All Tactics Are Not Equal

Patterico discusses the BDS tactics of the left over the past eight years and asks a very pertinent question. Did we hate those tactics because they were wrong or simply because they were used against “our guy?” While I definitely disagree with portions of his first statement (BHO really is as dangerous as some Patterico listed), I fully agree that the insidious dishonesty of the left against “our guys” is wrong because insidious dishonesty is wrong, regardless of the victim of the insidious dishonesty.

A commenter disagreed with Patterico, saying we need to use smear tactics to destroy our enemies. This is a fool’s game. It makes us no better than the other guy and much less trustworthy, merely because we are the ones with which the general public equates a higher moral standard; or more accurately, the general public knows we proclaim a higher moral standard. We are the Puritanical “ruin our fun” extremists, for better or worse. And the first thing the left does is attack perceived hypocrisy in our morality claims.

It is very difficult to attack the left as hypocrites because their standards are grotesquely low, but it is easy to attack the right because our standards are (sometimes unattainably) high. The easiest targets of hypocrite accusations are the “religious right” because we definitely have standards we admit we cannot reach. Perfection is the standard, and only One has ever reached that standard. While we of the “religious right” fully admit we sometimes fall short of our standards, we are still castigated by any shortcomings.

The left has always, and will always, attacked us in the media and to the general populace based on our own stated standards. This tactic is very successful due in part to the willing collaboration of the mainstream media. Another major reason the tactic is successful is due to the overall inattention of the populace. Assuming 50 percent of the voting-age population is politically astute (and I believe that percentage is grossly overestimated), and assuming a 50-50 split in the left/right viewpoint of the politically astute, there remains a full 50 percent who “don’t get into politics.” So, with those assumptions, 25 percent will never vote to the right and 25 percent will never vote to the left. It is the remaining 50 percent, who do not follow politics, that matters.

When the majority of the “possibly your side” voters are clearly disinterested in politics, perception is very easily more important than truth. Enter the truism “it takes a lifetime to build good character and a moment to destroy it.” The left is very successful in swaying “don’t talk about politics” type people because their task is much easier. When a “Puritan” is shown to be “hypocritical,” that “Puritan” loses all credibility. But, with the markedly lower standards of the left, showing someone of the left being dishonest or immoral or closely tied to the criminal element carries very little weight. Because it’s expected that all politicians are like that. The right is hanged by the suggestion of it because the right claims to be better than that but the left is excused of it because the left has no such claims.

I am reminded of a movie everyone should watch. It is very informative of the social warfare in today’s politics. While I have an absolutely huge issue with a hinging point near the climax of the movie, all the above is shown at work. “What movie?” I strongly suggest you watch Listen to Me.

Roy Scheider, the professor, has a book that explains the best tactics in a debate. Create a fictional story to pull at the heart-strings of your audience. Use that story to prove your point. You will automatically gain huge emotional points, which are oftentimes more important than intellectual points. During the college debate, in front of Supreme Court justices, Jami Gertz recounts a horrifying personal experience and her resultant actions (an abortion). Of course, the opponents have read Roy Scheider’s book. They immediately attack Jami Gertz’s story as being the story Roy Scheider advocates. This is the huge problem the right has, but the left somehow avoids (due to the complicit nature of the mainstream media). Jami’s character didn’t make up the story, but the damage has been done. Scheider’s character’s book provided such a huge hole in Jami’s character’s story a Mack truck could drive through it.

In comes Kirk Cameron, who played the “master debate closer” character. Or the character who fashioned himself the “master debate closer.” And did he ever provide a closer! Suppose you could solve all the world’s troubles but the solution required torturing an infant to death. Which of you would volunteer to be the one to torture that infant to death? And therein lies the issue.

Anyone who subscribes to “the ends justifies the means” is an idiot and a fool. There will always be unforeseen results. Always. Which means that the means are far more important than many believe. It is the means that people see when examining the right. It is the means that people use to judge the right. And those means are what the right must never compromise. Compromise on your standards and you are no better than the left. Much worse, in fact. Since the left has the “free money for you” program the right does not have, the right must depend on truth to persuade the 50 percent (and more). And it’s truth the left is so phobic about. “The truth shall set you free.” And the left is rightfully terrified of that.

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H/T Dana Pico and SEK

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Davey Crockett Would Be Horrified

I’m certain everyone has heard of Davey Crockett, the Tennessee woodsman who died heroically at the Alamo. Some may have even heard he was a US congressman. But how many know anything about his time in Congress? Any speeches or votes while in Congress? Or do all the tales around Davey Crockett revolve around his woodsman status and his being at the Alamo when everyone at the Alamo died?

I remembered a tale about Davey Crockett’s time in Congress which is very pertinent today. Much moreso than at any time in the history of the US. With all the tribulations the people of this great nation are suffering, the federal government is spending money (they don’t have) at astronomically record-shattering rates. And all this spending is done, supposedly, for the good of the people and for the good of the nation. Those on the right are saying the spending is far too great and the gerrymandering and corruption is far beyond the worst ever seen. Those on the left are blaming rich people and “inherited” crises for the need to overspend and the need to add all sorts of programs and bureaucracies while spending an egregious amount of money (nobody has) to “fix” the situation.

What does Davey Crockett have to say?

I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money.

Davey Crockett once voted to appropriate tax dollars to help victims of a local/regional disaster.

“Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. When we got there I went to work, and I never worked as hard in my life as I did there for several hours. But, in spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them, and everybody else seemed to feel the same way.”

“The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business, and rushed it through as soon as it could be done. I said everybody felt as I did. That was not quite so; for, though they perhaps sympathized as deeply with the sufferers as I did, there were a few of the members who did not think we had the right to indulge our sympathy or excite our charity at the expense of anybody but ourselves. They opposed the bill, and upon its passage demanded the yeas and nays. There were not enough of them to sustain the call, but many of us wanted our names to appear in favor of what we considered a Praiseworthy measure, and we voted with them to sustain it. So the yeas and nays were recorded, and my name appeared on the journals in favor of the bill.”

When he returned home, he found out he was gravely mistaken and he did indeed violate the Constitution.

It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the Government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the Government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right: to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive, what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.

Davey Crockett learned his lesson. He would be absolutely opposed to “welfare,” Medicare, Medicaid, WIC, FEMA, education grants, any bail-outs, farm subsidies, etc, etc. And he would be opposed to them on Constitutional grounds, not because they aren’t worthy causes. It is likely he would put some of his own money to these causes, but he would not allow the government to put “other people’s money” into the causes. Because those matters are unconstitutional.

Read the full story for a deeper understanding. And, for those of the leftist mentality who would want to claim I am only saying this due to the current Democrat (socialist, anti-constitutionalist) president, examine this story and note the date of the story and the type of site where this story is related.

Not Your Average Police Officer

From Fox News comes the disturbing story of a three-year police officer who chose not to excersise good judgment.

A car ran a red light, which is a minor traffic violation.  Understand, it is indeed a traffic violation.  The police officer proceeded to try to pull the car over.  The car did not stop and continued on to its destination:  a hospital.  Now, this is where discretion and consideration of circumstances should’ve come into play.

A vehicle that ran a red light at night when there was no danger of an accident went hurriedly to a hospital, with a police vehicle in tow.  Automatically, that should’ve said there is a possibility an emergency situation was in play.  But the police officer chose to ignore a possible emergency situation and stick with the “you ran a red light” mumbo-jumbo.

Maybe running to a hospital was an easy way to avoid the “cops” or something.  But when the woman jumps out of the car and says her mother is dying inside the hospital, is it necessary to draw a gun and demand she get back in the car?  And when the man jumps out of the driver’s side and says his mother-in-law is dying in that hospital, is it necessary to redirect his aim at the woman to aim at the man, as the woman runs into the hospital?

Wouldn’t it be just as easy to holster the gun and hurriedly rush into the hospital behind them, following them, and find out if their story just might be true?  Heck, even after finding out if the story was true or not, the officer could’ve still followed the law to the letter.

The man, who never told the officer that he was actually a member of the Houston Texans, was very willing to accept a ticket for running a red light.  But the officer, upon finding out the occupants of the car was indeed trying to rush to the side of a dying close family member, still held the man till he wrote out the ticket and provided a lecture.  The mother-in-law died before the man was allowed to go into the hospital.

I am one of the last people to speak out against police officers doing their duties.  If you run a red light, you deserve a ticket.  If you whinge about the officers persecuting you instead of going after “real” criminals, you’re an idiot.  But if you are rushing to the hospital, breaking traffic laws while being safe about it, and an officer keeps you from going into the hospital, the officer is the idiot.

I had a much less urgent experience many years ago, but I thought it may have been as urgent.  The lock on my front door malfunctioned, so I had to try to open a window to get into my apartment.  The window did not open, but my hand went through it, gashing my wrist badly.  My wife at the time drove me to the hospital.  I told her to hurry, as I had my other hand clamped down on the severely bleeding wrist.

When a police cruiser got behind her, bubble-gum-machine going wild, she got worried.  I told her to keep going to the hospital.  Don’t worry about the “cop” behind us wanting us to stop.

When we got to the hospital, I jumped out of the car and ran to the emergency room.  I didn’t care about the “cop” who followed us in.  And he did follow behind into the hospital.  Again, this was late at night, around 2 in the morning, so a speed of 60 mph in a 35 mph zone, and running 2 red lights with an officer in tow, with nobody on the roads anywhere was not endangering anyone.

The officer did, indeed, give me a lecture.  And I was fully willing to accept all responsibility for my then-wife’s driving and accept any tickets involved.  But the officer lectured me only after emergency personnel saw me.  And the officer did not write any tickets.  I respect him for his duty and his restraint.  I thank him for his willingness to not write any tickets, though, technically, we deserved tickets.

The officer I had to deal with was a professional with a heart.  The officer Mr. Moats had to deal with was possibly a professional, likely not.  And he was heartless.

And, if anyone is interested, the glass shoved my radial artery aside, only bruising it, as it cut one side of a tendon.  To this day, I have a minor sense of numbness in the base of my thumb, due to the nerve damage.

Politically Incorrect Humor

If you have a need to laugh at others’ expense, I found some excellent source material. Tales from Kentucky by William Linwood Montell is full of short stories to tickle your funny bone.  One such story I found of particular interest follows:

128.  “Common Jail Food”

A well-known Harlan County prostitute was being incarcerated in the Harlan County jail.  In the process of being locked up, she protested and said, “I can’t go in there.”

The jailer replied, “Susie, there is a warrant out on you, and I’ve got to put you in.  Go on in there.”

Susie then protested with these words, “If I am going to go in there, you’ll have to get me a box of Kotex.”

The jailer replied to her and said, “[Heck] no, Susie, you’ll eat Post Toasties like all the rest.”

Back in my MUDding days, I played a character that would intentionally twist words around for the fun of harmlessly irritating other characters.  But when it’s real, the misunderstanding gets much more funnier.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Eric Holder said some GITMO detainees could be freed in the US to roam in freedom.  These people are terrorists, have strong ties to the most dangerous of terrorists, and are unwelcome in their native countries.  If that doesn’t scare you enough, read a series of interactive interviews with a man who spent countless hours dialoguing with these terroristic vermin.  There is much to learn from the interviews, but one thing should stand out very clearly:  The detainees graphically threatened this man’s life, but only after they graphically explained how they were going to end the lives of his family members in front of his eyes.

A Quote Worth Remembering

From the Quotations Page:

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826)

And Here It Is

Can you say Heil Obama as well as your children can?  Or do you see the Big Brother coersion and indoctrination?

There is no such thing is government mandated volunteerism.  And there is no such thing as government mandated civic duty in a Constitutional Republic, but Obama’s plan, which claims to do both and would inevitably indoctrinate an entire generation of youth despite parental responsibilities, just passed the House of Representatives.

Cold Turkey Time

I told myself if the price of cigarettes ever reached $2.00 a pack, I’d quit smoking.  Cigarettes are now approaching $4.00 a pack and I haven’t quit smoking yet.  Why?  Because Smoker’s Choice Little Cigars Menthol 100s have been $0.90 a pack.  And, suddenly, they’re $2.29 a pack.  Obviously, the “sin tax” has caught up with them.  And, since I no longer have an income, I am going to have to suffer HUGE withdrawals as soon as my last carton of cheapies vanishes.

I cannot afford to pay such a steep price for these things I’ve been hooked on for the past 25 years.  So much for gaining tax revenue off this poverty-stricken individual.

Look At All That Money

There are many shrubs that need pruned in government today.  The Democrat oligarchy that is running things right now in Congress and the Executive branch is doing it’s best at demigoguery within the governmental process and in the media, claiming to be “pure as the wind-driven snow” when it is clearly obvious their snow has lumpy brown blotches and yellow discolorations.  But a quick glance at a specific Top Ten list tells a very damning story.

What list are you talking about?

I’m glad you asked.  I’m talking about the Top Ten of political contributors over the last ten years.  That Top Ten includes six unions, an investment firm, and a telecommunications giant.  As Arsenio Hall was wont to say, “things that make you go ‘hrmmmmmm’.”  The Center for Responsive Politics provides the top 100 heavy hitters.  Knowing unions are extremely leftist, it is abundantly clear which political party is most beholden to the corrupters of politics.  It is also abundantly clear, with information such as this, which political party is the more disingenuous.

But that does not change the fact both parties are subject to corruption.  And pruning the shrubbery, while necessary, is not the means to the ends of corruption eradication.

But never forget which party had 50 years of uninterrupted supremacy in the House of Representatives and never forget which party whinged the loudest about influences of corruption.  It’s the party that received the greatest financial benefit of power.

Ironic?  Disingenuous?  Hypocritical?  Which adjective fits here?  I can’t think of a proper one.

Are Analysts Accurate?

The list of stimulus and bail-out and other big-government deficit spending programs seems neverending, starting at the end of the Bush (43) administration and exponentially amplified in the Obama administration. Bush (43) did say he violated his own free-market principles in signing TARP but the emergency situation was the reason. I have to wonder what principles are permitted to be violated under duress. Don’t they become preferences instead? Again, we come back to the standards to which we hold those in authority. We seem to be focusing on LCD when, historically, we focused on something similar to GCF. (I love math.)

Obama, for his part, has always been far-left. His agenda and policies are socialistic, which require massive government spending. George W Bush stated he wouldn’t ask Congress for the second part of the TARP unless Barack H Obama wanted it, since Bush’s time in office was just a matter of days. Obama did ask Bush to ask for the second traunch, so Bush did. After Obama took office, he presided over the second traunch of TARP, which I believe included, if not all, the vast majority of the car-manufacturer bail-outs. Then came the rush-rush $787 billion “stimulus” package. And after that, Obama has offered up a $3.6 trillion budget – which itself approaches $2 trillion in deficit spending. The “stimulus” package and the second traunch of TARP is all deficit. The socialized health-care plan will be a massive detriment to national financial health until the end of the US, if ever passed, and will result in rampant health-care shortages, not to mention the rampant morality-code violations any moral health care provider will have to endure, all for the sake of the nanny state.

Call From Register To Vote

(machine) This call is concerning your mortgage…

What if I don’t have one?

Yes, I just got a phone call my Caller ID said was “register to vote,” number (978)570-2278, that went directly to a machine trying to sell me something regarding my (nonexistent) mortgage.

As the phone was ringing and I was seeing the ID on my TV, I was wondering why someone would be calling me to get me to register since I’m already registered. Those 5 people wandering the streets of my neighborhood last October who came to me and asked if my daughter was here came into mind. When I told them she was in Iraq, they gave an unexcited “thank her” then immediately asked me to vote for Obama. I laughed and told them “absolutely not.” And they went their way as I continued to allow one of my dogs to “go outside.”

I noticed my daughter had voted absentee, using my address when I went to vote. Later, I began to wonder, with ACORN and stuff. When my daughter comes to town, she stays with her mother. When my daughter was in Iraq, her mother had power of attorney, so much so, she could marry off my daughter legally without my daughter’s approval. I don’t know if my daughter registered to vote with my address or not, but she entered basic training the day before her 18th birthday.

All that went through my head in the 4 rings before I picked up the “register to vote” call to find out it was a mortgage machine call.

UPDATE: I just dialed the number and got “is full and cannot accept a message…” whereupon I hung up. I didn’t get “blah is full…” but just “is full…”

Did I Just Hear Right?

While playing a computer game and listening to Fox News being played on my TV, I heard someone say the President is facing a myriad of simultaneous major circumstances that would “consume a normal presidency.”

Did Al Gore’s spokesmodel just outright claim Obama is the Golden Child? This has long since gotten ridiculous.

Criminal Law Reform

I do not believe in sentencing people to serve out the rest of their natural life without possibility of parole. My position does not take into account any supposed cruel and unusual punishment (those two work together, not separately). My position is more criminal-law hard-line in combination with cost to the taxpayers.

I am also not in favor of jailing shop-lifters and many other theft-criminals. But I am in favor of jailing illegal drug users and pushers and producers.

Have I gotten your attention yet?

I believe anyone who committed a crime egregious enough to warrant spending the rest of his or her life in prison has committed a crime egregious enough to warrant having his or her life truncated. Commute all life sentences to death sentences and install an express lane, as “Tater Salad” called the Texas system. For those who don’t believe the death penalty is a deterrent, tell me how many who have completed their death sentence who have gone on to commit more crimes. And for those who would argue life in prison is a greater punishment, Heaven and Hell do indeed exist. And Hell is far worse than any torture conceived by man, let alone the three squares and a cot prison offers.

I believe, also, that shop-lifters and other thieves should be forced to pay four times the value of the object(s) stolen to the person who owns the item, plus reasonable court costs. And if that leaves a family destitute, that is the fault of the criminal and not of the State. Don’t cry to me if your spouse loses everything your family owns because your spouse got caught stealing something. That’s your spouse’s fault, and possibly yours if you knew your spouse was involved in criminal activity.

And if the thief doesn’t own enough to cover the repayment cost, take absolutely everything the thief owns and sentence the thief to a prison sentence for the rest due. That prison sentence would be based on 40-hour work-weeks at minimum wage (and no, no weekends off or time off for good behavior). Get rid of the prisoner-to-B.A. programs. Get rid of the 97 pound prisoner to 200 pound body builder programs. Get rid of all that rot.

Term Limits Needed

The 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution states:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President, when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

After 58 years, this amendment has not caused these United States to collapse. There have been many who have argued that imposing term limits would severely hamper the skill and ability of government leaders, thusly doing great harm to the nation. It is obvious that line of argumentation has no weight. Many states have term limits for a plethora of office-holders, and have had those term limits for decades. The ability-vacuum argument is dead in the water.

Two British quotes are very useful here. In 1770, William Pitt stated in the House of Lords, “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.” And in 1887, the historian John Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Both quotes are very old by today’s societal standards but nothing has occurred during the interim to discount the veracity of the statements. Throughout history, we have seen dictators, god-kings, may-as-well-be-dictators (such as President-for-life), and all sorts of other people with absolute or near-absolute power. And nothing good ever resulted from their rule.

George Washington publicly worried about the possibility of such absolute power building in the new United States and so refused to accept many positions of power. He refused to be anointed as King of the US. He also refused to accept a third term as President, believing two terms is plenty for any President. He even warned the people not to build party systems. He saw the power in the systems and the corruption such power would lead to. And he was right.

While we finally got the much-delayed term limit for President, we still have not gotten term limits for Congress, where life-time politicians greedily hold power, using all sorts of means necessary to keep that power. We have pork spending that the politicians can go home and brag about in order to buy votes. We have the private sector lining the pockets of politicians to buy favorable treatment by Congress. And that money goes, partially, into greater face time in the form of advertisements and personal appearances in the effort to maintain that power the politicians wield.

Many people fret over the corrupting affect lobbyists have over politicians. While that corrupting influence does indeed exist and should indeed be dealt with, Henry David Thoreau said it best when he said, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” It is a very painstaking endeavor to hunt down and eradicate all corrupt lobbyists, and many will still escape unnoticed. Even if one could eradicate all the corrupt lobbyists, the ground would be very fertile for a new crop to grow to fill in the gaps. And lobbyists are not the only ones using corrupting influence on politics. That battle is a never-ending battle to prune the evil shrubs. We need to kill the roots.

A very potent way to get at the root of the evil shrub that is this corrupting political power is to add an amendment to the Constitution providing term limits for Congress. Since the 22nd Amendment allows for a President to be elected to office twice, the same restriction would work well for members of Congress. Members of the House could serve a maximum of four years before having to leave office. Members of the Senate would have a maximum of twelve years. This limit would cause those citizen-legislators to be more desirous to work for the good of the nation, state and district and much less desirous to feed their own personal desires. And in the end, they would have to return home to live under the same laws they voted to enact.

Such an amendment would greatly reduce the money spent to “buy” legislators. It would also greatly reduce the legitimate lobbying money being spent. And all that pork Congress passes? The vast majority of it would vanish overnight, making the tax burden much smaller overall. And we could get rid of those politician retirement funds, since the politicians would not be in office long enough to supposedly earn a retirement. That would be another huge savings for We, The People.

How many times has it been said “once a bureaucracy has been established, it is never removed?” With the citizen-statesmen regularly rotating out, there would be much reduced personal interest in keeping many unwieldy bureaucracies and they would actually be removed. And that would save the people of this nation large sums of money. Government could once again become a servant of the people instead of their taskmaster.