To Be Right!

Here’s a fun bit a juice from the polling world…turns out that Europeans have more discontent than even Iraqi people. This revelation isn’t so good for those who think the US is an evil occupier in Iraq.

I wonder if maybe liberals and leftists are just natural malcontents? Maybe there’s real causality there? If your natural inclination is to be irritated, unhappy, and to blame everyone else for your problems, you almost automatically become a liberal. Or, maybe it’s becomming a liberal that makes you irritable, unhappy, etc? Perhaps a chicken/egg paradox?

Kudlow is on the case:

A Tale of Two Geographies [Larry Kudlow]
The New York Post reports a British poll that finds that most Iraqis believe life is better for them now than under Saddam Hussein. 49 percent say they prefer life under Maliki, and only 27 percent think there’s a civil war, compared to 61 percent who say they don’t.

Meanwhile, the FT reports a poll that reveals that 44 percent of European Union citizens think life has gotten worse since their country joined the EU. Only 25 percent of the Europeans believe life in their country has improved since it joined the EU.

So let me get this right: Europeans are more pessimistic, but Iraqis are more optimistic.

I don’t know if there’s a link here, but I’m working on it.

Bush is arrogant.  Bush doesn’t listen to anyone but Karl Rove.  Bush is incompetent.  Bush didn’t plan for the war properly.  On and on and on and on.  This is the mantra.  This is, in effect, the Democrat strategy. 

But wait - a strategy is a high level plan of action.  Simply bashing Bush surely can’t be considered strategy…

Wrong.

In the complete absence of any coherent policy, all we can do is rely on what we hear the left saying.  We’re forced to conclude that the calculated direction - the strategy - of the left is to tear down Bush.

Forget substance, forget ideas, and forget anything in the way of problem solving or real thinking of any kind.  If you’re looking for the Democrat position, all you have to do is blame Bush.  It doesn’t even really matter what you blame him for.  From gas prices, to global warming, to some maniac blowing himself up in Baghdad, it’s all Bush’s fault.  This is the essence of the Democrat strategy.

In a vacuum, this…eh…strategy is benign.  But in the context of the real world, pursuing this strategy will at best weaken the US position as the only superpower and at worst, cause catastrophic damage and death on a scale that we have never imagined.

Why is it so hard to understand that a chaotic Iraq will not only destabilize the mid-east, but would also be a safe heaven for terrorists?  Like so many simple concepts, this one seems to evade the MSM and other leftist “news” outlets.  Once terrorists have a base of operations, strategizing and planning operations against US targets is made easy.

Fortunately, in their zeal to hate Bush, the Democrats in Congress are all over the place with their so-called plans.  The “plans” are really just variations on how best to lose: There’s the Murtha “get out now” contingent; The 5 dozen or so Democrats in the “Out of Iraq Coalition”; Democrats in the Senate who want to withdrawal by November 07, or May 08, or sometime, they don’t really know; There’s the Hillary camp - just make sure I don’t have to deal with it in 09; And let’s not forget Chuck Rangel’s ”Let’s de-fund the war” group, which overlaps slightly with the Out of Iraq Coalition.

In all of this, there isn’t one actual plan for success - not a single instance.  All of this talk of incompetence and lack of planning aimed at Bush, but not a single Democrat has put forth anything other than “let’s just pack up and leave.”   Not a single one has even attempted to address the “what then?” question.

Dan Froomkin doesn’t even think a chaotic Iraq will have any security impact on the US at all.  His plan for defeat cloaked as a news “special” says it all - even it’s title is telling: They Won’t Follow Us Home.

This is all instructive - conservatives and the Republican party should use this to their advantage.  The all emotion-no substance Democrat strategy should be easy to overcome.  Republicans just have to come out from under their desks and do it!

The Christian right is composed of simplistic robots, who have near zero complexity in their political thinking.  They will vote Republican every time because of gay rights and the abortion issue.

Wrong.

This, however, is what liberals seem to think. They are clueless. E.J. Dionne sums up the position well…

The political maestros can’t abide any serious evangelical Christian daring to broaden the agenda beyond the limited set of issues (notably, opposition to abortion and gay rights) that keep the faithful voting Republican.

Of course, evangelicals are overwhelmingly pro-life. But this is not their defining political trait. It is faith in God that is the pivotal value, from which political leanings are derived.

Here’s a simple exercise…

Ask yourself this question: Where does your freedom come from?

What’s your answer?

Come on… you can do it…

Okay, I’ll help. First, does it come from a man? No, it doesn’t. No man is born superior to any other man. No man is in a position to impose his will on another man, unless he makes this imposition by force.

Second, does it come from government? No, it doesn’t. Governments are an extension of man - see above.

If it doesn’t come from man, and by extension, from government, it must come from… God.

This is the factor that drives most evangelicals to vote Republican. As soon as you attribute political freedom to God, the moral code set up by organized religion takes on a central role in further developing political thought. Moreover, the same moral code is then used to develop all kinds of social constructs from the laws we create to the mores and folkways we follow.

This line of thinking is anathema to the left. If there is absolute right wrong, standards of acceptable behavior suddenly become most difficult to acheive, unless of course your moral compass is guided by adherence to judeo-christian standards. Since the left overwhelmingly subscribes to secular-progressive standards, that is, to define your own, this model breaks down. Worse, the model becomes the target of scorn and an attempt to prevent the model from popular acceptance is vigorously pursued.

Gay rights and pro-life are two agenda items that the Christian right pursue, that much is true. But this is but a by-product of a much more significant conviction: The belief that God gives us freedom and defines right and wrong in absolute terms.

The President decides to fire 8 US attorneys - let’s investigate him! I almost can’t believe it. Is this part of the “if we take back the House and Senate we’re going provide the necessary oversight?”

Oversight my %$&.

The Republicans aren’t without fault here. I have never seen such a display of spineless cowering in my life. Stand up and fight for your dignity and honor!

What is most painful to me is that tax revenue - my money - is being used to fund these buffoons. The same people that bellyache about spending money for the war on terror, have no qualms about funding a 3 year meaningless investigation, or using valuable government resources to fund an investigation into…firing eight people.

Newflash: The President can fire any US attorney at any time. He can fire any US Attorney for any reason. So we need a congressional investigation to figure this out? I’ll send this little blog on to Pelosi - mystery solved, no investigation needed.

I’m not even going to get into what Clinton did.

Andrew McCarthy from the National Review Online sums it up better than I could ever hope to…

So we have classic Washington farce. The politicians on Capitol Hill theatrically castigate the politicians in the administration for making political decisions about political appointees based on political considerations. The politicians in the administration reply, “That would never happen,” before conceding that it precisely happened … without their knowledge, of course. And the political press is aghast.

In a victory for freedom, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has overturned the DC gun ban.  A “victory for freedom” is no exaggeration, either.  Throughout history gun bans and gun laws have been used to take rights from people, and deliver them to the hands of despots. 

Of course, it’s silly to have to repeat it because the Second Amendment is clear as day, but scholarly leftists are somehow able to extract a different meaning than ordinary people.  So let’s take a look for ourselves…

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Just how more UNambiguous could you get?

Now that our rights have been established (the peoples’ rights, not those of the State) here’s a glimpse of what gun control is really about…

This quote is one of my favorites - it really needs no follow up:

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.
–Adolph Hitler

Just remember that one of the first things Hitler did, was make it illegal for Jews (or any political opponent) to possess a gun.

Let’s look at another tyrant… Mussolini solidified his power by, you guessed it, disarming the public. The most telling thing about Mussolini’s use of public disarmament was that it was done under the guise of protecting people. The 1931 law was called the Public Safety Act. Sounds familiar, eh?

How about this… More than three quarters of a million people were systematically exterminated in Rwanda in the 90’s. Guess what preceded the slaughter? You guessed it - disarmament. The Hutu government confiscated every firearm it could, and then armed it’s own militias, who went on an 800,000 person killing spree.

George Mason said it best when he said:

To disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them…

Let’s hope that the Supreme Court affirms this victory for freedom.