New American Issues Project Column: “It’s Not Fair”
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009I’ve been thinking about the root cause of this bail-out mess and the changes in our American culture. My column at AIP today sums up my thinking about things:
America, in general, and our government in particular, has been consuming more calories than it can afford and grown fat, and rather than cut back, has sought salvation by those who were responsible and by those who lived within their means.
Some who let things get away from themselves have cut back and “tightened the belt”. The government, though, seems willfully obstinate about making such challenging choices itself. President Obama put forth scorn-worthy “cuts” in the face of mammoth governmental pigging out. An already obese government is making itself morbidly huge over the next ten years. One wonders if the patient can be saved or if it will end up in a piano box and buried in the ash heap of indulgent world-power history.
And this all began as someone trying to correct an unfairness. It’s unfair that some people have health insurance and others don’t. It’s unfair that one person eats Filet Mignon and another person eats hamburger helper. It’s unfair that one person gets to drive a souped-up SUV and another person rides the bus. It’s unfair that one person has a mansion and another person has a trailer. It’s unfair that one person gets to go to Harvard and another person goes to a technical college. It’s unfair that more boys than girls are engineers. And on and on it goes.
It’s unfair. It’s unfair. It’s unfair.
So, a man who promised to make things fair got elected President. It’s not fair that America is the lone superpower. It’s not fair that there are rich and poor people. It’s not fair that “rich” people get tax breaks. The government then, will be a tool for “fairness”.
It never works out that way. Like Scar’s alliances and forced “teamwork” between natural adversaries, fairness results in depletion, loss of incentive and many more unintended consequences. Moreover, it’s a fundamentally angry and aggrieved way to look at the world.
More here.
The Happiness Of Men
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009I’m amusing myself with headlines today. On the one hand, old, white Republican males are happy. On the other hand, young, white, blue-collar (read Republican?) males are being hammered by this recession/depression.
So, if the life arc of a white male is pondered, it looks like this: There’s the angry, young man phase. There’s the in-and-out of employment misery phase. And then there’s the happy, old guy phase. Right up until the die-before-woman phase.
Meanwhile, a woman’s misery happiness remains relatively constant.
Would you say that fits?
Global Cooling Period A Time Of “Less Rapid Warming”
Saturday, May 16th, 2009So those super-sophisticated buoys all over the ocean are spitting back data, but scientists who are emotionally attached to their flimsy global warming theory are in denial of the facts:
So why are some scientists now beginning to question the buoys’ findings? Because in five years the little blighters have failed to detect any global warming. They are not reinforcing the scientific orthodoxy of the day, namely that man is causing the planet to warm dangerously. They are not proving the predetermined conclusions of their human masters. Therefore they, and not their masters’ hypotheses, must be wrong.
In fact, “there has been a very slight cooling,” according to a U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) interview with Josh Willis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a scientist who keeps close watch on the Argo findings.
Willis insisted the temperature drop was “not anything really significant.” And I trust he’s right. But can anyone imagine NASA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the UN’s climate experts — shrugging off even a “very slight” warming.
A slight drop in the oceans’ temperature over a period of five or six years probably is insignificant, just as a warming over such a short period would be. Yet if there had been a rise of any kind, even of the same slightness, rest assured this would be broadcast far and wide as yet another log on the global warming fire.
Just look how tenaciously some scientists are prepared to cling to the climate change dogma. “It may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming,” Willis told NPR.
Yeah, you know, like when you put your car into reverse you are causing it to enter a period of less rapid forward motion. Or when I gain a few pounds I am in a period of less rapid weight loss.
Hahahahahahahahahaha!
I’m sorry, but my forebrain is finding their lamebrain and clearly irrational attachment to a theory that’s being contradicted by solid data very humorous. Let’s not get confused by the facts, scientific people, it might interfere with big, fat research grants from a now-friendly and true-believing, less skeptical, and scientifically-unattached administration.
Oh, it’d be truly gut-busting if I didn’t pay taxes that will go to supporting stupid scientific advances that solve problems that don’t exist.
Swine Flu: Can We Secure The Border Now?–UPDATED, UPDATED AGAIN WITH VIDEO
Monday, April 27th, 2009You know that impossible task, border control, is so incredibly daunting and shameful and racist and discriminatory and all…, but if America is swept with Swine Flu and thousands die, will our politically correct porous border still be morally defensible? From a “First, Do No Harm” perspective America’s current border policy seems, well, harmful.
This weekend, I read the coverage of Swine Flu. So far we have conspiracy theories, an unprepared government, weird press coverage, social psychology lessons, and we’re being educated on epidemiology and etiology.
I don’t think this outbreak will be the apocalyptic madness that some gleefully fear. Here’s what I wrote when everyone was apoplectic about Avian Flu in 2006 (more links at the link):
During the Swine Flu outbreak that DIDN’T happen, more people were damaged by the vaccine. Around eight people died in the US from the Swine Flu. Even that number is suspect.
How to prepare for the Bird Flu:
1. Don’t go to China or any other country with a Bird Flu outbreak and work on a chicken farm.
2. Should it come to America: don’t work on a chicken farm.
3. Should it be transferred among people: Use quarantine methods–don’t take Nyquil and stupidly think that you’re not contagious.
4. Use common hygiene. Wash your hands (50% of you don’t after you pee, at least 30% don’t after going poop–what are you, some kind of sicko?). Stay away from public places.At the grocery store one day, this moronic mother had her child slumped in the front of the grocery cart who had ACTIVE, as in red spots all over his body, Chicken Pox. This is highly contagious. What was she thinking?
The problem that will occur if a Pandemic hits, will be that people have zero common sense. Used to drugs that suppress symptoms (but the virus and bacteria are still active) they wrongly think that they are ok because they are on their feet. They’re not.
I bellyache about this at church all the time. People come in looking like the Bride of Frankenstein, all spaced-out and glassy-eyed. Church is a public place. School is a public place. Work is a public place. Spare everyone and STAY HOME! My one friend recently said, “I was glassy eyed because I was on this really good drug. It really helped.”
“But you were STILL SICK!” I protested.
“Naw,” he said in his “aw shucks” tough cowboy way, “I was fahn (fine)”.
Here are the CDC recommendations. Still, the best treatment for any communicable disease is quarantine and the U.S. government won’t recommend that for Mexico. They’ll screen at the border (since no one comes into the country any other way).
Back in the day, trade routes were the way disease spread geographically. This is still the case. Political correctness could kill us should a true pandemic ever erupt. And, I worry that the pandemic won’t be acknowledged until it’s too late.
UPDATE: Marathon Pundit asks,”Can Obama stop politicking for one minute?” Uh, no.
And the Twitterverse goes swine viral. [Funny]
UPDATED AGAIN:
Michelle Malkin talks about the Blame Bush mantra, blame Republicans and Chuckie Schumer….what, you didn’t think that Swine Flu would be Bush’s fault? Surely, you don’t pay attention.
UPDATED AGAIN:
Killing Mad
Thursday, March 12th, 2009Most people who make it to adulthood have been hurt or harmed by another human being. Some have been hurt by the very one who should defend and protect them like parents, teachers, ministers. That’s a horrible sort of betrayal. And yet, most people don’t make a list, add to it yearly and finally, load up on ammo and guns and go mow down everyone–”offenders” and innocents included.
How mad do you have to be to go on such a killing spree? Killing mad. Like this guy:
McLendon began his killing spree a dozen miles from Samson in Kinston in Coffee County, where he burned down the home he shared with his mother, killing her. It ended about an hour later with him taking his own life after a shootout with police in nearby Geneva at Reliable Metals, where he worked until 2003.
In between, he gunned down four relatives and the wife and 18-month-old daughter of a local sheriff’s deputy on a wide front porch that looks like so many others in Samson. He then turned his gun next door and killed his 74-year-old grandmother and sent panicked bystanders fleeing and ducking behind cars.
McLendon then drove off, spraying bullets through the town lined with old brick buildings, killing three more bystanders.
Once again, the murderer was a quiet guy, had few friends, .. same old story. Basically, a guy with limited social skills but high enough intelligence who focused on all the wrongs against him instead of all the good things in his life.
He took the easy road, really. What’s amazing is that more people don’t take it.
Rather than channel his discontent, hurt feelings and sorrow into something productive (like every miserable artist and most working people) he nursed the hurt and sense of injustice and it bloomed into murder.
Everyone could choose to be this guy. It’s easy to be a terrorist or bank robber or thief or rapist. It’s all about giving in to the basest instincts most people have but suppress. It’s all about externalizing blame and not owning what power the individual does possess.
That most people don’t choose to melt down is what is far more interesting and far less noted. Why do you think people avoid revenge or criminal behavior?
Talking About Men Again & Enduring Prohibition
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009I have written on manliness before since I dig manly men and find the softening male culture…well, boring if nothing else. Men and women are made different and their differences make life interesting. The sexual revolution resulted in a boring world where men are metrosexuals–all pointy-toed shoes and manicures, and women are butch she-beasts. In both cases, what can be identified as uniquely masculine or uniquely feminine are lost. People are neutered.
I don’t want a neutered world. I want a world where being fully female and fully male is valued. Tom Flake guesting at Brutally Honest describes the man he wants to be:
I am “Old School”. In a previous era I may have been considered macho. I prefer combat sports (boxing and mixed martial arts) to team sports (baseball and basketball). I prefer outdoor activities (rock climbing, whitewater rafting and camping) to video games. I prefer competition to cooperation, and may the best man win. All too often today, macho self-confidence is confused with “a*shole”, “arrogant”, or “pig-headed” particularly when it entails any interface with the gentler gender. I believe that in this era of feminized, emasculated, gender-neutral, neutered, politically-correct, “my right to not be offended, trumps your freedom of speech” era, many men who would otherwise voice their opinions have chosen instead to be quiet and pine for a better yesterday. Yet, straight shooters who opt to solve problems rather than wring their hands over them, is exactly what we need.
We have come to a point in American society where straight shooters are viewed with suspicion and loathing. Saying the truth in a direct manner “hurts people’s feelings”. Using logic means that “you don’t care”.
The culture encourages warped stereotypes by creating women heroines that can best their male counterparts physically, when it’s patently false. (Wonder Woman had magical powers to help her. I’m talking about human women with superhuman powers.) Can you imagine a woman kicking John Wayne’s butt?
The culture encourages “hooking up” when it creates a superficial sexual environment that diminishes the soul and spirit. Women wonder why men won’t commit. Men wonder why they should.
The culture shows disrespect for men. There are too many examples to list. Don’t be too tough. Don’t be too anything.
The culture shows disrespect for women. Don’t be too mommy-ish. Don’t be too successful at work.
America has become The View–both women and men are hectored to death by clucking hens, peck, peck, pecking the culture into “nice” submission. We are all enduring prohibition still. Bossed and nagged, both men and women are cowed into submission lest they be branded immoral.
I’m tired of it. I’m tired of things you can’t say. I’m tired of typical female and male behavior being pathologized. I’m tired of weak leaders and shrinking, scared thought-leaders.
If America is going to rise from this ash heap, someone will have to lead. Weak men and pious, pouty women won’t do it.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews.com
Business Week
Monday, February 23rd, 2009Finding Your Inner Courage
Great article–fortitude in tough times.
Idealawg
Monday, February 16th, 2009Your Act Your Social Status
And people can tell. [Been meaning to share this for a week.]
Fast Company
Thursday, February 5th, 2009The Problem With Incentives
They sound good, but are they good?
