And skydiving!

Of course, this is Townhall’s site; they can do with it whatever they want, and more power to them.

But the content of my brain is mine, and I think I can find other venues in which I can blog if I decide to continue.

There is also another issue. My blog has always been primarily political in nature, and at this point I really have no further interest in the presidential campaign. For a political blog, that’s kind of the Kiss of Death. I don’t think it’s simply an issue with me, either. I’ve noticed a significant drop in the number of comments on other member blogs, as well as on the main columns. It looks to me like many conservatives are disengaging themselves from the rest of the political debate this presidential election year as the available remaining choices are deemed simply unacceptable. The fun is gone. It’s hard to stay engaged in a process in which you don’t care about the outcome.

One thing in life I’ve learned is to never say “never”. I may pop in from time to time to see what’s going on. But for now, at least, this will be my last essay at the Island.

Update 3/5/08, especially for Jimmy C, at his request.

 

While my daughter and son-in-law are taking a cruise this week -- sponsored by his company -- I'm dog-sitting their whiny, needy, gelded, obnoxious and totally unmasculine Chihuahua. I mentioned that I couldn't be seen with this loser of a dog (I'm more of a German Shepherd kinda guy) as it would detract from my macho image, and JC -- exhibiting his streak of pure evil and meanness -- challenged me to post a pic of me and this wharf rat.

 

Because I'm so self-assured in my own masculinity, here it is:

 

 

Next week: me cleaning some of my many guns. (Just kidding. About the pic, not the guns)

 

 

About 35 years ago I realized there were striking similarities between the historical arc the United States seemed to be following and the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Obviously, the Roman collapse is a huge and complex subject; Gibbons’ definitive book on the subject is 1312 pages, according to Amazon.com, so obviously this essay can’t plumb nearly those depths. Further, many scholars over the last 300 years have advanced various theories as to the reasons for the fall; it’s a complex subject with no easy or pat answers. But there are some very key elements we should consider.

One of the most striking factors in the decline of Rome is the string of incompetent, inept, and/or corrupt rulers in power during this period, and how their actions and decisions led to results that were disastrous for the nation-state. This trend was briefly interrupted by the reign of Constantine, who divided the Empire into an Eastern and a Western component, each autonomous, and moved his capitol to the Eastern Empire in Constantinople in modern Turkey. This part of the Empire survived successfully for a thousand more years, transformed into the Byzantine Empire, and only finally succumbed to the rise of the Ottoman Empire.

The Western Empire, however, continued its steady decline.

Another factor to consider is the effect of uncontrolled influxes of ethnic groups foreign to the native Roman culture. Rome had a policy of allowing conquered peoples to find paths to citizenship, and over time the requirements were gradually but continuously loosened. The movement of the Huns into what is now Hungary but was then a northern province wasn’t a Mongol-horde style invasion as is popularly portrayed in movies, but was actually a more gradual and primarily nomadic occurrence. Though Attila did, indeed, successfully invade Italy, it was to enforce claims to better treatment of his people who were already established within the Empire. Later and more violent invasions, such as that of the Visigoths led by Alaric in 410 AD, were merely the death knell for an empire that had already weakened to the point where it was a mere shadow of its former power.

Yet another contributing factor was that from the height of its powers under Julius and Augustus until its demise, the citizens of Rome demanded – and received – ever more and greater benefits, with ever lessening responsibilities. The circuses sometimes were in operation non-stop to entertain the masses. Military service was no longer required, and the point was reached where the Empire’s military required Germanic and other conquered peoples’ presence to fill out their ranks. This made it impossible for the Western Empire to maintain the control over their far-flung territories that had made the Empire previously viable, further weakening them to invasion, and even simple deterioration of the infrastructure. No longer did “all roads lead to Rome”.

By now, I’m sure the parallels I mentioned earlier are becoming apparent. Let’s examine some American history for context.

In political theory there’s an event known as a “change election” in which a body politic experiences a fundamental shift in its ideological or philosophical underpinnings. Because it takes time for the effect of any election to evidence itself, these events can typically only be identified retrospectively. One that is generally acknowledged is the election of Dwight Eisenhower, and the reason is that during his entire administration he took no action to reverse the policies of FDR that were previously considered unconstitutional, thereby enshrining the Rooseveltian policies as a permanent – and new – part of the American baseline for “constitutional” government action. The reach of government power had been extended under FDR and never reversed.

Though it’s tempting to categorize Reagan’s victory or the 1994 Gingrich Revolution as “change elections”, I don’t believe either qualify, because even though there was some success in rolling back governmental power, it proved temporary and the underlying expansion of government power continues, under both major political parties regardless of which is in power.

The “change election” concept is one we see Obama playing cleverly in his call for “change”, whether consciously or not. The problem is that we also see Republicans essentially doing the same thing, though not as blatantly. Bush and the GOP promoting a plan for a “tax rebate” that’s nothing of the sort, but merely an attempt to buy votes. GOP politicians trying to pre-empt the Democrats by getting in front of them on policies – such as global warming initiatives and oil exploration bans – that should be anathema.

As I’ve written so many times, all one needs do is look at California to see the direction the rest of the country is heading; then look again at the parallels to the Roman Empire I outlined at the start of the essay.

In the last 35 years I’ve seen nothing to change my mind about the similarities in evidence. Worse, I see the process accelerating. In my opinion we’ve actually reached a point in history at which a “change election” is desperately needed if this country’s original principles are to have any chance of being restored, even in a pale imitation of their previous incarnation.

The only glimmers of hope I’ve seen lately are the elections of Bobby Jindahl in Louisiana and Sarah Palin in Alaska. Both ran on very traditional conservative platforms of smaller government and individual responsibility, and both were elected in landslides. Jindahl’s is particularly significant, because Louisiana is traditionally a liberal Democrat stronghold.

These people, and others like them, need to be elevated to the national arena and given the opportunity to make their marks on the national scene. The offerings we’re getting now, from both parties, are just more of the same old same old, and are committed to driving the bus of this country off the cliff. The only thing they argue about is the speed at which we should smash through the guardrail.

Meanwhile, the people sit around ordering their Domino’s while staring at American Idol and the Superbowl.

Bread and circuses.

The first election campaign in which I could legally vote was Nixon’s 1972 re-election, and as a proud conservative, registered Republican, and Vietnam veteran (a very unpopular war) I not only voted for him but participated as a campaign volunteer and poll watcher in Chicago, where I lived at the time. I felt it would be a cold day in Hell before I’d ever consider voting for a Democrat.

I wonder if the snowshoe concession is still available Down There?

For the first time in my life, I am seriously contemplating voting for whomever the Democrat nominee is this November, rather than facilitating the further transformation of the GOP into the Dem-Lite Party by voting for McCain should he secure the nomination. I’ve been saying that for months, now, so I was way ahead of the Ann Coulter curve for those who might want to accuse me of band-wagonism, and I never say things just to hear myself make noise. Those who know me also know I mean what I say when I say it.

There are several reasons for this. First, McCain is no conservative, and has made a career out of sticking his thumb in the eyes of conservatives and even other members of his own party. If I’d spent the last twenty years calling my neighbor names, keying his car, and throwing poison meat to his dogs, I sure wouldn’t be asking for his vote if I decided to run for city council.

I read McCain as a megalomaniacal power monger totally invested in his own self-aggrandizement. He wants to be Emperor, but will settle for President… for now. I also read his disavowal of his pro-illegal alien positions and opposition to tax cuts as… well, let’s just say “insincere”. He claims to have “a practiced hand at reaching across the aisle”, and that scares me. We’ve had waaaaaaay too much of that lately; witness “scamnesty”, Scrips for Seniors, NCLB, the absurd “tax rebate”, and the rest of the terrible policy proposals that have already come out of the White House over the last few years. Further, his “reaching” has given us McCain-Feingold, McCain-Lieberman, McCain-Kennedy; far too much of that “McCain-(liberal name here)” for my taste. If you’re unhappy with Bush, you’ll hate McCain.

His supporters push McCain as a “war hero” who’d make a great war president. First of all, “hero” status isn’t earned by being shot down and captured. Second, polling of Republicans shows that the war is actually their third priority, after the economy and illegal immigration. McCain’s terrible on both those issues.

Further, in my almost 59 years on this planet, there hasn’t been a day when we haven’t been at war, of one kind or another, in many cases with enemies who were far more dangerous than a bunch of disorganized Islamo-fascists (IF) in the Middle East. The Soviet Union had the power to totally destroy us (as well as all of civilization). The idea of subsuming all other issues to the war issue is very dangerous to this country’s future. The IF can’t destroy this country, but we can certainly do it to ourselves if we sacrifice all that makes us a free and viable society on the altar of war hysteria.

As a California resident I live first-hand the results of what happens when the GOP gives up its core principles and values; California is a cautionary lesson for the rest of the country. You don’t want to live in a Californiated country; it’s not pretty.

Occasionally, the country seems to need a dose of bad medicine to learn what's good for it. LBJ gave us Nixon (conservative for his era) and Carter gave us Reagan. Those who always squawk about "eight years of Hillary/Obama" also need to remember that since FDR, the only Democrat to successfully run for office twice was Clinton, so we're only talking about another Democrat One-Term Wonder.

There’s still time. Despite all the hoopla in the liberal press, McCain didn’t do as well on Tsunami Tuesday as he needed to. With 29 states having already voted (over half) he’s only secured a little over 40% (under half) of the delegates he needs to secure the nomination. He only got 42% of the vote in California, which apportions its delegates. That’s good news. At this rate, Romney could still overtake him, or at the least we may have a brokered convention, and I don’t think that would bode well for McCain, who has made a career out of alienating his fellow Republicans. Further, most of the remaining primaries are closed, which means “independents” can’t participate, bad news for McCain.

The bottom line is that if McCain ends up as the nominee, I predict he’ll lead the GOP to a stunning defeat. He won’t get any support from conservatives, and the base is the source of the volunteer manpower and donations necessary for GOP victory.

In an era when the presidential election’s outcome is determined by a few thousand votes in a few precincts in a couple of states, McCain goes down in flames.

“… I will appoint ‘originalist’ justices to the Supreme Court…”

Giuliani

In this election campaign we hear a great deal about the appointment of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) as being a defining issue in our selection process. Now that the true ideological conservatives have left the race, we hear it even more often than before, kind of like the Bogeyman is used to frighten children into doing what their parents want them to do.

“If Hillary (Obama, Edwards) is elected, we can expect her to appoint three really liberal justices.”

“Giuliani (McCain, whomever) has promised to appoint ‘originalist’ justices.”

Let’s try to take a dispassionate look at what’s really at stake.

First of all, the two Justices most likely to retire are Ginsburg and Stevens. They’re the oldest. Both are very strongly partisan, to the point where they’d probably die in office rather than retire with a Republican President in office. If the Democrat wins the election, and they retire, that President would be able to appoint replacements that we can expect would be philosophically identical, so the current court composition would remain essentially unchanged.

Their polar opposite is Scalia, who would also probably die in office rather than retire with a Democrat President in office.

Three of the younger members – Alito, Roberts and Thomas – are pretty reliably constructionist, are nowhere near retirement, and so will probably remain on the bench at least throughout the next administration.

Kennedy, a Ford appointee, is on the young side and seems to have stepped into the Sandra Day O’Connor role as wild card. However, he does tend to side with the Scalia/Thomas bloc and is less unpredictable than O’Connor, though with a tendency to water down strong decisions.

Breyer is young, liberal, and a Clinton appointee. He’s not going anywhere for quite a while.

Then there’s Souter, a Bush 1 appointee, who was conservative-leaning from 1990 until 1993 when he became a member of the liberal wing of SCOTUS.

We also have to consider also-ran Harriet Miers, Bush 2’s first SCOTUS appointee, a member of his Texas Mafia with no judicial experience at all. Who knows how she would have turned out, as she has absolutely no judicial record to examine.

What does all of this tell us as we consider it? The first thing that’s obvious is that judicial appointments are always a crapshoot. Souter started out conservative and swung liberal. But more importantly, a President who doesn’t have a firm basis in conservatism is unlikely to appoint dependably originalist (conservative) Justices. Bush 1 appointed Souter, Ford appointed Kennedy, Bush 2 wanted to appoint the unknown quantity Miers until his feet were held to the fire by conservatives. However, all the Justices appointed by Democrats have remained staunch liberals in their rulings and decisions.

So what does all this tell us about the election? First, a campaign promise is always open to “reinterpretation” once the candidate is in office. One man’s “originalist” is another man’s “too conservative to appoint”. Experience shows us that “less than conservative” Republicans tend to appoint less-than-originalist Justices. But there are no hard and fast rules; O’Connor was a Reagan appointee.

I predict that if the Democrat wins the White House, he/she may get two appointment opportunities: Ginsburg and Stevens. The net result is the balance of the Court remains unchanged.

If the Republican wins the race, he will probably get no appointment opportunities in his first term, barring ill health or death. If he should win a second term, he may STILL get no appointment opportunities barring ill health or death.

The only way the SCOTUS issue becomes important to the campaign is if a Republican wins, and if either Ginsburg or Stevens (or both) leave the bench due to health issues or death, and if that Republican lives up to his promise to appoint truly originalist judges, AND if those judges end up actually performing as advertised.

That’s a lot of “ifs”.

A Light-Hearted Peek Through the Looking Glass

I believe there are some basic tenets of Liberalism that, if clearly understood, may help us deal with our deluded brethren and sisteren in a more humane and understanding manner, a worthy goal at this most wonderful of Seasons. For those of a liberal bent who might be reading this essay and not understand my reference, I mean the Christmas and Hanukkah Season, of course!

For those who may be inclined to chastise me for not mentioning Kwanzaa (as well as for probably spelling it wrong), my bad. I don’t know anything about it, don’t know anybody who observes or practices it, admit I probably spelled it wrong, and, frankly, don’t much care.

Now, if we look in the animal kingdom, we find that elephants exile their males to solitude once they reach early maturity. Elephants are a matriarchal society. If we look at liberals, we see that it is a philosophy driven by female supremacy. “Wimminhood” is a totem, any male who acts at all masculine is driven away by the herd, so I must conclude that liberals share genetic traits with elephants.

The irony is that the political symbol for the GOP is the elephant! Of course, as the GOP becomes less conservative, the irony also lessens. But the Democrats scored a “Bingo!” with their selection of the jackass as their party symbol!

To the liberal mind, man is basically an animal who, if left to his own devices, will yield to his basic atavistic nature and turn into a slavering, raping, pillaging, polluting beast… in other words, a conservative.

Because they believe this, they believe Government must take total control of all aspects of life, define what is acceptable in thought, deed, and action, and leave as little as possible to individuals to decide for themselves. Can’t have toooooo much of that there freedom a-goin’ on out there!

They have a very pessimistic view of human nature, and feel it’s not to be trusted at all under any circumstances; that left to its own devices, human nature will turn toward unsavory desires, like freedom, scorn of governmental control, a desire to selfishly keep the money one earns, and a yen for target shooting and big SUVs.

Liberals are endowed with ESP. For example: “’The Arctic is screaming,’ said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.” (link). As a lawyer, John Edwards used to “channel” the voices of dead fetuses. Hillary Clinton used to “channel” Eleanor Roosevelt. This is a very handy skill. It allows liberals to speak for dead people and inanimate objects without fear of contradiction, because normal people can’t talk to dead people and inanimate objects.

Liberals suffer from a syndrome known as “collectivist mania”. Anyone who sticks out from the herd must be driven down like a Whack-a-Mole. Rich people and other achievers are despised, so every step is taken to “level the playing field”, by which they mean using all the powers at their disposal to bring the entire country down to the lowest common denominator. That way, everyone can be equally miserable, but not suffer any loss of self-esteem.

Liberals believe inanimate objects have inherent moral codes. For example, guns are evil; incredibly uncomfortable small cars suited to Barbie-doll-sized people are good.

Liberals are schizophrenic. Any unborn baby can be killed and thrown away, but no depraved murderer should be painlessly put to sleep. Somehow, “society is debased” when a murderer is executed while at the same time remaining morally superior as tens of millions of unborn babies are slaughtered. Of course, this is understandable when you bear in mind liberals believe felons should still have voting rights. Convicted murderers are potential Democrats; unborn babies are too young to vote. Worse yet, they might turn into conservatives.

Hopefully, this primer will help you make it through the Holiday Season without going postal on your liberal friends and neighbors for being so blindly obtuse. Now you understand why they are the way they are. If you’re “lucky” enough to have an actual liberal in your family, when you’re preparing that holiday feast always remember that most liberals believe “free range” food is politically correct, so make sure to roast a wild turkey. And save some Wild Turkey for yourself; you’ll probably need it.

Many issues are truly subject to state, rather than federal, authority. That’s the essence of our Federalist system of governance.

But regardless of the level, does any government in this country allow the unjustified killing of another human being?

Simple answer: No.

So then the abortion issue really becomes: when does an unborn person become a "human being"?

THAT is the issue the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) should have really addressed in Roe, rather than making up non-existent "rights" to "privacy", because if in this day and age we are going to redefine what the term "human being" means, we have to do that at the national level. SCOTUS was clearly trying to dodge having to assess the scientific and moral implications of their ruling.

If we're going to leave it up to the states, then why did we pass national laws addressing Civil Rights? Was it because Blacks and other minorities were being oppressed by some specific states?

Well, yes, of course it was!

At one time, Blacks were considered no more human than unborn fetuses are today.

I'll be honest, based on my own reconsideration of this issue in writing this essay, I have changed my mind that abortion is a state issue. SCOTUS should have put in the effort to define when a fetus becomes a human being enjoying one of the “unalienable rights” mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, namely: Life.

In essence, what we’re saying right now as a nation is that it’s okay for each individual state to determine for itself the definition of “human being”, which would by logical