Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate apparently wants to bring back laws banning oral and anal sex. Oh, dear. This is why America is quite possibly doomed - liberal policy inclinations are ruinous, especially viz the particular needs of a superpower, which America won't be much longer the way things are going - but it seems the GOP cannot rid itself of morons like this Cuccinelli who espouse ideas and opinions that the liberal media just absolutely feasts on to the detriment of the conservative brand leaving the GOP increasingly marginalized as a national party - which means more presidents like Obama, more deadlock and partisan rancor in the congress. More muck, in other words.
And I'm not sure this problem can be fixed - I mean, how do you weed the wacko element out of the GOP and still manage to win elections? How does a candidate with maybe the skills and personality to broaden the appeal of the GOP [Christie] manage to survive the dynamics of primary politics where the extremes hold too much sway? But probably the biggest obstacle to fixing it is I believe the Democrats, with their huge advantage in the media and press, feel that if they just keep fanning the flames of right wing discontent, which enables morons like Cuccinelli, that this is a war of attrition they win - they want it this way because in the end the result will amount to what looks like a quiet coup, conservatives will be reduced to a fringe element and American politics going forward will be defined by the extreme liberals vs the moderate liberals. At least, I'm guessing that's how Obama and his maenads have dreamed it playing out - but best laid plans, right?
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
I agree wholeheartedly with Scalia’s dissent of SCOTUS striking down DOMA - it’s not that I necessarily oppose gay marriage per se [although in general I do but for reasons very different from most] - it’s that I reject with great indignation the high handed way it is being imposed on me as if to disagree with the concept were an insult to humanity, as if only a low minded bigot could possibly object - this attitude of disdain for dissent manifests the pronounced tyrannical tendencies of modern liberalism and it is a disturbing thing to see - this intolerance in the name of tolerance, this shutting down of free speech, shaming it down, in the name of an ersatz freedom. Modern liberalism as espoused by this clerisy of conformity shares virtually nothing in common with the true liberalism wrought from old world oppressions by men like Locke and Hume and the founders of this country.
[see also John Yoo here who says pretty much what I would have said if I were a constitutional scholar - in essence, I'm not necessarily against gay marriage, I'm very much against the way it is being imposed under the moral absolutism of the new left - the same ideological cloistering that dictates that if you oppose Obama you must be a racist, if you oppose amnesty for illegals it must be because you're a racist, if you oppose universal healthcare it must be because you're a heartless hater of the poor, if you oppose tax increases you must be an evil plutocrat, if you oppsoe gay marriage it must be because you're an unevolved, knuckle dragging, mean spirited brute etc etc etc... and exactly how dangerous is it that the Supreme Court has now essentially codified this tyranny of left wing moralism into law, has codified forever the uber liberal belief that if you oppose gay marriage there's obviously something wrong with you? SCOTUS has dictated that exercise of a free conscience is flawed unless it reveals proper fealty to specific agendas - how long before failure to adopt Obamacare will be considered grounds for judging you an enemy of the state?]
[see also John Yoo here who says pretty much what I would have said if I were a constitutional scholar - in essence, I'm not necessarily against gay marriage, I'm very much against the way it is being imposed under the moral absolutism of the new left - the same ideological cloistering that dictates that if you oppose Obama you must be a racist, if you oppose amnesty for illegals it must be because you're a racist, if you oppose universal healthcare it must be because you're a heartless hater of the poor, if you oppose tax increases you must be an evil plutocrat, if you oppsoe gay marriage it must be because you're an unevolved, knuckle dragging, mean spirited brute etc etc etc... and exactly how dangerous is it that the Supreme Court has now essentially codified this tyranny of left wing moralism into law, has codified forever the uber liberal belief that if you oppose gay marriage there's obviously something wrong with you? SCOTUS has dictated that exercise of a free conscience is flawed unless it reveals proper fealty to specific agendas - how long before failure to adopt Obamacare will be considered grounds for judging you an enemy of the state?]
Ya know, seems to me people have missed the big story here when it comes to the Snowden fiasco - yes, it's interesting how yet another window has been thrown open to reveal yet more of just how awful a president Obama is - it's as if he's a disinterested CEO put in charge of running a company he can't stand, hates, but he does it anyway because the perks are just so wonderful - and yes it's interesting to see the open contempt which China and Russia are showing the erstwhile most powerful nation ever - watching this decline I'm guessing a few European leaders are waking up to the fact that a world where the US doesn't dominate is like to be a rather unpleasant, unstable thing - I used to joke that Obama's true goal in seeking the presidency was to destroy America, the ultimate smart bomb empowered by an idiot electorate and a sycophantic press - guess it wasn't a joke.
But aside from all that glorious stuff I think the big deal as concerns Snowden is how willing China was to turn him into a tool to excite anti-Americanism and how quick and eager the stupefied Chinese citizen was to buy into that charade - I find that quite distressing - it's always been my opinion that increasingly, in order to contain or suppress rising discontent or sundry other problems that might challenge the legitimacy of their reign, that increasingly Middle Kingdom's oligarchs would resort to the stoking of a dangerous hyper nationalism - and there ya go, with hardly any effort at all, using Snowden as a prop, they were able to turn America into the evil, not to be trusted enemy. That's disquieting.
But aside from all that glorious stuff I think the big deal as concerns Snowden is how willing China was to turn him into a tool to excite anti-Americanism and how quick and eager the stupefied Chinese citizen was to buy into that charade - I find that quite distressing - it's always been my opinion that increasingly, in order to contain or suppress rising discontent or sundry other problems that might challenge the legitimacy of their reign, that increasingly Middle Kingdom's oligarchs would resort to the stoking of a dangerous hyper nationalism - and there ya go, with hardly any effort at all, using Snowden as a prop, they were able to turn America into the evil, not to be trusted enemy. That's disquieting.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Hey, maybe indeed I have misunderstood the whole immigration reform debate [and by that we mean border security and what to do with illegals - yes immigration reform is a much bigger deal than those two things but I'm guessing there's probably pretty broad support over the other stuff that needs fixing - border security and status for illegals are the main sticking points here] - but listening to Paul Ryan talk on CBS this morning he made it sound like the GOP maybe in fact does after all have a coherent game plan they're working here because he referred several times to the gang of eight bill as merely the starting point for how the bill will look once the house is finished re-writing it - so maybe the GOP is pursuing a sensible, politically cunning strategy here - we'll see. My thinking here would be that they've got the democrats to sign off on the idea of border security being key to getting a deal done - maybe that's the leverage they were looking for.
Monday, June 24, 2013
This is what the slow creep of tyranny looks like in Canada, how long before it comes to the US? Curious notion of free speech where I can be charged with a crime for offending someone - when you get right down to it, isn't the whole point of free speech to offend someone or something? Wasn't the King offended by the rabble? If the free market capitalist ridicules the marxist, isn't he in essence offending him, offending his beliefs and the way of life he espouses? So I take it in Canada, if their laws avow any coherent sense of logic, the aggrieved marxist, if he cries foul loud enough and whinges whelp-like with sufficient histrionics, can have the capitalist arrested? How many more Obamas will it take before America suffers the same fate?
[yes, yes, freedoms cannot be absolute otherwise they lose all practical meaning and become self defeating - I reluctantly accept my neighbour's right to addle what's left of his enfeebled mind by listening to hip hop music and hopefully he in turn accepts my right to call the police when he abuses his liberties and blasts the insufferable noise at full volume in the wee hours - but free speech is different: when you control speech, you control ideas, you control what people are allowed to think and then what they're allowed to debate - that's a far different slippery slope than the one that tries to contain just how atrociously fucking moronic my neighbour is allowed to become before the flashing lights get to make an appearance]
[yes, yes, freedoms cannot be absolute otherwise they lose all practical meaning and become self defeating - I reluctantly accept my neighbour's right to addle what's left of his enfeebled mind by listening to hip hop music and hopefully he in turn accepts my right to call the police when he abuses his liberties and blasts the insufferable noise at full volume in the wee hours - but free speech is different: when you control speech, you control ideas, you control what people are allowed to think and then what they're allowed to debate - that's a far different slippery slope than the one that tries to contain just how atrociously fucking moronic my neighbour is allowed to become before the flashing lights get to make an appearance]
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Here’s the whole problem with immigration reform and the gang of eight bill - even if I trust Rubio et al, trust that they got the best deal they could, trust that they had always the best interests of the country at heart and felt they were thoroughly in the right, trust that they negotiated with eyes wide open - even if I allow them all that trust I still distrust Obama and his merry men more - I don’t believe for one second that the democrats would sign onto any agreement unless they thought it was a win win for them - a win if it passes and swells the ranks of liberals and devotion to liberalism in general and forever and irretrievably moves the country to the left, a win if the house turns it down and the left gets to endlessly demagogue how racist and intolerant the right is.
Thinking this way, I have no option but to believe republicans in the gang of eight are getting played, yes? Possibly there’s some secret info out there that makes sense of everything they’re doing, polls or whatever, studies - and I certainly hope that’s the case - but absent something like that I gotta believe they’re being played for fools because everyone knows that any bill that doesn’t absolutely guarantee border security before anything else and even with that that doesn’t make a path to citizenship a steep climb is virtually certain to be rejected by the house - so why even enter into negotiations without those two things being the bare minimum you're willing to bargain down to since we all know how toxic the talking points are gonna be if the house says no? You answer that the democrats would never agree to something like that? Ok, but isn't that the point? If the democrats are dictating terms that produce a win for them no matter what happens and losses for republicans no matter what happens, how can it make any sense to negotiate with them? Are you saying that for all intents and purposes the GOP is doomed regardless so might as well try and get the best deal possible and then pray for salvation? That at least would be an explanation I could understand.
Again, I hope there’s something going on beneath the surface that makes sense of all this, something I'm missing or don't know about, something the people who virulently oppose the bill are chauvinistically ignoring - otherwise at the moment I have no choice but to believe republicans are getting played for fools.
Thinking this way, I have no option but to believe republicans in the gang of eight are getting played, yes? Possibly there’s some secret info out there that makes sense of everything they’re doing, polls or whatever, studies - and I certainly hope that’s the case - but absent something like that I gotta believe they’re being played for fools because everyone knows that any bill that doesn’t absolutely guarantee border security before anything else and even with that that doesn’t make a path to citizenship a steep climb is virtually certain to be rejected by the house - so why even enter into negotiations without those two things being the bare minimum you're willing to bargain down to since we all know how toxic the talking points are gonna be if the house says no? You answer that the democrats would never agree to something like that? Ok, but isn't that the point? If the democrats are dictating terms that produce a win for them no matter what happens and losses for republicans no matter what happens, how can it make any sense to negotiate with them? Are you saying that for all intents and purposes the GOP is doomed regardless so might as well try and get the best deal possible and then pray for salvation? That at least would be an explanation I could understand.
Again, I hope there’s something going on beneath the surface that makes sense of all this, something I'm missing or don't know about, something the people who virulently oppose the bill are chauvinistically ignoring - otherwise at the moment I have no choice but to believe republicans are getting played for fools.
Time to start up the F-22 line again? I said at the time of cancelling that putting all of America’s air superiority eggs in the F-35 basket may prove one of the worst strategic decisions ever - with news emerging that China has indeed hacked the program leaving it vulnerable to who knows what kind of counter measures and shortening the timeline possibly by leaps and bounds for China’s successful development of similar technology, looks like maybe I was right [although admittedly continuing improvements viz unmanned stealth aircraft may change the dynamics here].
There are countries, allies of ours, who wanted the F-22, wanted it badly - the reason we didn’t sell it to them was to safeguard the technology from essentially Russia and China - well, that doesn’t seem to matter anymore - Russia’s building what looks to be a pretty impressive 5th generation fighter of their own, and by aggressively backward engineering Russian technology and hacking ours China’s probably not too far behind them. So start up the F-22 again, sell it to Australia, sell it to Japan, sell it to Israel - by doing that you could effectively almost double our inventory of the plane, and it wouldn’t cost us anything - hell, sell it to Taiwan - that would make for a fun week.
There are countries, allies of ours, who wanted the F-22, wanted it badly - the reason we didn’t sell it to them was to safeguard the technology from essentially Russia and China - well, that doesn’t seem to matter anymore - Russia’s building what looks to be a pretty impressive 5th generation fighter of their own, and by aggressively backward engineering Russian technology and hacking ours China’s probably not too far behind them. So start up the F-22 again, sell it to Australia, sell it to Japan, sell it to Israel - by doing that you could effectively almost double our inventory of the plane, and it wouldn’t cost us anything - hell, sell it to Taiwan - that would make for a fun week.
"... I imagine there are several varieties of religious faith, but that for most it amounts to what happens when the logical part of the brain suggests to you that it’s probably a good idea to suspend belief, withhold affirmation concerning the truth of a particular thing and the needy, sad, lonely, desperate part of the brain responds by insisting you believe in it anyway… in that sense faith is sort of like a threat, an ultimatum aimed at reality..."
Saturday, June 22, 2013
There is a flip side to this idea of China blackmailing Hollywood into running pro-Middle Kingdom glorious land of Mao O look at the miracles we've wrought you see communism really can work [as long as you're willing to steal away from the bedraggled West a few of the things it actually does well] propaganda for them - what if some cunning malcontent director/producer decides to make a movie designed to be both popular and a bloody big thorn in China's exposed flank? There are any number of future war scenarios could easily fit that bill - but the Chinese consumer on their own might reject such a thing without the police state having to step in and deny it to them - so let's imagine a love story, set in Beijing, between an American businessman and whatever winsome Chinese lass and it ends tragically because of let's say some communist party intrigue - what happens then? Let's say the movie is wildly successful, like Titanic big - does the politburo say no and deny their consumers the right to consume it? They'd pretty much have to ban it I think - it's a corner the police state culture creates for itself and that just sits there waiting for someone to back into it - but what happens then? Does the Chinese citizen consumer complain, rebel, march in protest, riot, demand change? Or do they just quietly comply and wait for the bootlegged DVDs?
Which leads to another interesting question about China - what will it mean if the oppressed citizenry never rises up against the repressive system? What if the powers that be in China have figured out the perfect balance between taking freedoms away with one hand while giving specific freedoms back with the other, their version of bread and circuses? Or what if it's simply in the nature of Chinese culture to submit to authority? After all, we've misjudged cultures before, convincing ourselves that Muslim polities must want to be free of oppression under the Islamic state - and of course a minority does, but it's a minority - most seem to act as if they wouldn't have a clue how to comport themselves without instruction from Allah's clerisy - very feudal these cultures - sure, we saw riots in Turkey, but again, that was a minority - the majority seems fine with Erdogan lecturing them about the evils of beer drinking - so it wouldn't be surprising at all to see us misjudge Chinese culture.
I'll say this, if twenty years from now China's economy has surpassed America's and yet it remains an oppressive oligarchy, entities which do have a tendency to create mischief, I gotta imagine that wouldn't be a good thing - hell, the PLA right now has a mind of its own and is increasingly strident in its ways, what will it be like then? If I'm Japan and I see America in decline - which a few more years under leadership like Obama has provided will surely be the case - and I'm looking across the sea at a muscled up behemoth that has long wanted a go at me, I'm feeling a wee bit uncomfortable - and probably getting the urge to join the nuke club.
Which leads to another interesting question about China - what will it mean if the oppressed citizenry never rises up against the repressive system? What if the powers that be in China have figured out the perfect balance between taking freedoms away with one hand while giving specific freedoms back with the other, their version of bread and circuses? Or what if it's simply in the nature of Chinese culture to submit to authority? After all, we've misjudged cultures before, convincing ourselves that Muslim polities must want to be free of oppression under the Islamic state - and of course a minority does, but it's a minority - most seem to act as if they wouldn't have a clue how to comport themselves without instruction from Allah's clerisy - very feudal these cultures - sure, we saw riots in Turkey, but again, that was a minority - the majority seems fine with Erdogan lecturing them about the evils of beer drinking - so it wouldn't be surprising at all to see us misjudge Chinese culture.
I'll say this, if twenty years from now China's economy has surpassed America's and yet it remains an oppressive oligarchy, entities which do have a tendency to create mischief, I gotta imagine that wouldn't be a good thing - hell, the PLA right now has a mind of its own and is increasingly strident in its ways, what will it be like then? If I'm Japan and I see America in decline - which a few more years under leadership like Obama has provided will surely be the case - and I'm looking across the sea at a muscled up behemoth that has long wanted a go at me, I'm feeling a wee bit uncomfortable - and probably getting the urge to join the nuke club.
Friday, June 21, 2013
What if China enlists, incorporates the American film industry into the PRC's propaganda industry in exchange for allowing the American film industry into the walled off Chinese marketplace? In other words, what if we start doing propaganda and speech control for the politburo so as to gain access to their burgeoning class of indentured consumers? This is a weapon, and I see it as a weapon, that the USSR could never threaten us with - and the threat is real and potentially quite devastating. Think about it, China has no soft power of its own to wield and quite likely never will have - American popular culture is probably the most lethal soft power weapon ever deployed and at the centre of it is the film industry - why wouldn't you try and co-opt it if you're China? They steal everything else - and remember, they don't see it as stealing, they see it as justified payback for colonial depredations - so appeals to rule of law or a sense of fairness are ludicrous. Besides, is it stealing when we willingly give it away? You can call it blackmail I guess, but what movie producer is gonna turn his back on the money over 'principles'? Hell, Hollywood's full of limousine socialists as it is anyway - so, you need the villain in my new blockbuster action film to be changed from a PLA general to a Russian general? Sure, no problem! Christ, I'll make him American if ya want. And throw in a few nice words about Mao? Absolutely. And we got our special effects people working on that Beijing smog too. As far as Hollywood's concerned, there are no dead pigs floating in the river: this town sold lies to dumbass Americans for decades, you want us to perform the same service for you, I say why not - we're all friends here, right?
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Is the immigration debate really all about providing cheap low skill workers for big business? The uber cynics have always maintained that it was a toxic nexus of that and the politically motivated ideological chauvinism of liberals - but I tended to believe it was more about GOP thinking it could pretty itself up for the Hispanic voter by looking all moderate viz border security and paths to citizenship for illegals, which I judged to be grievously misguided. But it is starting to look like maybe the uber cynics were right, with the CBO chiming in to say amnesty will mean greater profits for the investor class and lower wages for the working class - and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Sounds asinine - let me understand this, we exported all our good paying low skill jobs to China et al and are now replacing that dynamic and forever changing the culture and politics of the country by importing a bunch of desperate, low skill Mexicans who will work all day for nothing even as the economy is creating a permanently under employed sub culture of poorly educated youth that apparently will til the end of time be dependent on big daddy gov't for survival? Hell, unemployment among African-American youth is at a dangerously high level - and yet Paul Ryan declares yesterday that we need the gang of eight bill because there's a labor shortage in the country? I mean, what the christ is goin' on here? Isn't this how Europe got itself into trouble, opening the floodgates to poor and poorly educated Muslims to fill low skill, low paying jobs their own welfare getting citizens weren't interested in while conveniently turning a blind eye to the cultural and political problems it was creating for itself and that are now starting to bubble to the surface?
I dunno - having a real hard time seeing how this all works out for the good.
[but then there's this WSJ op-ed by Henninger about how securing the border is impossible, a fantasy - and I've read other stories like this that say republicans going on about securing the border either don't know what they're talking about or are flat out lying in order to appease the base - I don't know how true this is, seems to me technology must afford some way out of this problem, but who knows - I will say that if it is true then republicans really need to own up to that fact because it will be absolutely impossible to forge an intelligent solution to illegal immigration from the south until everyone understands that securing the border is not one of the answers - if the current gang of eight bill is built on a lie then it should be tossed out the window and we should start all over again with a common understanding that border security is not gonna save us - right now it looks like we're just trying to solve a problem by creating other problems that we're hoping as if by magic never materialize - good luck with that]
I dunno - having a real hard time seeing how this all works out for the good.
[but then there's this WSJ op-ed by Henninger about how securing the border is impossible, a fantasy - and I've read other stories like this that say republicans going on about securing the border either don't know what they're talking about or are flat out lying in order to appease the base - I don't know how true this is, seems to me technology must afford some way out of this problem, but who knows - I will say that if it is true then republicans really need to own up to that fact because it will be absolutely impossible to forge an intelligent solution to illegal immigration from the south until everyone understands that securing the border is not one of the answers - if the current gang of eight bill is built on a lie then it should be tossed out the window and we should start all over again with a common understanding that border security is not gonna save us - right now it looks like we're just trying to solve a problem by creating other problems that we're hoping as if by magic never materialize - good luck with that]
Monday, June 17, 2013
Reading this great piece by Victor Hanson got me wondering if maybe indeed the best option for the GOP viz the immigration debate is just to simply put the foot down and insist no deal without first securing the border and writing in stone the rules by which illegals may one day gain citizenship - the Democrats will decline your offer, cast you as racists and you'll lose the Latino vote, possibly for good - but that's probably gonna happen anyway - certainly that's the conclusion to draw from article in the New Yorker about how the Obama administration is secretly running the negotiations from the shadows because they believe no matter what happens here it will amount to electoral magic for them. So accept that reality and go out and aggressively court the non-Latino vote by standing firmly by your principles and painting vividly for the non-Latino voter [and that 25% of the Hispanic market that did vote for you] the disturbing picture Hanson paints - make it clear to people that what the democrats are doing is ruinous for the country, is full of corruption and vile demagoguery and shameless, self serving lies - and if not another Latino ever votes for you then so be it, the country was doomed anyways.
I dunno if that would be going too far - but as I've said before what's it gonna mean if the GOP capitulates and gains little at the polling booth, which to me seems likely? They'll essentially have sold the country down the river for nothing - so take Rubio and send him out there and have him make the case that he made an honest effort to eschew partisanship and do what's right for this country but the Democrats only wanted to demagogue and play politics because all they really care about is winning elections no matter what the cost, make the case that the GOP refuses to put the country at risk simply to pander to the Latino vote and if that means we never win another national election, well so be it. I'm firmly coming to believe that whatever small gain republicans get from Hispanic voters by signing onto a flawed policy essentially written by Obama and therefore full of loopholes concerning border security and paths to citizenship, whatever small gains we squeeze from that compromise will be negated by losing non-Latino voters who are just sick and tired of what's happening to the country and opt rather to check out and simply stop voting, which is sort of what happened in 2012.
[shouldn't polls of Hispanics regarding securing the border and paths to citizenship reveal what political upside or lack thereof is immanent in the GOP agreeing to an immigration reform that may be more liberal than conservative in nature? So, Romney got 25% of the Hispanic vote and it seems reasonable to assume that 25% is pretty rock solid in its conservatism - so if polls showed 75% of Latinos held views on securing the border and rights to citizenship that hew close to or maybe even exceed liberal dogma on such, that would be pretty god damn revelatory, no? Now, I know I've seen polls out there that go over this ground but I don't quite remember what they indicated, but I think it wasn't good - regardless, those polls should say a lot about the proper way forward - to me I think rather than cutting their own throats by agreeing to what amounts to amnesty without true border security, conservatives should instead focus on how to get elected with only 30% of the Latino vote because I think that's going to be the reality no matter what happens here - and I say 30% rather than 25% because I'm figuring a much more gifted politician than Romney has a reasonable shot of hitting that number. Let's face it, there are at least 11 million illegals in America - if they ever get citizenship it seems pretty reasonable to conclude that they will owe their allegiance to the Democratic party - but even if they don't get citizenship their children will be citizens and their childrens children will be citizens and it's very likely they'll all feel an allegiance to the Democratic party - so conservatives need to stand back, accept that failure to secure the southern border was quite possibly a fatal, a terminal mistake, and then make an honest appraisal of how, if that mistake is indeed survivable, how you'd go about doing it - getting involved in negotiations with a scheming ideologue like Obama does not seem like the answer 'cause he's probably right in feeling he and the liberal agenda wins this debate over securing the border and citizenship, aka immigration reform, no matter what happens - I don't know what the answer is, other than that the next GOP presidential nominee needs to have much broader appeal and much more skill at selling a message through the media than Romney did]
I dunno if that would be going too far - but as I've said before what's it gonna mean if the GOP capitulates and gains little at the polling booth, which to me seems likely? They'll essentially have sold the country down the river for nothing - so take Rubio and send him out there and have him make the case that he made an honest effort to eschew partisanship and do what's right for this country but the Democrats only wanted to demagogue and play politics because all they really care about is winning elections no matter what the cost, make the case that the GOP refuses to put the country at risk simply to pander to the Latino vote and if that means we never win another national election, well so be it. I'm firmly coming to believe that whatever small gain republicans get from Hispanic voters by signing onto a flawed policy essentially written by Obama and therefore full of loopholes concerning border security and paths to citizenship, whatever small gains we squeeze from that compromise will be negated by losing non-Latino voters who are just sick and tired of what's happening to the country and opt rather to check out and simply stop voting, which is sort of what happened in 2012.
[shouldn't polls of Hispanics regarding securing the border and paths to citizenship reveal what political upside or lack thereof is immanent in the GOP agreeing to an immigration reform that may be more liberal than conservative in nature? So, Romney got 25% of the Hispanic vote and it seems reasonable to assume that 25% is pretty rock solid in its conservatism - so if polls showed 75% of Latinos held views on securing the border and rights to citizenship that hew close to or maybe even exceed liberal dogma on such, that would be pretty god damn revelatory, no? Now, I know I've seen polls out there that go over this ground but I don't quite remember what they indicated, but I think it wasn't good - regardless, those polls should say a lot about the proper way forward - to me I think rather than cutting their own throats by agreeing to what amounts to amnesty without true border security, conservatives should instead focus on how to get elected with only 30% of the Latino vote because I think that's going to be the reality no matter what happens here - and I say 30% rather than 25% because I'm figuring a much more gifted politician than Romney has a reasonable shot of hitting that number. Let's face it, there are at least 11 million illegals in America - if they ever get citizenship it seems pretty reasonable to conclude that they will owe their allegiance to the Democratic party - but even if they don't get citizenship their children will be citizens and their childrens children will be citizens and it's very likely they'll all feel an allegiance to the Democratic party - so conservatives need to stand back, accept that failure to secure the southern border was quite possibly a fatal, a terminal mistake, and then make an honest appraisal of how, if that mistake is indeed survivable, how you'd go about doing it - getting involved in negotiations with a scheming ideologue like Obama does not seem like the answer 'cause he's probably right in feeling he and the liberal agenda wins this debate over securing the border and citizenship, aka immigration reform, no matter what happens - I don't know what the answer is, other than that the next GOP presidential nominee needs to have much broader appeal and much more skill at selling a message through the media than Romney did]
"... a liberal must swaddle his ideology in an emotional context as means of obscuring the fact that his arguments really don't make much sense and cannot survive an honest challenge... have you ever tried to win an argument with a person who constantly resorts to the pained emotive when cornered, who whinges and cries victim every time you approach a refutation of their feeble logic?... so it is a liberal embraces emotionalism and its twin familiars, victimhood and guilt, as a means to keep hidden, even from themselves, the faulty reasoning and dark arts upon which their wild, prattling confabulations are built..."
The election of a supposed moderate president in Iran - a highly debatable concept [debatable as in it's an affront to credibility] when it comes to a theocracy where no candidate is even allowed to run for the office unless pre-approved by the theocracy which is sort of like saying you're free just so long as you accept that our definition of free means you're not free - it’s remarkable how the West, where we created democracy as an escape from the abuses of repressive absolutism continues to act as if when it comes to the non-Western world repressive absolutism can of course co-exist with notions of personal liberty, free speech and a conscience of one’s own - it’s this insanity of modern liberalism that gorges itself on phoney egalitarianism which is really just a means for imposing conformity, suppressing dissent, of demonizing your enemies if they dare suggest one thing or person is better than another because idealism cannot exist in an environment where its dictatorial notions of fairness are legitimately challenged - in other words, idealism is perforce autocratic by nature - you see this insanity expressed in the elevation of multiculturalism over the idea of the melting pot which seems to be motivated by the pathological needs of the left to see that Western culture feel ever contrite for being successful because of course the left is not completely comfortable with the way the West became successful [see recent events in Sweden where ridiculously generous welfare payments are given immigrants for doing nothing at all which encourages immigrants to not integrate into the prevailing culture since they don't really need to go out and get a job which means the welfare state must be seen by the liberal elite in Sweden as a way for the West to pay reparations to all the people in the world it so horribly abused etc etc] - you see this insanity in how the EU evolved from troubled child into dysfunctional adult, this left wing need to dictate that all cultures are the same, or, expressed otherwise, the differences don’t matter because left wing ideology is uncomfortable with the way these qualitative differences are defined - well, Europe is finding out the differences do matter and pretending they don’t in order keep inflated the idealist whimsy of the left is not a viable option come the end of the day and you’ll pay for your foolishness - but I digress -
The election of this supposed ‘moderate’ in Iran should prove interesting as it plays out because of the way it ought to shine a light on whether idealists [liberals] or sceptics [conservatives] have a more accurately nuanced view of the world. Liberals of course will see the ‘moderate’ tag and be strongly inclined to take it at face value, and there’ll be lots of talk about how this is a new beginning and if we stay open minded and ‘receptive’ real change can happen etc etc. Conservatives on the other hand will see any claims of moderation as a ruse, a public relations scam designed to make it much more difficult to play hardball on sanctions, a smiley face to cajole the dimwitted UN, thereby allowing the Ayatollah, the real president of Iran, to run out the clock on getting a bomb.
I’m not saying the election was fixed necessarily, nor am I saying that there won't be cosmetic changes that intimate a moderation of sorts - I’m saying the result would not have been allowed to happen if the theocratic powers that be were not comfortable with it happening. As the dynamics of it play out I’m guessing much truth will be revealed, not only about Iran, but about us.
The election of this supposed ‘moderate’ in Iran should prove interesting as it plays out because of the way it ought to shine a light on whether idealists [liberals] or sceptics [conservatives] have a more accurately nuanced view of the world. Liberals of course will see the ‘moderate’ tag and be strongly inclined to take it at face value, and there’ll be lots of talk about how this is a new beginning and if we stay open minded and ‘receptive’ real change can happen etc etc. Conservatives on the other hand will see any claims of moderation as a ruse, a public relations scam designed to make it much more difficult to play hardball on sanctions, a smiley face to cajole the dimwitted UN, thereby allowing the Ayatollah, the real president of Iran, to run out the clock on getting a bomb.
I’m not saying the election was fixed necessarily, nor am I saying that there won't be cosmetic changes that intimate a moderation of sorts - I’m saying the result would not have been allowed to happen if the theocratic powers that be were not comfortable with it happening. As the dynamics of it play out I’m guessing much truth will be revealed, not only about Iran, but about us.
Friday, June 14, 2013
What the hell is Obama doing suddenly involving himself in Syria? Ok, he backed himself into an unwise corner with his red line on chemical weapons, so I guess someone managed to convince him finally that it really wasn't a good idea for the president of the United States to be making hollow threats - maybe that someone was Bill Clinton - whatever, regardless - what the hell is he doing here?
Ok, I've said all along that I'm not sure it's possible to actually make a 'right' call on Syria - from the beginning all options have had fairly significant downsides, so picking your poison was a tricky business for sure - but let's be clear I also said that Obama made this quandary much more problematic by setting a false standard with his incoherent foolishness in Libya - so ok, fine, regardless of that - why get involved now? Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and much more quietly the Shiite ruling class in Iraq have made it clear they intend to carry Assad to victory come hell or high water, so in getting involved now you're getting involved against them - if your efforts start to turn the tide against Assad that amounts to a significant challenge to them and they'll have to respond - alternatively, if your efforts fail the damage to your prestige and the lift to theirs is that much greater. Quite a sticky wicket, seems to me.
Then there's the problem of who or what exactly are you jumping in now to support or defend? The extremists are running the show, they're embedded, they're baked in - they're our allies here? To what end? The only chance you had to control the outcome here - and by control I mean keep noxious Islamists from taking charge and forestalling the coming of the slaughter of regime supporters, which will likely include the Christian and Kurdish minorities and not just Alawites, when Assad falls - the only chance you had to suppress these outcomes was to get in early - now it's impossible, now your only chance would come from going in big which quite obviously with Obama calling the shots will not be an option on the table - and quite frankly probably wouldn't be an option regardless of Obama's lead from behind mentality - but, still, at this point going in big is the only way you could influence outcomes that wouldn't come back to haunt us down the road. The most we're gonna see here I imagine will be giving some intel and superior weaponry to the rebels and then possibly protecting an enclave, a sanctuary somewhere with a no fly zone - talk of a no fly over all of Syria I think is fantasy, I'd be shocked if we saw that - that would be a major enterprise, you'd have to wage a penetrative air war against Syrian defences for several weeks, taking out AA systems, taking out command and control nodes - you're not gonna see that - possibly we drop some cruise missiles on some runways - but I don't see an expansive no fly zone being in the cards.
To me this is just further confirmation that Obama is simply not qualified to be chief executive - he's a charming yet somewhat machiavellian ideologue who had very little relevant experience but was given the job anyway because uber liberals and the egregiously naive in general got all giddy over the notion of having a black president - take him away from the campaign trail and the teleprompter where he does indeed have some skills - but that's pretty much what you'd expect from a guy whose chief political attribute is being a charming ideologue beloved by the media - take him away from that context and he quite simply doesn't seem to have a clue. He sure as hell ain't a leader - and this vaunted intelligence his acolytes drone on about, I don't see it. He seems more fool than savant to me. He's got a knack for political machinations and as I've said before is a superb liar - but those things don't add up to leadership, certainly not when it comes to a democracy - may be a skill set that serves you well in an autocracy, which as I've said before is a mode of governance he seems best suited for, reflected in his attempts to suppress dissent through manipulation of the media [not to mention the IRS, the DOJ etc etc], which is basically rule number one in the aspiring potentates playbook - but being president of the United States is not a job this guy is well suited for, at least not if we intend on remaining a superpower - his ideas are faulty, his sympathies misguided, his decision making flawed and rather than having the ability or even desire to bridge gaps and divides roiling the electorate he seems intent instead on exacerbating them, possibly because he looks upon anyone who doesn't endorse his point of view by wholly surrendering themselves to the brilliance of his conceits as having irredeemably fallen from grace.
[does this involvement mark the return of Samantha Power and Susan Rice as putative foreign policy mavens pulling Dear Leader's strings? Great - the idiots responsible for Libya return to wreak more havoc upon common sense and strategic coherence - and in the name of what delusional humanitarianism, what misguided multilateralism? Ninety thousand have died so far, this is their motivation? They do realize if we enable a rebel win another ninety thousand will die in retributive slaughter, yes? And maybe many, many more than that if a turn in rebel fortunes sets off a regional war? They do realize that without significant American boots on the ground the people we will be bringing to power will at best look like a more regressive, more corrupt, more incompetent version of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and at worse like the Taliban in the full rut of glorious jihad?
But let's play devil's advocate here - maybe a constrained no fly zone could be a precursor to breaking the country up - settle the insurgents in a viable province and then sue for a truce based on splitting the country in two - would that make any sense? I don't know the demographics in Syria well enough to even guess at whether some kind of partition is possible or, if possible, maintainable - but even if it were feasible sounds like it would be a huge undertaking that would constantly be under threat from sectarian and political forces pulling any tentative agreement apart - sounds like the sort of thing that would start off with good intentions but quickly fall into chaos]
[over at Foreign Policy Dan Drezner wants to make argument that Obama is playing the 'realist' card by jumping into Syria now - ie keep Iran et al involved in a draining civil war etc etc - these Obamaphiles, man, they just never cease in trying to think up clever conceits that putatively rationalise away Dear Leader's incompetence - usually the argument amounts to: if ya don't have a Phd from an Ivy League school y'all too stupid to comprehend Dear Leader's genius - this little routine was mildly amusing for a while during the first term, it is now nothing but tawdry and embarrassing.
There are no doubt many reasons why Drezner's claim is absurd, not least of which is I'm supposed to believe that uber progressive Obama has magically managed to turn himself into Kissinger and as such is willing to callously perpetuate an atrocity producing civil war merely to ostensibly drain Iran of energy or funds or whatever and all this despite the fact that his key advisors are all people who would never be caught dead pursuing a strategy like this - that's reason enough to laugh at the absurdity of Drezner's claim - and I can think of many others - as in, for this strategy to work, wouldn't you need this 'manufactured' civil war to go on undecided for quite some time? I mean, the way the prolonged violence is drawing in all kinds of unsavory extremists to the rebels and radicalizing all and sundry you certainly don't want them winning because of the abominations that would follow such a thing - but then of course you don't want Iran to 'win' either - so basically pursuing such a 'realist' strategy would involve having an uber progressive, anti-war liberal president secretly keeping a ruinous, atrocity producing civil war going ad infinitum as it were for the dubious purpose of draining Iran of resources. Yeah, right.
But the main reason why this realist argument is absurd is because it would amount to playing very fast and loose with Israel's security - you would not and could not pursue a strategy like this without first getting Israel's approval - and why the hell would they ever do that? They've been hyper cynical of the Arab Spring from the beginning - they saw clearly the very dangerous forces it was allowing to come to the fore - I'm not sure if they wanted Assad to prevail always, they may have been ambivalent at first - but I have no doubt that now as things stand they'd much prefer the devil they know than whatever evil lurks in the shadows and are deeply worried about this civil war getting stretched out and someone or something - Hezbollah - dragging them into it as a tactical ploy. Sorry Mr Dresner, but you and your buddies in the liberal academy are just gonna have to simply accept the fact that the dream you dreamed in 2008 was bogus and full of shit]
Ok, I've said all along that I'm not sure it's possible to actually make a 'right' call on Syria - from the beginning all options have had fairly significant downsides, so picking your poison was a tricky business for sure - but let's be clear I also said that Obama made this quandary much more problematic by setting a false standard with his incoherent foolishness in Libya - so ok, fine, regardless of that - why get involved now? Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and much more quietly the Shiite ruling class in Iraq have made it clear they intend to carry Assad to victory come hell or high water, so in getting involved now you're getting involved against them - if your efforts start to turn the tide against Assad that amounts to a significant challenge to them and they'll have to respond - alternatively, if your efforts fail the damage to your prestige and the lift to theirs is that much greater. Quite a sticky wicket, seems to me.
Then there's the problem of who or what exactly are you jumping in now to support or defend? The extremists are running the show, they're embedded, they're baked in - they're our allies here? To what end? The only chance you had to control the outcome here - and by control I mean keep noxious Islamists from taking charge and forestalling the coming of the slaughter of regime supporters, which will likely include the Christian and Kurdish minorities and not just Alawites, when Assad falls - the only chance you had to suppress these outcomes was to get in early - now it's impossible, now your only chance would come from going in big which quite obviously with Obama calling the shots will not be an option on the table - and quite frankly probably wouldn't be an option regardless of Obama's lead from behind mentality - but, still, at this point going in big is the only way you could influence outcomes that wouldn't come back to haunt us down the road. The most we're gonna see here I imagine will be giving some intel and superior weaponry to the rebels and then possibly protecting an enclave, a sanctuary somewhere with a no fly zone - talk of a no fly over all of Syria I think is fantasy, I'd be shocked if we saw that - that would be a major enterprise, you'd have to wage a penetrative air war against Syrian defences for several weeks, taking out AA systems, taking out command and control nodes - you're not gonna see that - possibly we drop some cruise missiles on some runways - but I don't see an expansive no fly zone being in the cards.
To me this is just further confirmation that Obama is simply not qualified to be chief executive - he's a charming yet somewhat machiavellian ideologue who had very little relevant experience but was given the job anyway because uber liberals and the egregiously naive in general got all giddy over the notion of having a black president - take him away from the campaign trail and the teleprompter where he does indeed have some skills - but that's pretty much what you'd expect from a guy whose chief political attribute is being a charming ideologue beloved by the media - take him away from that context and he quite simply doesn't seem to have a clue. He sure as hell ain't a leader - and this vaunted intelligence his acolytes drone on about, I don't see it. He seems more fool than savant to me. He's got a knack for political machinations and as I've said before is a superb liar - but those things don't add up to leadership, certainly not when it comes to a democracy - may be a skill set that serves you well in an autocracy, which as I've said before is a mode of governance he seems best suited for, reflected in his attempts to suppress dissent through manipulation of the media [not to mention the IRS, the DOJ etc etc], which is basically rule number one in the aspiring potentates playbook - but being president of the United States is not a job this guy is well suited for, at least not if we intend on remaining a superpower - his ideas are faulty, his sympathies misguided, his decision making flawed and rather than having the ability or even desire to bridge gaps and divides roiling the electorate he seems intent instead on exacerbating them, possibly because he looks upon anyone who doesn't endorse his point of view by wholly surrendering themselves to the brilliance of his conceits as having irredeemably fallen from grace.
[does this involvement mark the return of Samantha Power and Susan Rice as putative foreign policy mavens pulling Dear Leader's strings? Great - the idiots responsible for Libya return to wreak more havoc upon common sense and strategic coherence - and in the name of what delusional humanitarianism, what misguided multilateralism? Ninety thousand have died so far, this is their motivation? They do realize if we enable a rebel win another ninety thousand will die in retributive slaughter, yes? And maybe many, many more than that if a turn in rebel fortunes sets off a regional war? They do realize that without significant American boots on the ground the people we will be bringing to power will at best look like a more regressive, more corrupt, more incompetent version of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and at worse like the Taliban in the full rut of glorious jihad?
But let's play devil's advocate here - maybe a constrained no fly zone could be a precursor to breaking the country up - settle the insurgents in a viable province and then sue for a truce based on splitting the country in two - would that make any sense? I don't know the demographics in Syria well enough to even guess at whether some kind of partition is possible or, if possible, maintainable - but even if it were feasible sounds like it would be a huge undertaking that would constantly be under threat from sectarian and political forces pulling any tentative agreement apart - sounds like the sort of thing that would start off with good intentions but quickly fall into chaos]
[over at Foreign Policy Dan Drezner wants to make argument that Obama is playing the 'realist' card by jumping into Syria now - ie keep Iran et al involved in a draining civil war etc etc - these Obamaphiles, man, they just never cease in trying to think up clever conceits that putatively rationalise away Dear Leader's incompetence - usually the argument amounts to: if ya don't have a Phd from an Ivy League school y'all too stupid to comprehend Dear Leader's genius - this little routine was mildly amusing for a while during the first term, it is now nothing but tawdry and embarrassing.
There are no doubt many reasons why Drezner's claim is absurd, not least of which is I'm supposed to believe that uber progressive Obama has magically managed to turn himself into Kissinger and as such is willing to callously perpetuate an atrocity producing civil war merely to ostensibly drain Iran of energy or funds or whatever and all this despite the fact that his key advisors are all people who would never be caught dead pursuing a strategy like this - that's reason enough to laugh at the absurdity of Drezner's claim - and I can think of many others - as in, for this strategy to work, wouldn't you need this 'manufactured' civil war to go on undecided for quite some time? I mean, the way the prolonged violence is drawing in all kinds of unsavory extremists to the rebels and radicalizing all and sundry you certainly don't want them winning because of the abominations that would follow such a thing - but then of course you don't want Iran to 'win' either - so basically pursuing such a 'realist' strategy would involve having an uber progressive, anti-war liberal president secretly keeping a ruinous, atrocity producing civil war going ad infinitum as it were for the dubious purpose of draining Iran of resources. Yeah, right.
But the main reason why this realist argument is absurd is because it would amount to playing very fast and loose with Israel's security - you would not and could not pursue a strategy like this without first getting Israel's approval - and why the hell would they ever do that? They've been hyper cynical of the Arab Spring from the beginning - they saw clearly the very dangerous forces it was allowing to come to the fore - I'm not sure if they wanted Assad to prevail always, they may have been ambivalent at first - but I have no doubt that now as things stand they'd much prefer the devil they know than whatever evil lurks in the shadows and are deeply worried about this civil war getting stretched out and someone or something - Hezbollah - dragging them into it as a tactical ploy. Sorry Mr Dresner, but you and your buddies in the liberal academy are just gonna have to simply accept the fact that the dream you dreamed in 2008 was bogus and full of shit]
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Much liked this essay in American Interest that gives historical context to what's going on in Turkey and throws a light upon why trusting Erdogan is a rather foolish thing if you've chosen to see Turkey under his disingenuous rule as a reliable ally of the West. Note this paragraph near end:
A democratic majoritarianism that treats the opposition as disloyal - no wonder Obama and Erdy are so close - pretty much sums up Obama's whole approach to politics: demonize your opponents, present yourself as some wise and magnanimous healer, and then trust in your incestuous relationship with the media to flesh that narrative out - Obama imposes conformity through his mendacious maenads in the press, Erdy's got Islam.
This movement does not seem to be about Turkey’s next election or even electoral politics. It is not a culture war either, although framing it that way is to the AKP’s benefit. And it’s not really about 75-year-old trees. As one sign in Gezi Park reads, “This is a struggle of rights.” It is a challenge to the belief that democracy is the ballot box and nothing more, a claim Erdogan repeated in a direct rebuke to President Abdullah Gül’s efforts to ease tensions on June 3. It is a rejection of a democratic majoritarianism that treats the opposition as disloyal and of a patriarchal model of citizenship that prioritizes duties over rights, the nation over the individual. This model dates back much further than the AKP’s rise to power in 2002.
A democratic majoritarianism that treats the opposition as disloyal - no wonder Obama and Erdy are so close - pretty much sums up Obama's whole approach to politics: demonize your opponents, present yourself as some wise and magnanimous healer, and then trust in your incestuous relationship with the media to flesh that narrative out - Obama imposes conformity through his mendacious maenads in the press, Erdy's got Islam.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Should current 'gang of eight' immigration reform eventually go through, one thing you will be able to say about it without much question is that it amounts to maybe the most dumb ass way ever to swell the ranks of a great country - just admitting in ten to fifteen million illegals of unknown quality, skills and virtues simply because, as bad as it seems, all the alternatives seemed worse. Rubio has gone on Spanish language TV and said for sure legalization before border security - which to me is idiocy, I don't get that - but who knows, maybe he's right in saying it's the only way - all I know is that we've created a huge mess for ourselves through short sighted stupidity - I mean can you think of a worse way to swell the ranks of your country by ten to fifteen million people? It seems almost a certainty that a hundred years from now historians will look back and say one of the worst mistakes ever made by a great nation was America's abysmal failure to secure its southern border.
And please tell me how this plays out in any way that doesn't end in benefiting the Democrats? Conservatives may swallow the bitter pill because they feel they have no choice, but all that means is that they were stupid enough to allow themselves to be put in a position where they had no choice. Sure, when blacks figure out that all these newly legal low skill workers means that their employment prospects just got a whole lot worse, that might hurt Democrats a bit on election day - but what, are African-Americans suddenly then gonna go out and vote conservative? I don't think so. If you're a Democrat you're thinking, our numbers among blacks maybe go down a bit, but our numbers among Hispanics go up, maybe by a lot - that's a win.
Again, I'm willing to admit that considering all the bad alternatives this legislation, given that the Democrats are really in the catbird seat here and by demagoguing 'race' can force unpalatable compromises on the GOP, is possibly the best that can be hoped for - but just because it may be your only option doesn't therefore make it a good option - it's about as dumb ass as you can get when it comes to a great country doing immigration reform - essentially we're significantly changing the demographics and therefore culture of the country because our stupidity has forced the change upon us and not because we wilfully made a sensible, informed choice. And the problem with bad immigration policy as opposed to bad economic policy that can be reversed or bad foreign policy that can be reversed [although possibly not before Pandora's box has been ripped open with a passion] - how do you unwind the negative effects of a dumb ass immigration policy? As Europe is finding out, you can't.
And please tell me how this plays out in any way that doesn't end in benefiting the Democrats? Conservatives may swallow the bitter pill because they feel they have no choice, but all that means is that they were stupid enough to allow themselves to be put in a position where they had no choice. Sure, when blacks figure out that all these newly legal low skill workers means that their employment prospects just got a whole lot worse, that might hurt Democrats a bit on election day - but what, are African-Americans suddenly then gonna go out and vote conservative? I don't think so. If you're a Democrat you're thinking, our numbers among blacks maybe go down a bit, but our numbers among Hispanics go up, maybe by a lot - that's a win.
Again, I'm willing to admit that considering all the bad alternatives this legislation, given that the Democrats are really in the catbird seat here and by demagoguing 'race' can force unpalatable compromises on the GOP, is possibly the best that can be hoped for - but just because it may be your only option doesn't therefore make it a good option - it's about as dumb ass as you can get when it comes to a great country doing immigration reform - essentially we're significantly changing the demographics and therefore culture of the country because our stupidity has forced the change upon us and not because we wilfully made a sensible, informed choice. And the problem with bad immigration policy as opposed to bad economic policy that can be reversed or bad foreign policy that can be reversed [although possibly not before Pandora's box has been ripped open with a passion] - how do you unwind the negative effects of a dumb ass immigration policy? As Europe is finding out, you can't.
Is it with the NSA/Snowden security leak that the beliefs of China sceptics like myself are confirmed by actual events or is this the point where we slip somewhat off into over wrought cynical fantasy worthy of conspiracy theory wack jobs? Dunno. Thing to keep in mind I'd say is that even if China didn't manufacture this leak, this bait and switch, as a way of disarming US attacks on their cyber crimes [that the leak coincided with Xi Jinping's meeting with Obama seems remarkably fortuitous - still, does seem like quite a stretch and abuse of credulity - then again, what is cold blooded calculation without a willingness to ruthlessly exploit an opponent's good intentions?] - regardless, thing to keep in mind is that even if they're not behind it it's still not at all utterly beyond belief that they could and would manufacture a scheme like this - hell, there's plenty of evidence out there to suggest the PLA on its own might concoct and put in play such a scheme - and that's an important point to remember.
I'm not anti-China [god forbid] - I am fiercely anti American gullibility when it comes to China [but gullibility can't really be wilful, can it? With Obama, the distinction get's blurred]. I do tend to see a dark motive behind every move China makes or is implied by something they do or say and that's because I believe they believe that their domestic security and preservation of the communist regime [one in the same thing to them] are utterly dependent on getting America out of the Pacific and then using economic coercion as a means of controlling their neighbors and potential competitors. Remember, viz competitors, once you remove size there's nothing special or unique about what China's doing here, others can emulate it and are busy trying to emulate it - China itself is in most ways simply copying what Japan did to rise from the ashes of WW2 - but of course with huge exceptions: Japan was more or less a democracy, allied to the US, and consequent to that alliance had zero military aspirations and no need to look upon its neighbors as looming threats nor of [anymore] equating domination over them as a necessary component of power - furthermore, it was not burdened with a population so large as to be virtually unmanageable nor did it harbor [anymore] deep resentments of its colonial past and feelings of an unjust inferiority itching to be exorcised.
[although I suppose Snowden revealing himself and his whereabouts suggests China's hand is not in play here - don't imagine they'd want people knowing he was in Hong Kong because that looks orchestrated and way too close to home - still, can Snowden really be so stupid as to believe he's safe in Hong Kong? If he's a delusional sicko, guess he could have convinced himself of that - or maybe his plan always was to seek asylum in China - but would they take him? Doubt it - my guess is they'd let him think they'd take him, squeeze intel out of him and then ship him off to America - can't imagine they'd want the complication of granting him actual asylum - then again, their hackers would love to stretch him over some hot coals. It's very, very hard to accept at face value the timing of this - still, him running to Hong Kong as if there's sanctuary there has got me thinking this is just some middling level geek indulging delusions of grandeur as means of assuaging ravages of some emotional crisis - I mean, who does something like this and then runs off to Hong Kong thinking that's gonna save your ass? But... if you're a Chinese asset, isn't that how they'd be playing you? Sure! Come to Hong Kong - we've got your back, friend... set you up with some real fine Asian courtesans... quick sidebar - what horrors could you rain down on American cyber security by setting loose an army of Kitty Zhang lookalikes amongst our geekdom?...]
[truth is though I really don't know what I'm talking about nor probably does anyone else not initiated into the highly specialised and highly secretive SIGINT club - our cyber incursions into Chinese space are no doubt equal to if not indeed far surpassing theirs into ours - who knows? - maybe we're so much into each other's backyards at this point that nothing is a surprise, nothing is hidden - we know what they're trying to do and they know what we're trying to do - of course can't be that simple, never is - not that knowing everything would make things simple - strategy would become highly problematic - and I'm wondering, if cyber espionage is so extensive that you can never be really sure what your enemies do or do not know, doesn't strategy perforce get shoved into the realm of the obvious? Hmmnn... so, for example, we know Iran is trying to build a bomb, they know we know - so why all the game playing? And if we don't stop them, having known all along what they're up to, what does that mean? What are the implications? Or if for instance China was indeed behind Snowden leak, they'd have to know, or at least assume we knew that - so, as I'm saying, strategy gets pushed out into the open as a consequence, yes? And what does that lead to? But of course if we knew why let it happen? Which must mean China had nothing to do with it, right? That would be the optimists take on it. I dunno. Frustrating. Interesting question though - will the perfecting of cyber espionage render strategy as we have known it obsolete? What would be the consequences of something like that? What if it became impossible for a business to protect its intellectual property, its secrets? You'd be reduced to a position of utter vulnerability of having to trust your competitors to obey the law - take that dynamic and stretch it across the globe - sounds like a recipe for chaos to me.]
[of course, even if you wanna concede China's point that both sides are heavily invested in cyber espionage, fact is that's a false equivalency because, yes, we may be after certain 'strategic' info viz their military etc etc - but they don't have technological assets that we feel we need to steal nor do their companies have intellectual property that our gov't wants to illegally ferry to our companies in order to allow them to 'compete' - all of which China is of course doing, stealing our military tech in order to try and catch up and stealing the intellectual property of our companies in order to undermine them - so yes, we're both in each others cyber backyards, but similarity ends there]
I'm not anti-China [god forbid] - I am fiercely anti American gullibility when it comes to China [but gullibility can't really be wilful, can it? With Obama, the distinction get's blurred]. I do tend to see a dark motive behind every move China makes or is implied by something they do or say and that's because I believe they believe that their domestic security and preservation of the communist regime [one in the same thing to them] are utterly dependent on getting America out of the Pacific and then using economic coercion as a means of controlling their neighbors and potential competitors. Remember, viz competitors, once you remove size there's nothing special or unique about what China's doing here, others can emulate it and are busy trying to emulate it - China itself is in most ways simply copying what Japan did to rise from the ashes of WW2 - but of course with huge exceptions: Japan was more or less a democracy, allied to the US, and consequent to that alliance had zero military aspirations and no need to look upon its neighbors as looming threats nor of [anymore] equating domination over them as a necessary component of power - furthermore, it was not burdened with a population so large as to be virtually unmanageable nor did it harbor [anymore] deep resentments of its colonial past and feelings of an unjust inferiority itching to be exorcised.
[although I suppose Snowden revealing himself and his whereabouts suggests China's hand is not in play here - don't imagine they'd want people knowing he was in Hong Kong because that looks orchestrated and way too close to home - still, can Snowden really be so stupid as to believe he's safe in Hong Kong? If he's a delusional sicko, guess he could have convinced himself of that - or maybe his plan always was to seek asylum in China - but would they take him? Doubt it - my guess is they'd let him think they'd take him, squeeze intel out of him and then ship him off to America - can't imagine they'd want the complication of granting him actual asylum - then again, their hackers would love to stretch him over some hot coals. It's very, very hard to accept at face value the timing of this - still, him running to Hong Kong as if there's sanctuary there has got me thinking this is just some middling level geek indulging delusions of grandeur as means of assuaging ravages of some emotional crisis - I mean, who does something like this and then runs off to Hong Kong thinking that's gonna save your ass? But... if you're a Chinese asset, isn't that how they'd be playing you? Sure! Come to Hong Kong - we've got your back, friend... set you up with some real fine Asian courtesans... quick sidebar - what horrors could you rain down on American cyber security by setting loose an army of Kitty Zhang lookalikes amongst our geekdom?...]
[truth is though I really don't know what I'm talking about nor probably does anyone else not initiated into the highly specialised and highly secretive SIGINT club - our cyber incursions into Chinese space are no doubt equal to if not indeed far surpassing theirs into ours - who knows? - maybe we're so much into each other's backyards at this point that nothing is a surprise, nothing is hidden - we know what they're trying to do and they know what we're trying to do - of course can't be that simple, never is - not that knowing everything would make things simple - strategy would become highly problematic - and I'm wondering, if cyber espionage is so extensive that you can never be really sure what your enemies do or do not know, doesn't strategy perforce get shoved into the realm of the obvious? Hmmnn... so, for example, we know Iran is trying to build a bomb, they know we know - so why all the game playing? And if we don't stop them, having known all along what they're up to, what does that mean? What are the implications? Or if for instance China was indeed behind Snowden leak, they'd have to know, or at least assume we knew that - so, as I'm saying, strategy gets pushed out into the open as a consequence, yes? And what does that lead to? But of course if we knew why let it happen? Which must mean China had nothing to do with it, right? That would be the optimists take on it. I dunno. Frustrating. Interesting question though - will the perfecting of cyber espionage render strategy as we have known it obsolete? What would be the consequences of something like that? What if it became impossible for a business to protect its intellectual property, its secrets? You'd be reduced to a position of utter vulnerability of having to trust your competitors to obey the law - take that dynamic and stretch it across the globe - sounds like a recipe for chaos to me.]
[of course, even if you wanna concede China's point that both sides are heavily invested in cyber espionage, fact is that's a false equivalency because, yes, we may be after certain 'strategic' info viz their military etc etc - but they don't have technological assets that we feel we need to steal nor do their companies have intellectual property that our gov't wants to illegally ferry to our companies in order to allow them to 'compete' - all of which China is of course doing, stealing our military tech in order to try and catch up and stealing the intellectual property of our companies in order to undermine them - so yes, we're both in each others cyber backyards, but similarity ends there]
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Recent riots in Turkey have got me thinking - is Erdgoan looking to create the Islamic version of China? I'm thinking of a few things here - his infamous [from our point of view anyway - well, unless you're Obama of course] his infamous statement that democracy was just a station along the way - in other words, a means to an end, the end being we assumed an Islamic autocracy or oligarchy [which is something of a redundancy since I at least don't believe Islam - any religion, really - is compatible with democratic principles]. And then look at the Turkish economic 'miracle', which looks a lot like the Chinese economic miracle, in sense of being top down, state run capitalism that creates growth through extensive cronyism and gov't expenditure and then uses a repressive ideology to keep the chaff, who by and large don't share in the wealth, under control - in China this being communism, in Turkey Islam - which brings us to the riots which seem to be the work of secularists who have figured out finally exactly what Erdogan is up to - apparently the construction project that gave rise to the protests will be built by a company closely related to Erdogan - which is classic Chinese styled cronyism and is a great way to consolidate power within an elite - and then use Islam as a way to placate, suppress, drown out or marginalize opposition.
Now, understand, I don't necessarily begrudge Erdogan his Islamist machinations - unlike the puppet masters in China he was at least duly elected and if that's what the people of Turkey want then that's their problem - unfortunately it's likely to become our problem too eventually [no doubt already is viz Israel] and so it's more than a little troubling how many in the West are so naive or so stupid that they don't seem to grasp what's what here - or, more troubling than that, have no problem with what Erdogan's doing - let's face it, Obama probably deeply envies the dictatorial powers the man is acquiring.
Thinking of Turkey in these terms makes sense of Muslim push to have it considered a hate crime to criticize Islam - imagine if Reagan had been considered by the global community guilty of uttering a hate crime for calling the Soviet Union the evil empire? That is the kind of power the Islamists seek - and the shockingly fatuous leadership of the West is falling for it. We are led by morons, it seems - or, to give a slightly more cynical aspect to that thought, led by people who have more in common with our enemies than they do with us, the poor souls they ostensibly serve.
Now, understand, I don't necessarily begrudge Erdogan his Islamist machinations - unlike the puppet masters in China he was at least duly elected and if that's what the people of Turkey want then that's their problem - unfortunately it's likely to become our problem too eventually [no doubt already is viz Israel] and so it's more than a little troubling how many in the West are so naive or so stupid that they don't seem to grasp what's what here - or, more troubling than that, have no problem with what Erdogan's doing - let's face it, Obama probably deeply envies the dictatorial powers the man is acquiring.
Thinking of Turkey in these terms makes sense of Muslim push to have it considered a hate crime to criticize Islam - imagine if Reagan had been considered by the global community guilty of uttering a hate crime for calling the Soviet Union the evil empire? That is the kind of power the Islamists seek - and the shockingly fatuous leadership of the West is falling for it. We are led by morons, it seems - or, to give a slightly more cynical aspect to that thought, led by people who have more in common with our enemies than they do with us, the poor souls they ostensibly serve.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Apropos of my pointing to Turkey, a putatively modern Muslim state, under the regressive machinations of Islamist Erdogan as prime example of why accommodation of Islamic beliefs and sensitivities in the West at the expense of the very principles that made the West the West amounts to naive, delusional thinking that invites pernicious outcomes - apropos of that a blogger in Turkey has just been sentenced 13 months in prison for saying something deemed unacceptable viz Muhammed. Curious thing is, here's part of what he had to say at his sentencing:
Why is it some poor, abused blogger in Turkey seems to have a better grasp of free speech and how it needs to work than parliamentarians in England do?
[somewhat unrelated sidebar, having just reviewed IOC dates for the F-35 - why the hell are we selling the Lightning to Turkey? Have we gone mad? I don't care if they're in NATO - I don't trust them, don't trust Erdogan. I know there are all kinds of 'anti-theft' safe guards built into the plane and its upkeep, but in my mind give this technology to Turkey and guaranteed it eventually ends up in the hands of people we don't like. Hell, way things are going, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the UK having the technology - and sad part is that's only 95% joke]
Telling the historical or legal truth may sometimes be hurtful to the sensitivities, or prejudices, of some people. This is regrettable. Yet I don’t think it would be possible, in a civilized legal system, to derive a legal injury or right from this fact. Nor do I think that there is any public benefit in tying the right to tell the facts to the precondition to heed the fine sensibilities of this or that group.
Why is it some poor, abused blogger in Turkey seems to have a better grasp of free speech and how it needs to work than parliamentarians in England do?
[somewhat unrelated sidebar, having just reviewed IOC dates for the F-35 - why the hell are we selling the Lightning to Turkey? Have we gone mad? I don't care if they're in NATO - I don't trust them, don't trust Erdogan. I know there are all kinds of 'anti-theft' safe guards built into the plane and its upkeep, but in my mind give this technology to Turkey and guaranteed it eventually ends up in the hands of people we don't like. Hell, way things are going, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the UK having the technology - and sad part is that's only 95% joke]
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