The Dork-Nothing Congress

It's really too much fun. Congress can't even dork things up properly.

The Democrats swept to power promising clean government, a change of course in Iraq, no more wiretaps, and a chicken in every pot.

But the fun started before the Congress even too their oaths of office, when Nancy Pelosi, elected Speaker by her peers, was unable to get her own choice for right-hand-man. She wanted Okinawa Jack Murtha, but almost no one else in her party did. Jack would have really dorked things up, not being the shiniest penny in the roll, but Nancy failed to bring him into her leadership coven. She promised, but couldn't deliver.

And now, seven months into the Congressional term, what has this Congress delivered?

What they delivered was the stupid minimum wage claptrap, William Jefferson, (D-LA), more troops in Iraq, more wiretaps, and ... left the Bush economy to successfully handle the chicken:pot ratio.

Don't get me wrong: I think the troop levels in Iraq, having by all reports sent the terrorist running home to Mommy, are a good thing. And I'm not worried at all about the government snooping in on the zero calls I make to Terroristan. I worry even less about journalists being unable to get good quotes from terrorists afraid the US Government might be eavesdropping.

A new and better warrantless search? Shout it from the rooftops: Democrats complicit in awarding Bush the dictatorship he's been wanting for so long. [/snark]

I don't want our country to be dorked up by Democrats. It's just that I stand slack-jawed in wonder at the level of up that the Democrats haven't been dorking.

Not that they haven't tried dorking things up, or rather they have given the appearance of wanting to dork things up, but have dorked up their mission to dork things up.

Brutal irony, isn't it?

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The Two Kinds of People

I always tell my kids that there are two kinds of people in the world ... and they roll their eyes, knowing that Dad has found yet another way to oversimplify something.

Psychologists categorize people as:

• Sensers and Intuitives
  Do you trust what you see, or what you know?
  
• Introverts and Extroverts
  Do you focus your dominant abilities on yourself, or on others?
  
• Thinkers and Feelers
  Everyone thinks and feels, but is your dominant mental ability verbal and logical or visual and emotional?
• Deciders and Waiters
  Choose an option to be done deciding, or wait for a better time?

In addition, there are other ways people differ psychologically:

• Memorizers and Processers
  Some people who remember events, and others who remember things based on what they thought about the events. This is one aspect of Sense versus Intuition.
  

Without much commentary, I'll add:

• Givers and Takers
  Trade for it, or get it by force?
• Stubborns and Flexibles
• Spenders and Savers
  Rich people invest, poor people spend.
• Pitchers and Catchers
  Some people collect possessions, while others do not.
• Individualists and Collectivists
  Are you your own person, or part of a group?
• Free or Secure
• Arrogant and Humble
• Sinners and Straight Arrows
• Wolves and Sheep
• Dogs and Rats
• Pick up a Penny or Leave a Penny
• Learners and Veggies
  Do you have a thirst to understand for yourself, or would you rather be told?
  
• Workers and Clowns
  Are you more interested in accomplishment or fun? Which do you do first?
  
• Speeders and Creepers
  Do you want to get there first, or are you more interesting in getting there at all?
  
• Urban and Rural
  Do you want convenience or space?
  
• Labelers and Accepters
  There are those who classify people, and those who know that for most of these, and especially for those over which people have any control, there is a continuum from one side to the other.
  

Finally, I can't leave this subject without noting that there are really 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

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let's Not Politiciize This One

The news out of Minnesota is grim. A major bridge across the Mississippi River has collapsed, at rush hour, with about 50 cars ending up in the river, according to initial reports. Our prayers are with the hurting.

The sight is horrific, and the venue familiar to almost anyone who has traveled the Interstate highway system. This disaster could happen at any of St Louis, Peoria, Biloxi, New York, Seattle, Miami, Louisville, Davenport,
or Pittsburgh, to name only a few. I didn't mention Oakland, because it already happened there.

But please, don't turn this into a chance to complain about how much more needs to be spent on bridges, or who is to blame, or why President Bush allowed this to happen. Don't ask the Presidential candidates for their opinions, don't blame the guy who decided that, physics being physics, the bridge was going to stay up.

Because people don't make such decisions lightly. Or at least, they won't any more.

And the first person who says the government did it is a rotten egg.

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More Lunactivism

In my previous post on lunactivism I should have defined it: activism taking positions which are harmful to a central cause, usually from a desire to appear ideologically consistent.

Most lunactivists are liberals who get sidelined by the search for the approbation of a good cause defended, and fail to sanity check their own actions. Liberals tend to believe that integrity entails always "speaking truth to power" on every issue, where truth is whatever they feel and power is whichever tradition or institution they wish at the moment to destroy. Lunactivism occurs when activists get carried away with excitement over side issues, overreach, or choose the wrong fellow travelers.

My favorite early blogger, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Means: you don't have to conform for the sake of conformity, either in fashion or in substance. And if your zeal for conformance to the logical implications of an ideology puts you someplace doing something that you know is wrong, then you probably ought to reconsider that ideology, or at least your own zeal.

As part of the Law of Unintended Consequences, there is always a backlash against activism of any kind. The activism can be seen to be lunactive if negative consequences exceed the progress toward the intended goal.

Conservatives are also guilty of lunactivism, though on nothing like the same scale. I mention two examples below, and there may be others. Some examples of lunactivism:

Animal Rights

• Wanting to kill the baby animal who loses its mother, because growing up around humans is a fate worse than death.
• Not allowing human predation (so more animals suffer longer)

NAACP

Abortion is the leading cause of African American deaths, yet the NAACP supports it because that's the ideologically correct liberal position.

Anti-War activists

In 2006, opposition to the Iraq war led liberal anti-war activists to support Ned Lamont for Senator in Connecticut, eventually defeating Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary. Lieberman, however, is among the most liberal of Democrats on most issues, but happens to support the Iraq war. So the activists spent all of their effort to unseat a popular liberal Senator in a liberal State, a "safe seat", only to have him win the general election as an Independent.

This Spring (2007), Harvard College Democrats displayed on the school quadrangle 3,200 red bandannas "to visually illustrate the sheer magnitude of what Iraq has become", according to a piece in The Crimson.
"Unfortunately for the Dems, their Iraq display in the Quad looks nothing like a memorial for the lost soldiers and civilians in Iraq."

Prior to their installation of the Iraq Awareness Display, the Dems held a Candlelight Vigil at Tercentenary Theater. There were also a number of projects undertaken to physically support the troops (a phrase we invoke, but often don’t act upon), including a donation drive they co-sponsored with the Harvard Republican Club and ROTC. In other words, the Iraq Awareness Project was a series of solidly forward-thinking events. But the display–well that’s a prime example of how progressives lose focus at Harvard.

When Confronted By Contrary Opinion

Students at college campuses from Columbia to Berkeley have begun raising such a fuss against anyone who disagrees with the leftward agenda that they silence any contrary voice, often with violence and the explicit denial of the right to free speech.

The Sicko

By gushing over the wonders of the Cuban health care system, Michael M0ore undercuts his own message by choosing a tyrant as a fellow traveler. Viewers will draw the implication that America must emulate Cuba's totalitarianism if it is to achieve good health care.

Multiculturalism

Multiculty is an inherently contradictory dogma, which says that all cultures are to be valued and preserved, even ones which deny basic human rights. This principle trumps religious freedom, free speech, women's rights, and just about everything else when it comes to Islam. Liberals ignore the hatred pouring from the mosques, as well as the fact that Islam and liberal ideology simply do not mix.

As the Vanishing American put i:

Somehow liberal Christians and secular liberals and leftists alike believe that anyone who suffers or is 'oppressed' even if by their own fault is automatically to be exalted. This is what is at the core of the leftist/liberal reverence for the 'Other', the stranger, the outcast, the invader.

AIDS and Abstinence

Gay Pride and liberal correctness mean that abstinence is anathema. Even though abstinence education has proven effective against the spread of AIDS, activists will have nothing of it.

Fox News

Debates: Fox has a bigger audience than any other cable news outlet, and boycotting them only hurts the candidates in their efforts to become known.

O'Reilly boycott: Bill O'Reilly is not a conservative. He's a populist who explicitly distances himself from many conservative positions. Yet lunactivists are staging a boycott. Why? Could it be because O'Reilly points out the disproportionate and controlling influence of Moveon.org and George Soros on the Democratic Party?

Global Warming

The "Climate Crisis" and the Union of Concerned Scientists:

The UCS doesn't understand that their advocacy, following as it does a pattern of liberal orthodoxy, detracts from the authority their voice would otherwise have. People notice the pattern, and think "Oh, it's them again."

Vigilante Killing of Abortionists

Though it hasn't happened for about 10 years, right-wing anti-abortionists have murdered doctors who perform abortions. Again, this is taking ideology to the extreme, committing acts that are wrong and justifying them by the logical implications of ideology. The backlash against these killings continues today, typically in an application of the ad hominem tu quoque fallacy ("And what of you?").

Traitors and Criminals

Finally, as Becker points out at Redstate.com, it is a misuse of language to call anti-war politicians "traitors". Contrarily, saying that the Iraq war is illegal and that the Administration is "criminal" is equally wrong. That kind of hyperbole does more harm than good. "Treason" and "criminal" have specific meanings, and throwing these words around without carefully considering those definitions is crying wolf. It allows the object of the name-calling to generalize and blur the lines, so that in the future some real traitor or criminal may go unpunished.

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Breaking: Global Warming and Climate Change Smoking Gun

The Official News Agency is reporting a link between Global Warming and Climate Change. Interviewed for the story, researchers noted

We found that as the temperature rises world-wide due to global warming, it rises equally around the Earth due to climate change. We were astounded.

It should be noted that no causal link between Global Warming and Climate Change has been found, but this new research brings that closer.

I think I'll add a news scroller here for the Official News Agency, to avoid missing stories like this in the future.

h/t Classical Values

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Playing to Win in Iraq

A lot has been written over the last four years about winning in Iraq, what it means, and whether it was even possible. A key ingredient identified by sages and pundits has been the willingness of the Iraqis themselves to "stand up". Some have assumed the Iraqis to be playing a waiting game, biding their time until our Left succeeds in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I have always thought the Iraqis wanted to join the modern world as a free nation, but were unsure whether they were allowed.

But can a culture built on extended families, tribal loyalty, and submission to authority produce such a result?

Another kind of winning may provide the answer. Iraq the Model gives the delirious Iraqi reaction to winning the Asia Cup Soccer championship, and has this to say:

Our players, tonight our heroes, learned that only with team work they had a chance to win.
May our politicians learn from the players and from the fans who are painting a glorious image of unity and national pride, and let the terrorists know that nothing can kill the spirit of the sons of the immortal Tigris and Euphrates.

The soccer victory comes at a time when Iraqis are also beginning to trust that their American liberators are not out to permanently rule over them, but also are not going to abandon them to the extremists. As Mike DeVine explains at Redstate:

I don't think I have to explain what a sea change this is in Iraqi thinking, especially given our abandonment of them in 1991 and the 24/7 promise to al Qaeda calls for abandonment for the last 3 years by the leadership of the Democratic Party and most elected DC Democrats.

What I may need to remind some here of is who is most responsible for this sea change.

President George W. "the Liberator" Bush is responsible. He has never wavered in his commitment to keep faith with the millions of Iraqis that voted and that risk their lives daily fighting with our American and Coalition forces against al Qaeda and other forces of extremism that desire to defeat us and the forces of moderation in the Middle East.

While I am not a big fan of the President, neither do I hold for him the unreasoning hatred that some do. His instincts and foreign policy idealism, so demonized by his detractors, are bearing fruit now in Iraq. He has from the beginning played to win the long war, which is the establishment of freedom in the Middle East. As Ben Franklin said of America, to explain why he was printing and circulating copies of our founding documents in France (before its revolution):

Tyranny is so generally established in the rest of the world that the prospect of an asylum in America for those who love liberty gives general joy, and our cause is esteemed the cause of all mankind.

The prospect of an asylum for freedom in the Middle East is one the jihadists cannot abide. Yet the Iraqi people, seeing for themselves the military power freedom can create, and seeing the athletic prowess of the "sons of the Tigress and Euphrates", are standing up to the jihadists, distancing themselves from tyranny, and playing to win.

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Lunactivism Kills Bambi

As usual, Eric at Classical Values provokes thought with his post on deer in the headlights and the lunactivists who keep them there. Commenting, I noted

It is difficult to engage in rational discussion with people for whom humans and non-humans have equal (or comparable and in within an order of magnitude) value.

If you ask people which would be a greater crime, killing 10 deer or killing one human, most would answer that killing one human is worse. The "stop the killing" lunactivist in your post would have to ponder it, and probably come up with the wrong answer.

I really don't know how to stop them, or even how to engage them. They derive tremendous emotional and even spiritual value from standing against the status quo, shaking their little fists against what they see as the teeming hordes of Evil, those of us who draw a value distinction between human and non-human.

To me, the value of animal life and human life is not comparable. (Yes, I know humans are animals, too; unless I specify, you can be assured that I always use "animal" to mean non-human animal, or those aspects of biology which distinguish humans and non-humans from spinach or quartz. ) What I mean is that other things being equal, I would accept the immediate extinction of deer (or any non-human species) if it meant saving one human life, even for a moment.

Of course, things are not equal, and the extinction of even one species of deer would have a cost in human life, and an impact on ecosystems that would in turn have unknown, and largely negative, effects on humans. So, the pathologically absurd situation I posed above would at some point involve a dilemma in which human life could be balanced against human life.

But back in the real world, burgeoning deer populations spill over into areas occupied by people and their vehicles. Deer, lacking the evolutionary foresight to be constructed from sturdier materials, meet their inevitable end more quickly than either their Creator or we their predators would have liked. In the process they do a great amount of damage to property, and indeed, cost human lives.

So the overabundance of deer, as well as their total absence, would be a net negative for humans. Deer are good, when their numbers are great enough to be stable but not so great as to cause problems for themselves (by the lack of food and space) or us (by trying to use ours).

But the animal rights crowd will have nothing of that, because they don't see the distinction between humans and animals. Despite efforts to deny it, the notion that non-humans have their own innate rights, rather than drawing their protection from our need to regulate our behavior, leads inexorably to devaluing humans. So instead of stopping at criticizing those who engage in the cruelty of dog-fighting or other ways to have fun hurting animals, they engender overpopulation, disease, and harm to the creatures they ostensibly wish to help.

Like all attempts to deny reality, attempting to keep people from using animals for food is doomed to failure.

Stay tuned here for more on lunactivists, their antics, and their intractable nature.

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