World's Shortest Horror Flick

You read that right folks, just check out the link HERE and you'll get a chance to see the shortest horror movie in history. Seriously, it lasts just over a minute. The basic plot: a woman is at home by herself and discovers that an intruder is about to break in, the police can't get there in time, how will she save herself???

And once you're done watching that classic flick, remember the following:

"A gun in the hands of a good person is no danger to anyone except the bad guys."
~ Charlton Heston

Nazis, Holocaust Deniers, and the Slippery Slope of Relativism and Multiculturalism

For the last few weeks in my World War II class, we have been reading up on one of the War's most prominent aspects: the Holocaust. The book I am currently in the middle of is Deborah Lipstadt's Denying The Holocaust, and it was preceded by selections from The Good Old Days, which gave perpetrator's and bystander's accounts of the Holocaust. While reading both, I was provided with interesting insight into the world of Multiculturalism and Moral Relativism, and offered further proof as to why these two ideas are unrealistic and wrong.

Allow me to start with one of the most startling quotes from The Good Old Days. In the early stages of the Holocaust, extermination consisted entirely of mass shootings, as the gas chambers had not yet been implemented. One of the soldiers who participated in these shootings justified his actions by saying that he "only" shot men and women, but refused to shoot children because that would have been "immoral." Then there is the German officer who thought the world would end if his mistress left him, never mind his wife and children or the thousands of Jews he killed a day. As you can probably tell, both of these Germans have re-drawn their moral lines. To the one, killing "Jews and Jewesses" is perfectly acceptable, but killing children, well, that's wrong. But, hey, who are we to say he's wrong - it's all relative to his Nazi culture. Or how about the, highly distressed, officer? It's not his wife leaving him, or the continuation of the mass murder, that would spell the end of the world, but his mistress leaving him that would - but hey, once again, that's just part of the Nazi culture. And how can we deem Nazi culture 'wrong'? We're supposed to show more compassion and refrain from making harmful judgements.

My most recent reading, Denying The Holocaust, has been interesting for the overt manner in which Lipstadt directly calls out relativism, postmodernism and multiculturalism as being responsible for the acceptance of Holocaust Denial as "the other side" of an argument. While noting that they do have right to say what they like, she points out that they are not 'one side' of the argument or in any way on equal footing with other intellectuals; they are simply lunatics who ignore all facts to promote an agenda. And the reason Holocaust Denial is often seen in this improper way is because of Multiculturalism. Multiculturalism teaches students to treat all ideas 'fairly', equally and to give everyone an opportunity to speak. Naturally, this sort of openness and acceptance leads to the slow acceptance of ideas like Holocaust Denial as something other than complete idiocy.

Additionally, Lipstadt correctly points out that relativism also leads to acceptance of these wacky ideas. In the aftermath of World War II we began hearing about how the bombing of Dresden and the crimes of the Allies were 'equal if not worse' than those of the Nazis. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking persists today amongst Neo-Nazis and Relativist leftists. Of course, Holocaust Deniers have a symbiotic relationship with the aforementioned notion. Denying the Holocaust certainly diminishes Nazi War Crimes and claiming: 'the Allies were evil too,' trivializes the meaning and horror of the Holocaust.

After reading all these things it becomes even clearer that Moral Relativism and Multiculturalism are utterly ridiculous. Multiculturalism, unfortunately, must be applied to all cultures, even that of the Nazis - and Nazism hardly deserves fair or equal standing amongst world cultures. Further it provides an intellectual atmosphere in which anything and everything is accepted; even intellectual fraud and sheer stupidity. Relativism, too, helps foster the 'anything goes' mindset; and it furthers the problem by making it impossible to implicate people for obviously evil and immoral deeds. If all Moral codes are equivalent, how can you convict the man who feels killing Jews and Jewesses is ok, provided he doesn't slaughter children? How can you implicate a people who treat women as property, stamp out all semblance of freedom, and cheer on civilian-targeting suicide bombers? The answer, if you are a relativist, is that you can't; because, once again, that's just their 'culture' and their particular 'worldview'.

Right and Wrong exist and aren't variable from person to person or culture to culture. Cultures and ideas don't all deserve the same treatment and respect. And sure, different peoples, such as Nazis and Americans, may have disagreements about what's right; but disagreements don't mean there's no right answer: they just mean somebody's wrong.

Survey of Cancer Patients Says: 'Private Health Care Works'

Once again, it seems statistics are putting a massive hole in the armor of socialized medicine. Check out This article from the CATO Institute. It simply compares the survival rate of American Cancer Patients versus the survival rate of British, German, French and Canadian cancer patients. And would you believe it, the survival rate of American Cancer patients is, in many cases, over twice as high as that for Patients in the socialized paradises. Just to list a few examples: "less than one out of five American men with prostate cancer will die from it, but 57% of British men and nearly half of French and German men will," not to mention that "just 30% of U.S. citizens diagnosed with colon cancer die from it, compared to 74% in Britain, 62% in New Zealand, 58% in France, 57% in Germany, 53% in Australia, and 36% in Canada."

The numbers for Canada are significantly better than those for the other socialized nations; however this is in no way a positive reflection on the Canadian Healthcare system. What that indicates is that Canadians diagnosed with cancer, who have the means, come to the United States to receive treatment. (Many on the recommendation of Canadian Doctors, as is pointed out in the article)

It's quite simple really: if you want a healthcare system that actually cures patients and helps make their illnesses better, in short one that works, you need Private Healthcare. Socialized medicine merely degrades the quality of the services you, as a patient, receive. Further, it destroys any incentive to develop new Medical technology or new cures. (For evidence of this phenomenon see the 2nd to last paragraph of the article.) American 'Capitalist' Healthcare has better treatments and is able to successfully help more patients in less time than European Socialized care can. And that is not by accident.

Liberals, Frenchmen, and all other socialism lovers can have their crappy healthcare; but if I get old and develop a tumor, I know where I'll be going for treatment.

The Idiot Manifesto

I had the great, er, 'pleasure' of reading Marx and Engel's infamous Communist Manifesto for history class today, and boy was it everything I thought it would be. Stupid, unrealistic, laughable, and hopelessly illogic would perhaps be the most appropriate words.

I must say I truly enjoyed how Marx planned this 'revolution'. Everyone would, voluntarily, just throw away everything, start over and create the real Utopia. Forget old family traditions, any religious values, anything and everything you ever believed or stood for (It's all a slick plan by the Bourgeoisie anyways) and "UNITE." Um, reality check, anyone? Yea that's just going to happen, everyone is just going to throw away the religion and values they've had for hundreds of years because, you swear, in your little 25 page paper, that it's all just a big conspiracy? A wise man once said "You can fool some people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time," too bad he became President 12 years after Marx wrote the Manifesto - Karl could've used the advice.

I also loved how he talks about freeing the oppressed, but at the same time wants to take everything away from the Bourgeoisie. Equality for everyone, except those who used to be in charge: screw them. What ever happened, in this little document, to the rights of the Upper-class? Marx may not like them, but they're people too.

I also was intrigued at how Marx never states what he feels are the rights of individuals. Through reading him, one gets the picture that he believes people have a right to a good job, but that seems to be about it. In fact, he arbitrarily decides that people don't have the right to private property, but he never even attempts to refute the rationale of Locke. This is a crucial point in Marx's 'rationale,' because the right to Private Property in Capitalistic societies is clearly derived from the philosophy of Locke and others like him; thus in order to prove that Capitalistic Private Property is incorrect, Marx would need to disprove the reasoning of Locke.

Next, I was shocked by how completely counter-intuitive his conclusion was. He spends pages and pages telling the reader how selfish, individualistic, etc. man has become through Capitalism. In essence, he proves that mankind can be naturally selfish. So logically, the best system would be one that ignored this observation altogether and had man simply put aside his selfishness for the good and betterment of all. What?? The reason communism has failed, and always will fail, is that it totally ignores the nature of human beings. All it takes to disrupt a communistic system is one person, who wants to achieve more; because that person then works harder or does some other thing to gain an advantage over all the rest. Then all the rest become envious and struggle to themselves achieve the same advantage. Surely Marx isn't stupid enough to believe that everyone in the world will just willingly remain egalitarian. But then again......

Finally, of course, is how magnificently unrealistic Marx's theories are, as we are able to see through the implementation of communism in various places. Russia was able to murder more innocent people than the civilized world ever thought possible, thanks to communism. They were able to produce one of the most backward, underachieving and oppressive economies of all time. Furthermore, communism allowed the peoples of Eastern Europe and the USSR to be deprived of human liberties for over 70 years. In China, communism allowed Mao to weasel his way into the history books as one of the most ruthless dictators of all time, bar perhaps Stalin and Hitler. And in Vietnam, as well as in modern China, communism has been so successful that both Nations find their economies becoming more and more capitalistic every day. And let's not forget that communism has produced super-nice-guy Fidel Castro too.

Indeed, it seems that Ronald Reagan was, as usual, dead on when he dissected the difference between communists and non-communists. As per the Great Communicator: "How do you tell a communist? It's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. How do you tell an anti-communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."

What's Wrong With Bush?

I like George W Bush. When all is said and done I think that his forigen policy will rate as best of any President. Domestically, he has at ther very least revived a stagnant economy in the wake of 9/11 and managed to make it the most effecient one in American history, and for this he deserves credit. However, in this second term, thus far, the Oval Office has been devoid of the strong leadership and great ideas that came from it during the first term. The recent speech in support of the ongoing War on Terror was perhaps Bush's best move since being re-elected.

But on a different note, he has abandoned all thought of fiscal restraint in domestic spending in the aftermath of Katrina. He has abandoned the much-needed Social Security Privatization reform he sought not to long ago. He has, as of yet, failed to create a strong stance against illegal immigration. And now, he has absolutely boggled a chance to put a true, deserving justice on the Supreme Court with the nomination of Harriet Miers. While some of the criticism he has received this term is not deserved (see Hurricane Katrina), much of it is, and the President knows how to respond. He just has to do it.

With 9/11, a strong economy, the War on Terror, 2 (and possibly 3) Supreme Court nominations, not to mention an unwanted excess of natural disasters(both national and international) Bush is quickly becoming the most influential person in the post-Reagan era. Thus far he has done well and shown strong leadership. Now is not the time to stop.

Responsabilidad

Will Mexico ever stop complaining about US immigration policy? Seriously, it seems unless we were to declare an open border, the Mexican Foreign Ministry would take issue. Take this new proposition that is coming out of Georgia (and apparently Arizona too). The idea is to tax any money being wired back to Mexico, unless the migrants can produce proof of their legal status. But, noooo, the Mexican Government has to whine like babies about it. It's unfair to the Mexican economy.

Well maybe, just maybe, the Mexican government wouldn't have such a bad economy if they actually, you know, did something about it. There's a novel idea. Instead of spending all their time complaining about the U.S or making brochures to help their citizens illegally immigrate into the States, maybe they could actually, you know, work on comprehensive domestic policy reforms to improve their own economy. In fact, I think we should go ahead and say that any country with an economy as bad as Mexico's needs to scrap their 'Foreign Ministry' altogether. C'mon, if your economy is in such bad shape that you have to help your people leave your country illegally, diplomatic relations shouldn't be high on your priority list.

Furthermore, shouldn't it be some kind of a law that if 1/3 of your citizens live below the poverty line, you loose your right to criticize other Countries' domestic policies? I mean clearly the Mexicans can't exactly be considered experts on the subject, so why do they think the world's most successful economy will take advice from them on how to make things more 'just' and less 'discriminatory'?

As for the bill, I think it's a great idea, because it is a realistic way to slowly eat away at illegal immigration; and it does so by making it less desirable for Mexicans to come here in the first place. Additionally, the laws are hardly unfair or discriminatory because they're taking levying taxes on these folks in an attempt to make them pay for all the education, health care, and welfare services they receive, for free, from the American government. In short, if Mexicans are going to illegally take advantage of the system, we will legally take advantage of them.

BusHitler, and Other Liberal Myths

I was planning on writing about Colorado 'teacher' Jay Bennish as soon as I heard his rather interesting story. Unfortunately, I was able to listen to the audio of his 'lecture' and was unable to stop laughing until just now. In short, Mr Bennish gave an anti-Bush, anti-Capitalist, Postmodernist rant to his geography class, and was unfortunate enough to have it recorded by one of his students. He was suspended, but his students took up his banner by staging a walkout in support of thier rastafarian teacher.

I mention the walkout only because it humors me as much as the rant itself. Like it made a difference? They're just high school kids, stupid ones at that. Most could have cared less about their teacher; they just wanted to get out of class. I know if I was still in high school and someone came up to me and said, "We're leaving class in protest." My only question would have been "For how long? " or "Will it get me out of my Calculus test next block?" But what about the few who actually were sincere? Fight on, brothers! I mean seriously, anyone who has been in high school for longer than, oh say, 2 days, knows that picking a fight with High School administrators is just plain idiotic. (And fruitless, I might add).

But onto a select few portions of Mr Bennish's high-on-emotion, short-on-logic commentary:

First up: the Drug War. After delineating how cruel the United States is to third-world farmers etc, etc, Mr Bennish suggests that China and Iran have as much right to "invade America and drop chemical weapons on North Carolina," to destroy cigarette companies, as we do to destroy cocaine and marijuana crops in Bolivia. The first problem with this argument is that we are not invading South American countries and that we drop plant killing chemicals, not chemical weapons, so his idea seems a bit overboard. Further, as someone who has been, and will be, living literally less than a mile from the R.J Reynolds company headquarters (and who attends a University that gave serious consideration to calling itself 'Reynolds College' instead of Wake Forest) I can't say I'm much a fan of this idea.

The most important difference is that the rest of the world WANTS our cigarettes, we don't want Columbia's cocaine; thus, we have to try to halt the importation of it, and this often means getting to the (physical and theoretical) root of the problem.

Next up: Capitalism. The system that is "at odds" with "caring and compassion" and "Human Rights." Wow, this is where I really started to just die laughing. Was Soviet Communism more 'compassionate'?? Or perhaps he'd prefer the self-destructing French Socialism?? Perhaps, he wants a system that incoporates the 'Workers' more, so that the evil rich people have to show more compassion towards the common guys?? But no, that can't be true, because Hitler tried that (he was originally a member of the 'German Worker's Party') and, as you'll see, Mr. Bennish doesn't much like Hitler. (In fact, he thinks he's almost as bad as George W. Bush)

Most interesting is how Mr. Bennish neglects to mention that the two most generous nations in the world (the ones who donate the most governmental cash) are Japan and the United States: the two most capitalistic societies in the world. And he probably doesn't want me to mention that the massive amount donated by the American government doesn't include all the private donations that Americans make every year through the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, their Churches, etc. How uncaring and uncompassionate of us nasty Capitalist pigs!!

And last, but certainly not least: BusHitler!! On this ludicrous comparison, I will say very little. I have just finished reading Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz (detailing how he managed to live for over a year at the most infamous Concentration Camp). When the American Auschwitz opens Mr. Bennish can try this argument with me. (And no, the 3 square meals a day given at Gitmo or the grand total of zero deaths at Abu Ghraib do not count.)

The bottom line, Mr. Bennish epitomizes why most American's can't locate Iraq on the map: in class they get liberal indoctrination instead of, say, geography.

***I would however like to congratulate Mr. Bennish for completing this expansive and lengthy rant without once screaming: "HALIBURTON!!!!!!! "***

The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy - Returns!

Just wait for it. Before long Hillary Clinton will bust out that Vast Right Wing Conspiracy again. Only this time, expect her to be the poor victim of the vicious GOP attack dogs. Poor Hillary. I'm sure that America feels her pain at being 'obsessed' over. And I can only imagine how being in the public eye and on the news all the time just terribly upsets her.

The reason I warn you of this is because of Sen. Clinton's comments today that Karl Rove (the evilest of all evils) "spends a lot of time obsessing about [her]" and her political future. What sparked this was Mr. Rove's comments that Hillary was going to be the Democratic Presidential Nominee in 2008. Anyone who thought otherwise was "kidding themselves" according to Karl. Best of all was when Hillary claimed that Karl thought more about her political future than she did!

First off, no one thinks about Hillary's political future more than Hillary because, let's be honest, Hillary Clinton is one of the most self-centered, power-hungry, underhanded politician since....well.....Stalin? (They are both Communists, although Stalin wasn't big on feminism.....). Mrs. Clinton spends all of her time thinking about her and her political future, so Karl Rove is light years behind her in that department.

Finally, how exactly is Karl Rove wrong? Who, in their right mind, doubts that Sen. Clinton will, at the very least, make a serious run for the Democratic Nomination? We've all known she wanted to become President since, well, since we first heard of her. Saying that Hillary is going to be the Democratic Nominee in '08 is simply playing the odds. It's like betting on the 1992 Dream Team to win the Olympic Gold, it might not happen, but, you know, pretty darn good odds.

Hillary Clinton just wants some media headlines in order to make herself the victim again; just like she tried to do with her husband during his Presidency. Further, it was a great opportunity to bash Republicans and how they have made "hundreds" of mistakes in Washington. Although by now, her gig is getting old, and most of main-stream America tends to ignore it, a trait which could prove fatal in the 2008 election. For now though, Hillary's diatribes will only matter to the idiotic Democrats who support her and those of us on the Right who sporadically forecast the '08 election and who just plain enjoy making sarcastic, satirical critiques of Madame Clinton.

Tide Turning on Abortion?

The 1973 decision in the now infamous Roe vs. Wade case began the era of legalized abortion here in the U.S. Recently, however, events seem to be pointing towards a slow but admirable trend to reverse this decision.

First, of course, we have the new appointees to the Supreme Court: Roberts and Alito. Both of these men are unlikely to demonstrate the activist tendencies that led to the Roe vs. Wade decision. Assuming Roberts votes like his predecessor Rehnquist, Justice Alito should prove to be the swing vote on future abortion cases that pro-lifers didn't have in Sandra Day O'Conner.

Furthermore, it appears that an important case on partial-birth abortion is about to come before the Supreme Court. This could be a landmark case in the fight against legalized abortion and the Roe vs. Wade precedent. Indeed, it seems that at a state level things have already begun to pick up. Take this recent ban out of the South Dakota Legislature. It seems that in South Dakota, pending the, expected, Governor's signature, abortion will become illegal except in cases where the mother's life is at risk.

The pro-life movement seems to be gathering steam in the political arena, which might mean that the elimination of all abortion, except in cases of rape and when the mother's life is in danger, is in America's future on a not-so-distant horizon.

Ahoy There.......Muawiya?

National Security is an important issue. Obviously. And in the aftermath of 9/11 border and internal security has become quite an issue. Given all of that, the proposal in this article is just outrageous. It appears that there are plans to turn over control of 6 of America's most important ports to Duabi Ports World, a United Arab Emirates company. That's right, the same U.A.E where much of the operational planning for the 9/11 attacks took place.

Wow, talk about a stupid decision. American Ports have already been declared as one of the most vulnerable and likely next targets for terrorism in the USA. But the Department of Treasury (which is what controls the committee that authorized this deal) clearly missed that memo. As the article points out, key security information about the ports will be given to these Emirations (assuming that's what they're called), which of course just makes all kinds of sense. For the terrorists.

I don't really need to add much to what is mentioned in the article other than the fact that this is an utter atrocity. All I can think of is that this is some sort of 'globalization' or 'outsourcing' deal gone terribly wrong.

Operation 'Back-To-The-Stone-Age'

It seems to me that the President of Iran gets loonier and loonier every day. Which, unfortunately, means the threat of Iran getting and, more importantly, using nukes grows as well. However, so as not to sound like another one of the crowd randomly shouting that 'Iran is a threat,' I thought I would distinguish myself with a few minor suggestions on how to actually deal with this threat without the use of a serious ground offensive.

To perform such an operation we need to have good relations with Jerusalem and that wonderfully sane place in the Middle East known as Israel. This, of course, isn't a problem: Israeli's are a bit more understanding of National Security matters than Europeans and even most Americans.

The key to any sort of offensive against Iran would have to center around strategic bombing: lots of strategic bombing. In other words, every site in Iran that is even thought to be even remotely related to nuclear production would have to be destroyed. Cruise Missiles, Patriot Missiles - whatever it takes. The launching of these Missiles would need to be done simultaneously from bases in Israel (assuming they have the long range capability), Navy Ships in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea, and American Bases on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The strategic command base for this operation could be either on Naval Ships stationed in the Arabian Sea, the American Naval base at Bahrain, or the US Military Base in Incirlik, Turkey. (I'd recommend the second)

Furthermore, the operation would need to have three key elements. The First is secrecy. In order to be effective this operation would have to be launched suddenly, without warning, and without any sort of public approval. That means no UN. That means no debates in the media. That means no Congressional hearings. The reason is simple: we can't afford to hash this thing out in the court of public opinion for 8 months like we did with Iraq. Giving the Iranians a heads up means giving them time to prepare for the bombs and to protect their nuclear program.

The Second key component is that the strikes from Afghanistan and Iraq will need to be conducted with the added element of Air Force bombing. This Air-bombing would be an attempt to destroy other non-nuclear military facilities and cripple any potential counter-strike measures from Iran. The use of Stealth Bombers etc. would obviously be crucial in this regard. Furthermore, it would be an added bonus if, say, one of the Air Force's bombs were to fall on the Presidential House in Tehran and perhaps kill the maniac in charge of that country.

The Third element, which has been alluded to, is the utter need for an overwhelming, unexpected, preemptive strike. The attack would need to happen so fast and with so much force that the Iranian nuclear program would be utterly crippled before Tehran ever knew what was going on. No half-assed attempts at 'limited bombing' or at 'avoiding civilian casualties.' If you're going to bomb it; take it out. (Think George Patton style)

In the aftermath of such an attack, it would need to be made clear to Iran that we would not hesitate to bomb again, were they to re-start the program. Perhaps we might even try to hint at a potential nuclear attack. (And no, we wouldn't actually have to use an H-bomb, but immediately after a massive bombardment it would hardly be an empty threat.) While bombardment probably won't make Iran completely sane, it would, at the very least, set them back over 20 years in their long desired attempt to attack Israel or America.

So in a nutshell: A preemptive, secret overpowering strike, coupled with Arial bombing would seem to be a logical way to destroy Iranian nuclear capacity. However, in the aftermath of such an attack, we should remember that they are hardly likely to turn a complete 180 in policy and thus, we should still maintain a hard-line stance. It's not much, since I obviously am no military expert, but that to me appears to be a solid starting point for dealing with Iran.

The Cartoon Prophet

Recently, as you must know, a Danish newspaper has come under fire for drawing cartoons of Islam's most sacred prophet: Muhammad. These cartoons depict Muhammad and his religion as violent and evil. One has Muhammad with a bomb for a turban, another suggests that Muhammad's religion has managed to suppress women, and another shows Muhammad at the gates of heaven telling Muslims to stop dying in jihad because he has "run out of virgins."

In the view of the Muslim world, these cartoons are blasphemous, and present an erroneous picture of their prophet and their religion. This distant observer finds that concerning Muhammad these cartoons are perhaps incorrect. In these cartoons we are not able to see the thousands of victims that Muhammad murdered in order to 'peacefully' spread his religion. We are not able to see the Arabian gangsters that Muhammad had to persuade to join his cause in order to create an army with which to conquer Arabia. We are not able to see the hundreds of women that Muhammad and his closest followers raped, nor are we able to see the excessive 'toleration' that Muhammad showed to Arabian Jews by killing or evicting every last one from Medina, Mecca, and elsewhere.

As for the mischaracterization of Islam; in response to these cartoons that suggest Islam is a violent religion instead of a peaceful one, the pacifist, honorable followers of the Religion of Peace have done the following in an attempt to prove their point:

- Burned the Danish Embassy in Damascus
- Hurled Stones at a European Commission building
- Smashed windows and doors while storming a German Cultural Center
- 'Peacefully' called for the execution of those who both drew and published the cartoons
(these are cartoons, mind you)
- Thrown rocks and glass bottles at Danish police
- Burned Danish and German flags
- Burned the Norwegian Embassy in Damascus
- Arrested Jordanian Newspaper editors who published the cartoons (One has been fired, already)
(Once again, these are cartoons we're talking about)
- Accidentally torched the Swedish and Chilean embassies in Damascus (they were in the same building as the Danish, and thus just kindda got burned with it)
- Attempted to storm (and presumably burn) the French Embassy (but were stopped by Police)
- And, of course, blame it all on the Jews

*Note* The blogger feels that no special analysis is need for this last part. If, after reading the last paragraph and the ensuing bullets of information, you have not been able to detect the irony and determine the obvious conclusion, the blogger recommends locating the nearest copy of 'Sherlock Holmes' and reading it, in order to get a crash course in deductive reasoning

"In God Is Our Trust"

You're probably expecting this blog to be my take on the President's State of the Union Address last night, unfortunately, it's not. I didn't even watch it (I was watching My Deacs lose another ACC game.....). However, I found out something new today that I thought was rather interesting.
As you all (should) know, our National Anthem, the Star Spangled Banner, was written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812. It became the offical Anthem under Herbert Hoover. Contrarily, what you may not know is that nowadays, we only sing the first verse, and omit the last 3. If you wish to see all 3 verses you can check out this link here. I will however, reprint the 4th verse here, as I find it to be of extreme interest:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Bles't with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Well that's quite a verse for everyone from James Madison to Herbert Hoover to be getting excited about isn't it? All that stuff about God, and all those references to Christian ideas. Geez, can you imagine what toady's liberals, who insist on omitting prayer, the Christian religion, and the J-word (Jesus for those of you in the dark) from public schools, would think if we sung that "In God is our trust" line every time we sang the National Anthem? Ted Kennedy's head would explode just listening to it!

As you can tell, here we have further proof that this is a Nation founded in Christian principles. They want us to omit 'Under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance, yet "In God is our trust" is part of the official National Anthem of our country. And this reference has been around since the Madison administration. Yet no one complained about it or held protests about this 'religious' reference, even the 'Father of the Constitution' seemed to give it his stamp of approval!

Furthermore, when it was adopted in 1931 as the official Anthem, there weren't complaints about how our new Anthem had Christian overtones. In fact, the reason it was adopted was because it had been continually gaining in popularity ever since it had first been performed. So, if all these Americans, from all these different eras, took so fondly to this obviously religious song that they adopted it as the National Anthem, why are we constantly told to ban Christianity from public places?

This Nation was founded on Christian principles, and it was hoped that future generations of Americans would follow these same ideals. That's why we don't need 'Under God' removed from the Pledge, or (non-Muslim) prayer banned in public schools, or 'In God We Trust' taken off our money or out of the National Anthem. The Founding Fathers intended for the United States to be one nation under God, complete with a people steeped in Judeo-Christian values.

To be perfectly honest, these atheistic lefties had better stop thier assult on this Nation's 'God' references or we might not have any patriotic songs left. The Star-Spangled Banner, Battle Hymn of the Republic, The Halls of Montezuma, My Country Tis of Thee, The Army Goes Rolling On........wow, every American song I can think of has some reference to God in it! Interestingly, this phenomenon of Heavenly overtones in National Anthems is not unique to the United States. For example, the Canadians ask God to keep their 'land glorious and free,' The Italians ask to have 'The way of the Lord' revealed to them, hell, the British have been asking God to 'Save the Queen' for centuries.

It is my most sincere hope that, to put a spin on a line from the Battle Hymn of the Republic, despite these atheistic liberals, in America, 'God Keeps Marching On.'

Words to Consider....

As I was doing some reading today, I encountered the following prayer. It was written by Sir William Stephenson, a Canadian who worked for British Intelligence here in the US. It is thought to have been carried around by Elanor Roosevelt in her purse during the War. It goes like this:

Dear Lord,
Lest I continue my complacent way
Help me to remember, somewhere out there,
A man died for me today.
As long as there be war
I then must ask and answer:
Am I worth dying for?

As soon as I read it, I was reminded of the line from the end of Saving Private Ryan: "Earn this." In any case, remember this prayer not only when you think of the War today, but when you think of World War II as well.

Just something to ponder as you go about your day.

The Great Beacon of Academia: Postmodernism

As you can perhaps tell by the title, I have once again had the great pleasure of running into one of the great fallacies of modern liberalism: the philosophy of postmodernism. This idea flourishes on college campuses due mainly to the fact that a college campus is one of the few places were a group of people can be far enough removed from reality, for an extended period of time, to not see the absurdity inherent with it.

Many people buy into this idea believing that it represents honest questioning and research; i.e that we are trying to truly evaluate and understand both sides and be as reasonable as possible. Unfortunately, the true problem with this philosophy lies in the fact that, in an attempt to refrain from 'bias' or 'prejudice,' it omits judging and opinion-forming altogether. Furthermore, it also comes with the inevitable invoking of multiculturalism, and the standard lines that 'we don't really know right and wrong,' or that there are 'several' truths.

Today, I encountered it in history class where the discussion concerned various philosophies of and teaching methods of history. The postmodern idea of history contends that we can never 'know' historical truth because our viewpoint from the present is so diluted. Many in the class, indeed, gave responses that sounded like they were taken directly from Michael Moore or someone of the like. I even heard the contention that there probably were multiple historical truths.

So apparently, when I say that "on July 4th, 1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed" I'm not stating a historical truth. What? Was it signed again on the 8th? I mean come on, of course there's only one historical truth, a day or a moment only happens once, so two different things aren't happening at once. The founders didn't sign and not sign the Declaration on July 4th. They couldn't. Not unless they had a secret, evil time machine to go back and live through the day twice.

Look, I'm not saying it's not a good thing to look at evidence, and study an issue from all sides, walk a mile in someone else's shoes, if you will, but that doesn’t mean when you've walked that mile that you can't say their road just sucks. Making judgments is a good and necessary thing to do. That is where postmodernism falls apart in the real world. You can't just walk around saying I think that's wrong but that's just my opinion. What if, for instance, in my culture it's 'right' to pull out a shotgun and shoot postmodernists? Under those circumstances a postmodernist has no moral argument to prevent me from killing them. In fact, if they allowed themselves to live, based on their rules, they would be demonstrating 'intolerance' of my culture. The bottom line, however, is that if my culture pulls shotguns on postmodernists for no reason; my culture is just plain wrong.

Of course, as far as a history class is concerned, postmodernism is directly aimed at the old 'Eurocentric' model of teaching history. You know, the one where we teach kids American History and focus on the Western World. Postmodernists dislike this because it makes a judgment, a judgment that western culture is, by and large, better and superior to everyone else's. And that is, by and large, a true assessment. It was the Greeks, Romans and then Americans who first adopted this idea of a 'Republic'. It was out of the Enlightenment that we got this concept of 'unalienable' human rights. Heck, it was America that really began the total elimination of slavery. These, and many more, are the reasons why we teach from this perspective; because in the real world, it makes more sense for Americans to know a bit more about the history of Republicanism (in case they ever decide to vote) than of African tribal cultures.

Certainly, we should include lessons about the rest of the world, perhaps a mandatory 'World History' class would be a good idea, but let's not forget to emphasize Eurocentricity. We should not be afraid to draw the conclusion that Eurocentric values, traditions, etc are not just better, but right. After all, that's why we've stuck with them for so long and, interestingly enough, why the postmodernists, or the postmodernist's ancestors, came here in the first place.