The Savage Republican

History

I came across this NYTimes op-ed today. It is stunning in oh so many ways. Rather than try to describe it, I'll just dive in with the quotes.

"Whether or not we can regard Sept. 11 as history, I would like to raise two historical questions about the terrorist attacks of that horrific day. My goal is not to offer definitive answers but rather to invite a serious debate about whether Sept. 11 deserves the historical significance it has achieved."

WTF?!?!?! Whether or not we can regard 9/11 as history???? As opposed to what? Fantasy? A really bad dream maybe? Or Pearl Harbor deja vu????? Just what ARE the choices here?

"My first question: where does Sept. 11 rank in the grand sweep of American history as a threat to national security? By my calculations it does not make the top tier of the list, which requires the threat to pose a serious challenge to the survival of the American republic.
Here is my version of the top tier: the War for Independence, where defeat meant no United States of America; the War of 1812, when the national capital was burned to the ground; the Civil War, which threatened the survival of the Union; World War II, which represented a totalitarian threat to democracy and capitalism; the cold war, most specifically the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which made nuclear annihilation a distinct possibility."

First question Professor, just what do you think radical Islam is if not a totalitarian threat to democracy and capitalism? Daniel Pipes, in his book "Radical Islam Reaches America", lays out in plain language just how the radical Islamist threat is equal (if not greater) to the totalitarian threat of Nazism and Fascism. We loose this war and again, no United States of America. The War of 1812 was not just about one city being burned, we were warding off a bully that wanted to strip this country of it's sovereignty, JUST LIKE TODAY ..only THEN there were a lot less casualties. In the War of 1812, there were a total of 2,260 Americans killed in action. We lost more American lives on 9/11 alone! As far as property damage goes, comparing like dollars for like, it will cost more to rebuild the World Trade Center property alone than it cost to rebuild all of Washington DC after the War of 1812. Now let's look at WWII - specifically the attacks on Pearl Harbor (again comparing like for like). When the Japanese attacked the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, 3,581 military personnel and 108 civilians were either killed or injured. Again, this pales in comparison to the number of civilians killed or injured during the 9/11 attacks.

My list of precedents for the Patriot Act and government wiretapping of American citizens would include the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which allowed the federal government to close newspapers and deport foreigners during the "quasi-war" with France; the denial of habeas corpus during the Civil War, which permitted the pre-emptive arrest of suspected Southern sympathizers; the Red Scare of 1919, which emboldened the attorney general to round up leftist critics in the wake of the Russian Revolution; the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, which was justified on the grounds that their ancestry made them potential threats to national security; the McCarthy scare of the early 1950's, which used cold war anxieties to pursue a witch hunt against putative Communists in government, universities and the film industry.
In retrospect, none of these domestic responses to perceived national security threats looks justifiable. Every history textbook I know describes them as lamentable, excessive, even embarrassing. Some very distinguished American presidents, including John Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, succumbed to quite genuine and widespread popular fears.

Lamentable, yes. Excessive, maybe. Embarassing....would you really consider protecting the lives of innocent civilians to be embarassing?

There is an old saying, perhaps Professor Ellis has heard it once or twice before....he who refuses to learn from history is doomed to repeat it. While the good Professor may think that we should "evolve" from the past, once thing is certain. There are those who are always going to try to subjugate others. Negotiations will not work with these people. They do not play by the rules so we have to "stoop" to their level. It is a matter of survival for us and our children.

Veto Alito

Thus saith the inmates running the Democratic asylum. John Kerry makes a call for a filibuster from the slopes of Davos (and they say Alito is out of touch with Mainstreet America?) and then posts about it in his Daily KOS Diary (H/T Residual Forces). Not to be outdone, Senator Ted Kennedy has started his own Kos Diary (HT Michelle Malkin ). Minnesota DFLers, posting on Democratic Underground (link not working) are urging Senator Dayton to support Senator Kerry's filibuster (H/T SD63 blog). Even Mother Sheehan has gotten into the act - threatening to run against Senator Diane Feinstein in the primaries if she does not support the filibuster drive (she did this while traveling in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez...how does she do it?).

Whether it is stepping away from the filibuster or Rep. John Murtha, Democrats who face the reality of running for re-election in a red or purple state are being hammered by the lefty blogs (who think that they are running the show just because "their man" is DNC Chair). However...

"The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left."

Good luck there Steve. The Kos Kidz are already lining up to take pot shots at you and anyone else in the DNC if you are not kow-towing to their demands.

Don't get complacent Republicans. Don't fall into the trap of running "against" the fever swamp on the left. You will never get elected (or re-elected) running against something (just ask John Kerry or Al Gore in a couple of years). You have to show the voters what you stand FOR! Just because the Dems are in turmoil is no reason for you to sit back and assume you will win. You still need to show the voters why you are a preferable alternative to whatever the fever swamp offers.

Ceding away our sovereignty - with the help of the left

I found this in today's "paper of record". The author was the US Ambassador (Clinton appointee) to France from 1997 to 2001. He feels that it would raise our stock with Europe if we were to completely do away with the death penalty.

"Outlawed by every member of the European Union, the death penalty was, and is, viewed in Europe as a throwback to the Middle Ages. When we require European support on security issues — Iran's nuclear program; the war in Iraq; North Korea's bomb; relations with China and Russia; the Middle East peace process — our job is made more difficult by the intensity of popular opposition in Europe to our policy."

Why is it when Europe wants us to bail them out of a jam (usually of their own making but I digress) they have to tie strings to our help? They wanted us to stay out of the negotiations with Iran and we did and now that Iran has gone nuclear it is all of a sudden our problem? I fully realize that, like it or not, we live in a "global community" but the global community will not guarantee our rights and as soon as we start running our country based on what "Europe wants" our sovereignty is gone!

The market, GM and Viagra

Seems President Bush is reluctant to bail out the ailing US auto industry. Good. He says that he wants the markets to work. Good again. Both speak well to limited government and the Constitutional limits placed on the Presidency (the vaunted Article 2 you hear about concerns the President and the limitations of his office). It also re-enforces the 10th Amendment (Amendment X for all you who wish to know).
I just would like to know where this bail out concern was when he proposed and signed the horrendous Medicare Prescription Drug Act. No market forces there. And only about 2MM seniors may ever have need of it as nearly 80% of all seniors are covered by a private insurance that they are also happy with.
And yet , Bush says that he is willing to re-train the auto workers- despite mountains of evidence that government training programs don't work and never have. Never mind that they are also illegal under that same pesky 10th Amendment.

Just WHO is for the "little guy"?

All during the Alito hearings, we kept hearing (and are still hearing today in the open Senate remarks), how Judge Alito is not acceptable as a Supreme Court Justice because he consistently rules “against the little guy” or that he only rules “for the administration”. However, 2 stories today seem to show that these accusations are being thrown at the “wrong side”.

First story is from my hometown of Chicago. The Democratic Mayor and City Council decided that it was best for the “little guy” to ban Wal-Mart from building in the economically struggling Chatham neighborhood. Alderman Howard Brookins was pushing to get the project built in his neighborhood, where the estimated $3m in annual sales taxes (at this one store) could do mountains of good for his ward.

“"I always tell people I'm not for Wal-Mart, but I am for that project coming into the city and to my ward. We can't beat them,"

Eighteen months ago, Ald. Brookins negotiated with Wal-Mart to get them to build on the abandoned Ryerson Steel Plant. However, because the City turned down Wal-Mart’s application, they built in Evergreen Park, one block outside of the city of Chicago. Now Evergreen Park is getting the tax dollars, the 325 jobs (a vast majority of the 25,000 job applicants had City of Chicago addresses) and $35,000 in corporate donations to the local hospital, library and other village entities.

The second was this WSJ story which recounts Wal-Mart’s reaction to the new Maryland law that requires all businesses that employ over 10,000 people to spend 8% of their total profits on health care.

“Unfortunately, in Somerset, the new law looks more like a body blow than a "swipe." The rural county is Maryland's poorest, with per capita personal income 46% below the state average and a poverty rate 130% above it. Somerset's enduring problem is weak labor demand that greatly limits its 25,250 residents' economic opportunities.”

Somerset County Maryland was going to get 800 jobs from a planned Wal-Mart distribution center. Since the “Fair Share Health Care Act” went into effect, Wal-Mary has pulled back from the proposal to build that distribution center. The possible effects of the distribution center on the local Somerset economy are staggering:

“• The center's 800 employees would have created an additional 282 jobs among "upstream" suppliers and "downstream" retailers and service establishments; all told, the center would have boosted county employment by 14% and private-sector employment by 20%.
• Total annual employee compensation in Somerset would have risen by $46.5 million, or 19%.
• Annual output (or "gross county product") would have risen by $128.3 million, or 19%.
• State and local tax receipts would have increased by $19.2 million annually; this would include $8.5 million in property taxes, $5.6 million in sales taxes, and $1.4 million in personal income taxes.”

So you tell me…..just who is “for the little guy”? Judging by the stories above, it is certainly not the big city Democrats. The only ones these folks are looking out for are themselves and their big union friends.

The problem with exit polling

In 2000, exit polls showed that Al Gore won Florida. When the counting was done, George Bush won. Last night, when we went to bed, the stories were "Exit polls show Fatah winning, but Hamas picking up seats" and yet when the counting was done, Hamas had won resoundingly!

When is the legacy media going to give up it's reliance on "exit polling"? That kind of polling is unreliable AT BEST! The more that the legacy media relies on exit polling, the more people are going to quit paying attention to the legacy media. It's really that simple.

What ever happened to "Free Speech"?

Three things happened in the last week that makes me realize that free speech is history. The first is this out of California. Now much has been said about this story, including this entry over at Shot In The Dark. The fact that McCarthyistic professors can, with a straight face, accuse someone else of McCarthyism (especially when said professors have a history of flunking students who dare to question the professors leftists views) is the highest of high irony. The fact that the furor that they have raised has caused the alumni organization to withdraw their offer and the non-chalance of the reporting of this leads one to realize that not only is free speech dead on our college campus' but that it is accepted as normal.

Secondly, was this editorial out of the NY Times. There is great wailing and gnashing of teeth over the fact that the Supreme Court, in a rare moment of clarity, ruled that portions of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform law was wrong.

If the courts create a big "grass-roots lobbying" loophole, it will free corporations and special interests to run phony "issue ads" that are actually a form of unregulated campaign contribution. That is not what Congress wanted when it passed McCain-Feingold, and it is not what the public wants today.

"Phony issue ads"??? Oh you mean like those dastardly Swift Boat Vets that banded together with their own time and money to make ads that were critical of John Kerry's leadership abilities????? Make no bones about it people, the only people that the NY Times wants free speech for (especially in the last 60 days before an election) is themselves! They certainly do not want "we the people" to have it! The Wall Street Journal hit the nail on the head in this editorial today when it spoke of McCain Feingold's "unprecedented restrictions" being an assault on the free exchange of ideas!

Then there is this. Google announces, with great fanfare, that they are going to be offering censored services in Communist China. The same communist China that recently closed down a newspaper that was "critical" of the current regime. The same Communist China that sent a reporter to jail for over reporting an outbreak of dengue fever in a remote province!

"Li Changqing reported for U.S.-based news portal Boxun, which is blocked in China, that more than 100 people were infected with the mosquito-borne disease. Authorities in the provincial capital Fuzhou kept silent for one month before announcing 94 cases."

That's worthy of jail time????? Well then look out NY Times and Strib staffs. The Bush Administration is coming for you next. What's that you say? We have rights in this country???? Not according to the fever swamp. According to the Democratic Party, President Bush is the second coming of Hitler and Stalin and "you KNOW what I'm talking about....."

There is a serious point to all of this. Goggle is "self-censoring" in order to get into China and yet they are refusing to work with the US goverment in it's search for terrorists using their sites. I have nothing wrong with them choosing to self-censor in order to gain 4 billion customers mind you (it's the market after all) but if they are going to willingly work with one government, the time is going to come when that cooperation with the governments is not going to be expected, it will be mandated! And that is going to be the day when people will finally realize that they squandered away their rights to free speech!

1+1=uh, depends

I remember a quote some years ago from Tom Bernard on KQRS when he said "I'd like to once see an editorial in the Star Tribune that I couldn't have predicted." I find that all I need to do is peruse the first line in the online edition of Prairie Pravda and know what the entire editorial is about. And soon to be former Senator Mark Dayton isn't about to disappoint me either with his recent submission that shows that we don't waste enough money on one of Karl Marx's points from his Communist Manifesto, the complete control by government of education-Hail the Young Pioneers!
I always find that the left wingers and their acolytes believe and take as gospel two erroneous assumptions: 1. That government education will be or is effective 2. That the only reason that government education is not effective is because we don't spend enough money on government education (see my three points below).
Lefties in their arguments always go from point A to point J to point Z with no stops in between. And call that a cohesive logical argument.
In constant dollars we spend twice what we were spending 20 years ago. Government schools are way behind private schools and home schools in results. And spend multiple times more money for those failed results. And yet, we as a nation are woefully behind many smaller industrialized nations. (The table below shows math rankings from a study highlighted in an article a year ago in USA Today . The article correctly points out that math is a critical component of education and critical comparative indicator in education):

Finland . . . . . . . . 544
S. Korea . . . . . . .. 542
Netherlands . . . . . 538
Japan . . . . . . . .... 534
Canada . . . . . . . . 532
Belgium . . . . . . . . 529
Switzerland . . . . .. 527
Australia . . . . . . . 524
New Zealand . . . . 523
Czech Republic .. 516
Iceland . . . . . . . .. 515
Denmark . . . . . . . 514
France . . . . . . ... . 511
Sweden . . . . . . . . 509
Austria . . . . . . . .. 506
Germany . . . . . . 503
Ireland . . . . . . . .. 503
Slovak Republic . 498
Norway . . . . . . . 495
Luxembourg . .. . 493
Poland . . . . . . . . 490
Hungary . . . . . ... 490
Spain . . . . . . .. .. 485
United States ..... 483
Portugal . . . . . ... 466
Italy . . . . . . . ..... 466
Greece . . . . . .. . 445
Turkey . . . . . . . . 423
Mexico . . . . . .. . 385

And Dayton's solution? Throw more money at a problem where more money has shown not to be effective.
But, as Dr. Thomas Sowell points out in his book "The Anointed" that lefties (The Anointed) will persist in failed or even disastrously tragic programs despite moutains of evidence of the disaster and failures. An excellent review of the book is found here. (I'll write on this review in a subsequent entry).
And how do the proletariat feel about government education? Read one man's musings .
Remember, for a lefty, any tax cut or any spending cut or even cut in the rate of spending is too much. And any tax increase or spending increase is never enough.
And also remember, the ONLY reasons put forth for the failures of any and all government programs:
1. Not enough time has been allowed for the program(s) to work.
2. Not enough money has been spent.
3. The right people either haven't been in charge, and/or been allowed to fine tune the program.
And the cry of the left? "Ego sentio ergo rectus" (I feel therefore I'm right.)

The Star Tribune, to it's great credit, printed a letter to the editor that just spanked the Dems and their race-baiting of the last two weeks.

CLINTON'S COMMENT
History says differently
I find laughable Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's comment that she feels the Republican-controlled Congress is run like a plantation (Star Tribune, Jan. 17).
The Republican Party was established a few years before the Civil War with one purpose -- to end slavery. Many Democrats who strongly opposed slavery joined this new party.
When Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, was elected, Southern Democrats realized that this was the beginning of the end of slavery and seceded from the Union so they could continue enslaving African-Americans. The Civil War followed.
Now fast-forward to today. While more than 90 percent of African-Americans vote Democratic, they have little to show for it. They are being tossed bones.
It seems to me that slavery is still alive and well. The new plantation is the federal government, and the plantation owners are the Democratic Party.
Pxx Dxxxxxxx, Pxxxx Lxxxx

WOW - what more can I say - other than "well said neighbor...well said!"

An Honest Leftist speaks up!

This op-ed from the LA Times has many folks up in arms today. Hugh Hewitt, specifically, is apoplectic over it, but then again, it doesn't take much out of the Times to set Hugh off. Many people in my political groups are expressing their "outrage".

"I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas. "

That is the part that has fueled the outrage. However, hidden a couple of paragraphs later there is a refreshing bit of intellectual honesty that should not be ignored:

"But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward."

OH HAPPY DAY!!!! An honest leftist! Many soldiers, sailors and marines have said the same. Eagan's own Col. Joe Repya was on one of the KTLK programs this morning and he repeated "the troops will tell you that if you do not support the mission, they do not feel that you are supporting those of us carrying OUT the mission!" Friends of mine who have returned from "the big sandbox" have said the same thing, time and time again!

"I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel. (ED - I have no idea what the heck he was thinking with this analogy - it makes no sense!)
But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam. (ED - Well someone finally figured this out)
And sometimes, for reasons I don't understand, you get to just hang out in Germany. (ED here's a hint bucco.....it's because they are NEEDED there...) "

Give Mr. Stein credit - he faced the lion, by going on Hewitt's program this evening (transcript here). Realize though that you are talking about a 30 something who has never interacted with anyone serving in Iraq. He does not know the military mindset, he does not appreciate the military mindset. If you must send your protests to the LA Times, you should at least thank Mr. Stein for being honest and pressure him to get more honesty out of his fellow leftists. Maybe once they finally start being honest about their supposed "support" of the troops, then this will be a much redder country!

Heroes, giants, common men

On Sunday I met with Captain Ed and his wife for lunch. I had invited Ed and Marcia to meet with Herb Suerth. Mr. Suerth is the President of E Company, (of 2nd Battalion, 506th PIR (Parachute Infantry Regiment) 101st Airborne (The Screaming Eagles)). E Company is also known as "The Band of Brothers" from the Steven Ambrose book and HBO mini-series.
Mr. Suerth joined E Company just before they were dispatched to Bastogne in the Ardennes Offensive (called the Battle of the Bulge)-as Mr. Suerth said "sort of a bad place to come in." And Mr. Suerth was badly wounded in Bastogne when an 88 shell exploded nearby, with a piece of shrapnel penetrating and shattering both femurs. Mr. Suerth was subsequently hospitalized for 18 months.
What prompted this Sunday lunch was an idea I had almost two years ago. I had read "Band of Brothers" and was looking forward to seeing the mini-series on the History Channel for the 60th Anniversary of D-Day. After the series I was doing an internet search on Major Winters and came across a site that was dedicated to getting Maj. Winters the Medal of Honor that he was cited for. On D-Day he led a critically important mission to take out what were thought to be a few German 88mm cannons. It turned out that there were four 105mm howitzers raining down deadly accurate fire on Utah beach. Major (then Lieutenant) Winters lead 17 men (basically a large squad) against the heavily fortified position (at least company strength of 90 crack German troops and at least two of the most feared guns in the German arsenal, the MG42) and took out all four of these deadly accurate howitzers.
Unfortunately,in the citation for the MOH, Col. Sink (regiment commander who wrote the citation for Lt. Winter's MOH) ran into a top level decision that has military bureaucracy written all over it: the decision to ration the MOH to only one per division for the Normandy Campaign,
Well, this site had letters from Stephen Ambrose and C.Carwood Lipton supporting the correction of this injustice to Maj. Winters. I found and called the number for Mr. Lipton and talked to his widow. Mrs. Lipton gave me Mr. Suerth's name. And so I started talking to Mr. Suerth. I found that the effort in 2003 was ultimately unsuccessful. But, being quarter Swede I'm persistent (read stubborn). And it occurred to me that there may be a better way.
I asked my friend John Hunt at AM1280 The Patriot what we might be able to do. He suggested that I start with the bloggers.
I had met Captain Ed and the First Mate at a Patriot function and so contacted him about the possibility of a project to honor a WWII veteran. As a blogger of the first rank, Ed had and has the reach that I didn't. We met for lunch a few months back. I explained the project and much to his credit Captain Ed was on board immediately. And this lead to Mr. Suerth, Captain Ed, the First Mate and I meeting for lunch.
Captain Ed recorded the interview and wrote a wonderful review of it here. And he's done a much better job than I have in capturing Mr. Suerth's personality, his humor, his kind directness and his humility.
Captain Ed and I will be updating you all as we progress with the campaign to get Major Winter's his MOH. And we'll also be asking all of you to become involved with the effort

The Savage Republican

Local Attractions

Favorite Links

Previous Posts

Archives

Saturday, January 28, 2006