Black Fridays

An architectural historian and critic writes that something took over in the 1970's " with so much hoopla" as a "blip in the process, but an absolutely essential blip as a generation rebelled against the faith of its fathers - although rarely, if ever, have so many stand-up one-liners, inside jokes, and ill-digested knockoffs of history produced so many really bad buildings." Transfer this thought to the architecture of children’s names.

A local dance team celebrated its first place finish with a picture of participants: Jessalyn, Erin, Brooke, Jennica, Jessica, Kayla, Lydia, Karriane, Chelsea, Hannah, Tori, Jessica, Cameron (male), Cindy, Breanne, Sydney, Haley, Kimmberly and Taylor (could be female). Where have the powerful, royal or religious names gone? Remember Charles, Peter, Patrick, Nicholas, James, John, Jacob, Alexander, Philip, Richard, Henry or Winston for males and Mary, Elizabeth or Margaret for feminine attributions?

Black Friday can symbolize a shopping frenzy, a terrorist attack in Mumbai or the mental condition of this country in which naming babies which abandons enlightenment and enters a dark, secular, metro-sexual zone. Any immigrant child knows better than an elite, liberal adult, that in a poor country, poor people are "skinny," but here in America "they are fat." Any immigrant child, unfamiliar with traditional name callings, will be able to accept, assimilate, pronounce and spell what now pass for choices of family appellations. Black Friday indeed.

"Give me a duh"

"Give me a duh, Give me a duh." A squirrel squats in the birds’ seed dish this Thanksgiving morning. The 90/10 rule remains applicable. 10% of our local resident squirrels force 90% of my hungry birds to wait their turn at the rubber bowl. Duh. 90% of Americans eat turkey and trimmings like proper, Darwinian omnivores on Thanksgiving, but 10% of aliens eat Tofurkey. 10% of homosexuals, loud, improper and unnatural in their demands, shout down the 90% of heterosexuals in America. 90% of law-abiding citizens pay their food bills, mortgages, rent, credit card minimums, auto loans, etc. 10% of deadbeats ( a learned, local patois) ruin the principles of honesty, integrity, responsibility and self-sufficiency for 90% of Americans. 90% of crises and emergencies are handled by men because the 10% who can’t be depended upon for heroism, lack testosterone. Duh. 90% of Americans believe in God. The 10% of demonstrably disabled non-believers in the wonders of the natural world and the awesome complexity of man, make life unbearable for their fellow Americans through protests and litigations. The 10% of extreme environmentalists, socialists and Communists pushing their agenda around America through sympathetic judges and politicians (from our President-elect on down) will destroy the country that I and 90% of citizens (and illegals) have learned to know and love. "Give me a duh," 10% of activists and historians try to distort even the history of this Thanksgiving holiday. For the 90% of us, its celebration is a given. You in the minority will never rain on our parade even if we eventually must march to our different, distant drummers only in our heads. "Give me a duh."

They need me, they need me

Who are they? ‘They’ are the delusional and deluded who take my country down the politically correct, liberal path of denial and defeat. ‘They’ are a professor of child development who says - and unfortunately believes - that "all children stumble." Take it from one (and a husband who counts for two) who has no clue what this statement means or should mean to any youth blessed with choices in a life of possibilities, work and accomplishment. All children do not stumble. ‘They’ are a journalist who writes -and unfortunately believes - that a prospective, college freshmen is "following her dream" or is capable of writing an essay that "reflected her true self." Take it from one ( and a husband who counts for two) who has processed empirical evidence about youth on both personal and impersonal bases, eighteen is the age of unreason born out of unfinished physical and mental development. Youth cannot know the meaning of a dream or a true self.

They need me, they need me to point out to them that listening to undeveloped youth equates with talking to the deaf. Nada is to be gained from them; only opportunity can to be offered to them. Their education must be self-inflicted; prayer can help.

Thanksging 2008

"Then we find spreading over the surface of human affairs, as patches of sunshine spread and pass over the hill-sides upon a windy day in spring, the idea that there is happiness in self-devotion greater than any personal ratification or triumph, and a life of mankind different and greater and more important than the sum of all the individual lives within it. We have seen the idea become vivid as a beacon, vivid as sunshine caught and reflected dazzlingly by some window in the landscape, in the teachings of Buddha, Lao Tse, and most clearly of all, of Jesus of Nazareth.
Through all its variations and corruptions, Christianity has never completely lost the suggestion of a devotion to God’s commonweal that makes the personal pomps of monarchs and rulers seem like the insolence of an overdressed servant, and the splendours and gratifications of wealth like the waste of robbers. No man living in a community with such a religion as Christianity or Islam has touched can be altogether a slave; there is an ineradicable quality in these religions that compels men to judge their masters and to realize their own responsibility for the world."

Unless, Mr. H.G. Wells, you choose to re-think your words from beyond, because the concepts of Christianity and Islam are now perverted in 2008. Liberal Christians have perverted the religious gospel of Jesus into a social gospel and then into socialism and radical Muslims have perverted Allah’s call to convert the infidels into a terrorist Jihad. History is cyclical and life is only fair by accident.

Religious revolution

"But there is something better and stronger than picturesque chivalry in the world, religious enthusiasm," according to historian H.G. Wells. If dissatisfaction in a populace can convert itself into a religious cause, the limits of its fervor are limitless and possibly scarey. In 1649, England demonstrated this when Charles I was overthrown and beheaded. Wells also writes that: "This was indeed a great and terrifying thing that Parliament had done. The like of it had never been heard of in the world before. ... A section of the people should rise up, try its king solemnly and deliberately for disloyalty, mischief, and treachery, and condemn and kill him, ... " Such change was short-lived in England, but did not go unnoticed in other countries around the globe. Wells’ further take on history is that: "the ordinary human being, ... will acquiesce in any collective activities that are going on in this world in which he finds himself, and any phrasing or symbolization that meets his vague need for something greater to which his personal affairs, his individual circle, can be anchored." ... "Most revolutions are precipitated, as this English one was, by the excesses of the ruler, and by attempts at strength and firmness beyond the compass of the law; and most revolutions swing by a kind of necessity towards an extremer conclusion that is warranted by the original quarrel."

The false perceptions by extremist, leftist liberals about our outgoing President George W. Bush and the false accusations leveled against him with serious, religious fervor, lend themselves to future indictments for who knows what. I also wonder what H.G. Wells would predict when President-elect Obama takes office. His oncoming socialist agenda, ( a New Deal on steroids), may shock citizens of each class - lower, middle and upper - and test the awe of the bare majority of voters who elected him. The history of civilization that Wells writes about yearns to repeat itself. In a revolution, of course, every strata of society loses in spite of the original enthusiasm for the cause of the ‘greater good.’ Expectations run high now before the Obama takeover, reminiscent of the waves and parades that welcomed each new monarch of the past.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

Wisdom from Victor Davis Hansen:

1. Four years of high-school Latin would dramatically arrest the decline in American education. In particular, such instruction would do more for minority youths than all the ‘role model’ diversity sermons on Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Montezuma, and Caesar Chavez put together. Nothing so enriches the vocabulary, so instructs about English grammar and syntax, so creates a discipline of the mind, an elegance of expression, and serves as a gateway to the thinking and values of Western civilization as mastery of a page of Virgil or Livy (except perhaps Sophocles’s Antigone in Greek or Thucydides’ dialogue at Melos). After some 20 years of teaching mostly minority youth Greek, Latin, and ancient history and literature in translation (1984-2004), I came to the unfortunate conclusion that ethnic studies, women studies—indeed, anything “studies”— were perhaps the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education.
2. Hollywood is going the way of Detroit. The actors are programmed and pretty rather than interesting looking and unique. They, of course, are overpaid (they do to films what Lehman Brothers’ execs did to stocks), mediocre, and politicized. The producers and directors are rarely talented, mostly unoriginal—and likewise politicized. A pack-mentality rules. Do one movie on a comic superhero—and suddenly we get ten, all worse than the first. One noble lion cartoon movie earns us eagle, penguin and most of Noah’s Arc sequels. Now see poorer remakes of movies that were never good to begin with. I doubt we will ever see again a Western like Shane, the Searchers, High Noon, or the Wild Bunch. If one wishes to see a fine film, they are now usually foreign, such as Das Boot or Breaker Morant. Watching any recent war movie (e.g., Iraq as the Rape of Nanking) is as if someone put uniforms on student protestors and told them to consult their professors for the impromptu script.
3. All the old media brands of our youth have been tarnished and all but discredited. No one picks up Harpers or Atlantic expecting to read a disinterested story on politics or culture. (I pass on their inane accounts of ‘getaways’ and food.) The New York Times and Washington Post are as likely to have op-eds as news stories on the front page. Newsweek and Time became organs for paint-by-numbers Obamism, teased with People Magazine-like gossip pieces (at least, their editors still cared enough to seem hurt when charged with overt bias). NBC, ABC, and CBS would now make a Chet Huntley or Eric Sevareid turn over in his grave. A Keith Olbermann would not have been allowed to do commercials in the 1950s. Strangely, the media has offered up fashionably liberal politics coupled with metrosexual elite tastes in fashions, clothes, housing, food, and the good life, as if there were no contradictions between the two. No wonder media is so enthralled with the cool Obama and his wife. Both embody the new nexus between Eurosocialism in the abstract and the hip aristocratic life in the concrete.
4. After the junk bond meltdown, the S&L debacle, and now the financial panic, in just a few years the financial community destroyed the ancient wisdom: deal in personal trust; your word is your bond; avoid extremes; treat the money you invest for others as something sacred; don’t take any more perks than you would wish others to take; don’t borrow what you couldn’t suddenly pay back; imagine the worse case financial scenario and expect it very may well happen; the wealthier you become the more humble you should act. And for what did our new Jay Goulds do all this? A 20,000 square-foot mansion instead of the old 6,000 sq. ft. expansive house? A Gulfstream in lieu of first class commercial? You milk your company, cash in your stock bonuses, enjoy your $50 million cash pile, and then get what—a Rolex instead of a reliable Timex? A Maserati for a Mercedes, a gold bathroom spout in preference to brushed pewter? The extra splurge was marginal and hardly worth the stain of avarice on one’s immortal soul.
5. California is now a valuable touchstone to the country, a warning of what not to do. Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries—and squandered that gift within a generation. Compare the vast gulf from old Governor Pat Brown to Gray Davis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. We did not invest in many dams, canals, rails, and airports (though we use them all to excess); we sued each other rather than planned; wrote impact statements rather than left behind infrastructure; we redistributed, indulged, blamed, and so managed all at once to create a state with about the highest income and sales taxes and the worst schools, roads, hospitals, and airports. A walk through downtown San Francisco, a stroll up the Fresno downtown mall, a drive along highway 101 (yes, in many places it is still a four-lane, pot-holed highway), an afternoon at LAX, a glance at the catalogue of Cal State Monterey, a visit to the park in Parlier—all that would make our forefathers weep. We can’t build a new nuclear plant; can’t drill a new offshore oil well; can’t build an all-weather road across the Sierra; can’t build a few tracts of new affordable houses in the Bay Area; can’t build a dam for a water-short state; and can’t create even a mediocre passenger rail system. Everything else—well, we do that well.
6. Something has happened to the generic American male accent. Maybe it is urbanization; perhaps it is now an affectation to sound precise and caring with a patina of intellectual authority; perhaps it is the fashion culture of the metrosexual; maybe it is the influence of the gay community in arts and popular culture. Maybe the ubiquitous new intonation comes from the scarcity of salty old jobs in construction, farming, or fishing. But increasingly to meet a young American male about 25 is to hear a particular nasal stress, a much higher tone than one heard 40 years ago, and, to be frank, to listen to a precious voice often nearly indistinguishable from the female. How indeed could one make Westerns these days, when there simply is not anyone left who sounds like John Wayne, Richard Boone, Robert Duvall, or Gary Cooper much less a Struther Martin, Jack Palance, L.Q. Jones, or Ben Johnson? I watched the movie Twelve O’clock High the other day, and Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger sounded liked they were from another planet. I confess over the last year, I have been interviewed a half-dozen times on the phone, and had no idea at first whether a male or female was asking the questions. All this sounds absurd, but I think upon reflection readers my age (55) will attest they have had the same experience. In the old days, I remember only that I first heard a variant of this accent with the old Paul Lynde character actor in one of the Flubber movies; now young men sound closer to his camp than to a Jack Palance or Alan Ladd.
7. We have given political eccentricity a bad name. There used to be all sorts of classy individualists, liberal and conservative alike, like Everett Dirksen, J. William Fulbright, Margaret Chase Smith, or Sam Ervin; today we simply see the obnoxious who claim to be eccentric like a Barbara Boxer, Al Franken, Barney Frank, or Harry Reid. The loss is detectable even in diction and manner; Dirksen was no angel, but he was witty, charming, insightful; Frank is no angel, but he merely rants and pontificates. Watch the You Tube exchange between Harvard Law Graduate Frank and Harvard Law Graduate Rains as they arrogantly dismiss their trillion-dollar Fannie/Freddie meltdown in the making. I suppose it is the difference between the Age of Belief and the Age of Nihilism.
8. Do not farm. There is only loss. To the degree that anyone makes money farming, it is a question of a vertically-integrated enterprise making more in shipping, marketing, selling, packing, and brokering than it loses on the other end in growing. No exceptions. Food prices stay high, commodity prices stay low. That is all ye need to know. Try it and see.
9. As I wrote earlier, the shrill Left is increasingly far more vicious these days than the conservative fringe, and about like the crude Right of the 1950s. Why? I am not exactly sure, other than the generic notion that utopians often believe that their anointed ends justify brutal means. Maybe it is that the Right already had its Reformation when Buckley and others purged the extremists—the Birchers, the neo-Confederates, racialists, the fluoride-in-the-water conspiracists, anti-Semites, and assorted nuts.—from the conservative ranks in a way the Left has never done with the 1960s radicals that now reappear in the form of Michael Moore, Bill Ayers, Cindy Sheehan, Moveon.org, the Daily Kos, etc. Not many Democrats excommunicated Moveon.org for its General Betray-Us ad. Most lined up to see the premier of Moore’s mythodrama. Barack Obama could subsidize a Rev. Wright or email a post-9/11 Bill Ayers in a way no conservative would even dare speak to a David Duke or Timothy McVeigh—and what Wright said was not all that different from what Duke spouts. What separated Ayers from McVeigh was chance; had the stars aligned, the Weathermen would have killed hundreds as they planned.
10. The K-12 public education system is essentially wrecked. No longer can any professor expect an incoming college freshman to know what Okinawa, John Quincy Adams, Shiloh, the Parthenon, the Reformation, John Locke, the Second Amendment, or the Pythagorean Theorem is. An entire American culture, the West itself, its ideas and experiences, have simply vanished on the altar of therapy. This upcoming generation knows instead not to judge anyone by absolute standards (but not why so); to remember to say that its own Western culture is no different from, or indeed far worse than, the alternatives; that race, class, and gender are, well, important in some vague sense; that global warming is manmade and very soon will kill us all; that we must have hope and change of some undefined sort; that AIDs is no more a homosexual- than a heterosexual-prone disease; and that the following things and people for some reason must be bad, or at least must in public company be said to be bad (in no particular order): Wal-Mart, cowboys, the Vietnam War, oil companies, coal plants, nuclear power, George Bush, chemicals, leather, guns, states like Utah and Kansas, Sarah Palin, vans and SUVs.
Well, with that done—I feel much

Heaven or Hell?

Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell. Thoreau and Nietzsche kept the Christian God alive by battering him relentlessly. Pilgrim John Smith, in 1614 said that "Great civilizations have no advantage in nature but they are beautiful by long labor and diligence of industrious people and art." Pull these three observations together into a unified whole to conclude that financial and spiritual success necessitates failures and reconstructions, that challenging a belief can strengthen it, that hard work and perseverence help some people to triumph over other people in their creations and accomplishments. Without an occasional fall one cannot humbly rise; without honest questioning, one cannot find satisfactory answers (or not). Without persistence and responsible self-sufficiency based upon moral principles, what culture could possibly advance, what person could hope for any reward (or punishment) beyond earth for earthly accomplishments?

Turkey on the stairs

Turkey time again, time for instilling panic into the hearts and guts of the public about food safety around a holiday. Time - as usual - for liberal insanity about defrosting a turkey under running water ( think of the environmental impact) or in the refrigerator for a few days, talk of keeping hot foods hot and cold foods cold, talk of keeping the wee folk away from the heat of the oven or steam of the stove, talk - the capstone of a local health department issuance - of cleaning out your septic tank to avoid a clogged toilet during the well-attended, joyous, Thanksgiving feast. Luckily, talk is cheap and irrelevant from liberals and government bureaucracy bent upon the ruin of happy meals. Talk from the Department of Health and Human Services assumes Americans lost their ability to think at the First Thanksgiving. My solution for defrosting a turkey is on the stairs.

I have a stairway sealed off from the rest of a room by a door, a stairway that originally led to unheated bedrooms upstairs in our 100 yr. old country home. A century ago transoms allowed air to circulate, manure rather than macadam paved the lanes, lap robes were proof of common sense on a long, sleigh ride and reason as defined in a dictionary assured the path to survival. So in the spirit of my ancestors, I came upon the ingenious system of defrosting all ( I repeat all) frozen food on the stairs, either overnight or in the case of a huge turkey, two nights. Behind the closed and latched door ( you guessed it, I have a dog and cats), juices, vegetables, meats, soups, etc., ready themselves for my artistic, mealtime creations. My system is failsafe and insanity proof. Take that you doom and gloom liberal mongers; eat out your hearts and guts.

Tasta test

An easy taste test to distinguish conservatism from liberal elitism is to ask yourself if you are tired of throwing out food before you have a chance to eat it? If it is not self-evident that you should not buy more food or plan more meals than you can consume, you are living in the liberal land of lost common sense. This waste would leave a bad taste in any conservative’s mouth. Also, can you believe that certain consumers attempt to cut dollars from grocery bills by reducing spoilage with the purchase of a $5,000 - $9,000 Sub Zero refrigerator? Granted, these are liberals willing to ‘pay for the savings’! A report about food preservation and savings from a state-of-the-art, designer refrigerator was written by a journalist with an unpronounceable name in the WSJ, Anjali Athavaley. Spending thousands up front on a luxury box to save dollars each week is an unfathomable waste of money. Proper, prior grocery planning would be the conservative solution. But not in liberal land. Still unconvinced of the distinction between a conservative and a liberal? Who but an elitist liberal could decry the difficulty of finding college funding for an 18yr. old son with "learning differences?" Any self-respecting conservative knows that college is not a right but a selected privilege reserved for those who can qualify intellectually and who aim to study as a means to expand one’s education. In translation, college is rarely for anyone.

Taxation without representation

H.G. Wells offers us Americans a learning moment today. He writes:

"When men and women are unlimited and unrestrained, the evidence of history shows clearly that they are liable to become monsters of self-indulgence; when... they are driven and unhappy, ... their impulse is towards immoderate tragical resorts, toward wild revolts or towards the austerities and intensities of religion.

When the growing mass ( of men) is baffled and permeated by a hopeless sense of being inexplicably bested, it is the preparatory condition for all great revolutionary movements.

Insurrections throughout history always ultimately are traceable to the pressure of taxation.

The first condition of Republicanism is that there is a common political idea in the minds of all men, an idea of the state thought of as the personal possession of each individual and as the backbone fact of its scheme of duties. Republicanism only offers the prospect of a promise of happiness or self-respect or preservation of one’s kind. As a result, a systemic moral and intellectual education is necessary for a healthy republican state. Next to education, there must be abundant, prompt ad truthful information of what is going on the state, frank and free discussion of issues of the time. Unable to surmount these obstacles, the Roman mind turned to monarchy."

Are we Americans not self-indulgent today? Does not the media foster the notions that we Americans are unhappy and our rejection of President Bush and election of Obama reveals how we were driven to desperate measures? Likewise, the media encourages the notions of class inequities and economic disparities which have caused us Americans to be bested by the rich. When our new President Obama raises taxes, however, will the ‘bloom’ fade from the rose? Obviously, Americans felt that they had no stake in democratic governance and representative Republicanism so they chose to elect a new leader, Obama. But moral and intellectual education has long been absent from our youth and voting citizenry. Furthermore, the media - biased and liberal - has abandoned its duty to allow ‘free and frank discussion of the issues.’

Where will America go from here? Will we turn to monarchy anarchy, revolution or God? Is Obama our new Sun King? Or is Obama headed for the guillotine?

How to distinguish

A conservative encourages personal responsibility come what may. For example, public service announcements encourage "designated drivers" for those who drink to excess and become driver "impaired." The liberal would assist and excuse the camaraderie perhaps on a repetitive basis as part of liberal compassion and tolerance. The conservative would normally shun bars and drunks, discourage destructive behavior and certainly not abet the "impaired driver" beyond a singular assist.

A conservative suspects an agenda (perpetrated lie) when empirical evidence contradicts a claim. For example, a report from the Agriculture Department claims that 1/8 of Americans struggle to feed themselves on a regular basis and 700,000 children find themselves hungry daily. Yet claims of an obesity epidemic run rampant through the media, scientific studies and health sources, both governmental and private. The two phenomena could be mutually exclusive or inclusive but merely by looking around at the empirical evidence of body masses, the only conclusion to be reached is that only smokers deliberately remain rail thin.

A conservative questions motives when power, money and loyal voters can be achieved by a political move. For example, liberal Democrats propose a bailout of Detroit auto makers. Why? The gains are obvious - the political power of Democrat voters and union voters in Michigan. The losses to taxpayers are also obvious, because non-Michigan residents must pay for the rescue of failed companies. A conservative believes that failure is part of the long term success process; a liberal thinks as an elitist who knows that any entity capable of delivering voting power is too big to fail.

A conservative rejects needless extravagance. For example, no matter the hype or claim of a saving of 50%, when Omaha Steaks advertises approximately 1 lb. of prime steak plus inexpensive fillers for $60.00, it’s NO BARGAIN. A liberal would repeatedly justify this "NO BARGAIN" as an investment because he or she is worth it regardless of present or future expense. A conservative may throw his or her budget into the wind for a one time blowback of obscene indulgence, but he or she could never justify repeated, unreasonable gouges into a common sense budget plan for future solvency based upon self-reliance. Unless, of course, the conservative can warble like a Streisand or a Pavarotti in which case she or he is compelled to the behavior of a filthy rich capitalist spreading wealth in support of a free market business like Omaha Steaks. Bon Appetit.

Healthy conservative roots

Why try to revive the roots of the Republican plant now, when rotten and waterlogged, it is incapable of producing a healthy plant? We do not need to talk about a return to Republican roots because few citizens could identify them in a blind touch test anyway. We do not need to claim that the extreme Christian right has hijacked a party with their focus on only 3 issues, school choice, pro-life (or anti-abortion) and anti-gay marriage when low taxes and freedom of choice are in jeopardy. We do not need to repeat the mantra of the day that we are in "tough economic times" or in a "economic slowdown" when a reality check proves otherwise. We do need to face facts. Wealthy Santa Barbara Californians are not cut from the same mold as West Virginians or elites from Huntington, Vermont. Yet diverse beliefs and lifestyles in America can still find common ground. The progressive, environmental, Maxist and extremist wackos on the berm of right reason, must be bypassed and dismissed.

The common ground to be found is facing reality and then accepting or rejecting it as it affects personal choices. University presidents earning $400,000 or more who voted for Obama qualify for his higher taxes; they must readily and gladly admit their willingness to pay more into the socialist kitty. As long as they can be realistic, I can hope that they can also be reasonable. All I ask, as the lone ‘conservative’ (for want of a better word yet) is that Americans face facts rather than live as if enveloped in the romantic cloud of an unrealistic love affair.

Let me present a concrete example. When a conservative, like myself, grocery shops as a pleasant job not a chore, what choice will I make for bread or pastry? Realistically, no health benefits exist between the choices of a white, wheat, whole grain, brand name, Wonder or store-baked loaf of bread. Realistically, there are differences in price and my preferences in taste. Realistically, $.59 for Aldi beats $.79 for Kroger or $1. 99 for premium labels. $.90 for an out-of-date Wal-Mart baked loaf beats $1.50 for the difference of a day or two from the oven. A bun is a bun at the lowest price. A coffee cake on reduction is equal in quality to one at full price. 40% (not 5 or 10 or even 20%) as a discount advantage for a reduction is substantial. I outright reject doughnuts and bagels as heavy and distasteful. A conservative realistically makes choices when it comes to spending money. A liberal allows government to spend taxpayers monies by calling them investments; a conservative saves money in order to invest the savings elsewhere or for the future. Why buy brand name when generic will do? Why abandon common sense for a nest without an egg? And... with the dollars saved through common sense shopping, I can afford a reduced Chardonnay wine!

GM engine trouble

The dictionary definition of conservative does not help us now, does not even apply to what is needed to preserve our American republic. A new word might be in order. We conservatives are not resistant to change, we are not moderate in our principles or cautious when it comes to defending them and not interested in preserving the order of things in our culture and society as it exists now. We hope to change this country by reforming government and bureaucracy at the top and encouraging reform from the bottom on up. Liberalism and its escape from reason must be defeated.

A concrete application would be the present near-bankrupt condition of GM. Why save them when government over-regulation, unions and employee greed helped cause their downfall? They were not fiscally conservative or responsible to the free market or their customers. A conservative knows that neither government nor a car manufacturer can tell an American what to drive. Silly mandates and subsidies to car makers defy common sense when it comes to regulating Americans’ love affair with the automobile. The automobile has always been a method of manly or womanly self-identification, a signification like a headdress or a select scarification. Incidentally, supporters who carry on a love affair with Obama, a socialist interested in regulations, limitations, punishments and restricting freedom of choice, contract themselves by simultaneously entering into a volunteer love affair with their motorized wheels. This contradiction would not be possible for a conservative. We could not support an Obama. Common sense and traditional infatuation with the ‘racing’ machine demand that we face reality and love it. It’s sink or swim for GM. Once its engine has blown, consumers should go out and buy another car that they love and can afford.

We as Conservatism

No matter how I define it, conservatism is in need of a revival. I’ll use the notes of my better and smarter half to lay down some basic principles. We have internalized conservatism as a matter of instinct and practice it in our manner of living. People watching, however, has provided us with many examples of ignorance or misunderstanding of conservatism.

1. We both respect the person over the group. The inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness refer to the individual who must be allowed to make his or her own way responsibly or irresponsibly and pay the consequences. The value of life is intrinsic and should be respected from conception to death without its manipulation or destruction for agendas or special interests.

2. We both respect the past, what lessons it can offer for the future and what appreciation it brings to our current, advanced level of civilization. Progress, in spite of fits and starts, ascends.

3. We both place liberty over rules. Government, therefore, since the days of America’s Founding fathers, should be restrained and limited to its basic functions of defense of the homeland, the building and maintenance of basic infrastructures, the guarantee of freedom and the collection of the minimum amount of taxes to keep it functioning. Restraint or discouragement of a free market system discourages and defeats the idea of personal and financial success. Liberty means a capitalist economic system in which the means of production and distribution are for the most part privately owned and operated for profit.

4. We both believe in the obligation of fiscal responsibility. What is not earned is not appreciated; what cannot be paid for should not be acquired. Government also should not be profligate with the taxes it garnishes from taxpayers. It should keep taxes low and lower them whever possible. Citizens should assume the burden of self-sufficiency and preparedness for their futures and their retirements.

I suppose that my 3 principles of conservatism dovetail with those of my spouse.

1. Family values, 2. Free market capitalism and 3. A strong defense. These provide the underpinnings of a moral and responsible government and society. Today, conservatism is in need of a revival.

A history lesson

The teaching lesson of history is in accordance with the religion created in the 6th century B.C. by the Buddha. His religion, a religion of conduct, taught that unless men lost themselves in something greater than themselves, happiness could not be won much less could a life be well-lived. Buddhism encourages Individual soul-searching and personal responsibility for right actions along an 8-fold path.

The Epicureans in the 4th century B.C. varied this formula a bit with their 4-fold path to a good life. 1. God is to be feared, 2. Death cannot be felt, 3. The good can be won, and 4. All that we dread can be borne and conquered.

Both Buddha and the Epicureans presented a religion with a hopeful message of positive, behavioral changes. In contrast with the men and women at peace with life, it only takes a discontented populace needing a leader for insurrectionary purposes. Julius Caesar of ancient Rome learned this lesson on the steps of the Senate on the Ides of March, in 44 B.C. Without a steady supply of correct information and a representative government, Rome gradually collapsed. America today, post President Obama’s ascendency to the throne, could re-play a fall of Rome. Half of our populace embraced the ‘revolutionary’ religion not of the Buddha or of Epicureans, but of their charismatic leader, Barack Obama’s socialism. Furthermore, if Obama represents the standard for perfecting one’s self and one’s place and purpose in the world, America surely is in decline.

The King/God

I quote H.G. Wells in his analysis of history of mankind.
"Out of the Old Man tradition, out of the emotions that surround Women for men and Men for women, out of the desire to escape infection and uncleanness, out of the desire for power and success through magic, out of the sacrificial tradition of seedtime, and out of a number of like beliefs and mental experiments and misconceptions, a complex something was growing up in the lives of men which was beginning to bind them together mentally and emotionally in a common life and action. This something we may call RELIGION (Lat. religare, to bind). It was not a simple or logical something, it was a tangle of ideas about commanding things and spirits, about gods, about all sorts of ‘musts’ and ‘must-nots.’ Like all other human interests, religion has grown. It must be clear from what has gone before that primitive man - much less his ancestral apes and his ancestral Mesozoic mammals - could have had no idea of God or Religion; only very slowly did his brain and his powers of comprehension become capable of such general conceptions. Religion is something that has grown up with and through human association. God has been and is still being discovered by man."

The dichotomy and struggle between the temple and the palace has been a mark of the march of civilization. The king and the God were or were not reconciled as distinct or were or were not recognized as one and the same being. ... Until now. Now, President-elect Barack Obama triumphs as the King/God. Enough Americans (to elect him President) bought into his shadow in the cave as reality, believed in Obama, as the embodiment of their religion. Into Obama as their King/God. Where do we go from here?

non compos mentis

When the earth’s evolutionary process reached 10,000 B.C., with the Neolithic Age, early thought development began. Eventually, language, the instrument of thought branched out into about 9 language differentiations. As for me, only one word is necessary to describe America today. Previous to today, my favorite four-letter word was ‘crap.’ Liberal crap which lies deep and disturbing everywhere you look. But for some reason when I heard that 52% of a local district’s grammar and high school children qualify for reduced cost lunch program - I lost it. I chucked my favorite mantra of liberal ‘crap,’ liberal ‘crap’ and replaced it with my backup player which has been patiently waiting on the sidelines for just the right moment to be broken into play. ‘Insanity,’ ‘insanity,’ pure ‘insanity.’

‘Crap’ implies that no mental process is required but ‘insane’ implies a rejection of or loss of sanity and common sense that is virtually irretrievable and per se, not repeatable like ‘crap.’ Liberal insanity is a permanent pathological condition characterized by of world view contrary to reality and incapable of rational thought. When ½ of Americans are non compos mentis (Latin for out of their minds) in their adoration of President-elect Barack Obama and are deaf, dumb and blind to his living breathing core, what can America expect? These Americans are oblivious, of course, to Obama’s: Elitism ( 2 private jets to take him and his wife separately to the White House meeting with President Bush and lobster and champagne in a 4-star hotel suite), liberalism (government control, bailouts, funding, programs, subsidies, lunch programs and the chronic excuse of victimhood and racism ) socialism (penalizing and discouraging wealth building by demanding a leveler playing field for non-achievers) politically correctness ( boy and girl winners and multiple categories for contests, pageants or competitions), hedonism ( the mania of physical fitness superficiality) and unprincipled decisions (in his selection of associates and political dealings.

You’re right, I don’t like Obama - his behavior patterns, his core beliefs, his prospects as our future leader. Your’re wrong - if you think I’ll transform my core to conform to any of the ‘insanity’ that swirls around me now or ever.

This country

This is a country whose citizens allow themselves to pay for a useless government agency called Jobs and Family Services which a spokesman today called the "best government operation in 20 years." This is a country whose citizens self-identify when they "cadillac along through life." This is a country whose kids are doped and drugged more than other children around the globe. This is a country rich and prosperous enough for a writer to possess enough free time to write 520 pages of print about a drunk, killer and wasted gunfighter who was hung in 1864 at the age of 33. (Seems to me some other ‘misfit’ was crucified at about age 33 who bought us the freedom to publish such trivia). This is a country that for the 1st time insults the internal combustion engine that ‘made’ America great by allowing it to be paced by a hybrid car on a NASCAR racetrack. This is a country that houses a voting majority of foolish romantics who fell in love with an anti-American socialist and raised him to the highest office in the land. This is country that still - thank God - celebrates Veteran’s day. Veterans on Veterans day, a local radio host said, are the heroes left behind. Amen. Fallen war heroes honored on Memorial Day understood, the price of freedom, the meaning of freedom, the abuse of freedom; I hope veterans on this Veterans Day understand that the curtailment of freedom has just been embodied in the selection of a new President.

Rich country - soon to be poor

My rich - soon to be poor - country needs me. The law of unintended consequences already is kicking into gear. First Julius Caesar in 50 B.C. said, "All precedents productive of evil effects have had their origin in what was good." Now in 2008 C.E. (a common era if history ever beheld one after the Lord, A.D.), President-elect Barack Obama begins to engineer the downfall, not of Rome, but of America. "Bailouts" (giveaways) and "investments" (spending) that rhetorically sound good, in reality, promote the evils of irresponsibility, laziness, hedonism and dependence. Those Americans who plan to make money and preserve money by saving for retirement need not bother to sacrifice anymore; other Americans who plan to have it all by borrowing as well as under-budgeting and over-spending throughout life, will be saved by those ‘rich’ Americans. Conservatism has died a lingering death. Am I the lone survivor?

H.G.Wells said the 1st penalty of pride is ignorance. My oh my are not the liberals a boastful, arrogant species? They have succeeded in electing their "hip, skinny, hedonistic, and youthful socialist replacement for God. HEAVEN HELP US boring, lumpy, cautious and aging free market servants of God." I for one can teach Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal or any aspirational whippersnapper all he or she needs to know about conservatism, defined and lived to the max.

Trotsky said it first

Leon Trotsky said in 1932, that "Enemies are gleeful that fifteen years afer the revolution (1917) the soviet country is still but little like a kingdom of universal well-being. Capitalism required a hundred years to elevate science and technique to the heights and plunge humanity into the hell of war and crisis. To socialism its enemies allow only fifteen years to create and furnish a terrestrial paradise."

Trotsky continues, "Do the consequences of a revolution (1917 )justify in general the sacrifices it involves? ... The October revolution (1917) laid the foundation of a new culture taking everybody into consideration, and for that very reason immediately acquiring international significance.... the inexpugnable impress of the October revolution would remain upon the whole future development of mankind."

Leon Trotsky, one of the architects of the soviet, Communist revolution of October, 1917. He also wrote that, "October has internationalized such words a Bolshevik, soviet and piatiletka (Five Year Plan). This alone justifies the proletarian revolution, if you can imagine that it needs justification."

This November, 2008, words like ‘hope’ and ‘change’ have been heard both locally and globally. Do Trotsky’s words tinged pride, calling for patience until the soviet (and global) paradise is achieved, not resemble our President-elect (who called himself a citizen of the world) calling for support and restraint going forward into his new world ordered up for America? If so, Obama’s repeated calls for ‘hope’ and ‘change’ resound a socialist revolution.

Delusion vs. reality

History has often been made in transition periods between governance. Lenin, the Communist leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917, believed that a transition period was needed between the overthrow of established absolutism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Unfortunately, because conditions were right and ripe, Lenin scrapped the transition phase two and leapt directly to phase three - the violent takeover. As history has proved, destruction is never constructive. No less a dramatic plunge is Obama making in his transitional decision making. Hoped for change is not being revealed. Party hacks, liberal old-timers, extreme leftists and a 3rd reprisal of the Clinton administration are rearing their its ugly heads in the persons Obama is choosing for his transitional team and in his choice of Chief of Staff, Emmanuel. Moderate, centrist leadership is not on display.

Only a liberal could write that President-elect Obama is a symbol of the "emanations of collective and collusive dreaming." Only a realist presents data that 156 billion dollars by 2035 to delay global warming by 1 hour by the end of the century seem tantamount to insanity. Support from liberals as well as fuzzy words from our leader like "global education deficit," bode ill for America’s future. Combine the obvious plays to traditional liberalism and die-hard socialism with a Messiah of misdirection and mishmash with fellow travelers of Marx, Lenin and Obama’s ‘perfectible’ America and buyers beware!

No, we must not

I re-iterate a thought from a wise person who says that the recent Presidential election was not about any issues or politics, rather is was about "Americans’ need for puerile unity through self-congratulatory, cathartic membership in a broad transformative movement." May I clarify? Electing Barack Obama, the fit and ‘well-tanned’ Messiah, all about lack of substance varnished with a meaningless message of hope and change. Yes, we can, yes we can , we are all Americans, yes, we can - was his simple verbiage echoed by his sheeples.

The agenda to save the world from global warming by spending money on ineffectual initiatives in order to create needless jobs, mimics the tactics of the Obama campaign. Profit-taking numbers are less important to environmentalists than a symbolical message. Yes, we can, yes we can, we are all Americans, yes we can.

No we must not, no we must not, no we Americans must not be led like sheep to the slaughter.

What's with threes

Three witches labored over their cauldron in Shakespeare’s play, MACBETH.
The U.S. Flag’s flies the tri-colors: red, white and blue.
Rasputin offered his doctrine to ladies waiting in his bedroom ( sanctum) which they termed the Holy of Holies: sin, redemption, salvation.
The three kisses of Orthodox Christians at Easter symbolized: blessing, welcome, joy.
The historic Russian triumvirate was: Tzar, Church, People.
Christians of Faith clutch their triumvirate: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Marked for elimination by the leaders of the Russian October revolution in 1917: nobility, peasants, intellectuals.
I offer my three-fold precaution following the election of the new Messiah, President Barack Obama: hear evil, see evil, speak evil.

Coronation

On May 26, 1896, Nicholas II of Russia was crowned: Tsar, Emperor, Autocrat, Lord, Grand Duke, Prince, Sovereign, Heir and Duke. Yet the October revolution of 1917 deposed him and eventually led to the assassination of him and his entire family in 1918. Lenin and Marx inspired the Communist revolution; a follower of Lenin, Kerensky, talked about Lenin’s "deliberately and cruelly mutilating Russia."

November 4, 2008, America’s sheeple spoke and with blind devotion, elected Barrack Obama as their the new Messiah of change. What will he ‘do’ to my beloved country? Are his devotees not the same Americans who maligned and insulted their duly elected President George W. Bush for 8 years? A president who never lost faith in America or her people and protected her citizens from another terrorist attack after 9/11? A President who endured shameful, cruel displays of liberal, leftist arrogance and weakness? How long will the bloom last on the Obamericans’ blushing rose?

A salesman and con-artist, Barrack Obama, is adept at cheating and deception who occupies a Marxist, Leninist and socialist suit, just succeeded in mesmerizing 62 million Americans into voting for him. The rationale, of course, is that Obama is both a redemption figure not a demagogue, crook and dictator. Yet to his fellow travelers Obama is their "demagogue, crook and dictator - right or wrong." Blind, impassioned embrace can see no evil. Sheeple in today’s wimp and whine world have gotten what they bleated for. Will they reap less or more than what they have sown?

Abraham Lincoln suggests a way for America to extricate herself from her present sorry state of affairs. "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we will save our country." Good luck. America as a nation, Europeanized and socialized under Obama, will pursue a declining position on the world stage. I suspect it may take 4 or 8 years, perhaps even a generation or two, for the rosy, ill-fitting, liberal glasses to be discarded by now smitten Americans. Perhaps never because a leader like Obama with a vapid, bounce-ball, fitness conscious brain, cannot be at all good.

Pigeon time

The pigeons have come home to roost. Whence do they come back across the lane from my home today, election day, November 4, 2008? I saw each bird (of two) pirouetting 360 degrees on the roof of my neighbor’s barn early on this beautiful, sunny morning with a clear blue sky overhead and metaphorical dark clouds on the horizon as voters take to the polls to finalize America’s turn to the socialist left. Obama’s victory could not be termed a tragedy. As columnist Bret Stephens writes today in the WJS, a tragedy implies no evil or villainy, assigns no blame, prescribes no remedy other than healing. Obama’s emotional Marxist call to arms has been planned and executed? It cannot be dismissed as just irrationality and the tragedy of a willfully uninformed populace. No, innocence or victim hood cannot be claimed by those who have allowed the dark Messiah to claim his reign (if successful) over a brave new world. Roosting and cooing, have the pigeons have come home to roost? I await the election results.

Fabian's return

As the Chinese general Sun-tzu said in 350 B.C., kill one (citizen) and you frighten 10,000 is a great guerrilla war tactic. According to Fabian, about 250 B.C., guerrilla tactics involve five components: harassment, surprise, ambush, sudden assault and slow siege.

To the long list of guerrilla leaders, add Barack Hussein Obama. His liberal media cohorts have refused to report his statements that he will make Americans, "share the wealth," he will bankrupt the coal industry" and make electricity costs "sky rocket." His liberal campaign managers have employed Fabians’s tactics to suppress opposition. They have managed to flush away one Joe the Plumber who dares to question their leader and as a result, intimidate freedom of speech. Obama’s tactics are geared to drown any opposition from right reason.

If Americans’ first three guarantees in the Declaration of Independence are life, liberty and property (money), Obama’s goal is legalized plunder of each basic, God-given right. He does not want women punished with an ‘unplanned’ or ‘unwanted’ pregnancy. He plans to rescue individuals after they have exercised their freedom to make bad choices such as over-spending, over-eating, under-saving, smoking, risk-taking or accumulating wealth. He plans to take private property (money) for socialist ends.

Are we in for 4 years of domestic, guerrilla warfare? Or are we merely voting in hope and change?

Wielding a mace

In 8000 B.C., around the time of the defense of Jericho, war technology involved a stone mace wielded against an enemy. From about 200 B.C. to 400 A.D., the horse could not be used effectively as a dray or be ridden into battle because the throat and girth harness used for pulling tended to strangle the horse and restrict its blood flow. The stirrup and destrier eventually came later. In 200 A.D., men fought each other carrying leather-covered shields and wearing iron helmets. Better armor eventually evolved. In 1981, nuclear powered ships that did not need their reactor core replaced for 9 years, could cruise the seas for more than 70 days without making port. We now have cruise missiles. Historically, improvements in war technology have been relentless.

Why then do we now observe primitive behavior and neanderthal reasoning? In this election cycle, the technology of war is words. Election day being November 4th, why do thousands of Americans stand for hours in polling lines because they have been told to vote early? Who other than backward Obamericans would fall for the fallacy that exercising a premature franchise ensures either a full and fair franchise or their candidate’s victory? The mobs and masses standing in voting cues are left behind the lines in the battle for brains; they have succumbed to the mind-numbing rhetoric and magic of their leader, Obama. His words like hope and change, however, carry Obamericans backward not forward.

3 days

Three days remain to save you Obamericans from riding with the ghost herd in the sky. Remember the great, melodic tune from the Sons of the Pioneers, ‘Ghost riders in the sky?’ The ‘devil’s herd of red eyed cows’ coming up ‘ the cloudy draw’ bears a menacing reminder that if the cowboy doesn’t mend his evil ways, he will ride with the mirage in the sky of horned beasts, fire and smoke. The symbolism is obvious.

Haunting and addictive is the tune; similarly you Obama supporters have been drawn into his appealing delusion of hope and change, the meaning of which bodes ill because reality will contradict illusion if Obama is elected your leader.

Check out the harmonized version by the Sons of the Pioneers. Enjoy, but don’t be fooled by lovely music meant to soothe the savage beast.