et ceteras

Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign just unveiled its official campaign slogan: “Forward!”

That also happens to have been the name of so many Marxist publications that Wikipedia has a page on the topic. One of those publications was a weekly paper in Russia founded by Lenin himself. Another was a daily paper in Germany whose authors included Engels and Trotsky. “Forward” also happens to be the name of a radical leftist organization that was started in Russia in 2005.

Interesting, is it not?

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Last week, when arguing in opposition to Arizona’s immigration law, one of the main points advanced by U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli was that the federal government has limited resources and therefore must choose which laws not to enforce.

Ignoring whether that is a legitimate argument for or against a state law’s constitutionality, there is no doubt that the federal government, like everyone, does have limited resources and must triage how those resources are used...But that only brings me around to a simple fact I dare anyone to contradict: The reason the feds must triage is not that their resources are too small, but that they have expanded their powers far beyond the limits placed on them by the Constitution. If not for that overreach, their resources would be more than enough.

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As the presidential election draws on, Obama & Co. (more likely the “& Co.” part, in order for The Exalted One to have plausible deniability) will try to play on people’s unfamiliarity with Mormonism by saying that Mitt Romney is descended from polygamists. The MSM will press Romney about his views on polygamy and try to turn it into a campaign issue, even though he is known to oppose the practice.

When that happens, just remember that it is Barack Obama’s father who was a polygamist, not Romney’s. Likewise, Obama’s grandfather was a polygamist but not Romney’s. You have to go all the way back to Romney’s great-grandfather, who died in 1904, to find the most recent polygamist in the Romney clan; whereas Barack seems to be the very first male Obama not to practice polygamy. The only reason this matters is that the MSM is sure to talk about Romney and polygamy but not about Obama and polygamy.

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Fortunately, one salvo already fired by Obama & Co. -- the false charge that Republicans are waging a “war on women” -- already seems to have veered off-course. But it is sure to be resurrected in the coming months, and when it is, we all better remember who is really waging such a war: The very same Islamic societies Obama & Co. refuse to call out.

In Saudi Arabia, a police force called the mutaween patrols public places enforcing a dress code that requires women to be covered head to toe…In Iran, four male witnesses (or a combination of three males plus two females) are required to convict a man of rape; and if a woman accuses a man but can not “prove” the accusation, she is punished with 80 lashes with a whip…In Afghanistan, when author Ali Mohaquq Nasab criticized the practice of stoning women to death as punishment for adultery, he was thrown in jail for writing “‘un-Islamic’ articles.”

Yet somehow, the American party of Mitt Romney (monogamous, married, father of five) and Rick Santorum (monogamous, married, father of seven) is the one that draws the Democrats’ wrath for not taking women’s issues seriously.

If you are interested, an excellent account of Islamic treachery toward women can be read here.

 *          *          *          *

Lastly, I would like to revisit the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case, and then hopefully leave it alone until the trial is completed. Much has been made of the MSM (specifically, NBC) doctoring Zimmerman’s 911 call so it sounded like he volunteered that Martin “looks black,” when in fact he never mentioned race until the dispatcher asked him what race Martin was. But it turns out that another part of the call has also been misrepresented.

If you have been reading about the case, you have certainly read that the dispatcher advised Zimmerman not to continue his pursuit of Martin. If you have listened to the recordings on the news, you have heard the dispatcher tell him “we don’t need you to do that (pursue him).” What you have not heard, and which I did not know until I read it in a column by Thomas Sowell, is that Zimmerman responded by saying “okay.”

The MSM refusing to air that reply is the reason everyone believes Zimmerman kept pursuing Martin. The more we learn about this case, the more rotten the media looks, and therefore the more sympathetic Zimmerman seems. Which is a shame, because people are now looking negatively upon Martin even though none of us know if he did anything wrong.

This is a classic illustration of the fact that we have vested the media with too much power to shape our perceptions.

*          *          *          *

Until  next time, stay tuned to the what is happening in the world my friends!

For the sake of good

This post was originally published on April 15th, but with the charity events now closer and the first one only two days away, I feel compelled to publish it again for anyone who missed it and is able to make a contribution. Thank you for reading.

As the father of two children who died in the womb, in addition to my two living children, I know more than a little bit about what it feels like to lose a child. Still, I can not fathom how my friend Andrea felt last December 29th.

That was the day she went to the hospital, in labor, expecting to welcome her daughter Elizabeth to the world. But tragically, Elizabeth was born without a heartbeat. In Andrea’s own words, she and her husband “said hello and goodbye to our beautiful baby girl in the same breath.”

I have been to some heart-wrenching funerals in my life and none were more wrenching than Elizabeth’s. Even the coldest-hearted person on Earth would have been moved looking at her picture and her tiny casket.

On April 28th, the March of Dimes is hosting the March for Babies here in Tampa, as well as in many other cities. The money it raises (more than two billion dollars since 1970) goes to programs that “help moms have healthy, full-term pregnancies” and to “research to find answers to the problems that threaten our babies.” Andrea has started a team, Walking for Elizabeth, that will be participating in the walk in Tampa; and as of this moment the team has already raised more than $5,500.

If you are in the Tampa area I encourage you to join us (I will be walking too) on the 28th. If you are elsewhere, you may go here to find out if there is a walk near you happening that day, or on another day. If you have any extra dollars, I humbly ask that you consider donating to the cause; you may do so at Walking for Elizabeth’s page or at my link on that page.

And on a separate but equally important note, may I direct you to another charitable endeavor?

One week after the March for Babies, Revlon will be hosting its annual Run/Walk for Women, whose goal is to find a cure for women’s cancers. My high school friend Candi will be participating in New York City with her sister Dana, for the 14th year in a row.

Unfortunately, women’s cancers are something I have more than a passing knowledge of. Having lost a great aunt to breast cancer, I know firsthand how that particular disease can keep striking at its victim, like a venomous serpent that refuses to leave until the victim succumbs. And because I work in the field of disability claims, I know secondhand that breast cancer in particular (and other female-specific cancers in general) are more serious than most people realize.

These maladies can not only end lives, but tear asunder the lives of the loved ones who remain. If you wish to contribute to the research for a cure, you may do so at Candi and Dana’s link on Revlon’s page, by going here.

Your generosity will be appreciated.

More et ceteras

An incident last week in Afghanistan received far less media coverage than it should have: In the town of in Rustaq, more than 100 schoolgirls (no boys) were hospitalized after drinking water at their school that had been poisoned. Local authorities believe the poisoning was done by the Taliban, which banned girls from attending school before the U.S. military ousted it from power.

Isn’t it strange that so many American liberals, who claim to care about gender equality and are lightning-fast to condemn our military, can not be bothered to speak up for female victims of Islamist misogyny? Do they not want to criticize the Islamists because they admire how devoted the Islamists are to opposing Judeo-Christian values? Or do they not want to criticize them because they know a dedicated Islamist, unlike a dedicated American conservative, would not hesitate to kill them? Either way, liberal silence over the Rustaq incident is disgraceful.

* * * *

Speaking of stories not getting the media attention they deserve, it has been reported that a third gun was discovered at the scene where Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered; however, its discovery was covered up and gag orders issued to people who knew of it.

Third gun or no, the media’s lack of outrage over Terry’s murder is an outrage in and of itself. As you may be aware, he was slain with weapons that the Obama administration, via the U.S. Department of Justice, sold to violent Mexican drug cartels as part of the scandalous program known as Operation Fast and Furious. If a Republican had been president when such a program was implemented, and it resulted in the death of an American public servant, the media firestorm would be so intense that the president would need to resign in disgrace a la Richard Nixon. But when the president is a Democrat, the MSM yawns and looks away.

* * * *

I had some harsh comments about Earth Day in my last post. I stopped short of calling it a Socialist holiday, but now I am going all the way and calling it that because I just learned something I did not previously know: April 22nd is not only Earth Day, but Lenin’s birthday!

I do not know whether that is a coincidence or whether Earth Day’s founders picked the 22nd on purpose; but I do know that those founders, from Paul Ehrlich to Denis Hayes, believed that a strong central government should assert control over human behavior and grab ownership of Nature’s resources. That belief is the essence of Socialism/Communism. And I have always thought FDR was onto something when he remarked that “in politics, nothing is a coincidence.”

Earth Day’s founders may have believed their hyperbolic warnings of impending doom. But even so, they used “the environment” as a cudgel to intimidate people who disagreed with them and to pursue ends long desired by Socialists/Communists the world over.

Everyday people who are blessed with good intentions but cursed with bad information do not deserve to have their hearts exploited to rob them and their descendants of essential liberty. That is why a healthy anti-environmentalist movement needs to rise up and make its voice be heard.

* * * *

George Zimmerman was released on bond yesterday. Not freed in the sense of being acquitted, mind you, but merely released so he does not have to remain in jail until a trial determines whether he is guilty or innocent. As reported on The Weekly Standard, his release was quickly greeted by people on Twitter writing “Let’s kill him!” and “kill the judge!!!!!”

It is obvious to anyone with half a brain that what we know about the Martin-Zimmerman case is a) limited and b) far too murky to assign guilt and innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. For people to go on Twitter and advocate the vigilante murder of people they do not know to be guilty is wicked -- especially when you consider that vigilante murder is the exact thing they are supposedly protesting against.

Those Twitterers need to stop wallowing in the words of race-baiting rabble-rousers and start heeding the words of Martin Luther King, who wrote: “In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law…This would lead to anarchy…I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”

* * * *

I ended my last post by writing: “That’s enough for now. There is hockey to watch. So as they say: Peace Out!” I will end this post by saying the same. The Devils and Panthers just started OT, and I am off to see what happens…

et ceteras

First, a thought about the NHL playoffs. Much ink has been spilled about how the hitting and fighting has gotten “out of control,” and how the league needs to get even stricter in its post-game punishments.

Well, personally, I think the fact that the league is getting so involved in the first place is partly to blame. Its constantly changing standards and its focus on off-ice rather than on-ice discipline have effectively taken enforcers out of the game. Those brutes now have less freedom to instill fear in opponents; and in my opinion, that reduced fear of physical retribution is one of the main reason we are seeing more head shots. I might be wrong, but that is what I believe.

* * * *

Speaking of the playoffs, the Lightning’s failure to make it past the regular season leaves me “teamless” in this year’s pursuit of the Stanley Cup. All I know for sure is that I don’t want the Flyers to win it, because I never cheer for any Philadelphia franchise; and I don’t want the Canucks to win it, because their hypocritical, holier-than-thou attitude last year really turned me off.

But what is very strange is, last night I had a dream that the St. Louis Blues won it all. That is strange because in my whole life I have probably spent less than five minutes thinking about that team. If they do hoist the Cup, you can say you heard it here first.

* * * *

Tomorrow is Earth Day, and I will go for an early morning bike ride in the woods, and I will appreciate the marvels of Nature -- just like I do many times throughout the year. I will not celebrate the so-called holiday, however. Born from the narrow mindset that was popularized by the likes of Rachel Carson, Earth Day promotes a mush-minded, romanticized view of Nature that is both false and dangerous. One of these days I will write at length about the many reasons my opinion of the environmental movement is so low, but since there is no time for that now, I kindly refer you here for a taste.

* * * *

If you are worried about central power run amok, you should be aware of the federal government’s Office of Financial Research that was created in 2010. Its funding is not subject to Congressional oversight, and it has almost limitless subpoena power to “compel just about any company in America to turn over to the federal government sensitive internal data, even proprietary information.” Who expects that this unchecked authority will not be abused, since the OFR has been staffed entirely under the watch of the most anti-business administration in our history? It took longer than expected, but 1984 has arrived.

* * * *

The OFR makes me think, for the millionth time, about how true it is that our pitchforks should be aimed at government, not business. It is the latter which grows the economy, provides jobs, and generates the innovations that raise our standard of living. Yes, it does so out of self-interest rather than benevolence, but all through history the free enterprise system is the one that benefits mankind because businesses must answer to the market; i.e., to consumers.

Which makes me think of how awesome this picture is:

* * * *

That’s enough for now. There is hockey to watch. So as they say: Peace Out!

Red Letter Dates

The hours from tonight through tomorrow morning mark the 237th anniversary of Paul Revere’s “midnight ride” and the battles that ensued. It is one of the most significant anniversaries in American history -- perhaps the most significant, because it can be argued that if not for the events that took place on April 18th and 19th, 1775, the United States might never have come to be.

Tensions between American colonists and their British rulers were running high in those days, and while this was true in all of the colonies that would become our first 13 states, it was especially true in Massachusetts. Britain had effectively shut Boston off from the world by blockading its port and quartering large numbers of soldiers within the city.

It was believed that Britain would invade the colony en masse, so residents in surrounding towns had been stockpiling munitions to defend themselves. The British targeted Lexington because revolutionaries John Hancock and Samuel Adams were thought to be there. They targeted Concord, the next town west of Lexington, because it was rumored to have a huge stash of munitions (which they wanted to confiscate) and because it had hosted the Provincial Congress.

When British forces were detected sneaking from Boston under cover of darkness on April 18th, Paul Revere and William Dawes mounted their horses and galloped into the countryside to warn their fellow citizens. Revere departed from Charlestown, across the Charles River from Boston proper, while Dawes left directly from the city. Revere’s route was the shortest to Lexington and Concord, and thus he was the first to warn their occupants of what was coming.

The next morning, Lexington’s village green was the site of the first skirmish between the British forces known as redcoats and the citizen militia known as minutemen. The latter took the worst of it, with eight dead and ten wounded compared to just a single wounded redcoat.

The British then marched on to their primary goal of Concord. After arriving and crossing the North Bridge, nearly half of them went about securing the bridge while the rest searched for weapons. When wooden cannon mounts were found, they were set afire and before long the flames engulfed a church.

Positioned on Punkatasset Hill some 300 yards from the bridge, Concord’s minutemen had been joined by minutemen from neighboring towns, giving them a numerical advantage the redcoats did not anticipate. When they saw the rising smoke, they believed their homes were being destroyed and responded by advancing. Seeing them approach in such numbers, the redcoats retreated back across the bridge. A shot soon rang out, though no one knows who fired it, and within minutes a full-blown battle had transpired in which half the British officers were wounded.

Disoriented, the redcoats fled back toward Boston. Along the way, they fell under fire from minutemen who had arrived from elsewhere and were hiding behind fences and walls. By the time they returned to the city, they had sustained more than 200 casualties.

It was an indisputable defeat for the world’s most powerful military, delivered by ordinary people seeking simply to defend themselves against royal oppression. The example set by those people ignited the fuse of the American Revolution in such a way that it would not be extinguished. And the rest, as they say, is history.

For the sake of good

As the father of two children who died in the womb, in addition to my two living children, I know more than a little bit about what it feels like to lose a child. Still, I can not fathom how my friend Andrea felt last December 29th.

That was the day she went to the hospital, in labor, expecting to welcome her daughter Elizabeth to the world. But tragically, Elizabeth was born without a heartbeat. In Andrea’s own words, she and her husband “said hello and goodbye to our beautiful baby girl in the same breath.”

I have been to some heart-wrenching funerals in my life and none were more wrenching than Elizabeth’s. Even the coldest-hearted person on Earth would have been moved looking at her picture and her tiny casket.

On April 28th, the March of Dimes is hosting the March for Babies here in Tampa, as well as in many other cities. The money it raises (more than two billion dollars since 1970) goes to programs that “help moms have healthy, full-term pregnancies” and to “research to find answers to the problems that threaten our babies.” Andrea has started a team, Walking for Elizabeth, that will be participating in the walk in Tampa; and as of this moment the team has already raised more than $5,500.

If you are in the Tampa area I encourage you to join us (I will be walking too) on the 28th. If you are elsewhere, you may go here to find out if there is a walk near you happening that day, or on another day. If you have any extra dollars, I humbly ask that you consider donating to the cause; you may do so at Walking for Elizabeth’s page or at my link on that page.

And on a separate but equally important note, may I direct you to another charitable endeavor?

One week after the March for Babies, Revlon will be hosting its annual Run/Walk for Women, whose goal is to find a cure for women’s cancers. My high school friend Candi will be participating in New York City with her sister Dana, for the 14th year in a row.

Unfortunately, women’s cancers are something I have more than a passing knowledge of. Having lost a great aunt to breast cancer, I know firsthand how that particular disease can keep striking at its victim, like a venomous serpent that refuses to leave until the victim succumbs. And because I work in the field of disability claims, I know secondhand that breast cancer in particular (and other female-specific cancers in general) are more serious than most people realize.

These maladies can not only end lives, but tear asunder the lives of the loved ones who remain. If you wish to contribute to the research for a cure, you may do so at Candi and Dana’s link on Revlon’s page, by going here.

Your generosity will be appreciated.

Santorum

As soon as I hit the “publish” button on my last post, I knew I would be writing a follow-up to clarify. And that was before I was aware that Rick Santorum’s daughter was in the hospital with Trisomy 18. Had I known that fact, I would have chosen not to publish my post on, of all days, Easter Sunday…And now, to top it off, Santorum has suspended his campaign, which makes the whole purpose of my post moot…So I feel even more compelled to publish the follow-up.

For starters, let it be known that I have immense respect for Santorum. If more men were like him, America would be in much better shape that it currently is. If he were to win the Republican nomination in August and get elected president in November, he would be a significant upgrade over the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Nonetheless, I stand by the main point I was trying to make on Easter: Santorum can not win the general election and therefore should not win the Republican nomination.

I also stand by my second point, which I suspect might have sounded like my main one: Santorum, for all his decency, has a streak of immodesty that could leave him blind to any value that exists in opposing arguments -- and could therefore lead to his actions having troublesome unexpected consequences.

As for clarifying specific things from my last post, let me start with the seventh paragraph, in which I wrote: “There is obviously nothing wrong with talking about the downsides of contraception, but such talk has nothing to do with the office of President…Contraception is a personal matter that the government should stay out of.” I did not mean to imply that Santorum has ever suggested the federal government involve itself in our choices about contraception, nor did I mean to imply that an American president has no place talking about contraception; I simply meant that for a president to lecture the nation on birth control would be, well, weird -- especially when he has so many Constitutionally approved matters to talk about and there is nothing he can officially do regarding contraception anyway.

My next paragraph began by saying “(e)ven if a president was to merely talk about contraception, as opposed to issuing executive orders regarding it…” Again, Santorum has never suggested he would “issue executive orders” regarding contraception and I doubt he would even consider doing so. I was simply trying to draw a distinction between his stated intention as president (to “talk about”) versus actual presidential actions.

If you scroll further into my post you will see that I agree with Bernard Goldberg’s opinion that “deep down, Rick Santorum would like to set up a neat little theocracy here in secular America just to make sure we’re all living moral lives -- as he sees it.” The key phrase is “deep down” -- I don’t think for a minute that Santorum would ever try to establish a theocracy, but I do believe he likes the idea of one existing to follow his theology.

And finally, in the next to last paragraph I quoted part of the First Amendment’s so-called Establishment Clause, which liberals always use to prop up their belief in absolute separation of church and state. For the record, I do not believe that those things should be separated absolutely. The Establishment Clause merely prevents the government from establishing an official state religion to which all citizens must adhere in order to avoid state punishment.

The Left tells everyone the Establishment Clause exists to protect government from religion, but the exact opposite is true: It exists to protect religion from government. The state can not tell a church what to do, and likewise, a church can not tell the state what to do; but when the head of state has to make tough decisions, I would much prefer him to be a man of faith than a man who fancies himself wise enough to rule alone from on high.

In summary, Rick Santorum is a good man, but unfortunately, his human flaws make him a weak presidential candidate.

Now that he has seemingly removed himself from the race, let us all get behind Mitt Willard Romney. And may little Bella Santorum conquer the odds.

Where His Heart Lies

My old friend Leon calls it “bringing the fire.” When someone cares about an issue, he will share his views when prompted to, and it will usually be clear that he arrived at those views fairly. But when he cares about an issue, he will ramble about it whether prompted or not, and it will seem that his views are driven more by emotion than intellect.

Each of us has at least one “bring the fire” subject. For John McEnroe it’s tennis officiating, for Al Gore it’s global warming, and for Rick Santorum it’s Catholic teaching, specifically when it comes to anything that touches the sexual realm.

As a conservative, criticizing Santorum does not feel good. The unapologetic way he has carried the pro-life flag onto so many Normandies is admirable, and the wounds he has taken from leftist fire on those Normandies assures us that he will not sell out. However, Santorum’s philosophy goes far beyond protecting the unborn and upholding the sanctity of life, and that is why he will never win a national election.

Modesty is one of conservatism’s defining traits: Modesty about the ability of government to direct the economy, for sure, but also modesty about man’s power in the face of nature. This modesty is manifested by conservatism’s understanding that all humans are fallible and that grand designs drawn up by humans always have unintended consequences. When it comes to religion, most conservatives believe the divine is so complex that no human can have a monopoly on perceiving the will of God. Tying all these things together, conservatives believe that a lack of modesty will result in far more bad than good when it comes to crafting public policy.

Unfortunately, Rick Santorum and modesty often seem to be strangers, as illustrated by the reflexive way he reverts to talking about those old sexual-realm dogmas.

Although the brouhaha over him saying that as president he would talk about “the dangers of contraception” has faded, that brouhaha is illustrative. He made that comment when responding to a question that had nothing to do with contraception. He then complained about the resulting media coverage, but as Ramesh Ponnuru points out, it was Santorum, not the media, who brought the issue up.

There is obviously nothing wrong with talking about the downsides of contraception, but such talk has nothing to do with the office of President of the United States. For that matter, it has nothing to with the government of the United States at any level. Contraception is a personal matter that the government should stay out of.

Even if a president was to merely talk about contraception, as opposed to issuing executive orders regarding it, the talking would seem to suggest a serious case of misplaced priorities: Why is he rambling about condoms and birth control pills when the economy is collapsing and our enemies are trying to annihilate us?

As it turns out, the economy is collapsing and our enemies are trying to annihilate us, but Santorum always seems more interested in matters of personal virtue. Those matters are obviously important, but they are the business of preachers and authors, not politicians; and if Santorum wants to affect America’s attitude toward them, he should apply for a job other than head of the federal government.

But what does the contraception flap have to do with modesty, or lack thereof? Well, the majority of conservatives -- indeed, the majority of pro-life conservatives -- have no moral qualms about contraception, so for Santorum to declare it sinful shows an immodesty that is so large it pits pro-lifer against pro-lifer. This, from a man seeking to win a general election amongst the population at large.

Not long ago, Santorum was asked what he made of the fact that more Catholics support Mitt Romney than him. He responded by saying that he receives more support than Romney among Catholics who take their faith “seriously.” So, are we to suppose that he believes Catholics who don’t vote for him are only pseudo-Catholic? This is perhaps the most arrogant statement by a presidential candidate in my lifetime, made even worse by its religious nature which presumes that his arguments bear the gravity of salvation and damnation.

Bernard Goldberg is the kind of decent middle-of-the-road American whose votes are likely to decide the election in November. He has written, “I think deep down, Rick Santorum would like to set up a neat little theocracy here in secular America just to make sure we’re all living moral lives -- as he sees it.” And given the eagerness with which Santorum charges into the judgmental fray, how can we counter that statement? We can’t, because if we are honest with ourselves we have to agree with him.

Conservatives, especially religious conservatives, have long been stereotyped as wanting to “impose their views on others.” This is patently unfair because modern American history contains countless more examples of liberals trying to impose their views than it does of conservatives trying to do so. The last thing we need is for Santorum to receive the GOP nomination and lend plausibility to the slander.

The United States was founded largely on Judeo-Christian principles, and I believe those principles must be kept in society’s forefront if we are to maintain the freedom we hold dear. But keeping them in the forefront is the job of society, through any number of religious and civic institutions. It is not the job of the federal government, whose duties are explicitly enumerated in a Constitution that forbids it from making any “law respecting an establishment of religion…”

Like the scorpion who stung the frog in the middle of the stream, Santorum always goes back to religious opinion because, well, that is what he does. Religion is what’s dear to his heart and that is certainly not bad. It’s just that he should be contending to head a movement, not to head a government.