September 19, 2006, morning. The following is a letter I sent to CAIR - The Council on American Islamic Relations:

Four Canadian soldiers handing out candy and gifts to Afghan children were killed by a suicide bomber on a bicycle Monday, September 18. Also injured were 27 civilians, including children. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Where are the storms of protest by Muslims from all corners of the globe. Where is CAIR? Why is the Council on American Islamic Relations not loudly condemning this barbaric act? Where are Islamic religious leaders, and why are they not demanding that the Taliban stop the slaughter of innocents? Where are the imams, and why are they not issuing fatwahs against such uncivilized behavior? Why are Muslims not marching in the street and demanding that bloodthirsty animals stop claiming that they are committing these heinous acts in the name of Islam? Why have key Islamic religious leaders throughout the world not joined together to declare that suicide bombers who slaughter innocent civilians are not martyrs and should not expect any rewards in paradise. They should expect to be damned for all eternity for worshipping death and destruction above the teachings of the Prophet?

Why is there more concern today over the words of a 14th century Byzantine emperor than the blood of innocent children at the hands of so-called Muslims in Afghanistan? Where are your priorities?

(I'll let you know if I get a response.)

It's been a long time between posts. Oh, well.

September 17, 2006, morning. Pope Benedict XVI says he was shocked by Muslim reaction to his quote from a medieval text. The pope was quoting 14th Century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus who thought that the Prophet Mohammed's teachings urging his followers to spread their religion by violence were evil and inhuman.

Followers of the peaceful religion of Islam responded by launching angry protests around the world. Palestinian officials are investigating attempts to burn four churches, an apparent reaction to the pope's suggestion that Islam might be violent. Elsewhere, demonstrators burned the pope in effigy for criticizing Islam.

The pope later apologized, explaining that he was attempting to reach out to the followers of Islam and condemn violence as a means of spreading any religion.

We here at IMNSHO are looking forward to the day that Muslims around the world condemn suicide bombings in Iraq and Israel that massacre and mutilate innocent men, women and children. We will heartily welcome the storm of protest by followers of the peaceful religion of Islam against the beheading of an innocent kidnap victim. We eagerly await marches in the street renouncing the grotesque, evil and inhuman tactics employed by al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups and deploring the hijacking of the peaceful religion of Islam.

At the same time, we remind Christians that baptism by the sword during the Crusades was also not very nice. 

    -- Samuel Adams - Speech, State House of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia (1 August 1776)

I am not involved in politics. That does not mean I am not interested. I am pretty much fed up with politics as usual and the politics of political reality. Political correctness makes me wretch.  We are the greatest nation on Earth, but we do not have great statesmen these days. We just have politicians. Life is good in so many respects. We have a great economy, but the media hate Bush, and everything he stands for. Since the booming economy makes Bush look good, the economic picture must be painted darkly. Same with unemployment. The picture should be rosy, but the press will find a dark cloud until some liberal can claim credit. Then rosy will be rosy again. We do face significant problems: terrorism, unchecked illegal immigration, too much dependence on foreign-controlled energy sources, and several others. These are not at all insurmountable problems, but out current political leaders are not up to the challenge - not even close.

My political party? None. My ideas are mostly Libertarian, but as a political party, the Libertarians are a joke. Conservatism fills some gaps, but Republicans want to cram their religion down by throat and make me bow down to Protestant religious fundamentalists. They want to peek in my bedroom and tell me what I can and cannot do in there. The Democratic party has been taken over by race panderers, anti-war liberals, and socialists. I grew up a Democrat, but the party has been stolen away. I want nothing to do with income redistribution. I believe in equal opportunity, not guaranteed outcomes for people who do not take advantage of the opportunities life gives them. I see less and less difference between the Democratic and Republic Parties these days, except in rhetoric. In terms of pandering, selling out to special interests, and voting money out of the public treasury to buy votes, there's not a dime's difference in them, especially in the Senate.

I believe this country was founded by solid and intelligent men and women who devised a system of government for a republic that has needed only minor revision or adjustment for over 200 years. While it has not needed much adjustment, it has undergone many changes, and many of those changes are not for the better. We need to re-examine the changes that have been made, and where necessary, put them back the way they were. The central federal government has gotten far too strong, much too involved in state and local matters. So I will toy with the idea of a New Founders Party, a new political party required to defeat the conjoined twins called Democrats and Republicans. It will be fun. I just wish it could be serious.

More to come.

August 22, 2006, morning.  On speaking out:

Several times I have heard columnists urging non-extremist Islamic leaders to speak out against Islamic extremist fascism. To their credit, some do, but there has been no widespread condemnation of Hezbollah or Hamas from Islamic sources. Even a "moderate" Muslim group, CAIR for example, spends very little effort condemning terrorists and terrorist groups, but a great deal of time and effort condemning Israel. They pretty much condemn bin Laden and 9/11, but then spend every remaining ounce of effort denouncing anyone critical of Islam. Still, we urge Islamic leaders to condemn terrorists. Little condemnation is forthcoming.

When are we going to hear immigrant groups urging Mexico to tear down the corrupt systems that prevent enterprising and hard-working Mexicans from rising up out of poverty?

When will we hear the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons praising Bill Cosby for condemning the destruction of the African-American family and the rejection of opportunity?

When will we hear the media speak out against partisanship? When will our political "leaders" not only speak out against the corrupt practice of earmarks and actually do something about it?

What are a snowball's chances here in Central Texas in August? 

August 21, 2006, evening.  I read a very interesting recent Washington Post article by Juan Williams called Banish the Bling: A Culture of Failure Taints Black America. The author is spot on. He criticizes the obsession among our young people, especially young African-Americans, to glorify sex and drugs and the gangsta lifestyle. 

Unfortunately, I also see a Culture of Defeat growing in America, a Culture of Doom and Despair, a Culture of Cowardice, a Culture of Denial, a Culture of Greed, and a Culture of Partisanship. All these things are unhealthy, but instead of working together to solve problems, our political "leaders" are bickering over stupid stuff, slinging outrageous arrows in the form of sound bites to sway voters for the coming elections.

Disgusting.

August 19, 2006, morning.  I ran across a quote yesterday that is relevant to my post of 8/17 AM:

"The best way to do good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1767

August 17, 2006, morning.  Why do poor people in this country choose rich people to represent them in Congress?  Do they actually believe that they "feel their pain" or do they think they will go to Washington and vote to take money out of the treasury and give it to them? Why, in this land of opportunity, are there so many poor people? Why is so much blame for poverty in this nation aimed at Washington, DC? Why are people risking their lives to come to this land for an opportunity to work hard and make money, while some people born here are not interested in an opportunity that involves hard work? Why are people who make bad choices called "unfortunate"? Why are people who take advantages of opportunity, who work hard and become successful, called "lucky"? Why do some self-proclaimed champions of the poor stir up hate against the "rich" for not giving enough (through taxation) to the poor? Why do these same "leaders" think that giving money to poor people will cure their poverty? This is all so sad.

I am the oldest of seven children, born in a dirt-poor farming community. Large families are a rural tradition, but my dad was no farmer. A large family just meant more mouths to feed, and we were poor. I studied hard in high school and got a scholarship, so I was the first member of my family to go to college. Actually, I was the first of my generation, or any preceding generation within my family, to go to college. And what did I do with my opportunity? I wasted it. I didn't concentrate on my studies and dropped out after three semesters. Was that bad luck? No. I made bad choices. My draft lottery number was 13. That was bad luck, but the fact that I had lost my deferment was entirely due to bad choices. I enlisted, worked hard, got married, raised a family, got promoted again and again. I didn't make a lot of money, because that is not the incentive the Army provides to make it a career. I made choices that, especially in retrospect, seem to have been good ones. I finally got my college degree 23 years after graduating from high school. I rose all the way to the Army's highest enlisted rank - Command Sergeant Major - and retired at age 46. Was I lucky? Yes, in one respect. I was born in a land of opportunity. So were the hundreds of thousands before me and since who chose a military career. They were lucky to have the opportunity, but the successful outcome was due to their own hard work. We are guaranteed equal opportunity, but we are not guaranteed equal outcomes. 

I now am ten years into a second career in the private sector. I make damned good money. Am I successful because of luck? I would suggest that I mostly make my own luck. Pure chance caused one opportunity to pop up rather than another at many points, but picking the opportunities was a matter of choice, and then making the most of the opportunity was a matter of study and hard work. I guess that, by many standards, I am "rich". I pay a lot of taxes at the federal, state and local level. At what point will I have paid my "fair share"? At what point is the tax burden on the "rich" enough? The government takes money from me at the point of a gun and re-distributes it to other people based on "need". Who determines that someone else needs my money more than I do? Some well-known person (I am sure it wasn't a Democrat) once said that he didn't mind helping pull the wagon, but it did sometimes rankle him when the people in the wagon getting a free ride would yell at him to pull harder and faster. I feel that same resentment sometimes.

There are many people in this nation who truly are down on their luck, but a much, much larger percentage of people who are in poverty are there because of bad choices: single parents with no education or job skills, retirees with nothing but Social Security, substance abusers, criminals. And many, many of these people were (and are) aided and abetted in their failure by the government. 

And the "champions" of the poor who continue to stir up class envy and hatred are not helping. They are keeping the poor dependent, and they are counting on their dependents to vote for them and against those who would support "tax cuts for the rich".

August 16, 2006, evening.  Our country was founded by a collection of patriots, men of common sense and bravery, the likes of which we have not seen gathered together again in a single place at a single time. They were men of vision and foresight. They cared about the future of our people and our country more than wielding power for individual gain. 

We now live in an Age of Political Dwarves. We have no great statesmen. We have masterful politicians who know how to spin and bob and weave and say and do all the right things to get elected and re-elected. We have no men or women with the courage to reach across the political aisle and find compromise, just because it is the right thing to do for the benefit of our country and its people. We expend all our energy laying blame, and hardly any fixing problems.

I love idealists. Anti-war people fascinate me. They have great music. Their goals are noble. And naive. We should smile and wave to them and then go do the difficult right thing, because if we listen to the pacifists, our enemies will kill us.

August 16, 2006, morning.  The military is usually fighting the last war, i.e. the previous war. We went into the Korean War with equipment and doctrine from WWII, and we had to learn to adapt to a different type of war and a different enemy. We went into Vietnam with really obsolete military doctrine and equipment, and we really had to adapt. We went into both Persian Gulf Wars with Cold War forces and technology, designed to defeat huge Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces, and we kicked butt. Then we had to dig in for an insurgency by suicidal religious fanatics. We have adapted well, and the fanatics cannot stand up to our military forces (except for ambushes of opportunity), so they mostly kill civilians now.

August 15, 2006, morning.  Hezbollah suffered a defeat? Who does Bush think he's fooling? He's whistling past the graveyard where the myth of IDF invincibility was just buried. Ehud Olmert hesitated, and Israel lost much more than it gained. Hezbollah was not crushed, therefore they were victorious. No military force in the area had ever done that before. Because Israel refused to win decisively, they have lost their most important asset. They are now perceived as vulnerable, and their opponents will be emboldened. The U.S. is toying with the same fate in Iraq, and for the same reason, and against the same opponents.

August 14, 2006, evening.  Fat livers or fat heads? Which do you prefer? On one side of the political spectrum (over there, to your right) you have one group trying to dictate whom you can sleep with. Now the People's Republic of Chicago is telling you what you can eat. Yes, the same city council that decided to dictate to Wal-Mart how they should run their business (and ran that business out of Chicago) is now telling you what you can eat. The Chicago City Council has banned the sale of foie gras in the city. They also banned the use of trans-fat oils in restaurants. Chicago has obviously solved the urban problems of education, poverty, homelessness, gangs and crime, and now they can turn their mighty pens towards other social ills and slay further evils. Next thing you know, they will require that microchips be implanted in all dogs in case they get lost. Oh, wait. They already plan to do that too. Hey, it only costs $40. What's $40 to a single mother of four working a minimum wage job? And the total impact? Imperceptible. There are 300,000 dogs in Chicago, so at $40 per hound, it will cost only $12 million for all the pooches to be in compliance. And $40 is cheaper than the $50-200 fine for not complying. Oh, but they didn't ban their own next pay raise. Hmm.

Now, imagine the Chicago City Council in charge of our nation. Oh, my. How many Dems on that council? How many GOP? How many Libertarians?

August 13, 2006, evening.  I subscribe to a discussion list, the name of which is not important. Tonight there was this thread about Osama bin Laden and George Bush. Some posters actually fear George Bush more than Osama bin Laden. That scares me. Blind hatred can be stronger than logic and reason. Just ask an Islamist.