Welcome to the New Left

All those who don't see the left self-destructing, raise your hands.

pagan: Magical Election Tampering: SHUT IT DOWN!

No, this isn't satire. Yes, this is probably one extreme of things, but it exemplifies the kind of thought going on with the New Left...it can't be a large portion of the populace deciding one set of ideals is better than another, it HAS to be some sort of fix.

Who Is On Your Side? - Epilogue

Well, it's all over. With a sweeping win of both the popular and electoral vote, President Bush was re-elected. We can now look forward to a prosperous and eventful term as the Democrats and liberal left admit defeat and re-examine their agenda in hopes to find a way to once again attain a place at the political table.

Oh, wait, that last part is happening in Bizarro World. Here on earth, the left wing is self-destructing at an alarmingly increased rate. This calls us back to my campaign theme, 'Who Is On Your Side?' one last time. We see here photos from the liberal rally in SF on November 3, 2004 protesting the Bush victory. Once again, you liberals out there, take a good look: who is on your side? These aren't a bunch of people pretending to support your cause to make you look bad, THIS IS YOUR BASE. This is the core of the active left, here.

On the net we've had everything from calls for domestic terrorism to wishes of assassination to the apparently imminent mass exodus to Canada. What you hear least is what you'd expect to hear most: people passionate about their beliefs who now see a difficult four years ahead, but four years they will spend rebuilding and reorganizing, trying to change the system from within. Rather, the vast majority you see and hear resembles a day care right after it's been announced that milk and cookie time has been cancelled. We haven't seen tantrums like this since Michael Moore was told that there was a two-item limit on the 'Buy one get one free' chili dog deal at Wienerschnitzel.

The light is shining on the left, and it's revealing quite a bit of ugliness. As I've said for months now, if you have a conscience, if you can look past your own desires for a few seconds and think...do you really want to be like these people? Before, my question was about your voting decision, now it's changed a bit. Do you really want to do this? Do you actually want to insult and threaten your friends over how they voted? Is the outcome of any election so important that people you supposedly care about are expendable?

I'm not suggesting that you should agree with us. I'm not stupid enough to expect you to just sit down quietly while we dominate the country and do everything our way...just like I would refuse to do that if the shoe was on the other foot. What I'm saying is this: the country you live in and it's laws are important, but how much more important are the relationships you make with those around you? Is gay marriage really worth hating your neighbor over? Are tax cuts, for the wealthy or for everyone, worth calling everyone who voted for Bush a rich, white, racist, homophobic inbred idiot? Is ANY agenda or policy that can be enacted by the federal government worth breaking friendships and relationships forged between you and another private citizen, when that other person isn't even doing anything to draw those issues between you?

Think about this, lefties. Your party and your ideals are self-destructing. They're taking your personal relationships with them. The only way you can hope to salvage those things is to take a good hard look at how you're behaving and decide whether you want to be one of these hateful, bitter people. You live in the greatest country on earth, and it would still be so even if John Kerry had won the election and the Dems had won back control of the Senate and the House. I can say that, believing what I do. You can do the same, you just have to decide what's more important.

Bait & Switch Redux

My apologies for my extended absence from these pages, sometimes life's cruel demands make time spent on anything but them a luxury that you can't afford. Rest assured, I didn't go far, and now I've returned with more wit and wisdom focused with laser precision at the liberal MSM (that's MainStream Media for those of you in Pleasant Hill) and their attempts at putting the fix on the upcoming election.

We return now to our most recent topic: the Bait & Switch tactic. The AP strikes again, on the same issue as last time. In this story, with the inflammatory title 'Bush, Cheney Concede Saddam Had No WMDs', one would expect to find a contrite president and VP, copping to every accusation the Kerry campaign and the MSM have thrown their way regarding Iraq's WMD's and the reason for war.

Unfortunately for the AP, even their own story couldn't drum up much enthusiasm for that concept. This story involves Charles Duelfer's final report, referenced in my previous Bait & Switch story in it's initial form. As expected, Duelfer's report confirmed that Saddam had no stockpiles of WMD's and hadn't created any since 1991. However, the report also makes the case very clear that Saddam was only holding off in order to get the sanctions dropped Then, he was planning on immediately building them again and attempting to attain nuclear power to rival Iran. Much of this was admitted by the former dictator himself in post-capture interviews and interrogations.

Now, out here in the real world where people use logic and have the ability to see past their nose, this would be stunning news. This is a very, very sound endorsement for the war. As it turns out, we're lucky Saddam was foolish enough to continue stonewalling the U.N. If he'd have played along, the sanctions would have went away and we'd have been forced to leave him alone. Left alone, he made it clear he was making a beeline towards WMD production, including nukes. Even if we had managed to detect this via intelligence, the whole U.N. process would have begun again. Remember, it took THIRTEEN YEARS the first time around to finally call Saddam's bluff and give him the ultimate inspection, the military version of a proctology exam. If we hadn't, we'd be facing a world with a Saddam Hussein still in control of Iraq, pursuing WMD's with everything he has, encouraged by the knowledge that he's the only ruler in the world who stood up to the U.S. and walked away. I'd say that is a scenario that is completely unacceptible.

Of course, this isn't good enough for the MSM, the Dems, or the anti-war crowd. The fact that this report confirms the reason to go to war (to prohibit Saddam from using/attaining WMD's or getting them to terrorists) is completely ignored by the MSM and the increasingly-desperate Kerry campaign. It's clear, as it has been from the beginning, that NO reason is good enough for this crowd.

If the war was a complete and total success with no setbacks and not a single casualty, they'd still be criticizing the Bush admin. They were early on, when easy victory appeared to be the case. In that period, they complained about the cost, about how it would damage the U.S. in the view of the world, how it hurt relations between the U.S. and impotent Europe. They simply can't sit back and say 'job well done' because that means another four years of Bush, guaranteed.

Now that we see the cost of the battle, that this won't be a cakewalk to election day here or in Iraq, they are trying to say that the effort is doomed, specifically because we shouldn't have done it in the first place. That even fighting the war was a mistake, and this is the natural result. If they admitted that the war was a necessity, what basis of criticism would they have? You can see how well Kerry is faring when trying to make that claim, he's coming off as a complete chowderhead, with no apparent semblence between his statements on the matter yesterday and today. If all of the critics of the war took the same stance, without the spin doctors of the DNC to back them up, they'd be laughed out of the room. They MUST criticize the war as a whole, as a concept...and since that doesn't really make sense anymore, they're just using the Bait & Switch to try and fool Ma & Pa Kettle in flyover country that this isn't the evidence of WMD's they're looking for...move along...

Well, we aren't weak minded enough to fall for that Jedi mind trick out here in the Blogosphere. As long as the Internet remains free, we'll remain here, steadfast and ready to unleash the full fury of the truth upon all those who stand to oppose it. Besides, what else are we going to write on here...'Alias' episode guides?

Who Is On Your Side - Addendum

This is a great compendium of stories detailing the liberal, free speech oriented, political discourse loving left and their increased terror tactics on any who disagree with them.

The question still stands, liberals: who is on your side?

Bait And Switch

A common tactic you can see througout the mainstream media (MSM) is what I'll call the 'bait and switch' tactic. You'll see a headline that clearly states the gist of the story, then find upon reading it that the headline actually only covers one small facet of the story and ignores the rest of the details, even when they completely counteract the suggestion imparted by the headline. My story about the AP and their initial coverage of Memogate is an example of this to the extreme, it's usually more subtle.

Take, for example, this article. This originated with the AP, but the headline has been repeated everywhere from myway.com to Drudge. 'U.S. Weapons Inspector: Iraq Had No WMD!' the headline screams. From that headline, one is clearly lead to believe that the report found no evidence of WMD's in Iraq. If you believe that, you'd be wrong. Abandoning the headline for the truth, the article clears up the matter by the second paragraph of the story.

'In a 1,500-page report, the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, will find Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of U.N. agreements and maintaining a dual-use industrial sector that could produce weapons.

Duelfer also says Iraq only had small research and development programs for chemical and biological weapons.

As Duelfer puts the finishing touches on his report, he concludes Saddam had intentions of restarting weapons programs at some point, after suspicion and inspections from the international community waned.'

Quite a difference from the outcome suggested by the headline. They didn't find actual WMD's, but they found that Saddam was importing banned materials, working on UAV's, maintaining industrial areas that could produce weapons, had small research and development programs for chemical and biological WMD's, and they conclude that he had intentions of restarting the programs as soon as international scrutiny waned.

Um, I really hate to break it to the fine, unbiased folks at the Associated Press, but THAT MEANS SADDAM HAD WMD'S!!! It all adds up to the same conclusion! If he had the material to make them, was doing the research to create them, had the facilities to make them, and clearly had the intent to make them as soon as the UN stopped looking, then every single thing that everyone from the President on down has said is true. He was a threat, via WMD's, to the free world and his own people. Just because he didn't have a stockpile up and ready to use (which I do not believe, I believe we should be checking under Syria's beds for those) does not mean that he was complying with the UN sanctions. This report clearly shows that he was not, and was in open defiance of it, continuing to pursue methods of mass destruction.

This CNN report gets in on the same act. While the headline claims 'Intelligence report: Iraq prospects bleak', you only have to read a little of the story to note a very important fact about the nature of the report:

'But the official noted that the document, which spans roughly 50 pages, draws on intelligence community assessments from January 2003, before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent deteriorating security situation there.'

Ah, so those prospects are mighty bleak...well, at least they were almost two years ago! This report was based on theories of what might happen in Iraq offered up before we even set a foot into the place. What would these same intelligence wonks have to say about it now? Well, the story doesn't say, it just quotes a bunch of politicians who say various negative things about the current state of the matter, not adding any real substance based on this report that garnered such an alarmist headline.

So, my friends, as you wade through your daily paper or your morning websites, bear in mind that the front page is just as susceptible to bait and switch tactics as the advertising section.

Six Degrees of Dan Rather

Ever play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? It's a little parlor game where one person names an actor and the other has to connect them to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less. I've always been a whiz at this one, and that skill has come in handy: I believe I've found the smoking gun connecting Rather to the Democrats and the Democrats to Burkett. If this proves to be correct, it will provide the breadcrumb trail of just how Memogate was perpetrated.

Let's start here: Dan Rather participated in a fundraiser for Travis County Democrats, partly on behalf of his daughter who hoped to have a future in Travis County politics. This isn't new, he did this in 2001 and has a long history of involvement with Travis County/Austin Texas politics as a Democrat.

Now, we have Bill Burkett, disgruntled former National Guardsman from Texas who is the likely source of the forged memos. They have been tracked to a Kinko's in the Abilene area, very close to Burkett's residence.

Note in that last story the name of Burkett's lawyer: David Van Os. Van Os is a candidate for Texas State Supreme Court and a longtime Democratic Party operator. This, in and of itself, is a big issue. We've effectively tracked a link between the docs and a Democratic Party operative. Here's where it gets interesting, and we complete the loop right back to Dan Rather's door.

This is the resume of David Van Os, from his campaign site. Notice down in the 'Political & Community Activities, Positions, & Honors' section, there's an entry that should look a little familiar. While he now operates out of the Abilene area, he got his start in Travis County. For over 20 years he held leadership positions in the Democratic Party of Travis County...the very same county and party where Rather broke his network's rules and did a fundraiser, the very same county and party where Dan's daughter, Robin, has political aspirations.

There you have it. A major power player in Texas Democratic politics who has ties to Rather and Burkett and certainly has a motive to strike a blow to the Bush campaign. Motive, opportunity, evidence. If it were a criminal case, I'd be ready for a jury. Hell...it didn't even take me six steps.

Dan Rather's Fantasy World

As Memogate/Rathergate heats up, it's entertaining to watch good old Texas Dan dance around the gigantic pink elephant in his living room as if it didn't exist. This story from the New York Observer is the best I've seen so far when it comes to demonstrating Rather's complete rejection of reality. The man is living in another dimension. He's always been a little nutty, but if he believes half this stuff then he's finally gone around the bend for good. This is a long one, but I just can't pass up this opportunity to examine Rather. It's just fascinating to watch a man's complete psychological breakdown. Let's take a look at some of the highlights.

As the headline of the story reads, the story begins with Rather's exortation to the president to 'Answer the questions.' He suggests, with no small amount of arrogance, that their campaign would be better off if they did. He elaborates that a lack of an official denial is somehow proof that the allegations are true.

"It’s never been fully, completely denied by the Bush-Cheney campaign or even the White House that he was suspended for meeting the standards of the Air Force or that he didn’t show up for a physical," he said. "The longer we go without a denial of such things—this story is true."

First of all, the president has BEEN denying these charges for over eight years. They came up in his gubernatorial campaign in Texas and then again in his first presidential campaign. He has said, time and again, that he completed his duty and is proud of his service. That is the answer, Mr. Rather. That is the denial. Of course, that isn't what Dan wants. What Dan wants is a direct point by point set of evidence proving that the president is telling the truth. He summarizes it as a simple 'deny it' but if that's all he wanted, he'd already be satisfied.

What's more, how exactly do you deny questions raised from false, bogus sources? I wonder if Rather would have such tenacity if someone asked him to prove that he'd never cheated on an exam in college? It's no more reasonible for Rather to ask the president to prove that he didn't disobey an order, considering the extent of record keeping over 30 years ago in the Texas Air National Guard. Indeed, this becomes a spinoff of the old courtroom trick: 'How long has it been since you stopped beating your wife?'

Rather continues his jaunt into fantasy land by taking a play from Hillary's playbook: it's a vast right-wing conspiracy to obfuscate the truth by questioning the documents!

"I think the public, even decent people who may be well-disposed toward President Bush, understand that powerful and extremely well-financed forces are concentrating on questions about the documents because they can’t deny the fundamental truth of the story," he said. "If you can’t deny the information, then attack and seek to destroy the credibility of the messenger, the bearer of the information. And in this case, it’s change the subject from the truth of the information to the truth of the documents. "This is your basic fogging machine, which is set up to cloud the issue, to obscure the truth," he said.

Dan, we're not seeking to destroy the credibility of the messenger. You've done a wonderful job of that, we wouldn't want to interfere. We're refuting the SOURCE of the information, not the bearer of it! While one should always take the source of condemning information in mind when reviewing the information, that isn't the issue here. If clearly, provably real memos had been brought forward and we sought to ignore them due to the source of the revelation (currently rumored to be MoveOn.Org) then he'd have a point. The source of the information, in this case, only provides us with the individual to arrest and charge with the various crimes associated with trying to sway a public election using fraudulent military documents. The documents themselves are the question, Mr. Rather, not the source.

But wait, it gets better. We're deep inside Neverneverland, Wonderland, or whatever fantasy world Rather inhabits when he suggests that he and his producer, Mary Mapes, have been trying to get these files for FIVE YEARS! That would put it back to when Bush was just beginning his first campaign in the primaries, such is the apparent foresight and wisdom of Dan and Co. I'm sorry, but you'd have to be an utter fool to believe that the Democrats, MoveOn.org, the Kerry campaign, AND the mainstream media had no clue that these existed for the last five years and only the unstoppable journalist team of Rather and Mapes was able to cajole the source into forking over the goods. It's simply absurd.

After writer Joe Hagan gives Rather ample opportunity to suggest these intellectually invalid arguments, he finally gets around to inquiring about the papers themselves. Dan's responses show an absolute disconnect with reality. Here's his opening salvo on the issue of forgery.

Mr. Rather said that it would require an exceptional amount of knowledge to craft a forgery—and not just the typographical kind. "You’d have to have an in-depth knowledge of Air Force manuals from 1971," he said. "You’d have to have Bush’s service record, you’d have to have the Air Force regulations from 1971, you’d have to know nearly all of the people involved directly at that time, including the squadron commander, who was Bush’s immediate superior, and his attitude at the time—you’d have to know all those things and weave all those things in."

He's absolutely right, and it's clear that the person who forged these documents didn't have an ounce of that knowledge. I can't believe he's actually refuting the accusation that they're bad forgeries by claiming that one would have to be a master forger to create these documents! The entire BASIS of the accusations is that they're very poor forgeries, full of both technical impossibilities as well as errors in jargon, context, and format. You're right, Dan, it would take someone who really knew what he was doing to forge these. The person who tried to do it in this instance apparently didn't know much about his subject, thanks for pointing that out.

But despite a number of experts calling the memos forgeries, he said that "the truth of these documents lies in the signatures and in the content, not just the typeface and the font-style. Let me emphasize once again, these are not exact sciences. Not like DNA or fingerprints."

I'm guessing Rather has been watching CBS's biggest hit, CSI, and now believes he's Gil Grissom. No, Dan, I'm sorry, they ARE exact sciences. In fact, from the little I know about them I'd say they're equal to or MORE exact than fingerprinting. The amount of knowledge one can gain from examining a historical document is vast, considering the accusations we've seen so far. He's suggesting that the signatures (which have not been verified and have several inconsistencies) and the content (also full of holes) somehow exonerate an otherwise completely bogus set of documents.

"In terms of the experts, you’re going to find an equal number of experts on the authenticity arguments," he said. "I don’t think that’s going to resolve the argument. The core truth of the reporting, I think it’s already clear that it’s true. And I think as time goes along, it will become even more apparent."

There are an equal number of experts who think they're authentic? WHO, Mr. Rather, WHO? Give us names! Bring them out for questioning! Every expert you've referred to in your reporting so far has either refused to be named or has since refuted the accuracy of the documents! Here, Rather is intentionally living in a state of denial. No one has yet to even find one partisan 'expert' that they could parade out and claim the docs are real, but he thinks it's 50/50.

He's then confronted with the street address given for the president on the documents...an address he had moved from the year before the documents were supposedly created. Hagan also asks him about the fact that the signatures are different from the way Killian always signed official documents.

"Both of the allegations are wrong," he said. "I feel confident in saying that." But when asked to offer a specific rebuttal to the observation about the address, Mr. Rather didn’t have one, saying only: "It’s our position, and I believe we demonstrated it …. The address doesn’t match the Bush service time frame—that’s their basic allegation? We think that’s wrong. We took a look at this, and we just think they’re wrong about it."

Ladies and gentleman, you're watching one of the most esteemed reporters in the history of televised journalism stick his fingers in his ears and go LA LA LA LA LA LA LA NOT LISTENING like a four-year-old who's been told it's his bedtime. Can you believe the arrogance and denial involved here? The man is claiming that the president lied about what STREET he lived on over 30 years ago! Man, he's a crafty one, that Dubya, knowing that he should lie about his move so that he could eventually prove damning documents about his service to be forgeries when they were really authentic. I bet he came up with that plan the same day he delivered the magical typewriter to Maj. Killian that prints documents that look identical to Microsoft Word docs and convinced Killian to sign any documents he wrote about Bush in a new double-secret signature so they'd be hard to trace back to him.

If there's one comfort here, it's knowing that whatever mystical imaginary world Dan occupies, it's likely a happy, pretty place. He probably spends his days frolicking through fresh heather and daffodils with his friends the leprechauns and the prankish tree fairies. Back here in the real world, we can only sit back and feel satisfied that he's probably happy there...and if this issue keeps going the way it has been, he may soon have plenty of free time to spend there with his little forest pals.

Remembering September 11th

Some of you may notice that I didn't write a piece regarding the 3rd anniversary of 9/11. From what I saw, virtually every other blogger, conservative or not, put something up yesterday. You might be thinking that I didn't post anything because I forgot.

Honestly, yesterday was a busy day. Ran some errands, had some Taco Bell for lunch, played a lot of video games. I intentionally chose not to write anything in regards to 9/11.

Why? There is more to this than remembering the victims. I remember them and I always will. I also remember the purpose behind the attack. That purpose was to instill fear, to disrupt the lives and commerce of every American, to damage us as a whole.

I remember that purpose, and I stand in defiance of it. I have mourned the victims of 9/11. I will never forget what happened on that day, who did it to us, and why. However, I refuse to allow it to divert me from whatever tasks I have on that day. I refuse to let the animals behind the attacks sway me from my daily life. I refuse to be afraid. Every time an American acts in fear because of the acts of 9/11, a small portion of victory is given to those who perpetrated those acts.

So yes, I remembered the victims yesterday. If I had a flag, I would have flown it at half-staff per the President's instructions for Patriot Day. Beyond that, I refuse to allow those behind the attacks to move me. I remembered the attacks in the perfect way: by going on with my life, if a bit wiser and sadder, and refusing to live in fear. I encourage you to do the same.

Most say you should never forget. I agree: never, ever forget. But do not be afraid, do not give them the small victory of even one day a year where you avoid your normal daily activities due to what happened on that fateful day. Live, love, eat, laugh, buy, sell...engage in all the things that make America great. THAT is the best way to remember and honor those who lost their lives and that is the best way to strike back at the monsters who took them from us. Continue to be American and free, and live the American dream!

Cheney is out of touch? Edwards should check eBay!

Taking a break from the tumult surrounding the forged CBS documents, I have to comment about this story that made the rounds yesterday regarding some comments Vice President Cheney made.

In his comments, he points out that we currently don't capture sales made on eBay as part of the overall economic outlook. Edwards was quick to chime in on how 'out of touch' Cheney is and made a crack that bake sales should be included as well.

On the contrary, this shows how completely out of touch Edwards is. Has he ever been on eBay? Since the dot.com bust, I know at least three or four people personally who make their living selling stuff on eBay. Check out how many 'eBay Stores' there are now. On top of the stores, there are hundreds of thousands of dedicated sellers who use the site's basic auctions to sell their goods. Some are small businesses that branched out to eBay while others started selling on eBay and turned it into a small business. Considering that my girlfriend and I are trying to get an eBay business going, I'd just like to tell Senator Edwards that he can stick to his bake sales and forget about pretending to represent anyone but rich white trial lawyers. He clearly doesn't know what he's talking about.

When we have unemployment figures that can be affected by a shift of 500,000 people, then eBay is absolutely a factor we should be capturing. By ignoring it, we're ignoring thousands of small businesses. They just happen to be conducting business without a license and, in many cases, without paying taxes.

...

On second thought, maybe we shouldn't have government paying attention to eBay. Once Democrats like Edwards figure out that Cheney is right, they'll swoop in and squash the free trade by imposing taxes and Federal regulations on eBay sales!

The AP Is Hot On The Story!

I just love this link. This story should be taught in college journalism classes as a perfect example of using extreme spin to cover up a story that the reporter's personal politics can't handle. This is just classic Associated Press spin.

We've all seen, by now, the stories of these new records of Dubya's Air National Guard service supposedly found among personal records of Major Jerry Killian, one of his superiors. It's hard not to hear about them, considering most sites have been running them as headlines for the last week and 60 Minutes did a major 'expose' of them on their show Wednesday night.

One little problem: the records are fakes. Outright forgeries. As detailed here, they aren't even GOOD fakes. 60 Minutes just spent network TV time committing fraud against the President of the United States using forged military documents. Why didn't this make the news? Oh, it has! In the story linked above, in fact!

You'll notice that the headline isn't '60 Minutes Slanders President' or 'CBS Uses Forged Documents For Story', it's 'Bush Piloted Guard Trainers Before He Quit'.

The first four miniscule paragraphs of this non-story make it clear: Bush spent quite a lot of time in trainers as opposed to actual aircraft. Why, he even needed two passes to land his plane on two different occasions! Shocking, horrifying, scandalous accusations, of course.

The piece gets interesting around paragraph five, where they bring up in an offhanded sort of way that those memos everyone's up in arms about just might be fakes. They then proceed to discuss this for over a full page of text...but the headline talks about Bush and his trainers!

Man, you have just got to love the stench of desperation here. Both the media and the Democrats absolutely reek of it like a wino on his fourth day of a three-day binge. Considering that CBS got those memos from someone, I'm more than willing to bet that they came from the Kerry campaign. Who else would bother? Who else would care?

I suggest that this makes Watergate look like a minor social faux pas. This is a felony, possibly a series of felonies, and I'm quite sure it could be traced back to a certain French-looking Senator or his campaign. Will the media hold CBS to the fire? Will CBS roll on the source of the docs if the proof that they're fakes rises to the top of the news by sheer force of outrage on the part of the conservative Internet? Eh, doubtful.

My initial prediction still stands, however: the Kerry campaign will implode before election day, mark my words. You cannot have someone as singularly egotistical and self-centered as Kerry in a position where humility and the ability to take attacks is required. This guy gets angry over having to stand in line to rent snowboards (as recounted in the infamous Dave Barry piece) so he won't last ten seconds in the debates. It's only a matter of time. These forged documents just might be the fuse that lights the big bang. We can only hope it happens soon, it's going to be one hell of a good show.

The Fear Of Freedom

(This is the last 'historical' piece I'll be copying over to this blog. It was written this past 4th of July. I found it more than a little exciting when President Bush used basically the exact same words regarding the fear of freedom in his acceptance speech at the convention. Yes, it's long, but I think it's worthwhile.)

Things today seem rather grim for freedom-loving Americans. Bad news is everywhere, if one sticks to the major news outlets. Indeed, if one were to gauge the state of the nation via the popular U.S. and foreign press, you see nothing but black. The economy is bad. We’re fighting a hopeless and unnecessary war with Iraq. Terrorism continues to climb despite our efforts. If only we’d stop to listen to these people and try to figure out why they hate us so much, we could stop the violence. We’re currently being led by a man who stole the election using the judicial branch of government and is only interested in filling the pocketbooks of his friends and gaining more power for himself. Oh, and he’s also a complete chimp of an idiot who is being controlled by his vice president and big oil.

I don’t believe any of those concepts. Not a single one. The facts stand against them. But if that’s the case, why is that the view being laid in very thick layers upon most of America? America has enemies, from within and without, that’s why. Some are just that: enemies who wish us to be destroyed as a nation and dismantled as a people. Others are misguided souls who mean well but have become so wrapped up in the many pits of deceit hidden in society today that they have not only lost their way, but in some cases their ability to reason.

I’m going to take some time here to examine these groups. On this, our Independence Day, I’m going to demonstrate that American is still strong, that these enemies can be defeated from within and without, that liberty’s bell will continue to ring as long as right-minded, freedom-loving Americans choose to let it. These enemies fear freedom. It frightens them to their core. Let’s talk for a little bit about what they’re so afraid of, and how that fear will be their undoing.

The Islamofascists

Clearly our primary enemy in the world today both in numbers and intent is the Islamofascists. I call them that because it fits. Foreign policy wonk Victor Davis Hanson wrote a great story this week called ‘Fantasyland’ where he digs into the ‘Arab Street’ and reveals this enemy for what it is: the latest incarnation of fascism attempting to rival that of the infamous Nazi party.

Thus the proper exegesis for (radical Islam’s) violence must account for exactly why and how it is that Middle Eastern, mostly Arab Muslim, youths kill Westerners worldwide—and yet Africans, South Americans, and Asians impoverished usually do not. It might just be that the stew of American appeasement, past Cold War support for illicit and corrupt grandees like the Royal Family, too much oil money too fast, Soviet-style statist remnants, endemic anti-Semitism, and Islam itself have all combined to create something like a strain of Hitlerism, which at this late hour cannot be reasoned with, but rather only destroyed.

The arguments that say we should just listen to them and figure out what terrible things we’ve done to cause their hatred against us are empty, for just those reasons. The Muslim religion might not be the whole cause of their hatred, but it’s certainly a major part of it. Something has to explain why other Islamic parts of the world, which are far more destitute than the Arab world, aren’t rising up against Americans. This is clearly a special blend of hatred, a refined form that no kind of appeasement or soul-searching could ever remedy.

It’s as simple as this. If you do not follow the tenets of radical Islam, you are the enemy. If you sow the seeds of ‘immorality’ throughout the world, particularly in the form of Hollywood, you are the enemy. (And no, the irony that many of the people making and distributing these ‘immoral’ entertainment products in Hollywood are actually siding with these people is not lost on me.) If you do not follow Islam to the letter yet in any way occupy or exist on ‘holy Muslim land,’ you are the enemy. If you are friends with Israel and support or defend them in any way, you are the enemy.

Such is the extent of their fascism. The tenets of this strict system of beliefs leaves a nation very little room to move without risking the cry of jihad and the slaughter of its citizens. Once again, I find great irony that so many in the political left decried the President’s call that ‘if you are not with us, you are against us’ when, in fact, it was the Islamofascist world that made that cry first, and backed it with bullets and explosives against American lives.

What’s at root here? How do we defeat this enemy and make the world safe for Americans and their interests? As with any enemy, look to what they fear most and you will have the weapon you need to defeat it. That weapon? That fear?

Freedom.

Afghanistan scared them, but not too badly. Always a backwater, leaderless nation of nomads, even the ‘Arab Street’ didn’t place too much importance on free elections and constitutional democracy in a country that has always been run by a system of warlords and tribes.

Iraq, however, is another story. Once a modern, civilized nation, it’s infrastructure crumbled under the heel of Saddam Hussein. Saddam became the worst enemy the Islamofascists had ever known, but they missed that in their ecstasy over his willingness to fund their terror campaigns and provide safe haven to the worst of their mass murdering terrorists such as Abu Nidal. He was their worst enemy because it was his stubborn refusal to give up his aspirations of ruling the region and personally destroying Israel that gave us the needed reason to move in and unseat him. Perhaps they counted on their close friendly relations with morally corrupt governments such as France and Russia, with whom they had deep financial ties. Either way, they ignored the threat from within that was Saddam Hussein, and now we are in Iraq, and Iraq will become a democracy.

Make no mistake and do not misunderstand: this scares the Islamofascists of the world worse than any number of smart bombs or Army Ranger raids. Freedom is the vaccine that can kill the germ of Islamofascism.

Why? Simple: fascism of any sort does not live long under open democracies. When people can live how they choose, worship how they choose, say what they choose, gather when and where they choose, and choose whom their leaders will be, fascism always crumbles and blows away like so much dust. The only way that fascism ever takes hold is after these essential freedoms are removed and replaced by a totalitarian state that takes away all dissenting voice.

The final result of the war in Iraq will be a westernized constitutional democracy smack in the middle of the Arab Islamofascist world. The fascists themselves realize this…why else would they be so eager to spill the blood of their Arab Muslim brothers and sisters in Iraq to try and stop it? The desperate undertaking of incredible new levels of violence in Iraq in the days leading up to Iraqi sovereignty is proof of this. They are simply scared to death of an Iraq lead by Iraqis with democratic freedom at its heart. They know full well that freedom is the cure to their disease, and they will do anything necessary to keep it from taking hold and threatening their control over that part of the world.

They will fail. It is just that simple: they will fail. The writing is already on the wall, the Iraqi people are already governing their own country, with the goal of free elections in record time. (How soon people forget how long we occupied Japan, Germany and Korea before we let their people manage themselves.) They can murder as many Iraqi leaders and civilians as they want, the virus of freedom is now in the wild and it will not be stopped. The Iraqis are free, and it will be some time before they are willing to entertain the notion of allowing another man or regime to take away those freedoms and return to the totalitarian nature of Saddam’s rule. This includes the intended totalitarian ‘sharia’ domination of the region that is the goal of the Islamofascist forces.

The Islamofascists will continue to harass and murder our people for some time. This isn’t an overnight ‘quick fix’. Freedom has to grow, and that takes time. But just like the once great Soviet empire, once a drop of freedom is given, a people will continue to thirst and raise their voices until a greater river of it follows. In time, the nature of free Iraq will erode the totalitarian regimes to its east and west. The people long fooled into serving the freedom-hating fascists will tire under their shackles and demand the same freedoms their neighbors enjoy. They will fail. They will lose. All that we must do is hold the course, stay on target, and continue to foster democracy and combat fascism in every corner of the world, especially the Middle East.

The Democratic Party

Once upon a time, the Democrats were the party of reason, of fairness, of equality. While they were born out of the darkest hatred (originally founded by the Ku Klux Klan to shore up their rule over the post-war south) they turned around an frequently fought on the side of right in the middle 20th century, even if their solutions were misguided and shortsighted. The initial FDR and JFK still meet with reverence in the hearts and minds of most Americans, despite the faults of both men.

We’ve now entered into another dark time for this political party, one that was ushered in during the dark days of the Clinton presidency, rife with lies and scandals. This is a party that has turned their back on conventional politics. They’ve chosen the path of megalomania and hatred instead of rational debate and statement of opposing positions.

Columnist and lifelong Democrat Bob Just wrote an excellent essay on the state of his party. He puts it far better than I can:

Now, 25 years later, I am ashamed to be a Democrat. More than that, I have come to fear my own party. Hatred and corruption - the roots of fascism - are on the march in America as they have never been before, and leading this march is the Democratic Party. Increasingly, mainstream Democrats are uncomfortable with what we see in our party. We may not have a real name for it, but we know it is dangerous.

Somewhere during the Clinton administration, the Democratic Party had a shift in both tone and intent. Perhaps because they had dominated congress for so long yet lost it, even with a sitting, popular Democrat president. Regardless of the cause, the intent shifted from representing those in the country who did not agree with the Republican platform to representing themselves and their own quest for power.

As Just states in his article, it is clear that the majority of the Democratic party believes that they know best, they should guide the country regardless of what the citizens actually want, because in their wisdom they can guide us to the promised land. However, they are so zealous in this goal that they have continually degraded to the point that hatred and vitriol are the only intellectual weapons they have left.

Their platform today is simple: we hate George W. Bush. You should vote for us because we are not George W. Bush, who is to be hated. If you don’t hate George W. Bush, you are a fool and need us to govern your life as you are clearly too stupid to manage that yourself.

As Just says, there are many Democrats feeling this way, but none in power within the party. Their thirst for control and power is such that they will resort to any lengths to gain that power. Repeatedly, the Democratic Party has either supported attacks or directly attacked the war effort. Not in the form of civil disagreement, but in ways that can do nothing but undermine the effort and jeopardize the lives of our troops. Based upon their public statements of record, the hypocrisy here is grand. I won’t repeat them here, but the record of their statements during the Clinton years regarding Saddam Hussein are very clear…and directly opposed to what they’re saying today.

This hypocrisy is not one of changed minds or tempered emotions. It is rooted in a single, uniting cause: the war could help Bush, so we must do our best to sabotage it. Anything that could help their opponents stay in power longer is open for attack, no matter what their personal or past beliefs are on those topics. Their hunger for power and their hatred for President Bush drives them now, not their honest desire to do things differently than the other side of the Senate floor.

Once again, what’s at the heart of their hatred? The fear of freedom. When Americans think for themselves, they don’t necessarily tow the party line. While the Republican party at least claims to represent personal responsibility and freedom, the Democrats make no effort to hide their intent: government knows best, it should decide your life for you. Without government’s guiding hand and support, you would be wallowing in the dirt, uneducated, without hope of finding personal happiness. Government intervention and ‘support’ inherently comes with a loss of freedom. When government dictates our destiny and ignores the will of the people, it becomes no different than any other fascism. This is what the Democrats want. Regardless of their stated good intentions, they must be stopped. Even if we believe that they don’t want power for power’s sake, that they honestly want the best for every citizen of the nation, they still must be stopped. At risk is the fabric that holds the nation together: freedom.

They must not be allowed to dictate our social and economic structure. They must not be allowed to continually place the wishes of tiny, vocal minorities over the beliefs of the rest of the nation. Right is right, wrong is wrong, and neither of those concepts have a hard time bubbling to the surface of the nation…we do not need the Democrats dictating how we all should think when most of us simply disagree with them. We should not allow them to talk down to the nation as if it were a giant day care center full of rampaging toddlers.

Regardless of their motivation, their intent is clear: regain power, whatever the price. Freedom is their enemy, because we have the freedom to refuse them. We have the ability to send them packing. We have repeatedly chosen to do just that in the last few elections, but that has only spurred them to lower depths of villainy in their quest.

As with the Islamofascists, they will lose. Unfortunately, it might not be immediate. We might have to bear the burden of the ignorance of the populace and give the Democrats another chance to prove what they have become. Their hatred is strong, and it’s effects are clear. People are falling for the lie every day, the lie that President Bush is every terrible, horrible thing the Democrats make him out to be. If enough people fall for their tactics, we might wind up in quite a mess come November. Even if we do, however, freedom will win out. If they attempt to take away too much, I believe that it will only sponsor outrage from Americans throughout the land. Regardless, four years of these ideologically empty people ruling their way should certainly be enough to convince those who might fall prey to their hatred that they made a terrible mistake and will not repeat it again. It happened here in California, it could happen to the nation.

The ‘New Left’

The final enemy of freedom I’m going to discuss here is what I’ll call the ‘New Left’. Not a single source of aggression against freedom, but rather a conglomeration of individuals from nearly every ideological area of American life. Some are malicious, while others are benign but misguided. Some openly seek the destruction of the America that is, others simply don’t stop to realize the effect their actions will have on freedom as it stands now.

Leading the rallying cry of the New Left we have a series of fanatics who have departed from any course of rational comment or open discussion of politics in America. We have Michael Moore, the current standard bearer, waving his banner of lies and deception, carefully crafting his public statements before American news outlets while openly wishing for the open defeat and destruction of America both abroad and on his website.

There are many others who join him in his efforts. Much of Hollywood and the media elite openly back him and his desires. So twisted is their concept of America that they’d rather see it destroyed than continue on in a way that does not suit their own ideals or lack thereof. They’ve forgotten the very concept of patriotism yet vigorously defend themselves against anyone who questions their own patriotism. Indeed, simply because they call what they desire ‘America’ they feel they can lay claim to the same patriotism displayed by our forefathers in building and defending this nation.

What they call ‘America’ is nothing of the sort. Rather, it’s a place where their desires dictate that of the citizenry. Where socialism replaces capitalism. Where a monarchy of ‘enlightened’ elitists guide those of us ‘lucky’ enough to live under their regime. They are a group that cries out when their ‘rights’ are impugned, but are the fastest to attack the rights of anyone who doesn’t agree with their view on how the world should be run.

We also have the anti-war crowd in this bunch of the ‘New Left’. Decades of anti-Semitic, ‘multiculturalist’ domination of our nation’s high schools and universities have left us with a young, angry group of people who have absolutely no basic knowledge of what they’re saying, but they fervently defend their ‘views’ and just as passionately attack any who would disagree. When you have groups of ‘peace’ protesters spitting on those who disagree, you really have to stop and wonder if they have any concept of what peace really is.

Time and time again we’ve seen these protesters not calling for an end to war, not calling for a time of peace or a peaceful resolution of the ongoing conflicts. All too often we’ve seen them call for the deaths of US soldiers. We’ve watched them call for appeasement in the face of open threats against us, even at the sake of our own sovereignty. We’ve watched them protest in favor of Palestinian terrorists, their open, blatant anti-Semitism completely unchecked. These are a people who have been taught to be angry at something that they don’t even understand. Once again taking the path of all fascists, they are simply told whatever disinformation their ‘teachers’ felt was necessary to rally them into a frothing, angry mob. It is hatred, pure and simple. Blind, stupid, unthinking hatred. When confronted about their beliefs they inevitably fall back on the rhetoric they were given: Israel are jackbooted thugs seeking to destroy the Palestinian people who just want a place to live, George Bush is a moron and a villain who just wants to suspend the constitution and take absolute power, US troops are kill-happy murderers who deserve every bit of violence brought upon them in Iraq. Any reasonable person can see that these are absolute lies, but these misguided people have been indoctrinated so thoroughly that they believe them with every fiber of their being.

Finally, we have the real bulk of the New Left. These first two components of the New Left are relatively small in size. What’s growing by leaps and bounds is this third contingency: the ‘New Libertarians’.

As the damage of the first two groups in the New Left begins to show it’s real effect, we’re seeing more and more of these folks. Hailing from every corner of the political ideological map, they frequently lay claim to the Libertarian party, even thought that party (what of it there is) doesn’t even claim to cover all of their wide-ranging beliefs. The ‘New Libertarian’s don’t really have much to do with the party at all, even those that do lay claim to it as their affiliation. Rather, the title ‘New Libertarian’ refers to their relentless pursuit of liberties that, for one reason or another, have been disallowed by the laws of the nation. As with the Democrats, their high-minded discourse on controversial subjects has degraded to open hatred for the government and a near-fanatical paranoia of anything related to government.

On one side, you have the atheists, so bent on destroying all faith and religious influence on the nation that they are willing to side with anyone who will help them achieve their goal. On another, you have the disenfranchised that are set on eradicating any limitation on their actions. Anytime government tells them that they are not allowed to do something, they jump up like rebellious children shouting ‘you’re not the boss of me’ and bemoaning that ‘Big Brother’ has taken their freedoms away.

In the middle you have conservatives who have become so afraid of government that their only solution to it is it do away with all or most of it. Convinced by the conspiracy theories pervasive on the Internet and some of talk radio, they are the new version of the ‘a commie behind every bush’ conservatives of the McCarthy era. Paranoid and constantly afraid, they blame every ill in society on government and suspect government conspiracies in any negative event in public life.

On the far left, you have the Green Party and other environmentalist wackos who seek to destroy anything that threatens what they hold dear, even at the loss of the economy or the nation itself. From the anarchists who make violent attacks at any global economic structure to the Earth First eco-terrorists, these people hold a specific ideal close to their hearts and are willing to fight for it. Unfortunately, these ideals are fanatical and destructive, seeking to protect something other than civilization and humanity. All too often they openly espouse violence against humans over their disagreement on world economics or whether or not tree cutting or oil drilling will be allowed in regions they seek to protect.

The common thread here is simple: these are all people who have become lost in the political process and now see the only solution to be the destruction of part or all of the government as we know it. The freedoms they cling to so tightly are not freedoms at all, but rather crimes or impositions upon another section of the citizenry, perhaps even the majority of them. It doesn’t matter to these folks that their desired freedoms would bring chaos or harm to the lives of their neighbors, it’s their right to have them. I’m reminded of the exchange in Monty Python’s Life of Brian when the character of Stan insists that he be called ‘Loretta’ because he wants to have babies. When others protest, his response is ‘don’t you go oppressing me!’ Even though this ‘right’ he’s laying claim to is ridiculous to any casual observer, somewhere down the line he’s been convinced that his own personal desires are worth more than even reality itself: it’s his right, and he’ll be damned if anyone tells him otherwise.

Once again, the basis of this is a fear of freedom. Michael Moore and the far-left fanatics fear freedom because it allows the nation as a whole to decide that their way of thinking is incorrect. It allows people to disagree with them and live how they choose. The anti-war crowd fears freedom because it is infectious and self-perpetuating. Frequently, it requires conflict and war. It also stands in the face of the ideals they’ve had driven into their heads over the years, as no freedom-loving individual could fault the Israelis for trying to preserve their nation and indeed their very lives. No freedom-loving individual could cheer on the forces trying to keep freedom out of Iraq and Afghanistan. No freedom-loving individual could stand next to the totalitarian regimes of the Islamofascists that they regularly side with. Finally, the ‘New Libertarians’ fear freedom because it allows the nation as a whole to decide that they cannot do what they so desperately desire to do. We can tell them, as a democratic majority, that the acts they wish to take part in are not acceptable to us and if they wish to engage in them, they’ll have to go somewhere else. Freedom only comes with civil order, which allows every man to do what they want without infringing upon the lives of others. If civil order is removed, soon everyone would be killing each other over their ‘freedom to choose’ what they do.

As with the first two enemies of freedom, the New Left will also lose. Truth wins out in a free society, where information and open public discourse is allowed, so Michael Moore and his fanatics will eventually fall on their own swords as history shines the light of truth on their lies. Freedom is a virus, so the anti-war types will lose in the end. The countries that once held our enemies have now tasted the sweet nectar of freedom and they will not stop seeking out new sources of it. The New Libertarians will lose, because at our heart we are a moral people. We stumble, we make mistakes, but in the end we choose to protect the rights and freedoms of the nation as a whole rather than give in and allow small groups the ‘freedom’ to do what they will, no matter the cost to the rest of us. Despite the sad state of the nation, we still choose to be a Christian nation by a majority. We chose to elect a Christian president. This offends some who are not Christian, or who fanatically seek to eradicate all semblance of religion from the state. In reality, they pose a much greater risk to religious freedom in doing so, as our right to follow the moral code of ethics of our choosing is quickly being removed by those same people who claim to be trying to preserve their freedom of faith. I believe that in the end, freedom will win out, and the nation will still have the choice to take the path it chooses, regardless of whether it follows a Judeo-Christian belief system or not. Rather than having that path taken from them, the nation will decide to follow whatever path they choose, in true freedom.

In every case, freedom will win out…as long as we continue to protect it.

You simply can’t put that genie back in the bottle. It was freed 228 years ago, and it will continue to spread as long as some people exist who remember what it was about in the first place. If we ignore it, if we become defeatists who are willing to compromise freedom because we see it’s perfect form as a lost cause, then we risk losing everything we’ve fought for in the last 228 years. We must remain strong. We must stay the course. We must make our stand and refuse to be moved by any force, from within or without.

How do we do this? Remember. Remember what we’ve accomplished. Remember that we’ve become the strongest and best nation on the planet by God’s wonderful gift of freedom. Remember how many people have given their lives to maintain it, and to sow it’s seeds throughout the world. Remember the concepts of honor and integrity, of idealism and faith. Live them in your lives, keep them in your hearts and never, ever let anyone take them away from you. It’s through these high ideals that we preserve our freedom, that we make it invulnerable to all attacks. As long as it lives in our hearts and shines in our lives, it cannot die. By living in unity with the common goal of freedom we can shine on another 228 years, and another beyond that, for as long as God sees fit to keep us here. With our eyes set on Him and our hearts devoted to the notion of freedom that is embodied in this amazing country of ours, we cannot and will not fail.

Freedom will not die and cannot lose…as long as it remains strong in the hearts and lives of true patriots who love their country and are willing to sacrifice everything so that others will carry on the dream that is America.

Happy birthday, America. I love you.

Anti-War Groups Protest Use Of Military Force In Florida

(This is a satire piece I wrote following the announcement that National Guard troops were being called out to guard areas damaged by Charley.)

In the wake of Hurricane Charley, anti-war protestors organized by left-wing groups such as Moveon.org are planning demonstrations in New York, Los Angeles, and other major U.S. cities. They plan to protest President Bush's decision to mobilize the National Guard to maintain order and help in the recovery effort in Florida.

"This is typical of the Bush administration's rush to use military force," said Ted Finklebacher, one of the protest organizers. "I mean, how do we even know there was a storm? The local weatherman gets it wrong all the time. Did the President even evaluate the intelligence before deciding to send young men and women from around the country into harm's way down in Florida?"

Political pundit and frequent Democrat campaign advisor James Carville echoed these concerns. "What you have here is a mad-dog president, drunk with power, ready to throw bullets at any problem. This is a local problem! A local problem! Why didn't we even attempt to fund groups in Florida to solve the problem themselves? I don't even think there was a hurricane to begin with! And hey, if there was a storm, maybe they liked it! We're forcing our anti-hurricane way of life on the innocent people of Florida by military force!"

While representatives of the Bush administration defended the move, noting at least 15 deaths and millions of dollars in damage, his political opponent criticized his plan. "This is what you get when you have a president who has never been in the heat of battle," said Democrat presidential nominee John Kerry, "I can tell you what it's like, being sent to a strange place and not knowing why. There was a storm once, too, it was really really windy. I saved 27 orphans in Da Nang when their quonset orphanage was about to be crushed by a palm tree hurled by the winds. Would you like to see the film footage? Have you seen my purple hearts yet?"

Kerry went on to promise that, were a major weather disaster to hit the country once he's elected, he would consult with United Nations meteorologists before committing troops to the region.

Hollywood has been quick to voice their dissent as well. In a conference call with reporters, Ben Affleck questioned whether the hurricane was even real. "I'm in the movie business," the actor said, "I know how easy it is to get some big sprinklers, turn on some big fans, and make it look like Hurricane Andrew is coming when, in fact, it's a sunny southern California day. I don't know that this thing is even real, it could just be a way for Bush to drum up support during campaign season."

Despite the protests, national guard troops have been mobilized, and already find themselves in a quagmire. "We ran into a problem as soon as we got here," said Captain James Doohickey of the 24th Wisconsin Cavalry, "We set up signs with directional arrows, pointing refugees towards relief centers, but the roads clogged quickly when the Floridians were apparently incapable of figuring out which way the arrows were pointing without assistance."

As the deployment reaches it's second day, we can only hope our men and women in uniform come home safely and with lots of neat souvenirs from Disney World.

Who Is On Your Side?

(In the wake of the frequently violent protests after the second day of the Republican National Convention, I wrote this piece for my liberal friends.)

The Republicans are in New York and so is their opposition. No, I'm not referring to Michael Moore, although USA Today has seen fit to pay that gasbag to write a column as an excuse to put him at the convention so he can make more money off the easily manipulated. I'm referring to the left wing of American politics. I'd say the 'new left' but let's face it, these are the same yahoos that have always been on the left. They're just a little less controlled and a little more direct than usual.

As this report from New York details, the 'protesters' are doing a fine job of engaging in intelligent debate and civil disobedience to impart their message that they disagree with the President and his policies. Oh, wait, that's happening in Bizarro World. What we have herein reality is a criminal free-for-all with the left showing their true colors.

Punching delegates as they attend Broadway plays, shouting epithets and flipping off diners as they try to enjoy dinner, actively seeking out delegates at breakfast and their hotels to disturb them and 'make them feel unwelcome'. Well, I'm really glad these people have such a belief in political freedom that they are willing to do their best to deny the political freedom of those who oppose them.

The Republicans are not in New York to ram their agenda down anyone's throat. They aren't there, marching through the streets, screaming at everyone who even LOOKS like the opposition. No, that's the mass representing the opposition, the left. The Republicans are there to hold their convention.

For those of you in Rio Linda, the convention is where delegates from every state come together to discuss and debate the party platform while casting their assigned electoral votes for the candidate of the party's choice. These delegates were chosen by the votes of the people. In this case, the incumbent won every election as he ran unopposed. In other primaries, such as in 2000, there would have been delegates representing every candidate who received votes.

I nearly volunteered to represent Dr. Alan Keyes' representative block of votes in 2000. My job there would have been to cast my vote as willed by the people of my state, the small percentage that voted for Dr. Keyes. While my candidate didn't carry the state by a longshot, I would have been there to represent his voters and their views as the party built and announced it's platform for the coming election.

The conventions are a key part of our electoral system, especially in the primarily two-party system we now have. The fact is, if no one paid any attention to them, the delegates could come and go with very little notice. For example, the Democrats in Boston earlier this year. Did they even have a convention? I didn't notice. But I digress.

What you see today and over the weekend in New York represents the exact opposite of what progressive political people are supposed to hold near and dear. The effort here is not to voice opposition to policy, but rather to voice opposition to existence. Let me say that again: the policies of the Republican party are not being opposed and protested, the very existence of the delegates is being opposed. None of the actions detailed in the story I referenced (or in any of the other stories I could find on the subject, and I looked around for quite awhile) involve actual, direct protest of policy. The protests have been, at best, an unleashing of hatred at President Bush and the Republican party, and at worst a series of terrorist attacks designed to drive delegates out of the city and disrupt the convention. These delegates are there to exercise their political rights in this country, but the protesters can't even abide by that. I wonder, come election day, if they'll stand outside voting places and attack anyone who looks Republican? This activity is absolutely no different from that, they're both a way of circumventing the established process of electing a president. The father of modern American civil disobedience and political protest, Dr. Martin Luther King, is surely doing an entire floor routine in his grave.

Now, here's the point. I want all of you liberals, all of you who consider yourself left wing, all of you who are considering voting along with these people in this election for any reason to stop and look at things for a moment.

Who is on your side?

The Democratic convention in Boston went off relatively undisturbed. No reports of anything even remotely resembling the chaos brought to New York by the left wing protests was reported. The opposition to the Democratic party allowed them to conduct their convention and engage in their political rights unimpaired. What about the opposition to the Republican party? Who are these people that you are siding with, the people who you would consider political allies?

I know you, you're smart people, you're good people...take a good, hard, honest look at who these people are. Doesn't it make you question, for just a second, whose side you're on? There's a battle brewing here, and look at what the footsoldiers on your side of it are engaging in! Shouldn't this set off some kind of moral alarm inside you that maybe, just maybe, you've been taken for a ride by those who hold such extreme hatred for our president? Maybe you're being tricked and cajoled into joining the villains in this story?

Take a look at it. A hard, honest look. These are your confederates. These are your comrades. These are the public representatives of your side of the issue. If you find yourself completely comfortable joining together with these kind of people because hey, anyone but Bush, right? Go for it. If not, if there's a little pause here, a little hesitation, then I urge you with all I've got: THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING. As much personal animosity as you may have for George Bush, ponder for a second the kind of people who no longer want him in charge. Think about the alternative. Your candidate has been completely silent on this. So quick to demand condemnation for ads that he doesn't like, you don't see him saying a peep about these people engaging in criminal behavior on his behalf.

Is this who you want? Is this what you want? No matter how much you disagree with the war in Iraq, or Bush's abortion policy, or whatever basis you think you have for such deep-seated personal hatred of a man, look at who you're joining.

Look at who's on your side.

Iraqi civil war imminent! Or not...

Drudge has had this link to the World Tribune site up for a couple of days. The story is headlined 'London report foresees civil war in Iraq after U.S. pullout.' This is terrible news!

"Iraq's failure to quell the Shi'ite and Sunni insurgencies will lead to a civil war with Iran's and Turkey's potential involvement, a London institute projected."

Wow, sounds like we're doomed. From the way this spins, you'd think that this is something that will happen by week's end.

Of course, that's nonsense. Just look a little further down, and the reporter swerves into the truth.

"The report cited several scenarios over the next 18 months. The best-case scenario envisioned government participation by the majority Shi'ite community as well as the smaller Sunni and Kurdish sectors."

That doesn't sound too bad, I wonder where the doom and gloom came from? Ah, here we go.

"But another scenario envisioned a collapse of authority throughout the country. At that point, the report said, Iran would extend its control over Shi'ite communities in Iraq while Kurds in northern Iraq would separate from the rest of the country."

ANOTHER scenario. That would be the WORST CASE scenario, my friends. I can't help but be reminded of the Chicken Little reports earlier this year claiming that a US Government agency report warned of a coming global weather crisis similar to the events of the film 'The Day After Tomorrow' when in fact, that report covered many possible scenarios and the one referenced was one of the most unlikely and near-science-fiction options they'd studied.

As in that case, what we have here is a media outlet eager to find proof of disaster where none exists. The scenario described would require a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and a subsequent shunning of them by both the U.S. and the civilized world, letting them descend into chaos without any measure of aid.

This is, of course, ridiculous. Unless John Kerry is elected. Then, hey, who knows?

Welcome One And All!

Hello, my name is Justin, I'm a poor man who is growing tired of being henpecked by a boorish and biased liberal media. In an attempt to gain a wider and more sympathetic audience for my musings, I have created this blog as a repository for my political and social analysis and commentary.

Here, you can expect to see entries concerning news stories I find on the net, sociopolitical current events, and whatever else catches my fancy. Each entry will contain my analysis of the issue at hand as well as some salient commentary.

First, a little about myself. I am a political conservative, and a Republican. I am in my mid-30's. I have a job and a half. My main job involves software for a major pharmaceutical company, my half-job involves writing for an entertainment website. The nature of these jobs gives me reason to maintain a little bit of anonymity, hence the 'Poor Justin' pseudonym. I am not ashamed of my views, but I also don't seek any undue complications with the work that puts bread on my table.

I hope that what you read here will enlighten and entertain, amuse and give pause for contemplation. I welcome comments from my readers but be warned, I reserve the right to quell any comments that step out of line...and I have very little patience for stupidity.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, welcome, and enjoy.