To all American veterans: Thank You

Thank you for doing what I did not. Thank you for serving your country, defending her honor, and ensuring her liberty. Without your sacrifice, I might not have the freedom to even write these words.

Thank you for taking the liberty which I love and sharing it with others throughout the world. Thank you for representing my country overseas. Thank you for feeding the hungry, for rebuilding infrastructure and nations, even though they have fought against us. Thank you for ensuring peace through your strength.

Thank you for ending tyranny and oppression in so many places, and for standing up for what is right even when it puts you at risk of life and limb.

But mostly, thank you for demonstrating that there is good in the world. Thank you for protecting this great nation of ours, even when it forgets to honor you. Words cannot express the debt of gratitude we owe you.

May you be given the chance to finish the job that you have started and to return home with honor, and to honor.

You guys are the best.

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Originally posted at Perri Nelson's Website. Cross posted at NW Bloggers. Cross posted at Reject the U.N.

Disasters, natural and otherwise

"It's Bush's fault." That's what we were hearing this week about the California wildfires. They were exacerbated due to global warming, which wouldn't be happening if President Bush made us implement the Kyoto Protocol we were told. The disaster response wasn't fast enough. California's national guard troops were all over in Iraq. California's national guard equipment was over in Iraq.

We now know that global warming had little or nothing to do with the wildfires that seem to happen every year in southern California. We now know that the Santa Ana winds that helped to spread the wildfires happen every year, and that there's nothing unusual about how dry those winds were.

Federal relief efforts began within a day of the disaster. California has 20,000 active national guard troops and only 2,000 of them are overseas. The other 18,000 are still in California. Not only that but California actually has more equipment than they can use, both their own, and that supplied by the federal government and from other states.

It also turns out that the wildfires were set. That's right, it was arson. Several arson suspects are in custody, but the last I heard none of them had been linked to the wildfires yet.

About the only thing I've heard about poor response had to do with state regulations regarding the helicopters used to scoop up water from rivers and dump it on fires. Apparently they had to have spotter planes as escorts and that caused delays. State officials though have said that bureaucracy did not get in the way of the response, it was just high winds that made it dangerous to fly.

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As I was driving home from work last night, I was listening to re-runs of some of the day's talk radio shows. I had the opportunity to listen to an exchange between Gov. Schwarzenegger and a reporter. She kept pushing him to find something wrong with the federal response, but he was having none of it.

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The latest news I've heard on this is that six people are dead, millions have been evacuated and thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed by the fires. That's a horror and a tragedy of huge proportions.

I've been very fortunate in my life not to have suffered anything like the loss the people in southern California are facing. I've never lost a home to fire, flood, earthquake or any other natural disaster. In fact I've never lost a home.

I can only imagine how devastating it would be though. Even with insurance, replacing or rebuilding the home could be an incredible setback. While rebuilding is going on living in a hotel, a stadium, or shelter would be horrifying. The irreplaceable memories held within small possessions such as photo albums, nick-knacks and the like would be gone forever.

Every time I hear about a tragedy such as the wildfires in California, or hurricanes devastating entire communities (remember Andrew?) it hurts a bit inside to think of what the people are going through.

Starting over would be tough. This is why we have insurance programs. This is why we have disaster relief programs. This is one reason why we have zoning regulations and building codes.

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Natural disasters happen. We can do a lot of things to mitigate the dangers, but we can't eliminate them.

People that live on mountainsides are always at risk of landslides taking their house downhill. People that live on beaches are always at risk of having storm surge erode the sand under their homes. People that live on islands are at risk of tsunamis washing their homes away. People that live in "basins" like New Orleans are at risk of floods. People that live in dry wooded areas are in danger of wildfire. People that live near volcanoes… well, you get the idea.

Oftentimes in the wake of these tragedies I'll read some rather strange responses. On the left we have Bush Derangement Syndrome trying to blame every natural catastrophe on the President, and eagerly looking to find mistakes in the response. On the right, it's often some callous remark like "who in their right mind builds their house on a flood plain?".

Both responses are wrong-headed.

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As you know, I'm all for smaller government. I believe that a lot of the programs that our federal government gets involved in, such as welfare, social security and medicare aren't rightly its business. Disaster preparedness and response are an exception though. While the primary responsibility for these still belongs at the state and local levels, the federal government should be involved in them as well.

The Constitution grants the Congress the power to "lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States". I believe that the "general Welfare of the United States" most definitely includes disaster preparedness and response.

It makes sense in the wake of a disaster to examine the federal response, because the federal government has a constitutional duty to see to the general welfare of the United States. The comparisons between the federal response to the California wildfires and the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina aught to be made. We need to know whether we've learned from previous disasters and whether we're handling them better or worse.

We shouldn't focus all of our attention on the federal response though. As I said earlier, the primary responsibility for preparedness and response still belongs at the state and local level. This is simply common sense.

Think about it. If you're at home, cooking dinner and a grease fire starts and quickly spreads, do you wait for the fire department to arrive before responding? Or do you grab some flour and throw it on the fire to smother it?

If an earthquake topples a building and people are trapped under the rubble, should you wait for the federal government to bring in heavy equipment to move that rubble, or should you use local equipment. If you wait, it's almost certain that more lives will be lost than if you respond quickly.

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Politicians, the media, and bloggers love to play the blame game.

In California the blame was quickly thrown upon President Bush, for things that had little or nothing to do with how events unfolded. It turns out though that the local, state, and the federal response was quick. It also turns out that the blame for the horrifying tragedy that has unfolded belongs to a sick, twisted individual that deliberately set the fires.

In Louisiana the blame was quickly thrown upon President Bush. The news media were all over the story, hyping things up and reporting on events that never actually happened. How many of you remember the reports of cannibalism and rape gangs? The federal government response was criticized and called racist. Who remembers the parking lot full of busses sitting in water? Busses that the local government could have used to evacuate?

Why is it that a category 3 hurricane is treated as an example of the effects of global warming? Why is it that nobody compares Katrina to Andrew, the second most destructive hurricane in U.S. History and a category 5 storm? Could it be that it's harder to play the "race card" with Andrew?

 

 

Few people have remarked upon or contrasted the effects that Katrina had in Mississippi with the effects on New Orleans. Both were hit by the same storm. There was severe damage in both places. Could it be that the effectiveness of the response and the preparedness of the government in Mississippi weren't newsworthy, and the poor response and lack of preparation in Louisiana made the perfect opportunity to castigate the President?

The big differences in the California wildfire story and the Katrina story were the local response, and the treatment of the federal response by the media.

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The blame game needs to be put back in the box and the box needs to be put back on the shelf. Preferably in the back.

Which is more important anyway? The tragedy suffered by the victims of these catastrophes, both natural and unnatural, or the political opportunities they provide for politicians more interested in power than people?

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Originally posted at Perri Nelson's Website. Cross posted at NW Bloggers.

Double Standards

I know you've noticed it.

Whenever a Republican is caught in a scandal it seems to be a career wrecker. Whenever a Democrat is caught in a similar scandal, even if that Democrat has done something more heinous than the Republican it never seems to affect their career.

The Democrats have fond memories of being swept into power in the last election. They claimed that a universal lack of support for the war on terror was one of the reasons. They also claimed that the voters disgust with the Republican "culture of corruption" was one of the reasons.

Then they proceeded to place corrupt people in positions of power.

They complained about earmarks. It was a legitimate complaint. The Republican controlled congress before them was addicted to them. They wanted more transparency. That is, they did until they took office.

What happened to that legislation?

It's interesting to look at some of this stuff. When President Clinton was impeached Democrats were fond of saying "it's only about sex", and that it was justified to "lie" about "sex". They actually argued that adultery was nobody's business.

When a Republican is involved in a sex scandal he's demonized by both the right and the left. Not so with a Democrat.

I've actually heard liberals argue that the issue isn't immorality it's hypocrisy. An immoral Democrat isn't a hypocrite because he has no moral standards to violate. An immoral Republican is a hypocrite because he does.

Isn't it better to have high standards that you occasionally fail to meet than to have no standards at all? Apparently not when it comes to politics.

A Democrat that exhibits a moral failing is a man (or woman) that made a mistake. He deserves our sympathy. A Republican that exhibits a moral failing is a monster to be destroyed.

A liberal can malign our nation's troops, accusing them of murder, rape, and various other war crimes. John Kerry did it and got a pass. Jack Murtha did it and got a pass. A conservative can't call them out on it though without being accused of "questioning their patriotism" or "swiftboating" them.

Speaking of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, have you noticed that the left loves to claim that they've been discredited, yet not a single charge they made against John Kerry was ever actually refuted? How is it that an attempt to set the record straight is now a derogatory verb?

A liberal is free to make up stories and create a fabricated military record so that he can malign our nation's troops. When this happens, and is proven in court, a conservative had better not bring it up. Look at Rush Limbaugh. He happened to call one of these liberal fabricators "phoney" and the left has turned it around and now accuses Rush of maligning the troops. Never mind that the man was convicted of fraud.

I guess it's possible for a Democrat or a liberal to be a hypocrite after all. Perhaps it's time to attack them on their record of attacking conservatives and Republicans yet never launching similar attacks on those within their own ranks that exhibit the same failings.

I hate arguing with liberals

I really do.

I don't mind a good debate. I think they help to sharpen the mind and help the open minded to learn and grow. Some liberals are willing to debate that way, and I have learned to respect them.

Most liberals though do not debate that way. One of my fellow bloggers on another site comes to mind. Once he seemed rational and willing to debate, but he already had some definitely annoying quirks.

For one thing he constantly belittles the people whose policies he disagrees with. Can you tell me how it bolsters your argument to call President Bush "the shrub"? Sure, it's a bit of a witticism, but I find it in poor taste. Admittedly, there are quite a few on the right that do the same thing. Just as much as I despise it in liberals, I despise in it conservatives.

Surely you've noticed this about many bloggers, particularly on the left. Why is it that we continue to read comparisons of President Bush to Adolph Hitler? Or to a chimpanzee? Why is it that we continue to hear how dumb and unintelligent President Bush is? Or how inarticulate?

Do these attacks on the person really strengthen the left's arguments? I don't think so. For that matter, are these particular attacks (Let's leave aside some of the other attacks for now, and just address these.) on President Bush accurate?

Adolph Hitler was a racist monster. Whatever else may define him in your eyes, that defines him in mine. Only a racist monster could have conceived of the holocaust, the attempted mass extermination of an entire race.

Whatever else you may think about President Bush, I hardly think you can call him a racist. He has appointed many representatives of various minorities to his cabinet and to offices of power. He judged these people on their merits, and not on their race.

He has done more to openly welcome immigrants from other nations than previous Presidents, especially with regard to our southern border, offering amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, most of whom come from Mexico. These are hardly the actions of a racist.

I'm sure that the left would choose other areas to compare President Bush with Adolph Hitler. Civil liberals that want to discuss this are welcome to comment.

As for whether President Bush resembles a chimpanzee in appearance all I can say is what a childish thing to say about anyone. This is as bad as the racist attitude that someone is inferior because of the color of their skin.

How about President Bush's intelligence. Liberals frequently call him a moron, or other derogatory names relating to their perception of his intelligence. Yet the man went to a prestigious ivy league college and graduated. I seriously doubt that such institutions of higher learning are accepting morons as students. For that matter, one of the liberal examples of "intelligence" was Sen. John Kerry, a man who actually received poorer grades in college than President Bush did.

So these particular attacks are hardly accurate. Yet we continue to see them from the left.

As conversations with this blogger continued, I found still more things I didn't like about arguing with him. For one thing, his belittling of people doesn't stop with public figures. He also likes to belittle the people who are having discussions with him. In a recent post, he used obscenities to describe a commenter. That's hardly a way to encourage debate. It's also not exactly a good way to encourage readers to come to your blog. Again, I've seen this on conservative blogs too, and it's not a pretty site.

I recently had a similar experience with another liberal blogger. I recently went to comment at another left wing website in response to an article there. One of the commenters proceeded to call me names, which included several obscenities. He also questioned MY intelligence. I asked him to tone it down so we could have a reasonable discussion and it just got worse. He even LIED about being a "conservative", just not a Bush Kool-aid drinker. I went to his website and saw that it's a prime example of a left wing site, just overflowing with examples of Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Post after post on this blogger's site were about a new "emem" he had discovered (he seems to have invented the term too). They were essentially a recitation of Keith Olberman's accusations against President Bush. These accusations had no supporting material to back them up, and in fact could easily be refuted. It seemed as if repeating this "emem", especially in a very large font size with big red text, would make it true, despite the lack of other support.

Which brings me to another problem I have with liberals. They LIE without shame. The "emem" discoverer even goes so far as to proclaim it at the top of his blog, saying that you can't trust anything you read on his site, because he "makes up" his own facts.

The biggest charge about lying though comes from the left. They constantly proclaim that "Bush Lied, People Died". It's a crock of horse manure, and many of them know it. We currently have several Democratic representatives trying to push various impeachment measures through Congress based on charges that President Bush, or Vice President Cheney "manipulated" pre-war intelligence in an effort to bring us into war.

The problem with that is a lot of that intelligence was gathered before President Bush was even on a Presidential ballot, and a lot of the Democrats were pursuing the very same agenda of "Regime Change" in Iraq back in the 1990s. There are multiple online sources with quotes from these Democrats as far back as 1998 (perhaps even further) talking about the danger Saddam Hussein and Iraq posed to world and National security.

Ask me, and I'll provide you with links to the material. Bullwinkle has VIDEO. John W. Lillpop has quotes. I can even provide you with pointers to the text of Federal Laws that called for regime change in Iraq as far back as 1998.

Liberals like to ask the question "where's the WMDs", ignoring the fact that that wasn't the sole reason we went to war. They like to call it a war for oil, even though most of Iraq's oil goes to nations other than the U.S. They like to say "Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11" as if the President or the Vice President said that he did (they never said that, only that Iraq had links to Al Qaeda, which has been proven). They play the "moral equivalence" game, equating the treatment of illegal enemy combatants with criminals whose rights include not being forced to give evidence against themselves.

Ask them about it though, and like the first liberal blogger I mentioned, they'll tell you to go look it up. And that's another thing I hate about arguing with liberals. They'll make wild assertions, claiming there's data to back them up, but they won't provide the data. They want you to do their homework. They want you to go out and research their points, from their point of view, rather than presenting you with the evidence.

Present them with documents. Present them with original source material. It doesn't matter. If it doesn't fit their pre-conceived world view, they'll ignore it or dismiss it. Present them with the findings of the Congress of the United States, and they'll tell you THOSE aren't the reasons such and such was done, no - go look up so and so's writeup on the reasons, without a link, and as if some pundit's analysis or opinion holds more weight than what the people who took the action say is why they took it.

Liberals aren't alone in this, but in just about every political conversation I've had with a liberal, this is the way things have gone. I've been wrong occasionally, but most of the time I'm either lied to, or the conversation devolves into name-calling and ad-hominem attacks. Most of the rest of the time they'll try to hijack the conversation and argue about something else.

Lord help you if that happens, because if you respond to their new line of argument, someone else will join in the fray and accuse you of throwing up a smoke screen to avoid the original issue. And naturally they won't say anything about the person who originally hijacked the conversation.

One thing about conservatives. For the most part, conservatives enjoy free speech, and support your right to free speech. The same cannot be said for liberals. Speak out on something you feel passionately about and if it doesn't fit with the liberal agenda, they'll do what they can to squelch your speech.

It might begin with a simple call to "get off the soapbox", as recently happened to me on another one of my blogs. Or it could be a pie in the face, as has happened to many conservative speakers. Or liberals could simply gang up in the audience and shout a conservative speaker down. I don't think I can recall a single case where a liberal speaker was shouted down by a conservative audience. Can you?

Of course now we're hearing all about the "fairness doctrine". It's supposed to be the answer to right-wing talk radio. It's really just another attempt to silence voices the left doesn't agree with.

Some on the left will be sure to bring up the Dixie Chicks, claiming that when people boycotted their concerts and wouldn't buy their albums that they were being censored. Sorry Charlie, as the tuna commercial used to go, but that argument just doesn't work. There's a difference between censorship and refusing to support speech you disagree with. The Dixie Chicks weren't censored. They were free to spread their message of dissent. It just wasn't a popular message and their popularity suffered for it.

Disagree with a liberal though and you'll be demonized. If you are skeptical about global warming (or is it global cooling, or just simply human induced climate change), then you're the equivalent of a holocaust denier and the left will take your name for when they hold their Nuremberg style trials for climate change deniers. If you want national security as opposed to giving amnesty to millions of law-breakers who don't have our nations' interest in mind, why you're a racist. Speak out against "affirmative action" or say that "the only way to end racial discrimination is to stop discriminating based on race" and you'll be called a racist, or accused of trying to set back the hand of progress.

In fact, the single thing I dislike most about arguing with liberals is the shadenfreude and hypocrisy exhibited by some of them whenever a conservative gets in trouble. If a conservative is merely accused of talking to a minor about homosexual sex, he's demonized and hounded out of office. If a liberal actually commits a homosexual rape with more than one minor he's lauded as a great officeholder.

We saw this happen just a bit over nine months ago. Now with the "D.C. Madame" releasing her phone records to the public my blogging "friend" is looking forward with glee to the outing of some more conservatives. That's not enough for him though. He's even on record publicly hoping that it will drive some conservatives to commit suicide. Yet this same "man" says that he's not bringing "hate" into our discussions. Instead he accuses me of doing so.

I HATE arguing with liberals. I really do. I hate it so much that I've had to cool down for a few days before I felt I was ready to post again. Now you know why.

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Originally posted at Perri Nelson's Website.

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, The Virtuous Republic, The Random Yak, DeMediacratic Nation, Jeanette's Celebrity Corner, Right Truth, Adam's Blog, Big Dog's Weblog, Webloggin, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, Nuke's news and views, Planck's Constant, CommonSenseAmerica, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and Public Eye, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

False accents, condescension and racism

OK, first of all, a lot of this comes from my memory of a conversation I heard on the radio this morning. I know I don't remember it exactly, so I'm not quoting anyone on the radio. Remembering that conversation and my reactions to it reminds me of my previous post. I heard the discussion, and I noticed something that I thought should be obvious. I tried to call in, but the lines were busy. Frustrating.

Anyway, the conversation was about Sen. Clinton's "southern" accent and the occasions when it appears. There are a lot of blog posts where bloggers note that it comes out most often when she is speaking to predominantly black audiences. WIStv has noted it as well, and asks if she'll bring it to Orangeburg.

Rush noted some articles about it, and that one of them specifically mentioned that her "southern" accent comes out when speaking to blacks. He played a soundbite of her with a horrible imitation of a southern drawl. He seemed to be saying that she was "pandering" to blacks when she did that.

The "program observer, who is black" noted that it was racist. I never did hear why.

I have to agree, but not for the reasons I heard on the radio. This is what made me want to call in. I think that these remarks go beyond pandering. The conversation on the radio turned discussion of "ebonics" and other languages, and how the attempts to use them were simply pandering to an audience.

I don't recall all of the details.

I think that this example of the use of a false accent is racist only in part because it's a transparent attempt to "sound like" the audience. What's worse is a Northern, white woman coming to the South and affecting a southern accent before a predominantly black audience is a bit degrading.

Consider the history. What one of our national sins is most closely associated with the South? Do I have to spell it out? A century and a half ago it was one of the many issues that divided our nation. That's right - slavery.

I don't think that this rises to the level of a deliberate, conscious effort to insult and degrade her audience when Sen. Clinton speaks this way to a black audience. I do think that it speaks to a different problem that our political class has. They're elitist (on both sides of the aisle). They look down on the rest of us (try writing to a congressman and parsing the response you get sometime when you disagree with them).

By going to a southern black audience and speaking with an obviously false southern accent, Sen. Clinton is more than simply "trying to sound like her audience". She may be trying to relate to them and have them relate to her, but to me it sounds more like a privileged plantation owner talking down to the house slaves.

I'm sure it's not deliberate. But it's still racist. And it points to the double-standards on the left. If this interpretation of her actions were to be presented in the mainstream, she could quite possibly rightly complain that her remarks or motives were misinterpreted.

Isn't it a shame that when a conservative politician makes an innocent remark, attempting to praise another politician of long service that the left pounces upon it as evidence of racism? Haven't a few Republican politicians been hounded out of office by the left over trivialities like this?

I don't like Hillary Clinton. I don't like her politics, her arrogance, or her condescending attitudes. Even so, every politician does some silly things, or commits one or another gaffe. We need to move past these things to the real issues.

The sniping has got to end.

Civil Discourse

Have you noticed a "coarsening of the culture"? Or do you think it might be something that's been there all along and that we're just hearing more about it lately?
How about in the blogosphere? Have you noticed a tendency on the left for commenters to be obscene? Have you noticed a tendency of bloggers on both sides of the aisle to make ad-hominem attacks? Or resort to name calling?
I have, and I don't think it's a good thing. I don't particularly care for it when my liberal friends in the blogosphere refer to President Bush as "the shrub". It doesn't really add much to the conversation. I don't think it's very helpful either when my conservative friends call liberals "left-tards".
I'm not even sure I like some of the labels. "Right-wing whackos", "Nut-roots", "Wing-nuts", "Feminazis". These just tend to get in the way of any kind of debate around ideas.
That's what this blog is about, or at least what I want it to be about. I'd like to have reasoned debate with people on all sides of the issues without the name-calling and the flame-wars. I'd like to have people discuss the ideas.
Name-calling doesn't cut it. Character assassination is a bad thing. Ad-hominem attacks are out. Pretending to answer the question but changing the subject with straw men doesn't work for me.
This is a blog where those things shouldn't be allowed. I'm going to invite some other bloggers to join me here for those type of discussions. Maybe we can begin to change the nature of political and religious discussion on the blogosphere, one reader at a time.