Mailvox: Perfect Aryans

Mayhem writes: Please explain "Perfect Aryan Bible Study." Sounds vaguely racist, though I'm sure there's a good story behind it. (Forgive me--I'm new in this part of town.

If you saw a picture of the group, you would understand immediately. It's in Minnesota, where there is a high percentage of Scandinavians, and most of those who aren't Scandinavian are of German descent. In other words, it is mostly tall, attractive, blue-eyed and blonde. Since I am dark-eyed, dark-haired, of Anglo-Saxon descent and of average height, I make a habit of mocking them for it. But it is in jest - Space Bunny and I were the fifth couple to join it. They are the nicest people I know.

It is true that Chilliette, who started it, was famous across her college campus for her first day in freshman year multi-culti class. The professor/PC indoctrinator asked everyone to tell the class their heritage and something about it of which they were proud, and when they got to to this pretty, blue-eyed blonde, she said: "I'm 100 percent Norwegian and I'm proud because I'm pure!" But the Bible Study isn't the least bit racist, unless Vishnal has successfully fooled them all into thinking he's black Norwegian or something.

Sadly for the Chilliette, she soiled her bloodline by marrying a Swedegian mutt, as Big Chilly is only half Norwegian, being half Swedish on his mother's side. Ethnicity has an entirely different meaning in Minnesota - I seriously thought Anglo-Saxon was ethnic until I went to school on the East Coast.

W32 crawls in, W32 crawls out

The Original Cyberpunk would like to point out that he saw W32/Mydoom coming 18 years ago. He would also like his Porsche now, please.

Mailvox: Fear of a homeschooled planet

TT writes: i'm a Christian mom who loves her kids desperately and wants the best for them. i'm not too thrilled with public school either, but....the thought of home schooling truly terrifies me. the thought of never having any kind of break from them, or having time to 'keep myself up', so to speak, or of having any kind of existence of my own aside from being 'mom' seems like more than i can bear. i've been waiting for my youngest to start kindergarten so i could possibly take a class, or have the time to focus on exercising more and work on regaining some of the person my husband married, rather than being the frazzled creature i've become since having kids. but i feel all this guilt now about it, because i guess if i was a 'real woman' i'd be thin, have 15 kids, homeschool them all and be a harvard graduate myself, all while shining the floors and giving my husband a blow-job at the same time! :) sorry.. see? frazzled.

I'll skip over the psychological issues hinted at by the lowercase punctuation and start off by saying that it's good that you're at least thinking about the right issues. The first thing to note is that homeschooling takes a lot less time than public school, which is a pretty strong indictment of the latter right there. The second thing is that it does take a fair bit of sacrifice, both in terms of time and income opportunity cost. I know too many women who homeschool and are fitness devotees to believe that it's impossible; then again, I don't know how they're doing with regards to the floors and husbands either.

The main thing is a question of priority. The hands-on aspect of homeschooling takes about 90 minutes a day, less for younger children, to stay ahead of their peers. Of course, if they're reading well at four, it's pretty easy for them to stay comfortably ahead even on a relatively lax schedule. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, an excellent education is much more important than shiny floors or a second car.

i've noticed that everyone, so far, who has commented on the topic has been male. meaning, that they likely aren't going to be the ones doing the "schooling." so maybe you could comment on this, because i can't think i'm the only one who feels this way. i mean,surely there's some kind of workable compromise if the mother is fearing for her sanity but wants her kids to thrive. and i'd TRULY love space bunny's thoughts as well.

I handle the reading and language, so my take is that as long as you come up with reasonable goals and a strict schedule, it's very doable. However, I've basically had to cut out television - 2 NFL games weekly excepted - and significantly reduce my computer gaming in order to handle schooling and my work. Space Bunny said she doesn't have an opinion on the frazzled thing right now, but I'll touch base with the Chilliette and others in the Perfect Aryan Bible Study to see what they have to say.

You can't achieve perfection in all things. I've been intending to clean up my office for about nine months now, rewrite a six-year old business plan for three, and write a game design concept for one. None of that's happened, and it won't happen today either. I'm not pleased about that, but at least the important stuff has been done. So, forget Harvard and thrice-flogged floors, though not, for the love of all that's good and holy in the sacrament of marriage, the blow jobs.

Mailvox: Assessing the odds

LW writes: What is your honest assessment of the prospect of a Libertarian becoming president, senator, or congressman in the next nine years? Be honest. If the prospect of obtaining even a one third minority in congress is nil, then isn't the party really only about pulling the political environment to the right (the real right, lean government, reduced or abandoned regulation, reducing and removing forms of taxation, eliminating welfare in all forms, free trade, and true individual rights) than about anything else. If so, then the Republican is the only individual to elect unless the Republican is going to lose the race anyway. Then vote every time for the Libertarian to get the point across to Republicans. I hope, one day, that the Libertarian Party will be the center of the Republican party.

First, a Libertarian is already in Congress. Representative Ron Paul is a Republican, but he is also a Libertarian, being its former candidate for president. His popularity is such that I have no doubt he could win his seat as a Libertarian - the Texas Republican party, to its shame, has tried to unseat him in the primary before - and I hope that one day he will do so, or at least make the switch in office. Second, the only way that the Libertarian Party will become the center of the Republican Party is for enough people to put principle over pragmatism. Only when they fear losing the Right entirely will the unprincipled Republican strategists cease their wooing of the Left.

If you vote for a leftward-moving Republican party, you are an enabler, and as such, you are part of the problem. You cannot be part of the solution until you are willing to cease the enabling. I have no problem with voting for principled Republicans; the problem is that there are very few of them left. But no one gets my vote simply because his name is preceded by an (R). Conservatives, YOU voted for a man that is rapidly expanding central government. YOU put George Delano into power. The responsibility for all of this is YOURS. Do you honestly believe that continuing to support him as he panders to the Left is going to change any of that?

It is always hard to envision anything but the status quo. But if history teaches us anything, it is that the status quo never remains so for long. Will we still be discussing Republicans vs. Democrats in 5,000 years? 500? 50? No one can say. All we know with certainty is that one day it will change, probably for reasons that will surprise everyone. I do not need to wait for it to happen in order to stand by my principles, nor, I argue, do you.

Round Two to Kerry

As you can probably tell, my interest in the Democrat-Republican horse race is minimal, and I'm even less interested in the preliminaries. But things are looking pretty good for John Kerry, who strikes me as a Democratic rehash of the sacrificial offering of Bob Dole that went by the glorified name of a campaign in 1996. Kerry offers nothing that Bush doesn't already provide, except he knows how to say "fuck". While that will get him some of the (snicker) vote that populates college campuses and vacuous left-liberal blogs that amuse themselves by mocking the sex lives of conservative young columnists, it won't be nearly enough to knock off George Delano Bush, also known as the Amazing Triangulation Machine version 2.0.

My only real concern is to see the Clark vanity ship, aka "the amazing campaign" to starry-eyed women who are only supporting the general because George Clooney didn't run, sink ASAFP. Of all the Democratic candidates - and I'm including Al Sharpton here - he's the only one who would make me seriously consider voting for George Delano.

Mailvox: Tale of the tape

JR asks: Hey Vox, was wondering whether you could give your height and weight? How much different is it to Franken?

I don't know how big Franken is, but I understand he's quite short and in his book he claims the need to lose about forty pounds. So, I'm guessing that I'm taller and lighter, but it's hard to know precisely. But I've fought everyone ranging from a 13-year old weighing about 90 pounds - got my bell rung and my butt kicked - to a 250-pound Marine - same result - so it doesn't make much difference.

It might amuse you to know that the 13-year old was the result of our sensei's technique of destroying your confidence upon joining the dojo. He'd tell you that no one was allowed to spar for three months, but then, after your first class, he'd tell you that he could see you were different and special, and therefore he was going to let you to spar that week. Then, for your first round, he'd match you up with someone who could not only destroy you easily, but do so in a manner that would prove totally humiliating. Which for me was the kid, since I was 21. After the kid kicked me twice in the head, then hit my jaw with an uppercut that made me see stars, I called timeout, went over to the sensei and told him that I understood I had absolutely no clue what was going on and would be very grateful if he would consent to teach me. He laughed, and said that I wasn't quite as arrogant as I looked - he'd assumed it would take at least two weeks for me to appreciate the depths of my ignorance.

A few years later, he used to use me in the same capacity when we'd get the occasional football player in. At first, they'd look at you wondering how they were ever going to avoid killing you by accident, but by the end of the round, they'd be cringing and jumping back ten feet if you even twitched.

The beating I took from the Marine was the triumph of evidence over hypothesis. I'd been bench-pressing with the guy the day before, and knew that I was stronger than he was. So, I decided to abandon tactics and try going toe-to-toe with him in sparring the next day, despite giving up 75 pounds. It was a pretty short match. He punched me in the face, I punched him in the face, he punched me in the face and I went down. Just to be sure it wasn't a fluke, I went through the process again, at which point I realized that there was a lot to be said for having the mass to absorb kinetic energy. Lesson: when outweighed by more than 25 pounds, stay outside.

As I've mentioned before, what separates the veteran fighter from your average bully is that the fighter has taken dozens, if not hundreds, of physical and psychological beatings. There's no fear of the unknown. Whereas the person who's unfamiliar with this sort of thing will actually go into shock the first time they get hit, even if it's not hard enough to do any damage. From the description, it sounds as if that's exactly what happened to Al Franken in New Hampshire.

Music in the car

I hadn't listened to the first Linkin Park CD in a while... good stuff and I don't think there's many first CDs that kick off with a one-two punch anywhere nearly as well as Hybrid Theory. Papercut, in particular, is just a great tune. It's not exactly Mozart, or even David Sylvian, but it's great car music. In my half of the CD changer:

Creed: Human Clay
Linkin Park: Hybrid Theory
Japan: Quiet Life
The Cure: Singles
The Cult: Electric

Finally got my copy of Sunyata. It's quite good, but I do miss the old horn sample. Check it out, sans horns, at Basic Pleasure Model.

Cuz we got gud enuf teechers

ST sends a link: Recently, I interviewed with a school in one of the metro Atlanta counties, only to receive an e-mail from the principal stating, "Though your qualifications are quite impressive, I regret to inform you that we have selected another candidate. It was felt that your demeanor and therefore presence in the classroom would serve as an unrealistic expectation as to what high school students could strive to achieve or become. However, it is highly recommended that you seek employment at the collegiate level; there your intellectual comportment would be greatly appreciated. Good luck."

Yeah, I don't think I'll so much be sending my kids to publik skool.

What a punk

DM writes to point out that Al tackled the guy from behind. And he managed to break his glasses? (eyes rolling) "Franken emerged from the crowd and charged one male protester, grabbing him with a bear hug from behind and slamming him onto the floor."

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I've taken out someone from behind myself, actually, the same guy twice in a row. I was talking with a friend who travelled in similar martial arts circles one night while he was working as a bouncer at Prince's Glam Slam. Three guys got into a pretty vicious fight right behind us, and there as were only two bouncers at that door, I tagged along and grabbed the leftover, bounced his face off the wall and held him there with an armlock. He was stunned and seemed pretty relaxed, so I asked if he was cool. He said that he was, so I let him go. In the meantime, the other bouncer, a 300+ monster, had simply picked up one guy and marched him outside, but it had taken my friend a little while to subdue the other combatant and he was just frog-marching him past at the moment I let the other guy go.

Okay, it was dumb, but I'm not a bouncer, I don't know these things. Anyhow, the guy getting marched out spits on my guy, who then, naturally enough, goes for the spitter. My friend managed to pass off the spitter to the huge bouncer just in time to intercept, and started wrestling shoulder to shoulder with him. I wasn't sure what to do, being paralyzed with a plethora of options, but the guy was leaning forward, so I finally just reached over and picked up both his feet. (It would have been more elegant to sweep them, but like I said, I was frozen, I had too many options. When you train with experienced fighters, you're lucky if you get a window that's half-open for a split-second. And if something is open, it's usually a trap.)

He was pretty tall, about 6'2", so he hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of him. My friend was extremely annoyed at this point, as he'd taken a good punch in the face from the other guy, so as the guy started to push himself up, he jerked him up by the shirt collar and gave him a little heel of the hand into the solar plexus. That was pretty much lights out. The guy went down and didn't fuss at all when the huge bouncer came back in, scooped him up and carried him out like a baby. That was fun. Admittedly, I was either training or lifting weights seven days a week then, so my definition of entertainment was perhaps a little off.

Other than a few minor incidents like that, I never had any occasion to seriously use any of my training, which was probably for the best. Some of the other Dragons got into some interesting tangles, though. I'll save those stories for a rainy day.

I should have thought of this

Wise-cracking funnyman Al Franken yesterday body-slammed a demonstrator to the ground after the man tried to shout down Gov. Howard Dean. The tussle left Franken's trademark thick-rim glasses broken, but he said he was not injured. Franken - who seemed in a state of shock and out of breath after the incident - was helped back to his feet by several people who watched the tussle. Police arrived soon after. "I got down low and took his legs out," said Franken afterwards.

At least I know what to do to get him to respond to my little challenge. Of course, if he's in a state of shock and out of breath after tackling somebody, I have no idea how he's going to survive going a round or two with me. Our belt tests consisted of eight two-minute rounds against fresh black belts, with one-minute breaks and a minimum number of kicks and points required, and this after four hours of going through every kick, strike, kata and weapon drill to the satisfaction of the sensei. And that was for purple! After witnessing the two-day test for black, I was ready to go into the Federal Witness Protection program if the sensei even hinted at moving me up a level.

Anyhow, when Al gets his radio show rolling, I hope all of you will join me in calling in and asking when he's going to respond.

Al, you freaky little coward, I'm waiting....

UPDATE - it occurs to me... does this mean I can beat down anyone who tries to shout me down at a speaking engagement? I am so stoked! Forget the suit, it's time to break out the airbrushed Dragon jacket with the metal studs at the elbows.

Scalia trumps Sullivan

I have little respect for what these days passes for public homosexual intellectuals. Andrew Sullivan is hopeless on anything that involves his personal preferences - on such matters, he's the personification of the feminist stereotype of the man who thinks with his genitalia. Sullivan, like many other homosexual advocates, furiously denied that homosexual marriage advocacy would lead to efforts to legalize polygamy, mocking the notion as "intellectually laughable" and saying: "The slope, in fact, is not slippery at all. It isn't even a slope." So, naturally, it was only a matter of months before events, predictably, proved him to be completely and utterly wrong. If anyone has become intellectually laughable, it's Sullivan, who once argued that because something was a matter life and death for him, it was not a conflict of interest.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Lawrence case, arguing that overturning the Texas law would open the door to challenges of Utah's polygamy ban. Shurtleff said he believes Barnard's case is headed for the Supreme Court, and predicted the justices would uphold the polygamy ban. ``We have a long line of cases saying that the institute of marriage is the bedrock of society. Therefore, states have a compelling interest in regulating and controlling marriage,'' he said.

But at least one legal expert said Lawrence's logic leads to the legalization of polygamy, since the high court held that morality is not a strong enough justification for the state to ban a practice deemed unpopular or immoral by the majority. ``It's not a case people can sniff at,'' said Richard G. Wilkins, a law professor at Brigham Young University. ``If you can't require monogamy, how in the world can you deny the claims of the polygamists, particularly when it's buttressed by the claim of religion?''

The case for polygamy, being rooted in Judaic, Islamic, and Mormon religious traditions, is far stronger than the feeble case for homosexual marriage. It is even arguably within the Biblical Christian tradition as well, even if it does not represent the ideal. The Supreme Court could still deny it, of course, given that they are governed by nothing more than the social whims of six or seven individuals, but the justices can't deny it based on their recent "reasoning".

This, social conservatives, is only the latest proof of why it is foolish to rely on the state. It is a two-edged sword that will always end up turning on you in the end.

75,000

75,000 visits in the first three months, with an average of around 1,000 a day. That's a nice round little milestone. Thank you all for continuing to swing by, and I hope you'll continue to do so. It will be interesting to see where things are one year from now. I think the comments have worked out surprisingly well, although I urge everyone to keep it civil even when the topic is a sensitive one. Some of you -NATE- were dangling over the edge there on the Libertarian Party abortion issue - I'm claiming the monopoly on verbal abuse on this blog, thank you very much, as I have no desire to turn it into a mutually-reinforcing group-think circle.

Anyhow, thanks again.

Mailvox: Capitalism and Christianity

Vroom passes on a note: "People who claim that Christ can free us from sin, including greed, shouldn't advocate for themselves and for their spiritual brothers a system that, as y'all are so fond of saying, "actually requires human greed to function". Believe in capitalism if you want, just quit calling yourself a Christian."

This doesn't require much in the way of reply. Capitalism doesn't require greed to function. All it requires is that people place varying degrees of value on material goods and the freedom to exchange them as they see fit. The reason that socialism is always doomed to failure is that it posits the existence of absolute objective value as a basis for justifying its labor theory of value, which is required to justify a need to rectify distributive inquities as well as the existence of a party to provide such rectifications.

The notion that capitalism requires greed to function is not only trite, it demonstrates a high level of ignorance with regards to capitalism, human nature and history. The fact that some individuals may have latched onto a shallow Hollywood sound bite in a superficial defense of capitalism is irrelevant. Capitalism is not Wall Street, regardless of whether you are talking about the movie or the industry. Modern financial state imperialism can hardly be called capitalism, as it egregiously violates the freedom of exchange concept in a myriad of ways. Try buying a car with gold coins - or cash, for that matter - if you doubt me.

Mailvox: On defeat

DD writes: I feel so defeated as an American. I also feel defeated as a human. I feel like I can see where this world is going but I cannot find it in myself to take the actions to attempt to prevent the un-preventable, albeit a true man of courage and conviction would stand up and confront evil forces regardless if he feels he will lose. How do you balance a love of country with the truth of God's word, especially when it seems abundantly clear that the actions of ones country runs contrary to the nature of the Gospel. I am not a religious person at this point in my life. I am more confused about my faith than I am about what's happening to our country. The more I try to learn, the more I realize that I'm clueless. On top of that, I live a debaucherous life of drinking, sex and I just stopped doing drugs.

Is there any truth left down here. What exactly are we supposed to fight for in this day and age? I wish I knew. I want something to fight for. I want to step onto the battlefield. Unfortunately for me, I see that a war is going on, against God as well as the fundamental principles of our republic, but I don't know where to start.

You cannot be defeated by an external enemy. Whatever defeat you feel is a battle that you have lost with yourself. Before you can step onto the battlefield, you have to experience victory in yourself, and you already know why you do not have that. The ancient Greeks rightly believed in developing strength of body, mind and soul, and as most Americans are incredibly weak in all three, it should be no surprise that so many of us are prone to despair. The early Christians were not afraid to confront the might of Imperial Rome; we cringe in fear before a suspect look in the eyes of a neighbor and the threats of jumped-up accountants threatening to take worthless digital bits away from us. Where to start? Start with yourself.

What are we supposed to fight for now? The same thing that those before us and after us will fight for: the truth. No one ever said the way was easy, quite the contrary, in fact. But we have hope. George Washington almost never won a battle as an American general, but he won the war because he stubbornly and faithfully persevered. There is no secret, only a simple answer. When you get knocked down, get up again. Once you have decided to get back up again no matter how often you are knocked down, you have already won; you cannot be defeated. Some do it with saintly grace, others with snarling defiance. Hold to the truth regardless.

Your country is not your government. You can love the one and despise the other. Nor do you need to approve of something to love it, indeed, when we love something it is often the very flaws that make it unique that we come to love the most. I love the friendly, unpretentious savagery of my countrymen, the singular combination of unsophisticated good nature and lethal barbarism that makes them both amusing companions and fearsome enemies. It is this very trait that gives me hope that one day America will wake up, and turn with a vengeance on those who have tried, like Lilliputians with Gulliver, to bind her down that she might be destroyed.

But even if this is not the case and America succumbs to the eroding forces of evil, I will feel more encouraged with every satanic step towards global tyranny, implanted GPS tracking and total financial monitoring. Because we already know from the Revelation that it must get worse before it will get better, and even if our petty efforts are in vain, those of the one we serve and worship will not be. We may be the Spartans of our day, but the glory of our cause will long outlast Thermopylae.

General inconsistency

From USA Today: Clark also has provoked two rounds of controversy on abortion. Earlier this month, he told The Union Leader of Manchester there should be no late-term limits on abortion. But on Thursday, he said he agrees with Supreme Court decisions to legalize abortion in the first six months of pregnancy and let states set some restrictions.

Gee, where have we heard this before? Saying two different things on two different occasions? Unlike Newsweek, USA Today doesn't blame this on Clark's tone and manner, but on his inexperience as a candidate. Sure, whatever. The truth is that this again reveals what Clark's former boss, General Shelton, pointed out. Namely, Clark's character issues.

Mailvox: anti-life Libertarians

JB writes: I'll promise you that the CP and LP (as it is now) will never merge! We can work together on some things, but LP platform is pro-abortion among other things that would prohibit this.

The Libertarian party is not actually pro-abortion, although this is a common misconception. It is officially agnostic on the issue, which for all intents and purposes, is the functional equivalent of the Republican party. Saying that government should be kept out of the question is not tantamount to saying that abortion is a right, and leaving the matter up to the states is far preferable to allowing the Federal government to be involved. The Libertarian Party's only specific platform position on the matter is that no government funding of any abortions should be permitted, which is actual superior to the de facto Republican position that allows for the funding of abortions in this country and abroad. I do not believe that the Republican Party is any more serious about ending abortion than they are about reducing the size of government, so abortion is no reason to stay away from the Libertarians if your principles otherwise lead you to support them.

Not to mention the fact that the Pro-Life movement is much larger than the current Libertarian Party, which is already 40 percent pro-life.

I am a pro-life extremist myself, but this is the actual Libertarian Party position: Recognizing that abortion is a very sensitive issue and that people, including libertarians, can hold good-faith views on both sides, we believe the government should be kept out of the question. We condemn state-funded and state-mandated abortions. It is particularly harsh to force someone who believes that abortion is murder to pay for another's abortion. It is the right and obligation of the pregnant woman, not the state, to decide the desirability or appropriateness of prenatal testing, Caesarean births, fetal surgery, voluntary surrogacy arrangements, and/or home births.

Mailvox: Republican Candide

T writes: No sir. Bush and the Repubs must be given a bit of time to kill the Dems first.. then rise against them...

We've been hearing this sad excuse since 1980. In the past 23 years, only Ronald Reagan accomplished anything in terms of moving the country towards freedom, and even his presidency was ultimately a failure, not eliminating a single Federal department, massively increasing debt and leaving a legacy of Bush-league conservativism behind.

If the saying goes: "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me", what does that say for the foolishness of a Republican who gets fooled three, four and five times? What does George Delano Bush have to do to convince you of his lack of conviction in republican ideals, order the confiscation of all private firearms while having sex with Hillary Clinton on Nickelodeon? Personally conducting a polygamous multi-species gay marriage in the Oval Office? Even that wouldn't be enough for some Republicans, who would argue that now, having locked in both the anti-gun and trans-species votes, the Republican party is really, really, really, really in a position to reduce all of the central government expansion to which the party itself has contributed for the last two decades. Stop judging them by their words, people, judge them by their actions!

LW writes: I agree, Bush and congress are spendocrats. But I do believe any democrat that gets in office will increase spending a great deal more. That is not a defense of what is going on, only a practical assessment.

History strongly suggests that this belief, however strongly held, is nothing more than a naive rationalization. "The greatest increases in average annual domestic discretionary spending over the last 40 years were, except for Reagan, during Republican administrations: Bush II (8.2%), Ford (8.0%), Nixon (6.8%), LBJ (4.3%), Bush I (4.0%), Clinton (2.5%), Carter (2.0%), Reagan (-1.3%)."

Many conservatives commentators who believe in republican ideals call the Republicans the Stupid Party. It's not hard to see why. For who could argue that it is, without a doubt, the best of all possible political parties.

George Saruman Bush

“[Tolkien's] Middle-Earth mythology, he hoped, would serve as a wake-up call for the West, to return it to its pre-statist, pre-imperialist, pre-materialist phase. ” - Tolkien vs. Jackson

Like Tolkien, who hated "statism in every form" we Christian Libertarians may be the ultimate reactionaries. It is why I shudder at George Bush's call to move "forward", and my first reaction is to ask, forward to what? How is his call to progress any better, or for that matter, any different, than that of the progressives who have brought us so much forcible servitude and slaughter over the last century?

"I look East, West, North, South, and I do not see Sauron. But I see that Saruman has many descendants. We Hobbits have against them no magic weapons. Yet, my gentle hobbits, I give you this toast: To the Hobbits. May they outlast the Sarumans and see spring again in the trees." - JRR Tolkien, 1958.

In today's column, I compared George Bush to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The comparison is an apt one. But if the One Ring can be reasonably compared to the State in all its power, there can be little doubt that the president is one of Tolkien's Sarumans, and that the Republican Party, like those who attempt to wield the One Ring in an attempt to do good, have been corrupted by its power and will be destroyed because of their decision to embrace it.

To the Hobbits, who against all worldly logic, wait for the return of the King.

A Christian Libertarian ponders

The Libertarian Party's Statement of Principles

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual. We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.

We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, (1) the right to life -- accordingly we support the prohibition of the initiation of physical force against others; (2) the right to liberty of speech and action -- accordingly we oppose all attempts by government to abridge the freedom of speech and press, as well as government censorship in any form; and (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives and property for the benefit of others. They should be left free by government to deal with one another as free traders; and the resultant economic system, the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, is the free market.

I don't see anything in there that contradicts my thinking on abortion, since pregnancy is neither a voluntary nor a contractual relationship between the mother and child. And I think Sara is right. The Libertarian Party is hamstrung by its equivocation on abortion. In order to remain agnostic on the matter, as it does, it is forced to implicitly deny that the unborn child is an individual with the same right to life as the mother, which is contrary to Biblical teachings, Judeo-Christian historical tradition and modern science (based on the two distinct DNAs). So, what do we do? Do we stick with the Republicans, who have done next to nothing about abortion and are actively working to oppose the majority of what we believe in? Or do we take steps to help the Libertarian Party wake up to the one area where it falls short of its ideals?

That, my friends, is the question.

The strategic brilliance of Wesley Clark

Here's one for Boggie and all the leftist military experts who know squat about the military. From NRO's Corner: “I worked for Gen. Shelton [chairman of the joint chiefs at the time of the Kosovo conflict], but not for Gen. Clark. My specialty was the transition from the Deep Fight to the Close Fight which is where the Apache [helicopters] operate….

“My comments about Gen Clark's remarks center on his comment about the offer for the Apaches from JCS: The doctrinal use of that weapon system is well defined and the planners for that part of the battlefield are among the best in the world. (They are referred to as 'Jedi Knights' among the staff). I assisted in that kind of planning for General Shelton when he was commander of XVIII Corp. He is very capable of understanding a concept paper unless it departs from doctrine or [is] very poorly written.

“Furthermore, it is odd that General Clark would not have initiated the request for the Apaches BEFORE being asked if he could use them only days out from the Line of Departure, especially if, as he implies, they were so important to his success. It appears to me that he did not understand the use of those systems and was ignoring his planning staff until prompted by the JCS.

“Finally, I recall the most disturbing sight of that conflict, aside from the human horrors, was the footage of a Maverick missile destroying a [light] truck. This was paraded for the media as the success our technology could give us. Using that weapon to destroy a parked truck was not only a waste, but evidence that they did not have a target matrix worth a tinker's dam. In summary, I expect General Clark is more [of an] expert on gay marriage….”

This was clearly written in response to Clark's bizarre explanation of the Apache fiasco in an interview. As I wrote previously, more and more evidence of Clark's character flaws and general incompetence will be forthcoming over the next few weeks. I myself recall hearing that the same Serbian tank was destroyed on multiple occasions, as the Serbs moved it around to give our high-altitude fighter-bombers something harmless to hit. There are many officers from every branch, some at the highest ranks, who have zero desire to serve under him as Commander-in-Chief.

UPDATE: Newsweek piles on: The problem may have been partly a matter of Clark's tone and manner. As an ambitious officer, Clark gained a reputation among his peers for telling different people what they wanted to hear, without seeming to realize that his listeners might later compare notes and accuse Clark of being two-faced.

That's not a problem of tone and manner. That shows a weakness of character and an extremely short-sighted point of view. In other words, exactly what Shelton was warning about and then some.

Mystery dates

As awful as it sounds, the guy calling himself Mystery knows exactly what he's talking about when it comes to picking up attractive women. It may, in fact, be one of the strongest indictments of the sickness of our culture that in order to date desirable women, you often must first make yourself interesting by destroying them psychologically.

I discovered the concept of what Mystery calls "the neg" inadvertantly. I was in a tiny bar in Tokyo talking to someone, and another girl kept interrupting me from behind. I was rather short in telling her to take a hike without bothering to turn around, which caused her to become even more intent on attracting my attention. I was quite surprised when I finally did turn around to get rid of this annoying little pest and discovered I was blowing off an international model. Of course, the fact that I was an arrogant jerk in those days probably didn't hurt either.

The reason, I think, that nice guys lose almost every single time is that they're just not interesting. Seriously, The Perfect Aryan Male is possibly the world's nicest guy and about as major a catch as it gets, and he practically needs a construction crane to pick up a woman that isn't already throwing herself at him. Do you have any idea how many times a beautiful girl has heard someone tell her that she's really pretty? Figure ten times a day from the age of two - that's almost 60,000 boring repetitions. No wonder she's ready to throw herself at the first person who doesn't immediately begin fawning all over her. Nobody is really comfortable with respect that they haven't earned, even if they come to expect it over time.

Vox's Rules for Guys
1. Know your league. You can reasonably date one up or one down.
2. Girls like: Power, Fame, Money, Looks, in that order.
3. You can't be a nice guy and expect to get a phone number.
4. You can't be a jerk and expect to keep a girlfriend.
5. No one can see character in the first two weeks, let alone the first two hours.
6. If you're out to pick up chix, take a pretty girl with you.
7. Don't even think about using a line. Even the guys nearby are cringing.
8. Vague civility bordering on disinterest is like catnip for most women, but you can't fake it.
9. Never lie. Men and women alike find brutal honesty laced with irony to be interesting. Answering the question "what do you do?" with "I design computer games" sends the subtextual message "I'm a dork and you will hate yourself for continuing this conversation." Answering it with "Well, today I was trying to decide which sound was more appropriate for an axe striking human flesh before blowing off the rest of the day by killing hundreds of innocent aliens with a shotgun" will either get you a date or a look of complete horror. Either result is amusing. And if you get the latter, don't forget to punctuate the encounter with a burst of laughter that's just slightly too loud.

The ironic thing is that I never had the chance to use any of my finely tuned pickup skillz with Space Bunny. She happened to find the mohawk interesting - it was freshly shaven - and asked if she could touch it. I turned around, saw this slender, gorgeous blonde, and figured, yeah, sure. The next thing I know, I'm calling the Old Fox asking him to hook me up with his international diamond connections.

Linux is alive and well on Planet Vox

JD writes: Since the only Linux news I've heard from you is the problem with random slides in Open Office, I assume all is well on the Linux front, which is good news.

Yes and no. I gave up trying to solve the problem of getting my wireless PCMCIA card to work in Fedora Core 1 because the motherboard on that Dell laptop is failing and I don't dare turn it off since it takes up to 20 tries to get it to successfully into either Fedora or Windows. I leave it in Windows since the USB connection broke on my other Dell laptop (which is successfully running Fedora Core 1 and the same wireless card) and I need it to transfer ebooks and documents to my Dana. I also haven't been able to get Samba running on that other Dell - my work machine - but that doesn't matter now until I get another computer, as I can access the Windows Dell without any problem from Nautilus.

Hardware-wise, it was a horrific 2003. The motherboard on my HP Pavilion 850 went out, although I always hated that poorly-designed kludge of a machine so it wasn't much of a loss. Then the motherboard started failing on this Dell, and was replaced under warranty before the USB connection broke post-warranty and then the second Dell motherboard started dying. Three motherboards toast in one year, and I've never had a single one go out on me since my first Apple IIe. So, I'm not real impressed with the hardware designers these days.

So, the columns are written in OpenOffice 1.1, email is Evolution 4.5.1 and I'm blogging in Mozilla. There's still some minor irritants - I can't get the nice anti-aliased fonts to work in Mozilla 6 so I'm still working with Mozilla 4 despite two whacks at it, the Samba thing and Impress slide shows are less easy to construct than Powerpoint, but on the other hand, I'm not crashing four times a day either. And most importantly, I'm fully functional and 95 percent MS-free.

If anyone has any good recommendations on desktops shipping with Linux, particularly Firewire-friendly with DVD-burning support, let me know.

Short-term media memory

Despite an increased willingness by elected officials to consider ways to build stadiums for the Twins and Vikings, most Minnesotans don't think the two pro sports teams need new facilities and nearly two-thirds oppose paying for them with their taxes, the latest Star Tribune Minnesota Poll shows.

And here only three weeks ago, they were talking about how things had changed and how people were surprisingly open to funding a new stadium... again. I hated the Metrodome from the beginning, of course, so while I'd like nothing better than to see it nuked and replaced with a decent stadium that is open to the winter elements, the state should not fund it.

It would be simple for the NFL to fund such stadiums, of course, if they would allow teams to go public like the Packers or any ordinary corporation. But the league won't do that, because they'll lose the ability to extort communities into building them free facilities by threatening them with losing their team. One benefit of this is that it illustrates very well how big business and big government work hand in hand against the people; any notion of fundamental conflict between them is utterly misguided.

Impeccable timing

Of course, no sooner do I rip into Maureen Dowd with a vulgar, if eminently well-deserved attack than my blog is listed as one of the noteworthy Evangelical Christian blogs by a religion writer for a newspaper in Illinois.

Oh well. I meant every word that I wrote, and it was a struggle to keep it that tame. I'm quite laid-back about being attacked personally, but mocking entire nations - including one that was truly grief-stricken over the loss of 17 of its sons only a few months ago - in order to score a petty and inaccurate point against the president was not low, it was despicably subterranean.

The One Ring

I don't think it's an accident that JRR Tolkein portrayed evil as seeking "one ring to rule them all... one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." He was writing at a time when facism was rising - a binding together being part of the etymology of both the word and the concept behind it - and so I suspect that his depiction of evil was no more an accident than the translations of many of his characters' names.

What is the One Ring of our day, this powerful weapon which, if used, will destroy the wielder? I'm clearly not the only one who sees it as the State.

Worse than Clinton

Wesley Pruden writes in the Washington Times: ...the president's men thought he could safely ignore his conservative base because his best friends wouldn't have anywhere else to go. Conservatives would reckon they couldn't even indulge the luxury of staying home on Election Day. The president [Bush the Elder] could chase voters elsewhere.... Even Bill Clinton cut the number of federal employees; George W. added 80,000 new bureaucrats just last year. Every single state recorded an increase.

That pretty much explodes the "a vote for a third party is a vote for a Democrat" defense of the Republican Party, based, as it is, on the idea that a Democrat will make things worse. It is absolutely a fact that George Bush is worse than Bill Clinton when it comes to increasing the size of government and increasing Federal power, and one tax cut based on Keynesian economic justifications doesn't balance that. Got it, conservatives? Repeat this until it penetrates your brain: George Bush is worse than Bill Clinton. George Bush is worse than Bill Clinton. George Bush is worse than Bill Clinton.

This may seem counterintuitive, but so are many provable truths. A Republican executive combined with a Republican legislature will usually increase government more than a Democratic executive with a Republican legislature. That's because with nothing to push back against, the legislators feel the need to prove that they're doing something by passing new laws and creating new initiatives. It's why Bush wants to go to Mars and the California Republicans will likely give in and raise taxes now that Schwarzenegger is in office when they fought Gray Davis on it tooth-and-nail.

Basic IQ test: when politicians pass new laws, do they tend to:
(A) increase government power
(B) decrease government power.

After all, it's hard to run on a platform of: "well, we pretty much sat around and drank a lot of cocktails for two years. Vote for me!" It sounds a lot better to be able to say that you spent the term fighting for the children, the elderly and hard-working Americans who deserve a hand.

Pragmatists in politics are always doomed to eventual failure. Only principle will ever win in the end. What is more important to you, your principles or your party? If you believe in party uber alles, then you might as well be the Nazi that your left-liberal friends consider you. Be honest with yourself, are you truly less principled than the natural Democrats who've left that party for the Greens? That's an uncomfortable thought, now, isn't it.

Your "victory" in the last election brought you a man who is demonstrably worse than Bill Clinton. I submit that in light of this debacle, a new strategy is required.

Che cazzara stupida

Maureen Dowd writes: The Philippines. Thailand. Italy. Spain. Poland. Denmark. Bulgaria. Ukraine. Romania. The Netherlands. Norway. El Salvador. Can you believe President Bush is still pushing the cockamamie claim that we went to war in Iraq with a real coalition rather than a gaggle of poodles and lackeys?

I know I can speak for my friend, the Italian tank commander who served in Afghanistan and was stationed until recently at Nassiriyah where he lost a schoolmate, in saying va fanculo, puttana di merde. He and his boys were good enough for the USMC, so they're good enough for me and they're bloody well good enough for a clueless old has-been who hasn't written a single thing worth reading since Monica was getting her kneepads and Dowd was wishing she could. Well, maybe she has written something worthwhile in the intervening years, but I wouldn't know because I quit reading her trite and boring attempts at wit long ago.

Dowd is a moron, but even her extreme level of vacuity doesn't excuse this. I'd like to see Maureen and her fat thighs thundering along one of the mountain runs that the Alpini do for training. The Italians may not be the world's finest fighting force, but here's some news for her: neither are the bloody French! I notice she just happened to leave the Brits and the Aussies off her list.

Blackfive calls BS on her, comparing the coalition in Korea to the one in Iraq. Citizen Smash draws a picture that even Dowd should be able to grasp. Don't you just love how liberal New Yorkers like to pose as being worldly and sophisticated, when truly they're some of the most insular examples of Americanus Uglicus. I'll bet she just adores Florence.

Mailbox: Steampunk

Witrack asks: Any chance we'll see you write/release any books in the steampunk genre? I love that style of sci-fi. The whole idea of advanced technology in the 19th and 18th century. The whole Jules Verne, Wild Wild West, League of Extraordinary genre. Very cool. It's why I liked the Thief video game series. The hybrid of swords and sorcery and 19th century technology. The game even had 19th century motion detectors, etc. I didn't know what to call the genre until I heard the recently coined term steampunk.

Thief was good, but you'll have to hit up the Original Cyberpunk if you're into steam... heh heh heh. I don't read much of it, and as one who is neither skilled nor interested in things mechanical, I wouldn't make much of a writer of it either. I suppose this is as good a time as any to mention that yesterday I was asked to write the text for three comic books in a popular series that has sold about a million copies, which should be an interesting new format for me. I also turned in a novel to my publisher a few months ago that I wrote with another fellow entitled Stalking the Beast; it's about two centuries-old secret societies that are tracking the development of the Antichrist, one with an eye to "know the season" and the other with an eye to profiting from it. Think of it as pre-apocalyptic Christian fiction.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I will not be writing The Red Hand of Government for WND Books as Joseph Farah previously announced, since one of the execs decided that the premise was ridiculous. Everyone knows, apparently, that governments don't kill their own people. Right, whatever, Mr. History Expert. As it was the third concept of mine that they rejected, I think I'll stick with fiction and leave them to publish essays by radio personalities. It's a formula, and quite clearly it works for them, but since I'm not a talk show host it just doesn't apply to me. Also, being a novelist, I prefer to delve more deeply into a single subject instead of dancing from one to the next.

The one nonfiction book I thought would be particularly amusing to write was Screwing Themselves: why no one wants to marry 30-something women, based on the Spiting Their Pretty Faces column. The proposal was pretty funny, especially the chapter devoted to line-by-line exegeses of feminist anthems such as You Oughtta Know and Bitch. That didn't go over particularly well with the Oprah fans on the pub board, believe it or not. I suppose this is what basing your media career on the WWCDD principle gets you: What Would Chuck D Do?

I don't mind. I write for pleasure, not profit, and with two novels due this year and two next year, I'm already pushing my maximum output level. Novels are more amusing and challenging than nonfiction anyhow.

A day late

This is how to celebrate the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. By challenging it and refusing to recognize it at every opportunity. It is bad law, worse social engineering and makes a total mockery of any claim that America may have once had to being a moral nation.

I understand some libertarians are pro-choice. I have about as much regard for their logic on this particular matter as I would have for anyone who would attempt to use libertarian concepts to justify slavery or the Endlösung. Africans, Jews and the unborn are all human, with the same claim to the unalienable right to life as anyone else.

The "it's my body" justification is hopeless, both from a legal point of view - there are dozens, if not hundreds of existing laws exploding this notion - or even from a purely hypothetical point of view, considering that the other individual inside has his own distinct DNA.

There you go, Pieter.

20 years of conservative sellout

A National Review editor writes: "Perhaps we have been a bit soft on the president...."

I don't think the magazine is intentionally soft on the Bush administration, just misled by the hopes and expectations of its conservatives who have been hoodwinked by the administration. Jonah [Goldberg] was right to be leery of "compassionate conservativism", for as Hayek once wrote of social justice, any noun that is modified by an adjective is no longer the pure noun. (I'm paraphrasing, of course.)

Personally, I believe that we are witnessing the beginnings of a landmark transformation, comparable to the death of the Whig party more than a century ago. An Italian admiral once pointed out to me that in political terms, the great intellectual battle of history is between the collectivist vision of Plato and the individualist vision of Aristotle, and so the merger of the Republican and Democratic parties into a Platonist big tent will inevitably lead to the birth of a new party championing many of the ideals for which the Republican party once stood - and in which many Republicans still believe.

There is a hoary old excuse that claims as soon as the Republicans achieve power, we'll see their true colors. This has actually proven to be true. A Republican House, Senate and White House have combined to create the most expansionary central government since LBJ. Just as no honest capitalist would see any need to choose between a Stalinist or a Trotskyite candidate, no supporter of small government and individual freedom should feel any pressure to support the lesser of two evils presented by the two major American parties.

It was not pragmatic to oppose a three percent tax on tea, when the net price was actually cheaper. It was principle George Washington and Ron Paul - whose singular principled support for the US Constitution has rendered him so popular as to be politically unassailable - prove that in the end, principle defeats pragmatism every single time.

If the American people have no principles, pragmatism will only slow, slightly, the national decline into full-blown socialism. And if no one offers them a principled alternative, this decline will be inevitable.

Mailbox: Off the meds

Nancy froths: YOU WRITE AS A MAN WITH A HIGH ENOUGH INTELLIGENCE WHICH IS WHY I FIND IT SOOO LUDICRIOUS THAT YOU WOULD CONVINCE YOURSELF THATAMERICA IS BETTER OFF WITH THE DIM BULB PRESIDENT WE HAVE NOW! IF YOU ARE EVEN VAGUELY AWARE OF THE REAL POWER HOLDERS IN D.C. WHY ARE YOU NOT MENTIONING KARL ROVE,DICK CHENEY,RICHARD PERLE,PAUL WOLFOWITZ, TO NAME A FEW........GET REAL!

Read the previous week's article, Nancy. Alternatively, wait for next Monday's. Not everyone who despises Wesley Clark and Howard Dean is enamored of George Bush. Furthermore, a 125 IQ is far above average; George Bush is more intelligent than JFK, to name one predecessor. He's closer to Clinton and Gore than he is to the average American. Don't mistake verbal agility with intelligence; the two often run in parallel, but they are not synonymous.

Mailbox: Intelligence, irony and bias

MM writes: I was skimming a group of links yesterday on one of my favorite news sites yesterday, and I happened across your article, in which you, basically, say that a high IQ leads to a clouded, disillusioned mindset. I thought that it was very interesting, considering the content of your article, that your blurb at the end of the piece mentions your membership to Mensa, an organization for those with IQs in the top 2% of the population. I would think that this invalidates your argument comepletely. I mean, considering that you juxtapose a high IQ with a distorted worldview, and you must have a rather high IQ to be a member of Mensa, doesn't that imply that you have a twisted perspective as well? Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting something, but it seems like you're being a bit hypocritical.

Far from being hypocritical, I am speaking from both direct personal experience as well as firsthand observation. First, Mensa is a floor, not a ceiling, and many Mensans do not fit the very high IQ profile I was describing. It would be absurd, however, to suggest that a strong tendency to think in the abstract is always tantamount to disillusionment, twisted perspective or a distorted worldview. It is a tendency, and as such can be successfully controlled, although Wesley Clark's actions suggest that he has made no effort to do so. Or do you seriously wish to argue that the highly intelligent don't think differently than those of average or subnormal intelligence?

Then there's the fact that Mensa itself states that one of its goals is to create a society that is non-political, while your very article is written for WorldNetDaily, one of the most notorious extreme-right news sites around. Just so you know that I have a bit of a bias, I'm pretty liberal, but I'm not judging your article on the fact that you go off on the Democratic candadites, I'm rather dissatisfied with them this year too. I just thought you'd want to be aware of the irony of the fact that you not only disparage those with high IQs whilst belonging to Mensa, but also write for one of the most politically bent news organizations ever.

Mensa wishes the organization to be non-political, not to eradicate politics from society. And WND is far from being, as you say, "one of the most politically bent news organizations ever". Our weekly commentators hail from a far broader range of the political spectrum than any major news organization, featuring left-liberal Democrats such as Bill Press, Ellen Ratner and Marilyn Polak to conventional Republicans like Pat Buchanan, David Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin, independents such as Joseph Farah and Libertarians such as Harry Browne, Ilana Mercer, and myself. WND also features a daily piece selected from the middle to extreme Left, which is far more than any left-liberal rag dares to do. (Okay, one of my pieces did appear in Pravda once, but I don't think it's left-wing anymore.) In any case, your statement is not only hopelessly incorrect, it borders on silly. Do you honestly believe the New York Times features a more balanced view than WND, devoid as it is of everything to the right of John Maynard Keynes with the exception of two moderate Republican editorialists?

I was not disparaging high intelligence, I was only warning of some of its inherent dangers. There has to be some reason that the intersection of intellectuals and government power tends to have a high body count, after all. I am suggesting a partial explanation.

True Stories of the USMC

I don't know if the story about Commandant Gray is true, but this one is. When I was in college, Big Chilly and I stopped by to visit with a certain Marine general of my acquaintance, accompanied by another friend. Big Chilly and my other friend were a little taken aback when, after being introduced, the general pointed to a North Korean colonel's hat and said: "You know the difference between you and me? I killed the man who wore that hat." I don't think I've ever seen Big Chilly's eyes so wide.

However, the general is nothing if not charismatic, and by the time we left his house two hours later, we were not only singing the Marine Corps anthem, but abandoning our respective plans for med school and starting a computer game development company while arguing vociferously about which branch of the Corps we were each going to pursue. Big Chilly wanted to take his perfect vision and go for a Harrier pilot, our other friend was intent on Force Recon, and I hoped to follow the lead of my grandfather into the 2NDMARDIV. This went on for about 90 minutes, until Big Chilly suddenly held up his hand and said: "wait a minute, I don't want to join the Marine Corps!"

At which point the spell was broken and we went ahead with our lives, as previously planned. But if the USMC ever lacked for volunteers, all they need to do is put a recruiting station right outside the general's driveway.

The crudeness of Oz

One Kiwi commenter reminded me of my Ozzie friend, Firestarter. I was exploring the Lombard interior with a pair of Australian couples in search of the mythical Zegna outlet, which gave me the opportunity to observe the species up close and personal. Firestarter was trying to figure out if an associate of his brother's, who worked with the other guy's wife, was the jerk he suspected him to be. The woman was reluctant to be forthcoming, which finally prompted her husband to burst out: "look, is he a wanker or is he a mate?"

But the women can hold their own. Both the guys were rhapsodizing all morning about a statue they'd seen the day before entitled Primavera, which, naturally, was a scantily-clad, barely pubescent, beautiful young girl. After listening to a long and monotonous duet on the aesthetic charms of youthful pulchritude, one of the women finally gestured to a young boy walking by and snapped: "You know, I'd really like to suck his d---!"

The other woman and I burst out laughing, while the two Ozzies looked suitably chastened for all of about five seconds, then cracked up themselves. Ozzies are great; they're the only aliens I know who fully grok the fullness of American humor. And speaking of Firestarter, it's been too long since we've talked. Give me a call, mate.

Again with the ignorance

TBOGG comments: Unfortunately you make no case whatsoever, and so...no link for you. I do await your evidence of your "actual knowledge" of American military jargon.

Apparently someone's not only ignorant of military nuance but also the fact that this blog is not where most people read me. No link to a blog? What, do I look like a blogwhore? As for actual knowledge, well, Joe Carter knows the evidence, but he won't tell you. And neither will I, although this story might amuse you.

Some people just don't understand a shot across the bow.

The Freedom Alliance

From NRO's Corner: It strikes me that the Republican party is rapidly becoming the Democratic party of the first half of the 20th Century. Bush can be compared to Theodore Roosevelt - the first big government Republican, to FDR, and you yourself [Jonah Goldberg] compared him to LBJ. The Democratic Party today seems to be imploding while the GOP is rapidly recreating itself. I believe that in twenty years there will be a new conservative party, the Republicans will be the Old Democrats, and there will be no Democrats as we know them today. And I don't mean a Patrick Buchanon-type conservative party.

Precisely. Now, if we can just get the Constitutionalists and the Libertarians to team up and adopt a Christian Libertarian position on abortion - using the unborn child's unalienable right to life as a justification for secular libertarians while Christian conservatives will have to abandon their fondness for the War on Drugs - we can actually get things rolling. What the NRO reader describes is exactly what I've been envisioning myself.

The Republican Party is dead. Long live republicanism.

Wesley on marriage

"But whether you call it marriage or not is up to the church or the synagogue or the mosque. And it’s up to the state legislatures. I think marriage is a term of art. It’s a term of usage. But the legal side of it is not: It’s not negotiable."

Or, alternatively, a sacrament. Not to mention a very well-defined traditional institution. Any doubts now about Wesley Clark's preference for his abstract vision of the future over history or objective reality?

This, conservatives, is why the embrace of the State always leads to disaster. Once you give the State the power to define something, you give the State the power to redefine it. Clark is saying here that there is no such thing as spiritual or sacramental marriage, only a legal, state-recognized contract. Notice the usual pattern:

1) The State recognizes an exogenous institution.
2) The State offers benefits to the exogenous institution.
3) The State, as an interested party, demands some influence over the now-endogenous institution.
4) The State takes a controlling interest in the endogenous institution.
5) The State eradicates the involvement of the party which now has no influence regarding its former institution.

You may wish to rethink that whole voucher business. You can no more have a little State control than you can be just a little pregnant.

Hack me

Yes, WND got hacked. I imagine a lot of WNDers are a bit hacked off, but I'm merely amused. You see, not only was I a member of the Thieves Guild back in my Apple II days, but Big Chilly and I also insisted on publishing our games without any copy protection. I even offered to have my books released for free in PDB format, but my publisher isn't quite convinced that solving the lack of exposure problem is far more important than losing a potential sale to someone who might otherwise buy the book.

Besides, I'm a friend of the Original Cyberpunk, so I can hardly get bent out of shape about a little computer mischief. Now, virus writers are another matter. I meet a virus author, I'll pop him one in the face and cheerfully pay the fine/do the time. It would cost less and waste less time than I wasted on virus-related matters before switching to Linux.

Here's a question. Why does the media continually get so excited about young female athletes? Michelle Wie is only the latest example. A young girl, 13 or 14, accomplishes a notable athletic feat, and is then predicted to dominate her state/sport for the next 20 years, which is what would happen if a young male were to accomplish the same. Of course, since a mature woman's body is actually a handicap in most sports, her performance usually worsens as she gets older, until by the time she's a junior or senior, she's getting "upset" by yet another 8th or 9th grader.

I've seen this happen again and again in high school sports. A friend of mine was the state champion gymnast and a top 100 meter sprinter in 9th grade; by our senior year she was no longer competing in gymnastics and didn't finish in the medals in the conference championship, let alone the regional meet. Her times actually slowed about half a second, while in that same period, my 100 meter time dropped by almost three seconds. In fact, if you follow high school sports at all, you'll often see 8th and 9th grade girls winning state championships in track, cross country and tennis.

Golf, of course, is barely a sport, so it's entirely possible that Miss Wie may dominate women's golf and win more championships than Tiger Woods. But it's hard not to forget how Martina Hingis' career is over and done at an age when many great male champions had yet to win their first major. This doesn't take anything away from Miss Wie's accomplishments now, but it seems odd to completely ignore history and physiology in discussing the probable future.

Another big government conservative disaster

From the Washington Times: President Bush last night proposed an ambitious package of domestic spending that will drive up discretionary expenditures far more rapidly than his recent predecessors. The State of the Union initiatives that he wants passed this year include more spending for the Department of Education, a new assistance fund to help manufacturers recover from their recession and funding for a major, long-term expansion of NASA's space budget. Early projections indicate passage of Mr. Bush's proposals will increase non-defense spending well beyond the 4 percent to 5 percent the administration has budgeted for the current fiscal year, nearly double the average annual increases of about 2.5 percent by President Clinton during his two terms.

Why are Republicans supporting this man? He's a Clintonite Democrat in conservative clothing, except that even Clinton never dared anything like the Patriot Act. Just wait until the next Democrat gets into office and starts wielding the expanded central power that this Republican Congress and Administration have created. Then, I expect conservatives will start crying foul. The president rightly compared the Patriot Act to the drug war last night... how much more clear does he have to make his intentions to violate civil rights and American liberties before those who profess to care deeply about such things will disavow his actions? Yes, he's a better Commander-in-Chief - did you really doubt that our military forces could beat Iraq and the Taliban?

Does being a Republican truly mean never have to say you're sorry for reducing American freedom? Clinton would never have gotten a pass on this from conservatives. Bush shouldn't either.

You're not as free as you think you are

Not too impressive for the erstwhile leader of the free world. It's too bad that both major parties are working hard to push Americans further down the list of countries that are economically free, especially considering that only 16 were considered "free" by the Heritage Foundation. I think one could even make a strong case for the USA being listed as a second-tier "mostly free" economy.

Hong Kong (1st)
Singapore (2nd)
New Zealand (3rd)
Luxembourg (4th)
Ireland (5th)
Estonia (6th)
United Kingdom (7th)
Denmark (8th)
Switzerland (9th)
United States (10th)

The embarassment of ignorance

TBOGG tries, unsuccessfully, to get on Instapundit for the misuse of military terminology, arguing that Wesley Clark wasn't "fired by Bill Clinton", he was only rotated out of his assignment. This is what happens when you try to substitute a dictionary for actual knowledge. High-ranking officers are seldom openly relieved, but a rotation in the middle of an assignment is an unmistakable slap in the face and an obvious declaration of incompetence in this context. That is why the term firing is absolutely appropriate, and it was something for which Bill Clinton, as Commander-in-Chief was ultimately responsible. But the real issue isn't whether Clinton liked Clark or not, but if Clark is an incompetent and arrogant buffoon masquerading as a victorious general. Anyone who has read what passed for his notion of a ground invasion already knows the truth.

As DG points out: "Clark's plan to invade Kosovo through Albania, thankfully killed by the Joint Chiefs, was stunning in its lack of basic military judgment. It called for 200,000 troops to invade through Albania over a single road which was only partly paved and had few bridges able to support our tanks and Bradleys. One defense expert said the plan called to mind Gallipoli." One road through difficult terrain... hmmm, I was thinking more of Teutoburger Wald.

In fact, the very column upon which TBOGG relies second-hand, states: Gen. Hugh Shelton, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is another matter. Shelton has recently and famously said, in a public forum, that Clark's firing "had to do with integrity and character issues," adding that, for that reason, "Wes won't get my vote." Shelton has since refused to elaborate. If there's a story behind his claim, he should tell it, in the interests of the country. If there isn't, he should apologize.

So, if you refer to something that no one in the know contradicts, it doesn't exist if you don't spell it out for the ignorant? How ridiculous! The case against Clark may be unmade for the military know-nothings in the media, but there are many people for whom Clark's buffoonery has long been an open secret. The dirty laundry of the services is very seldom aired, especially not at the top levels, and it won't be aired simply because Fred Kaplan is upset that he isn't in on it. Nor, I strongly suspect, is General Shelton the only member of that elite group of five generals who won't be supporting Wesley Clark in any way shape or form, because they know him much better than his foolish, clueless supporters.

UPDATE: Here's the Rev. Paul Mojzes on the Kosovo air war: What the bombing did was exactly the opposite of what its intentions were. It was supposed to stop the expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo but it resulted in a greater expulsion. This turned out to be a miserable failure. The expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo is vastly greater after the attack by NATO than before, some due to bombing and some due to the activities of the Serb military and paramilitary units.... Before the bombing, there was no mass expulsion. It was in trickles. Now, 600,000 people have been expelled.

Furthermore, Milosevic wasn't captured by US or NATO forces. He was arrested by Yugoslavian police on domestic charges of corruption almost two years after the war had ended. Only after intense lobbying by the UN and others was he turned over to the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague. Hardly a military success.

HYEEEAAAHHH

Howard Dean is awesome. I'm totally supporting him for the Democratic nomination now. He's so insane that I may write him in for president even if he doesn't get the nomination. And to think they used to worry about Ronald Reagan, the author of hundreds of sober, intelligent essays, having his finger on the button.

The only downside is that the White Buffalo is going to be calling me, yelling: "Take back the White House! Hyeeeaaahh!" and then hanging up the phone for the next month. It's Wazzup all over again.

I was so sure that it was Clark who was far and away the craziest of the bunch. I'm still leaning towards him, but that was a fine effort by Mr. Dean. A demmed fine effort.

It works for the IRS

The efforts of some colleges to shut down these classic demonstrations of free speech have failed miserably. For example, at William and Mary College, administrators recently claimed that students conducting such a sale were “violating campus policy.” However, when later asked by the student protestors to cite the specific policies, the administration claimed that, “Referring to the Student Handbook at this point in time is counterproductive."

Mailbox: The military on Clark

A pilot writes: Great commentary this week. The more I listen to Wes Clark, the more I dislike him and see his lack of integrity. I am a [plane] pilot in the Air Force and I just recently flew with [an officer] who cares very little about Wes Clark. This [officer] said that Gen Clark has 3 personal traits that, when combined, make a very "dangerous" personality. They are 1) unbridled ambition, 2) extreme intellect/intelligence, and 3) incredible narcissism. It was absolutely amazing to listen to this senior [officer] talk to us about what drove then Gen Clark to make some of the decisions he made during Op. Allied Force. It gave me more insight to how Gen Clark thinks which is why I mentioned earlier about disliking him the more I listen to him. That is the main reason I enjoyed your latest commentary because it touched on the very subject I and the [officer] were talking about as we flew into Iraq and Afghanistan.

I've heard this from Marines, I've heard this from the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. Interesting, isn't it, that those who know Wesley best are so opposed to him. But then, on the other hand, Madonna and Michael Moore think he's spiffy. That should tell you everything you need to know about his electability.

By the way, I don't believe the Republican rumors that Clark is any kind of stalking horse for the Clintons. Not for a second. The man is far too vain and ambitious to willingly play the patsy, and he's intelligent enough to see through their generally rather obvious machinations. Contrary to what people believe, neither Bill nor Hillary are especially intelligent - from what I understand, Clark is at least a level up on both of them. This would not be unusual. I happen to know that at least one member of Bill Clinton's Joint Chiefs - not Wesley Clark - had an IQ that exceeded his 137 by almost 40 points.

Dean implodes

I'm not surprised that Dean melted down, in multiple senses, last night. This isn't based on any sophisticated political analysis, just given that America generally prefers candidates who are taller and better-looking, with better hair, you'd expect either Wesley Clark or John Edwards to be the eventual nominee.

The fact that Kerry won means little, since Iowa is a very poor predictor of the eventual Democratic nominee. He strikes me as being far too lugubrious for one thing, and boring for another, and for a third, senators tend to make for unsuccessful candidates. Edwards is also a senator, of course, but very few people know enough about him to realize that. According to NRO's Corner, he speaks well, which is unsurprising considering that he's a successful trial lawyer.

Clark makes a decent candidate when seen from afar, but he's already committed enough mistakes to sink himself twice over. His abortion comment alone would be enough to sink him, and the fact that he's loathed by everyone in the military from generals on down means that what should be his greatest strength is actually his greatest weakness. This doesn't matter in the Democratic primaries, where the military vote is nonexistent, but will matter greatly in the fall.

I'm not that interested in politics as horse race. But it was fun to see the media's pet, Doc Sausage, implode like that. The only thing that would have been better is if he'd actually burst out crying. Three whole weeks of people being mean! Live by the media, die by the media. I suppose they play nicer in Vermont. What a loser.

Mailbox: Wesley died for you

Westcott whines: Just thought your comments about Wesley Clark were ill advised. He does not have an abstract view of the world, he has had to keep the world together in order to prevent almost a million muslims from being slaughtered by Serbia. BTW My IQ is 141 and you are an idiot. Why? because I said so.

A. Wesley Clark doesn't keep the world together, even if he believes so.
B. Wesley Clark certainly has an abstract view of the world, which is why he is a UN-worshipper. This is true of all UN-worshippers, except those starry-eyed few who would seriously argue that the UN has significant practical relevance today as opposed to theoretical potential in a globalist vision for the future.
C. Wesley Clark and his ill-advised bombing campaign did little damage to the Serbian army and significantly worsened the ethnic cleansing that took place there.
D. You'll have to do better than 141, wannabee.

The Vaginettes

"Stefanie Thomas, a senior women's studies major, is performing the monologue "Reclaiming Cunt," which depicts one woman's passion for the word. Similar to vagina, "cunt" is not often used in daily conversation, but the women of The Vagina Monologues have embraced it. "Cunt is not a derogatory word, cunt," Thomas said. "Cunt is a word that I have reclaimed to transform into something positive, and that is an important message. Somehow it got transformed into something negative and so this monologue is all about transforming something that could be perceived as negative and claiming it and turning it into a positive."

Oh, dear luscious Vaginette, how I do love thee.
Though thou doth shameth my lame hand at parodee.
Try as I might, I am put to flight,
By the limitless depths of thy self-mockeree!

INTERCEPTED ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION - Excellent work, Brotherhood Idealizing Totally Curvacious Hos. For our next masterpiece, we'll be convincing overeducated young women that having anonymous sex with strangers is a mark of self-confidence and feminist independence... oh, we already did that? Right, then that brings us to a project that is close to my heart, convincing the poor dears to swallow the notion that performing a daily blow job will prevent breast cancer. And remember, no taxation on breast augmentation!

Fred on America

Fred brilliantly expounds: The US government consists of five branches which are, in rough order of importance, the Supreme Court, the media, the presidency, the bureaucracy, and Congress. The function of the Supreme Court, which is both unanswerable and unaccountable, is to impose things that the congress fears to touch. That is, it establishes programs desired by the ruling political class which could not possibly be democratically enacted. While formally a judicial organ, the Court is in reality our Ministry of Culture and Morals. It determines policy regarding racial integration, abortion, pornography, immigration, the practice of religion, which groups receive special privilege, and what forms of speech shall be punished.

Interesting to see the depth of insight of a man who is, as near as I can tell, not a Christian, but nevertheless has great respect for the primary fount of Western values. Most Christians, let alone secular humanists, would vociferously argue that there's no ongoing abolition of Christianity in America. They'd also be completely wrong.

...the two-party system prevents expression of any ideas the two parties agree to suppress. How much open discussion do you hear during presidential elections of, for example, race, immigration, abortion, gun control, and the continuing abolition of Christianity? These are the issues most important to most people, yet are quashed.

Unlike most, Fred puts his money where his mouth is. He doesn't like the direction America is going, so he left. The truth is that America is not the most free country in the world, among other things, the Heritage Foundation puts it tenth in economic freedom. I'd put it even lower in comparison with some of the countries of New Europe who have no taste for our creeping socialism, so I imagine that our rank will be dropping in the next decade.

Susan, you ignorant slut

Susan comments (tongue-in-cheek, I do hope): To borrow a pharse- What's frightening, to me, is the notion of intelligent people who are able to focus because they so slaver after power over others. That is why I think that anyone who is willing to put themselves in the position to alliance others by espousing their superior thoughts should be at least considered as suffering from perhaps being somewhat psychologically narcissistic.

"Pharse" may indeed describe this blog from time to time, but I do excuse typos here. I do not, however, excuse the confusion of 'alliance" and "influence". As for psychological narcissism, come on, Susan, it's a blog! It's psychologically narcissistic by definition! How on earth would you explain the popularity of the phenomenon otherwise?

As for power over others, I don't slaver after it. Quite the opposite. I try to avoid getting saddled with it as best I can.

Mailbox: What about you, stupid?

BP asks: First, I thank you for your Worldnetdaily commentaries. Yours is one of the few columns I always read. But I do have a question about your last column. How is it that you, a Mensa member, consistently writes a thought-provoking column, soundly grounded in reality, despite being cursed with a high intelligence? You need a column to explain the success of highly intelligent people. Interestingly enough, In my close circle of friends, personal and economic success seems to have a small negative correlation with intelligence. But at the subnormal levels life is definite difficulty among those I know.

You are, of course, quite welcome. As confusing as life can be for the super-bright, there's no question that it's much tougher for the stupid. They deserve our pity, our respect and our help, though never our contempt, and there is no justification to proclaim ourselves a self-selected elite worthy to rule over them, however distasteful their aesthetics and appalling leisures may be to we happy arrogant few. However, I suggest that you could argue my column is anything but successful. There are plenty of columns written by the less-than-brilliant that appear in hundreds of papers around the country, while mine is dismissed by editors - even those open to my political ideology - as being over the heads of their readers, which may be why it only appears in precisely two places. I've been told by numerous parties to dumb it down, (excuse me, make it more accessible), if I wish to increase the odds of my success. A columnist more focused on the financial success and fame of his column would certainly do so. I considered it for about a week.

And, I won't. Why not? Not out of some prideful quasi-artistic pique, but because as a conventionally unfocused megabrain, I have other interests that claim my attention, some of which are significantly more lucrative than mediahood, some of which are orders of magnitude less so. I've concluded that my media career, such as it is, is nothing more than a hobby so I'm free to write as I please. For example, these last two columns are about as close as I'll get to the political horse race that will dominate 80 percent of everyone else's columns for the rest of the year; how many variations on "why Bush is bad" and "why Clark is stupid" do we really need to read? A lot more than I want to write, I'm sure.

So, you see, I can be just as functionally-stupid in my own way. But at least I know it. General Clark doesn't.

RSS feed

I've added an RSS feed, though I'm not sure what the best way to let people know about it is, and I'm also curious to see if it will increase or cut down on blog traffic, but I thought I'd give it a whirl anyhow. The feed is http://feeds.blogstreet.com/39490.rss.

The curse of intelligence

One of the reasons I felt pretty comfortable making the assertions I did in today's column is that I am not only in the high-powered intellectual range myself, but I have three close acquaintances and two extended-family members who also are. The brightest of the bunch, interestingly enough, is the one who would almost certainly be accounted the biggest failure in social, career and societal contribution terms. Horn lived in the basement of the Digital Ghetto for about two years, taking a low-level tech job only when he ran out of money - usually being promoted twice within the first three months. He would also almost always make some simple, but astoundingly brilliant suggestion to modify the company's procedures that would be immediately enacted by a surprised and happy management.

Then, as soon as he'd stashed a bit of money in the bank, he'd lose interest and stop showing up for work. Most people who knew him blamed his behavior on the copious amount of chemicals he added to his bloodstream, but that wasn't it at all. He always knew what he was doing - indeed, he had a far better idea than most people I know - he simply didn't have much interest in the trappings of a normal life. I also saw, first-hand, how his irrepressible curiosity prevented him from accomplishing much, as he'd spend an evening writing a lovely, melodic song on the synthesizers, then not bother to save the MIDI file because he'd thought up an interesting new synthetic chemical formula or conceived a design for a monstrous superbong that required two men to move. That one, he actually built. "The filtration is excellent!" Yeah, and if the police come, we can just push it over and drown them.

It was always interesting to live with him, though. And it certainly does sharpen the intellect to have someone walk into your room at three in the morning and lead off with "So what do you think Kant meant when...." Please, please, tell me this is a nightmare....

I'm not in Horn's league where raw upstairs firepower is concerned, but Space Bunny would probably tell you that I have the same distaste for focus, even though chemicals don't figure into my interests. My next company could quite reasonably justify a ten-digit market cap in five years, assuming that I don't get too distracted with writing my next fantasy novel or designing the multi-level stratego-tactical historical wargame I've been pondering since 1992. That will sound ridiculous to most people, of course, and yet I'm truly as interested in the third concept as the first. I've certainly put more time into it.

What's frightening, to me, is the notion of intelligent people who are able to focus because they so slaver after power over others. That is why I think that anyone who is willing to put themselves through the grueling rigor of the campaign process should be barred as being psychologically unfit for office.

That's better

NFL Championships 2-0. Playoffs 6-4.

Carolina rushed for 155 yards, just as I expected, and saw excellent results from keeping the middle lanes closed so Donovan McNabb couldn't run. John Fox did a great job of sticking to his game plan, running the ball right down the Eagles' throats and refraining from the temptation to get unnecessarily cute. I was sure that Carolina would win when he told the halftime reporter that Carolina needed to run the ball more when they already had a 60-40 run-pass ratio. McNabb played tough, like he always does, but anyone looking for reasons why Philadelphia has dropped three straight NFC championships has to look at this reality: "In three NFC championship games, McNabb is 54-for-101 for 514 yards with one touchdown and five interceptions, and just nine rushes for 53 yards."

But football is a team game, of course, and there's nothing I despise more than the media assigning all glory and blame to the quarterback. Last week, the receivers came through; this week they didn't. The way I saw it, Philadelphia's luck ran out and their not-so-secret weaknesses were exposed by a team led by a coaching staff that knew how to exploit them.

As for the other game, it was a perfect example of the sports media hyperventilating about a hot quarterback and forgetting that great defense paired with a serviceable offense usually wins championships. Yes, we all remember the 1999 Rams, but that was an all-time great offense with three dangerous receivers, not one, and a better RB. Peyton Manning isn't easily taken out of his game, but it can be done, and the hard-hitting in the secondary reminded me of when the Ravens beat up the Raiders in the AFC championship game. The Patriots offense is boring, but it works and Tom Brady throws the bravest five-yard outs in the league. I saw two passes that, if thrown by a less accurate quarterback, would almost certainly have gone the other way for six. Fantastic OL line protection too.

Both games were a pleasure to watch even if the outcomes were never really in doubt, reminding you that professional football is not just a display of raw speed and power but also the world's most intellectually intriguing sport. Only one game left... I'm already day-dreaming about August.

We ain't no nerdz

And we have the proof. It is, however, as Wellington once said of Waterloo, a damned close-run thing, though.

Vox Day: 45.23809523809524% nerd blood flows through your veins.
Big Chilly: 47.61904761904762% nerd blood flows through your veins.

Space Bunny: 9.52% - and she's tremendously embarrassed that she scored that high.

Mailbox: A God without hands

JD writes: Here's the quote from you with which I take issue: "since God refrains from using his omnipotence to enforce virtue, the human polity should do likewise and refrain from using its power to the greatest extent possible." To the absolute contrary, God DOES enforce virtue. God describes His approach as such: "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation." (EXO. 34: 7) You may not immediately see it right in the instance that virtue is broken, but He most certainly DOES enforce virtue. You can bet your eternal life on it! If He doesn't enforce virtue, then explain death.

I see no need to explain death. What I do see is the need for JD to explain that if God is enforcing virtue in the sense that I used the term "enforce", how is it possible for man to sin? I never argued that nonvirtuous behavior has no consequences, nor did I argue that society must accept nonvirtuous behavior in others, I stated that society must stop most of its efforts to prevent by force. JD does not, I think, seriously mean to suggest that God is doing his utmost to prevent nonvirtuous behavior by force, that since it exists he is therefore helpless to prevent nonvirtuous behavior, and yet that is what JD ends up implying here. Society, on the other hand, is actually helpless in this regard; while it can certainly try to enforce virtue; history suggests that it will not only fail miserably, but will also sacrifice individual freedom and ultimately destroy itself in the process.

I suggest you rethink your stance on this suddenly popular notion of God as a "hands off" God. If God is our example of how to live, and the Bible is His only given word for us to reference, then we must also be hands on in our approach. I'm not saying we should be a theocracy. God's laws are Spiritual, and you can't enforce a Spiritual law with a physical one. But I am saying the Founding Fathers built their law as best as they could on what they read in the Bible, and so we should continue with that.

I do wish people would learn to read with precision and in context. How is a failure to use every means at one's disposal synonymous with doing nothing? It isn't. By JD's description, you'd think I was a deist, not a Southern Baptist, although he does hint at some understanding at where I'm coming from in stating that Spiritual and physical laws are not identical. There is nothing "hands off" about placing the responsibility for enforcing virtue in the hands of the people instead of relying on their government to do it for them; quite the contrary. It is truly amazing to me how many people seem to equate the government doing nothing with nothing happening. The government isn't providing the nation with any football games today, and yet I suspect more than a few people will be paying attention to a pair of sporting events taking place nevertheless in Philadelpha and Foxboro.

Furthermore, I submit that my notion of Christian Libertarianism is much closer to how the Founding Fathers built their law than how modern liberals and conservatives interpret Constitutional philosopy as they together continue to assemble the leviathanic monstrosity of state-enforced virtue. JD's heart is clearly in the right place, but I conclude that, like most conservatives, he has not fully comprehended the implications of his position and the assumptions from which it is necessarily derived.

The Cyberpunk waxes pernicious

So writes the Original Cyberpunk: With regard to President Bush's Mars exploration proposal, R. J. Steiner asks in this morning's Opinion section, "Can we not [use this money] to reduce the percentage of poor and homeless?"

The answer is no, apparently we cannot. In 1970, 12.6-percent of the U.S.population (25.4 million people) lived in poverty. In 1997, when PresidentClinton ended welfare as we know it in the midst of the best economy in 40years, 13.3-percent of the U.S. population (35.6 million people) lived inpoverty.It therefore appears that all the 30-year, $5.4 *trillion* dollar War on Poverty produced was a net gain 10 million more poor people at a cost of $540 per unit produced.

Given that result, I'd much rather spend a few billion to see photos of human footprints on Mars.