iPandora

The Internet circa 2003

Latest in our series on the beneficent free market is this wee screed on the internet.

The internet is a good thing. A powerful thing, I think everybody can agree with that. But I would argue it is a good thing too.

I don’t gloss over the terrible things people can find on the internet, the addictions it foments and feeds, the filth it spreads or the lies and slander that so easily pass for worthwhile information on it’s myriad nooks and crannies.

As with anything truly powerful, those who use it best seem to be those who would misuse it and abuse other with it.

But for all the garbage you can so easily stumble upon, there is great good. The potential and realized good both far outweigh the potential and realized evil in the same way the slightest candle will chase and overpower the shadows of the darkest room.

The internet is good because the internet allows information.

This would seem like a tenuous argument at best, but let’s not leave the argument there.

The internet is good because the internet allows information of all types, from all sources, to all consumers.

As Lady Justice holds her scales blindly and impartially, the internet is oblivious to any contextualizing of either the informer or the informed. The information itself can be contextualized, and due to the sheer mass of information on the internet, any single bit can be matched with any other bits to provide context and deeper insight into any piece of information.

But the internet itself does not care. It’s greatest strength is also it’s greatest weakness. The internet does not care what or who or how or why or anything else regarding the information that is posted and shared and disseminated through it’s labyrinthine pipes.

Fear is always the result of misinformation or too little information. From the macro fears of life “does God care for my future?” to the micro fears, “spiders!!!!!”, information is the best and most effective form of fear slaying. Reading the bible (maybe even on the internet) we can read God’s promises regarding our lives, and then looking back through our own lives and seeing the providential Hand working through the good times and the bad, that fear can be slayed by information. Using other information we can determine whether or not a given spider is dangerous to humans.

Thus the greatest enemy of fear is information, real and true information.

Now the obvious argument is that lies and disinformation are so very common on the internet, often masquerading as truth very effectively.

However, the internet also addresses that issue by nature, once again, of it’s open information structure.

Prior to instant background checks and credit reports and the globalized economies, trust was a necessary part of a business relationship. Today we still have trust-based systems for those times when a resume just isn’t enough.

References, people who know something and are in positions of trust and recognition, are often called upon to verify the abilities and character of a person. When one is unsure of whether or not someone else can or should be trusted they confer with a third party who has legitimate reason to be trusted and thereby determine the trustworthiness of the person.

With the internet, in it’s connected and interconnected state, we can easily find legitimately trustworthy people and then infer, from those they trust, other trustworthy sources. It is all about the free exchange of ideas and information.

Further, the antagonism that naturally results in such a free-for-all atmosphere further bolsters legitimate reputations as negative information can only with the greatest of difficulty be quashed or controlled, and more often than not, will free itself regardless the efforts of those seeking to control it. Those legitimately trustworthy will weather and withstand the onslaught and thereby gain further credibility.

The internet is the death of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) in that it enabled anybody to speak the truth, share the truth, and find the truth,and be sure it is the truth easily, and with high levels of certainty. It is the greatest leveler of the masses.

The internet could not exist were it not for the freest society in the world pushing and encouraging and growing it beyond the wildest dreams of those researchers at DARPA so many years ago.

Hey, it even allows me, a 20-something nobody to publish my pointless and babbling rants in a public forum with equal opportunity for success as authors of the first degree and highest reputation.

It’s been all over the place and most everybody has the same thoughts: the world has lost wonderful talent as it has lost Michael Jackson.

Conservatives, Liberals, Christians, Heathens alike are, for the most part, mourning the loss of this skilled musician.

Mike Gallagher was the first I heard to ask the question: Why are we remembering only the talent and the skillful music made by this man?

Let me get the boiler plate out of the way: The death of anybody is sad. If a Christian dies, there is the grief of loss here on earth, but the balancing joy knowing they are truly home at last and that our grief ought to be for ourselves still toiling here away from our true home. When an unrepentant sinner dies, the grief is much worse. There is no welcome for this person. There is simply the immediate inability to deny God any longer as the force of His self and all His holy attributes is no longer held off by the rationalizing mind and the containing body.

There is no reasonable evidence Michael Jackson accepted the saving Grace of Jesus Christ prior to his death.

There is always hope: he may have, on his deathbed, cried out to an ever-waiting and ever-listening andever-ready Jesus. If this is the case, we’ll know when we get to heaven.

But for now, it is reasonable, from human judgement, to assume Michael Jackson died with the full guilt of his own sins resting weightily upon his own, weak, shoulders.

Sin is sin, and there is no variance to it’s result. The Hitler’s of this world will suffer the same intermnible punishment meted out by the same just God for the same rejection of the same Holiness as the girl and boy blown up because they were too close to the exploding suicide bomber on their way to market in Fallujah.

But human’s judge variance in sin, because we must rationalize our own faults as not being “that bad.” And because we must restrain and punish those whose actions convey and cause inordinate danger to those around them.

Michael Jackson was a sinner.

There is little doubt he was a pedophile: His grown up sexual appetite coupled with his child-like and stunted emotional state and the stories of the several young boys with whom he slept and subsequently paid off leave little room for exhonoration.

As a society of justice we punish those who hurt and damage others by their actions. Those who prey sexually on the young damage those children’s ability to grow normally and lead productive lives, and so we punish them severely.

And when pedophiles die, we don’t celebrate them as an entire society.

I don’t advocate burning Michael Jackson’s music or videos. There is no purpose served by destroying it.

But his life isn’t worth celebrating. He made some ok music. He had some cool moves on the dance floor.

But he sexually assaulted young boys to satisfy himself as he was unable, in his stunted mind, to appreciate their future.

And so now, barring a hopeful miracle, he is facing God.

God isn’t playing reel-to-reel Thriller.

God is asking him for an account of his life.

It is with grief for the true loss of a life precious to the Lord God that I say, I fear it is going poorly for Michael Jackson.

Without equivocation I condemn the murder of Dr. Tiller.

Murder is murder, and one murder never justifies another.

We live in a land of law and justice. No man is above the law or a law to themselves, when such a personal law conflicts with the law of the land.

The only way a person can lose their life legitimately and legally at the hand of man is when that person has been found guilty of some crime worthy of the death penalty by the justice system of that land. In America this means being found guilty by a jury of their peers of certain specific crimes.

In the small way I am aware of Dr. Tiller, I find his career to be revolting and disgusting in the highest sense. I find it difficult to even consider the occupation with which he has spent his life: killing innocent, unborn children late in their term.

If he did not repent, prior to his death, of this heinous sin, God has perfect justice ready for him. But it is not mine to mete out to him.

I grieve for Dr. Tiller in that it is very likely did not accept the salvation of the Lord. Eternal punishment is a fearful thing that I cannot wish on any person, ever. It is not mine to wish.

As a Christian, I take both comfort and warning from God’s claim to perfect justice:  “‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay’ says the Lord.”

Comfort because I know God will do a much better job of justice than any human court ever could. He judges the innermost thoughts and wishes, the heart and the mind. Things a human judge could never see clearly to judge on.

And yet warning, because God reserving, without qualification, all vengeance to Himself leaves none for me. Not even the vengeance of thought or hope.

I should not feel giddy or happy that God may indeed be judging an evil man for his sin. Instead, there is anguish that Satan succeeded in destroying another life entrhalled in deception and pride. Another life is doomed forever to torment and there isn’t another chance to rescue this soul from the depredations of sin and score another victory against the prince of darkness and his failing, faltering, now conquered kingdom.

Dr. Tiller was a sinner, as am I.

And his murderer ought to be brought to justice, as should the murderer of any other sinner.

To the pro-life people: We are against death. It’s the morally superior position and all those who dispute this argue against sense and reason.

When pro-abortion people state that our general position for the death penalty makes our argument false, they only reveal the moral bankruptcy of their own feeble stand.

We are for the life of the innocent and the protection of that life through the rare but possible, lawfully imposed death of the guilty at the hands of the law and the government.

They are for the death of the innocent, damage and destruction of their mothers, freedom from responsibility of the fathers, and protection of those who would kill other innocents.

There really isn’t much comparison.

If we’re tempted to support, in any way, the murder of Dr. Tiller. No matter how we may despise the sin he dug himself so deeply into, we succumb to lawlessness and anarchy. Which leads, without exception, to the death of innocents.

Burris is a crook. Whodathunkit?

And a liar, of the worst kind. Pretentiously hiding behind his squeaky clean image and claiming he’d never talked to Blagojevich about favors that resulted in his appointment to the Senate. Santimoniously sermonizing ad nauseum about how he was about the people’s business and wouldn’t allow sordid speculation sway his resolve.

There’s no sordid speculation here and that sactimonious sermonizing can go right back down the vile gullet it emerged from to add it’s putrid mass to the seething stench that inhabits that man’s soul.

Just a question, an honest one here: knowing the FBI had recorded phone conversations and in all likelihood had him incriminating himself with incontravertible proof, how did Burris walk the halls of Congress with his debonaire smile? Was  his conscience eating him at all? Or is his corruption so complete that he’s quelled all better things within him?

Oh, and now he’s “torn” over helping Blagojevich.

This much is true: as a parent we want our child to feel bad about doing wrong, not about being caught.

Burris is feeling bad about being caught. His emotional development is very likely so incredibly stunted it would take a redemptive work in his life to make him feel grief over his actual wrong.

So throw the Senator out already.

Judge Sotomayor has lots of things going for her: Obama likes her, and… Obama thinks she’ll do a good job.

Why?

A significant number of her decisions have been reversed, and of those upheld, her arguments have been faulted by superior judges. This indicates a consistency only in fallacy and not in skilled jurisprudence.

Reading through a list of Sotomayor decisions, one finds very quickly she is anti-business, pro-union,  and pro-regulation.

She believes business is out to hurt people.

She believes unions are completely good and no bad thing can come from them.

She believes generally that government knows best, especially when the right kind of people run government.

One thing conspicuously absent from her beliefs is a belief in the rule of law and the supremacy of law over all men equally.

It’s no unfair fear tactic to quote her (from the NY Times):

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life

Would a white male judge saying a version of that phrase last any longer than a water drop on a hot iron skillet? Of course not, and for good reason. There’s no place for preference or opinion in the law.

Justice is supposed to be blind.

Sotomayor, in her arrogance and conceit, proudly claims her judgement issued with her eyes of justice wide open and uncovered is best.

It may indeed her best judgement, but it’s not the judgement we require of those occupying the highest chairs of justice in our land.

The proof is in the pudding, they say.

Timothy P. O’Neill claims the history and roots of the current members of the High Court are too similar, their backgrounds too homogeneous, to allow for true justice to be dispensed.

According to O’Neill, President Obama has an historic opportunity to correct the court. To broaden it’s foundation and strengthen it’s ability to work in this modern time with an open-minded understanding of our current situation.

Professor Lee Epstein of Northwestern has observed that “Diversity of inputs makes for stronger outputs.” Obama should cast the widest possible net to find a person who can bring a fresh set of experiences and perspectives to the work of the Supreme Court.

O’Neill claims as evidence of the problem the dearth of unanimous decisions in recent court history. And states as a possible cause the acrimonious attempted appointment of Bork and the travesty of political murder that borked Bork.

With the reticence of succeeding Presidents to propose any but established Federal judges to the high court, the court’s base has indeed narrowed, but is the non-unanimous nature of the court a bad thing?

I say not. And I say that a preconceived notion with an aim toward heterogeneity is not the solution to any problems the court now faces.

The purpose of the high court is to apply and interpret the law in difficult cases. It is not to have empathy or to make exceptions or to make law. Anything more or less than application and interpretation of the law is a failure and a grab for power not allocated to the judicial branch by the Constitution.

Reasonable people may disagree and the stress of disagreement slows down a mad human rush towards oblivion.

Such enforced conflict is not the best solution, but in our current era of stratified ideology, it’s pragmatic and effective.

The aim, in selecting judicial appointees, for any President, ought to be whether or not the person selected has an understanding and appreciation for the law. That is the only criteria which is reasonable.

Thomas Sowell counters with the basic argument of Constitutional rationality:

People who are speculating about whether the next nominee will be a woman, a Hispanic or whatever are missing the point.

That we are discussing the next Supreme Court justice in terms of group “representation” is a sign of how far we have already strayed from the purpose of law and the weighty responsibility of appointing someone to sit for life on the highest court in the land.

That Obama has made “empathy” with certain groups one of his criteria for choosing a Supreme Court nominee is a dangerous sign of how much further the Supreme Court may be pushed away from the rule of law and toward even more arbitrary judicial edicts to advance the agenda of the left and set it in legal concrete, immune from the democratic process.

It is always interesting to me that those who are so (mistakenly) tied up with the “Democracy” of America are so very un-Democratic about critical moral, cultural, and social issues. America is designed to be a Republic (if we can keep it) because of the innately sinful nature of man.

Those claiming the mantel of Democratic ideals are often the first to bypass them and the will of the people, or directly contravene it, by seeking attention and action from the legislative and judicial branches to impose their minority ideas upon the majority.

Fairness is too often very unfair for someone else, and the flip-side of tolerance is tyranny.

We are an equal society, say many. But Sowell cautions that this is often no more than smoke and mirrors:

We would have entered a strange new world where everybody is equal but some are more equal than others. The very idea of the rule of law would become meaningless when it is replaced by the empathies of judges.

Obama solves this contradiction, as he solves so many other problems, with rhetoric. If you believe in the rule of law, he will say the words “rule of law.” And if you are willing to buy it, he will keep on selling it.

We live in a society governed by the rule of law. Our society requires that it’s members be knowledgeable and intelligent and involved.

When we sacrifice knowledge and intelligence at the altar of equality we lose the ability to be involved.

As more and more power is usurped from it’s right and proper owners, we all lose.

Thomas Sowell ends his article with a somber warning we would all do well to heed:

The biggest danger in appointing the wrong people to the Supreme Court is not just in how they might vote on some particular issues — whether private property, abortion or whatever. The biggest danger is that they will undermine or destroy the very concept of the rule of law — what has been called “a government of laws and not of men.”

Under the American system of government, this cannot be done overnight or perhaps even during the terms in office of one president — but it can be done. And it can be done over time by the appointees of just one president, if he gets enough appointees.

Some people say that who Obama appoints to replace Souter doesn’t really matter, because Souter is a liberal who will probably be replaced by another liberal. But, if no one sounds the alarm now, we can end up with a series of appointees with “empathy” — which is to say, with justices who think their job is to “relieve the distress” of particular groups rather than to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

The words of Jeremiah Wright, the wrong words he’s spoken and made a central part of his message for the 20 years Barak Hussein Obama has considered him a spiritual leader, to some, they are truth.

Mr. Wright, for I do not consider him to be worthy of reverence or title beyond that of a normal man, is not the only person to preach those words either.

They are a variant of the philosophy and world view known as Liberation Theology, specifically, Black Liberation Theology.

From GotQuestions.org:

Simply put, Liberation Theology is an attempt to interpret Scripture through the plight of the poor. It is largely a humanistic doctrine. It started in South America in the turbulent 1950’s when Marxism was making great gains among the poor because of its emphasis on the redistribution of wealth, allowing poor peasants to share in the wealth of the colonial elite and thus upgrade their economic status in life. As a theology, it has very strong Roman Catholic roots.

Liberation Theology was bolstered in 1968 at the Second Latin American Bishops Conference which met in Medellin, Colombia. The idea was to study the Bible and to fight for social justice in Christian (Catholic) communities. Since the only governmental model for the redistribution of the wealth in a South American country was a Marxist model (gained in the turbulent 1950’s), the redistribution of wealth to raise the economic standards of the poor in South America took on a definite Marxist flavor. Since those who had money were very reluctant to part with it in any wealth redistribution model, the use of a populist (read poor) revolt was encouraged by those who worked most closely with the poor. As a result, the Liberation Theology model was mired in Marxist dogma and revolutionary causes…

…Liberation Theology has moved from the poor peasants in South America to the poor blacks in America. We now have Black Liberation Theology being preached in the black community. It is the same Marxist, revolutionary, humanistic philosophy found in South American Liberation Theology and has no more claim for a scriptural basis than the South American model has.

The race problem in America is real, that is undeniably true. But I do not think it is true in the way many assume it to be.

First, slavery was an inexcusable evil and a dark time for America. Today, many of us can trace roots back to those who participated, freely or under coercion, in slavery in America.

But at the same time, many of us can’t. And a significant majority have ancestors from the both the ideological North and South in their blood, as well as those who had no part at all. There has been significant immigration by all races to America after the conclusion of the Civil War and the active work of slavery.

The continuing and very real race issue was summed up by a new friend of Ed Kaitz’s. Ed had been spending time with the Vietnamese immigrants who’d settled in the Bayous of Louisiana, and while flying home he met a an American Black who’d been studying psychology and working as a prison psychologist in Missouri.

Ed tells it like this:

His answer, only a few words, not only floored me but became sort of a razor that has allowed me ever since to slice through all of the rhetoric regarding race relations that Democrats shovel our way during election season:

“We’re owed and they aren’t.”

In short, he concluded, “they’re hungry and we think we’re owed.  It’s crushing us, and as long as we think we’re owed we’re going nowhere.”

“They” are the Vietnamese Ed had spent time with, “we” are the gentleman’s own race, his fellow American Blacks.

Ed concludes his commentary on Obama’s inability to recognize the powerful forces of good in his life and the state of racism in America with this call to recognize real sources of ability and equality, accomplishment and future:

We now know that Barack Obama really has no interest in the “audacity of hope.”  With his race speech, Obama became a peddler of angst, resentment and despair.  Too bad he doesn’t direct that angst at the liberal establishment that has sold black people a bill of goods since the 1960s.  What Obama seems angry about is America itself and what it stands for; the same America that has provided fabulous opportunities for what my black friend called “hungry” minorities.  Strong families, self-reliance, and a spirit of entrepreneurship should be held up as ideals for all races to emulate.

Read Obama’s Anger at American Thinker.

Doug Ross, at Opinion Journal, quotes Nicholas Stix in Mens News Daily regarding Barak Hussein Obama’s run against Alan Keyes. Regarding Barak’s religion Nicholas has this to say:

…Obama’s closest religious advisers — Fr. Pfleger, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, and Illinois State Sen. James Meeks, who moonlights as the pastor of Chicago’s Salem Baptist Church – may have quotes from Scripture always handy, but are theologically closer to Karl Marx and black nationalism, than to Christianity… The transcendent-non-transcendent motto the Rev. Wright has given Trinity is, “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.”

Yes, we need a Marxist president. Exactly what the country needs.

More information on Black Liberation ideology.

LA Times speaks with moral relativism and class warfare.

Roger Simon writes, in homage to Andrew Goodman “Barak, I didn’t do it for this”

And what about the New Black Panthers?

Meyers, a former Seattle police officer, said she finds it ironic that part of the reason she moved to Evergreen is because she strives for social justice. “I wanted to be in an environment that questions authority and is socially conscious and active,” she said. “I was attracted to the very thing that got me in trouble.”

Evergreen State College Divided After Riot, Seattle Times

When playing with fire, one is apt to get burned, no matter how pretty the flame.

McCain and the Gang of 14. Listening recently to Michael Medved, who has endorsed McCain, I was appalled by an apologist he had on as a guests’ argument that the Gang of 14 was a farsighted and wise investment by McCain in the continuing success of the Republican party.

We had a majority and were not defending anything. We weren’t trying to kill all filibusters, only judicial filibusters which are not strictly constitutional.

Hugh Hewitt has this to say:

The damage to the GOP was instant and immense.  Not only were fine judges sacrificed to John McCain’s ego, many in the base simply tuned out the GOP from that moment forward.  Why work that hard and invest that much in a party that cannot deliver on its pledges even when gifted with 55 seats?   Why fight for a majority that would not fight?  Ohio’s Mike DeWine, an otherwise reliable conservative, never recovered with the Buckeye State’s GOP base and lost his seat in 2006.  Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee was also turned out, though the party’s bill of grievances against Chafee was much longer than just the Gang of 14.

There were other stumbles along the way to the loss of six seats in the fall of 2006, but the McCain Gang’s coup in the Spring of 2005 started the slide.  And for what?  White and White argue that we should be grateful for the successful confirmations of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito and Judges Brown, Pryor and Owens.

Read it and turn McCain out on his ear. I have no patience for that man.

Two stories about numbers that aren’t lying. Unfortunately, numbers often don’t have voices capable of counteracting lies made by their misuse.

First, from The People’s Voice blog comes a bit of misinformed and communist rhetoric in support of HR 676 by our old friend Congressman Conyers.

Beginning with with the classic assumption that everybody worthwhile agrees with him, the author, Stephen Crockett, claims that:

It is obvious that none of the major Presidential candidates of either the Democratic or Republican Parties are supporting the right approach to providing universal healthcare. Frankly, all the Republican candidates are going to be major obstacles to achieving this national goal. While the top Democratic candidates (Clinton, Edwards and Obama) do support the concept, they are all offering Band-Aid approaches for a life-threatening economic and health crisis in America.

I’m not sure, Mr. Crockett, but I don’t find it obvious. While I agree that there are several challengers on each side whose policy proposals are so bloated and impossible as to be laughable, the fact that you apparently don’t think they go far enough is proof positive that it is not obvious.

Just a warning: it goes downhill from there.

From Thinking Out Loud: Visions of Universal Healthcare Dance In Their Heads.

Second, in what is becoming an unpleasant task considering the number of good friends who support this guy because he is a Christian while ignoring the obviously un-christian nature of his policies, Mike Huckabee is listed as one of the top ten “most wanted”corrupt politicians of 2007.

Judicial Watch placed Mike as number 6, surrounded by such other luminous paragons of anti-virtue and un-justice as Hillary Clinton (#1), Rudy Guiliani (#5), and Barak Obama (#8):

Governor Huckabee enjoyed a meteoric rise in the polls in December 2007, which prompted a more thorough review of his ethics record. According to The Associated Press: “[Huckabee’s] career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office.” And what was Governor Huckabee’s response to these ethics allegations? Rather than cooperating with investigators, Huckabee sued the state ethics commission twice and attempted to shut the ethics process down.

Aforementioned Congressman John Conyers is#2 on the list. And California’s Senator Feinstein and Representative Pelosi are numbers 4 and 9, respectively.

A friend of mine supports Ron Paul for president. Admittedly, his libertarian views are very appealing to many people feeling as though the Republican mainstream has hung them out to dry. However, there are deep issues that I have with Ron Paul, very deep issues.

My friend and I got into a discussion regarding Ron Paul, and they have graciously given me permission to post it here:

Matthew:

Please tell me you only joined the group supporting Ron Paul as a joke.

Friend:

No, I wasn’t joking. Why should I? Go ahead and convince me! =] I’m game.

Matthew:

His political platform is mostly appealing, I do agree with that. However, he supports pulling us out of a war that, regardless of whether you agree with the necessity of the war or no, you must understand to pull out is to give a victory to an enemy who will not accept our defeat graciously but who will next bring the war to our doorstep again. His consistency on the issues he is most vocal about on the campaign trail is also less than stellar, with a marked propensity for bringing “pork” projects to his district.

Finally, and I know he himself does not espouse these beliefs, but white supremacists have jumped on his campaign, contributing money and support. Ron Paul has not repudiated these supporters or returned their money or prevented their support.

He is not a leader in the sense America needs. And while the the pickings are few in the field, I think of all the candidates running with an (R) after their name, Paul is least qualified.

Friend:

We are in a war that can’t be won. Don’t you remember that Bush declared victory over 4 years ago? Since then, 3,735 American soldiers have lost their lives. If that is victory, then we can’t win this war.

Do you remember Vietnam? We lost that war, and had the common sense to get out of there, (although it wasn’t until we lost 58,000 of our guys) and now? We trade with them! Our relations with Vietnam are as they should be with any country!

If a forthcoming attack is your concern, think about this. When Ron Paul talks about bringing our troops home, he’s talking about bringing home ALL of the troops from over 700 military bases, in over 160 different countries, all over the world. We would not no longer be growing resentment in any of these countries, who all deserve, as much as we do, to run their countries how the want, and not have a bigger, more powerful government come and tell them how to live. How would you feel if China or Russia came over here, and built 15 military bases or more, and started telling us how to run our lives? Would you sit back, and let them? I wouldn’t… I would do everything in my power, (which isn’t much=]) to stop them!

So, who would you stand behind for the next president of the US?

Matthew:

First, what about the war we are currently in is failing so very badly that there is no way the war can be one? Have you followed the news beyond what has been force-fed us by the media? Read the post here to see one side of the new growth of freedom in Baghdad. Even the New York Times, a paper arguably more invested than any other in our defeat in Iraq, last week published on the front page an article telling of the good that is occurring there.

We lost Vietnam because the politicians (the revered but Clintonesque JFK and the worst president in history Lindon Baines Johnson) would not allow the military to prosecute the war as it needed to be. The president selected the military targets, micromanaging far beyond what any true and wise leader would have or should have done. There was a small but vocal contingent at home which proclaimed the injustice of the war, getting their faces (and other body parts) smeared all over the evening news as our country fought for it’s soul. Public figures such as Jane Fonda openly consorted with the enemy while our soldiers, not allowed to fight as they should have, were captured and imprisoned and tortured. We still do not know the fate of many of those imprisoned, as the Vietnamese Communists who gained power through the pride and ineptitude of our leaders at the time, persecuting and killing many of their own countrymen as well as our servicemen.

Comparing that just but unjustly-prosecuted war with the conflict we are currently in, the times when the current was going poorly coincide with times when the military leadership has taken away responsibility and power from their field-level commanders, much as in the Vietnam war. One of the the reasons freedom from tyranny is succeeding right now and we are experiencing success in our military operations is that the generals are giving direction and responsibility and allowing the people under them to work and decide and wage their battles as they know best.

And regarding the justice of the war. Who do you believe attacked us in 1992, attempting to topple the trade towers? And again in 2001? The same people made both attempts. And regarding specifically the portion of the conflict in Iraq, yes, we have not found weapons of mass destruction. But operating on the intelligence we had then, all the leaders, not just Bush, not just Republicans, not just ‘hawks’, and not just Americans, but the UN security council (regardless of the morality of their position) supported us in our use of force to depose Saddam Hussein and protect the world from any furtherance of his tyranny, either on his own people or on others through his state-sponsoring of terrorists and their weapons systems. Important to remember in this is that while we have not found any actual WMDs we have not found evidence that they were not or never there. Instead, the consensus is that they were trucked across the border to Syria and Iran, both countries with despotic governments who are not shy about broadcasting their intentions of world domination by their religion by their leadership.

As far as defense goes. The worst defense is the kind where all your assets are kept close by. With the world getting “smaller” as technology and transportation move more and more people further and further more and more quickly, and with weapons capable of striking anyplace from anywhere in mere hours, being “on-site” and in the region of conflict is a much more effective defense.

Regarding the bad feelings we are breeding by our presence in the regions. First, America is the only superpower in the history of the world which has neither forced it’s culture upon those it is around as superior, nor have we failed to relinquish sovereign control of the nations we’ve fought in to legitimate governments of those nations in most cases (several islands in the Pacific being the only exceptions to that). Instead, we fight alongside indigent warriors to free their nations, then we spend billions upon billions of dollars to shore up those nations economies and social structures. The hotbeds of hatred spring up wherever they will regardless of our presence. And to remove from the area would only grant unwelcome power to an unworthy underclass of malcontents and misfits.

I am not sure who I’m supporting for the nomination. I will support any Republican nominee in the main presidential race because: 1, they are all and each morally and pragmatically superior to any of the Democrat nominees, and 2, third party candidates are never a viable option except to take votes away from one of the two main party’s candidate (yes, liberal third partiers… keep up the good work, grin).

As far as the nominees, I’m becoming more and more convinced that Rudy is bad news, and his promises to set up conservative judges are likely to be empty. Romney, I think most of his detractors are picking at straws in their critiques of him, but I do not think I’ll vote for him in the nomination for his lack of history to his moral beliefs regarding abortion. Thompson is (little) talk and I think he’ll fade away soon. Huckabee looks good but I’ve heard those close to him call him a pro-life liberal. I think he’d make an excellent VP if given a position of counsel and some authority. I’m not sold on him.

Of all these, I think Huckabee, if he shows strength continuing into these upcoming primaries, is my preferred choice, pending a bit more investigation.

We didn’t continue the conversation further mainly due to busy-ness.

Huckabee is looking to be less and less of a man I’d want to lead this country. He’d make an admirable vice-president, but his fiscal and many of his social programs are not good. He does not see that the best way to help people is to remove all government-sponsored assistance and as much government-required hindrance and and encourage as much private assistance as possible.

Instead his proposals include large amounts of money to be given to people by the government. Government money is never free and it always comes with strings. And it costs you and me. Why not just take less to start with?

But Ron Paul is the last person this nation needs. He does not appreciate the necessity of remaining in Iraq to bring it to a place of stability. A process in which much progress has already been made. He is not a man of his word.