10,165 this past week, and I thank you all for considering my humble point of view as one among many.

I don’t “do” Facebook or Twitter; those are invitations for cyberstalking. I throw things out like pasta, and see what sticks to the walls. (My kitchen is a mess!)

This one time, I would really like to hear from readers, be you Constant Readers or drive-by visitors.

Going by the outline of the sequence in the first paragraph above, where do you believe we are in the progression of the life of democracy in America?

Think of it as an informal poll, and please sound off. All comments get published, and I will be meticulous about monitoring for new ones this time. If you’re shy, post as “Anonymous.” I don’t care about names or sycophancy; I want to get a feel for where others think we might be in the progression from bondage to England back into subservience to some greater sinister power.

My next time up at bat, I’ll say where I think we’re at. For now, however, I would like to hear from you.