119 Comments

1. El Jefe Maximo:

The dilemma between what’s necessary to preserve freedom, and living to enjoy the consequences of that freedom seems more pronounced where life is the sweetest.

Focus on living and self and consumption enables us to fantasize that we can put ourselves in place of God, abetted, as you reminded us yesterday, by the occasional Satan telling us to shut up, lie back and enjoy it if we know what’s good for us.

Oct 29, 2008 - 2:47 pm 2. The Anti Jihadist:

Freedom, and more importantly life, are precious things. Anyone can lose their wallet or their life in a split second, anywhere or anytime, by accident or by design, either in a back alley or in broad daylight.

But there’s also a spectrum of crime, and the next step up (some might say down) the criminal ladder from purse snatching or pickpocketing are dramatic (and often exceedingly violent) takeover robberies, made famous by years of Hollywood crime dramas. It might be a bank or a private home, but the idea is the same. Normal people in the course of their daily lives are suddenly held hostage and are brutalized into giving up their money, valuables, whatever–and usually it all goes down in a few mere moments. The poor victims might buy themselves their lives for not resisting…or the criminals might decide that it’s better for them to leave no witnesses. Crooks are capricious folk, to say the least.

Islam’s takeover of Europe is a takeover robbery, writ large, and equally violent. Unlike the movies, this is happening in slow motion, and in bits and pieces.

Oct 29, 2008 - 3:26 pm 3. Karen:

The wind, one brilliant day,
Called to my soul with an odor of jasmine,
And the wind said,
‘In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I’d like all the odor of your roses.’

And Machado said, ‘I have no roses.
All the roses in my garden are dead.’
And the wind said, ‘Well, then I’ll take the
withered petals and yellowed leaves.’
And the wind left.

And I wept. And I said to myself,
‘What have you done with the garden
that was entrusted to you?’

– Antonio Machado

Oct 29, 2008 - 3:30 pm 4. Salt Lick:

Baphomet’s black goat
rides unseen upon the deck
chewing rudder ropes

Oct 29, 2008 - 3:50 pm 5. Zim:

Old Europe died in WWI. Her empty shell has remained. Nazism inhabited her, but was thrown out. Communism was barred from entering. Islam is putting her on now.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Oct 29, 2008 - 4:30 pm 6. Tim:

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it…

“The Spirit of Liberty” – speech at “I Am an American Day” ceremony, Central Park, New York City (21 May 1944). Billings Learned Hand

Oct 29, 2008 - 4:36 pm 7. RWE:

The question before the people of Europe – indeed, the likely question before the people of the U.S. next week this time is: Do we play along?

Wretchard said in a previous post that the ordinary man just has to try to survive the effects of tyranny. But tyranny cannot survive the refusal of the ordinary man to just go along. In WWII Antoine de Saint-Exupery excused the widespread acceptance of the French people of the German occupation by saying that their lives depended on the Germans providing a “few pots of grease for railroad axles.” Without those pots of grease the French people would starve.

But today Europe is not being conquered by people who can build Panzers, Volkswagons, and Messerschmitts but instead by those who have demonstrated the certain ability to cross thread a bowling ball without difficulty. The reason that the combined non-oil exports of the Islamic countries of the Middle East only equals that of Finland is that they are no damn good at anything. Fewer books are translated into Arabic in a whole decade than are translated into Spanish in one year because the Islamics have embraced ignorance. The “victors” are the people who did not sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night because they could not figure out how to work the automatic opening front door.

Do they – and we – pull down the walls of the temple rather than see it desecrated?

I have often thought about printing up bumper stickers that say “What is the Left going to do if we all just quit?”

Oct 29, 2008 - 5:10 pm 8. Eggplant:

Zim said:

“Old Europe died in WWI. Her empty shell has remained. Nazism inhabited her, but was thrown out. Communism was barred from entering. Islam is putting her on now.”

I almost agree. I would argue that Europe died when WW-II ended. The failure of European liberal democracy against totalitarian ideology set the stage for Europe’s eventual death. Fascism was Europe’s last pitiful attempt at remaining an independent power (the only alternative to fascism was to become a Soviet client). Of course, fascism had to be defeated because it was an abomination. After WW-II, Europe became an empty shell to be controlled by stronger powers. America treated Western Europe as a sock puppet while the Soviet Union did the same with Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union then imploded leaving America as the remaining hegemon (a role we adopted with reluctance to offset the Soviet Union). As America withdraws its influence from Europe, the corpse continues to decay. The European Islamists are not a cause of Europe’s decline, rather they are a symptom.

Oct 29, 2008 - 5:15 pm 9. Derek:

The west has enjoyed a historical anomaly. There has been an almost total absence of warfare in our midst. It was elsewhere, something to watch with horror on our TV screens as opposed to experiencing in the streets.

The reason for this peace and prosperity isn’t the grand ideas of intellectuals, the grand institutions of statecraft and justice.

It has existed because of the threat of total annihilation. And since that threat has diminished to some extent, somehow we think that the peace and prosperity will continue.

This economic turmoil will result in things that we can’t even imagine. An old friend, since passed away, was 25 years old, trained in industrial trades, living with his father and mother because there was no work. Along with 1 million other german men. He repeatedly said 1 million. He got a job two weeks after Hitler took power.

What is going to happen if there are 150 million chinese unemployed? 50 million? They built an economy based on selling things to Europe and the US. No one is buying.

He also said that everyone knew with Hitler that they would get many things, but not freedom. Indeed.

Will the threat of nuclear annihilation keep Chinese, Indian, Persian, Pakistani, Russian, even American twitchiness under wraps in the face of utter social turmoil stemming from economic displacement?

Derek

Oct 29, 2008 - 5:19 pm 10. Derek:

RWE: The opposite of the ordered societies of the west isn’t more order or stricter structures.

It is disorder. That is how these dysfunctional states and societies will overcome. By imposing their dysfunction.

You don’t need a Panzer for that. All you need is 19 guys with box cutters.

Derek

Oct 29, 2008 - 5:31 pm 11. Peter Grynch:

It has been observed that Americans value freedom while Europeans value security. Obama is offering Americans the type of security offered by Old Europe, but people are too ignorant to understand the cost of the “freebies” they’re being promised. In Europe there are people who have never worked a day in their lives. New immigrants in Great Britain are immediately put on the public dole, and typically never get off it. Unemployment is typically in double-digits in countries like France, with some segments of the economy seeing unemployment rates of 30 or 40%. Companies are prohibited from firing anyone (security) so they almost never hire anybody.

Columnist Mark Steyn observes:
McCain vs Obama is not the choice many of us would have liked in an ideal world. But then it’s not an “ideal world”, and the belief that it can be made so is one of the things that separates those who think Obama will “heal the planet” and those of us who support McCain faute de mieux. I agree with Thomas Sowell that an Obama-Pelosi supermajority will mark what he calls “a point of no return”. It would not be, as some naysayers scoff, “Jimmy Carter’s second term”, but something far more transformative. The new president would front the fourth great wave of liberal annexation — the first being FDR’s New Deal, the second LBJ’s Great Society, and the third the incremental but remorseless cultural advance when Reagan conservatives began winning victories at the ballot box and liberals turned their attention to the other levers of the society, from grade school up.

All three liberal waves have transformed American expectations of the state. The spirit of the age is: Ask not what your country can do for you, demand it. Why can’t the government sort out my health care? Why can’t they pick up my mortgage?

The America we knew is dieing.

Oct 29, 2008 - 5:36 pm 12. RWE:

Derek: My point exactly. Try flying a boxcutter across the ocean or raising crops with it.

And they didn’t even build the friggin’ boxcutters.

Oct 29, 2008 - 5:44 pm 13. Ammo Guy:

I think the hidden kicker in some of these countries will be shortage of women due to abortion and other male egocentric policies and customs. Sad to say, I think a society can survive with a surplus of women because they are not knuckleheads like us males – the other way around, I’m not so sure. Mars may want our women, but China is closer, so to speak.

Oct 29, 2008 - 6:01 pm 14. NahnCee:

Europe — and the rest of the world (the Middle East, Africa, Indonesia) — need to get used to the fact that next time America is not going to come to their rescue. We have our own financial issues to tend to, we can’t be throwing gazillions of dollars at problems the rest of the world has created for themselves.

I think we owe some fealty to Poland and Eastern Europe, but certainly we don’t owe a damned thing to Germany, France, Sweden nor even to England.

We may want to stand up for Australia because they have been such good allies. Not so much Canada.

India has been a relatively good ally, but Pakistan can go directly to the deepest reaches of hell.

We’ve won in Iraq, yes. But why do we have to stay there and let Iraqi’s make up new rules that will allow them to try American soldiers for murder? That’s just insane, and especially since they *still* haven’t figured out how to pump their own oil to start to pay us back.

After next week and before January, Bush can nuke Iran into the Stone Age which will also be an example of what could happen to AFghanistan AND Pakistan AND Iraq, and then we can pull back into Fortress America and concentrate on making money, feeding ourselves and making ourselves strong again. Someone else can be in charge of The World for a while, because frankly Scarlett, I don’t give a damn any more.

Oct 29, 2008 - 6:20 pm 15. Derek:

In my day to day life, how am I free?

I work as an accredited tradesman. My work consists of handling controlled substances, equipment with certification by recognized authority, connected to a grid that is regulated and controlled by government agencies. When I collect payment, I collect taxes for two levels of government, along with payment of various income/employment/consumption taxes.

I travel on state owned roadways governed by law, driving a state certified vehicle. I pay insurance to a state run agency. When I go for my yearly checkup, the doctor is paid by the state.

Almost every activity of my life comes under some kind of regulation.

Am I free?

Derek

Oct 29, 2008 - 6:20 pm 16. someone:

Reagan said it first.

Oct 29, 2008 - 6:32 pm 17. djr:

They (Europe) outsourced their armed forces to us (the USA), and tinkered on with welfare, not tasked with the menial task of defending themselves. Like anyone dependent on another, they’ve come to resent us and – in typical enlightened fashion – are unable to fend of outsiders ready to hop into the cart. Most of their problems (and ours) would fade if they’d put an end to all welfare. They won’t, nor will we.

Oct 29, 2008 - 6:42 pm 18. Andrew X:

It is so noticable the ear-splitting silence we hear right now about…. of ALL things…. Iraq. The issue that was supposed to be issues #1 through #5 for this election. Everyone in 2005, 2006, and 2007 said so.

Well, “what happened” is obviously we are winning / have won , and thus the Democrats don’t want to talk about it. Or is that really it?

I think it is something deeper, that Geert Wilders touches upon. Think about this, and see if it fits.

What happened is that WE ARE QUITE LITERALLY ASHAMED TO SUCCEED!!! Success itself simply cannot exist unless it is compared to another that is called “not succeed”. And when so campared, there is and inherent imbalance, and thus that is unjust. So the ENTIRE IDEA OF SUCCESS is itself now tarred as some sort of abomination under any and all circumstances UNLESS it is given a pass by being linked with a leftist cause (i.e. an Obama candicacy, for example).

I submit that even Republicans…. even *I*.. get weirdly uncomfortable when talking in terms of genuine triumph in Iraq, and it is a genuine triumph. This is a sickness that Wilders is well tuned into, and it is one that indeed threatens Western Civilization.

You know, Western Civilization? The one that more human beings upon planet earth have chosen to give up everything including home to flee to for a better life?

Yeah, that Western Civilization. The one that half the people in it despise, but will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever leave.

Until they’ve destroyed it.

Yeah, that Western Civilization.

Oct 29, 2008 - 6:50 pm 19. Richard Aubrey:

Derek.
You can choose to live a freer life.
Or, under certain circumstances, you could be considerably less free.

Oct 29, 2008 - 6:51 pm 20. E. Nigma:

“How about ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’?”

“Ah yes, the ‘unalienable rights’. Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What right to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What right to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of ‘right’? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man’s right is unalienable? And is it a right? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged to themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots, or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap, and is never free of cost.”
“The third ‘right’? The ‘pursuit of happiness’? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can ‘pursue happiness’ as long as my brain lives – but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can unsure that I will catch it.”
“I told you that ‘juvenile deliquent’ is a contradiction in terms. ‘Delinquent’ means ‘failing in duty’. But duty is an adult virtue-indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he aquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be, a ‘juvenile delinquent’… But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult delinquents-people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who knowing it, fail.”
“And that was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an admirable culture. The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of ‘rights’…and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure.”
-Col. Jean. V. DuBois,MI, retired (sometime in the 24th century, AD)
“Starship Troopers”, Robert A Heinlein, 1959

And that is about where we all stand in the West, 2008 , AD. We have glorified our rights, and lost track of our duties. It’s just that some parts of Europe are a little further down the road than we are.

Oct 29, 2008 - 6:55 pm 21. RWE:

Derek:

When working in the DC area I came to realize that if you were independently wealthy and could afford to spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, doing nothing but researching all of the Federal, State, and local laws and regulations that affect you in some way and only making some brief notes about their impact on you then…

… you couldn’t do it. Could not. Not even working a 40 hour week doing that. Never happen. They are too complex, too many, too obtuse, too hidden, and change too often.

Oct 29, 2008 - 6:56 pm 22. Tcobb:

It may be too late–but strange things happen when turmoil comes. Things happen that few anticipate. Perhaps the best thing that could be done after a revolution is–not to kill all the lawyers, but just everyone with an Ivy League Education.

Oct 29, 2008 - 7:03 pm 23. Eggplant:

djr said:

“Most of their problems (and ours) would fade if they’d put an end to all welfare. They won’t, nor will we.”

How would you amend the US Constitution to make socialism illegal, without unwanted side effects? It’s not obvious.
Even amending the US Constitution to require a balanced
budget seems to be too hard. Maybe when a nation grows
beyond a critical size it always becomes unstable due to
creeping socialism?

Oct 29, 2008 - 7:25 pm 24. tim maguire:

My fear is a little different. I don’t see the pacifism of today’s Europe as the “new Europe” in rejection to the values of the old. Rather, I see it as the current embodiment of the same values of the old. Europeans have always been extremists. Once it was extremism as militarism, today it is extremism as pacifism, laziness, safety and comfort.

But at some point, the Islamists will reach critical mass and, after years of accomodation, bowing and scraping, the Europeans will say “enough.” And the worm will turn. If they don’t learn to assimilate (and if the Europeans will let them–let’s face it, Europe still think of them as guest workers, better to accommodate because they’ll be leaving soon anyway), it will be war. But it will not be the war of the Kaiser, the king, or the Fuhrer. It will be the war of the Pope, the war of the Reformation. No clear borders and the sides having to sort themselves out before commencing slaughter.

And America will come to the aid of the Europeans just as we did the last two times. And the liberals will fall into line because it’s their beloved Europeans fighting for their brie and baguettes, not merely some quaint abstract notion of human dignity.

And it will not be pretty, it will be destructive. The Islamists will be marched out of Europe on the tip of a bayonet.

I don’t see any way around it.

Oct 29, 2008 - 7:28 pm 25. fred:

I find it ironic that right at the moment in history when Euro-socialism is in its death throes, aside the fact that dar al Islam is licking its chops over the carcass, in our country a party and a man coming to power want to imitate European socialism.

How crazy is that?

Oct 29, 2008 - 7:31 pm 26. Eggplant:

tim maguire said:

“The Islamists will be marched out of Europe on the tip of a bayonet.”

There are millions of Islamists in Europe. Some of them are third generation European born. To what forsaken Islamic coutnry would they be marched to?

Obviously there will be no marching. The Nazis provided the prototype with their “Endlösung der Judenfrage”. This brings us back to the Third Conjecture. It won’t be pretty. We Americans will need to keep our distance from the Europeans when it happens and make sure it doesn’t happen on our own turf.

Oct 29, 2008 - 7:39 pm 27. Alice Finkel:

No, Tim, you are dreaming. You are thinking about another Europe and another America. That Europe and that America do not exist any longer. 50 to 75 years of packing university faculties and media newsrooms with indoctrinating leftists has utterly changed the pieces of the strategy game. The new crop of kids not only cannot read, use logic, or do anything practical, they don’t see any reason why they should ever have to.

If you pour poison on your growing crops, your crops will fail. The same if you pour poison into the minds of growing humans.

Oct 29, 2008 - 7:45 pm 28. wretchard:

The value of horror scenarios is to encourage us to turn away from them and prevent their eventuation at almost any cost. I don’t we should confuse what could happen with what will happen. What will happen is function of choice. One of Western Civilization’s greatest virtues is that it is not fatalistic. Nothing is written. There’s no reason there can’t be happy endings — that we can avoid a clash of civilizations or reach a modus vivendi — if we try hard enough. And are wise enough. And are willing to firmly and reasonably stand up for what we cherish. But there’s the rub.

The horrors of the last century are reminder of what can happen when we too freely abandon reason and humanity in the face of intimidation, or leave it too late. The distance between the interwar Long Weekend and the Wannsee Conference where the Final Solution was planned was only a few short years. A long peace doesn’t always mean it is a stable one. We look in the rear view mirror of history and see only a straight road behind, then we come to a hairpin turn.

Oct 29, 2008 - 7:53 pm 29. mika2k1:

Europe sold her body and soul for jihadi oil. Is America really any better than Europe? I’d be interested in hearing an argument.

Oct 29, 2008 - 8:01 pm 30. sigintel:

Americans have the second amendment and the right to assembly and free speech…if they go, we go. These rights are “channeled” to us from God via the Constitution. The abomination (Obamanation sp?) of Political Correctness, reparations, class warfare, the Orwellian America hating MSM left wing bombast, combined with the “dumbing down” and anti-Patriotism taught in our schools by the unionized educational industry, all encouraged by a greedy and power hungry Congress has brought us to this point where we must all join together and say. “Wake up!”:STOP!. From the Greatest Generation on Omaha and Iwo, from the Frozen Chosen beating feet from the Chinese waves at Chosan, to the siege of Khe San and the Anbar Awakening, Americans raise to the occasion to stop tyranny. Citizens of good conscience and integrity will eventually realize that for their and their children’s freedom, they will have to politically coalesce, and join up to stand-up and fight. The Iraq vets returning home our are best hope. It’s they who will recognize the devils in their own land and have the “know how” to remove it

Oct 29, 2008 - 8:05 pm 31. wretchard:

I’m really horrified by the apocalyptic and despairing tone in comments sometimes. If the educational system is broken, let’s change it or fix it. If we are intimidated, let’s resist. If there are bad or dubious candidates running for office, don’t vote for them. If we are presented with arguments, then argue back. That’s the way it’s always been done. There’s no magic button. Just hard and conscious work.

And if things blow up, then heck, let’s blog about it. We can always earn some beer money from Google Adsense. Don’t forget to drink the beer.

Oct 29, 2008 - 8:06 pm 32. John Skookum:

The last six weeks have been surreal. It reminds me (well, actually it reminds my father, who was there) of the Phony War a/k/a Sitzkrieg, the lull after war was declared in 1939 but before the conquest of France in 1940.

I feel in the pit of my stomach that the world I have known all my life– the soft, safe, prosperous cocoon that gave me confidence to bring two children into the world and take on a mortgage– it is all about to come crashing down. What foul pit are we about to stumble into? Can we avoid years of hunger, suffering, religious bloodshed, total war? What is to become of our precious liberty, purchased with the blood of my ancestors?

Nobody knows what to do. Nothing is certain. There’s no one I trust to lead us, nor even anyone I can confidently blame. There is no poetry, no philosophy, no religion, no science that quiets my mind. I can think of a hundred ways this ends in misery, and none in which we go back to the way things were. Heaven help us.

Oct 29, 2008 - 8:23 pm 33. gumshoe:

“I find it ironic that right at the moment in history when Euro-socialism is in its death throes, aside the fact that dar al Islam is licking its chops over the carcass, in our country a party and a man coming to power want to imitate European socialism.

How crazy is that?”

I agree with previous comments,Fred.

lack of understanding of the script of Islam,
it founding and driving models,are what prevents people at large from recognizing the problem.

dismissing religion as “ignorant”
doesn’t drive away the ignorance.

calling “all religions the same”
doesn’t make them the same.

Oct 29, 2008 - 8:24 pm 34. james wilson:

We create the world in which we live; if that world becomes unfit for human life, it is because we have tired of our responsibilites–
Cyril Connolly
The evil that one suffers patiently as inevitable seems unsupportable as soon as he conceives of the idea of escape from it.
Tocqueville

Oct 29, 2008 - 8:28 pm 35. Mike Sylwester:

In the long run, the Europeans will influence the Moslems much more than the Moslems will influence the Europeans.

Oct 29, 2008 - 8:28 pm 36. wildiris:

With a name like John Skookum, you’re either a logger or Native American?

Oct 29, 2008 - 8:35 pm 37. jaymaster:

Wretchard,

We’re talking about the “big stuff’ here. Don’t get down. People are venting, but thinking.

This is good. And no one could have envisioned such a forum 20 years ago, or in the dark ages of WWII, Vietnam, etc….

IMO, you are serving mankind here in ways you probably never intended or even imagined.

But this is a luxury probably 80% of the world still doesn’t have access to.

No matter what may come, we need to get the world on line, and keep these channels open

Godspeed….

Oct 29, 2008 - 8:51 pm 38. sfblue:

Thanks for the reminder Wretchard. I just cracked one open in your honor.

Oct 29, 2008 - 8:51 pm 39. fred:

sigintel,

I have great hopes for the returning veterans of our current war theaters when they leave the military and enter civilian life. I have come to know a few of them and I just wish I was 30 years younger, single, and just out of college so I could go and join them in the Army or Marines. Did my three year enlistment 1973-76 and got to know some Vietnam veterans. God bless them, it was a privilege to get to know those guys.

Deep in my gut I know that a very large minority of us are going to fight and win this struggle against the twin evils of socialism and Islam. If we fight the good fight on every front, especially if we get involved in local politics and be a real pain the ass to the Leftists who control our schools, we can make a go of it. I think Newt Gingrich saw all of this coming, which is why he keeps harping on the point that the Republican Party and the Conservative movement have lost their way and frittered away the base of the party. It has to be rebuilt, and that takes time.

I’m afraid, under the current circumstances, we just don’t have the resources to bail out Europe when it finally wakes up to the Muslim threat. They have to grow a pair and begin to fight back. They have to want their freedom and pay the price for it. Just as we need to be re-acquainted with how we won ours. Europe has been under our umbrella for a long time and has simply, boldly, and insolently abused our good graces and our patience. The only thing about Europe losing to the Muslims is my fear of them getting their hands on the French nukes. That would be a disaster of major proportions.

Oct 29, 2008 - 8:56 pm 40. NahnCee:

Wretchard – the thought occurs (more than once) that what is discussed here at Belmont Club sooner or later (frequently sooner) into the mass gestalt of consciousness. That who-ever reads the thoughts that you throw out and the comments responding to those thoughts will digest them and then pass them along to *their* readers. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen a Belmont Club meme reappear in the NY Times or the LA Times or the WSJ or GulfNews — the oddest places — a week or two later.

Right now I’m just annoyed at all the really stupid people who are in my face every day telling me how great Obama is and how awful America is. After the election, we will have a decision and can then begin to plan how to move on. Personally, I think those same really stupid people are going to be totally enraged and outraged and frothing and flopping around, but they’e been doing that for years now any way so how much worse can they do.

And if B. Hussein *does* win, then we need to get down to some serious thinking and spade-work on how to overthrow him (or at least his ideas). And I don’t want to hear any noises on how being loyal and supportive is the best thing to do for a new President. The most supportive I can find it in my being to be is to maintain the same sort of public silence about him that I have been doing for the past year. Other than that, I’m on board with petitions, research, boycotting, turning people in to the law, and reporting them to their bosses and stockholders.

Oct 29, 2008 - 9:50 pm 41. Rick:

“How would you amend the US Constitution to make socialism illegal, without unwanted side effects? It’s not obvious.”

No need to do so, it’s already there. The 10th Amendment. FDR, that great Liberal Hero, destroyed it.

Oct 29, 2008 - 9:51 pm 42. Tcobb:

The problem with both the US and Europe is that we both have acquired a definite political class whose institutional hubris is simply incompatible with democratic rule. Despite their rhetoric and public disagreements, the politicians have far more in common with each other than they do with the average person, and when any of their herd is threatened by some proposed institutional change they will close ranks like a herd of water buffaloes when the calves are threatened and the common man be damned.

Oct 29, 2008 - 9:55 pm 43. truepeers:

I agree with Wretchard about the apocalyptic thinking. It’s not that I think it impossible that I won’t die in some nuclear fire, that the Jihad or Obama’s indulgence in magical thinking won’t lead to billions of deaths; it’s possible, though I think unlikely. But apocalyptic thinking reflects, i believe, and if i may say so, a lack of good faith that comes, in good part, from not having a satisfactory way of explaining how all the freedom in the world in which we presently live ever came about.

That’s a bold statement but, fwiw, it’s what I take from my experience of learning to see how very few intellectuals, not least professional historians, have a satisfactory way of explaining human freedom and the shared necessity from which it emerges.

If times are dire, maybe it’s a sign of a necessity that can only be resolved by new degrees of freedom emerging in our political and economic systems. But how does this ever happen?

Yes there is a lot of decadence and corruption in our world, but there is always decadence and corruption – nothing lasts forever and everything in our ethical systems is always already eroding, if it’s not at this moment being renewed. History waits for no one, whether Muslims or Westerners.

So the faith we need in our systems and in our ability to renew them is in large part a question of being able to explain to ourselves how we became so free in the first place, given that things are always eroding.

There must be a reason why history, over the long run (notwithstanding the many steps backwards and into dead ends) is, most simply put, a story of expanding degrees of freedom (assuming, as I think we must, that the first humans – we are the symbolic species – had but one linguistic sign to order themselves in a way different from the biological order, and we today have countless millions of signs and degrees of freedom).

If we can better come to understand why and how history requires, over the long run, expanding freedom, then we have less to fear by way of the amount of tragedy that has to happen before enough people drop their desire for political magic acts, attend to reality and shared necessities, the attention that makes possible for there to be real innovation in freedom and not just the limited conception of freedom that is living “well” off the legacy of past freedoms and achievements now institutionalized.

We need better to understand how freedom emerges from a shared necessity, the freedom we come to allow as the only way out of dark dead ends, as the way to transcend our conflict, by creating freer political and economic markets with new unknowns in which enough people are willing to try their luck, as an alternative to seemingly endless erosion.

Oct 29, 2008 - 10:34 pm 44. truepeers:

p.s. the problem is that there are many good reasons for people to be afraid of “freedom”; it is risky and we can easily get it wrong, indulging in ego and violence, leading to tragedy. But freedom still grows over time because it is sometimes simply necessary, notwithstanding that most people don’t like it.

Oct 29, 2008 - 10:40 pm 45. John Davidson:

#30 sigintel: “These rights are “channeled” to us from God via the Constitution.”

An oft repeated fallacy. One constantly being used to limit our rights. Our rights are not enumerated in The Constitution. Certainly not “channeled” via it. They are innate. Existing simply because you exist. With or without a constitution or government you still have them. And most certainly not limited to what was listed in the Constitution. The 9th Amendment, probably the most important, yet most ignored: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

Oct 29, 2008 - 10:53 pm 46. outa my league:

@NC – “And if B. Hussein *does* win, then we need to get down to some serious thinking and spade-work on how to overthrow him (or at least his ideas). And I don’t want to hear any noises on how being loyal and supportive is the best thing to do for a new President.”

Shortly after Bill Clinton was inaugurated as President and made his first bold leftist moves, a church lady remarked, we need to pray for our new President. My reply was yes, that’s true, but we also need to pray for Congress that they will impeach the President.

Oct 29, 2008 - 10:55 pm 47. wildernesscalling:

Freedom was piece meal away since the 1900’s to the point that the only freedom a man has in the freest country in the world is whether he will vote for one that will accelerate socialism or simple let it continue to creep its way to completion. I for one never realized until this election just how unfree in every aspect of what America was we have become, we do not have free speech any more or freedom to associate and we do not have truly private business, it has all been widdled away.

Oct 30, 2008 - 1:06 am 48. http://2164th.blogspot.com/2008/10/dallas-morning-news-performs-fellatio.html:

It is hard to make this up: More Objective Reporting on Obama.

Oct 30, 2008 - 1:39 am 49. Panday:

So, the interesting part of Wilders’ speech is:

In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe?

That’s an easy one to answer: Europe lost Europe by contriving a need for immigration and multiculturalism.

Oct 30, 2008 - 2:41 am 50. Porkov:

This is all nothing new and has always been part of the human condition. The conflict between freedom and security is embedded in the soul, and is always in a state of flux. You will never be free from your need to eat and drink and breathe and sleep. When you take on the responsibilities of raising a family, love compels a change of priority over a long time. Still, what man wants to raise his children to be slaves? But when you choose to take on a slave’s garments for the sake of love, the pilot light of freedom’s hope is not extinguished.
A good parent will teach his children how to subvert those who would hold dominion over not only their livelihood, but their minds and souls. My father, in an ultimate exercise in irony, forced me to memorize “Invictus.” He is gone, but the words remain:

“It matters not how straight the gate -
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate -
I am the captain of my soul.”

Oct 30, 2008 - 3:10 am 51. djr:

Eggplant said “How would you amend the US Constitution to make socialism illegal, without unwanted side effects?”

I’d not hope for a change to the Constitution, but rather a culture that simply turns away from welfare (both those doling it out and those lapping it up). It’s a very long way from here to there, but it wasn’t too long ago (maybe something like 100 years ago) that it came on the scene.

Oct 30, 2008 - 3:36 am 52. OldSalt:

Wretchard’s encouraging comments are probably right on. As much as I share the fear of rapidly eroding freedom in America, what disturbs me more is that 50.1% (+/-) of American’s would vote for him. This guy abandoned the war and sided with our enemies while we had boots on the ground. When American’s vote for Obama, they aren’t spitting in George Bush’s eye, they are pissing on the grave of every soldier, sailor, airman, or seaman who have their life for their country over the past 7 years. This men wore their flag on their coffins, while Obama wouldn’t wear one on his lapel (absent political expediency). Yes, the war is over, American lost, Obama and his fellow-travelers won.

I have to go through life, and pretend that the neighbors in my city who voted for a Marxist for President, and tossed my freedom’s out with their own, well, it just doesn’t matter. We can all get along … Obama is a compassionate man – just ask Page Palin and “Joe the Plumber”.

I’m not depressed; I’m angry, and NO, nothing will be “fine” after an Obama victory. I won’t forgive or forget the betrayal by 50.1% of the American people, by supporting traitors who abandoned America in the middle of a war. If I can do any little thing to help Obama make their lives hell, I’m inclined to do so. Right now, I’m thinking of “moving down”, i.e. out of California to a state where I can buy my house for cash, can work remotely to my employer for perhaps 15% less, spend less, work a lot less, and make damn sure I don’t reach one penny over Obama’s steadily diminishing “rich man” income line.

To have the will to resist takes more than hope. One must believe the results of the endeavor are worth the effort. Why fight for America, fight for a democratic republic, so that a bunch of lazy, ungrateful, spoiled brats who happened to be lucky enough to be born in America, and toss it all away on a whim?

Oct 30, 2008 - 3:37 am 53. OldSalt:

Rewritten, edited, maybe even readable:
===========================================

Wretchard’s encouraging comments are probably right on. As much as I share the fear of rapidly eroding freedom in America, what disturbs me more is that 50.1% (+/-) of Americans would vote for Obama. This guy abandoned the war and sided with our enemies while we had boots on the ground. When Americans vote for Obama, they aren’t just spitting in George Bush’s eye, they are pissing on the grave of every soldier, sailor, airman, or seaman who gave their life for this country over the past 7 years. These dead men wore America’s flag on their coffins, while Obama wouldn’t wear one on his lapel (absent political expediency). Yes, if Obama wins, the war is over, America has lost, and Obama and his fellow-travelers have won.
I am expected to go on with my life, pretending that the neighbors in my city who voted for a Marxist with an Islamic name for President, and who tossed my freedoms in the trash along with their own, well, it just doesn’t matter. We can all “get along”, Obama is a compassionate man, just ask Page Palin and “Joe the Plumber”.
I’m not depressed; I’m angry. And NO, nothing will be “fine” after an Obama victory. I won’t forgive or forget the betrayal by 50.1% of the American people, by supporting the traitors who abandoned America in the middle of a war. If I can do any little thing to help Obama make their lives hell, I’m inclined to do so. Right now, I’m thinking of “moving down”, i.e. out of California to a state where I can buy my house for cash, can work remotely to my employer for perhaps 15% less, spend less money, work a lot less, and make damn sure I don’t reach one penny over Obama’s steadily diminishing “rich man” income line. And I hope to God that the young men and women from “red states” who comprise about 80% of America’s military, now decide to quit rather than have their lives pissed away by leftist radicals who don’t respect their services.
To have the will to resist takes more than hope. One must believe the results of the endeavor are worth the effort. Why fight for America, fight for a democratic republic, so that a bunch of lazy, ungrateful, spoiled brats who happened to be lucky enough to be born in America, can toss it all away on a whim?

Oct 30, 2008 - 3:47 am 54. Bob Murphy:

“Old Europe died in WWI. Her empty shell has remained. Nazism inhabited her, but was thrown out. Communism was barred from entering. Islam is putting her on now.”

I almost agree. I would argue that Europe died when WW-II ended. The failure of European liberal democracy against totalitarian ideology set the stage for Europe’s eventual death.

Hang on, guys.
The Europeans over cerebralize everything and tend to live in mental projections of various types. They haven’t got enough common sense to come in out of the rain. If it’s not religion it’s monarchy or fascism that they march to.

Their mental projection that arguably started WWI was Prussian fascist militarism. Then towrds the end of WWI another mental projection came to power in Russia, Marxism. That laid the seeds for the death of 100 million people or so worldwide but was nothing but an intellectual wank, riddled with theories that didn’t work in practice (though Marxism probably helped humanize capitalism).
Then Mussolini’s fascism took over in Italy and Hitler’s fascism took over in Germany and it was on, a huge war between various authoritarian mental projections.
Marxism won over fascism. Twiddle de de over twiddle de dum.
Then the authoritarian empire vestiges disintegrated around the world and there was a struggle between marxist fascism and the Anglosphere (basically).
Modern technology and life generally fared better under decentralized capitalism than it did under an authoritarian centrally controlled economy.
When it became bloody obvious to everyone that Marxism could not compete and that it oppressed and impoverished the people it said it stood for it imploded.
Of course the Europeans then rejected religion which provided cultural cohesion in a lot of ways and there went the spiritual basis of western civilisation.
What is left is a travesty of humanity, the last French joke, postmodern secularism.
They are thinking themselves into the grave.
And I think Canada has started down that same path with Trudeau.
And now it looks like we could well have Obama…
I’m glad India and China exist. I wouldn’t want all our eggs in western civilisation’s basket.
The biggest difference between us and the Europeans is a bit of religion, a whole bunch of common sense and our guns. If we ever give them up we’ll soon afterwards be in the same boat as the Europeans. Subjects not citizens.

Oct 30, 2008 - 3:52 am 55. Bob Murphy:

The point I was trying to make is that it was the Anglosphere that saw off all those fascisms those authoritarian abominations and every one of those authoritarian abominations was European including Marxism.
And it is very odd that after all that we have caught the European disease.
If McCain/Palin do win, we need to use that respite to get back control of our schools and universities.

Oct 30, 2008 - 4:15 am 56. Kingston53:

When Jane Fonda returned to the USA after her field trip to Hanoi she should have been arrested and hung. That this didn’t happen allowed treason to become mainstream. How else to explain that Ayers and his sympathizers are shaping our educational institutions. The rot has gained a foothold and spread. How do we contain it when it is about to spread to the White House.

Oct 30, 2008 - 5:04 am 57. cedarford:

wretchard:
I’m really horrified by the apocalyptic and despairing tone in comments sometimes.

Agree. A good part of it seems to come from people with narrow belief sets that reflexively consign others to eventual doom for not agreeing with them.

Especially about Europe. This mode of thinking takes some legitimate demographic concerns – then weds them to certain posters pet issues of PC, 10-foot tall Muslims, lack of unfettered love for “America’s Special Friend”, non-glorification of militaristic things – and pronounces the Euros – doomed! doomed!
Add in that many posters here are movement conservatives that simply cannot understand why Euros who have their health care and pensions run from current taxes with little unfunded liability and low debt and low death rates, longer life expectancy – do not embrace “best in the world!!” US healthcare and SS, which does have a 58 trillion unfunded liability…and are convinced that it is the Socialist Euros that have the inferior sustems and the prospect of financial ruin looming.

The doom and gloom posters also make the mistake of projecting how long-term events will doom all Europeans as things change – but then do not credit the Europeans themselves as having the capacity to change politically and legally as they are “locked in” somehow to present law, present PC, present leadership.
Whereas they, worshippers of the 30-40 year old ideas and policies of Saint Reagan and Goldwater or convinced that the 225-year old Constitution and its rules and “precious freedoms” guarantees that America is “the envy of the world”, and sound like Soviets boasting of how their workers can out-compete everyone, everything they make or do is “the world’s best”, and there is no corruption in their Ruling Elites.

Meanwhile, Europe putters along. Better educated, high tech, better collective health, higher GNP than America. And for the last 10 years, with higher socioeconomic mobility than the USA.
They have their problems, but the trend is not Euros coming here, but Americans going there or to Asia and becoming expats – better opportunities for the well-talented in certain occupations there, than here.
***************************

A lot of people remain convinced that “Freedom!” “freedom-lovers!” unfettered “free trade!, free markets!” defines America and it’s “greatness”…..and our duty is to lecture and even invade those who disagree with us about them also becoming the same sort of “freedom-lovers!!” as comfortable middle-class Americans are.

And are bewildered that somehow, we end up mightily hated for trying to force the “Freedom! Agenda.” down others throats. Somehow we neglect that the human condition instinctively detests, from the family unit to a social grouping, to a town or a whole culture – having Outsiders sticking their noses in our business. Attempting to meddle by lawyers, lawsuit intimidation, activists, economic pressure, external “rules” applied. Or by manipulation, use of media to humiliate. In worse case – by having Outsider men with guns point them and force obedience.

That is how Outsiders become hated. Russians, American blacks, and many, many others hate Jews, not for being Jews, but from being a meddling outside group that imposed it’s will on them. Same thing for other ethnicities or activist groups that think they know what is best for you, your family, your social groups, your culture – and will sue you, get in your face, maybe blow things up…PETA activists, Right to Life Zealots who meddled with Schiavo – also hated by most..

A fair portion of the Philippines, same with Indians retain a healthy dislike for Americans and Brits respectively. Not because they were guilty of complete misrule – but because they imposed.

But that dislike dwindles with time and a sense that those Outsider nations no longer seek to impose their ways on India or the Filipinos.

***********
The brainless Neocon/Bush/Sharansky crusade to expand Freedom! Democracy! could have greatly benefited with an interventionary sit-down with Lee Kwan Yew or similar high statesman like George Schultz. To get it through their heads that political freedom and democracy are luxuries at best, harmful institutions at worst – if basic necessities are not in place 1st. A certain degree of personal economic freedom, rule of law, domestic security. People forget that the early Soviet Union, while repressive, had gained the masses collectively – more liberties and freedom than they ever had – just not the political freedom! That was a good tradeoff. It was only much down the road that security, economic options, liberty to move out of your farmstead without starving – began the process of attempting to replace communism. Same with Germany – the National Socialists had limits on expression, some freedom! was curtailed – but by 1935 the German people had more freedoms, liberty, economic security, the economic freedom to do things, buy things they needed, travel…..than most had had in their lifetimes. Even in periods where they had far more political freedom! democracy! – but were carting around wheelbarrows of worthless cash and eating nothing but half-rotten potatos and turnips for the entire winter and lacked freedom! to do nearly anything.

Lee Kwan Yew would say that too much, America is in other’s faces. Sort of like an armed gay rights activist in your face saying that you better love the gays, their lifestyle, and support gay marriage…or else.
*********************
Since electing Obama will not be the end of the world, people should relax a little and take Wretchard’s advice – crack a beer and chill.

Oct 30, 2008 - 5:14 am 58. slade:

the politicians have far more in common with each other than they do with the average person, and when any of their herd is threatened by some proposed institutional change they will close ranks like a herd of water buffaloes when the calves are threatened and the common man be damned. – Tcobb

They (Europe) outsourced their armed forces to us (the USA), and tinkered on with welfare, not tasked with the menial task of defending themselves. – djr

To the point.

What’s with all the Holden Caufield on steroids posts? It’s like a fingernails across the blackboard flash-back to academia, a war zone I gratefully left over thirty years ago.

Mika’s voice is just trying to cut through the cultural caliche of the modern western world as per the first comment above. I believe the economists call it “The Moat” effect.

Oct 30, 2008 - 5:52 am 59. Koblog:

One thing that has dawned on me in this mess: our so-called “educators” are the overt enemy, from pre-school to post-grad.

Look where the Bill Ayers’s, Ward Churchills and Angela Davis’s of the world end up: distinguished professors of destruction and Columbia, Chicago, Harvard, Stanford.

The California Teachers Association union gave one MILLION dollar to the No-on-Prop-8 campaign in an effort to promote homosexual marriage.

Tell me again why a teacher’s union would become involved in how marriage is defined?

This, while “education,” by any measure, sucks.

Oct 30, 2008 - 5:52 am 60. programmer:

Wretchard,
Re: Apocalypse now!

My dad always told me, Prepare for the worst, pray for the best.

Later in life, a zen admonition: If you are going to sit, Sit. If you are going to walk, Walk. Above all, don’t wobble.

Oct 30, 2008 - 6:16 am 61. RWE:

“Deep in my gut I know that a very large minority of us are going to fight and win this struggle against the twin evils of socialism and Islam.”

I agree, Fred, but I agree because they always lose. Always. Because they can cross thread a bowling ball without much difficulty. They are screwups.

Barak Hussien Obama is doing the work of three grown men. And their names are Moe, Larry and Curly.

But I am just getting tired of cleaning up their messes.

Oct 30, 2008 - 6:19 am 62. NahnCee:

There’s an article in this month’s Atlantic about an attempt at reforming Washington DC’s public education system. Evidently over a period of many years, Marion Barry used education to reward and empower his black constituents who were voting him into office.

Now they have a thoroughly entrenched group of black people both in DC’s unions and in administration/teaching who absolutely refuse to do anything differently despite having really low test scores from their students and a massively wasteful budget to keep all those “administrators” and teachers with tenure employed. One teacher was highlighted whose idea of teaching and getting her class’s attention was to stand at the door flicking the light on and off, chanting, “I’m waiting.”

I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on demographics in the education system, and how many teachers in places like DC, NY and LA are doing that because they can’t do anything else — they’re not competent to do anything except report to a classroom 5 days a week and hang out. And whether that, in turn, would translate into support for the Democratic Party with promises not to defund the current system or cost any of those people their jobs.

Oct 30, 2008 - 6:28 am 63. ledger:

Europe maybe in its death throws but I will fight Barrak Hussain Obama’s takeover of the USA.

The two immediate objectives:

Vote for Obama’s nemesis in the election.

Stop Obama and ACORN from stealing the election by becoming an Election Monitor.

See: Serving as election monitors, helping in election response centers, and as members of McCain’s legal response teams

https://secure.johnmccain.com/Secure/EdoSignup.aspx

Oct 30, 2008 - 6:53 am 64. Staring In Disbelief:

Back to Wretchard’s original theme, Geert Wilders’ ripoff of Mark Steyn’s “America Alone” concept – I believe what we are seeing is the crisis of demograpics in Europe and some of it’s “early debilitation” signs here in the US. White, traditional, secular Europe is more and more an aging, childless society. What are the (broad) psychologies of aging? Worry about taking care of yourself economically & securely in the future, due to declining vigor and increasing infirmity. What are the (broad) psychologies of childlessness? Selfishness and lack of concern for your society’s future (beyond your own personal comfort) because you have no perceived stake in the broader justice and safety of the system. Young societies have more risk tolerance because they have not acquired the cynicism of age and lowered expectations, and don’t think about their older infirm years, while parental societies want a safe and better place for their children and grandchildren to thrive, so are more willing to make the sacrifices necessary for the long haul payoffs.

As Mark Steyn has pointed out, Europe is old & childless, and I think that explains much of their worldview. However, I do not think they are “doomed, doomed”, because of the enormously seductive power of western material comfort and freedoms. These will still have a long term assimilating effect on any immigrant group immersed in it. While the effect is less in Europe then here, it is not absent entirely. It will be a race to see if the old order of Europe is replaced by an assimilated new one, or a radical Islamic new one. Steyn predicts the latter, I honestly can’t say.

Finally, our society’s ability to renew itself is unmatched in world history, so temporary setbacks must not be mistaken for long term decline. There are indeed worrisome trends, but there always are. I am depressed at the prospects of what COULD happen with a President Obama and the appalling rogues gallery that Congress appears it will become. I still can’t believe that so many people actually voted for such a spectacular turd like John Kerry (one thing you can’t say about BHO, is that he is a turd like that).

We seem to need a reminder of what the left has in mind every 16 years or so. And given all of the ineffective government wastage of the past 80 years (New Deal, Great Society, blah, blah, blah), we are still only a 10% annual expenditure adjustment away from “Cash Flow Break Even” and only 10 years of modest effort away from a very strong “Debt to Income” ratio. All those unfunded Liabilities can be swept away with one piece of (inevitable) legislation, so I never pay any attention to that.

Buck up Clubbers. The race is a LONG one.

Oct 30, 2008 - 7:04 am 65. PiltdownMan:

A big downside of an Obama victory will be even lengthier posts from an energized Cedarford.

Oct 30, 2008 - 7:04 am 66. fred:

Like Old Salt, I have my moments of rage at my fellow citizens (not expressed, just repressed within my mind) for pretty much pissing away a unique heritage. I mutter to myself, “The dumb bastards really are going to do this!” My parents are among them, but they were first sired on the heroic myths of FDR when they were kids and teenagers and have since strayed only once, voting for Ronald Reagan. Afterwards, they resumed voting for Dems. I guess the reasons why Americans are about to do this are varied. Most are pretty damn dumb and have the most hairbrained views ever concocted. Some are true ideologues of the Left. Some are just like the mob in Rome: Obama promises goodies from the government teat and they want it.

Yet, Old Salt, I cannot ever permit myself to even let slip a sliver of rage at my parents. Just can’t do it.

Oct 30, 2008 - 7:16 am 67. TmjUtah:

“We seem to need a reminder of what the left has in mind every 16 years or so. And given all of the ineffective government wastage of the past 80 years (New Deal, Great Society, blah, blah, blah), we are still only a 10% annual expenditure adjustment away from “Cash Flow Break Even” and only 10 years of modest effort away from a very strong “Debt to Income” ratio. All those unfunded Liabilities can be swept away with one piece of (inevitable) legislation, so I never pay any attention to that.”

The previous “left has in mind” was always based (mistakenly) on good intentions.

We are a nation of laws. Society accepts that political change means that we will suffer the consequences of badly thought out or even silly laws and policies from time to time.

But we’ve never elected a revolutionary whose entire resume points out to an objective of “bringing down the system”. Wright, Ayers, “fundamental flaws of the Constitution”….

Representative democracy stops working when the governed have had enough.

Obama has no credible executive experience. All his mentors have been big on revolt but precious small on what comes next, past communist cant and utopic bloviating.

It is indeed a long race. Sometimes the finish line surprises you, though.

Oct 30, 2008 - 7:22 am 68. Mark:

Religion precedes culture and sustains it. We live in (following Toynbee) a culture that is and has been distinctively Christian, grafted onto the Greco-Roman culture.

Religion sustains culture, holds it together, holds the individual accountable. Religion is (literally, etymologically) the tie that binds.

If there is no religion, there can be no sustainable culture.

Ah,. . . “sustainability.”

In Colombia, to look at a particular specimen trend, missionaries report that European corporations are funding ani-missionary activities, supporting indigenous activists to preserve their indigenous religions. That is fine, in many senses, and in many other senses it is symtomatic of other, self-loathing tendencies.

The popularity of vampire movies over the past two decades–their themes, characters, and reference to popular culture motifs–deserves its own thread sometime. There’s something of great interest there.

Oct 30, 2008 - 7:24 am 69. programmer:

Nahncee,
As a pileon to your pondering about teacher provenance, I have noted that in rural areas, the first child (especially if male) of well-to-do families follows in the path of the family business or are sent to college to become lawyers and doctors and such. The second and third children are sent to the less expensive “state teacher’s colleges” and usually are shoe-ins (with their family support) into any opening positions in the rural district schools. In rural areas, a teacher’s salary usually gaurantees a comfortable life.
As usual, my comment is a generalization based on my own observation, not detailed and annotated analysis. Just that your comment solidified some thoughts on my part, as usual.

Oct 30, 2008 - 7:31 am 70. Insufficiently Sensitive:

And I don’t want to hear any noises on how being loyal and supportive is the best thing to do for a new President.

Neither did the MSM on the election of one GW Bush. Theirs has been an 8-year campaign of erosion and undermining, and without that campaign (and their breathtaking overnight adoption of their PC Messiah after 2004) the radical BH Obama would not have stood a chance against the grownups.

The only change in the MSM during this election has been the exchange of GWB for Governor Palin as hate-object-of-the-year.

With the daily ingestion of the MSM’s corrupt reporting, it’s no wonder the public hasn’t got any perspective on the candidates beyond cartoon-style gut feelings. This will be paid for in blood and treasure for decades.

Oct 30, 2008 - 7:32 am 71. Brock:

Wretchard, perhaps a post on how one can fight for freedom in this day and age, when the Left controls the institutions, would be in order. I will think on this as well.

Oct 30, 2008 - 7:58 am 72. Doug:

The Lives of Others
UPDATE: State’s Computer Checks On ‘Joe The Plumber’ More Extensive Than First Acknowledged…Tax, welfare info also sought on McCain ally…
Messiah ushers in the New (left) Police State.

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:06 am 73. David M:

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 10/30/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:14 am 74. Charles:

Written by A W Tozer

There is a close cause-and-effect relationship between deeds and consequences. No right-thinking person would try to deny this.

The whole scheme of rewards and punishment is a solid and substantial part of the belief of both Jews and Christians, as well as of many moral philosophers and of religions other than the Judeo-Christian. The human race at first was put on probation with the words, ?but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die? (Genesis 2:17). This is truth so generally accepted by Christians everywhere as to call for no further comment here.

To live our lives reverently in the fear of God and in view of eternal consequences is right and good, but to live our moral lives in fear of temporal consequences is an evil, a great and injurious evil for which not one shred of justification can be found. Yet the shadow of the fear of consequences lies dark across the church today and its blight is seen almost everywhere.

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:19 am 75. Doug:

“I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on demographics in the education system, and how many teachers in places like DC, NY and LA are doing that because they can’t do anything else — they’re not competent to do anything except report to a classroom 5 days a week and hang out.
And whether that, in turn, would translate into support for the Democratic Party with promises not to defund the current system or cost any of those people their jobs.”
—
The objective situation is so dire, one almost forgets the concomitant WASTE of all those young lives.
…overshadowed by the even greater tragedy – the demise of the singular shining city, and the curse of all that follows.

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:21 am 76. Charles:

Man’s View of this World
Written by A W Tozer

If you have ever given much thought to this present world in which we live, you have some idea of the power of interpretation. The world is a stable fact, quite unchanged by the passing of years, but how different is modern man’s view of the world from the view our fathers held. The world is for all of us not only what it is; it is what we believe it to be, and a tremendous load of wealth or woe rides on the soundness of our interpretation! In the earlier days, when Christianity exercised a dominant influence over American thinking, men conceded this world to be a battleground. Man, so our fathers held, had to choose sides. He could not be neutral-for him it must be life or death, heaven or hell! In our day, the interpretation has changed completely. We are not here to fight, but to frolic! We are not in a hostile foreign land; we are at home! It now becomes the bounden duty of every Christian to reexamine his spiritual philosophy in the light of the Bible. So much depends on this that we cannot afford to be careless about it!

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:22 am 77. Doug:

She started working at the Bank of Hawaii in 1960 and was promoted to be one of the first female bank vice presidents in 1970.[2]
In 1970s Honolulu, both women and the minority white population were routinely the target of discrimination.[3]

“The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity – she doesn’t.

But she is a typical white person, who,
if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know..“

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:35 am 78. Richard Aubrey:

Of those who will vote for Obama is a group which does not know, in any sense of clarity, what he’s all about.
They do not now approve of a number of things he will likely do or try to do.
It will be interesting to see them trying to pretend to swallow and enjoy that which they would have eschewed earlier, in order to justify their ignorant vote.
And there are always those who think a mechanism for screwing those whom they dislike will remain forever under the control of their own sort, ignorant of the fact that a mechanism yields to whoever takes control and it might end up screwing the previous screwers. They never learn.

Is gloating really a bad thing?

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:44 am 79. Eggplant:

Insufficiently Sensitive said:

“With the daily ingestion of the MSM’s corrupt reporting, it’s no wonder the public hasn’t got any perspective on the candidates beyond cartoon-style gut feelings. This will be paid for in blood and treasure for decades.”

Through the propaganda of constant repetition, the MSM successfully convinced the public that the war in Iraq was lost. Now all Iraq news is on page 15 because we’ve achieved victory there. The MSM’s misconduct during the Presidential election has been well documented through the Internet. Obviously, the Freedom of the Press is essential for any democracy’s survival. This is why the Founding Fathers guaranteed the Freedom of the Press through the 1st Amendment. However the Founding Fathers would never have imagined a monolithic entity like the MSM. Their vision of the press was small country town newspapers run by crews of about 20 people (members of the community) using hand-set printing presses. The MSM has evolved into a monster threating our national survival. The MSM needs to be controlled. Unfortunately I have no clue how one would control the MSM without violating the Freedom of the Press (maybe put a size restriction on it?).

Wretchard said:

“The distance between the interwar Long Weekend and the Wannsee Conference where the Final Solution was planned was only a few short years.”

I was previously aware of the Wannsee Conference but not of the Wikipedia article about it (very interesting). The Wikipedia article mentioned that many of conference attendees were highly educated and held doctors degrees. The evil genius Reinhard Heydrich ran the conference (he was also well educated as Wretchard mentioned in his earlier article).

I believe I understand the Nazi’s cynical politics of making the Jewish people into scapegoats to facilitate the Nazis gaining political power. However continuing to use the Jews as scapegoats after the Nazis achieved power made little sense. Then subjecting the Jews to the Holocaust was simply insane (the Jews represented a major part of Germany’s intelligentsia). Part of the Nazi mythology was that Jews were untermenschen and a pollution upon Aryan genetics. However a point raised during the Wannsee Conference was that simply shipping the German Jews into captured Soviet territory and then subjecting them to horrific conditions was unacceptable. The concern was that the Jews surviving such treatment would be put under severe Darwinian selection. Ultimately only the most strongest and craftiest Jews would survive and thus through survival of the fittest be turned into supermen. This is ironic in the extreme that the Nazis who after deluding themselves into thinking the Jews were untermenschen were concerned that they could be transformed into uebermenschen. Again, I have concern that the Europeans will repeat the Nazi’s crimes with their Islamic population. What we are currently seeing in Austria does not fill me with confidence about Europe’s future.

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:48 am 80. Staring In Disbelief:

TmjUtah: Good point about the finish line, but having an accurate picture of where it is is necessary to running the race: sprint or marathon?

As for BHO’s radicalism, I know many sober, competent people who are planning to pull the Barack Lever on Nov 4, much to my mystification. Perhaps they know that many people had asinine marxist-collectivist feelings as callow youth, but have grown out of the worst of them enough to be trusted with running the government, while still possessing the core liberal sensibility they also had when they were young? In the end, Bill Clinton was more interested in staying President than vigorously pushing the liberal agenda when he had to choose between the two courses. Let’s hope BHO is faced with the same choice – and makes the same choice. I agree with your characterization of the danger, but having lived through Jimmy @#$%ing Carter’s idiocies when faced with the Soviet Colossus at the height of its power, it’s hard for me to get too freaked out. Yes, there will be more permanent idiocies spawned (a Dept of Additional Government Waste, perhaps), but insurmountable ones for America? We’ll see.

68 Mark: Excellent point re: religion. It is indeed an essential cultural strength that we possess in greater abundance in the US than does Europe. Children are perhaps only the manifestation of Faith, instead of the demographic feature I made them out to be, as with societal youth. Societies with many children are both young AND parental, and likely religious.

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:54 am 81. raymondshaw:

Steady on men. This election isn’t over until the last vote is cast in Hawaii on Nov.4. It will be very close, not the blow-out that the MSM & dems would like you to believe. Their intent is to discourage turnout among the opposition.
Don’t believe any polls you hear about. Most importantly, vote.

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:58 am 82. Doug:

Claire at 10:03 PM on 3/29/2008

“So he helped Mosely Braun’s election.
Great.
His judgment is already in question regarding the folks he reveres and takes as mentors and contributors. Alan Dixon was a really good man; and Mosely Braun, who was cashing her mom’s wefare checks while the old lady was in a State-paid nursing home, and who let taxpayers fund her boyfriend’s trips to Africa with her was just the type of pol he purports NOT to admire.

Sorry, but his emphasis on collectivism has turned me off entirely.“

Oct 30, 2008 - 8:58 am 83. Doug:

“Most importantly, vote.”
…and urge as many others as you possibly can.

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:02 am 84. Charles:

John especially in Revelations puts the “rapture” and judgement in close proximity.
Revelation 22

1And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
11He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
20He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:04 am 85. fred:

$250K just went down to $200K, and just went down to $150K, and going down to….?

Along with all of his other lies, omissions, and obfuscations, this man has a wooden nose to rival Pinocchio’s.

Doug,

I read that article linked to the Columbus, Ohio newspaper. Chilling, but what’s even worse are the rationalizations offered up from the Governor of Ohio on down to the apparatchiks who maintain they did nothing wrong.

Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does.

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:14 am 86. programmer:

Doug,
On the urging to vote thingy, forgive me if I forget to remind any Democrats what day it is. I will try to deal with the “guilt load”.

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:16 am 87. NahnCee:

Insufficient – exactly. I intend to be just as supportive of a President B. Hussein as my moonbat acquaintances have been of President Bush’s efforts. And given that the moonbats are ineffectual idiots, I’m thinking that we will be *more* effective than CodePink.

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:16 am 88. Doug:

“A state agency has revealed that its checks of computer systems for potential information on
“Joe the Plumber” were more extensive than it first acknowledged.”

Meanwhile, virtually ALL of BHO’s records remain under seal.

To check the plumber,
or the POTUS,
that is the question.

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:17 am 89. Peter Boston:

It appears likely that Obama has committed a massive fraud in his online campaign contributions operation. All credit card security checks were deliberately disabled so that the donors could neither be identified nor traced. Who knows, maybe the mullahs have contributed $100 million to Obama.

One women who never made a single contribtuion to Obama had her name used for $174,000 in small contributions from one or more credit cards not her own. The real extent of illegal contributions is not known although Obama’s campaign has said that 2/3 of September’s record breaking contributions were made through their no-security checks website.

The NYT and WaPo just got around to publishing a story about and buried it in the opinion pages.

Nothing will result from but another example of how our liberties have been trivialized and trampled upon.

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:17 am 90. Eggplant:

PiltdownMan said:

“A big downside of an Obama victory will be even lengthier posts from an energized Cedarford.”

I’m not concerned. The Chosen One’s victory would leave me in such stunned dismay that I’d be oblivious to Cedarford’s tripe (there is a silver lining!).

If you’re religious (I’m not), I suggest praying for a miracle (falling from the frying pan into the fire is such an idiotic situation).

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:24 am 91. Doug:

Barack Obama’s Letter To The Daily Kos
Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party
by Barack Obama
Fri Sep 30, 2005

“There is one way, over the long haul, to guarantee the appointment of judges that are sensitive to issues of social justice, and that is to win the right to appoint them by recapturing the presidency and the Senate. And I don’t believe we get there by vilifying good allies, with a lifetime record of battling for progressive causes, over one vote or position. I am convinced that, our mutual frustrations and strongly-held beliefs notwithstanding, the strategy driving much of Democratic advocacy, and the tone of much of our rhetoric, is an impediment to creating a workable progressive majority in this country.

According to the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists – a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog – we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party. They have beaten us twice by energizing their base with red meat rhetoric and single-minded devotion and discipline to their agenda.
In order to beat them, it is necessary for Democrats to get some backbone, give as good as they get, brook no compromise, drive out Democrats who are interested in “appeasing” the right wing, and enforce a more clearly progressive agenda.
The country, finally knowing what we stand for and seeing a sharp contrast, will rally to our side and thereby usher in a new progressive era. ”

ht – Gateway Pundit

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:35 am 92. biggie:

It’s frightening to consider how much a person’s world view could be persuaded by media productions. Obama’s marketing sure does make his constitutents look like doops. What do McCain’s ads imply about you?

Why do we expect Obama’s electorate, especially the new voters, the people newly mobilized, will be as supine with the “Messiah” as Bush’s heros?

Bush’s and Obama’s will do with us what they will, and if there is no accountability, we can expect the very worst performance from both.

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:54 am 93. John Work:

Wretchard #31. I am probably one of the most pessimistic of the commenters here on the Belmont Club concerning the current situation of the West. I value your posts because they are well articulated and thought provoking and cause the readers (some of them) to look at things from new perspectives. Something we all need.

Many of us are “singing to the choir” about the immediate dangers facing our way of life. Perhaps we’re too much buying into the “resistance is futile” point of view.

Instead of continuing to try to predict an uncertain and possibly apocalyptic future, you correctly counsel that we should focus on problems and solutions. I see many problems, but few solutions, so perhaps we can all define and prioritize the problems and continue to discuss possible (non-apocalyptic) solutions.

My candidates for problems and their relative priorities are:

1) Ignorance of the average citizen in the areas of the Constitution, history, and philosophy, which muddles thinking and makes clear political decisions difficult.

2) The government-dominated educational system that creates problem #1.

3) Lack of understanding or appreciation of the meaning and responsibilities of individual liberty caused by #’s 1 and 2.

4) In the United States, lack of understanding that we are not a democracy, but a constitutional republic where individual liberty is defined by the Constitution and where the spirit and intent of our government is stated in the Declaration of Independence. Our individual freedoms and liberty should not be subject to the whims of the “democratic” majority, but should be protected by the Constitution in its explicit form not subject to the whims of the judiciary.

Other real and more immediate problems like the ankle-biting jihadists or the world-conquering Chinese will be very difficult for the West to resist due to the underlying problems 1-4. These immediate problems threaten our very existence, but the underlying problems most likely will prevent us from dealing with these threats.

Hence my pessimism. Even if we can find solutions to the underlying problems, do we have the time? We are like a man with broken legs and arms facing a pack of hyenas and a pride of lions. A McCain-Palin victory will give us a temporary respite, but if we don’t heal ourselves, it’s only going to happen again in a few years.

But I still think your point is well taken – we should focus on problems and solutions instead of wailing and trying to predict various apocalyptic outcomes.

As a possible way to address ignorance and education, perhaps the Internet and blogs like yours may be part of the solution

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:58 am 94. biggie:

How do we begin to roll back Federal Largesse? Where does Federal Largesse extend itself that it is weakest?

Where can we begin to attack not only the very idea that such arrangements are preferable, but the actual practice of Federal intervention in our lives?

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:58 am 95. outa my league:

As Rush says, win or lose, the future must be about rebuilding the Conservative movement.

OK, bring it on! I’m ready for the challenge presented by a McCain-Palin victory!

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:58 am 96. biggie:

Seriously?

Oct 30, 2008 - 10:01 am 97. Eggplant:

djr said:

“I’d not hope for a change to the Constitution, but rather a culture that simply turns away from welfare (both those doling it out and those lapping it up).”

That’s like trying to change the course of a glacier.

It’s hard not to admire the cleverness of the guys behind the Gramscian strategy, i.e. slowly morphing a culture until it self destructs. The cunning beauty of it is that once the culture realizes it’s under attack, it doesn’t have time to mount an effective response. Too bad the Soviet Union imploded in 1990 (that wasn’t part of the plan).

Oct 30, 2008 - 10:06 am 98. buckets:

RE: ledger #63

Excellent advice. I followed your link, and have now volunteered my services for the McCain campaign. It will be a tad difficult to coordinate with my job, but I can take some time off.

As much as we complain and vent our frustrations about Obama, (and I’m one of those people who sees a Leftist administration as potentially catastrophic) there is a difference between talk and action. The reason I volunteered is because I know I would always regret it if I didn’t.

For all of you eligible to help out McCain in the upcoming weeks, let’s just do it and be able to say, at least, “We fought the good fight.”

Oct 30, 2008 - 10:16 am 99. Spindok:

Islam is not the problem here in the US. We have many Muslims, and immigrants from Arabic and other Muslim lands, here in the “Joe the Plumber” America. (Ohio)

No problems here. Most I know are hard working people who fit well into American society. Most of these folks from Lebanon, Syria etc. are too busy working to worry much about such political matters. I see the kids doing their homework in the back of the shop, the adults either making it as business owners or going for more academic or professional pursuits in medicine, science, etc.

This is the USA. We are the rejected riff-raff of the world. We have our own land now. No need to worry about our origins here.

In the words of Paul Simon “tommorrow is just another working day and all i’m trying to do is get some rest”.

We have work to do no matter whom is elected.

As my Russian born grandfather used to say to me in the mornings as I went off to school with my mandatory cup of orange juice “Za Robota” – go to work.

Spindok

Oct 30, 2008 - 10:27 am 100. PiltdownMan:

<>: “If you’re religious (I’m not), I suggest praying for a miracle.”

I’m not religious, but I’m definitely a Christian.

Am I praying – absolutely. I’m certainly praying for a McCain win, or more accurately, an Obama loss.

But I’m also praying these four words: “Thy will be done”.

God’s will might not fall within the boundaries of an election cycle, but I do believe that He is more powerful the Democrats, nay, even more powerful than Obama himself. I don’t want it, but if it is God’s will that Obama wins, I will have to believe that there’s a purpose for it that we do not have the perspective to see.

I will pray for our country, I will pray that ‘The One’ learns humility, and I will pray that we can all understand that ultimately – His will be done.

Oct 30, 2008 - 11:04 am 101. Eggplant:

PiltdownMan said:

“God’s will might not fall within the boundaries of an election cycle, but I do believe that He is more powerful the Democrats, nay, even more powerful than Obama himself.”

Obviously PiltdownMan has not absorbed the narrative from the New York Times and CNN. After the election, we will all be re-educated and learn to love the Messiah.

Oct 30, 2008 - 11:27 am 102. Konyok:

Wretchard #31

Might I humbly suggest Georgian wine?

Oct 30, 2008 - 11:38 am 103. Konyok:

I still think that Satyagraha is the model to emulate.

Consider, one explanation for the MSM’s reticence to investigate “The One” is a knee-jerk fear of being called racist. Whence this fear? Avalanches of letters, calls, e-mails and even demonstrations from the progressive community.
Would it not be just to instill a similar aversion to being viewed as anti patriotic or anti religion?
Is the conservative community smaller than the progressive community?
I think not.
The main difference is that progressives have more concentrated interests – motivated minorities, gays and atheists more willing to expend the energy.
Conservatives have more dilute interests, what is lacking is motivation.
This may be the silver lining of this political campaign – an awakening to the great stakes and the great effort required to restore the US to something approaching equilibrium.

Oct 30, 2008 - 11:46 am 104. WSL:

A common theme heard as one approaches election day is “Get out the vote!” But to read many of the comments here, our country is made up increasingly of people who are poor readers and who don’t think logically. If that is the case, (and I would have difficulty refuting it) then increasing the voter turnout would seem, necessarily, to ensure a selection process that promotes mediocrity and maybe even corruption. Working to increase voter turnout, ironically, may be one of the reasons democracy in America is producing such disappointing results.

Oct 30, 2008 - 11:46 am 105. biggie:

Poor readers!? Think logically?!

Kindly tell where oh where do you get your rarefied and verified information? Probably the same as the rest of us.

Oct 30, 2008 - 12:04 pm 106. biggie:

Can we expect to preserve the civilization referenced in Spindok’s story while we’re busy “fixing” the rest of it?

Oct 30, 2008 - 12:14 pm 107. Cosmeau Bugleweed:

The likely victory of Barack Obama and creeping socialism suggests that a few brief personal anecdotes about Canadian socialized medical care may be amusing to your readers in the USA.

You want free government healthcare because you hurt and a hip replacement costs a fortune and you can’t walk and you live in Nova Scotia? Three year waiting list.

So you go to Montreal where you know someone in the loop and jump to the head of the line. Why not? Everybody in Canada does it.

Or maybe you’re a surgeon like my brother, forced to operate in a major city in August in a steaming hot operating room which is not air conditioned, while two floors above, the air conditioned offices of the government administrators are cool and pleasant. So, like him, you move to the US.

Or maybe, like my friend, you are bleeding internally, white as a sheet and in pain and you go to the emergency unit at the hospital and the parking attendant on duty, at 1:00 am, takes your five bucks (no tickee no washee) and you wait eleven hours in a truly crummy waiting room because there’s no doctors. (They must be in the US, but the 24/7 parking attendants are not.)

So after your eleven hour wait you are put in a bed on an IV drip out in a busy corridor, head to foot with eight other beds while people stream by, up and down the corridor and the ones who talk and laugh the loudest are the unionized government staff.

How about your father who is 77 and has a pile of gallbladder pain and who doesn’t want to bother the head of emergency services at the biggest hospital in the second biggest city, who is his friend for 50 years, so he waits, and waits. Cranky old guy. Says it builds character. Only one oblique complaint; “The place was full of welfare types. They brought their lunch.” The emergency waiting rooms are empty on sunny summer days and TV hockey nights.

Or maybe you need some blood tests and you go to the local CLSC government clinic. You go early, at 6:45 am in February at 20 degrees below zero and it opens at 7:00 am and 50 people are already lined up outside the door.

But it’s free, right? Except that I heard that Bush, Kerry, Gore, Obama, McCain et al. have to divulge their finances and they make a lot of money and pay maybe 25% income tax (correct me if I’m wrong). In Canada you pay that rate when you earn around $30,000.

In Montreal you buy a new house for, say, $200K, you also pay $28,000 sales tax.
New car? 13% sales tax. Phone bill? ditto.

But the government medical care is free, right?

I read that Mr. Obama wants to do things more like Europe and Canada.

Don’t get sick.

Cosmeau Bugleweed

Oct 30, 2008 - 12:27 pm 108. Fletcher Christian:

I am British, and I am ashamed of my countrymen, in just the same way that some of the Americans here are ashamed of yours.

We have a Stalinist in charge, and a wringing-wet left-of-centre Tory who wants his job and may well get it next time, and neither of them is admitting to the main problem that this country has; unrestricted immigration by people who have nothing whatsoever in common with us, made impossible to combat by both sides’ refusal to admit that one of the main reasons for the primary problem is our membership of the EU.

A secondary problem is an ever-increasing army of parasites feeding off the body politic; and this includes not just those officially unemployed but those employed by the State at inflated salaries, with pensions better than anyone in the private sector can hope to get. I am quite sure that this is completely deliberate, for two reasons; one is that people employed by the state do not show up in unemployment statistics, and the other is that one would have to be a psychiatric case not to vote Labour, if one was employed by our government. I see no way out of any of this that does not involve blood in the streets.

On the subject of militant Islam and the possible consequences; I feel that even the Three Conjectures do not describe the possible bottom of the pit that we are digging for ourselves. Two possible bottoms of pits; either we let the global Caliphate form by default (probably for demographic reasons) and that leads to the loss of technology and, because of that, to the eventual extinction of humanity – either because of environmental degradation and the exhaustion of resources, or because of some catastrophe (another Chicxulub, Yellowstone letting rip, the next ice age are examples) that humanity without technology cannot withstand.

The other possible pit? Imagine, if you will, that militant Islam obtains and uses a nuke or two – and that, for reasons of their own, Russia decides that the appropriate response is not appropriate for them. And, having finally lost patience, we do it anyway – and then the final horror, that has been part of our worst nightmares for the best part of fifty years, becomes reality. To steal a phrase; “World War II once a second for the length of a lazy afternoon”. Cthugha fhtagn. (Not a mispelling.)

Those are two of the worst things we risk, as we sleepwalk towards Armageddon. When are we going to wake up? Are we going to?

Oct 30, 2008 - 1:11 pm 109. Why I Am Voting for John McCain « Things That Remain:

[...] I understand and feel the war-weariness.  But, to paraphrase Aragorn in “The Two Towers”, war is upon us, whether we would have it or not.  And yet the next Congress, armed with filibuster-proof Senate and House majorities, and aided by a sympathetic White House will be able to dismantle our military and leave us more vulnerable to foreign threat.  While the rest of the world seems to be cheering the imminent election of Obama, I fear that much of the world could pay dearly for receiving the object of their hope. [...]

Oct 30, 2008 - 1:13 pm 110. peterike:

Like it or not, our next President is very likely to be a metrosexual Marxist popinjay. My biggest hope is that he will prove so incompetent that he won’t be able to advance his agenda very much. On the other hand, what I fear is that the real powers behind him will move his hands. It seems clear to me he’s little more than a puppet. Who will pull his strings?

Oct 30, 2008 - 2:30 pm 111. Eggplant:

Peterike commented about B. Hussein:

“My biggest hope is that he will prove so incompetent that he won’t be able to advance his agenda very much.”

I have similiar hopes.

What happens when the Chosen One is compelled by his political base to advance the socialist agenda but finds out there is no money?

What happens after the Islamic fascists seriously whack us during Hussein’s administration? That’ll probably happen in about 3 years time give or take a year.

Peterike also mentioned:

“On the other hand, what I fear is that the real powers behind him will move his hands. It seems clear to me he’s little more than a puppet. Who will pull his strings?”

That’s the $64,000 question. Who ever it is, knows what he’s doing, i.e. Hussein was well funded, well managed and the MSM well coordinated. Is the puppet master really interested in America’s own interests or advancing an internationalist agenda (George Soros) or the interests of the Saudis, the Chinese or Vladimir Putin? It’s possible that not even B. Hussein knows who the puppet master is, i.e. B. Hussein naively thinks he achieved everything through his own merit.

What is the puppet master’s next step, i.e. what’s on the agenda after New York disappears or the US economy fully implodes? Can someone (anyone?) anticipate the puppet master’s next move and plan a counter response?

Oct 30, 2008 - 3:17 pm 112. Doug:

The One has been successfully manipulating others to gain power on other people’s dime for 30 years.
No amateur, he.

Carefully Nurtured Followers incubated in ignorance care of the NEA.
Said professionals plowing their profits, energies, and lies back into the Messiah Machine to gain even greater power.

Oct 30, 2008 - 4:08 pm 113. Doug:

Thousands See Palin and the Plumber

Oct 30, 2008 - 4:20 pm 114. someone:

“How do we begin to roll back Federal Largesse?”

Do be honest, we don’t. It’s just not going to happen.

What is possible: keeping a lid on, and ensuring that the economy grows faster than the government.

Because what’s large now can be dwarfed in the future.

Oct 30, 2008 - 9:55 pm 115. Dave:

Looks like this election is going to be tighter than anyone thinks.

The One has altered his schedule and returns to Nevada on Saturday.

Johnny McCain comes here on Monday.

That much attention paid to a state with but 5 electoral votes, means no runaway for anybody.

The Obamaroids have to have a landslide or their hopes die sooner rather than later.

Their voter suppression campaign appears to be backfiring big time.

He and they stepped on their dinaglings with Joe the Plumber.

And then there is Sarah.

Our side is going to be alive, well, and fighting. Never fear.

Oct 30, 2008 - 10:33 pm 116. voyeur:

From a UK perspective the US election is really a black comedy. Were waiting for the punch line. We may not get one.

Europe : Dont forget that a very large % of muslims are on welfare which states may or may not be able to continue paying. ‘Able’ in that theyre essentially bust. Plus the whiteys are not as nice as they used to be, having lost their savings in Iceland and being made redundant by the commuter train load.

There may be a few suprising changes ahead.

Oct 31, 2008 - 1:31 pm 117. Dave:

Voyeur, I think that England will be all right
if you can get some statutory protection against private citizens being prosecuted for self-defense.

Do that and I think you will get a chain reaction against much of what ails you. Good luck and God Bless.

Oct 31, 2008 - 1:55 pm 118. Tim:

In the words of 1 of our forefathers. He who will give up his liberty for security deserves neither

Oct 31, 2008 - 8:11 pm 119. Storm-Rider:

Wretchard: “But freedom itself can never be bequeathed because it always involves an exercise of will by the living man.”

Human freedom always requires struggle and sacrifice.

Our founding fathers were right to say that our freedom is a God-given human right; but I believe God has also dealt us the responsibility to plow it out of the ground, and to seize it from the hands of lesser men and tyrants.

Nov 1, 2008 - 8:31 pm

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