best president of all time?

In 2000, C-SPAN announced a ranking of U.S. presidents based on a ten point criteria, in which Abraham Lincoln came out on top. President Lincoln, again, topped that list which was recently reexamined. Sixty-five historians participated, ranking “each president on a scale of one, ‘not effective’ to 10, ‘very effective.’”

Surely, any self-respecting historian must know how arbitrary such a list is – to say nothing of the ranking process itself. Such lists are an excuse for a handful of historians, who know (or ought to know) the silliness of the list, to prop themselves up as authorities, while journalists and commentators spend a day or so propping themselves up as great analysts, construing the significance of each ranking. Shortly after the 2000 list, more than a half-dozen public opinion polls were conducted, asking participants to rank the presidents. There were three major differences that prevailed in these lists from the historian’s list.

One is obvious: the lists were shorter and included more twentieth century presidents. The “Guilded Era” presidents tend to get overlooked by a population starving to be taught American history. This may be a good thing. After all, what have Rutherford B Hayes and Chester A Arthur done for me lately? Nevertheless, I think the country could benefit from a working, rudimentary knowledge of a James K Polk or an Andrew Jackson (my personal favorite).

Instead, most of the lists include any number of twentieth century presidents who effectively destroyed American education with various social programs.

Second, while Lincoln holds steady at the top nearly across the board, the public opinion lists consistently placed Ronald Reagan in the top three, while the historians ranked him at or below tenth place. Now, “top ten” or “top three” notwithstanding, I’m really not sure what position Ronald Regan deserves, objectively speaking. In fairness, being that he is twenty years out office, I think it is appropriate to begin evaluate the legacy of the 40^th president. Still, since I don’t see the point in a ranking system, I’m just not ready to put a number next to most of these men.

Nevertheless, the public opinion polls have often been downplayed as being mere opinion, as opposed to the more historically “in depth” C-SPAN list. Actually, I think the fact that most of the public opinion lists included so few presidents is proof that the public opinion lists were just that: opinion.

However, as between the two, I would absolutely bet more on the objective accuracy of the public opinion lists than I would on the historians’ list. The reason being is that they are BOTH opinion polls. The third difference being that, while one list was the collective opinions of 65 historians, the other half dozen presented the collective opinions of 1,000 to 1,500 participants across the country.

This is all by way of saying that, while it is at best historically glib, the C-SPAN list evinces an odd combination of political and ideological biases which the news outlets reporting it will totally ignore (given that most of them share those biases.).

Some blatant examples of political caprice included:

Bill Clinton moving up from No. 21 to No. 15, between 2000 and 2009. This is partly because he moved from 5 to 3 on “Management of the Economy.” A couple of things. One, the president was never intended to “manage” the economy, which is likely why the first 20 or 30 were involved as little as needed. Maybe if Franklin Pierce knew that 100 years later Franklin Roosevelt would prop himself up as God Almighty of the American Economy, he would have got in on the action. Being pre-Rooseveltian ends up being sort of a disadvantage in this category.

Clinton also moved from 5 to 4 in the category “Pursued Equal Justice for All.” I have no idea what that category means or what its historical guidelines included. What I do know is that, below Abraham Lincoln, we are given 6 liberal Democrats. One of whom, Bubba, groped a woman in the Oval Office and exposed himself to another, asking her to “kiss it.” Another of whom, Carter, capitulated while 52 hostages where held captive for 444 days in Iran. There is FDR who expanded the arm of the federal government, giving it oversight over areas of private life, unimagined by the Founders. And Johnson who, to his credit, did sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which was overwhelmingly passed by Congressional Republicans. I’m also somewhat perplexed as to why JFK ranks so high in this category – not that he was a known woman-molestor (a quality which, one would think, ought to ding you on “Equal Justice for All”).

No, as far we know JFK was a complete gentlemen with all his mistresses. But I’m pretty sure a couple of names could have come before this rather uneventful president …

Never mind that James Madison, ranked 20^th in this category and 20^th overall, wrote the US Constitution. Never mind that John Adams, the attorney representing the Sons of Liberty who courageously sailed to and from France in the midst of a War to plead our case to the French – literally risking his life – and to secure critical loans from the Dutch, was referred to as the “voice of revolution” by Thomas Jefferson. Well, Adams was 2 spots higher than the writer of the Declaration of Independence, who got 17^th in this category.

What did Jefferson do for Equal Justice again? Oh, right, I already said that…. Too bad he didn’t do something really inspiring like invade religious compounds in Texas or have the attorney general storm a Florida home in the middle of the night to take Elian Gonzales out at gun point.

And if only Dolly Madison had been a crazy hardcore Marxist shoving universal healthcare down out throats……. Oh, the possibilites.

Clinton also moved up in another critical category: from 40 to 37 on moral authority. I don’t know if I need to complain about such a deservedly low ranking. Though one should not forget that “the character issue” was coined because of and for this man.

I suppose Eisenhower ranked 10^th in Pursuit of Equal Justice because of his Supreme Court appointments – men who effectively mangled the US Constitution, whom Eisenhower later referred to as his biggest mistakes.

Another oddity, I thought, was “Relations With Congress.” Now I don’t know if one is ranked higher for fighting Congress tooth and nail, or for acquiescing to Congressional authority, or whether its for getting Congress to follow one’s agenda. The list is not clear. What is strange is that Bill Clinton is ranked 19^th. Clinton entered the presidency with both Houses of Congress in the same party as himself. Two years later, as an undisputedly direct cause of his first two years in office which were an unmitigated catastrophe by every measure, the Congress shifted to the Republicans in an unprecedented landslide. For the rest of his term, Clinton decided to take credit for Congressional initiatives like the Welfare Reform Act which never would have been thought of in a Democratic Congress. By contrast, George W Bush is 36^th in this category.

Now regardless of one’s opinion about Bush, this is truly absurd. Bush was the first Republican president since Eisenhower to have had both Houses of Congress controlled by Republicans. And Eisenhower only enjoyed that for the 83^rd Congress (1953 to 1955.). Bush had a tie senate for the 107^th, and a majority for the 108^th and the 109^th. The House was Republican from the 104^th through the 109^th.

Can anyone argue that Bill Clinton had better Congressional relations, on the whole, than George W Bush?

Such lists are opinion and nothing more. The most surprising feature about this list is that Obama has yet to make an appearance in the top 2. I give it a week.

Last, while I know I said I wouldn’t put a number next to “most” of these men, I know which 5 belong in anyone’s top 10, at least:

John Adams: the Voice of Revolution

George Washington: Father of our Country

Thomas Jefferson: Declarer of Independence

James Madison: Father of the Constitution

Andrew Jackson: straight up bad-ass

it passed

4 million jobs to be “created or saved” has to be my all time favorite goal, ever set forth, by anyone, anywhere.

What a superb concept. In essence, unidentifiable jobs vaguely related to the monstrous amounts of money we are investing in “energy efficiency” shall either be created or not created. And never mind that taking a trillion dollars from nowhere is quite absolutely going to shrink our economy as we attempt to pay it down over the next ten, twenty or thirty years, thus resulting in untold job losses.

Indeed, I remain ever confident of my longstanding theory that our government’s collective lunacy shall either “annihilate” or “stagnate” this republic.

Last week, Speaker Pelosi agreed to a 48 hour online posting of the finished Stimulus package, for all Americans to read. That isn’t going to happen. It doesn’t take much imagination to infer her reason. Posting this bill would be, precisely, the best way to get the American public, currently in a pacified post-Hope stage, at your throat for the rest of the term.

No, these people have done far too much coaxing and soothing over these last couple of years. They wouldn’t want to undue the good feelings by informing the country that they’ve wedded their children and grandchildren to the most irresponsible spending scheme in US history.

Since the new bill isn’t going to be posted, I decided to thumb through the House version that passed last week. Given that the only opposition was from Republicans who are in the minority and not at any of the committee hearings, the numbers are likely to be quite similar from a week ago.

A half trillion on jobless benefits, renewable energy projects, highway construction, food stamps, high-speed rail projects, (I love it) broadband and wireless technology. Yes, $3,000,000,000 on wireless and broadband. I guarantee that is going to stimulate a lot of people, who hopefully have some virus protection. Oh, we’ve got that too! More than a quarter billion on HIV and STD research. Ok, different kind of virus – though I suppose the faster you can download your porn, the less likely you are to worry about contracting STDs.

$400,000,000 for habitat restoration. Oh…… good.

$600,000,000 for “accelerating satellite development and acquisition, acquiring climate sensors and climate modeling capacity, and establishing climate data records…. Not less than $140,000,000 shall be available for climate data modeling.”

Now, I guess I have sort of name for being obtuse. Crazy ol’ me is just having a heck of a time wrapping my brain around this: $600,000,000 for climate modeling is creating how many jobs for which people, now?

$3,000,000,000 for state law enforcement. Now that’s prudent. And truly, once the malcontented mobs realize what the government has just done, our boys in blue are going to need them some new SWAT gear.

$2,500,000,000 for science research, $400,000,000 for facilities.

Another “energy efficiency” allocation: $4,500,000,000 for facilities “sustainment, restoration and modernization” on DOD buildings.

$500,000,000 for “water and related services” for the Dept of the Interior.

$18,500,000,000 for “Energy efficiency and renewable energy,” $6,200,000,000 for “Weatherization Assistance Program.”

Waaaiiit a second. Wait. Who or what are we assisting? Weatherization? Jesus-God…..

$7,700,000,000 for federal buildings repairs and improvements – which shall “create the greatest impact on energy efficiency and conservation.”

$600,000,000 for energy efficient motor vehicle fleet for the federal government.

$1,200,000,000 for grants for states for youth activities and summer jobs for youth.

Really now, Hitler had a perfectly good Socialist “youth” pogrom – I mean program that surely didn’t cost all that much.

$500,000,000 for “research and job training projects that prepare workers for careers in energy efficiency and renewable energy industries.” Oh look! I found them! Jeez, $500 million to “create” 4 million jobs? What was the alternative outcome again? Riiiight…..

In all fairness, these are just the training programs. What a happy bunch of fully reeducated government conservationists we’ll have a result. 4 million of them!

$1,100,000,000 for expansion of Head Start programs. This is an interesting one. About ten years ago, Slob (“Rob”) Reiner got a proposition passed in California by preying on the stupidity of voters. The bill taxed every pack of cigarettes sold in the state and allocated each dollar of that tax to First Five programs (similar to Head Start). Today, California is going bankrupt and that program has spent less than 15% of its total funds. First Five LA has a $600,000,000 surplus.

I went to preschool for free at the church down the street from my house. I suppose if we were sitting on golden chairs and using paste extracted from endangered deep-sea octopuses our preschool would have merited a little more investment. As it stands, I think a box of construction paper runs for about 50 cents these days.

Public education (indoctrination) wins big. $13,000,000,000 to the Dept of Education; $20,000,000,000 for modernization of schools.

Even if we agreed that public schools were fantastic, havens of knowledge where kids grew to be fine, well-balanced, upstanding and morally unimpeachable pillars of society – is now the time to chuck $30 or $40 billion at them? And whose jobs are being “created or saved” here?

How can anyone justify this bill as an economic “stimulus.” This is a spending bill, and it’s the worst kind. Billions upon billions are being spent on “energy efficiency.” This government has no concept, as a collective body of what constitutes the most efficient energy. These are 535 politicians: many career politicians, mostly lawyers, a couple of doctors, and a handful of others. What in God’s name do any of them know about what the best path science, energy and technology needs to take? Why in God’s name do we let them think they do know?

These are matters, ALWAYS, best decided by private industry and privately funded research. It’s ludicrous, beyond words, to suppose that the federal government has in its scope the authority or the credentials to forcibly shape the future of energy, transportation and technology.

The bill they have hoisted on this country will cripple us and we will be paying for it for decades to come. Let all the young fools who voted for Hope and Change know that they did this.

The Reichstag is on fire and the für has spoken: spend now, ask questions never.

China, looks like you just bought yourself the most energy efficient goddamn country in history.

the socialist aren’t coming! the socialists aren’t coming! no really, you’re crazy. can’t i just eat my waffle?

People are just asking way too many questions about Caesar’s agenda, a-gain. Really, we need to get this little trillion dollar stimulus deal done and move on. What’s with all the debate? Three whole weeks of being president. Can’t a guy just a get a trillion bucks and eat his waffle in peace without being called a “Socialist?”

Congress and the President are tossing around this idea that company executives receiving bailout money should have their salaries capped at $500,000 per year. Thus, I think it is officially politically correct to rightfully categorize our elected leaders at Socialists.

(Note, being that “politically correct” is an inherently Orwellian term, I understand that it shall never be politically correct to scrutinize The Leader.)

I know, we’re all against earning big salaries now. You’re just not supposed to do it, and that’s simply how it is. If you think otherwise, you must be some big-tobacco-Halidburton-Holocaust denying corporatist. As patently ridiculous as this line of, now, mainstream-accepted thinking is, I’m not even going there.

Truly, the issue is not executive salaries. To wit, Problem the First is bailing out banks and the private sector, thus picking winners and losers in a free economy. This economy is now as nationalized and controlled as it has ever been, and its only going to get worst. About now, Stalin is dancing in Hell and Marx is leading the tango. Yesterday we were talking about borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars to bailout failing industries (BORROWING HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS – THUS WEDDING OUR INTERESTS ENTIRELY TO FOREIGN INVESTORS). We did it. Rome has been sacked – not by invasion, but by acquiescence and invitation.

Today we are discussing salary caps on executives of, formerly, private companies because and everyone is cheering. Take that corporate pigs!

Now, do I want to send tax money to companies that is just going to puff up corporate salaries? No, of course not. But we’re now on step two of a road we never should have set foot on. We shouldn’t have sent them the money in the first place. Government oversight is no longer a choice here; but sending the money was. This is just the beginning.

What tomorrow? Why don’t we just funnel all capital through the central government and have the treasury send us checks? Companies and employers can just take money from consumers, send it straight to the treasury, and the treasury will work it all out for everyone. Then we can make all salaries, in every sector “equitable.” It’ll be great – and you’ll never pay taxes. Well, at least, you’ll never have to file for them.

Once we do this, we can go after those lawyers and doctors who are making way too much. Wait until we nationalize the medical industry. I think those cardiologists are getting a little too greedy, no? We ought to buy out the NFL too. That way, those corporate suits at NBC won’t be the only ones making money on the Super Bowl. Of course, by then Obama and the Congress will probably have bought NBC too; though, I don’t think the news department is going to put up much of a fight there.

Anyone who thinks this salary cap idea is good and patriotic or populist or fair, even-handed or whatever else needs a reality check: the central government has borrowed money from foreign investors which can’t be paid back any time soon because we’re going into a major recession. This recession is spiralling ervermore into a depression as the government nationalize the private sector and makes our treasury bonds increasingly worthless by borrowing. Not only are we borrowing, but we’re still writing checks!

If someone who was bankrupt asked me to give them $1,000 to pay off their business debts, so they could pay me back later with interest, I’d say they were nuts: how are they going to pay me back if they’re spending my money just to pay down their debts? They’ll have nothing less for investment. But, if they ran a country of 300 million consumers I could render dependent on my goods, and had, say, the greatest military and diplomatic presence in the world which I might have an interest in diminishing, I think I’d reconsider. Asia and the Middle East are carving out spheres of influence bigger than we ever conceived of with them in the last century. I think Mao tse’tung just popped open the bubbly.

As for our laws, our freedoms, our fundamental liberties – what’s the forecast? Well, this country has become a coalition of the apathetic, the half-witted, the misinformed, the morally depraved, the self-centered, the hedonistic, and the vain. 43% are against the bailout and 37% are for it. That leaves 20% undecided. Which suggests to me that most people don’t know or care what’s going on, while maybe a third smell trouble (and most of them still can’t even spot it.). It’s the wet-dream of anyone brought up with a Socialist agenda, bent on power and legal reconstruction.

America is done if we keep this up. This is a road to disaster.

senate warming: hot air overload

“Gore’s Log, Stardate 9021. Daily, the Enterprise is under threat of complete annihilation. Perhaps we are no match for such an enemy. Last week’s warming trend witnessed the demise of our best and brightest, weather veins. She sits dormant now, lingering, preparing to strike again. When she comes, it’s as if she were pulling us ever closer to her vile bosom; like some kind of…. natural…. pulling… force – Nay! But we know. We know her tricks. Like some celestial deceiver, she lies in wait as we foolishly let our guard down. Snow and sleet this week? Ha-ha! We know that’s just a sign of warming trends too. Yes, we’ve seen her tricks before….”

On Wednesday, the self-proclaimed High-Grand, Spinning Sideways, Pope Wizard of Global Warming, and artist formerly known as Al the Gore (ok, that’s just what I call him) proselytized before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “I’m not proselytizing,” he said at one point. Oh, eh, sorry. Ok, continue, sir:

“Our home,” he paused, “Earth, is in danger.” Whew! That was a cliffhanger. For a minute I thought he was actually going to reveal his true planet.

“We must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization,” he said. “This is the most serious challenge the world has ever faced.” It, “could completely end human civilization, and it is rushing at us with such speed and force.” Climate change, “would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth – and this is within this century, if we don’t change.”

Oh my goodness! And, again, the definition of proselytizing was what now?

“What does your modeling tell you about how long we’re going to be around as a species?” asked Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho). “I don’t claim the expertise to answer a question like that, Senator,” laughed the Jedi master. ‘Silly Senator, skepticism’s for heretics.’

Let me get this straight: he knows (a) global warming is the most serious challenge the world has ever faced; (b) that it could end human civilization; (c) that it will all happen within this century unless we spend lots and lots of money on green jobs and re-shaping the entire landscape of the world’s transportation, commercial and industrial infrastructures. However, his expertise stops at specific issues, such as, ‘so? how long until we’re all annihilated?’

“The little snow in Washington,” Senator Kerry warned, “does nothing to diminish the reality of the crisis.” The little snow he was referring to was actually a blizzard, and, yes, it’s pretty well settled by scientists the world over that snow is always a sign that the planet shall soon be engulfed in flames.

Truly, even I can only have so many laughs at the kind of stuttering nonsense only to be found at a hearing in the United States Senate on Al Gore Day. To be sure, it is outright nonsense; but, alas, Al Gore finds himself at home, again. For years, a do-nothing Congress was coupled with a whipping-boy president who, hoping desperately to be invited to the cool kids table, embraced the ministry of Global Warming with a full-heart. I find it not at all astonishing that most of the Global Warming zombies I meet are of the opinion that Evil Bush the Younger personally outsourced the job of setting the polar bears on fire to Halliburton. This is despite the fact that, under George W. Bush, we spent more money to fight Global Warming than any other previous government; and despite the fact that Bush repeatedly called for climate awareness. (Actually, I just made up the term “climate awareness,” to express the kind of nonsense President Bush used to spew about Global Warming. You see, what you do, is you shove your head square up your ass – only then shall you begin to think like a radical lunatic, capable of conjuring up nonsensical Orwellian phrases like “Climate Awareness.”….. Moving on….).

Finally, with that pesky Bush out of the way, spending only insignificant tens of billions on Global Warming, Al the Gore has made his triumphant return to a capitol open for business. We may not be able to calculate the exact date the human species shall become extinct as a result of climate change, but one thing we can calculate is: 1 democratic president + 257 democratic congressmen + 56 democratic senators X 1 vice president turned cult leader = any multi-billion dollar Global Warming initiative you want Al.

inauguration

I had considered the history and moment of this Tuesday’s inauguration in the days leading up. Too many bitter decades of arguing over regional divides were lost in our early years. Slavery divided us, and then so too did Civil rights. I’m not so naïve as to say we’ve made it to any promised land, but we certainly got a few things right, at long last. On Tuesday, America inaugurated its first Black president.

Upon reflection, I thought of other momentous occasions that one would have wanted to take part in, had they been alive or aware at the time: the falling of the Berlin Wall, the first landing on the moon, Rosie O’Donnell being cancelled from daytime. Indeed, landing on the moon was both an historic occasion, and an intrinsically positive advancement in human events. Inaugurating the first Black president was both as well.

Whereas, inaugurating an open socialist who speaks out of both sides of his head was a bit more like tuning in to watch the first man land on the moon, only to see him nuke it at the same time. But, in all sincerity, I hope for my nation’s best and my president’s success. And where my president is wrong, I simply hope justice prevails.

Certainly, I share the consensus view that President Obama’s speech was well crafted and uplifting. Although, some of us are savvy enough to read between the lines and follow the logical conclusions of statements like “the state of our economy calls for action,” or “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes,” he said, “we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.” A man who has promised 600,000 new government jobs is quite obviously not interested in shrinking the size of government. A man who is calling for upwards of $1 trillion in new spending is openly dedicated to government’s expansion. Given such premises, one wonders what exactly it will take for the president to conclude that a program is not working.

Still, and despite the rather undignified and unprecedented tone of portions which chided the outgoing president, effectively undercutting Obama’s call to end partisan bickering, I agreed with the general optimistic spirit of the address.

But who in the name of all sanity picked Rev. Joseph Lowery to deliver the benediction? I’ll get straight to the point:

“Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around … when yellow will be mellow … when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.”

“When black will not be asked to get it back.” The painfully confusing structure of this inane statement actually caused me to have a small aneurysm when I first heard it. I think I get it. So….. wait, didn’t black just get elected to run the show for the next four years? Which day are we working toward here, exactly?

“When brown can stick around.” This, I suppose, could either mean that the Hispanics who illegally immigrated into the U.S. should be allowed to remain or that the news media should be allowed to keep their heads permanently lodged up the president’s anal cavity. I digress.

“When yellow will be mellow.” Hey Asians, chill yourselves already. Quit being so uptight!

“When the red man can get ahead, man.” Yes, Lord, and yay unto to Cheech ye declared: “Hey I don’t think you better light it in here, man.”

“When white will embrace what is right.” Now, it pains me to let my otherwise reverent manners give way to my crasser angles, but (I think, to be quite germane) there is simply no better response to be made here besides a resonant ‘F*** you.’ Here, a bumbling old fool playing on the glibbest stereotypes of our culture, who was supposed to be giving a benediction at the historic inauguration for this whole country’s president, was implying that the first Black president’s largest voting constituency should ‘embrace what is right.’

Code: quit being so racist, Whitey.

Let’s be clear: Barack Obama simply would not be president without these White people who apparently haven’t gotten in right. If this racist old codger was truly the best speaker President Obama could dig up for a benediction to close his “uniting,” “post-partisan,” and “uplifting” inauguration, then its just too bad about his whole falling out with Rev. Wright. At least Wright would not have been that much of an ignorant, race-bating old fool.

we are all neoconservatives today

President Bush entered office without a philosophy. By philosophy, I simply mean an approach: a set of clear and core principles to guide his hands in a world encapsulated by shades of gray.

To be sure, he had all the right moves, so to speak, on his way in. He spoke like a fiscal conservative calling for tax cuts, lower spending, smaller government, government reform and open markets. He leaves us with tax cuts, as well as one of the largest expansions in the size and role of government in decades. He leaves us with an omnibus bailout that his successor plans to double or triple. Forgive me, what I meant to call it was, “a decisive measure to safeguard our economy,” as the president called it in his Farewell Address.

From what? Free markets? The necessary detraction of the housing market? What are we safeguarding? The one trillion plus that we’re ultimately going to spend to “safeguard” ourselves is not only money that does not currently exist, but it will manifestly come right out of the private sector. I digress.

Still, he rode in on the ‘walk softly and carry a big stick’ rhetoric of peace through strength: a strong military that ‘goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.’ He leaves a neoconservative bent on global-reorganization, indeed execrating all who would “seek comfort by turning inward.” He’s learned well the new rhetoric of the neo-right, avowing that we must “reject isolationism, and its companion protectionism. Retreating behind our borders” he says, “would only invite danger. In the 21^st century security and prosperity at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led.”

I become utterly confused when President Bush makes grandiloquent pronouncements about American destiny. One may think I am simply reading too much into his nice speech. Perhaps. Or perhaps I know history.

While he is not as cunning or able to persuade the easily-persuaded, Bush enjoys a striking ideological continuity with President Clinton: we are, as the Clintonians put it, “the indispensible nation.” Bush says we were, “born alone in liberty,” and that, “America did nothing to seek or deserve [conflict].”

Clearly, most of these words, while soothing, are false, at best. In fact, they are worse: they intentionally mislead. The neoconservative philosophy purposefully advances their cause through such high-sounding statements. What good patriot can argue that America is not indispensible? [Imagine that I’m raising my hand right about now]

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18) Historically, America’s greatness was measured by the character of her people, the universal compassion expounded by her law, the vitality of her prosperity, guided by, what was once, our “indispensible” philosophy of individual autonomy and freedom. Moreover, This is was philosophy which subjected itself to moral responsibility and self-correcting moral scrutiny.

That is all over in an age where we call ourselves “indispensible”; where we say “freedom” is something we have a mandate to advance by aggression; where we deny history and say we were born “alone” in freedom, as if it never preceded us; where we coronate ourselves the grand marshals of world order and peace; where we deny the evils we allow to exist in our own nation, by saying that we did nothing to ‘seek conflict.’ Of course we have.

I sincerely believe that President Bush considers himself a Christian – but what kind of Christian nation abounds in unrelenting hubris and ignorance of the past? There is nothing indispensible about such a nation.

“Good and evil,” Mr. Bush said in his Farewell Address, “are present in the world.” True, but he went on to say that, “murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right.”

One wonders whether (1) his speech writers failed Philosophy 101, or (2) wrote the book on neoconservative propaganda speech. I suppose either premise would lead to the same result. At a minimum, even one who fully embraces the cause of the Afghan-Iraq War as one of the expansion of liberty abroad cannot make such a claim.

First, one cannot say that murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time. Now, this is an alarming assertion on my part – thus underscoring the rhetorical mastery of the Bush speech writers: if you disagree with it you must be some kind of monster. Still, only the professed, convinced, and unwavering pacifist can make this statement with a straight face. For if it were wrong to kill the innocent to advance an ideology, any amount of collateral damage inflicted in a “war to expand liberty” (i.e.: the advance of an ideology) would thus be wrong. It isn’t that I’m trying to make the “peace-and-love all the time” argument here. But, quite simply, innocent Iraqis and Afghans have died. Even those who support the cause (ideology) cannot deny this.

Further still, one who never supported the Iraq War would still have a difficult time justifying the statement. Did innocents not die in the Revolution? WWII? The Civil War? Should these wars have thus never been fought? Am I being nitpicky during the president’s nice speech, or just honest and realistic?

Second, is freeing people from oppression and despair eternally right? One certainly would like to think so. But would any expense be justified? What if we spend so much money, lives and political capital abroad that our position is no longer “indespensible.” Say, aren’t we right about there now?

In Criminal Law, there is a hypothetical which asks one to suppose that Evildoer has kidnapped two children, Mary and John, and placed them in a ‘compacting machine.’ You walk passed said machine and Evildoer says, ‘if you press this button, Mary will be compacted and John will live; but if you don’t, John will automatically be compacted in ten seconds and Mary will live.’ Do you press the button, or do nothing?

Although he likes to think it was, Bush’s problems weren’t even so black in white, and it wasn’t entirely known what would have happened whether or not he ‘pressed the button.’ But he pressed it. Today we have two wars and increased antipathy for our nation. We pressed the button and allowed Hamas the opportunity to be elected in Palestine. Now Israel is at war, and we call Hamas unstable and illegitimate. We pressed the button in Pakistan and got a military dictator to set up shop. Later, the people began to revolt, the opposition was killed and the Chief Justice was imprisoned. How goes the cause of freedom that no one else would have led in our absence? We pressed the button and ousted Saddam Hussein. Now Iran’s power is increased, America is hated more than she is feared or respected, and Bush’s own party is in a shambles because of it.

President Bush arrived without a philosophy, but bids us farewell with a warning to adopt the philosophy the neoconservatives have convinced him of, or else. But, maintaining our sovereignty, law, economic vitality, freedom, values and culture does not require, as Bush would tell us, “isolationism” as the only alternative to new world globalism. It requires the conviction to stay true to our founding covenants. When Washington bid farewell, more than two hundred and twelve years ago, he gave us stern advice that echoed through at least the next two or three generations of Americans: Don’t debase the currency, trade with nations but stay out of the affairs of Europe and reject political partisanship. Stay out of entangling alliances. And what a tangled web we weave two centuries later.

barak the talk wont walk the barak

Perhaps it’s the growl of the cynic inside me, that lurches out as I contemplate the day – thirty, fifty years from now – when Black Americans with PhDs, or Black millionaires are on television, still discussing the need for solutions to Black America’s cultural struggle. No, wait, that was this morning, and, well, every day.

In just over a week, America will have its first Black president. Even the cynic takes pause. Not only is this is a first for a Western nation, but it just so happens that it will be accomplished by the Western hegemony: leader of the free world, among the last of the West to kick African slavery off its heals, yet still the first to break the boundary. I agree with president-elect Obama on absolutely nothing. Let me rephrase that: he has said absolutely nothing, thus I haven’t had the chance yet to agree with him on anything. In all honesty, there is much appeal in his grandiloquent rhetoric: improved race relations, cultural rejuvenation, peace, hope, integrity and bright futures. It isn’t sheer cynicism that gives me doubt about his upcoming administration. It’s just that, well, fool me once…. Eh, um… ya… you just ain’t gonna fool me again!

I am not so cynical as to have no hope. Black illegitimacy is above 50%; Blacks account for 13% of the population, yet nearly 50% of the incarcerated, and well over a third of the abortions. In heavily Black-populated cities crime is sky-high, with Oakland, California shattering every crime statistic across the board, nationally. Barak Obama is a Columbia and Harvard educated Black man; a senator; a gift speaker; a best-selling author; and now president. Setting aside what I consider his misguided legal, economic and political ideology, may he at least be a model of excellence to the Black community.

The latter part of this sentiment was proclaimed on Meet the Press this morning with a round table of Black commentators, including Bill Cosby, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Dr. Alvin Poussaint. They all agreed that parenting was a central issue in the Black community, given illegitimacy, and the typical absence of Black fathers and male role models. On the Chris Matthews show, the discussion was again about racial problems in America. According to the host, the Roland Burris story was at first about the Blagojevich scandal and Burris’ ties, now it is about race: why? Asked Matthews.

The Black community triumphant, positive and looking forward to the person of Barak Obama, I can not only take, but can indeed be enthusiastic about. But four years of mind-numbing therapy sessions about white guilt and tiptoeing on racial egg shells where the solutions to cultural problems are obvious, I cannot.

First, to answer Matthews’ idiot question: because you’re a noodle-spined white bleeding heart who took the bait from Blagojevich. There is no constitutional mandate for there to be ‘at least one Black senator.’ Blow my brains out. He should be seated because he was rightfully and legally appointed by the governor of Illinois and the U.S. senate has no right and no grounds on which to refuse him. Period. Its just the totalitarian-regime of radical political correctness that has called us all to reflect on the senate’s refusal to seat a Black man. Even though, the Black man who is going to the White house next week, himself, said not to seat him.

(Note that the phrase “radical political correctness” officially makes me an oxymoron.)

As to the serious issues of illegitimacy and parenthood, I have endless respect and admiration for the fact that the president-elect has decided to address these problems. The problem is that he would need to go to war with his own world-view in order to solve them. For decades, his party has relied on the Black community as a substantial voting bloc: typically 90% of Blacks go Democrat. The same party has offered up welfare and abortion on demand as the solution to socio-economic strife. It is precisely the radically-left policies of welfarism, abortion on demand, and no-fault divorce that has helped the increase in illegitimacy across the board in this country.

The radicals also fought a ‘sexual revolution’ that has relaxed all culture taboos and mores to the point where sex is recreation, pregnancy is a disease (a “punishment” to quote Barak Obama directly), and the dangers of STDs are taught to eleven year olds (Obama HAS said the age should be lower.). It is a legal worldview that has fought for the protection of all the violent, sexually explicit, sexually degrading, morally depraved, and repulsive forms of media scum in the name of First Amendment rights that is bringing our culture to its knees.

Though cultural decay is not a singularly Black issue, it would be foolish to deny who is being hit hardest in America. Last September, when Clarence Thomas spoke at Pepperdine Law School, he talked about the neighborhood he grew up in, and the strife and suffering of the segregation era. Still, they lived in an otherwise peaceful and wholesome American neighborhood where kids played outside and neighbors could be trusted. Today, such neighborhoods have been attacked and, in most cases, destroyed by drugs, crime, and illegitimacy (which fosters the drug use and criminal behavior.).

Here, I make no hypothesis as to why the cultural denigration of American society has more dramatically hit the Black community; though its pretty well settled that when the factor of illegitimacy is removed, racial differences in incarceration nearly vanish. It is a fact that the disproportionate majority of Planned Parenthood locations are in Black communities, and more than 1,800 Black abortions are performed daily in the U.S.: 36% of all abortions among a population that comprises 12% of the whole.

Prior to the age of welfarism (the ‘daddy state’ which eliminates economic motivations and the role of the father), no-fault divorce and abortion on demand, divorce rates were nearly equal among racial groups. Population increases, unencumbered by abortion on demand, were nearly the same.

Prior to the media-age beginning in the fifties, drug crimes, rape, murder, robbery, vandalism, and other crimes were nil compared with today: again, among all communities and racial groups, with Black communities feeling the worst of it.

These increases in abortion, crime and illegitimacy are a direct result of nearly fifty years of radical legal, economic and social policies pushed by the far left wing of Obama’s party. Obama has personally addressed serious issues afflicting Black Americans. He talks about hope and integrity and fostering a better, stronger, prouder America. Good for him. But given his history of supporting radical legal and social policies, I have no confidence that he’ll ever understand the solutions, no matter how good the speeches are. I guess hope really is all we have.

http://www.blackgenocide.org/black.html

bill clinton without the baggage

“He is Bill Clinton without the baggage,” delighted Frank Rich of the New York during the Democratic primary race. Obama’s “patriotism” was like “Kryptonite” against attacks by Hillary Clinton and the Republicans, he said.

Contrast this adolescent gibberish with his latest column, blasting the God-Child-Elect’s decision to cast Rev. Rick Warren for the inaugural invocation. It isn’t at all surprising that the first serious criticism of this man would be surrounding actions that any reasonable Christian would take: choosing to swear an oath to God on Lincoln’s Bible, asking a Christian Reverend to give the invocation. However, it would be hardly accurate to call any of the criticism “serious.” Attorney and physician Michael Newdow gained fame trying to remove references to God from the Pledge of Allegiance. This week, he is targeting the inaugural oath.

Reasonable people can debate whether God should or shouldn’t be placed on American currency. Not because it constitutes an establishment of religion, but rather because it seems somewhat superfluous. I digress, but the idea that God must be stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance, inaugural oath, military prayers, or prayers at high school foot balls games on the basis of a violation of the Establishment Clause is not reasonable. Most people believe in God. It is a general belief in a higher power which I, as a Roman Catholic, share with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, pagans, and, conservatively, 90% of all religions. But, there are those who feel (“think” would be an inappropriate characterization of the act) that when or wherever one mentions the being “God” they have “established a religion.” It gives me great pause to consider the number of churches headed by a wrathful God I have personally established simply by the number of occasions I’ve stubbed my toes. Seriously, we really need to dispense with the whole nonsense that mentioning, referring to, or invoking God in any public square constitutes an establishment of religion.

Nevertheless, it is not at this which Frank Rich takes issue. It seems President-elect Obama has chosen Rev Rick Warren of Orange County, writer of the Purpose Driven Life to give the inaugural invocation. Warren held a debate between John McCain and Barak Obama last summer in which Obama famously answered the question ‘at which point does a child gain rights’ by saying that the question was ‘above his pay grade.’ Let’s see how that bump up to $400,000 works on his conscience. Warren is pro-life, anti-gay marriage, but concerned about global warming and AIDS in Africa: A ‘dichotomy’ according to some glib journalists who have referred to him as a ‘new kind of Christian.’ Since when was fighting AIDS, poverty and disease in Africa not on any ‘standard Christian’s’ things to do list? At least Frank Rich sees this point. What I’m sure he doesn’t understand is that the best way to fight AIDS, poverty and disease is to, at the very least dispense with the Global Warming mythology of Al the Gore. It is a fact that a leading pollution related cause of death in Africa is by smoke inhalation which leads to respiratory infections. Most African homes burn fires for lack of central heating and lighting. Another is dirty water which gives rise to diseases like malaria. How do we solve these crises? The same we did in the West: development; technology; industry; infrastructure; efficient farming to fight malnutrition. How is this done? Solar panels and recycled toilet paper? Probably not….

All the hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions the Western world has spent to “fight” Global Warming could have financed the creation of a virtual paradise in Africa. Instead, our initiatives to fight what amounts to the Sun, cyclical and unstoppable climate changes, volcanoes and cow flatulence has helped to cripple developing nations by cutting off the industrial and technological tools that we ourselves have used to develop the West.

That was my tangent. What I meant to discuss was Frank Rich’s double-speak. Why is Rick Warren so objectionable? Because he is supposedly anti-Gay. First, I’m not a Rick Warren advocate, per se. I know very little about the man. He seems nice enough. He also seems like a bit of a fence sitter trying to please too many people. I’ve discovered that the best test for evaluating a fence sitter is to ask whether we we’re talking about a social-conservative who speaks out about Global Warming. Bingo! I understand when the radically-left or even center-left get behind Al the Gore. What I’ve recently discovered is that anytime a non-lefty (not simply those on the right) decide to ‘speak out’ about climate change, the statement they are really making is ‘look, I’m cool! Trust me. We gotta get that Sun!’ Take John McCain, George Bush, Bill O’Reily and every other Neoconservative. I digress again.

How about Warren’s record on Gay rights? Who cares? How about Obama’s? I’ve already said I don’t think it’s a legal issue, it’s a social and religious one. Marriage needn’t be defined by the state, at all and religious institutes should be free to define marriage however they will. But Obama, on that same debate in Warren’s mega-church last summer, gave an answer to the marriage question that was IDENTICAL to John McCain’s with some added caveat about Gay tolerance. Anyone who opposes Rick Warren on this issue has no intellectual argument to condemn Obama for picking Warren unless they oppose Obama as well.

Still, Frank Rich has decided to finally criticize the God child. Back in the primaries he had ‘no baggage.’ Who would have guessed that Obama’s affiliation with some religious figure would finally do him in with the left, at long last? And, to take Rich’s column-archive on the New York Times website as an example, it’s not like any crazy reverends had ever made Obama look questionable before.

Yo be fair, Obama’s bag doesn’t included sleeping with, molesting and groping numerous women, lying to grand juries about it, doctoring affidavits, selling secrets to the Chinese, selling seats on the Commerce department, selling Whitehouse access to foreign investors, selling pardons to white collar criminals, selling the Lincoln bedroom to campaign donors, or illegal pyramid schemes. But Obama certainly has some hefty baggage. We’ll give him some time on the getting to some of the aforementioned scandals. Those are just the things Clinton was into as president.

Now, forgetting that Obama’s bag is in fact stuffed with crazy’s to the left of him, Rev. Jeremiah Wright alone would have been enough to merit, maybe, one whole column from Mr. Rich. Instead, he barely discussed the man who is on tape spewing hate, race-batting and nonsense in his best moments, who went on national television for us to marinate in his lunacy, who Obama LIED about by saying in one interview that he hadn’t been in church to hear the crazy statements, and another saying he had been (I guess Rich missed that whole thing – its hard to see CNN, FOX, and MSNBC when you’re busy masturbating to your own private Obama-shrine). Rich treated Wright like most of the Obama-media: its done; a tired question; already answered; Obama answered it; he took care of it all. No, he really didn’t. And even if had, did Rich ever question Obama’s integrity after finding that he’d sat in a church for 20 years which was pastured by a man who brought Obama to Christianity, married him and his wife, baptized his children, who was his key spiritual adviser, and whom he befriended for the whole twenty year period? A man whom Obama suddenly, by mystical revelation, decided to throw under the bus as soon as people found the tapes of him making crazy, racist and un-Christian (to say the least) statements during numerous “religious” services which Obama says he both ‘was’ and ‘was not’ at. But, I guess speaking in tongues is a typical trait of high holy prophets like the Obama.

No really, but this Rick Warren guy has got to go; lest Jesus Obama tarnish his holy reputation of perfection in all things.

whatever senate you want us to be

Its make up your own state and federal constitutions week and the United Senate are the only ones invited. Roland Burris was announced last week as Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s pick to replace outgoing senator, and president-elect Obama. About three weeks ago, FBI tapes were publicized of Blagojevich attempting to sell the seat to the highest bidder. The Illinois legislature will likely vote on whether he should be impeached within the next month, and it is believed that he will in fact be impeached.

Thus, the governor, who oddly maintains his innocence against undeniable evidence, wisely, I think, decided to appoint Roland Burris as Obama’s replacement. For one, Burris is not one of the five people Blagojevich had mentioned in the FBI tapes as possible candidates (it is important to note that none of these individuals are yet implicated with any illegal activity.). Secondly, Blagojevich played the most indicting political card of the radical left: Race. Burris is Black; he would be the only Black senator (in fact filling the seat vacated by the first Black president, Barak Obama); therefore, if the senate refuses him, they’re just a bunch of racists!

Leftists attacking other leftists as racists has become the gift that keeps on giving. For decades the radical leftwing of the Democratic party, which has now become the overwhelming majority of the party, has branded, slandered and defamed just about everyone who dissents with their disturbed world view by calling them racists whenever the time becomes fit. But ever since Barak Obama became a national figure, that wing has begun to eat itself alive. Hillary Clinton was attacked by Jeremiah Wright because she didn’t know what it was like to be called a “N*****.” It’s true, and many have suggested she cut the legs off the pantsuits and shake that booty in the new 50 cent video “Glory, glory, we shall overcome, I have a dream N*****.” Then she’ll know what the struggle is about. She was taken to town by what was once her husband’s news media for simply alluding to Robert F Kennedy’s assassination on the 40th anniversary of that event. Was she crytpcailly calling for Obama’s assassination? Racist!

Now senate majority leader Harry Reid is the slave master célèbre. I joke, though in honesty I don’t for a minute think that Reid or the other Democratic senators trying to bar Burris are doing so out of racial hostility. That’s preposterous. Clearly he is simply an inept buffoon who is being forced to eat his own foot for his reactionary declaration that he would refuse any Blagojevich appointee. Rather than wait and see, he decided to come out swinging in the dark hoping to protect Obama’s “pristine” image. After all, this was Obama’s seat and Obama’s state, and a governor who Obama campaigned for. Obama too joined Reid’s call to refuse any appointee. In retrospect, they were probably counting on the governor’s resignation. I mean, have you heard these tapes? What they didn’t count on was Blagojevich’s actually making, not a just an appointment, but an offer they can’t refuse. Well, at least without being called racist.

But, from where in the U.S. or the Illinois constitution did the senate majority leader ever derive the power to refuse an appointment simply because it is made by someone under investigation? Again, Blagojevich is undoubtedly guilty of some kind of corruption. That’s not an allegation I would make lightly, and the FBI and Illinois senate needs to finish their work. But the FBI tapes are a rather transparent indicator of the man’s ethics. Nevertheless, he is the governor of Illinois, and it his constitutional right and obligation to appoint Obama’s successor. The Democratic Party opted out of holding a special election in Illinois to fill Obama’s seat, for fear of losing it. Now that it’s too late, they want the election.

This is all because Harry Reid, Barak Obama, Nancy Pelosi “and-the-rest” decided to go shooting their mouths off about not accepting any appointees by the governor. Even Senator Feinstein hopped off the bandwagon today calling for Burris to be seated. Imagine if 10 years ago (just two weeks ago, actually) senate Republicans decided to refuse to consider passing any Clinton appointees to ambassadorships or judicial offices on the grounds that HE, not the appointee, was under investigation for impeachment – let alone for the whole two years after he had been impeached. It’s a preposterous argument with no legal footing.

While it is in the senate’s discretion to refuse incoming members based on the constitutional provision that “Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members” there is no reason to not seat Burris: Burris is not under investigation for anything. The senate’s refusal to seat Burris on the grounds that the governor of Illinois is under investigation for impeachment is a nonsensical as well as dangerous legal precedent.

What makes the matter more outrageous, is that after effectively stealing a senate seat in Minnesota by magically creating some 700 new ballots – many from precincts where too many ballots now exist by some wondrous, serendipitous turn of the “recounting” process – Al Franken has declared himself the winner after certification. No, not that kind of certification, (though we’ve all been pretty certain for some time) but rather the Minnesota secretary of state has called it. Senator Coleman has filed a lawsuit, and under state law no one can be sworn in until such an election challenge is settled. Still, Chuck Schumer and other Democratic senators who are refusing Burris are speaking out in Franken’s support. Forget that Franken is out of his mind and probably shouldn’t own shoe laces, let alone be sworn into the U.S. senate….. Hm… no, maybe he should have shoe laces…. Nevermind.

So Franken who may actually be implicated with illegal activities surrounding tampering with election results should be declared winner in Minnesota. But Burris who has been implicated with no crimes and was legally appointed to his seat is being refused. Figure that out.