Macho Nachos

It's Bush's Fault!

Thomas takes a look at the insane desire of the left to blame everything that ever might happen in the world on Bush. Including hurricanes. And the existence of masoleums. And the construction of towns below sea level - before he was born. The whole post is beautiful, but one part in particular hit home in a special way:

This is obscene. It's actually worse than obscene, because not all of those bodies floating down there right now are from the mausoleums. How distorted is our political discourse -- excuse me, their political discourse -- that they start pointing fingers before the bodies are in the damned ground? We haven't even buried the dead yet, and they're trying to pin the untold lives and livelihoods lost on an opponent for political gain. I'd say something about shame, but the Left long ago forgot that.

Gee, guys, if you have the courage of your convictions, join the National Guard. They could use a few, ahem, bodies right now. Or at least act out your more lurid dreams and head down to New Orleans or Gulfport. Grab a body floating by. Reporters are thick on the ground -- scream at Bush and shake the body in front of the camera to good effect.

*wiping eyes* It's just... so... beautiful!

A National Object Lesson in Tennessee

Those of us who primarily vote Republican generally do so for a variety of reasons, each of them particular to our own favorite central Republican value. For those of us who consider ourselves to be "social conservatives," we are animated in large part by anger and frustration at the perceived moral direction of the country. For me, I am especially motivated to see the wholesale slaughter of the unborn in this country end.

What is lamentable and frustrating about the entire situation is that the national Republican party is throwing away our best chance to take out our anger on the left in the only way that matters: through policy. How is this happening? We turn to the state of Tennessee for answers.

The state of Tennessee, as some of you may know, has no state income tax. We are, according to various estimates, one of the lowest taxed states in the union. This is something that virtually no one who lives here is bothered by, and in fact is a significant motivating factor for in-state residence, especially given that many of our metropolitan areas border closely on other states (Memphis borders Arkansas and Mississippi, Nashville has moderate extension into southern Kentucky, and the tri-cities area in Eastern Tennessee has significant spillover into Virginia).

During the early 90s, when the push for nationalized healthcare a la Hillary was in full swing, then-Governor Ned Ray McWherter began to push for a Medicaid expansion program called TennCare, which conformed roughly to Hillary's vision of how healthcare in this country should run. To make a very long story short - the program almost instantly became the kind of fiscal disaster that scared folks away from nationalizing the same system.

Enter "Republican" governor Don Sundquist onto the scene. When TennCare bloated to the point that it was nearing 40% of the total cost of the Tennessee budget, Sundquist responded by pushing for an income tax. The ensuing political battle lasted two years, and provoked the first and only Republican mass protests I've ever seen - every time word leaked out that the legislature was considering an income tax measure, thousands of people would leave their jobs, drive downtown and completely block traffic around the capitol. Sundquist's approval numbers dipped into the 20s during this farce, and when his term expired in 2002, the Republican party in Tennessee was completely unable to launch an effective gubernatorial campaign, and what should have been a safely red gubernatorial seat instead turned into a comparatively easy win for Democrat Phil Bredesen.

Bredesen ran on a "no income tax" platform, and promised further that if the budget got too tight, he'd axe the rolls of TennCare. Surprisingly, when things got tight, Bredesen did just that. Despite hysterical shrieks and shrills from the extreme members of his own party, Bredesen announced in late 2004 that he was dissolving TennCare altogether, in order to save the state's budget without an income tax (subsequently, in a compromise maneuver, some of the sickest and poorest TennCare enrollees have been allowed to stay on the rolls). This simple act of keeping a promise to be responsible with the money of others has made Bredesen a virtually bulletproof candidate for re-election in 2006.

The TennCare debacle will likely have a trickle-down effect to the rest of Tennessee. Bredesen's credibility as a fiscally conservative Democrat, coupled with the fiscal irresponsibility of the Senate Republicans (of which outgoing Bill Frist was the figurehead) will likely have a coattails effect on Senatorial candidate Harold Ford, Jr. Ford Jr. is NOT a moderate, but he plays one well on television. Ford Jr. never met a piece of pork he didn't like, but he's smart, politically, and he knows enough to talk like a pork hawk, and to attach himself as often as possible to Bredesen during this run. Because Ford Jr. is much better at sounding moderate than your average Democrat - Bredesen can afford to maintain this symbiosis without a serious risk to his own reputation. And thus, a Senate seat that should be safely red has now become an absolute toss-up, with a very real risk of Republican loss.

Now here is the point that is applicable to myself, and social conservatives like me. We all have things and causes that are nearest and dearest to our heart. For me, it's the pro-life cause. For others, it might be other things. The political reality that we face in a representative democracy is that, in order to see those causes converted into policy, it is necessary to see like-minded folks elected into public office. Increasingly (and lamentably) for social conservatives, those like-minded folks exclusively wear GOP hats. It's natural for us, then, in seeking the advancement of the GOP, to make the assumption that our causes are the causes that will motivate others to vote for my party. The sad truth, for social conservatives, is that that's not often the case.

The reality is that, however popular certain socially conservative causes might be, there are NO causes more popular with average voters than fiscally conservative ones. People, essentially, want the government to do two things: 1) Keep them safe, and 2) Be responsible with their money. The other causes that motivate those of us standing on the far sides of The Big Ditch™ represent so much background noise for the average American who wants nothing more than to go to work in safety every day, and take home a bigger portion of his paycheck when that working day is done. And, a politician who will actually deliver in those two areas will win the middle in a landslide every time.

That used to be the grand vision of the GOP. It was that vision that carried us to victory in 1994. In 2004, we won on the first half of that vision - and I'm afraid that a certain hubris has gripped us whereby we believe that somehow that will be enough forever and always. However, it's becoming clear that, going forward, emphasizing number one to the detriment of number two just ain't enough. There are still Democrats who exist (although their number is growing smaller) who are smart enough, to simply refuse to discuss social issues in favor of fiscal and security issues. Bredesen is one of these. During a legal flap a few years ago over some Tennessee license plates that said "Choose Life," in which all the state Republicans tried to make hay over the issue (license plates!) - Bredesen's sole comment on the issue was (paraphrased), "politicians who have to run on this kind of non-issue usually do so because they haven't the faintest idea of how to actually govern." Ouch. I wake up in cold sweats at night at the prospect of a Napolitano/Bredesen ticket in '08, because in the current political climate, that ticket wins over 40 states over any ticket involving Sam Brownback.

We get a lot of folks on this site who express frustration and anger at what they perceive as the hijacking of the GOP by the "religious right". A lot of these folks are just mobys, but many of them are sincere in their vision of the party. The problem is that, while their frustration is legitimate, the target of their frustration is grossly misplaced. As a card-carrying member of the "religious right", I'm every bit as frustrated. And it's not because the party has been hijacked by Pat Robertson, because it hasn't.

The problem is that the party has been hijacked by our own elected representatives, many of whom seem to have forgotten that small government is a winning electoral strategy - and more imporatantly, a core Republican principle.

It's time to wake these dolts up, by whatever means necessary. How many of us who are here today were motivated by the force and the excitement of the 1994 movement - who were ecstatic that the promise of fiscal responsibility got a lot of great socially conservative folks elected? How much more infinitely disappointing it is that once those same folks got in power, they deceived themselves into believing that the citizenry didn't really mean they didn't like pork - they meant that they didn't like Democrat pork. The arrogance and buffoonery of this attitude is stunning, and if it is not checked, it will lose us elections - and not just the ones that are toss-ups, but the ones that should be safe, as well. Like the U. S. Senate seat in Tennessee, for instance.

It's time for social conservatives to work the grassroots of fiscal conservatism again. Our causes are our causes, and it's right for us to hold our policians accountable for betraying them. But, in our euphoria over the victory of 2004, if we press our agenda to the exclusion of pressing the agenda that got these politicians in office in the first place, we may find that our victory is very short-lived indeed.

Levee Breaks, New Orleans Devastated

CNN reports:

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- As the death toll from Hurricane Katrina reached at least 65, a levee holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain sustained a breach two blocks long overnight in the Lakefront area of New Orleans.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin confirmed the breach in a local TV interview. City fire officials said the break was about 200 feet long in the levee surrounding the 17th Street Canal.

"My heart is heavy tonight," Nagin said in the interview on WWL-TV. "I don't have any good news to share.

"The city of New Orleans is in a state of devastation. We probably have 80 percent of our city underwater. With some sections of our city, the water is as deep as 20 feet."

"It's dumping all the lake water in Orleans Parish," she said. "It's essentially running down Canal Street. We have whitecaps on Canal Street.

"We now are completely surrounded by 6 feet of water and are about to get on the phone with Federal Emergency Management Agency to start talking about evacuation plans," Caraway said.

"The water is rising so fast, I can't even begin to describe how fast it is rising."

She did not know whether any pumps had been turned on to pump the water but said, "They're not going to be able to compete with Lake Pontchartrain."

Michelle Malkin has more, as does Josh Trevino - who's done some work with the USACE before and has some links to levee maps and heights. What is significant about this, that I haven't seen anyone comment upon yet, is that the Mississippi river has actually been artificially held out of its natural channel by the USACE for years now. If this flooding causes it to revert to that natural channel, the devastation will be total - and beyond that, virtually irreversible - to not only New Orleans but numerous towns and hamlets upstream.

More updates as they become available today.

Frisking the Complaint

As most of you know by now, there is quite a scandal brewing involving the lefty talk radio network known as Air America, in which the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club of New York is accused of improperly "loaning" the network almost $900,000 which was never repaid. From the very beginning of this story, Michelle Malkin and Brian Maloney have been breaking the news at it happens. At one point, I followed this story down every alley and around every corner - a summary of my work thus far can be found here.

Unfortunately, then, school started again, sucking away my every free moment and most of the mental energy required to post quality material. However, with some of the recent revelations about another lawsuit that Air America is facing, I have decided to frisk through the complaint that Multicultural Radio Broadcasting (MRB) filed against the principal owners of Air America and see what's what. I hope that, as Pejman has opportunity, he will contribute his own thoughts to mine.

Now, for those who are unfamiliar with the civil procedure system, the complaint in a lawsuit is really just the first shot fired in what is sometimes a very long battle. According to the Federal Rules of Procedure, a lawsuit has to begin with a complaint, which has to provide a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." The FRCP even has a "form" which shows how ridiculously simple these complaints are required to be (it's about three sentences long). So, legally, all you are trying to do with your complaint is serve notice that the party you are suing is getting sued, and why.

You're really not even required to make your claims logically consistent, or exclusive to one line of argument, so frequently lawyers will just throw a whole bunch of crap into their complaints and throw it all against the wall in the hopes that at least some of it will stick. Your basic goal, from a legal standpoint, is that you want to state some facts that, if true, would entitle you to legal relief - because if you don't, your complaint might get dismissed.

However, complaints also serve a more strategic value - which is that, if you are trying to get a settlement, you might also load your complaint with a bunch of facts that prove that your case is, indeed, legitimate, and that prove that you have some pretty good knowledge that the defendant is screwed, so that when the defendant's lawyers read through the complaint, they will go to the defendant and ask, "Are these things true? Because if they are, we need to settle." I get the sense from this complaint that, in alleging fraudulent conveyance, they are trying to impress the defendants with their knowledge of all the shady financial deals that they have been involved in.

Paragraphs 1-25 as discussed here involve jurisdiction. The plaintiffs (for reasons, at this point, known only to them) have filed this suit in state court, rather than federal. From what I can see from their complaint, diversity jurisdiction would certainly apply, and they could potentially have filed in federal. However, for (I presume) strategic reasons, they have filed in state court, and thus are establishing the grounds for the court to hear this case, as per paragraphs 23 and 24.

Paragraphs 26-46 outline the facts of the existence of the debt itself. When Air America (Radio Free America) began broadcasting, they apparently leased airtime on two of MRB's stations in Chicago and Los Angeles. The complaint contains a lot of information about the finances of Air America, through which MRB is seeking to prove that Air America was insolvent - that they knew that they were insolvent, and yet they continued to accrue debt they knew they could not pay. You might guess that legally, this is a big no-no. Again, if you as an individual intentionally accrue a bunch of debt with the full knowledge that you intend to file bankruptcy in the near future, the court will generally exempt all that debt from your bankruptcy settlement and force you to pay your creditors in full. I'm not sure because I'm utterly unfamiliar with corporate law, but I'd imagine the same principle applies to corporations.

A couple of the allegations here are damning in the sense that they are ridiculously easy to prove, and quite potentially felonious. For instance, from paragraphs 39-40:

<blockquote>After receiving written notices of default from Multicultural and an opportunity to cure, Radio Free America tendered a $156,000 check in payment of amounts owed under the Chicago agreement. That check was returned for insufficient funds. Radio Free America executives later candidly admitted that they had stopped payment on the check.</blockquote>

Whoops. Aside from the considerations this has for the civil complaint at hand, this activity is felonious - if it can be proved that 1) they knew, in the first place, that the check would not clear and 2) they intended for MRB to rely on the payment of this check to their detriment. 2) is virtually a given in this circumstance - if you write a check to someone for $156,000 - anyone, even a large corporation, will be induced to reliance. Especially given that the check was issued in an attempt to extend broadcasting of Air America over MRB's airwaves, thereby creating detriment from the loss of income they might have received from having, you know, someone who was able to pay leasing their airwaves. So, the contractual issue, to me, is pretty clear. If it is also clear that they knew in the first place that the funds were insufficient, a criminal case could also be forthcoming for fraud and other issues.

Following this, MRB reached settlement with Air America over the continued usage of their airwaves - part of which was the payment of this $156,000. Given that this payment was never received (as MRB alleges), the settlement was never consummated.

The really damaging information in this complaint, however, is in paragraphs 47 through 84 - these are the paragraphs establishing "fraudulent conveyance" - alleging that Air America engaged in a shell transfer of their assets from the company Progress Media to the new corporation Piquant LLC, composed of pretty much the same investors as those from Progress Media. What is very interesting to me is all the information about David Goodfriend, and what he is alleged to have known and informed the defendants of. It seems to me, from reading this complaint, that it's very likely that Mr. Goodfriend sat down at some point and had a chat with some of the lawyers of MRB. If this case goes to trial, and Goodfriend testifies to the truthfulness of half of what is alleged in this complaint - and further that he took these repeated and extreme steps to warn the good folks at Air America that what they were doing was fraudulent and illegal, this could very well become the kind of case in which a message verdict is sent.

And, in the final straw, 85-89 point out that MRB has still not been paid the judgment in a court case that they've already won against these folks.

Now, here is my final conclusion to all of this (fully realizing that I am coming to this party really late by blogging standards). As I said at the beginning of this post, complaints often times have a bunch of stuff that lawyers throw in there in hopes that some of it will eventually stick at the trial, so it's difficult to put much stock in the truthfulness of a complaint - however, given the past behavior of the Drobnys (et al.) thus far in this case, we have no reason whatsoever to disbelieve that any of the allegations contained herein are not true. Further, given the incredible specificity and falsifiability of these allegations, some of which are clearly scandalous in nature (if untrue), it seems unlikely that a lawyer includes them without some kind of verifiable evidence, at the risk of running afoul of FRCP Rule 11 (Lawyer sanctions). I think that the bounced check allegation in particular is pretty cut and dried.

The complaint in question is stamped May 24, 2005. According to various rules that apply based upon how you are finally served with the complaint, you generally have either 20, 60, or 90 days to respond to a complaint with either a response or any number of motions to dismiss/request clarifications. All of those deadlines have passed. Methinks that its time for this blogger to put in a call to the New York County court and see what's what when it comes to this lawsuit. More information as it becomes available.

Am I Still Overreacting?

When the Washington Post first started covering John Roberts, and I accused the paper of attempting to slime John Roberts as a racist, a lot of folks seemed to think that I was overreacting and/or that my media bias detector was picking up non-existent signals. It appears, however, with the release of the newest WaPo hit piece on Roberts, that the problem is that I wasn't being paranoid enough. In an article entitled, "In Article, Roberts's Pen Appeared to Dip South," the Post breathelessly informs us that:

When John G. Roberts Jr. prepared to ghostwrite an article for President Ronald Reagan a little over two decades ago, his pen took a Civil War reenactment detour.

A Civil War reenactment detour? A pen can do this? Luckily, the Post tells us how!

The article, which was to appear in the scholarly National Forum journal, was called "The Presidency: Roles and Responsibilities." Roberts was writing by hand a section on how the congressional appropriations process had evolved.

A fastidious editor of other people's copy as well as his own, Roberts began with the words "Until about the time of the Civil War." Then, the Indiana native scratched out the words "Civil War" and replaced them with "War Between the States."

In case you were wondering - no, there is nothing else in the article that would indicate that Roberts's pen "dipped South" or "took a Civil War reenactment detour." That's it. He crossed out "Civil War", and replaced it with "War Between the States." Clearly, the man longs for the return of slavery, or at the very least, the antebellum days.

While it is true that the Civil War is also known as the War Between the States, the Encyclopedia Americana notes that the term is used mainly by southerners.

John M. Coski, the historian and library director of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, said the term was commonplace in the South until the 1960s or early 1970s. He said some people use "War Between the States" out of habit, others think it quaint or iconoclastic, and still others use it because they believe the Confederacy was right to secede.

"You can't always draw the inference that someone who uses the term does so with an ideological intent, but at the same time you can't be blind to the fact that some people do," Coski said.

Somebody stop me, I don't have enough spare hair to be ripping mine out the way I currently am. There might potentially be some reasonable case for the WaPo to make if Roberts had  called it "The War of Northern Aggression," or "The War for States' rights." The usage of the term "War Between the States" is nothing more than a historical indication that this particular war was fought along geographical, rather than factional lines.

The article relies, for expertise, on the testimony of history Professor Sam McSeveney of Vanderbilt University. Omitted from the article is the nearly ceaseless paranoid obsession Vanderiblt University often displays with distancing themselves from anything confederate, but I digress. McSeveney's quote is an almost breathtaking smear, and the WaPo was highly irresponsible for reprinting it:

Sam McSeveney, a history professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University who specialized in the Civil War, said that Roberts's choice of words was significant.

"Many people who are sympathetic to the Confederate position are more comfortable with the idea of a 'War Between the States,' " McSeveney explained. "People opposed to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s would undoubtedly be more comfortable with the words he chose."

We are left to wonder, absent Professor McSeveney's bald assertion, what exactly links the words "War between the States" and opposition to the civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s. This is nothing more the Washington Post attempting to throw a thin veneer of legitimacy upon an extremely dubious and unwarranted conclusion. It is a sickening example of two entities (the media and academia) who are generally hostile to things conservative pointing to one another as credible evidence in a sickening display of self-servitude.

Conservatives, however, should take heart. This garbage is really the best that they have - and that indicates at least two things. First, that Roberts will face an easy confirmation, after all - and second, that the mainstream media will continue its freefall from credibility. The only way this could be better is if we could somehow get the Democrats to pick up this garbage and run with it in the confirmation hearings. We assume, however, that they're too smart for that.

Or are they?

A Message for the Readers of the Daou Report

There are times when I wish my humble blog was more well read. Then, there was yesterday. I guess it all depends on the intelligence of the readers you are seeking to attract, as opposed to the intelligence of the readers that I sometimes DO attract.

Recently, Mark Coffey had a similar experience. Never fear, Daou Report readers! If you didn't get a satisfactory response from me, James Lileks has you covered!

Chequer Board

The inestimable Pejman Yousefzadeh has erected a new scoop blog here, which I will contribute to when I have time. Bookmark it in your favorites, Pejman is always worth a read.

Sound the Refrain

Yesterday, I posted my War Weary piece in a number of different places because I felt that it was important to grasp some historical perspective in the face of growing public uneasiness about the war, and most especially, a growing belief that complete and immediate withdrawal from Iraq is the right solution. The post, in its various locations, was picked up by a number of liberal hotspots and drew a lot of "interesting" commentary that I'll get to later.

The line, divorced from the rest of the post, that seemed to really get liberals frothing was when I said that the Iraq war was "barely a war." Some folks have been interested to know whether I will retract that statement. The answer is no. Of course, all war is war, and all those who fight in war on behalf of their country are performing a brave service. But, in the context of comparing the Iraq war to other conflicts in which America has been involved, specifically World War II and Vietnam, the inescapable point of history is that in contrast to most major American conflicts, the Iraq war has indeed been small in terms of the loss of American lives. Infinitesimally small, in fact.

It has highlighted one of the main points that I brought up in my original post - namely, that:

It has become a point of political extremism these days to point out the rather obvious fact that, in the historical scale of warfare, the casualties we have sustained in the Iraq war have been small.

And that doing so would likely lead to the abandonment of historical perspective in a "sea of shrieking hysteria." Well, I think it's safe to cross out "likely", because that has, in fact, happened. It's natural, of course, to think of the pain that one is currently suffering as the worst that has ever been suffered, but history has an inconvenient tendency to render that notion utterly false in a rather large hurry. An objective historical perspective allows us to realize that, as the history of warfare goes, for a large number of different reasons, the Iraq war has been remarkably sanitary by comparison to virtually any other conflict. And, further, that it is difficult to imagine the current American public being able to stomach the sight of thousands of drafted young men coming home in body bags daily to protect the far-off continent of Europe from a madman aggressor, when they are seemingly unable to stomach the loss of 1,800+ volunteer soldiers for a similar cause over a three year time period.

What has been interesting (although not unexpected) to me is the degree to which liberals have completely misunderstood the basic point of "War Weary." If there's one thing that I'm weary of, it is the constant bickering in this country over the last three years over the reasons we went to war in the first place. It seems an unavoidable conclusion to any objective observer that an unbridgable chasm exists at this point between war supporters and war opponents over whether this idea was a "good idea" or "worth it" from the inception. So, fine. For the purposes of this discussion, I'm willing to grant every loony liberal conspiracy that exists, and concede that we went to war so Halliburton could get rich. Wonderful.

The point is: now what?

It's been absolutely appalling to me the degree to which liberals have been willing to stick their heads in the sand about the reality that there are real-world consequences, often measured in loss of life, for not fulfilling your promises in the global policy sphere - and for showing weakness to a determined enemy. Recall that one of the reasons that Osama Bin Laden was emboldened to unleash a string of terrorist attacks against the United States was the military debacle that was "Black Hawk Down," which led him to famously conclude that America was a "paper tiger." Nothing in our response to the Bali bombings, the USS Cole bombings, or any other terrorist attack led him to conclude otherwise - and so he believed that he could strike America with a single bold stroke and fell our resolve, and thusly 9/11 happened. The lesson is that the neighborhood kids don't pester the pit bull because they know there are serious consequences for poking a stick in the eye of a pitbull - they pester the basset hound because he is lazy and easily loses interest.

The reality is that one day soon, China is going to test our resolve when it comes to Taiwan. North Korea is going to launch some "test" missiles at either Japan or South Korea. We are already having to play the brinksmanship game with Iran. As the world's lone superpower, every single crazy despot in the world is watching us with an electron microscope, to see if we can be made to blink. If we say, "Forget it, let's take our ball and go home" now, you can bet that challenges to our interests at home and abroad will immediately become more frequent and more severe, and the world will become an infinitely more dangerous place to live.

The other interesting (although not surprising) non-response to this basic point has been to just call me a "chickenhawk." Having nothing to say in refutation to my point (or, in some cases, plainly lacking the wherewithal to grasp that a point existed or what it was), a number of liberals believed that if they could shout me down personally, that would somehow alleviate the reality of the situation. A sampling of their fare:

There is a recruiting office probably very near to where you are. Or, if you publish your address, I'll look up one for you. I understand that they are having trouble finding new recruits and it appears that you are more than willing to be sent to the middle east. That is, unless you have an excuse of anal cyst or 'other priorities' as other Chicken Hawks have declared.

Further:

I know you don't like fried chicken. That would be cannabalism for you.

No one is asking that you ask others to sacrafice. We are asking YOU to sacrafice by putting you life where your mouth is. Join up if your cause is so noble.

You seem to have no problem seeing others risk their lives ONLY if you are able to hide behind your Dell, dude.

bok bok, coward

Or, my personal favorite was this guy, who wrapped a stupid argument in a lame attempt at cleverness:

Give me a C....

C!!!

Give me an H....

H!!!

Give me an ickenhack!

ickenhawk!!!

What does it spell?

CHICKENHAWK!!!

Truly, I cannot hope to compete with such incisive logic. And the refrain goes on and on and on.

I can, however, lament the disconnect that many (not ALL!) on the left have with a shared responsibility for the good of this country. It's easy for me to point out that this "argument" is not really an argument at all, but rather a passive-aggressive attempt to shame someone into ceasing making an argument because of a perceived moral weakness in the other person. It's further easy for me to point out that the question of my military service is irrelevant to whether I have a legitimate basis for commenting upon the history of warfare and our society's reactions to it. I have a friend who is in the Army, whose job is to repair helicopters. His undergraduate work in college was on American history. Which experience, do you think, he would say was more valuable to his understanding of the question at hand?

What's harder for me to confront is the underlying disconnect between the American left and the shared responsibility we have from partaking in the blessings of this country. This deplorable attitude speaks of a mindset that the problems this country faces are the responsibility of others, and that no state-pursued action should exist unless carried out by its supporters. In what is still the difinitive treatise on this mindset, a wise man once said:

To restate, the argument is premised upon the notion that those who wish for the state to do a thing are obligated to do that thing themselves. In this case, war is the thing in question. Now, war is commonly regarded as the violence reserved for the employ of the state; as undertaken by individuals, it is no longer war, but crime, mayhem, murder, etc. So to begin with, we see that the posited moral impetus for action must be one of the individual specifically within the state. This individual is expected to fulfill a state function by virtue of advocating a specific instance of that function. Here it is war; but what of other state functions? For example, do we expect those who advocate subsidized health care to subsidize it themselves? Do we expect those who wish a road built to build it themselves? There are species of libertarians who advocate precisely this, and even species of antiwar libertarians who would regard this as completely consistent with their demands that war supporters go to war: but for the majority of the antiwar demographic, the logical consequences of this premise directly contradict their preferred philosophy of government.

We may further ask whether it is concurrent that those who do not advocate a particular course of action are obligated to support it. Again, there are a few libertarians who may say so; but it seems doubtful that most American leftists wish to undermine the principle of civilian control of the military, or the military's noninvolvement at any level (however abused that noninvolvement may at points be) in policymaking. We may take the antiwar crowd as being broadly people of sense, and we may assume that people of sense recognize how disastrous allowing the individual soldier or unit to opt out of any given lawful action would be.

We are left, then, with an assumed situation encompassing most in which those who believe that war supporters are morally bound to go to war also believe in certain cases in which non-war-supporters are morally bound to go to war. These positions are inherently contradictory by virtue of the latter conviction, which is based upon a belief in the lawful exercise of the power of the state by means of that state's mechanisms. Those mechanisms cannot in any practical sense wholly encompass the totality of all persons, or merely the totality of all persons wishing for a particular thing to be done. One might argue that the protection of the state, and participation in it, is morally limited to those who are willing to participate in those mechanisms -- for example, by soldiering -- but one is hard-pressed to imagine the average antiwar person advocating the Starship Troopers polity.

I would never, in response to an abortion-rights supporter, suggest that if they supported abortion so much, they should abort their own child, or become an abortion doctor. This kind of rhetoric is illogical and irresponsible, and fosters a greater disconnect in a growing part of the American population that sees no value in participating within the American system to make our country better. Let the refrain end.

War Weary

There are times when I am ashamed of my generation, although not for the reasons that you might assume. I am not naive enough to think that our generation is the first to struggle with difficult moral issues, and to be pulled through the mire of various kinds of depravities. Indeed, when it comes to being morally reprehensible, there is truly "nothing new under the sun."

What often disappoints me about my generation is the shocking lack of willingness that we have to defend ourselves and our culture from threats - and the weak-kneed lack of resolve to see even the most banal conflict through to its conclusion. Nowhere has this become more evident than in the current conflict in Iraq.

It has become a point of political extremism these days to point out the rather obvious fact that, in the historical scale of warfare, the casualties we have sustained in the Iraq war have been small. Infinitesimally small, in fact. Let it not be said that any of us would wish to minimize the lamentable loss of a single human life in warfare, much less approximately 1,800 in the same war. However, our respect for the dead and their sacrifice does not mean that we are obligated to abandon historical perspective in a sea of shrieking hysteria.

The reality is that 1,800 deaths casualties in a span of almost three years (approximately 600 per year, approximately 2 deaths per day) barely qualifies as warfare. Consider that, among a similar representative population in the United States, approximately 80 people will be murdered right here at home. In certain urban areas the number can rise as high as 300 per year or higher. In other words, there are certain areas of this country where innocent civilians are almost as likely to be killed by a flying bullet as our soldiers in Iraq are.

In further comparison to the wars of the past, our casualties in the Iraq war seem even smaller still. In a single day during a single batter (the battle of the Bulge) in World War II, it is estimated that over 5,000 U. S. soldiers died. Throughout the course of World War II, the greatest generation watched as hundreds of thousands of the best and brightest were forcibly drafted into a war to stop a madman who was terrorizing a far away continent, and further as over a hundred thousand of them died over a four year period. Even the widely disparaged Vietnam generation tolerated several years of forced enlistment, and much higher casualty rates without the benefit of an alternative media before becoming utterly war weary.

Our generation, on the other hand, in becoming weary of a war not yet three years old, fought by an army composed entirely of volunteers, in which we are suffering an average of two deaths per day, has demonstrated itself to be the most spineless and weak-kneed generation in recent American history. It is expected, given the way that post-invasion events have unfolded, to find a number of Americans disagreeing with our entrance in the war in the first place. It is unexcusable, on the other hand, to find the growing number of Americans who are now advocating immediate withdrawal, regardless of the future consequences upon the strength of our bargaining posture. This is nothing more than war weariness, and we have not yet earned the right as a generation to be weary of this war.

Part of the issue here, regrettably comes down to our President. It is true we should not have to be handheld through this conflict. However, it is equally true that we have demonstrated that we must have our hands held, if we are willing to stay the course. I have a sense that our generation is ready for more greatness and resolve that it has currently shown. However, we must be dragged, kicking and screaming, if we are to achieve it. The President should realize this. It is not difficult to perceive how many have forgotten the importance of this war, the other reasons besides WMDs that we fought it, and the disastrous consequences of demonstrating to your enemy that you can be defeated by constant irritation. These fears can be allayed by a constant and determined communicator. It is not that this President cannot be that communicator. It is rather that he will not.

The liberals in this country love to berate the President for spending so much time in Crawford, accusing him of taking a five week "vacation." Honest folks know, however, that the job of being President never stops, regardless of where the President is. One of the things that Conservatives like about Bush is that he genuinely seems to dislike Washington, and being there. However, it is time to criticize the President for being in Crawford for so long for an entirely different reason. During this critical juncture in the war, when even prominent members of his own party are publicly defecting over the war, the President should have been using this time taking his message to the American people. We will not lose this war militarily, we will only lose it politically. For the President to ignore this reality and spend five weeks in Crawford while his detractors flail away at his policy and the public at home grows increasingly war weary is tantamount to neglecting his duty in the prosecution of this war. Sometimes, a President who wishes to be perceived as a man of strength and conviction, as the President claims to be, must do things he should not have to do for the sake of the cause he believes in.

I call upon the President to do so now. Remind us now, and remind us often, why this war is worth fighting. And remind us, most importantly of all, even for those who simply will not agree that the war is worth fighting, why immediate withdrawal represents disaster, and will cost more American lives in the long run than staying the course until the conflict is done.

UPDATE: Welcome, readers of the Daou Report! I can always tell when I've been linked by a liberal hotspot because the quality of the commentary around here relentlessly goes up, up, up!

A very few commenters have made some actual arguments (I seem to recall one in particular that talked about an "America as bully" perception, I'll try to deal with that later tonight or tomorrow when I have time), but most have been exactly as relevant to this discussion as the comment, "I like fried chicken!" Most frequently, I am accused of being a chickenhawk, a coward, or by people with enough sense not to actually argue ad hominem without discovering whether the basis for their personal slur has an attack, asked whether I have past military service. Well, given that my post was a point of sociological history as it relates to military action, I must assume that you're attempting to say that I cannot comment upon sociology unless I enlist in the military. In other words, as far as I'm concered, you're responding to the substance of my post by asking me whether or not I like fried chicken (I don't).

To be sure, that's a fascinating question, and one that we could spend all day debating, but being that I spend pretty much all day debating useless questions with folks who will never accept a solid answer (yes, I am a law student), I'll take a pass at doing so on my own blog as well.

Second, a bunch of people are positively puzzled at my "no profanity" rule, so I'll try to explain it using small words. If you use a word that would have gotten your name written on the board in the second grade, I will delete your post. If you continue doing so, I will block your IP, and report you to your ISP for abuse. Now, all of you are more than welcome to think that what I said was profane, and through my largesse I will allow you to call me all sorts of colorful names (principally because it demonstrates the intellectual vapidity of your own position... oops, did I say that out loud?), but you can't, on my blog, use certain words I don't like.

What is the lesson in all of this? Get your own blog, pay for your own bandwidth, and then you can use all the wordy-durds you want to when you're talking about that evil conservative over there at Macho Nachos. I may even visit sometime.

UPDATE: Welcome, readers of Norwegianity! Fear not! I have advice for your fearless author!

But first, a couple of minor points in response to a very entertaining post. First, if the nice fellow who writes for Norwegianity had noticed that my student loan post was encouraging Teri to act like a company, not a bureacracy, he might have reasonably implied that I was taking out a private student loan - but then, implication is a function of logic, which is neither the first nor the last refuge of most liberals. Nevertheless! I will grant the author that my student loan is welfare, if he will grant that all welfare is to be repaid to the government at about %11 APR, with an 8% origination fee. And thus conservative and liberal can agree on a compromise!

Also, a little mouse clicking through some links might have revealed that I covered Justice Sunday II at the behest of RedState.org co-founder Mike Krempasky, who asked me to cover the event since I would be in Nashville that Sunday anyway. A little reading might have led him to realize that I had to borrow the laptop I used at the event. In other words, I've yet to receive a cent for any blogging I've ever done, but I appreciate all the sincere efforts of my liberal friends to drive my hit counter up and remedy that situation!

Now, to the question that the author was so desperate for me to answer:

Dear Macho,

When I was young, my Mother had a job in town but my Dad was a farmer and worked at home. He fixed our noontime meal and did dishes while Mom brought home a paycheck.

Does this mean I’m gay?

Good news, the answer is no! However, given that you thought this question was somehow relevant to anything you read on my blog (especially the interview with Charmaine Yoest), it seems obvious that somewhere along the way something in your upbringing caused your powers of reading comprehension and logic to become horribly stunted and inadequate. My advice to you, as a friednly conservative to a friendly liberal, would be to get yourself some "welfare" (you'll have to pay it back someday, even if you go bankrupt) and see if a local community college can offer you some remedial courses in those two subjects - I don't think the damage has to be permanent!

Regards,

MachoNachos

UPDATE: Dear Lefties,

I shall make the same response en masse here as I have to your ideological brethren at Tacitus. Just because you can flood my comments section with crap doesn't mean that you're each entitled to an individual response, especially when you're all making essentially the same "point". Most of you are simply content to make the point that I am a "chickenhawk", and therefore nothing I have said of a factual basis in this post is worthy of your consideration. Which is absolutely fine, but it does make me wonder why you thought it worth your time to respond with the chickenhawk meme in the first place. Notwithstanding, you may rest assured that your constant assaults on my character have produced some very sincere shrugs. To those who are actually attempting to make points, let me say this:

Never have a group of people demonstrated such a spectacular failure to understand a fairly simple point as most of the left-leaning posters in this thread have done. Perhaps if more of you had bothered to read the entire post, rather than just posting a bunch of knee-jerk talking points after discerning that the post had something to do with BushCo, and furthermore, the war, you might have dealt with anything I actually said. I emphasize might.

The question of whether the war was a good idea to begin with is, perhaps, a useful mental exercise in a theoretical sense, and perhaps even a valuable one for loyal donkeys to make come election time (it worked great in 2004, keep it up!). However, in the real world, where we already are in Iraq, it does precisely zero good.

So, in a world where people are fighting the political battles of today, rather than the political battles of three years ago (or heck, even last year), the important question is not whether we should have gone to Iraq in the first place, but rather - now that we are there, should we leave immediately?

The point of my post, which has been reinforced by numerous commenters here, is that numerous folks of this particular generation apparently see no value of seeing a conflict through to its end, they don't see the value of keeping promises in the foreign affairs arena, and they think it a worthless proposition to avoid showing weakness to a deadly and dangerous enemy. This is dismaying to me, and it is the reason I am ashamed of this generation.

To draw an analogy, a husband and wife are debating the purchase of their new car. The wife, being generally the smarter of the pair, says, "No, honey, the interest rate on the loan is ridiculous." Says the husband, "But we need the car because of X, Y, Z. We will consider the interest rate later."

Two years later, when the couple is upside down on said car, the wife may enjoy some well-deserved I-told-you-so's. But they don't change the fact that the car is now in the couple's possession, and the bills come due every month. THe question for the couple is not whether they can undo signing the loan (they can't), the question is whether it is worth the numerous and far reaching consequences upon their credit rating to give the car back and suffer a foreclosure, thus affecting their finances detrimentally for years to come in a far greater manner than just paying the ill-advised note to its completion.

The liberals in this debate are perfectly willing to screw the foreign policy credit rating of this country for a quick fix of what they perceive to be a bad interest rate (that being, 600 dead soldiers a year) - never perceiving that the long-term ramifications of showing that weakness and lack of resolve might be exponentially higher in both military and civilian lives. There is always a long-term penalty for attempting to apply a band-aid to a leaking dam.

Now, of course it might be true that some interest rates really are too high, that some prices are not worth paying, that some situations might become simply so atrocious that immediate extraction is the only reasonable course of action, future consequences notwithstanding.

May God help our nation if that breaking point is reached when we have undergone a war that has not yet lasted three years or cost 2000 American lives.

Abortion is Funny! Just Ask Larry King!

Before I get into the actual "meat" of this story, I should probably offer a word of explanation as to why I am covering a Larry King broadcast that first aired ten days ago. The answer is very simple: I almost never watch television. Especially when said television is CNN. With the advent of the internet, whenever a talking-head show is scheduled to appear with a guest I'm actually interested in, I'll just either tune in on the web or (more often) snatch a transcript off the internet a couple hours after the fact.

This particular story slipped under my radar because the guest on the Larry King show in question was Bill Maher, piece of human filth extraordinaire, who generally has all the moral compass of your average member of the Khmer Rouge, as evidenced by statements like this from the very Larry King show in question:

I am more sympathetic on the abortion issue than I am on most right wing socially conservative issues, because you know, you don't have to be religious to be against abortion.

I do sort of understand what they're saying. If you've ever seen a sonogram, you know, you could see something that's emerging as a human being in there. And we are sort of reaching in and killing it. I'm just not against that.

That's pretty much standard fare for Maher, and not really all that shocking when you consider that Maher sold his soul to the devil for his brief stint on network television. We're still unsure what he pays his studio audience with, in order to get them to laugh at his completely humorless tripe, but suffice it to say that we've come to expect nothing less from HBO's "funniest" "serious" "political commentator."

What IS interesting about this interview was something that Larry King himself actually did. Which, not surprisingly, didn't make it into this transcript of the show and therefore eluded my notice. However, whilst driving home from Jack-in-the-Box tonight, with Bacon Bacon Cheeseburger in hand, the local FM talker was replaying an old Laura Ingraham show in which she played several audio clips of Maher's appearance on Larry King. (A video of the segement in question is avialable here to RealPass subscribers). In one of these clips, Ingraham captured this line from Maher (also available in the transcript:

So, at least he has a shot, I think. We don't know what he'd do if he had to rule on Roe versus Wade, but at least he has a shot, I think, at becoming the kind of justice that is not in the hip pocket of the right wing. Having said that, ladies, get your abortions now. If you need one, go now!

Again, standard fare for Maher. What is not standard fare for supposedly objective television is the fact that Larry King actually laughed in response to this excuse for a "joke"! I was (and am) utterly flabbergasted at this phenomenon, and I long ago thought that I was past the point of amazement at anything Larry King might presume to do.

What kind of contemptible person, in any occupation, would find a "joke" of this sort humorous? What's more, what supposedly objective news anchor would have such a stunning lapse of judgment as to laugh at a joke about women rushing out to get abortions before John Roberts gets confirmed?

This kind of unwarranted and calloused garbage is only funny to those who have such a low regard not only for human life, but also for anyone who does value human life, that they sneeringly view anyone of the pro-life position as such an embarrassing buffoon that their very existence is humorous. Maher here is like the kid in elementary school seeking a few cheap laughs by mimicking the kid with the cleft palate, and King is the buffoon egging him on with laughter.

This behavior is inexcusable for a news anchor, and is further evidence of why viewers continue to flock away from the contemptible liberal shills they find on CNN toward a venue where conservatism is, at the very least, given a fair shake at FoxNews. This particular show, however, represents a brand new low for even CNN, in my view, and should justifiably be met with a further thinning of their already decimated audience.