Posts Tagged → america
Take a kid fishing
Tomorrow marks the beginning of trout season in Pennsylvania. It’s a big deal. Half the population is associated with it, either fishing, eating the fish, or cheering on the mighty hunters who bring home the bacon.
Our next generation needs a helping hand. Too many gadgets, electronics, virtual nothingness and digital pretend friends are separating kids from the beautiful reality surrounding them. They might grow up to think that water comes from the tap, heat from the wall thingy, and food from the grocery store. Fishing teaches crucial lessons about being a real human being, not the least of which is self reliance, a trait once quintessentially American and now considered quaint.
Fishing also teaches the importance of conserving natural resources for the future kids.
So take a kid fishing. You’ll be doing everyone a big favor, now and later.
What the heck is in EPA’s water?
Something bad is in the water the EPA staff are drinking in DC. It is making them nuts.
EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency, a place I once worked, a job once fraught with much philosophical disagreement) has proposed new regulations on air and water that basically put the agency in charge of every breath you take and every glass of water you drink. It is an unconstitutional power grab by regulation that flies in the face of existing law.
EPA now asserts control of every body of water in the country, and that includes farm ponds, man-made drainage ditches along your hunting camp road, little intermittent rivulets that run for a few days in the spring and winter and then sink into the ground all other times, etc. It is a remarkable effort to control, control, and control Americans. The stories now emanating from citizens clashing over this rule change with heavy-handed EPA staff are extraordinary. What amazes everyone with a bit of knowledge of these issues is how little the new rules do to actually protect water quality. In fact, they create incentives for private landowners to take matters into their own hands, before some bureaucrat shows up for a show down over an issue totally, completely outside the purview of federal government.
Of course, promoting centralized decision making and big government is what this is all about, not environmental quality.
Second issue: EPA’s new air regulations, basically putting a heavy damper on wood burning stoves. Yes, it is true that EPA is trying to shut down America’s best source of sustainable, renewable, biodegradable, natural, native, cheap heat – firewood. And firewood-burning stoves.
If you look at the new standards for wood burning stoves, the particulate emissions restrictions on new stoves are technically impossible to meet, and old stoves that are in stock are not grandfathered in; stove manufacturers might go out of business because they cannot sell off their existing wood stoves.
But like the water regulations, this is not about public health or air quality. Rather, these new rules are about undermining those citizens who are most self-reliant, least dependent upon others, most off-the-grid. You know, rural conservatives.
Even more than when I worked there, EPA has become a tool for inflicting harm on Americans, for advancing anti-American policies. It is time to put this rabid animal out of its misery, and start over with a new agency that is devoid of the cultural residue that allows this sort of behavior to happen in the first place. The role of government is to serve its citizens, not dominate them.
Simple formula about life on Earth escapes many people
After World War I, “the war to end all wars,” antipathy towards anything military related ran so deep in England and France, that both countries practically disarmed to both cut costs and to symbolize their break with “militarization.” America followed suit to some extent.
England’s Neville Chamberlain was famous for his “peace in our time” mis-statement, as he allowed the alligator of German aggression to eat more and more of Europe, in the hopes that eventually the alligator would become full and not go after England, too.
Obviously Chamberlain’s approach of appeasing evil tyrants Hitler and Stalin did nothing to stop them, and barely delayed their ambitions. England suffered terribly from German attacks, and only survived because America awakened from her slumber and engaged. Militarily. As in, sending troops, boats, bombs, bullets, planes, guns, and tanks to England to both defend England and to use England as a launching ground to take the fight back to Germany.
Winston Churchill holding the very American Thompson submachine gun is a famous icon of Western resolve to withstand tyranny.
Fast forward to Ukraine, now being invaded by a reinvigorated Russian empire…like the old evil Soviet empire. You know, the one that fell apart from sustained Western military, economic, and diplomatic pressure.
Now, where is that pressure? Obama is using appeasement and laughingly empty threats against a tyrannical, militaristic, imperialistic would-be emperor, Vlad Putin. It won’t work. All that appeasement does is make the inevitable military clash all the worse, because it gives the bad guys all the time they need to build up their military strength, while the good guys wring their hands, and dither.
Question here is, Do people learn from history, so that they can survive? Answer here is, No, not those people whose ideology or religion (sometimes it is impossible to tell the two apart) inclines them to ignore what is in front of their faces. To wit:
Yesterday I was in the Washington, DC, area for an event, and had plenty of opportunities to talk with long-time liberal politicians and activists gathered there. Yes, I was one of the few conservatives/ traditionalists present. So the liberals felt comfortable speaking from their hearts, and it was a fascinating experience. One man, Hal, presently on a large city council and deeply involved in Congressional oversight, asked me what my number one problem with Obama was, from a functional perspective, not values or ideological view. “A lack of accountability for Obama’s actions and misdeeds,” was my response.
Naturally, Hal asked me what those were, and I could not get past pointing out that ObamaCare has received thousands of politically -based waivers from the White House, not to mention the many delays in implementing it, so that the pain felt by Americans would not be translated into punishing Democrats at the polls. When I pointed out that none of these waivers or delays are permitted by the law, Hal simply and repeatedly said “Yes, but it is his signature effort, his defining law.”
As if that excuses unconstitutional actions by an out-of-control, out-of-bounds executive. But in Hal’s mind, it does excuse Obama. And I am positive Hal is representative of liberals everywhere: The ends justify the means. Because the ends are pure (they think), any means of achieving those ends is acceptable, including violating the Constitution. A young student named Ms. Korn, now being indoctrinated at Harvard, recently wrote an essay in the Harvard Crimson where she declared that the First Amendment rights of conservatives are getting in the way of her (and Obama’s) version of “justice,” and that in the name of achieving that justice, the First Amendment should be vacated. Ms. Korn is probably representative of her generation, having been indoctrinated by people like Hal.
And thus we see the deficiency of liberalism going inter-generational. Pragmatism is something used only if it advances the liberal agenda, not if it defends Americans or democracy. And seeing what is going on in Ukraine (and Syria, and Iran, and and and…), one must wonder what Obama’s agenda is? And do a majority of Americans care, even if the basic rules of successful life on this planet are violated?
Ukraine: Obama batting zero, his cheering section still loud
Math was not always my strongest interest (although I did self-learn calculus in graduate school), so disregard the headline here. Obama’s foreign policy is such a catastrophic failure that he is way in the negatives; he is not at zero. Being at Zero would actually be a success.
Here is a partial list of countries and peoples seeking freedom from tyranny who have had the rug of American promises pulled out from underneath them by Obama:
Poland (defensive missiles).
Georgia (South Ossetia, invaded by Russia).
Israel.
Iranian citizens.
Syrian citizens.
And now it’s Ukraine that has learned the hard lesson of Obama’s recklessness. Whatever promises were made to get Ukraine’s nuclear weapons, like protecting Ukraine from Russian imperialism, have been openly tossed out the window by an Obama administration bent on destroying America from within. Wrecking America’s international standing is one way to destroy America at home.
Allowing aggressive imperial powers like Russia, China, and Iran to willfully expand their spheres of influence and domination lets Obama off the “aggressor” hook. He can claim he’s no “warmonger.” But his inaction and failure to live up to his own red lines and promises of American protection have created a vacuum into which the aggressors, the real warmongers, have stepped.
Growing up in a pacifist household, I used to ask the hard questions that no one could answer, like Why should someone not actively oppose an Adolph Hitler and a Nazi Germany? Answers were hard to come by, because there are no substantive answers to these questions.
Pacifism is evil because it legitimizes evil. Pacifism equates doing nothing with active aggression, imperialism, domination, subjugation, tyranny and all the barbaric cruelty that goes along with them. By failing to act, by failing to confront evil in a meaningful way, pacifists lend credibility to the aggressors. If Russian imperialism in the form of subjugating Ukraine is not confronted and thwarted, then it must not be so bad. Such is the message from Obama and other pacifists, intended or unintended.
This unwillingness to act creates a vacuum, and this vacuum is seen correctly as weakness. It invites even more aggression. History is replete with examples, so an Obama would have to willfully ignore the obvious historical truth in order to do what he is doing (and not doing) now.
I know Obama has his cheering section. That is the greatest sadness of all, because those same people claim to be ethical, humane, loving. So strong is the messianic love for this charlatan among his believers, that they will forgive and forget his greatest deceptions, his greatest failures, the trail of destruction and misery in his wake. Other people, other families, then pay with their lives, at best to be the subjects of pity by groups like OxFam and Rotary, intent on picking up the few broken pieces later on.
For shame.
Obama abandons western civilization
If anyone had any questions left about Obama’s loyalties, tonight’s state of the union speech should have clarified that this man is at war with western civilization.
Pledging to veto stronger sanctions on Iran means that Obama is now openly aiding and protecting Iran in its rush to build nuclear bombs.
Obama has now openly broken his pledge to faithfully defend America. Time is now for this dangerous charlatan to go.
Curious things afoot in our American republic
Some time ago, actually not too long by the measure of human history, Communists, Capitalists, and Fascists fought each other in the streets of Weimar Germany.
Each fought for what they believed in. What the Fascists and the Communists believed in was equal amounts of totalitarian evil, served up slightly differently. Only the capitalists had a track record, and it was a successful one that had led Germany to a place of such prominence and financial success that human nature and poor judgment had then sought to use those riches for imperial gain and human subjugation.
Weimar Germany was bad for every German. What naturally followed on its heels – Nazi Germany’s National Socialism – was bad for the entire world.
Capitalism creates such great wealth, across such a large number of people, that like bees to honey, the evil inclination of human nature is drawn to it with bad intentions.
Politicians of all stripes cannot keep their hands off of the private money created through capitalism. Whether it’s high taxes to fund government grants to preferred political allies, or outright confiscation/ theft and wealth redistribution, politicians always seek to appropriate capitalist success for their own careers and their own ends.
Yesterday I had the unfortunate experience of watching New York City’s new mayor, Bill deBlasio, get sworn in. De Blasio is a kook, a radical whose communist views are well known. No one can predict for certain what will befall the Big Apple after one term of his management, but it probably won’t be pleasant to watch from Pennsylvania (he is first-off aiming to end the handsome cab business, where tourists get pulled around in horse-drawn carriages in Central Park). And my New York friends will probably suffer significant losses to their home values, businesses, and other investments they have made in the area. Wealth would naturally flee de Blasio’s presence.
One cannot help but be intrigued by the similarity between Weimar Germany’s otherwise unremarkable circumstances, and those America is sliding into today: High unemployment, sliding currency value, inflation, and increasingly hot friction wherever mutually exclusive political interests collide.
Human history repeats itself so often that it’s both kind of silly to even suggest that America will become another Weimar Germany, and it is also silly to blow it off and pretend it isn’t happening.
De Blasio has his sights set on other people’s private wealth, and he is likely to lose a great number of wealthy people from NYC as a result. What is more worrisome is the friction that will arise and ripple out as he presses forward and is met with the natural resistance reasonable people expect to greet thievery.
“Income inequality” is his byword, and it’s just another way of saying he’s going to steal from the makers and give to lazy takers, using the coercive power of government force and threat of loss of liberty for dissenters. Other politicians are watching de Blasio, and they have already signaled their inclinations to follow his lead in their local venues.
It is difficult to imagine a more explosive arrangement or set of circumstances. Once again, one is reminded of either the 19-teens and 1920s, or even the 1850s in America. Such incompatible political philosophies are afoot, banging into one another, and one must win, and one must lose.
I hope de Blasio loses. I hope. To think otherwise is to be against the very American republic that first created the wealth he is now after.
Merry Christmas to one and all!
However it evolved into a fake insult, saying Merry Christmas is still the nicest thing one American can say to another.
Christmas is our national holiday. Religious Christians fret over its secularization, and certainly the commercilization and materialism surrounding Christmas stand in contrast to its roots.
But thanks in great part to 19th century British writer Charles Dickens, Christmas is, for all people, a time of cheer, good will towards one another, an abandonment of grudges, an embracing of love as the preferred force in human relations.
So, secularized as this all may be at this point, the message and culture now surrounding Christmas is good stuff.
So, whether you are Christian, Buddhist, Jew, Muslim, Baha’i, Zoroastrian, or pagan, I wish you a very Merry Christmas. You’re an American, you’ve earned it.
Confluence of disparate traditions
Today marks the first time in about a thousand years that Hanukkah falls on the same day that ended up being America’s Thanksgiving holiday this year. It’s an unusual overlap symbolizing the confluence of Judeo-Christian values. Both holidays are about giving thanks to God for salvation from death, both holidays celebrate freedom. Today, may your Thanksgiving be doubly blessed with the presence of Hanukkah’s first day, and may it portend good things to come for America.
President George Washington said it best
George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation:
“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.
–George Washington”
Thank you, Veterans!
Growing up with pacifist parents and a Quaker education led me to believe the American military was a source of bad things. (somehow the Russians and Chinese never got labeled that way, and the totalitarian Cuban regime deserved all our support)
In my late teens, early twenties I got to see what a load of nonsense that is. Truly treasonous stuff, this let’s-all-hate-the-military phony superiority thing. Easy to say when you’re living that comfy American lifestyle and no one is kicking in your door to force a new language on your family.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the brave veterans of all military service branches, who from near and far give us our daily freedoms, our incredible quality of life, our endless opportunity in the land of the free.