Merry Christmas in the Midst of the War on Joy

Many years ago, in another Christmas season, I wrote a long-forgotten piece on the left's "War on Joy." In that little post in 2013, I noted that what really fuels the left, aside from the quest for unlimited power, is the need to destroy "joy,"

The war on happiness and joy, of course, goes well beyond the assault on Christmas traditions. The left cannot stand the thought of individuals doing things that bring them joy and happiness. Automobiles. Yes, automobiles form a major target of this assault. Driving an automobile can bring joy, excitement, and independence into a person's life. Driving an "impractical" automobile such as a Porsche, a Corvette, a Nissan GTR, a Cadillac CTS-V, a Ferrari, or a 700Hp modified Shelby GT-500 is fun and brings joy. The leftists would have us all in grey buses, trains, and, at best, in subsidized pokey Priuses and Volts, stifling our joy and happiness in the name of protecting Gaia against a fake warming threat. They will use taxes, and EPA and safety regulations, and absurd speed limits to ruin our joy. The same with gun ownership. Guns are fun; they bring joy to the owner, and assert an individual's right to independence and self-defense. Gun ownership, of course, also limits the power of the state, and the ability of the leftists running the state to dictate the arc of our lives. We see the same in the assault on drinking, smoking, eating meat, homeschooling, and on individual choice in medical care. The state will decide which schools our children can attend, what they will learn; the state will decide our medical choices. They wage war on small businesses, which bring joy to the owners and, again assert independence, because after all, "you didn't build that."

Since that seven-year-old exposition, of course, the left has increased its assault on joy. We have seen the destruction, for example, of the Boy Scouts, professional sports, music concerts, the rewriting of history to stress misery and greed, the attack on our pride in the beliefs and institutions that built this country, the fomenting of hatred for Western Civilization, the destruction of statues, parks, etc. This assault knows no bounds, as we have seen so dramatically in the last presidential election. 

The ChicCom virus has given the attackers new weapons. Now, we are banned from gyms, bars, and restaurants; owners of such establishments get arrested for trying to run a business; we get told to stay home OR DIE!! We must, a la Middle Ages, wear masks to ward off the "invisible enemy" and, more important, to signal our submission to our "science-driven" overlords! The police get called if a mother reads a story to her child in a public library without wearing a mask! Families are thrown off airliners for not suiting up their little children in the approved mask manner! Families and friends may not gather to worship or celebrate! Unless, of course, they march or loot for social justice . . .

So, friends, as we enter the Christmas season in the midst of all this leftist gangsterism, terrorism, and dystopian cloud-cuckooism, it is important to rebel by being happy. 

Yes, express joy and happiness. Do not let the prog thugs ruin your fun.  

In other words, have a Merry Christmas . . . fighting words in these times.

 

The War on Joy

This post started off as a little discourse on the Christmas season and the sort of politically correct nonsense we see emerge at this time. I have previously written about how as a Jewish American diplomat I dealt with Christmas in the Far Abroad, and had my own mini run-in with the political correctness commissars. I like Christmas; I like Christmas music and cookies; I like the whole season; I like how happy it makes kids. Reflecting on happiness, however, got me in a foul mood, as you will see below.

The old irascible, politically incorrect, and acerbic sage of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken, once famously defined Puritanism as, "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Mencken today likely would want to revise his definition; Puritans and their ethos have long departed the American political and cultural scene. Today's warriors against happiness, those haunted by the "fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy" are the leftist ideologues in charge of most of our social, political, educational, and cultural institutions. Yes, of course, they have an insatiable drive for power; yes, of course, they want control over all aspects of our lives. I, however, have come to the conclusion that what really fuels them, or put it another way, the hidden turbocharge in their engine, is their hatred of joy, of happiness, and most notably of the special joy and happiness that comes with an individual expressing and exercising independence.

The manifestations of this war are everywhere in small details and in large panoramas. The war on Christmas, for example, is real. The MSNBC crowd might laugh, but the war is there for all to see. We see it, for example, in the mock outrage over Fox newscaster Megyn Kelly's comment that Jesus was white and so is Santa. Who with any amount of brains would think that the historical Jesus was black? That is utter Farrakhan nonsense. What difference, at this point, to paraphrase Hillary, does his race make if you believe he was the Messiah? Presumably we are all creatures of God regardless of race or color. The historical Jesus was a semite, a Jew. As far as I know, Arabs and Jews are considered white. Let's put it this way, he was more white than George Zimmerman whom the press had no trouble labeling as such despite his Afro-Peruvian grandmother. And Santa? Why should he be black? Should Uncle Remus be declared white? If you want you can go with the Three Wisemen, one of whom, Balthazar, in Spanish culture is black. Why ruin the holiday for the kids with this debate? Why try to ruin their joy and wonder? Why does even this issue need to be politicized? This, of course, all forms part of a broader war on the Judeo-Christian fundaments of our society. We don't need to review all that but we all can hear that "dog whistle" loud and clear.

The war on happiness and joy, of course, goes well beyond the assault on Christmas traditions. The left cannot stand the thought of individuals doing things that bring them joy and happiness. Automobiles. Yes, automobiles form a major target of this assault. Driving an automobile can bring joy, excitement, and independence into a person's life. Driving an "impractical" automobile such as a Porsche, a Corvette, a Nissan GTR, a Cadillac CTS-V, a Ferrari, or a 700Hp modified Shelby GT-500 is fun and brings joy. The leftists would have us all in grey buses, trains, and, at best, in subsidized pokey Priuses and Volts, stifling our joy and happiness in the name of protecting Gaia against a fake warming threat. They will use taxes, and EPA and safety regulations, and absurd speed limits to ruin our joy. The same with gun ownership. Guns are fun; they bring joy to the owner, and assert an individual's right to independence and self-defense. Gun ownership, of course, also limits the power of the state, and the ability of the leftists running the state to dictate the arc of our lives. We see the same in the assault on drinking, smoking, eating meat, homeschooling, and on individual choice in medical care. The state will decide which schools our children can attend, what they will learn; the state will decide our medical choices. They wage war on small businesses, which bring joy to the owners and, again assert independence, because after all, "you didn't build that."

My favorite philosopher, William James, argued that "truth" is whatever makes you happy,

“No concrete test of what is really true has ever been agreed upon. . . . If a man chooses to turn his back altogether on God and the future, no one can prevent him; no one can show beyond reasonable doubt that he is mistaken. If a man thinks otherwise and acts as he thinks, I do not see that any one can prove that he is mistaken. Each must act as he thinks best; and if he is wrong, so much the worse for him. . . . In all important transactions of life we have to take a leap in the dark.”

Our lefty overlords cannot accept that. They will define happiness and truth and success. There will be no "leap in the dark." At all times we must remember that our success and happiness come at the expense of someone else's. You are well-off, only because somebody else is poorly-off. We must all live in fear of AIDS, SARS, Mad Cow Disease, Global Warming; all huddle together and let the state protect us. 

Well, I will stop here before getting myself too worked up. In sum, it is best not to show that you are happy and joyful. The nannies will not like it, and whatever you're doing to make yourself happy will get taxed, regulated, or banned. So, my advice for the season: wear a dour game face. Don't let "them" know you are happy.

"All Meant to Drive You Crazy"

Just got home from our safari into northern Virginia. Along with Diploson1 and Diploson2, we visited Diploson3, his wife, and the new Diplograndson. We all vowed to stay away from DC, and we kept that vow.

The Diplograndson, already three months old, has decided to use "male" as his gender designation, and will employ he/him/his as his personal pronouns. Between sips of Maker's Mark, and puffs on a Romeo y Julieta, he expressed great concern over the hysteria generated by the global warming hoax; rejected as fake the Russia collusion story; tagged the Ukraine impeachment story as another fraud; and argued that since black lives matter, he opposes federal funding for Planned Parenthood, the biggest destroyer of black lives in America. I might have over interpreted his comments . . . maybe . . ..

Diploson3 and wife fled DC a couple of weeks ago for the relative safety and comfort of Fairfax county in Virginia. We noticed that the area around Vienna, Merrifield, Fairfax City, and Dunn Loring apparently has undergone another of its every-so-often but titanic demographic shifts. Occupying the area's million-dollar-plus condos and townhouses are youngish white couples. They have, it seems, fled the big city and returned to the suburbs. When we bought a home in the area some thirty years (fortunately, we still have it), we saw the tide running the other way, with suburban neighborhoods full of recent immigrants from Vietnam and the Middle East.

This time, furthermore, we saw these youngish white couples with a surprising number of small children, almost more than dogs--also a change from thirty years ago. The politics? Ah, well, they remain the classic vacuous progressive politics of semi-wealthy young suburbanites. We saw several cars and businesses displaying "Black Lives Matter" signs, thereby, it seems, some of these white suburbanites attribute greater value to the lives of others than to their own. Examples of generosity and self-sacrifice? Empty-headed virtue signaling? Fear and the paying of Dane-geld? I report, you decide.

Northern Virginia remains very much in the grip of the Chicom virus fear. The partially reopened stores and restaurants require you to wear a mask. It all looks like a bad dystopian future scifi flick. The restaurants we tried had an austere clinical feel; hard to enjoy a meal while breathing in bleach fumes, tables damp from disinfectant "wipe downs," and attended by wait staff who look like lab techs with masks and rubber gloves. I kept expecting them to ask me for a stool sample -- all the while surrounded by written and broadcast messages telling us: "We are all in this together!" "Maintain your social distance!" "No mask, no entry!"

Much of the reaction to the ChiCom virus forms part of what I wrote about some seven years ago: the left's war on joy and fun. While that post dealt mostly with the assault on Christmas, it contained some observations of a more general nature that apply to the current situation:

The old irascible, politically incorrect, and acerbic sage of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken, once famously defined Puritanism as, "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Mencken today likely would want to revise his definition; Puritans and their ethos have long departed the American political and cultural scene. Today's warriors against happiness, those haunted by the "fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy" are the leftist ideologues in charge of most of our social, political, educational, and cultural institutions. Yes, of course, they have an insatiable drive for power; yes, of course, they want control over all aspects of our lives. I, however, have come to the conclusion that what really fuels them, or put it another way, the hidden turbocharge in their engine, is their hatred of joy, of happiness, and most notably of the special joy and happiness that comes with an individual expressing and exercising independence. <...> 

The left cannot stand the thought of individuals doing things that bring them joy and happiness. Automobiles. Yes, automobiles form a major target of this assault. Driving an automobile can bring joy, excitement, and independence into a person's life. Driving an "impractical" automobile such as a Porsche, a Corvette, a Nissan GTR, a Cadillac CTS-V, a Ferrari, or a 700Hp modified Shelby GT-500 is fun and brings joy. The leftists would have us all in grey buses, trains, and, at best, in subsidized pokey Priuses and Volts, stifling our joy and happiness in the name of protecting Gaia against a fake warming threat. They will use taxes, and EPA and safety regulations, and absurd speed limits to ruin our joy. The same with gun ownership. Guns are fun; they bring joy to the owner, and assert an individual's right to independence and self-defense. Gun ownership, of course, also limits the power of the state, and the ability of the leftists running the state to dictate the arc of our lives. We see the same in the assault on drinking, smoking, eating meat, homeschooling, and on individual choice in medical care. The state will decide which schools our children can attend, what they will learn; the state will decide our medical choices. They wage war on small businesses, which bring joy to the owners and, again assert independence, because after all, "you didn't build that."

Diploson3 had, perhaps, a more accurate, and infinitely more pithy observation. He noted that the edicts coming out from the left are "all meant to drive you crazy." So many of the "rules" we have had imposed on us in reaction to the ChiCom virus have no rhyme or reason, no logic, no science. It's hard, therefore, to dispute Diploson3's observation.

Don't let the left succeed.

Do not get crazy, get angry.

A Quiet Christmas

Not much doing.

Couple of the kids came in from out of town to hang out at one of our places in Southern California. And, of course, as I have noted before, since the climate cultists declared we are in a drought, it has been raining off and on, and we have had some nice crisp weather.

Today, however, the weather was dry, still a bit on the cool side, but sunny, and, mercifully, the freeway traffic light.

Perfect day for a cruise. I uncovered the 1973 Mach 1, and fired up the 351 Cleveland, shattering the serenity of the 'hood.

The scarlet beast is running and looking great, especially since I had installed a new but retro-looking instrument cluster with a functioning tach, functioning clock, and a fiery red glow. All worth the considerable money I poured in. Well, the Diplowife doesn't agree with that, but since her beloved Ford Expedition got totaled a couple of weeks ago by some woman who ran a red light while texting, she has soured on the topic of cars. Have a police report that backs up our story, but still am spending lots of time going back and forth with the insurance companies involved, and that's always a joy . . . a joy in which I did not partake today.

Anyhow, I took the Mach 1 Red Sled on a little Christmas Day jaunt through the Temecula wine country, and it was splendid. The new Hurst shifter worked flawlessly as did the rebuilt four-speed transmission. The new wheels and tires gripped the road superbly; the premium-fueled V-8 pounded out a wonderful American tattoo that echoed over the vineyards, valleys, canyons, and highways. I am sure the local wines will be much benefitted.

The only fly in the ointment was that the new retro radio had trouble hanging onto FM stations; I might have to take the beast in for a new antenna. We'll see.

Bottom line: Freedom is good. The nannies of this world don't understand freedom and joy, and have declared war on both. A V-8 is a great expression of freedom and joy--almost right up there with a .357.

I tried to avoid seeing, hearing, or thinking about politics, but without complete success. My number three son, who works in DC, came home, and, of course, we started talking about the insanity that rules there. He was quite disturbed by the packs of feral youths he must confront on his commute on the DC subways; all, cops included, seem to turn a PC blind eye to these "youngsters" loudly shouting obscenities at each other, engaging in mock combats, and threatening, pushing and hurling insults at other passengers. A scene from Clockwork Orange. It was all rather infuriating, and made me glad not to be young anymore or living in DC. A great argument, however, for concealed carry. I wonder how much of that activity by these coyote youths would go on, if they knew that a good portion of the passengers was packing?

Well, back to watching a marathon of British detective films, including a very good one with the always terrific, although odd-looking, Martin Clunes, A is for Acid. The kids are off Ubering around Old Town Temecula, the dogs are napping, and the Diplowife is engaged in a hearty texting exchange with various friends and relatives. A perfect day. I will ruin the mood tomorrow when I start paying attention to the news again.

Merry Christmas.

At War with the History of Mankind

Apologies for light blogging. Sick dogs is my excuse, yet again. One has developed a nasty limp and we have been taking him to the vet; going to see a specialist later this week and hope he doesn't recommend surgery. The other dog has developed a small lump on his muzzle; we are having the vet do a biopsy and are waiting for the results. As I have said before, I hate it when my dogs get sick or hurt. I feel guilt and that I have let them down--although I did buy them a Chevy Silverado pick-up truck with a Century Hi-C cap to transport them around in comfort. Fingers crossed for both of my big goofy guys--the best friends a person could have.

Anyhow, all this got me reflecting on how progressives are at war with the history of the human race. PETA, of course, under the guise of great concern for animals wants, among other things, to end the man-dog bond that goes back thousands of years. PETA, as is well known, is similar to Planned Parenthood (PP), to wit, an organization that has little if anything to do with its stated lofty goals.  Instead, PETA, PP,  and others are just agents of the most extreme portions of the progressive movement and its war on the history of humanity. They exist to destroy that which exists, especially if it brings joy and happiness and individual freedom.

Listening to some progressives go on and on about nature and Gaia, and of the need to crush economic growth, I can't help but think of the great line from American comedian Jim Gaffigan, "Camping was a tradition in everyone's family until we invented the house."

He nailed it.

Above all else, the history of mankind is one of struggle against nature, against Gaia. Wearing clothing, seeking shelter, hunting animals, creating agriculture, building cities, developing medicines, and devising public health schemes, among others, are all efforts by mankind to defeat nature and, yes, to overcome Gaia--a murderous entity if ever one existed.

I remember when our AID program got it into its head to provide poor farmers in Africa and Asia with environmentally correct solar powered miniature ovens. Total disaster. The farmers did not want the things and much preferred cooking with wood, kerosene, coal, etc. Rich, well-fed bureaucrats and NGO activists in America and Europe had decided what poor people abroad needed to ensure that their carbon footprint did not adversely affect global climate. This is not unlike the virtual banning of DDT which allowed malaria, dengue and other insect-borne diseases to return with a vengeance--sacrificing the poor in poor countries on the altar of progressive-liberal political correctness,

I provide the following bumper sticker, "Liberals love humanity and hate people." Oh, and by the way, liberals will get you killed. Yes, killed. Modern liberalism kills people, and does so by the millions, all in the name of humanity, of course. It should have a warning label that asks you not to practice liberalism at home, or something along the lines of "I am a trained professional, do not attempt liberalism on your own." 

Liberals hate all sorts of people but their special, most lethal hatred is reserved for the poor and the "uneducated." They kill the poor by the bushel, by the ton, by the hectare . . . they kill them at home and abroad. No poor person is safe from the lethal loving embrace of the liberals.

Remembering December 7

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, is one of those events that proves so consequential it is hard to describe. When confronting such a situation, it is always best to turn to Winston Churchill. In The Grand Alliance he eloquently describes his reaction on hearing about the admittedly very skillful and destructive Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of America into WWII:

“No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. {. . .} So we had won after all! {. . . } Silly people, and there were many, not only in enemy countries, might discount the force of the United States. Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united. They would fool around at a distance. They would never come to grips. They would never stand blood-letting. Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyse their war effort. They would be just a vague blur on the horizon to friend or foe. Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people. But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch. American blood flowed in my veins. I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before – that the United States is like ‘a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.’ Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”

Indeed, the boiler was "lighted." In the most amazing performance by a nation in history, the United Staes went in just over three years from a Depression-wracked, barely armed, confused, and all but defeated nation to the most powerful one on earth. Its military, a largely sleepy peacetime force, became the masters of huge, technically complex operations on a scale never before or since seen, using weapons and tactics that had not even existed before the war began. American industry poured out a dazzling array of weaponry and equipment unmatched before or since. Above all, the United States proved to possess an understanding of modern warfare that, with the notable exceptions of Churchill and Yamamoto, observers would not have suspected it to have. We tend to forget that within five months of Pearl Harbor, a US-Australian naval force stopped Japanese expansion southward, and that the stunning American naval victory of Midway came just six months after Pearl Harbor. Within nine months, an American-led offensive was underway in the Solomon Islands, most notably on Guadalcanal. As, furthermore, Churchill notes in his passage above, the Americans took and put up with casualties, some 400,000 dead and missing.

The magnitude and the global reach of the American war effort remain awe inspiring. During my tours in Latin America, for example, I found it striking how many airfields and harbors the USA built in Central and South America and throughout the Caribbean during the war. Old timers in Guatemala told me of how quickly the FBI showed up getting the Guatemalans to round up German and Italian nationals. This was an area that was certainly a backwater compared to Europe and the Pacific, but still American industrial might and organizational skill were readily evident and effective.

Compare that performance to the current misadministration's inability to set up a website in roughly the time it took to go from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima.

Woke Democrats In a Battle for the War

Many articles and polls, as well as TV and radio "pundits" predict a Republican tsunami in next November's midterm elections. That, for now, seems likely, or, better stated, that's what I ardently hope comes to pass, but, well, you never know. We already see the Dems assembling anew their election fraud machine, one which worked so well for them in 2020, and I have serious doubts about the fighting spirit of many Republicans. We, for example, see dire predictions of a renewed COVID surge; that "surge" will "require," of course, not just the traditional masks of obedience and lock-downs, but also mail-in ballots. We hear a steady and, unfortunately, bipartisan drumbeat for war with Russia with no clear explanation of the US interests in such an event. This banging of the war drum fosters an air of fear, crisis, and uncertainty that can redound to the benefit of our masters' hold on power. These masters seek to avoid blame for record violent crime; a massive illegal alien wave; historic levels of inflation; rising interest rates; impending food shortages; factory closings; and plunging stocks and exports: all classic indicators of a recession to come. They, of course, also would have us ignore growing evidence of Biden family corruption and ties to Ukraine, China, and elsewhere. We see the hideous Bush-created Department of Homeland Security, which I strongly opposed at the time, setting up a creepy Truth Ministry, headed by a lunatic wokester, to decide for the voters what comprises "misinformation." 

In fairness, we also hear calls from some "moderate" Democrats for the so-called Biden administration to reverse course on a variety of policies to stave off or, at least, mitigate the coming electoral disaster. For now, however, those voices get drowned by the clique that runs the stuttering Biden animatronic dummy, along with its cackling California sidekick. What passes for the White House ignores calls for moderation; doubling down instead like a crazed blackjack player on the hideous policies destroying our nation.

This message and policy confusion and chaos led me to wonder about happenings within the Democratic Party. Here I provide preliminary thoughts; more akin to musings spoken aloud, not fully developed. Think of this post as a palimpsest onto which new and better thoughts will later get inscribed. Please help.

My simple binary mind sees a split in the Dems, a sort of Menshevik v. Bolshevik or a Stalin v Trotsky schism, maybe a Leno v. Kimmel battle, etc. You decide on the analogy, but it comes down to civil war within the world's oldest political party. That internal battle seeks to determine how to and who will run the ongoing Great War against America and the West. A battle for the war. 

Both factions, in my view, want the same end, i.e., the destruction of our civilization; the battle is one of personalities, timeline, and tactics.

As hinted above, "standard" election-minded Dem politicians can derive no joy from the numbers coming out from every poll I have seen, regardless of those polls' political bent, and their usual "N" sample trick of over over representing Democratic voters. The polls predict a GOP majority--some polls bigger, some smaller--in both houses of Congress, as well as major wins in local and state elections. We see a number of Democratic politicians melting over "Biden" economic and immigration policies, in particular, both election losers.

The border crisis provides a classic battleground for the two factions. The "Electoral" Democratic politicos see the disaster it could bring in the midterms. The Kamikaze Democrats (KD) care little for elections, and to the extent they pay them mind, seek to rig them through outright vote fraud and censorship. The KDs want to sink the carrier NOW while they have power, and not put it off to when it might prove too late. They want the borders wide open, with plenty of incentives to encourage the horde waiting to get in, and fundamentally alter the very nature of our society. 

As Lt. Governor of Texas, Daniel Patrick, has noted, if the current pace of illegal "immigrants" continues to the end of "Biden's" four years, fully 20%, one in five, residents of the USA will be illegal aliens. That's some 60-70 million people illegally in the country. That could prove a permanent altering of the country, and present an almost insurmountable challenge to handle. Likewise, the KDs want to smash our energy independence, censor our speech, encroach on gun rights, sabotage our schools, and get us accustomed to following the dictates of "public health experts." To repeat, they want this NOW. They want changes that come as close to impossible to reverse as possible. 

We, of course, also have civil war in the GOP. We have gutless wonders such as Romney, McCarthy, Collins, Cheney, Murkowski, and Kemp (and others) who will not stand up to the wokesters, who don't see this as the life-and-death struggle it is. They instead seek that always tantalizing "strange new respect." 

These are not normal times.

 

Remembering The 9/11 Massacre: The First One

I will be writing more about 9/11/2001, and 9/11/ 2012 in the coming days. I present, meanwhile, the speech I gave as Charge of the Embassy in Colombo at a memorial service for the dead of the first 9/11 attack. The service was held at a local church on September 14, 2001. The entire diplomatic corps attended, as did much of the Sri Lankan government, as well as  hundreds of ordinary people, many of whom had to stand outside the large church.

Begin Text (as delivered)

On behalf of the American Embassy, Government, and people, I want to thank Reverend Gardner and all of you for coming here on a Saturday afternoon to express your solidarity, condolences, and good wishes as we try to grapple with the enormity of the crime committed on September 11, 2001 - - a crime that cost the lives of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

All of us in the Embassy are deeply touched by the enormous and genuine outpouring of sympathy and support from the international community, from the Government of Sri Lanka and from the people of this country, Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim.  Thank you, thank you all very much.

I also want to take this opportunity to express heartfelt condolences to the people of our closest friend and ally, the United Kingdom.  They have lost scores perhaps hundreds of their fellow citizens in the attack on the World Trade Center.  We should not forget the many British families are today suffering the anguish of not knowing what has happened to their loved ones, or that of knowing all too well what has happened.  This is not the first time American and British citizens die together at the hands of a common foe and in a common cause -- and it probably won’t be the last time.  

The people of dozens of other countries, including Sri Lanka, people of all races and religions, including at least 50 Muslims, fell to the terrorists, and our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the 21^st century.  

As a colleague of mine noted yesterday, civilization now confronts a new version of the cult of Assassins who, just as did those of the 11^th century, proclaim loud fealty to a religion and then violate its principal tenants.  And, Ladies and Gentlemen, I say the following well aware that we are in a church, in a place dedicated to the propagation of peace and brotherly love:  Civilization must and will strike back; civilization must and will win this war in which we confront evil men who have no regard for human life; men who turn ploughshares into swords and then use them against defenseless innocents.

I don’t know what message the terrorists sought to deliver September 11; I don’t know their grievance or their cause.

 And, furthermore, I don’t care!  I don’t care!

Whatever it was, whatever their cause was, it has been hopelessly perverted by and lost in the evil of their deeds.

And evil must, and will be confronted and it will be defeated.  

During the just-concluded 20^th century, civilization also fought great evil -- Fascism, Nazism, and Communism -- and triumphed, at great cost, but it triumphed.  And it will again.  In opposition to our democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, our opponents offer hate, desolation, destruction, and death, most especially death.

Let me quote from a poem written during the fierce battle for Guadalcanal by US Marine Corps Private First Class Vincent Cassidy:

“Does it grieve you, Death,

      that I defy you,

  that I refuse to be taken by you?

Be aforehand warned

   And plan it well,

If you intend my doom to spell,

   For I intend to fight . . .”

And fight we will.

  

In the words of the Scottish “Ballad of Andrew Barton,”

"I am hurt, but I am not slaine;
I'le lay mee downe and bleed a-while,
And then I'le rise and ffight againe.”

If anybody doubts that, turn to the words of one of the great heroes of the 20th century, one of the men who saved the civilized world, perhaps the greatest statesman who ever lived, and a man who knew America very well, Sir Winston Churchill.   

In his volume The Grand Alliance, he eloquently describes his reaction on hearing about the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of America into WWII on the side of Britain:

“No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy.  {. . .} So we had won after all! {. . . }  Silly people, and there were many, not only in enemy countries, might discount the force of the United States.  Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united.  They would fool around at a distance.  They would never come to grips.  They would never stand blood-letting.  Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyse their war effort.  They would be just a vague blur on the horizon to friend or foe.  Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people.  But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch.  American blood flowed in my veins.  I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before – that the United States is like ‘a gigantic boiler.  Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.’  Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, the boiler is lit.

And those who lit it on September 11, 2001, will learn the lesson learned by those who lit it sixty years ago, on December 7, 1941.  Then we all, too, will be able to sleep “the sleep of the saved and thankful.” 

Welcome to the 21^st century.    

Thank you.

End Text

WLA

September 11, 2001

This was the statement given by the Charge of the US Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka at a Church memorial service held for the victims of 9/11.  The service was attended by the entire diplomatic corps, much of the Sri Lankan government, and just hundreds of ordinary people, some of whom stood outside the church.  The service was held on September 14, 2001.  I happen to think it is one of the better statements made re that horrid event, and that it holds up even after ten years.

I will be writing more about 9/11 in the coming days.

Begin Text (as delivered)

On behalf of the American Embassy, Government, and people, I want to thank Reverend Gardner and all of you for coming here on a Saturday afternoon to express your solidarity, condolences, and good wishes as we try to grapple with the enormity of the crime committed on September 11, 2001 - - a crime that cost the lives of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

All of us in the Embassy are deeply touched by the enormous and genuine outpouring of sympathy and support from the international community, from the Government of Sri Lanka and from the people of this country, Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim.  Thank you, thank you all very much.

I also want to take this opportunity to express heartfelt condolences to the people of our closest friend and ally, the United Kingdom.  They have lost scores perhaps hundreds of their fellow citizens in the attack on the World Trade Center.  We should not forget the many British families are today suffering the anguish of not knowing what has happened to their loved ones, or that of knowing all too well what has happened.  This is not the first time American and British citizens die together at the hands of a common foe and in a common cause -- and it probably won’t be the last time.  

The people of dozens of other countries, including Sri Lanka, people of all races and religions, including at least 50 Muslims, fell to the terrorists, and our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the 21^st century.  

As a colleague of mine noted yesterday, civilization now confronts a new version of the cult of Assassins who, just as did those of the 11^th century, proclaim loud fealty to a religion and then violate its principal tenants.  And, Ladies and Gentlemen, I say the following well aware that we are in a church, in a place dedicated to the propagation of peace and brotherly love:  Civilization must and will strike back; civilization must and will win this war in which we confront evil men who have no regard for human life; men who turn ploughshares into swords and then use them against defenseless innocents.

I don’t know what message the terrorists sought to deliver September 11; I don’t know their grievance or their cause.

 And, furthermore, I don’t care!  I don’t care!

Whatever it was, whatever their cause was, it has been hopelessly perverted by and lost in the evil of their deeds.

And evil must, and will be confronted and it will be defeated.  

During the just-concluded 20^th century, civilization also fought great evil -- Fascism, Nazism, and Communism -- and triumphed, at great cost, but it triumphed.  And it will again.  In opposition to our democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, our opponents offer hate, desolation, destruction, and death, most especially death.

Let me quote from a poem written during the fierce battle for Guadalcanal by US Marine Corps Private First Class Vincent Cassidy:

“Does it grieve you, Death,

      that I defy you,

  that I refuse to be taken by you?

Be aforehand warned

   And plan it well,

If you intend my doom to spell,

   For I intend to fight . . .”

And fight we will.

  

In the words of the Scottish “Ballad of Andrew Barton,”

"I am hurt, but I am not slaine;
I'le lay mee downe and bleed a-while,
And then I'le rise and ffight againe.”

If anybody doubts that, turn to the words of one of the great heroes of the 20th century, one of the men who saved the civilized world, perhaps the greatest statesman who ever lived, and a man who knew America very well, Sir Winston Churchill.   


In his volume The Grand Alliance, he eloquently describes his reaction on hearing about the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the entry of America into WWII on the side of Britain:

“No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy.  {. . .} So we had won after all! {. . . }  Silly people, and there were many, not only in enemy countries, might discount the force of the United States.  Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united.  They would fool around at a distance.  They would never come to grips.  They would never stand blood-letting.  Their democracy and system of recurrent elections would paralyse their war effort.  They would be just a vague blur on the horizon to friend or foe.  Now we should see the weakness of this numerous but remote, wealthy, and talkative people.  But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch.  American blood flowed in my veins.  I thought of a remark which Edward Grey had made to me more than thirty years before – that the United States is like ‘a gigantic boiler.  Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.’  Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, the boiler is lit.

And those who lit it on September 11, 2001, will learn the lesson learned by those who lit it sixty years ago, on December 7, 1941.  Then we all, too, will be able to sleep “the sleep of the saved and thankful.” 

Welcome to the 21^st century.    

Thank you.


End Text

Saber-Toothed Tigers and the Design Specifications of Human Life: A Thought from the Far Abroad--Reprise

(Originally posted December 29, 2004. This will probably be the last of the re-runs. I'll try to come up with something new in between meetings.)

Certain little common events make me have certain big weird thoughts.

As I have moved ever further north of forty and begun to approach the old California speed-limit of fifty-five, I have thought increasingly about Saber-toothed tigers (Similodon Fatalis), and what they tell us about nature's plan for us, and how most of us Westerners have frustrated it. I had an epiphany in three steps (nine fewer than AA) at the end of which I saw clearly the (drumroll, please) Saber-toothed Tiger Law of Life which I, in turn, reveal to you, dear readers, free of charge and of strings.

First: Heed The Kneed

I started my journey toward grasping the Saber-toothed Tiger Law of Life while serving in Central America. It began on a helicopter ride to a remote area to view a drug crop eradication and see the processing of some detainees captured in a raid. It was a largely uneventful flight -- except for some idiot who lost his enormous ski jacket out the open side door, provoking a brief moment of concern that the damn thing would wrap itself around the rear rotor. The site of this crop eradication was hot, humid, full of bugs, cops, smoke, and unhappy campesinos watching a year's earnings burn. Some minor traffickers had been captured and were being interrogated before being turned over to the local cops. Pretty routine stuff. The flight back was fine, i.e., nobody took a shot at us.

When we landed back at the base, I was busy yaking away with somebody, trying to make my undoubtedly brilliant comments heard above the engine noise. In sum, I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. As I exited the Huey, talking away, I stepped on the skid, stumbled and fell, twisting my knee and -- much worse -- making a dusty fool of myself in front of grinning DEA agents, Special Forces, and local drug cops and military. Despite their words of concern and helping hands, I could see the mirth in their eyes, the barely suppressed smiles, and I swear I could hear them thinking, "Yep, State Department. No doubt about it." At that moment I caught a glimpse, just a fleeting one of the Saber-toothed Tiger Law of Life.

Second: Slippery Slope

Well, that knee has bothered me for years and led to the second, ahem, step on my journey of discovery. This time I was on a hunting/fishing trip in South America. A group of us spent the morning shooting at ducks on a mountain lake and surrounding rivers. Given the altitude, the cold, and the terrain, it was a tough, exhausting hunt. Just as a freezing drizzle began, I put my shotgun into my 4x4 truck, and started to walk down a gentle tundra-like slope towards the lake to see how the kids were coming along in their fishing. And . . . you guessed it, the knee gave out. I went down like a felled tree, rolled through a pile of manure, provoked gales of laughter from some very evil Embassy children, and broke my leg in three places. The result? A harrowing trip back to the capital; emergency surgery; almost two weeks in a local "hospital;" many more weeks of crutches; and, finally, a leg that never healed properly leaving me with a slight limp to this day. The Saber-toothed Tiger Law of Life had begun to get codified.

Third: An Aye For An Eye

Years later, I'm back in Central America. We had an energetic political officer who negotiated a discount with a local eye clinic if five or more of us from the Embassy would get Lasik eye surgery done there. Having worn thick glasses since I was thirteen, I agreed to the offer. Being chicken, however, when it comes to knives and lasers touching my eyes, I sent the political officer first. If she returned with two smoking holes in her head, melted eyeball goo dripping down her face, I'd back out of the deal. (This is, after all, why subordinates exist, right?) Well, she survived, professing great joy in the results, and minimizing the terror. I had to go.

It was a Stephen King nightmare! Foreign people in white robes with funny accents putting drops in my eyes! Giving me Valium, and holding me down on a gurney while my eyes were clamped open! Tiny knives, pulsating laser, the smell of, of . . . my burning CORNEA! I confess, Dr. Mengele! Yes! It was I on the grassy knoll! Oh the humanity! (OK, OK, so I'm taking a little Diplomadic license here . . .)

Anyhow, afterwards I was sent home wearing some very dark glasses to recover. Lying on the bed, recalling the horror I had been through and plotting revenge against the political officer and all her descendants for sixty generations, I lifted the glasses and looked at the small TV screen across the room. No glasses on and I could read the crawl on CNN! This Lasik stuff works! The prior day the screen would have been a total blur. I rushed to the window, and although the light still bothered me, I could see a cat walking on the sidewalk some ten floors below! A cat, I could clearly make out that it was a cat -- and not a blob which could have been a rat, a dog, a shoe, or who knows what. I remember the thought flashing into my mind, "G-d, what would a near-sighted caveman do?" The Saber-toothed Tiger Law of Life was fully revealed.

The Saber-toothed Tiger Law of Life

It dawned on me in that overly air conditioned room, my eyes tearing and blinking as I stared out at the bright tropical light that I had violated my design specifications. Clearly nature did not intend for the average non-Moses, non-Methuselah, non-Mentuhotep II peon to live past forty. Looking at that cat it became clear that everything a man needs to avoid being eaten by a Saber-toothed tiger starts to go around the age of forty. Suddenly you can't throw that spear like you used to. You can't run after or away from the Saber-toothed tiger like you used to. Your aching knees won't let you crouch down so you can sneak up on the sleeping Saber-toothed tiger or on that Woolly Mammoth you want to kill and eat. And your eyes, yes, your eyes start to fail you; you can't see well enough to throw a spear with accuracy, or you can't tell if that blurry blob approaching you is a Saber-toothed tiger or a goat, and by the time you find out . . . well, you might be lunch. I am living on borrowed time, and depend on scientists and engineers to keep extending me further loans.

The entire history of Western man boils down to the fight to avoid or put off as long as possible that lunch date. Our civilization and inventions are in the end about defeating our fellow man in occasional war and defying nature every day. The natural state of man is to be in rebellion against the natural state. By denying this, "ecologists" and "Greens" are criminally wrong and inflict great damage on human life. Not so much on folks like you and me -- ain't nobody going to take away my SUV or deny me a Big Mac -- but on the poor of the world. As I wrote before when I criticized "activists" working for "indigenous" people's rights, "Western man no longer lives in caves or trees, terrorized by solar eclipses and at the mercy of an unforgiving environment. < . . .> Why should humans live little better than animals in disease-infested jungles, or exposed on wind-swept plains?"

As a Westerner I can get my eyes fixed, my leg reknitted, my appendix removed; if I have a heart attack or get injured trained paramedics will come to my house and ferry me to a modern hospital. I do not have to scratch out a living on the land because a handful of sophisticated American farmers using ultra-modern equipment and techniques can feed all of us. We in the West do not die by the thousands in tsunamis or earthquakes or from malaria or typhoid: it's the poor people who still have to live fearing the Saber-tooth tiger. They "live" within nature's design specifications and exit the planet after some forty years. They are heroes of the "Greens" and the "ecologists" and the "indigenous rights activists." They are the model that those "Greens," "ecologists," and "activists" would have us all emulate.

We should all be grateful that Greenpeace and Sierra Club did not exist 11,000 years ago; I am sure they'd have spent every effort imaginable to prevent the Saber-toothed cats from going extinct. I for one can live without Saber-toothed tigers . . . although I wouldn't have minded bagging one instead of all those stupid ducks . . .

Collapse--Part II, The Rise of the Muslim Murder Machine

We have no foreign policy. We have vacuous speeches, hashtags, retreat, surrender, don't care, and "hope you're good and not bad," instead. An arc of insanity now prevails from Nigeria to Pakistan via the Middle East. The Great Muslim Murder Machine (M3) has gone into high gear driven by the totalitarian fanaticism of its followers and the weakness and cowardliness of its nominal rivals. We see what a post-USA world looks like.

A perusing of my archives will show the many, many postings I have about M3. My point throughout has been that Islam is not a religion like the others; the Jihadis and their M3 are followers of a totalitarian creed which far from being a "religion of peace" (the stupidest meme to come from the Bush administration) is a cult of death and slavery, of total submission. This is a "religion" that has undergone no enlightenment, and what reformation has taken place has pushed it closer to its 7th century origins in the Arabian peninsula. It treats women like garbage, has a uncompromising severe sexual code, has no compunction about killing anybody who transgresses that code especially women and gay men--although homosexual practices and pedophilia are rampant throughout the Muslim world--and sees Jews and Christians as prime targets for forced conversion, kidnapping, enslavement, other forms of subjugation, and murder. I should note that if Jews and Christians are not immediately available, M3 is willing to kill fellow Muslims, as we see, for example, right now in Syria and Iraq.

Tolerance is not a Muslim concept. Islam is the enemy of tolerance--not just the mythical "radical" Islam, but also straightforward everyday vanilla Islam is an enemy of tolerance.

If you go to a Muslim country, you must abide by Muslim rules and practices or Muslims will get offended and see your murder as  justified; if Muslims come to your country, you must abide by Muslim rules and practices or Muslims will get offended and see your murder as  justified. As I have said many times (here for example), try to build a church or a synagogue in Saudi Arabia, not possible; try to prevent Muslims from building a mosque in your home town, not possible.

This creed hates science and education; it hates and fears women; it wages war on freedom, joy and happiness. Islam seeks to make its subjects ignorant and brutish, and succeeds quite well at doing that--I admit, it does share that objective with modern progressivism. You see, Muslims and "liberals" do have something in common: the pursuit of ignorance.

For all its bravado, gunpowder, and chest-beating Islam is a cowardly and weak creed. It cannot stand debate; it fears having its tenets quoted back to it by non-believers; it invents its history because its real history is too horrible to contemplate; it can point to almost nothing but conquest, death and destruction as its achievements. M3 is a cowardly apparatus, feeding on the weak.

This Muslim Murder Machine is far from invincible, it can be defeated. I wrote long ago when discussing the SEALs' killing of Bin Ladin,

That brilliant raid should be a lesson for Muslims on the perils of following the path laid out by Jihadi murderers. It should also be a lesson for the West: we can defeat the Jihadis as long as we realize it is a long process, requiring patience, and sacrifice--and if we can continue to produce the men who carried out that raid. 

Islamic civilization is a rotten house. Constant outside pressure either will collapse it, or force its miserable occupants to begin a serious effort at reforming and rebuilding it. Islam holds sway among some of the world's potentially richest and most advanced countries, but that, in fact, are among the poorest and most retrograde on the planet. Islam as practiced is a failed ideology: it leads to slavery, stupidity, and poverty on a mass scale. The greatest victims of Islam are the Muslims forced to live under its tyrannical, mind-numbing, and brutal rule. 

Islamic civilization produces nothing. Yes, yes, what about algebra? Ok, Ok, it hasn't produced anything in modern times besides ignorance, death, despair, and poverty. It is the MSNBC of religious faiths, but, admittedly, with higher ratings.

The horrible fact, however, is that now we are doing precisely the opposite of what we did that night in Abbottabad. Almost always when the intended victims of Islam band together, say "No, you will not win," and fight back, Islam retreats. Be it at the gates of Granada or Vienna, the waters off Lepanto, the streets of Jerusalem, the sands of the Sinai, the hills of Afghanistan, or in a filthy compound in Pakistan, when the non-Muslims fight, Islam loses. It poses as a great warrior class, but it cannot stand up to the West either on the battlefield or in the arena of ideas.

Islam can only defeat the West when the West first defeats itself. When Western leaders assume that our constitutions and legal codes are suicide notes, that Islam is just another religion, that 99% of Muslims are not terrorists, the West loses. When the West refuses to stand up and tell the Muslim world, "We are better than you are. You should learn from us, but meanwhile we are going to crush you like grapes every time you attack us," then we lose. When we have malevolent leadership such as that now in the White House, leadership that announces that the war with Islam is over, then the jihadis and their murder machine fuel up and go to work. That is what we have now, as I wrote long ago, "We are not at war, we are under attack,"

The problem is not one regime or another. The problem is not creating yet another Arab state in "Palestine." The problem is not our insensitivity. The problem is Arab Islam. The deep, deep pathologies of Arab Islamic societies are out for all to see . . . yet again. And our great, overpaid liberal mass media with all their highly "educated" anchors and pundits, what are they covering? They are attacking Governor Romney for daring to say that we should never apologize for our core beliefs. The media and many at State, including the increasingly unhinged Hillary Clinton, claim that the unrest we now see in the Arab world, unrest which takes the form of attacking US embassies and murdering our people, is due to some obscure video made in July by some obscure person who has yet to be fully identified. Perhaps, then, it was in anticipation of this film that Osama bin-Ladin had his crazies fly planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center?

The world is increasingly on fire, and the ignition and the fuel for those flames come from Washington DC.

Apropos of Nothing: The Queen of Jarandilla

Still stuck on a piece about Reagan, and sitting around waiting on the New Hampshire results. So, of course, my mind turns to thoughts of nothing important to anybody else: my dogs, my cars, my falling stock market investments, and, above all, to long ago dusty memories of when life was a bit more fun.

Spain, early 1970s. More specifically, province of Caceres in the region of Extremadura. Even more specifically, I write of events in the small municipality of Jarandilla. Population back then? About 2,000. Not a big place, but like many small Spanish municipalities, a helluva lot of fun when party time hits. These folks know how to party. Small-town Spaniards are among the nicest, funniest, most welcoming people on the planet. They are also extremely politically incorrect, and use language that would make a sailor blush or a delicate modern college student pass out. There is no safe space. Microagressions are at the core of the humor. Any and all human physical features are legitimate targets for ridicule: accent, skin color, hair, weight, nose, butt and shoe size, etc. No wimps need apply. Remember, the Conquistadores who humbled Islam and conquered half the world came from these sort of places. These are not pajama boys.

The town was having a big party for some reason or another: too many years have gone by to remember all the details. There was a lot of drinking, smoking, eating, dancing, puking. The big event would be the election of the town's "Miss" who would go on to compete for "Miss Caceres," who would go on to compete for "Miss Spain," who would go on to compete for . . . well, you got it. Can't place exactly where that big event took place, but recall a crowded, smoky venue, with a dance floor and a small stage. A table with, I think, four judges was on the floor facing the stage. The raucous crowd of men and women sat, stood, roamed, smoked, drank, sang, shouted all over the place. A group of us pushed to the front and stood just behind the judges.

The competing "Miss" candidates, all natives of the town and surrounding areas, paraded onto the stage, and proceeded to do "Miss" things. The hooting from the audience made apparent the lack of popular satisfaction with the ten or twelve candidates on offer. These, mostly sturdy rural girls, clearly felt uncomfortable in make-up, heels and gowns, and the crowd cruelly mocked them. The judges were not happy, either. The main judge, puffing furiously on a Ducados black tobacco cigarette, started looking around. His glance fell upon the future Diplowife. Pointing a cigarette-stained finger at her, he roared, "That one!" Two other judges looked at her and agreed, "Yes! That one! Bring her up on the stage!" The future Diplowife looked mortified. The crowd began to shout "Yes! Yes! That one!" Kong had to have his tribute. The sacrifice would take place.

Helped onto the stage, long brown hair cascading about her shoulders, wearing tight bell-bottom jeans, a half unbuttoned checkered blouse, and clunky clogs she stood there, meekly smiling and waving to the noisy crowd--I vowed to myself that this would be the lady I married. The official contestants, in their ill-fitting gowns and heels, fidgeting and confused, milled about behind her--one stomping away. Upon, however, hearing the future Diplowife say her impossibly Basque name, one judge yelled, "No! No! This is against the rules! She's not even from here! She's Basque!" Nobody else seemed to care. Bam! A sash, a crown, and a trophy appeared, and were placed, respectively, on the shoulders, the head, and into the hands of the future Diplowife by a more than somewhat tipsy official. Loud music blared. She was asked to walk back and forth across the stage: blushing, lamely but gamely waving, trying not to drop her trophy, and holding the crown on her head, she shuffled around. The other "Miss" hopefuls? One began to cry, another to curse, and then all stormed off. Needless to say, we saw no fake tears of happiness or strained hugs of joy for the winner.

The crowd's blood lust had been satisfied: the local gals humiliated, their dreams of fame and glory crushed. The future Diplowife had a crown, a trophy, and a sash. We made it to our cars and out of town alive and whole--we were warned that male relatives of some of the "defeated" contestants were looking for us. A good night's work.

All these decades later, the crown and the trophy still sit on a shelf at her parents' house in San Sebastian-Donosti. As we expected, of course, she was disqualified from running for "Miss Caceres" by higher-up party-poopers in the "Miss" organization. Her father would have never permitted it, anyhow, so that did not matter. He, by the way, couldn't decide if he was furious with his child or proud of her. Given, in subsequent years, that he bragged about having a "Miss" for a daughter, I think he settled on the latter. He, alas, is no longer with us for me to confirm that.

Although having not a drop of royal blood, I eventually married the Queen of Jarandilla. Granted, we could see a new War of the Spanish Succession since some poor misguided souls might dispute the legitimacy of her title, but . . .  never mind. She has the trophy, the sash, and the crown, and the pretenders don't! Possession, as they say, is . . . OK, back to the NH primary.

Obama and an Edouard Daladier Moment

The day after the November 2008 election I had a major Édouard Daladier moment.

On that horrid Wednesday, I sat in my cluttered office at Main State in Washington, DC, in a deep, deep funk. Blinds drawn; lights out; a small TV on the far side of the office ran images of Obama’s victory celebration in Chicago the night before.

Two colleagues, one male and one female, both white, and both career State officers, walked into the office and started bubbling, “Isn’t this great!” Startled out of my near coma, I glumly asked, “What’s great?” The woman looked at me as though I were from outer space, “The election! Obama’s victory.” I stammered, “Wha-what’s so great about it? He’s going to be an awful president.”

They looked at each other, and then the male officer said, “When you drove in today, didn’t you see the joy and pride in the black parking attendants in the basement? They have a real spring in their step this morning.” For one of the few times in my career, I was speechless. No withering reply. No cutting remark. No Churchillian riposte. No well-aimed stream of verbal acid shot from between my lips. Known while I was at the UN as the "Master of the Reply," I stared at him, as a fish pulled out of the depths might. Uncomprehending. Mouth moving without a sound. My pea-sized brain had failed me, yet again. I clearly had not understood that the 2008 national elections in the world’s most important country were about the happiness of parking attendants, about ensuring they had a "spring in their step."

These two cheerful condescending colleagues bounced out of my dreary office; I could hear them celebrating with others outside the door. A couple of minutes later, in walked another friend, a Republican political appointee, who shook his head and sorrowfully asked,”What do you think?” I fidgeted with my pen, undid my tie, and said, in my best Liev Schreiber growl, “We just did a Hemingway. Muzzle of a loaded shotgun in the mouth; about to pull the trigger. Or, as Édouard Daladier would have said, 'The fools! Why are they cheering?'”

Although featured on the cover of TIME at least twice, Édouard Daladier, on this side of the Atlantic, anyhow, is hardly known today; he is a figure lost in the fog of history. That is unfortunate. His valiant and ultimately doomed struggle against the homicidal fraternal twin tyrannies of Communism and Nazism deserves study; we can learn from his mistakes. Today, when the "leader" of the West is in full appeasement mode, the story of Daladier and France in the 1930s is an important one for those who would be America's allies. Unfortunately for our long-term interests, it seems that regardless of whether our allies know of Daladier, some already understandably have taken steps to avoid a fate akin to that he and France suffered.

Almost a century later, we have difficulty understanding how devastating the 1914-18 Great War proved for France. The bulk of Western Front fighting took place on French soil. Some 1.6 million Frenchmen, nearly 5% of the economically active population, had died or permanently gone missing, with another 4.3 million wounded, many of them horribly so. The French Army fought with remarkable valor, much more valor, in fact, than brains; the brave poilu deserved much better than they got from their brutally and even criminally inept senior ranks. By the time the Americans arrived, the French Army and, to a lesser extent, the British, verged on collapse. The Allies faced a revitalized German Army which had just defeated Russia, and begun transferring hundreds of thousands of troops from Russia for a new offensive in France. Thanks in large part to those Americans, the Germans were stopped, barely, and both sides agreed to an armistice. The inconclusive end to the Great War, with Germany left almost untouched, had deprived France of a sense of victory, leaving instead one of stunned exhaustion. The last thing the French electorate wanted in the years after WWI was another confrontation with Germany.

Daladier, a classic leftist politician of the era, became Prime Minister three times. French politics were rough and tumble, with alliances made and dissolved, and little attention paid to foreign policy. There was a general refusal to acknowledge that Germany was re-arming and preparing for another round. Daladier was a voice in the wilderness. He saw the threat coming from Germany and became particularly alarmed by the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Unlike many others of his time, and today, he understood that Communists and Nazis comprised two sides of the same totalitarian coin. Daladier became PM for the last time in April 1938. By this time, the West's appeasement policies towards Hitler were firmly set. Daladier desperately tried to convince Britain's Neville Chamberlain to take a firmer stance against Hitler. Chamberlain would have none of it, and France's parlous military state prevented Daladier from striking out on his own. Chamberlain had decided to yield to Hitler's demand for the Sudetenland, and to the effective dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Daladier argued against this, but found himself helpless to do anything but go along. To his life-long shame, Daladier became a signer of the September 1938 Munich Agreement, the now universally recognized monument to appeasement. Heading back home from Munich, Daladier assumed angry French patriots would rip him to shreds. He, instead, got a hero's welcome. Enthusiastic crowds sang his praises, prompting him to turn to an aide, and utter the famous, bitter, and prophetic words, "Ah, the fools! Why are they cheering?"

Daladier knew that war with Hitler would come, and France was not ready. He subsequently tried to develop an arms relationship with the US, seeking American weapons to plus up the poorly armed French military. The negotiations became complicated because of France's default on WWI-era loans from the US. By the time this got worked out, it was too late. The American planes France ordered ended up in Britain as France fell to the Nazis. (NOTE: A fascinating book about the rescue of Daladier and other French politicians in 1945 from an SS prison by a combined unit of US and German soldiers--yes, you read that right, US and German soldiers--is The Last Battle by Stephen Harding.)

I have written before about the Obama foreign policy (here, here, and here, for example). We are firmly in the grip of an appeaser, perhaps even worse. Other countries have begun to see that quite clearly.

In the Middle East, we have shown great weakness in the face of an Islamist totalitarian onslaught, and, in fact, many of our statements on Egypt appear to favor the murdering totalitarians of the Muslim Brotherhood. Thanks to Obama, regardless of what happens in Egypt--and I suspect the Egyptian military will hang on--the US will lose. Egypt's leaders, not wishing to repeat the Daladier experience, will drift away from us. Already we see the Saudis and others in the Gulf stepping in; don't rule out a move by Russia, as well, as our ineptness in Egypt and Syria provides Moscow wonderful opportunities to reestablish its influence in the region.

Not only in the Middle East do we see this move away from the USA. In Latin America, for example, our long-time ally Colombia has just about given up on Obama. The callous and exceptionally stupid and arrogant manner in which the misadminsitration handled the free trade agreement and its refusal to stand up to Venezuela in Honduras, has convinced the Colombians to look elsewhere. We will see others follow, including Israel which will begin to develop a policy much more independent of us than heretofore.

All this forms part of the legacy of long-term damage done by the man who brought "a spring to the step" of parking attendants in the basement of the State Department.

WLA

The Joy of Being Uninformed

Mark Twain generally gets credit for, "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." Predating that piece of century-plus old wisdom by another century or so, we have Thomas Jefferson's observation that, "The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."

This got me thinking about the joy of living the uninformed life.

My wife followed the twists and turns of our recent, lamented, and lamentable electoral process with a devotion and passion not seen since the days of Joan of Arc. She had electoral maps, polls, and pundits galore queued up on her computer, IPad, IPhone, and DVR. She and I read everything we could about the election, debated everybody we knew, and screamed advice for Romney at the TV set. All to no avail. The result was the result. As my rather blunt-speaking Spanish wife noted, "The morons got what they wanted."

Temporarily in California, I run into Obama voters galore, and occasionally ask them, especially the wealthy ones, why they voted for Obama. The answers prove very mixed. They don't really know why, except, well, he is black, and against the "war on women," etc. They have no remedies for the imploding economy or the collapsing federal government. They only vaguely know of Benghazi, and most haven't heard of "Fast and Furious." They already complain about high taxes--and the election saw yet another state income tax raise passed by voters here--but don't seem very aware of what's bearing down on them in the next few months.

They, in other words, live like H.G. Wells' Eloi, wealthy, happy, healthy, and blissfully unaware of the Morlocks about to eat them. Maybe, however, that's the way to go: Driving your Lexus to the Morlocks' slaughterhouse with a smile on your face.

Down with information! Down with thinking! Down with worry!

P.S. I will probably change my mind tomorrow.

Guns, Gays, and Lists: The Progressives Go Insane(r)!

Some reflections while the Diplowife patrols an open-air Southern California granite storage lot (in 113 degree weather!) in search of perfect kitchen counters and bathroom shower tiles. I am trying to ignore the heat and the sensation of wallet pain, so I will write as therapy.

The progressives are getting nuttier and more destructive by the day.

The Orlando atrocity has sent the progs to the moon in a blast of, well, lunacy. Per the progs, an inanimate object, a gun, caused the Orlando massacre. Now, of course, this might be anecdotal, but since I returned to the States, I have monitored my guns every day; none has yet to burst out of either the glass cabinet or the steel safe, and go on a killing frenzy. Maybe I have very well mannered guns? I notice, too, that my cars have never roared out of my garages to kill, or self-identify as IEDS; nor has any of my pressure cookers become a bomb; likewise, no member of my collection of knives, daggers, and swords has lunged at passers-by. I, however, am keeping a watchful eye on the boxcutter in my toolbox--don't trust him/her/it/zhe, at all.

On the issue of gays: Can we assume that most if not all of the victims of the Orlando massacre were homosexual? Yes, perhaps, maybe . . . don't know. I have friends who have gone to predominately gay bars, and are not gay. I know gay people who go to predominately straight bars, restaurants, and movie theaters. I, therefore, might assume most of the Orlando victims were gay, but have no idea of how many.

Bottom line: I don't care if the victims were or were not gay.

I don't recall anybody fretting about the sexual orientation of those killed at Pearl Harbor,  December 7, 1941. I don't remember commentary about the sexual orientation of those murdered September 11, 2001, or of those blown apart by a bomb in London, July 7, 2005. The people killed in Orlando were killed on American soil by a jihadi terrorist inspired to do that killing by Islam. I don't care that he was born in New York. He grew up in an alien culture (read about his lunatic Afghan father) that calls for loyalty to an ideology, Islam, wildly hostile to the USA. He was full of hate for the very freedom that allowed that murdering thug to live a good life here.

The 49 dead people are 49 dead people who should not be dead. Again, I don't care at all about their sexual orientation. I agree that the Orlando massacre was, indeed, a hate crime--it was a hate crime perpetrated by the follower of a creed, Islam, that hates the West, freedom, joy, and America, in particular. I see flying rainbow flags in memory of those dead as a disgrace; they died because they were in America and exercising the freedom that comes with that. Those dead were the brothers and the sisters of every American, straight, gay, white, black, brown, etc. They were killed by an act of war as surely as those killed at Pearl Harbor. This was an Islamic attack on America. They died because the evil man with the gun was a good Muslim. Period.

The progs, of course, can't admit this. We see, for example, the ludicrous almost funny, Onion-like episode whereby lightweight Attorney General Lynch releases the 911 transcript of the killer's calls to the police but edits out any mention of Islam or ISIS,

Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ron Hopper defended the deletions. 

"[Mateen] does not represent the religion of Islam, but a perverted view," Hopper said, later adding: "Part of the redacting is meant to not give credence to individuals who have done terrorist attacks in the past. We're not gonna propagate their violent rhetoric."

Ah, yes, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Hopper that well-known authority on what is and is not Islam . . . I assume if the killer had sworn loyalty to the KKK, to the NRA, or to a Baptist church, that would have been deleted, too? Hmm, ASAC Hopper? Crickets . . . 

Hours later, of course, the White House, bombarded by scorn and ridicule, had to beat a hasty retreat, leaving Lynch, Hopper, and the rest of the PC posse out on a limb, and release an almost unredacted transcript--they still deleted the word Allah and substituted God.

After Pearl Harbor did FDR talk about an attack by "certain" Asian forces?

This is why we're losing this battle. Our ostensible leaders can't even name the enemy. Idiots. Idiots. Idiots.

So what do the progs propose to keep us safe? Why, of course, that ol' stand-by, "gun control" with the added plus of another ol' favorite, the "secret list"! I have discussed this before; you can read my view on "secret lists," and remember it comes from somebody involved in producing such lists. 

Yes, the same progs driven to tears and historical falsehoods when discussing the blacklisting of a handful of Communist Hollywood apparatchiks, want secret lists to deny Constitutional rights without even the hint of due process. The list? Well, as it turns out, "the" famous "terror list" is actually two lists: one, a "no-fly" list, has about 81,000 names on it, of whom maybe 1000 are "US persons"; the other comprises some sort of "higher scrutiny" listing, and has 28,000 names of whom under 1,700 are "US persons."

The Muslim shooters in San Bernardino and Orlando did not make either list.

These lists are as bogus as the progressive commitment to keeping our nation and citizens safe. 

Does anybody think that any list to deny gun rights won't be manipulated? How long before some PC doyen in Justice or Homeland Security exclaims in horror while clutching his/her/zhe pearls, "No! No! We have too many Muslim names on this list! We need diversity! We need more white male members of the NRA and Tea Party on there!"

You know that would happen. 

Going to check on the granite selection . . .