Shoot Mugabe Now

Can we just dispense with the formality of civil society and rid the world of this animal? This is what it means to be the political opposition in Zimbabwe:

The men who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro, head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed.

An hour later they were back. They grabbed Mrs Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window.

And a four year old niece saw it all. Mrs. Chipiro's husband, when he returned and after trying to put out the fire of his torched homes, went to the police, who falsified a report before rewriting it to say this:

The report said that seven men assaulted Mrs Chipiro “before dragging her in one of the houses and set all three houses on fire”. It said that the body showed “signs of assault since all hands and legs were broken”. The doctor who carried out the post-mortem described the cause of death as haemorrhaging and severe burns. “These youths are taught cruelty,” Mr Chipiro said. “They get used to murdering. They enjoy murdering. They are doing it for money.”

The people in Zimbabwe suffer. They starve. The seized farms no longer produce. Publications like The New Black Magazine ponder a false premise: what would be better now for Zimbabwe--Mugabe or Smith? How about this? Both are bad, and Mugabe is bad, now, and the Zimbabweans today deserve better than either of them.

Most of the world lives under different forms of tyranny. Burma (Myanmar) suffers at the hands of the Junta. 120, 000 people have died there. More will starve. Try doing business in Russia. Or, try having a sense of humor there. Try being free in China or being a neighbor of China. Try speaking your mind in Canada or Great Britain. Try saying offensive words in France.

America is rare in the world. Freedom, and the rule of law it is based upon, is rare and needs to be protected. It is a quick slide into tyranny and misery. Hugo Chavez demonstrates just how quickly a country can be unmade.

I sit here horrified at the oppressors of the world like Mugabe. Limb chopping and being burned alive in 2008.... it boggles the mind. What should America do? We watch and hopefully, learn, what it means to be free. Intervention would serve America's national interest... No it wouldn't. I know. I know. I would still like Mugabe shot. Now.


Cross-posted at Right Wing News

New York Times: Viva Chavez!

How do these people take themselves seriously? It's like these liberal reporters try to find the stupidest notion that directly opposes common sense and then expound on it for the dull-witted masses. Today, at the scholars feet, we learn about Hugo Chavez's democratic impulses. Here are the words Simon Romero of the New York Times uses to describe Chavez:

• self-reinvention
• incredible political instincts
• gambler

The tone of the article could be described as effusive. In the last paragraph, the effects of Chavez's policies are touched upon:

Indeed, the national temperament is now much less buoyant than in December 2006, when voters re-elected Mr. Chávez to a six-year term, and his handlers may have recognized the shift. Despite record oil prices, economic growth is slowing and inflation is soaring. The nationalization of telephone, electricity, oil and steel companies has scared off foreign investment. While shortages of some items have eased, many basic food items remain in short supply.

Sounds like a socialist paradise. And then, there's the little detail of Chavez's funding and supporting terrorists, which gets skeptical mention in the last paragraphs. The FARC funding is alleged. Right.

The writers must get bored with reporting the facts when the facts don't suit them. Chavez is the most recent example of the failure of the socialist ideology. Don't tell the media types that, it doesn't fit the narrative.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News

UK Socialized Medicine: Sorry, there's nothing we can do

America's health care: Yes. We. Can.

UK - “Enlightened” Socialized Healthcare: Sorry, can’t be helped. Your daughter is destined to look like Charles Laughton playing Quasimoto - learn to live with it until the effects kill her.

US - “Backwards” Healthcare: Your daughter will be restored in both health and beauty. Yes we can.

Choice. It's all about choice. For the socialist's claims to choice, they certainly do like limiting them.

Michelle Obama's Heart Speaketh Again

The democratic presidential hopefuls must endure assaults from the inside. Who do you like less? Michelle Obama, with her distrustful view of Americans or Bill Clinton with his pernicious narcissism? It's a toss up.

This post from Gateway Pundit might make you like Michelle Obama less:

Mrs. Obama discussed her party's socialist plans for America yesterday to a group of depressed women in Harrisburg, NC.
Charlotte.com reported:

Most Americans, she said, don't want much.

"They don't want the whole pie," she told the women. "There are some who do, but most Americans feel blessed just being able to thrive a little bit. But that is becoming even more out of reach."

After law school, she and Barack were beset by loans they'd still be paying had her husband not written two best-sellers, "The Audacity of Hope" and "Dreams From My Father."

Those debts early in their marriage, she said, equips her husband to better understand the problems many Americans face.

Should she become first lady, she said she'd focus on family issues.

"If we don't wake up as a nation with a new kind of leadership...for how we want this country to work, then we won't get universal health care," she said.

"The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."

The pie argument is annoying. A friend of mine went down this Marxist road, trying to convince me that there is only one pie, only so many pieces and some people get short changed and never get the piece they deserve. The American Pie has steadily grown over the years to the point where even having a sliver of it is more than most people the world over have if they are given a big slab of the nothing pie they eat from in their country.

How has the collectivist impulse worked in Nigeria? How is it working for Venezuela? How did it work for Cuba? I'll tell you how it works: the leaders grab power and money and impoverish the common folk.

Michelle Obama has had every privilege and she talks like she's in touch with the common man. There has not been one common thing about her cushy life. She needs to acknowledge her blessings and be grateful for a country that made it possible instead of trying to stoke rage. She has nothing to complain about. Neither do most Americans.

On Socialists: Aren't They Awesome?

If you haven't heard, Castro's (future as president) is dead. Anyway, that doesn't mean that CNN can't extoll his virtues today. Ace has more.

Michelle Obama's recent pride in her country has caused quite the storm, but the always attentive Anchoress notes that Ms. Obama resembles another woman we all know a little too well. Speaking of Obama, is he using Mohammed Ali's strategy? 

Jon Henke called this Hope-a-Dope yesterday, after the strategy employed by Mohammed Ali in the ring to tire George Foreman and win the championship. Obama hopes it works as well for him as it did for Ali, and it just might.

Remember the Missouri prayer tower being built? Well, it seems that some fellow bloggers, Gateway Pundit and LGF are being abused by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at CAIR's (Council for American-Islamic Relations) behest. Oh, and here's the results from my poll on this new development.

I'm tying all these random thoughts together with this: Socialists suck. They think they're better than everyone unless everyone is smoking the same crack they smoke. Michelle Obama, Castro and CAIR are rowing in the same stupid, ideological boat. I cannot believe people are buying this crap. But evidently, lots of Americans are really stupid.

Women And The Church And Everywhere Else

First, Happy Thanksgiving week everyone!

MaxedOutMama, a favorite blogger of mine not only for her economic insights which are excellent and often prophetic but also for her social commentary, wrote a humdinger of a post that you should all know about and read. She discusses a woman's role in the church. Has the church become feminized and will women behind the pulpit kill the church?

This year in England, more women graduated from seminary than men. The trend is even more significant in some U.S. schools. What will be the likely effect? There is no question in my mind that society has steadily been neutered and I've written on this in the past:

I think the modern feminist movement has pushed a neuterization of our culture.

The essence of femaleness, the essence of masculinity is being pressed through an androgynous mould where we end up with wussified metrosexuals (all grooming and sexual grazing) and butch babes (all power grabs and gonads).

The emphasis both ways is self and self-gratification, either through money accumulation and/or sexual conquest. Is this the ideal those bent on gender-equity have fought for, lo, all these years? That men and women are essentially flawed and must "evolve" into one genderless, narcisstic being?

I'm not sure this "neuterization" was the goal, but that is where we are in America now. The result has been confused, used, materialistically wealthy and spiritually empty people seeking meaning everywhere but where it can be found: through faith, family and fidelity.

My concern about a woman having authority in a church is this: It will do no good for the future of the world, if women win in the church but souls are lost for Christ.

So, some people relate the decline of the church with feminism. Does a woman giving a sermon drive men away from church? One male commentator hypothesized that a woman's sermons tend to focus on relationship and soft teachings rather than tough doctrinal stances that might make parishioners uncomfortable. In essence, a woman's desire to avoid conflict makes a sissified church. Says one commenter:

Sissy theology seems to have come hand in hand with women taking over the clergy. One cannot fight nature; we are part of it and subject to it. So I would say, based on history, there are certainly women who are likely to be very good at a macroscopic pastoral duty, but likely so few as to be the exception.

This assumption implies that men are talking tough behind the pulpit. But the rise of popular televangelists like Joel Osteen give evidence otherwise. His church is full of men and women because he speaks a softer gospel message not in spite of it.

I also wonder if it is just that women haven't had as much access to the pulpit and in those positions. I know something that drives accomplished women from church: being consigned to kitchen duty when they sit on the board room during the week. For women who believe a more traditional, conservative theology, the church can seem downright oppressive and a throw-back to a bad time.

Maybe it's just the softer doctrine spoken by everyone that is killing the church. It is distressingly apparent how theologically ignorant many preachers now seem. There is only one preacher I know who can, without thought, put his finger on nearly any verse to support a doctrinal position. He is an ex-Rabbi and is thoroughly trained in theology, exegesis, hermeneutics and ethics. I might disagree with his conclusions, but he always has something concrete to back them up.

So, I'm putting this topic out there. If women in the church ruin it as this commenter notes:

Can a Christian denomination survive women’s ordination? It would be incumbent on the innovationists to prove that. Evidence for: The Assembly of God church. Evidence against: Sweden. My inclination is that the Anglican church will go the way of the Lutheran church in Sweden where 1/2% of Swedes attend church on a given Sunday (most of those being immigrants). Liberal feminized theology has effectively killed Christianity in that country.

Does feminism spell disaster for the business world and society itself?

England: Healthcare So Good You Get Do It Yourself Denistry

Socialized health care is the panacea for the common man, right? Well, Britain's brown teeth have a cause besides the lack of personal hygiene: there aren't enough dentists. Consider this:

Six per cent of patients questioned said they had resorted to DIY treatment to avoid expensive dental bills.

This can include anything from using over-the-counter painkillers and salty water to combat an abscess to plugging a broken crown with chewing gum.

Others have resorted to more extreme measures. One patient in Lancashire claimed he had to "remove 14 teeth using pliers".

Those in charge of nationalized medicine want it this way. They want people to wait, it cuts costs.

Brown teeth. It gets worse. Read the whole article. It's like Nationalized Health Care contraception.

Contain Health Care Costs, Pay Cash

Dr. Sanity pointed me to a piece by John Stossel about controlling health care costs by putting the consumer and the service provider in contact. In essence, by paying cash, patients cut out the big, bloated, fat, obnoxious middle man--the insurance company.

Over the years, our practice has morphed from 80% insurance to now about 5%, and I'm eager to get rid of that 5%. Insurance companies' reason for existence is not to facilitate a patient's health. Their existence is to make money. And do they ever! I've written about this before as you all know. This is what a cash-based doctor must do:

He has to compete for his patients' business. One result of that is lower prices. And while the procedure got cheaper, it also got better. Today's lasers are faster and more precise.

Prices have fallen and quality has risen in other medical fields where most people pay for care themselves, like cosmetic surgery. Consumer power works -- even in medicine.

Here's another thing: cash offices aren't always the cheapest. Ours isn't. In fact, those with insurance can go to a myriad of doctors offices and receive cheaper services. More power to them! But they can't get the services we provide at our office. So while some doctors are being assaulted by the insurance company--trapped in a situation where reimbursement is embarrassingly inadequate but fearful the patients will bail if they give up that company--we are charging fair fees. The fees may make some people decide not to come in, but that's okay with us. Our patients chose our care, get better faster, and ultimately spend less money. And, we don't feel taken advantage of because we're being paid less than a Value Meal at McDonalds for our care. (One company reimbursed $5 of the fee with the patient paying a $5 co-pay. It cost more to bill the insurance company.)

If the medical profession were more cash-based, paying attention to the doctor's track record would matter a lot more. The guys who are bad surgeons or physicians would be more exposed. They wouldn't be able to hide in group practices and bury their dismal statistics. Likewise, excellent doctors, doctors who seem to have the magic touch could charge higher fees. And why not? They have better outcomes and are better skilled.

Many professions where the care seems voluntary like dental, chiropractic, cosmetic, eye surgery have changed to be primarily cash. It's a win-win for patients and doctors. The relationship is more pure. Doctors are more responsive. (Yes, we get calls at night and on weekends at times.) Patients heal faster. They are an active participant in their own healing. The stakes are high--they pay more if they don't follow the doc's instructions. When it's out-of-pocket, people are very motivated.

What about the poor people, you ask. Well, we've never turned anyone away for financial reasons. We have a specific percentage of our practice that is charity. Most doctors do the same. In addition, old-fashioned bartering can fill the bill, too. I know doctors who've been paid in blueberry pies. There's worse ways to be paid.

Stossel concludes:

When consumers pay for medicine themselves, saving insurance for the big things, and doctors deal directly with consumers, doctors begin to compete. They start posting prices and work to keep them low.

And consumers gain more control of their health care. Instead of governments and insurance companies deciding for patients, patients decide.

Competition gives consumers more choices. And choice gives them power. Remember that when you hear a politician promise to make health case accessible and affordable through the force of government.

Absolutely. Getting cash back into the whole endeavor would create a cheaper, more honest system. When my son burned his hand and we took a trip to the hospital, since our insurance is high-deductible, it was all out of pocket. The hospital and doctor over-billed. With insurance, it would never have been questioned. Why would the consumer care? They're not paying (oh, but they are, just not right then). But my husband talked with both offices and got the bill re-coded. He has a great motivation to keep the institution and doctor honest: it's his money. Every patient would do well to hold their health care providers accountable--insured or not.

Dr. Sanity said, "The free market? What a concept!" In medicine, it's a foreign one, but one that doctors and patients should become reacquainted with. The alternatives are frightening.

Marxism Is Fun In Theory & Why Blowing Up Yourself Can Sound Like A Good Idea

I haven't been blogging as much since teaching the little ones. (Today, we learned about Egypt, Turkey, The Kurds, and Syria. Yes, we did.) Because of being otherwise detained with a business deal, too, reading has become secondary, especially web reading.

Shrinkwrapped knocked this out of the park, though, explaining why Marxism is dangerous. He tells this story:

In college, I dabbled in radical politics. I went to many anti-war demonstrations as a teenager. I enjoyed the frisson of rebellion that the Psychedelic 60s was shrouded within, yet a single incident awoke me to the reality that I would never be a good Marxist. I had been intrigued by Trotsky, the idea of constant revolution was fascinating to someone who wished to resist falling into the predicted and predictable path I feared I was on. On campus was a well established group of young Trotskyites, the Young Socialist Alliance. They were involved in various protests, which were always enjoyable, not least for the presence of many nubile, young radical women who approved of radical young men. One fateful day I stopped by the YSA table to find out more about them. I made a joking reference to the previous weekend's demonstration and discovered that the leader of the group was a young man who was incredibly humorless. He proceeded to lecture me (hectored me, perhaps) with a diatribe on how much commitment was necessary for the revolution to succeed and how there was no room for humor in the revolution; this was deadly serious business fighting the oppressors and jokes had no place in it.

I thought he was a complete jerk; I also thought he was a very dangerous jerk. This was the kind of person who would have no trouble condemning someone for thought crimes. If that was the kind of person who was attracted to Marxism, perhaps I wasn't as much of a radical as I fancied.

Years later I can still recall him, with a Che Guevara beard, intense eyes, and a complete lack of humor or humanity. Any revolution that condemned humor was not a revolution for me.

Rage at a cruel and withholding universe (often a derivative of infantile frustration) is difficult to tolerate. Most of us, with good-enough parenting, come to temper our infantile frustrations (which have roots in our infantile grandiosity which is so painful to give up) by using our loving ties to our parents to metabolize the rage which would otherwise be so destructive. Those unfortunates who cannot do so via love are left enraged and searching for ways to offload the rage to an external victim. Ideologies that enable such offloading attract the angry and the failed and it is through this pathway that Marx (the angry, anti-Semitic hater of religion) and the Islamists (descended from Qutb, the angry, anti-Semitic hater of secularism) find their true identity.

That all-consuming anger, that root of bitterness, gives a place to the devil. It reminds me of a scripture in Ephesians, chapter 4 verse 27:

“Be angry, and do not sin”:^[f] do not let the sun go down on your wrath, 27 nor give place to the devil.

There are many people in the world giving the devil ample room to do his work.

I'm OK, You're A Moron

John Edwards, like most socialists, knows what's good for you. Everyone in your life has an opinion about what you should do. We all experience that. But what if those everyones, became a Someone with power to actually bend your life to their will? Imagine a bureaucrat deciding your fate for you own good, and, it goes without saying, but I'll say it, the greater good.

Well, it's happening in England. Pregnant women threatened with having their babies taken away based on what they might do. A potentially emotionally abusive mother will have her baby taken at birth. The mother is in a bind, of course. If she tells the social workers to take a leap, she may never see her baby. Shrinkwrapped says this process is inevitable:

There is a certain inevitability to such stories. After all, once the government decides what is best for its subjects, all in the name of benevolence and caring, it follows rather predictably that they will begin to intervene in order to ensure the outcomes of which they approve. Further, when the government pays for health care, they will naturally want to enforce adherence to those behaviors they imagine will minimize their financial exposure.

All of this emerges from the Mental Health Morass that has developed since Freud's initial principles have been misunderstood and misapplied in the name of Mental Health.

The troubling thing about this story is that the field of psychology is hardly a hard science. I know some will take issue with that statement. Parts and pieces of the profession are substantiated, but it's difficult to imagine, that a superficial visit from the social worker would net an understanding of the patient's mind. Shrinkwrapped says:

The primary misunderstanding of Freud and Psychoanalysis, a misunderstanding that continues to be propagated by the forces of Therapism, concerns the locus of responsibility for our behavior. Freud's greatest insight was that to a large extent our manifest behavior is the outcome of compromises among many impulses and inhibitions, most of them unconscious, which sum and move us to action. As such, the goal of Psychoanalysis has always been to make us more aware of our hitherto unconscious motivations so that we can take more responsibility for our behavior. Therapism does the exact opposite; it attempts to relieve us of responsibility by assigning motivation and blame to all sorts of agencies (parents, society, brain chemistry) which are by definition outside the realm of our moral agency.

It is a small step from such thinking to enabling and encouraging the government to tell people how to live, how to raise their children, and how to think. As Neuroscience enlarges our understanding of the biochemical and physiological underpinnings of behavior, those who have done so much to diminish moral responsibility will be in a powerful position to mandate proper thought. The dangers are real and growing.

And here is the dirty little secret at the heart of Therapism: Too many of those who press the Therapism agenda are unknowingly pursuing their own unconscious desires, for power, control, and a host of other hidden wishes. They imagine their motives are pure but the unconscious exists even within those who wish to help you "for your own good"

Be ware, the helpy helper, especially when he wants to be your next president.

What's So Bad About Communism?

What's so bad about communism asks a John Hawkin's reader? Johns answer:

Communism is a system that forces human beings to behave in a method that runs contrary to human nature and as such, is always destined to fail, impoverish the people living under it, and crush the human spirit. Communism is all about forcing people to work for the state, stealing the fruit of their labor, and giving faceless bureaucrats unlimited power and control over every aspect of the human existence.

My short answer: Your lazy brother-in-law makes as much money as you do and then reports you to the collective if you don't keep up the hard work and enthusiasm that keeps his lazy ass in the crappy manner he's accustomed.

Communism comes into vogue because a fundamental flaw in the economic system frustrates the people (oligarchies, rampant poverty and corruption, no middle class, no rule of law) and the underclass believe that "evening the playing field" would save them their despair. The citizens of Venezuela and many countries before them quickly learn that they get more than they bargained for: oppression, loss of property rights, loss of any rights.

The Left likes communism for many reasons:

1. They believe everyone is stupid and could use their intelligent guidance
2. They believe life isn't fair and want to make it fair
3. They deny their own human nature and urge to dominate, and communism fulfills authoritarian fantasies.
   

The same rich celebrities who blithely wear Ché shirts, are the same people living in 20,000 s.f mansions and demanding that you and I wipe our butt with one piece of toilet paper. In a communistic society, they'd actually get to enforce their pet ideologies on everyone while living their hypocritical, privileged life--if they didn't tangle with the collective first and end up before a firing squad. Who would the poor and their reps go after first? I'd say the toilet paper police would be the ones meeting the business end of a military device, first, much to their shock and dismay. But in the Left's never ending stupidity, they think they would be immune from the rules because they already follow all the really important ones. Their denial makes them dangerous.

And watch out for "socialism". It's just another version of the same failed ideology.

G.K. Chesterton's Modern Thoughts: Part III The Maniac and Activists

It is true that some speak lightly and loosely of insanity as in itself attractive. But a moment's thought will show that if disease is beautiful, it is generally some one else's disease. A blind man may be picturesque; but it requires two eyes to see the picture. And similarly even the wildest poetry of insanity can only be enjoyed by the sane. To the insane man his insanity is quite prosaic, because it is quite true. A man who thinks himself a chicken is to himself as ordinary as a chicken. A man who thinks he is a bit of glass is to himself as dull as a bit of glass. It is the homogeneity of his mind which makes him dull, and which makes him mad. It is only because we see the irony of his idea that we think him even amusing; it is only because he does not see the iron of his idea that he is put in Hanwell [English mental institution, --ed.] at all. In short, oddities only strike ordinary people. Oddities do not strike odd people. This is why ordinary people have a much more exciting time; while odd people are always complaining of the dullness of life. This is also why the new novels die so quickly, and why the old fairy tales endure for ever.

...What Dryden said was this, "Great wits are oft to madness near allied"; and that is true. It is the pure promptitude of the intellect that is in peril of breakdown. Also people might remember of what sort of man Dryden was talking. He was not talking of any unworldly visionary like Vaughan or George Herbert. He was talking of a cynical man of the world, a skeptic, a diplomatist, a great practical politician. Such men are indeed to madness near allied. Their incessant calculation of their own brains and other people's brains is a dangerous trade. It is always perilous to the mind to reckon up the mind. A flippant person has asked why we say, "As mad as a hatter." A more flippant person might answer that a hatter is mad because he has to measure the human head.

Such is the madman of experience; he is commonly a reasoner, frequently a successful reasoner. Doubtless he could be vanquished in mere reason, and the case against him put logically. But it can be put much more precisely in more general and even aesthetic terms. He is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point. He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity.
--The Maniac, Chapter 2, Orthodoxy

If one finds himself tired trying to understand the mind of the maniac, he'll completely exhaust himself trying to reason with the activist. Cindy Sheehan qualifies as both maniac and activist, if the two can even be separated. Her reasoning: "War is bad" is simple, clear and unarguable. However, it is, as Chesterton says "without healthy complexity". This makes her reasoning wrong but leaves a person of a different opinion in the impossible position of trying to persuade against her truth. Her delusion is utterly real to her.

Most activists these days seem barking mad. A short list:

• Code Pink the Women for Peace -- War is bad
• Animal Liberation Front -- Just say no to "Speciesism"
• PETA -- Animals Rights
• Earth Liberation Front -- Save the Planet, violently if necessary.
• Friends of the Earth-- Champions a Healthy and Just World
• Marxism.org -- Championing the community
  

All these groups maniacally adhere to one ostensibly noble idea. At the Animal Liberation Front link you'll find a slide show called "logic". It is clear, rational and ultimately false. It would be impossible to reason against them for they possess the truth.

Today, the Kossaks rage against Russ Feingold for being anti-impeachment. His view is completely sane, but not to the reasoning of the drooling Leftists.

Today, a man living the American dream, gets a rude message from his peace and earth-loving neighbors. Glenn Reynolds asks: "A RELIGIOUS HATE CRIME? Gaia's worshippers are angry."

Today, a Zimbabwean woman gave birth in line for groceries rather than give up her place. Viva la socialism!

Interestingly, when Chesterton wrote about Maniacs it was in response to a Marxist determined to defend determinism and married to materialism:

And if great reasoners are often maniacal, it is equally true that maniacs are commonly great reasoners. When I was engaged in a controversy with the Clarion on the matter of free will, that able writer Mr. R.B. Suthers said that free will was lunacy, because it meant causeless actions, and the actions of a lunatic would be causeless. I don not dwell here upon the disastrous lapse in determinist logic. Obviously if any actions, even a lunatic's , can be causeless, determinism is done for. If the chain of causation can be broken for a madman, it can be broken for a man. But my purpose is to point out something more practical. It was natural, perpahs, that a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything about free will. But it was certainly remarkable that a modern Marxian Socialist should not know anything about lunatics. The last thing that can be said of a lunatic is that his actions are causeless. If any human acts may loosely be called causeless, they are the minor acts o a healthy man; whistling as he walks, slashing the grass with a stick; kicking his heels or rubbing his hands. It is the happy mad who does the useless things; the sick man is not strong enough to be idle. It is exactly such careless and causeless actions that the madman could never understand; for the madman (like the determinist) generally sees too much cause in everything. The madman would read a conspiratorial significance into those empty activities. Everyone who has had the misfortune to talk with people in the heart or on the edge of mental disorder, knows that their most sinister quality is a horrible clarity of detail; a connecting of one thing with another in a map more elaborate than a maze. If you argue with a madman, it is extremely probable that you will get the worst of it; for in many ways his mind moves all the quicker for not being delayed by the things that go with good judgment. He is not hampered by a sense of humor or by charity , or by the dumb certainties of experience. He is the more logical for losing certain sane affections. Indeed, the common phrase for insanity is in this respect a misleading one. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

It is the reasoning of Rosie that takes her to the madness that would cause her to do this and say this.

Beware the maniac. It leads to places where fire can't melt metal.


Chesterton: Part I Traitors
Chesterton: Part II Suicide Bombers

Senate Democrats: Giving Power to the Powerful

Union bosses continue to lose power. The solution for all predatory beasts? Coercion. By forcing everyone to vote publicly, the evil leadership will know who to bully and worse.

Gotta love those Democrats. They love secrets. And yet they have no problem forcing the little guy to give up his right to voting privacy. So Democrats don't want transparent government. But they do want transparent voting that empowers the thugs who finance their campaigns.

Once again, it's not power to the people. It's power to the powerful. No wonder everyone hates Congress right now.

Capitalism, It's Personal, Socialism, It's the DMV

The day before yesterday, the dance school my kids belong to asked me to get the printing done for their end-of-year performance. So, I did what all capitalist consumers do: called nearly a dozen print shops to see if I could get the product I wanted in the time I needed for the price I could pay. A couple shops were backed up and had no way of helping. A couple had equipment that didn't quite meet the needs of the project which drove up the cost. One of these places had a woman answer, "Ms. Clouthier?"

Yes.

"Your husband is my doctor! He is soooooo awesome. My husband and I love, LOVE him!" She then proceeded to tell me her current health concerns and chided herself for not going to see The Doctor. Anyway, she couldn't help me, but she referred me to her friend who tried, but quoted me about five times the most competitive price.

All in all, seven different companies gave me bids. Most of the time I was talking to the business owner. Each person carefully assessed the projects needs. I received a couple immediate bids. A couple other businesses emailed me quotes within minutes. Finally, there were two business choices and one was Office Depot. Yes, that big, bad business offered personalized, eager service, gave me one of the best prices, but most of all, could turn around the job the fastest (probably because they were the least busy.) And, without asking, they threw in an extra service for free.

The kindness, efficiency, and knowledge of the printers made me think about.......Venezuela. How long will it take for all the incentives to serve, learn, and achieve be driven out of the people there? My guess? Not long.

We already know what the service will be like in a socialist system. Just visit the DMV and be snarled at by the workers there. Or, like happened to me twice, with a line out of the place about 25 people deep, one of the workers said, "Okay, I'm leaving on my break!" Can you imagine a business doing this? Of course not! When business is hot, they hire workers and serve the customers. They ramp up output. They certainly don't go on break--not if they want to be in business long.

The people of Venezuela are in for a lot of long lines, indifferent service and expense. Their choices will diminish. The skills and expertise that people work hard to obtain won't be rewarded. People will see that their ambition won't be rewarded--unless they are a Chavez sycophant. And Chavez only needs a few thousand of those. The rest of the people will "phone it in". The economy will crumble piece by piece. The spirit and will of the people will be broken by government thugs and the military (who get paid most and fed best). The intelligentsia will leave the country. Anyone who values their investments will leave.

Venezuela will be propped up by foreign governments intent on installing sympathetic tyrants on every corner of the earth in hopes of dragging down the legit members of the world society. The money won't trickle down. A mafia of overlords and oligarchs will prop up Hugo Chavez. Free thought, competition, science and the arts will be squelched. In their places, big pictures of Chavez's enormous noggin will replace it. In desperation, as the government crumbles, Chavez will strengthen the military.

It's all predictable. And still, people like Hillary Clinton use collectivist rhetoric. It's soothing. It's enticing. The lazy, the short-sighted, the weak, the unsophisticated are lulled by sweet words. The Anchoress notes:

There is an enormous difference between a few dozen people voluntarily giving up their worldly goods for communal living, and forcing people to participate in such a society against their will. The first brings freedom for those who choose it. The second, historically, has brought tyranny, poverty, slaughter and the gulag. When Hillary said, a few years ago,
“Many of you are well enough off that [President Bush’s] tax cuts may have helped you. We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
I and many others (and I am not a particularly materialistic person, mind you) felt that old chill wind Tim Robbins keeps warning us about blow and blow.

Taking things away from those richer sounds so good to those who have less. Socialism is like a drug. Why, it's like an opiate for the masses. Here's what Marx said:

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

But I think it should be substituted thusly:

Socialist suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Socialism is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Those who suffer look for an easy way out. They look for earthly solutions and find them in very human people willing to exploit their desires to their own dictatorial ends.

Venezuelans will find that their hope would have been better put in God and their own work ethic. Chavez is a poor replacement for either. Hillary Clinton is no better than any other human saying sweet words hoping to entice enough people to empower her.

Perfect Totalitarianism

Freedom and capitalism account for human nature's base proclivities and channels them productively. In contrast, totalitarianism attempts to suppress man's base nature--except, of course, the supreme leader and his oligarchy. They are free to express all aspects of themselves. Totalitarian fantasies abound among those who are convinced that their way would be best for everyone--if only everyone would submit to their betters.

Dr. Sanity has the best essay on the genesis of totalitarianism. She finds a seed being sown in Seattle by public school teachers removing Legos from the classroom. Here's just a tidbit:

Human nature is what it is. This is not at all tragic; it is a simple truth. The biological fantasies of the leftist utopians; and the delusional fantasies of communists and socialists and all their 21st century heirs, have lead to incalculable levels of human suffering all over the world, as the proponents of these theories have tried to force humans to evolve into some sort of "ideal" state.
All such systems have failed the real-world tests in the last century; and all current versions of these ideologies will also eventually fail and fade away. To the extent that they attempt to incorporate some aspects of "human nature" into their failing system, they may last a bit longer as they slowly chip away at the human spirit and work to extinguish it; but it is actually much more likely that human nature will transform the perverse ideology than that the reverse will happen.

Which One Doesn't Belong With The Others?

My brother found this product at his local book store which is frequented by college students. There is not a link to this lovely product. You'll have to search for it yourself. For those of you who can't see these "Great Revolutionaries", here they are from left to right:

Ghandi, Che, Trotsky and Mandela.

Would you put Ghandi and Mandela in a box with Che and Trotsky?


And guess which "leader" can be bought as a finger puppet individually? And guess which leader took up the shelving at the end of an aisle?

My brother said,"College students are so stupid."

Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

When Venezuela voted for Hugo Chavez the first time, they chose (along with Jimmy Carter, fan boy of thugs everywhere) sweet lies. They actually thought that Chavez was different than other wannabe dictators. They thought he meant his populist clap-trap about giving them the money that the rich had pilfered.

They wanted to believe a lie because it absolved them of responsibility for themselves. That's how Germany got Hitler. In both cases, the leaders expressed the will of the people--at least the first time.

Actually living with a Socialist draped in Populist clothing tends to be a lot less fun and liberating than the soaring oratories would have one believe. So now, Venezuela reaps what it sowed: they tacitly approved of extortion and thuggery against some, and now the voters will be on the receiving end of extortion and thuggery. They thought it was OK to steal from those who had more, now they will be stolen from. They might not have much in the way of material possessions, and didn't under the regime before, but now they'll have even less and no freedom to publicly cry about it either. They will now truly have nothing--no liberty, no life. And, if Chavez continues to emulate other socialists, he will end up rich and resplendent and regal and royal. Instead of a rich class of people exploiting them, the Venezuelans will have only one man to blame. And since socialism is all about externalizing blame, for a while, this might feel good.

On the up side, Venezuelans will be spared the difficulty of choice--the state will chose for them. They will be spared thinking critical thoughts or being exposed to innovative ideas--critical thinkers and the leadership will be killed, flee, or be sidelined. Venezuela will shed their intelligentsia, poets, artists, academics--anyone who might think for him or herself--so the "common people" will no longer have to feel bad for themselves. No one will be smarter than them, and that's always a relief.

The insidious lies that Venezuela bought need to be ferociously guarded against in Democracies. I truly believe that a country like ours gets the leader that represents the majority. The Washington Post editorial page says:

But the main threat posed by Mr. Chávez is to Venezuela's 26 million people. If he follows through on his threats, they can look forward to steadily diminishing freedom and -- if the history of socialism is any guide -- national impoverishment.

First of all, esteemed editors, whoever you may be, Chavez has followed through on every threat so far. Keep this in mind when you dismiss Iran. Second of all, Mr. Chavez represents Venezuela now. Their country is "fair". Instead of rich and poor, now everyone will have the same nothing.

I know I should feel sorry for them, but when I see the natural outcomes of progressiveness illustrated, and when I see guys like Jimmy Carter (who called the first election "free and fair") extol Chavez and Venezuela, I just see consequences. Venezuela is a live learning opportunity for those who wish to believe the same sweet little lies made by Democrat progressives here in the U.S. Those lies taste like honey but leave bitterness behind.