Xeno's Paradox: 03/01/2009

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

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Babs Beat Me To This... But It IS To Laugh...

Saturday, March 28, 2009

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Spring Is In The Air. And The Politicians, Too.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

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Because I Keep My Promises...

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Just Freaking ASTONISHING Obliviousness, There

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

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A TRUE Hero. No, I Mean It. Why Are You Looking At Me Like That?

Monday, March 23, 2009

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Fair Warning: This Post Will Likely Piss You Off.

The good news, of course, is that if it DOESN'T, but instead makes you actually stop and think, then you're an open-minded person, and that's a good thing.

Right.

I want to talk about addictive behavior.

Don't worry, I really will get political towards the end, here.

But first I'm going to piss off all the "quitters," by which I mean all you AA people, all the "I quit smoking" people who still call themselves "ex" smokers instead of "non" smokers.

So let's get right to it, hey?

Addictive behavior is when you're doing something obsessively, and you don't stop even when it's damaging or destroying your life.

Like drinking too much. Or smoking too much. Or eating too much. Or voting Democrat.

...Stop. We'll get to that.

I see a lot of people that go to AA meetings. They've stopped going into bars. They've stopped drinking, more or less; this is a positive effect.

Note that I said that.

I see a lot of people who have stopped smoking; they move away when smoker light up. They've stopped smoking, more or less; this is a positive effect.

Note that I said that.

The thing they HAVEN'T done, is beaten their addiction.

See, if you are a drunk, and you stop going to places where they serve booze, because you KNOW that if you even set foot in a bar, you will be plastered and unconscious in an alleyway in the morning, you're still a drunk.

If you can't stand next to someone who's lighting up without bumming a cigarette from them, you're still a smoker.

Because you haven't faced your addiction; you've hidden from it.

Now, like I said, the effects of this are positive; you drink or smoke way less. Great!

Except that now, you're a landmine.

You could go off at any second; all it would take to throw you off the proverbial wagon is someone WHO DOESN'T KNOW YOU tossing you a cold bottle of beer at a barbecue.

"Here, buddy, have one on me!"

Now you're holding a bottle of beer. It's cold in your hands. You can see it moving in the bottle, and you remember what it tastes like, how it feels cold in your throat, how the bubbles burn a bit; and you WANT it.

And now you're a landmine; because until you beat your addiction, as long as all you're doing is hiding from it, your continued good behavior is predicated, not on your willpower, but on the continued good fortune that you have not yet had that situation happen to you.

All it would take to destroy your progress, is the seemingly innocuous friendly gesture of another person at a party, and like some kind of voodoo curse, all your effort is now gone.

Wasted.

Because you've been pointing it in the wrong direction all this time, and now, at the moment of truth, is the wrong time to be finding that out.

See, you've beaten your addiction, when you can toss that cold, tasty brew back, and say "None for me, thanks - I have a problem with hootch."

And that right there is when you're cured. Because every time - EVERY time - that you succeed, that you pass that test, it gets easier.

Now, I've focused on drinking; but this is true of any addictive behavior.

There are people addicted to World Of Warcraft. Frankly I don't understand, because I've played that game, and the only people that think it is really all that impressive are people who haven't played anything else in the genre. (or people whose only prior MMORPG experience was Asheron's Call 2.)

There are people addicted to Robert Jordan books, for the literary equivalent of the same reason that people get hooked on World Of Warcraft: until you have some basis for comparison, it's impossible to know how much this stuff sucks.

But, ok.

You have beaten your WoW addiction when someone offers to buy you a game card, and you can say "Nah, it takes too much time away from my family."

Until then? You are a walking health hazard to everyone around you.

People can be addicted to anything - but people can beat any addiction. ANYTHING. They have to want it hard enough, and they have to be willing to face, straight on, the fact that they're wrong, and they have a problem.

This is where the politics comes in, ok?

Our government is made up of addicts.

They are addicted to having things go their way; having a free hand with the cash box; having power.

Now, their addiction is destroying our country, and quite rapidly, at that.

They're not even at the AA stage yet, where they try to hide from the temptation to spend money.

They're at the stage where they have not yet realized - but are beginning to - that they have a problem.

Earlier today, when the CBO announced that the Obama budget will be "unsustainable" by the U.S. economy - something I not only COULD have told you before, but DID tell you months prior to the election - the White House Press Secretary started backpedaling almost immediately.

Sorry, folks, no unicorns or pink fairies for you.

No matter how bad our fingers are itching to write the check, we can't afford them.

They still haven't really confronted it; they're going to write a lot of checks that will bounce - and bounce HARD - before they really get brought up short.

But that's what this is; it's a shopping addiction. Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are the equivalent of the couple that went on Dr. Phil a few years ago and told him with a straight face that despite making over $100K per year, they were in financial trouble because she HAD TO spend $17K a year on clothes.

They are spending, because spending is what they do.

Gradually, they are starting to figure out that the piggy bank isn't bottomless, and sooner or later they are going to come face to brick with the retaining wall of reality.

Someone might need some bridgework when that happens.

Because as of right now, they still aren't willing to admit that they have a problem.

And that means that WE - the country, the citizens - ALSO have a problem.

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OK, You Morons Can Shut Up About Bush-Era Deficits Now, Officially

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And Even With Demonstrations To The Contrary, They Still Support It...

Universal health care, paid for by mandatory taxes.

Gigantic stimulus bills, paid for with inflation.

Bank "bailouts" that don't address the toxic mortgages, paid for with increased taxes on an already creaking economy.

And yet, they stick with it.

Massachusetts, the first state to pass - at a state level - a "real" universal healthcare plan, is looking at having to turn of the funding faucets sooner rather than later; thier current estimates are that if they don't get healthcare spending under control, their ENTIRE BUDGET will become "unsustainable" within 5 years.

What that means is that within 5 years, they won't even be able to PRETEND they're not bankrupt. Their spending will have outpaced their actual revenues by such a vast amount that no accounting tricks can possibly hide the magnitude of the shortfall, and then they will all be thrown out of office.

So, they're scrambling.

In fact, they're scrambling so hard, they're ALREADY talking about cutting total healthcare spending - not just revamping payment systems, but actually cutting the dollar values for care themselves - which will lead to...

...Wait for it...

...Rationed care!

Yayyyyyy!!! Not only has Massachusetts proven openly that commie medicine doesn't work, they've done it so fast the President hasn't even had a chance to float his bill - to do the same thing to the whole country - past Congress yet!

Rationed care, if you're curious, is where the government decides that whatever's wrong with you, whatever medicine or treatment you need, you've had enough of it, because it costs too much to continue, and cuts you off, without any option or recourse. See, when the government provides your healthcare, there's nowhere else to go when the government gives you the finger, which is inevitable, since somehow, some way, they MUST pay for it.

Which means, you'll see cancer patients with incomplete chemotherapy.

Kidney patients cut off from dialysis because of rising costs.

Death.

Massachusetts is already realizing something that I fear the nation is set to realize on a much grander scale in just a few short years: Government healthcare is murder. Because when the balance sheet is more important than the patients, well, who cares if they die? And they will.

But that's not enough; no, the President's agenda is going to get practice rolling with the punches indeed.

One of the world's most outspoken proponents of the welfare state, and an economist who has perpetually supported Democrat faith-based economics, Paul Krugman, just published a column not only bashing the Geithner "bank rescue" plan, but calling it an "abject failure."

It must suck to get called out by your own allies.

What Krugman is talking about here is the fact that the Geithner plan is, essentially, sticking your fingers in your ear and saying "la la la, the mortgages REALLY ARE worth something, la la la," which doesn't even work when you're five. Rather than taking steps to clear those toxic assets from the banks' balance sheets, the Geithner plan assumes that they REALLY DO have value, and are simply misunderstood - they seriously use that exact term - and as a result they will be able to find buyers for them if they can just keep the flow of money into the banks for long enough.

Unfortunately, as is common for liberals, this has no relationship whatsoever to reality. Investors aren't going to forget that those mortgages are worthless; it doesn't matter how long the Geithner - Bernanke circle jerk goes on, it won't magically reinflate those toxic mortgage assets into something with sale value, because there is a crucial principle of market economics that seems perpetually to escape the left; things are only worth what you can convince someone to pay for them.

And if you cannot find a buyer, because no-one will touch those toxic mortgages that already sank the economy once, then they are, and will remain, worth nothing.

I realize that reality is a harsh, often brutal place; but in life, you have to learn - you HAVE TO - that the only real way to solve problems is to first and foremost examine the actual problem. If you cannot confront the reality of the problem, then you cannot fix it, period.

In this case, the problem is that there are billions of dollars of "assets" that are in fact worth nothing. The way to fix the problem is to write them off - straight-out write the goddamn things off. Foreclose ALL those houses - you don't have a "right" to a house, especially one you cannot afford - and try to find people to sell them to that can actually pay something for them.

Propping the banks up as long as possible in the forlorn hope that these worthless mortgages will somehow magically Viagratize with value again is, simply put, galactically stupid.

Canada is approaching this correctly. Their mortgage market hasn't collapsed - largely because their government didn't strongarm the banks into loaning money to people who cannot repay it - but it's starting to totter a bit, considering the impact from across their southern border. So, they're already putting programs in place to allow shaky homeowners - people whose circumstances have changed since they bought their homes - to come in and renegotiate their loans to more repayable terms.

This is because the Canadian banks would prefer losing a little short-term profit to catastrophic bank failures when their mortgage portfolios tip over en masse because of inflexible lending practices.

Maybe we should have tried that. I don't know; honestly, the way things look, once the CRA was in place, we couldn't have stopped the bubble bursting in the united States no matter what we would have tried.

What grinds my gears?

That stupid, fucked-up law is still in force; as soon as the banking industry is back on its feet, we will begin the gradual process of building right back into another mortgage collapse.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

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Let's Talk Reality.

You see, there's a fundamental base premise here.

Reality - that stuff outside YOU - actually exists.

That is, if you fall down and bump your head, and go unconscious, the world around you does not cease to exist until you wake up again; it goes on without you.

If a tree falls in the forest, and no-one is around to hear it, OF COURSE it makes a sound; there's just no-one there to hear it.

This seems "duhhhhh" obvious, doesn't it?

But it is deceptively important.

You see, many of the economic and political "principles" and ideologies that are being shopped around these days depend - for them to function - on that base premise NOT being true.

They depend on the notion that reality is what we say it is, and no more; that there is no objective, external anything, but only the frothy fluff cast up by our own minds.

...This post may be a bit of a ramble, so work with me here.

Communism, an ideology currently in vogue amonst people who are insufficiently educated to understand why it's a dumb idea, is one of these. It is so because in order for communism to "work," NO-ONE in the entire system, from top to bottom, can have any self-interest at all; no greed at all; no desire to better themselves, or improve their lot in life at all; only, and always, "the best for the team."

If history demonstrates anything, it is that this quality - I don't find it noble, so don't go there - is nearly totally lacking, in the entire human species. We are as a rule selfish and money-grubbing; power-hungry, and generally interested ONLY in what's best for US.

Socialism is another of these, and for nearly identical reasons, since the only real differences between communism and socialism lie in the degree of power held by the state; socialism can accurately be termed "commie-lite."

Anarchism is another of these.

Given no structure at all, no means of protecting individuals from other individuals, the strongest bully-boy quickly - and inevitably - forms a gang, and proceeds to rob everyone else blind, culminating in warfare if any other local gangs have formed; the inevitable end result of anarchism is, quickly, totalitarianism of one form or another under the rubric of whichever bully-boy's gang comes out ahead.

Because self-interest wins out over the lofty idea that we can each do our own work, independent of anyone else, and not be beholden to anyone. Sooner or later, I assure you, someone gets the brilliant realization that they actually have more free time if they let you do the hard work, then bop you on the head and take it, instead of doing the hard work themselves.

Again, not matching with reality, but reality "as it should be."

In fact, the ONLY economic system that takes that objective reality - that humans are humans - into account, is capitalism. There IS no currently accepted political system that does this.

I will explain, since democracy is a sacred cow, and capitalism is frequently misunderstood, thanks in no small part to the idiots on the news who are trying to call the recent economic meltdown in the U.S. a failure of it.

First, democracy. We don't have it here; we never have; we were never intended to. The Framers knew with great clarity just how rapid the dissolution of the newly-founded country would be if EVERYONE got a vote of equal worth in its day-to-day operations.

To wit, once you can vote yourself funds from the public purse, why work at all? Why not simply vote for more welfare?

...This is exactly what's happening, too.

See, the Framers knew this; they were, by and large educated men for the times, and they knew their history - and it was in large part EXACTLY this flaw in the concept of democracy that destroyed the Roman Empire; once citizens realized they could vote for free stuff from the government, they did so - until there was no money left in the treasury. And then things came apart at the seams. (This is of course a vast simplification of something that took several hundred years, but the welfare - entitlement mentality was the root cause.)

So, because their philosophical base was freedom - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, specifically - they tried hard to invent a NEW form of government, one in which "democracy" was limited in scope and nature. At the time, they limited the franchise to land owners, reasoning that those who owned land contributed more in taxes - directly - to the public treasury than anyone else, and thus deserved a greater voice.

They set it up as representative, rather than direct, because allowing direct public votes on laws would result in a tyranny of the majority, with the inevitability of the tides.

They set it up with two legislative houses, with very different characters, so that the self-interests of the House (more frequent re-election, thus serving their constituents' needs more directly) were offset by the self-interests of the Senate (less frequent re-election, allowing the Senators to pursue personal aggrandizement to a greater degree,) and by requiring that the final version of any law be agreed upon by a majority of BOTH houses, they ensured as best as was within their ability that laws exiting that body would be at least somewhat in the public interest.

They set up a Supreme Court, of judges with life terms once appointed; thus removing the judges' self-interest from the equation by enriching them, giving them power, and merely requiring them to NOT QUIT; giving those judges the authority over all other courts in the land.

They set up an executive office, the Presidency, so that there would not be a hereditary ruler; made the executive able to veto the Congress, but the Congress able to override vetoes with sufficient majority; gave the President great power to enact certain kinds of regulations, and then stopped, and said "that's enough government."

At that point, we started our hundreds-of-years-in-length efforts to destroy it.

First up was the agenda of expanding the franchise.

Because unless everyone can vote, you can't build a welfare class, you see, and there's no GOOD reason to allow "one man, one vote."

This is a cruel, tragic lie. It gets perpetuated a lot; "disenfranchising people is wrong!"

...Why?

In a country with a public school system, purportedly able to guarantee every citizen the same basic education, why is it wrong to give a basic education test before allowing a citizen to vote?

Simply put, there is nothing wrong with telling someone "you are too uninformed about current events to cast a wise vote; go home."

There is also nothing wrong with requiring that some contribution to the society be made by the citizen, before they are allowed to exercise their franchise.

The only motivation for ignoring those requirements - note, in this modern age; prior to public schooling for all, the education requirement would have been discriminatory - is to KNOWINGLY allow disinterested, apathetic, ignorant people to vote.

Why would you want this?

Because disinterested, apathetic, ignorant people are easily swayed.

As are the young, which is why the franchise is now down to eighteen-year-olds.

In reality, a person with the longevity and health of our country as a whole in mind would want a well-informed, contributory electorate; this means limiting the franchise.

The system I would support - I've mentioned this before - would replace our current voting laws by establishing a civilian federal service equivalent to the Armed Forces for purposes of the franchise; requiring that citizens prove themselves to be 18 years of age before joining, and that they serve a successfully completed term of at least 4 years in said federal service or the Armed Forces prior to gaining the franchise; prior to exercising it, they would register to vote by going to the polling location and taking a current events class on the issues up for a vote, including the backgrounds of the candidates running for office, and the text of any bills up for vote; followed by a test on what they just covered, and concluding - if they pass - with a vote.

Our current "election day" claptrap would be replaced by a 3 or 5 day mandated national holiday during which ONLY emergency services and utilities would remain in operation; this allows all eligible citizens the chance to exercise their franchise.

A side benefit of the class, is to guarantee that legislation becomes greatly simplified, because anything too long to get covered in the class... why, it will fail, because no-one will be able to pass the test on it.

This system would ensure that the only citizens voting are the ones willing to contribute their very own sweat and effort to improving the country; that they know who they're voting for, and what they're voting on; does away with the time-honored practice of floating bills past gullible populations by printing something 14 pages long and laced with lawyer-speak, and then saying "well, what it does is..." when it in fact does no such thing.

So. Democracy.

Democracy is when any clown can vote, and does; his vote is exactly equal to mine; and since the stupid and uneducated have ALWAYS outnumbered the smart throughout human history, democracy invariably results in failure, because stupid people vote for stupid things, until it falls down.

Which is exactly why we have a representative republic.

Capitalism, now...

Capitalism is an economic system. Under capitalism, the primary rule is that the best price for a product is the price at which you can sell the greatest number of products while still making a profit (that's simplified, but basically it,) and it is wholly predicated on the notion that human beings are out for themselves.

See, under capitalism, it is IN OUR BEST INTEREST to work together. Not the best interest of the state, or the government, or our community, OUR best interest.

If I work together with YOU, then between us we can each do a part of a job, and thus work far less - with the same productivity as if we had each done the job individually from start to finish.

For example, have any of you ever been to an Amish barn-raising?

It takes them an afternoon; they gather up a bunch of guys from the community, and put up a barn in one day that would take the individual farmer months to do working alone, if it were even possible at all.

They are paid for this, because the next time they need a barn, the man whose barn they just put up, will come help them put up their barn, "free."

Except it's not free; it's capitalism. They are investing their time and effort, against a return of future time and effort from the other participants.

And the result? Every Amish farm has a barn, and they didn't have to work for two months dawn to dusk to manage it.

Capitalism counts on you not wanting to do more work than you just have to. That's the whole idea; BECAUSE you are lazy, you want someone else to do part of the work; they, in turn, want you to do part of theirs; so you trade part of yours for part of theirs, and the greater the number of people involved in this, the more effective it becomes.

Which is why in our society, you can get fresh eggs every day, no matter where you live or what you do, and never even see a chicken; because there are poeple whose portion of the work is exclusively to grow chickens and produce eggs, so you don't have to - and somewhere, there is someone who grows wheat and corn to feed the chickens, and somewhere there is someone who makes fertilizer to grow the wheat and corn, and somewhere there is someone who makes the mechanical equipment for the creation of fertilizer, and someone who makes the tools that make those machines, and someone who mines the raw metals for the refineries run by someone else that make the raw materials for the tool shop, and...

...Do you see?

Only capitalism allows this degree of market specialization - and that specialization is what allows a society to grow, advance, and develop.

If everyone still had to feed their own chickens to produce their own eggs, there assuredly wouldn't be an internet, because the technology would never have developed to that point, because people would be too busy feeding and cleaning up after chickens to create computers.

The market system - price system, to use Friedman's term for it - is the only ACTUAL system for world peace. It is the only way to create aligned self-interests - and wars arise primarily from misaligned self-interests.

Anyone who is anti-capitalist, is anti-peace; anti-human; and frankly, wrong.

The current market meltdown didn't result from "deregulation - see what those greedy capitalists did?"

No.

It happened because of continuous, excessive intervention in the market by the federal government, something governments are notoriously bad at; and now, the same people are calling it a failure of capitalism, that wanted the franchise granted to all and sundry.

I wonder why that is.

Perhaps because those people do NOT have the nation's best interests at heart - OR yours.

Perhaps because they really don't understand these concepts.

Either way, they're not the ones who ought to be in charge, hmmmmm?

Friday, March 20, 2009

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Conflict Of Interest? Business As Usual For The Left...

OK.

Now, in reference to our illustrious lawmakers, the wonderful wonderful people they all most assuredly are, there's a concept called "conflict of interest."

This concept refers to the fact that as Congresspeople are fairly important in their communities, they tend to have ties of one kind or another to businesses, and thus have to be careful; they cannot - and should not - pass laws affecting businesses that they have other ties to.

Sadly, this never seems to actually stop them.

But there are degrees of conflict of interest; some are fairly minor, and some are really thumbing their nose at the public they claim to serve.

And then there's Representative Rosa DeLauro, who simply gives you the finger - with both hands - and wishes secretly that she had more middle fingers to gesture at you with.

You see, Representative DeLauro (D-CT) is married to Stanley Greenburg.

Mr. Greenburg is employed in an executive capacity by Monsanto.

Monsanto is the world's largest producer of pesticides, herbicides, and genetically engineered seeds.

Now, those facts should tell you that this particular Congresscritter should steer clear of farm legislation, right?

Good thing she's from Connecticut, not typically considered a huge farm Mecca.

Except that that hasn't stopped her. Congresscritter DeLauro has sponsored H.R. 875, also known as the "Food Safety Modernization Act."

And what this bill does, aside from vastly expanding the regulatory powers of the federal government AGAIN, creating YET ANOTHER new federal bureaucracy, brushing aside states' rights and attempting to co-opt state inspectors to become some sort of federal food police, and giving Monsanto gigantic new contracts as farms are suddenly legally REQUIRED to abide by standards written to demand the use of Monsanto products, is make organic farming - all of it - even your backyard garden, illegal.

Nice.

This Congresscritter is using the power of her elected office to attempt to require BY LAW for ALL farms to conform to a standard requiring the use of the products manufactured by her husband's company.

Now, the weird thing here is how it clips organic farms; isn't it the LEFT that's always extolling the virtues of organically-grown kale, and suchlike? The concept of organic farming in a technological age has pretty much come from the neo-Luddites and technophobes of the political Left, as the very fact that it's NOT high-tech gives it that mystical sheen of environmentalism that makes the greenies actually cream their panties with delight.

Unfortunately for the greenies, in this particular instance greed seems to have gotten ahead of environmental fervor; this happens, I notice, whenever it has an opportunity to do so.

You'd almost start to think the Left doesn't actually believe in any of the environmental claptrap they drone on and on about, but merely use it as a stalking horse to draw fire from the Right, to make the right-wingers look like planet-haters.

Almost.

But that COULDN'T be right, could it?

Could it?

At any rate, this individual Congresscritter should be removed from office, and this bill should be squelched.

But you know what the difference between the Left and the Right is, in terms of Congresspeople?

The REAL difference?

I'll tell you.

Name me ONE Republican Congressperson who has had even the most minor scandal, that is still in the Congress.

Practically every single member of the Democrat leadership has been caught doing things wrong at one point or other; hell, Ted Kennedy KILLED someone and they re-elected him for decades on end. THEY all get to keep their jobs.

The Republicans? Look at Tom DeLay for a good example. He got caught... taking money from a lobbyist. Now, the JOB of lobbyists is to give money to politicians; so.... um...

...Well, anyway, did DeLay get indicted and removed? Yep.

Kennedy WAS GUILTY AS HELL AND EVERYONE KNEW HE KILLED THAT GIRL, and he remained in the Senate.

So, something as minor as a "conflict of interest," why, that's not even NOTEworthy...

...IF you're a Democrat.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

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A Side Note Of Personal History

OK, it's time for a little personal history.

More than a little.

Whatever.

It's late, bear with me.

Jesi - Conservatress - upon whom be all glory for her obvious awesomeness - left me a comment on a preceding article about the reinstitution of the draft, thanks to the GIVE Act.

I was all set to tell her this story, in that forum, and then I realized just how long a story it was.

So, here we are.

Jesi, this story - this blog - came about thanks to your comment; I leave it entirely in your capable hands to decide whether it was worth all the grunting and straining.

Let's rewind time.

The Way-Back Machine, if you will.

Go on back to the year 1997.

At that time, I was a noisy, roughhousing, frequently drunken and certainly no more admirable than necessary (except when officers were present) young PFC in the 3rd Battalion, 504th PIR, 82nd Airborne Division.

I was an infantryman.

Now, I am not by any means an exceptional guy; there's always that one dude who gets to be supernumerary every time they mount guard duty because he looks like a recruiting poster, and I wasn't either that high-speed OR that low-drag. But I could pull my own weight; I could do a road march in field gear and come back for more afterwards; I was younger, tougher, and cooler than I am now, by a stretch.

I had learned to be lethal with a pretty huge variety of small arms, and anti-tank weapons; I knew small-unit tactics; I could identify tanks by nation of origin by listening to the engine note or seeing a profile; I could make a HMMWV about do a jig.

I knew everything in the whole world, man.

And I got picked as one of the lucky folks that were going to get to play with real-life Russians.

See, some genius with more stars than brains in the Clinton - era Joint Chiefs had decided that China needed deterring, so that they didn't swarm over the border and obliterate all the little splinter republics left when the Soviet Union fell down on its drunken butt.

So, they invented the idea of a "security detachment," a kind of roving multinational ground forces unit made up of troops drawn from Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and a couple other 'stans whose names I can't recall.

Now, the idea was, this unit, taken from the troops of a bunch of different countries, would bond together, train together, and become brothers in arms - and then take that unified spirit home to their national forces, who would then be able to use their skills as cadre, while acting as kind of a National Guard against Chinese border incursions.

On paper, this sounds like a great idea; in practice, they cobbled together a battalion; the "Central Asian Battalion."

A battalion goes up at full capacity maybe around 500 guys; I hate to point this out, but the Chinese Red Army has a million men under arms; 500 dudes in desert camo isn't even a speed bump.

But what the hell, it was the Clinton years; things didn't have to make sense.

Now, bear in mind that my impressions of this are being slightly filtered; I am now older - and certainly more geopolitically informed - than I was when I was 21; but that said, my impressions of CENTRASBAT'97 are those of a 21-year-old PFC, so take 'em with a grain of salt.

A freakin' BOULDER.

But still.

I grew up in the 80's. The Russian Menace was everything, until it suddenly went away and we found ourselves looking around, all confused, looking for the big bad guy on the block, and finding nobody left.

So, when we got told we were going to get to play with some real-live commies firsthand, and all, we didn't know what to really expect.

Whatever it was, it wasn't what we got.

The platoon of guys - supposedly former SPETSNAZ from what we were able to phrasebook our way through - that came to train on American equipment and such here, were wimps. I don't mean in mind; I mean in body. Mentally, they were tough; their discipline was harsh enough that it made us a little leery of working with them; but they tried to go on one of our morning runs, and didn't hang the first mile before they were dropping like flies.

THIS is the Red Menace?

What the hell happened to these guys?

Now, there's a boatload of history - a boatload of STORIES - I could tell, just about the experience of making the longest airborne mission in history (we got a spiffy certificate, and everything;) about the jump, which was the first time I'd ever gotten to stand outside an airplane thousands of feet up and look around (the C-17 Globemaster III. It has a DIVING BOARD outside the jump door. You can literally walk right out and look around. Damn that was fun.)

I could tell about earning my Russian jump wings.

About landing in a freshly-harvested cornfield, and watching a hand-shakingly terrified farmer ride up on horseback with an AK-47 to try to find out why his farm was being invaded by Americans.

I could tell about wandering aimlessly - and unsupervised - around Tashkent.

I could tell about getting my camera confiscated by some sort of very, very apologetic State Security type goons who were honestly really nice and DID NOT want us photographing the big, concrete, blocky... whatever it was.

I bought a "Moscow" postcard.

We got drunk, on really good Russian vodka, in really bad Russian tents, with really REALLY drunken Russian officers, who were very nice and wanted more booze before "the Americans come in and make everything work properly."

We were served really terrible food, by really astonishingly beautiful women with horror-movie teeth.

We watched - aghast, and then frantically suppressing laughter - as the proud multinational forces passed in review, and managed to daisy-chain rear-end their armored vehicles together, on live television, because the first one in line stopped too early before making a turn.

We marched around with them; listened to speeches from guys wearing more fruit salad than uniform; did PT with them; got, in a lot of cases, dysentery from the horrifying Russian chow halls, traded ALL KINDS of crap with them - I got a hand-operated chain saw that has a belt case, for an 82nd Airborne patch - and we learned something about them.

They were really trying.

Man, their countries were fucked up, their lives were fucked up, and they knew it, but these poor bastards were really trying their asses off.

Because they wanted to be us.

And they just didn't get that the fact that we'd all CHOSEN to be there, was what did it.

They had just as much money thrown their way as we do; the dedicated, hardcore support of the world's other great superpower at the time, just like we did; they had the resources, the tools, the time, the opportunity.

But they got drafted.

And three-quarters of those poor guys just wanted to be farmers.

They didn't want to be the watchmen on the walls, the lone gunman defending their town; they wanted to be the farmer who is miraculously saved from the bandidos when the cavalry rides over the horizon.

They didn't want to be there.

And we thought being there was the coolest shit in the world.

The difference, the real, ultimate difference that makes our military the class of the world, bar none, is that 100% of the men and women in it want to be there. They're not there because they had noplace else to go; they're there because they believe in it.

They believe in the honor of our nation.

They believe in the righteousness of the cause of freedom.

And the Russians didn't have that.

Missing that single spark, that one difference, made all the difference there could have been.

I never - growing up - really understood the horror that is the feeling of pity.

But I sure learned what it meant, out there in that field, talking to those guys, when I realized that they not only didn't understand why we wanted to be there, but didn't understand why they couldn't be like us, and never would.

They were forced to be there.

The draft kills the soul of your military.

The Russians had every advantage we had, except one: we have freedom.

And I would have taken us over them a billion to one, no matter how outnumbered we were.

Because there is no cure for a dead soul.

I thank - every day - the God in whom my belief resides, that I was blessed to live where I live, in the time when I live there. Because the same idiots who tried communism in Russia, and killed the once-great soul of that nation, are trying it here.

The draft is one tool of that; because if you can take the soul out of your military, why, then they will be easily led to atrocity; soulless men don't care if they do wrong.

I am not, by nature, a particularly gifted or eloquent man.

But I implore, of all of you, that whatever your motives, whatever your political affiliations, whatever your virtues or vices, that you do not let this happen here.

Our nation is a beacon of hope; it is a light of what can be, to those for whom there is no other hope.

They may march, and rant, and wave flags, but I promise you. They wish they were like us. They WISH they had to complain about which HDTV to buy, or what "brand" of food to eat; they WISH their lives were so free of worry about simple survival from day to day that they could take TIME to watch mindless fluff on TV about gossipy teenagers, and take it seriously.

And a big part of the reason we have those things, and they don't, is freedom.

One of the first tasks for someone wishing to take over a free country is to subvert the military.

And all you need to do it...

...Is a draft.

Don't let them do it.

[+/-]

Xeno Williams: The Adventure Becomes An Endless Chain Of Direct-To-DVD Sequels

OK.

So, I am gonna (tentatively) call this the "final" post-surgical update.

Tentatively, because of course we don't know what might happen in the future.

But today, I went in to the doc, and he discovered that the reason I have had SO MUCH post-op pain, difficulty eating, difficulty swallowing, et cetera...

Was because of ONE stitch that was a little too tight.

So he removed it.

And I breathed a giant, gusty sigh of relief.

So, now I can talk - before it would pull if I moved my tongue.

Now I can eat - I still have to stick to soft stuff, but I can eat, as long as I'm careful

Now I can cough without thinking I'm going to die.

So, yeah, marked improvement.

The doc told me I have to stay home until next Friday, which is longer than I wanted to be out, but he says I am convalescing well, and the stitches will be dissolved in about ten days.

So: much less pain (good,) some more solid food (GREAT!) and I can talk (you know you missed it) in exchange for a bit longer off work than I really wanted to spend.

My apnea, however, seems as of now to be almost entirely gone; not only am I sleeping better, but I'm hardly even snoring anymore, which is a VAST improvement, and was the whole main reason for getting this done in the first place.

So.

Painful? Oh, hell yeah. Surgery sucks; there's no way really around that, especially when you - like me - are a three-percenter.

...Side effects, I'm talking about side effects. They work like rain forecasts.

You know, "20% chance of rain," doesn't mean "there is a 20% chance THAT IT WILL RAIN," it means there's a 100% chance that it will rain, on 20% of the viewing area.

Drug side effects work the same way. They say "there's a slight (3%) chance of side effects such as nausea."

This doesn't mean "there's a 3% chance that there will be nausea."

It means there is a 100% chance that 3% of the patients will puke like Linda Blair.

...Vicodin, like essentially every pain drug out there except ibuprofen, turns me into a three-percenter; I puke like Linda Blair when they give me pain drugs.

So, I'm DELIGHTED to report that I am now far enough along that the doc told me to go back to ibuprofen, which means that for the first time since the surgery I have painkillers that work, and I FEEL GREAT!

Thank you all for putting up with my grumping and bitching, none more so than my lovely wife, who has displayed the patience of a saint this week.

[+/-]

The Clown Prince Of America?

[+/-]

That Old Bad Penny Turns Up Again...

Back in the day, the United States military was staffed by means of a draft; young men of the correct age were forced against their wills to "serve our national interests" by forced induction into and deployment with our Armed Forces.

Now, I'm a veteran. I volunteered; I signed right up, did what I was told, went where I was asked, and came home. I think serving in the Armed Forces is a good way to contriubte to our society, and I wish more young people would sign up; it gives them valuable life experience, self-discipline, and strength of character not easily matched in the civilian world.

But.

I also believe that the primary right - the one upon which all other rights are predicated - is Life.

And that right cannot be taken from you.

And a government must not try.

The House just passed H.R. 1388, also known as the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act.

This is the one talking about setting up a mandatory national service of some unspecified pseudomilitary character that President Obama was talking about a few months ago, when everyone thought he was kidding.

Well, he wasn't.

Mandatory.

Let me explain, for the folks in the cheap seats.

If something is "mandatory," it means YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.

If you have no choice, that ALREADY violates your inherent right to freedom. But when it's something where your life might be at risk - and kids die in the Peace Corps every single year - it violates your right to your life, as well.

The draft was immoral and wrong when we were using it to fight wars in Southeastern Asia; it is just as wrong to use it to fight potholes. Just a lot less dramatic, and not fit for a LifeTime Movie.

I would gladly advocate - have done so, for quite some time, actually - the establishment in this country of a system by which you trade the franchise for public service, a la Robert Heinlein. If you don't contribute - you personally, with your very own sore back muscles - then you don't get to vote. But that's all; no PENALTIES for not wanting to play, you just don't get to pick our next generation of leaders, is all; that right being reserved for people willing to lend a hand.

You know why?

Because the difference is CHOICE.

Under the system I advocate, you have one. Either serve - and vote - or don't, and don't.

Under the Obama system, EVERYBODY serves, and EVERYBODY votes. Whether you want to, or not.

And when you don't have a choice, it's morally wrong.

The draft is back; predictably, it was a Democrat who did it.

Is anyone even seriously surprised by this anymore?

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

[+/-]

Gay Rights, And Why Our Government Shouldn't Be Signing Anything

OK.

Now, one of the issues where I differ greatly from many of the self-described "conservatives" on here, and elsewhere, is that I am a fervent supporter of gay rights, in the sense that I think gays are people too, and thus entitled to equal treatment and protection under the law.

Now, that's been the subject of discussion on here before; do I think gay people can get married?

Sorta.

I don't think marriage per se is properly the province of government at all, as my understanding of the purpose behind the establishment clause (Amendment 1) is that adopting, by federal authority, the definitions of one religion as the de facto standard for everyone IS an establishment of religion, and my understanding for the limits on Constitutional authority of the federal government (Amendment 10) delineate clearly the powers of the federal and state governments to, on the one hand, what is in the Constitution, and on the other, what isn't - and marriage isn't.

So, I think that any legally recognized domestic partnership MUST be made available to gay people as well, because they're people, and entitled to equal treatment under the law. I don't recognize that the federal government has any right to recognize ANY religious sacrament as having legal force, or even pass a law about it at all; but the state governments DO, which is why (despite the fact that I find it grotesque and unfortunate) California's Prop 8 should stand as law.

Right.

What's all that mean?

I believe that the intent and purpose of the Constitution, at its most bare, most basic, was to provide each and every American citizen protection against being fucked over by anybody else - even other American citizens.

This means gay people, too.

And at a federal level, this should be case closed.

But the thing is, our country isn't ONLY governed AT a federal level, nor should it be.

In fact, state and local governments are afforded - by the CONSTITUTION - far greater powers than those afforded to the federal government, regardless of how they choose to arrogate power to themselves.

Now, the United Nations - a body for which I have little but contempt, especially based on their actions in recent years - has a declaration of the rights of gay people.

President Bush refused to sign it, for many of the same reasons he refused to sign the Kyoto Protocols.

President Obama wants to sign it.

And I am infuriated by this.

Not because it is a gay rights issue; because, ultimately, it isn't.

I am infuriated because it is a STATES' rights issue.

You see, a declaration of gay rights doesn't MEAN anything, unless you don't already have them. This country, for all the weeping and wailing done by the loony left, treats gay people better than the huge majority of world nations; hell, there are 50 plus countries in which legally, gay people can be stoned to death in the street because of their orientation.

...So I really prefer not to hear diatribes about how they're so ill-treated here.

But here's the thing.

Once this nation becomes signatory to an international accord, we have surrendered, as a NATION, part of our sovereignty; we have allowed an international body - one with a long track record of its own human rights abuses and failures, corruption, and antagonism to this country - jurisdiction to decide if we are, as a NATION, doing it "right," and levy punishment of some unspecified type against us if they, say, happen to decide that we're, you know, NOT.

And "gay rights" is something we don't HAVE jurisdiction over as a nation, because it is a specifically states' rights issue. It is not, and cannot be (that damned Tenth Amendment again) regulated at a federal level.

What's happening here is that President Obama is planning an end run around the states' rights issue; if he signs the accords, the states will be bound by a decision at federal level - that he had no right whatsoever to make.

But it's an international thing, right?

I mean, it's just a paper saying we pledge to treat gay people nice, right?

I mean, after all, we were gonna do that anyway, right?

....And look, you don't want to be THAT GUY who says gays should be destroyed, or anything, so what do YOU care if we sign it?

You know what? I don't. I think that discriminating against people based on race, gender, or sexual orientation is evidence of a diseased mind.

But that doesn't mean I want to abandon our Constitution, and its carefully planned limitations, wholesale, for the sake of getting around one of the provisions that says that the President can't simply pass any laws he wants to.

I didn't like it when President Bush did the same type of thing on several issues, and said so.

I'm saying so now.

President Obama's attempts to do an end run around the Tenth Amendment by using an international body as an excuse for abrogating the rights of the states to govern as they see fit within the Constitutional limits is a threat to the way of life in this country.

And it doesn't MATTER what issue he's using as a poster boy to do it.

I'm pretty sure nobody wants cute puppies and kittens to be killed off wholesale, either.

But if you put a gun to someone's head and demand money to prevent the wholesale slaughter of cute puppies and kittens, you're still wrong.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

[+/-]

Two More Tex-Mex Favorite Recipes, Since I'm Up Anyway

Note that these two are very different recipes; the one is a table sauce, and can be used for dipping or as an enchilada topping; the other is a stuffing mix, and... well, you'll see what I do with it.

First, the green sauce. This is NOT standard "salsa verde," as you'll see; this is something more restaurant-style.

You will need:

10 or 12 peeled tomatillos

3 serrano chiles

1 ancho chile

1/2 small red onion, chopped

4 good-sized Haas avocados

1 1/2 cup fresh, chopped cilantro

2 cups of good sour cream; Daisy or Breakstone Dairy, but for the love of God don't use the light stuff

Salt, to taste.

Fill a saucepan with water, bring to a boil, and add the tomatillos, onion and chiles. Simmer for 10 minutes or so, until they are all soft and mushy.

Peel, pit, and chop the avocados.

Combine the tomatillos, chiles, avocado, onion, cilantro, and salt in a food processor, and blend until it is all smooth and creamy.

Pour into a large bowl, and stir in the sour cream to your desired consistency. (Thicker for dip, more runny for enchilada sauce.)

This is a good topping for a lot of stuff, actually, and can be served with nachos, enchiladas, or even as a tamale topping. (Non-traditional, but hey, why be hidebound? Trust me, it's good.)

The second recipe is a bit fancier, if not as involved.

You will need:

1/2 pound blue crab meat (cooked)

1 1/2 tablespoons minced serrano chile

1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro (ok, let me just make a note here. Cilantro is in every grocery store on the planet; it's readily available. Seriously, just use fresh for every single meal, ok? It's always worth it; the pre-pack stuff is nasty, always.)

1/2 cup diced tomatillo

1/4 cup finely diced celery

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 lemon

1 lime

salt to taste

...And for what I do with this, also 4 medium tomatoes. (If you'd prefer to cut down on the veggies, and you don't like tomatoes enough to just eat them plain, you can use the meat from the tomatoes in the recipe instead of the tomatillo, but the tomatillo flavor is better. Up to you. Anyway, hollow out the 4 tomatoes.)

Squeeze the juice from the lemon and lime into a cup and discard the remains.

Combine all the ingredients except the hollowed-out tomatoes in a bowl including the lemon-lime juice, stir together evenly, and let chill for 20 minutes or so.

Once the salad itself is ready, fill the hollow tomatoes with it, and serve.

You can also use this crab salad as a garnish on a lot of other dishes; it adds a nice, lightly spicy touch of the sea to any dish, and goes well with many vegetable or seafood dishes.

You can also use - as a variation on the stuffed tomatoes - Anaheim chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded, and split length-wise; this is a tad bit spicier but sure is tasty.

Enjoy!

[+/-]

And Just Because I Haven't Had Solid Food In Days And I Am Freakin' Hungry...

[+/-]

Because "I Go To The Restaurant For Quesadillas" Just Ain't Right...

...I'm going to repair that little deficiency in the ol' arsenal.

The difference between fancy quesadillas and easy quesadillas is basically a matter of preparation, as you will see.

The most basic things you need?

A frying pan, some flour tortillas, and some shredded cheese of your preference, although asadero and jack cheeses are the most "authentic," I suppose.

More fancy ones, you can add shredded steak or chicken, or... I suppose... hamburger *shudders theatrically.*

For really snazzy ones, you'll need more stick-to-it-iveness than just a plain flour tortilla gives you all by itself, so you can get some refried beans, and chili powder; you'll also need some pico de gallo, which you can make yourself from tomatillos (or tomatoes in a pinch,) onions, fresh cilantro, garlic, and jalapeno peppers (to taste; this is highly individual, as you can guess.)

The fancy ones are where I'm going with this; making the basic ones is the same as, only with less crap in the middle, so once we get to the cooking stage, you'll be set.

First, the pico de gallo; dice - finely - the tomatillos, onion, garlic, jalapenos, and cilantro and mix it together. Let it chill.

Go ahead and start the refried beans heating in a small pot; nothing fancy, because you're just basically going to use these as glue to hold all the rest of the stuff onto the tortillas.

Get your meat ready; either steak or chicken should be cooked and drained, then shredded by hand.

An easy way to mix your chili powder into this concoction is to put your shredded cheese in a freezer bag and put chili powder in with it, then shake it.

Once you're ready to go, heat up a big, flat skillet. (I would go shead and put it on medium-high heat.)

For each quesadilla, spread a (thin) layer of beans on one half of the top side of the tortilla.

On this, add the meat, pico de gallo, and cheese - heavy on the cheese.

Slap it into the frying pan, just long enough for the tortilla to go soft; then fold it like an omelette, so that the "toppings" half becomes the middle. Press down on the top with the spatula to make sure it all sticks together, for maaaaaaaybe 25 seconds, then flip it over and do the same on the other side. If the tortilla gets a bit dark, that's fine, but you don't want to burn it.

Once each side has been toasted, scoop it out and start up the next one.

You can see how the simple versions go; toss some cheese in it, fry away.

At any rate, once cooked, cut it up and serve hot with sour cream, picante sauce, or guacamole. (I would use all three, but then that's me.)

Enjoy!

[+/-]

A Serious Point, I Think, And Needing Discussion... Likely To Cause People To Burst into Flames With Anger.

Today, I had a discussion with a friend of mine, who holds religious views different from my own; this is hardly uncommon.

I am continuing the discussion, or more accurately, expanding upon my part in it, here, rather than continuing in personal messages, because I could tell it was simply upsetting her, and since I LIKE her, I'd rather not do that.

So.

The discussion was spawned from a political one; thus the marginal connection. I will explain, since the context is important and germane to the discussion.

We were talking about childrearing, and the responsibilities of the parent as far as teaching their children about politics; my view is - and remains - that the parents' responsibility is teaching critical thinking skills and logic, rather than indoctrinating the child with a particular ideology. My point being, if your own views are in fact logical, and you are successful in teaching your child to think, they will eventually agree with you anyway, just based on their own observation of the facts in action.

Merely teaching them to mindlessly parrot talking points renders them damaged; less than they can be, forever limited from their potential as people, and as thinkers.

They might agree with everything you say; but is preaching to the choir so near and dear to your heart that it is worth limiting your child's abilities and mind for the rest of their life?

I submit to you that doing so is a crime of the gravest magnitude against your children.

Now, this got moved into a religious context - and this was entirely my fault, I admit openly - when I pointed out that this is the SAME problem I have with most organized religions' views on child-rearing, namely that the children should be immersed in "the faith" from the get-go, without ever so much as a hint (if possible) that opposing viewpoints exist.

My friend made a point that, while valid, doesn't actually bear on the discussion.

Her point was, as a parent, her absolute, unshakeable conviction is that her beliefs ARE the "one true way," and that anyone who does not believe as she does is doomed to an eternal punishment; she obviously doesn't want her children to suffer such a fate, especially since their souls are, until they are old enough to stand on their own, her responsibility.

I disagreed not with her views; she's free to hold any she wants. I disagreed with the application of those views quite vehemently, however.

You see, there is a difference, a fundamental, unarguable, profound, unchangeable DIFFERENCE, between something that is a FACT and something that is a matter of FAITH.

It does not, and CAN not, MATTER how fervent your beliefs are; failing a mass visitation from the Almighty, there is no proof; and as such, you can NEVER present your faith as FACT.

You are, as a parent, expected to, and required to, teach your child everything you've learned in your life experience that you can possibly give them to help them survive.

But there's a crucial difference between saying "This is what I BELIEVE is the One True Way," and saying "This IS the One True Way."

If you, as a parent, present to your children YOUR OPINION as FACT, they will BELIEVE you. because they are children, and they don't KNOW you can be wrong.

And you can.

When you present your BELIEF as FACT, you are LYING. Even if you are RIGHT. Because teaching your children ANYTHING as having NO POSSIBILITY WHATSOEVER OF ERROR is wrong.

It is wrong because it teaches them to parrot, not think; it makes them less human, and more programmed robot.

Now, the friend in question happens to be Christian, which only bears on the discussion in terms of the fact that her own theology, as presented by her chosen sacred text, doesn't agree with her either. In strict point of fact, most religions get this wrong in practice, despite nearly all of the major religions making the identical point about the meaningfulness of free choice.

Free will is a crucial point in the Bible. It is touched on again and again; a soul cannot be saved by rote, only by free choice. The (completely fairly, of course) inevitable eternal punishment applied to every human can only be averted by application of that individual's free choice to turn from the path of sin, to a path of righteousness.

But if you teach a child from birth that there IS no other choice, that IS NOT a free choice at all, is it?

Thus invalidating their choice entirely - and condemning them, under the rules of the Bible, to eternal damnation.

Because you chose to indoctrinate them, instead of simply teaching them.

If you teach that questions are unacceptable, you are achieving exactly the goal you set out to avoid: guaranteeing their failure, as human beings. If you teach that your beliefs are the One True Way, rather than teaching them to THINK, you are teaching them to FAIL the test of free will.

What you have as a parent is a singular chance to help them succeed.

Now, she made the point that religious viewpoints are a matter of the soul, and therefore inherently different from political ones.

I agree totally, although the outcome of that agreement doesn't support her stance anyway.

They are very different.

Political viewpoints can be proved to either succeed or fail; they are inherently factual things. While I disagree with people indoctrinating their children with ANYTHING, at least in the case of politics, it can later be PROVEN to them that those teachings are in fact wrong, if they are so. In the case of religion, there inherently IS no proof, and that places the child in a position in which they CANNOT be swayed...

...Even if they're wrong.

The fact that you personally, or I, or anyone, may have sublime confidence in the righteousness of their views, doesn't make it so. Not in religion, or politics, or anything else. Believing, no matter how fervently, doesn't make it so.

It may be; you can't prove it to me; and I can't prove it to you; and that's my point. As long as it MUST remain a matter of opinion, it MUST be presented as such.

Period. Dot. Over and done.

In regard to her argument - that as a parent, she's totally convinced that a failure on her part to convince them to be good Christians will place blame on her, for their eventual damnation - I have this to say.

This is being a parent.

You cannot walk for your children; they must do it themselves.

You cannot talk for them; they must learn this too, in their own way and in their own time.

You cannot ride a bike for them; you can teach them how, but then you MUST let go of the handlebars and let them steer.

And you cannot think, or believe, for them, either.

You have, always, an absolute responsibility, be it politics, religion, or anything else, to do your level best to CONVINCE them that your experiences and beliefs are right.

But you cannot simply dictate to them by fiat, without depriving them of the very free choice that is at the core of their very beings, depriving them of the freedom that makes those decision meaningful.

There is a DIFFERENCE between saying "I believe this," and saying "This is what IS."

One is right.

One is child abuse.

I will note here that one point that got brought up and swiftly discarded in the discussion was a statement that - because my beliefs are DIFFERENT from hers - that I was incapable of understanding her stance at all.

Not really.

My beliefs are quite different; true. But I BELIEVE them to be the One, True Way, just as she believes her way to be.

I understand exactly her sentiment; she truly believes that her children are at risk of destruction if she fails to convince them to believe as she does.

I believe the same thing.

But I understand that CONVINCING and BRAINWASHING are not the same, and that to merely rote-train my children until they are incapable of thought is inherently a failure to convince them.

I refuse utterly to fail my son in such a way.

I will devote my life - have already done so - to teaching him everything I can, or can understand, about the world, and how it works; but I will never, ever tell him that there's NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER that I could be wrong.

...because - to borrow from the Bible again - I'm not perfect.

I can't be perfect.

And that means I CAN be wrong.

He MUST have the ability to decide that himself; THAT is the truest responsibility of a parent. Not only the ability to make decisions, but the tools with which to make good ones; not only the freedom to make choices, but the best opportunity and knowledge available from which to do so.

Part of that is, in my case, telling my child what I believe, and why I believe it. As it should be with any parent.

But I'm never going to tell him I CAN'T be wrong.

Being a parent is scary, and it's scary PRECISELY because you are - always - aware that YOUR failures affect THEM. Your flaws, your faults, your vices; these are things that AFFECT them. As such, it is your duty - which you accepted when you had a child - to provide for them the best opportunity they can have to not repeat your mistakes.

But you cannot simply immure them forever in a plastic bubble, and call it childrearing.

You have not kept them safe by doing so; you have molded them into people unable to survive on their own.

You can - you MUST - teach them to stand on their own; think on their own - and believe, on their own.

And the risk you take - always - is that they might not agree with you.

That sucks.

I KNOW.

But you don't get a pass on it, just because you're scared. That's the duty of being a parent. You CANNOT tell them "Daddy is never wrong." You cannot tell them "NEVER disagree." You cannot tell them "You MUST believe this."

And that means they might not agree with you.

And that's scary, especially if you believe, as I do, that being wrong can have disastrous, permanent consequences. It's terrifying. I have faced death more than once, and death doesn't scare me; the possibility that I might, as a parent, fail my son, gives me cold sweats.

But that doesn't mean that I get to simply do an end run around my duty as a parent because I am afraid.

That is the very nature of moral cowardice.

A parent's job is to give their child every advantage they can...

...And then give them freedom.

You cannot do so by denying them freedom even in their very thoughts.

Even if it scares you.

Xeno's Paradox

The Highlight Reel

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Babs Beat Me To This... But It IS To Laugh...

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Spring Is In The Air. And The Politicians, Too.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Because I Keep My Promises...

Just Freaking ASTONISHING Obliviousness, There

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

A TRUE Hero. No, I Mean It. Why Are You Looking At Me Like That?

Monday, March 23, 2009

Fair Warning: This Post Will Likely Piss You Off.

OK, You Morons Can Shut Up About Bush-Era Deficits Now, Officially

And Even With Demonstrations To The Contrary, They Still Support It...

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Let's Talk Reality.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Conflict Of Interest? Business As Usual For The Left...

Thursday, March 19, 2009

A Side Note Of Personal History

Xeno Williams: The Adventure Becomes An Endless Chain Of Direct-To-DVD Sequels

The Clown Prince Of America?

That Old Bad Penny Turns Up Again...

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Gay Rights, And Why Our Government Shouldn't Be Signing Anything

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Two More Tex-Mex Favorite Recipes, Since I'm Up Anyway

And Just Because I Haven't Had Solid Food In Days And I Am Freakin' Hungry...

Because "I Go To The Restaurant For Quesadillas" Just Ain't Right...

A Serious Point, I Think, And Needing Discussion... Likely To Cause People To Burst into Flames With Anger.

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