Strange Bedfellows

As an avid reader of anything that Charles Krauthammer has to say I am aware that if military action is undertaken against Iran there will be many immediate implications. Amongst them is an apparent oil based alliance between Iran and Venezuela's emerging international villian Hugo Chavez.

From the Jerusalem Post:

'Chavez has come out in support of Iran's nuclear program as well as denouncing the war in Lebanon, accusing Israel of a "new Holocaust." At the Non-Aligned Movement summit, which was held in Cuba leading up to the Iranian leader's Caracas visit, Venezuela and Iran channeled the tide of global anti-US sentiment into support for Iran's right to nuclear energy.'

Amongst many other illuminating assertions, Krauthammer prophesies that when the almost inevitable hostilities arise between a coalition of the willing and Iran over the acquisition of nuclear weaponry that, “Iran might suspend its own 2.5 million barrels a day of oil exports and might even be joined by Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, asserting primacy as the world's leading anti-imperialist. But even more effectively, Iran will shock the oil markets by closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's exports flow every day.”

The world, now including parts of our own hemisphere, is going to hell in a hand basket thanks to fascistic and anti Semitic dictators like Chavez and Ahmadinejad. Thank the lord that Saddam is out of power. That’s one less terrorist sympathizing anti American dictator left to deal with.

Patrick's Day

Well, it’s Patrick's day here in Boston, as in Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Deval Patrick. He just won his party’s hotly contested primary election earlier this evening defeating the current Attorney General Tom Reilly and venture capitalist Chris Gabrieli. The immediate implications for Patrick’s victory over his more moderate opponents include the fact that the Republican candidate, current Lt. Governor Kerry Healey, now has a significantly improved chance to win the general election that did not exist hours ago. Although not a lot here in Boston is made of it, former Clintonite Deval Patrick resides far to the left of his now vanquished fellow Democrats on the political spectrum. Among Patrick’s little publicized positions on issues include: giving tuition breaks to illegal immigrants, the advocacy of issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, the opposition of the MCAS graduation requirement, and opposition to the growth of charter schools. If only the other two candidates had bothered to point out any of these far left positions, they might have had a chance to defeat Patrick.

Interestingly, what was pointed out and made very much an issue of was Chris Gabrieli’s ties to corporate sponsors who would stand to gain tremendously if a one billion dollar public funding proposal of stem cell research, that Gabrieli advocated, was realized. Amazingly, this fact had to be pointed out by the Republican candidate Kerry Healey who may have strategized that Gabrieli was the largest obstacle in the way of realizing her own gubernatorial ambitions. Of this move Gabrieli stated, on the steps of the State House that, “The Healey campaign is doing their best impression of Karl Rove”. While it is always annoying that Karl Rove is bashed precisely because of his effectiveness, Gabrieli, in my opinion was correct. The Healey ad campaign that bombarded the airwaves took the proverbial wind out of Gabrieli’s sails, allowing a possibly unelectable far left candidate to sweep in and steal the hearts of Massachusetts Democrats (especially the Boston Globe) everywhere. Of course, many left leaning Boston pundits mischaracterized Healey as “being against stem cell research”. This is a common mischaracterization, which conflates the idea of being against the public funding of stem cell research with being against stem cell research period. But that issue, at least here in Boston, is for another day.

Many local pundits assert that Kerry Healey would not stand a chance against the tough on crime and more moderate Attorney General Tom Reilly. And Chris Gabrieli, for his part, actually shares some of the same reasonable (read conservative) opinions on immigration and taxation that Healey does. Healey’s chances to win being better against Reilly or Gabrieli is unclear. What is clear is that Healey’s chances to acquire the top Beacon Hill position are vastly improved against a far left candidate in Deval Patrick. Also, the turn out of voters in today’s Democratic primary was rather low (about 20% of eligible voters). That number will likely increase in the general election when conservatives like myself (who actually vote) are given the chance to weigh in as I did last time for Romney.

Congratulations to Mr. Patrick on his victory and thank you to Massachusetts Democrats for Selecting a member of the far left to go up against the level headed conservative Kerry Healey. Healey for guv in 06’.

Blueprint

The Following nugget of leftie thought that I found on a friend's blog as a comment, serves as an excellent blueprint of common left leaning fallacies. Here is the comment and my reaction:

"This is Matt and I am a fiscal Conservative and a social Progressive. I believe in balanced budgets, capital punishment, and I am against abortion. I vote completely Democrat.
I read your posts and noticed a lot of misrepresentations of what Democrats believe and will try to explain by going through them one item at a time.
We Democrats also believe, along with Republicans, that America must defend its citizens by all legal means possible.
Democrats, in general, do NOT believe G W is a terrorist. Although some Liberals do. We just believe he is an unintelligent man who got elected by money and Karl Rove. He just likes being at the big party with the wealthy. And, like most drunks, he is probably a fun guy to have a few drinks with.
I don't know any Democrats who are defnding terrorists. Please be more specific.
We are not against the War on Terror. To say so is absolutely a LIE. We are against the obvious mismanagement of this war. This administration has no intention of ever bringing this war to a conclusion.
We are not against wiretapping and surveillance of all real enemies of America. I am in favor of both domestic and foreign wiretapping, but, only of our enemies, not political enemies. As you know, many in the Republican ranks characterize people who speak out, like myself, as traitors. And thus, by that Limbaugh definition, are valid targets for eavesdropping. Those who believe this are drinking Limbaugh Kool-Aid and eating Ann Coulter Candy. And they have been deceived into believing that the Neocons who have taken over the Republican Party are Conservatives. Incidentally, it is a completely bogus claim that you can tell who are Christians, and who are not, by what political party they associate with.

Evidentally some mistakes were made at Guantanamo as evidenced by the fact that roughly 300 prisoners have been released. Otherwise they should have been tried. Why do you think we have checks and balances in the U S? Is it not to prevent errors and prevent those in power from misusing their power? What would happen if people in power could just, on their say so, have others jailed indefinitely. Will those in power always be right? What if they make a mistake? How will that ever be found out if they never have to give an account for their actions? They must be subject to proving their actions are not errors. This how we keep everyone honest. Otherwise they would be, in effect, dictators.
I an against secret prisons and detention of people without it ever being known. I am not against the locations being secret.
As for financial tracking programs, they are no big deal. I send large amounts of money to a missionary in Africa. I have to get a swift number to facilitate that transfer. There is nothing secret about this system.
We are not against harsh interrogation techniques, but, I am against sexual violations, killing, and broken limbs. Information gained by that method cannot be reliable. Things of that nature happened at Abu Gharaib. They were not just college fraternity pranks as Limbaugh portrayed them on the radio. I often heard the phrase, " These people would just as soon as kill you as look at you". Is the smae people that Rumsfield went over and released 6,000 of? If so, then he ought to be tried.
We are absolutely not for giving terrorists the ALL same rights as Americans. But, if you jail some one then you must have some PROOF for that action. Either try them or dispense with them.
How can you claim that person is a terrorists without proof? we don't have to provide them a lawyer, but, they must be allowed to present a defense. Why not? Either you have proof or you don't. You can't jail people, in limbo forever, just on specualtion.
We are for having an actual strategy for eventually extracating our troops from this diversion in Iraq. We don't ask for deadlines and dates. We need to get back to intelligently fighting the War against Islamo-Fascists. Do you know why G W and company have no strategy? Its because they didn't think they would ever need one. They just assumed they were going to be big heroes and everything would fall into place like dominoes. By the way, it was Nixon who cut and run in Viet Nam.
You know darn well that Democrats and Republicans are on the same side when it comes to the real War on Terrorists. Disagreement does not make one a traitor. It is actually traitorous to keep your mouth shut when you see blatant mismanagement causing needless harm and deaths to our troops.
Answer me this. What country did Britain attack to catch those terrorists cells in England who were planning to hijack a bunch of planes enroute to the U S? Police work is what did the trick. Not by sending an Army to invade somewhere. The thumb-your-nose diplomacy in Washington is creating more enemies for us. Which we will have to continue to deal with in the future."


Matt:

This is Jaz and I am an (actual) Conservative and a Capitalist.

You say,

“We just believe he is an unintelligent man who got elected by money and Karl Rove. He just likes being at the big party with the wealthy. And, like most drunks, he is probably a fun guy to have a few drinks with.”

By making this personal attack, you’ve established that you hate Bush. I imagine that this passionate Bush Bashing drives most of your political thought process and analysis. With that in mind, let's move on.

“I don't know any Democrats who are defending terrorists.”

Isn’t Ramsey Clark a democrat? He is currently on the legal defense team for Saddam Hussein who I consider a terrorist. Saddam was the leader of a state friendly to terrorists (giving financial dispensations to suicide bombers) and the leader of a state who used the tactics of terror (rape rooms anyone?).

Since you’re a classic Bush Basher, I know I’ll never get you to see Saddam as anything approaching a terrorist, so we will just have disagree and proceed.

You mention “Kool-aid drinker” but when you said, “This administration has no intention of ever bringing this war to a conclusion. “ I caught a whiff of Kool-aid. Is there some sort of Michael Moore type conspiracy information that you are privy to involving endless bloodshed in the name of oil, or perpetuation of the American Military Industrial complex that you would like to share with us, or are simply implying that, as is the case with other conquered nations like Germany and Japan, we will have troops in country in one form or another, indefinitely? If the latter is your flavor then you are correct. At least I hope you are. I hope we will be keeping a garrison in Iraq at least for the duration of the war on terror, AKA indefinitely.

“We are not against the War on Terror. To say so is absolutely a LIE.”

Bush bashers love this word “lie”. As in “Bush lied, people died” or the classic mantra of “Bush lied about WMD”. These are two laughable bumper sticker slogans, but like your own statement, they share a very loose definition of the word lie. First of all, I don’t see the statement: ‘Democrats are against the war on terror’ in the original post, so this “lie” arrangement is a bit of a Straw man argument but certainly no intentional misrepresentation of what the original author believes to be true has transpired. A lie is when I tell you that something is true that I know to be false. In this case, conservatives don’t know exactly what to believe about Democrats. All of the evidence that we are exposed to suggests that, at the very least, you are not helpful in our efforts to fight terrorism (a goal you claim to share).

You give a run down of many of the tools used to fight terror and detail exactly what specific conditions have to be applied and what standards upheld. It’s not that standards and red tape are bad necessarily, it's just that you seem more concerned with raising hurdles in front of efforts to fight back than you are in strictly fighting terrorists. Democrats don’t want to be pinned with the idea that they are making it harder to prosecute the war on terror yet you surely would concede that certainly, you are not making it any easier with this anti Bush agenda by attempting to block legislation (Harry "We killed the Patriot Act" Reid) and so forth.

“I am in favor of both domestic and foreign wiretapping, but, only of our enemies, not political enemies. As you know, many in the Republican ranks characterize people who speak out, like myself, as traitors.”

I don’t know whether to consider this a straw man argument or simply a red herring. Nowhere is the debate centered on the wiretapping of political enemies. This paranoid charge is something to hide behind. Democrats have problems with the wiretapping of terrorists, which is what is being debated.

“We are not against harsh interrogation techniques, but, I am against sexual violations, killing, and broken limbs.”

Here we go with the straw man again. Nowhere is anyone proposing that we sexually violate, kill, or break limbs to get information. Suggesting that Americans are that bloodthirsty reminds me of Kerry’s Winter Soldier testimony. “...Cutting off limbs… blowing up bodies…in a manner reminiscent of Genghis Khan.”

“We are for having an actual strategy for eventually extricating our troops from this diversion in Iraq.”

First of all, Iraq is not a diversion, to say so is a LIE... just kidding. I would not consider that statement of yours a ‘lie’ because I understand that you believe Iraq is a diversion, you are just incorrect. I wonder, do you support the use of American troops anywhere? I know, you were for going into Afghanistan, please spare us. However, if you are genuine in your desire to find a solution in Iraq, as Charles Krauthammer has pointed out in an Op-ed, a possible solution will inevitably involve the co-option of some of the Sunni insurgency into the new Iraqi government by granting limited amnesties. Guess who was against this notion? Democratic leadership, principally among them the sophist, Chuck Schumer.

Then you conclude with,

“What country did Britain attack to catch those terrorists cells in England who were planning to hijack a bunch of planes enroute to the U S? Police work is what did the trick.”

This is representative of the John Kerry approach to fighting terrorism. It is the law enforcement answer to fighting terrorism that Clinton and Madeline Albright pursued throughout the 90’s. Guess what? It don’t work. We are thankful that Britain was able to thwart an attack using Scotland Yard and law enforcement resources, but I for one believe that we have to use all of the tools of law enforcement, plus the military, plus political (restructuring) solutions. Simply using law enforcement is the old playbook, didn’t you see “Path to 9-11” with Harvey Keitel?

All of that said, I appreciate you stepping forward and representing rational left leaning individuals, but you are still incorrect on a wide array of topics.

5 years

Inconsistent

The Anniversary of 9-11 is here and unfortunately for us all, the bi partisan spirit of cooperation to fight our enemies overseas that existed in the immediate weeks following the attack has long since dissipated. But it is not conservatives, a group to which I became a member on September 11, 2001, that have changed their colors. On that fateful day, almost all Americans seemed to be on the same page of anguish, rage and then hardened resolve to fight back. I was on that page as well, newly interested in civics, geo-politics and public policy. However, in the last five years I have watched as the left leaning part of our populace at first became less enthusiastic to fight our enemies, to a point whereas now they have become a downright impediment to our effective waging of the war against those who seek to kill us. It has been pointed out that it is perhaps inappropriate to mention partisan matters on the anniversary of such a somber occasion, but because the bi partisan sprit that has been abandoned long ago by the left no longer exists, I would submit that it is in fact fittingly prescient to point out the folly of the political party that I see as an obstacle to bringing justice to the memory of those innocent American citizens lost on 9-11. It is with this in mind that I launch the following partisan attack.

Five years after the attack on our homeland, Democrats and left leaning Bush critics are as confusingly inconsistent as ever. On the one hand, left leaning critics have stated that Bush failed to anticipate the danger posed by Islamic terrorism and that furthermore, not enough has been done to protect us. However on the other hand, many of those same Bush Bashers make the argument that Bush and conservatives are exaggerating the threat of terrorism for political purposes and are guilty of the dreaded “fear mongering”.

First of all, I wonder if those who accuse Bush of fear mongering imagine that, as Michael Moore has said, “there is no terrorist threat”. Because, if a Bush critic maintains that the threat is exaggerated it seems to me that said critic then therefore does not believe that there is a serious threat in Islamic terrorism. Also, many of those on the left who believe that Republicans and Bush are exaggerating the threat of terrorism and fear mongering are themselves, the argument can be made, guilty of fear mongering. Many of the same prominent Democratic leaders who charge that Bush is exaggerating the threat of terrorism, like Chris Dodd for example, also make the argument that not enough has been done domestically to protect us and because of that, we are imminent danger.


I would ask Democrats like Dodd, which is it? Are we in imminent danger because Bush has not done enough to protect us, or has the threat of terrorism been exaggerated for political gain? If you were to ask a Democrat this, I imagine that rather than decide on either one or the other mutually exclusive argument they would, like a child, want to have it both ways. In other words, many left leaning Bush critics want to be able say that Bush has not done enough to protect us and at the same time say that Bush is exaggerating the threat of terrorism. If one feels that were are in imminent danger of another attack, then surely that same person would have to understand that there is indeed a significant threat posed by Islamic terrorism. But by making both points simultaneously, Democrats water down each argument and seem as confused, inconsistent, and childishly illogical as ever. On this anniversary of September 11th that much, at least, has not changed and political correctness and liberalism remain as two of the most significant impediments to fighting back against the ever present and insidious threat of Islamic terrorism.

Conspiracy

"According to a Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll carried out in July, more than one-third of Americans (36 %) suspect U.S. officials helped in the September 11 attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could later go to war." -Washington Post

I've been aware of college campus 9-11 conspiracy theories (even as curricula) for a while, but had no idea so many Americans put stock into what I assumed was a fringe movement. I'm not going to debunk the conspiracy theory here because the debunking has already been achieved by Popular Mechanics magazine of all outfits. Suffice it to say that if you believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories, you are a crackpot and as I will attempt to prove, most likely a leftie as well.

While I personally believe that almost all of the 36% in this poll could be found to be on the left side of the aisle, in fairness lets conservatively assume that two thirds of those that believe that the US government had a hand in or took no action to prevent 9/11 could be described as Democrats.

Math dictates that two thirds of 36 is 24. So, 24 percent of the population buys into this conspiracy theory and are Democrats. After taking into account the roughly 20 percent of Americans who can be considered to be the independent/middle of the road swing vote percentage of the population, we arrive at 40 percent of the population that can be considered Democrats. In other words, for purposes of this discussion, lets assume that Democrats and Republicans each have their own 40 percent of the population.

So, 24 of the 40 percent of all left leaning individuals believe that our government had a hand in 9/11.

I know that detractors of what I'm saying here will question my logic, but in the end I believe it to be a fair statement to say that based on the results of this poll, cross-referenced with what we know of simple demographics, roughly half of all Democrats buy into this crackpot conspiracy theory that Bush planned 9-11 and so on. Do we now begin to see at least part of the reason why the majority of Americans don’t trust Democrats on issues of national security? The observation that at least half of all Democrats believe in this conspiracy fantasy regarding 9/11, is another indication that Dems are not ideal candidates when considering who should lead us in the dangerous era in which we live, known as the age of terror.

R.I.P. Croc Hunter

Steve Irwin, otherwise known as the "croc hunter", was killed the other day while filming a documentary about the underwater dangers of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Apparently, Irwin's chest was pierced by the barbed tail of a stingray. From what I have heard, a stingray attack is not normally fatal for humans but Irwin had the extreme misfortune of having his heart pierced by the stingray. Although the serrated stingray tail injects toxins into its victims, Irwin’s cause of death was most likely the severing of the aorta. This would have resulted in all of the body’s blood volume being pumped into the chest cavity causing unconsciousness followed by a quick death.

“He would have known what had happened but he'd be blacking out fast. It would have been very quick, exactly the same as if he had been stabbed in the heart.” Says M & C News.

I feel bad for the pop culture icon even though his occupation seemed to invite danger as a matter of course and I wonder if it wasn’t perhaps ill advised to be so close to such a dangerous creature. Rest in peace, Croc Hunter.