John Wayne on Liberalism

I came across this quite by accident.  This interview was done in 1975.  Sounds quite prescient.

White Guilt

I came across this little book the other day and to tell you the truth I don't know how.  But I read it today.  It is 180 pages of fascinating light thrown on a subject I have wondered about from my observations of life and people.  As I examine diversity and multiculturalism and all the PC stuff that is a part of life now I feel it has been much more destructive in human relations than anything I have seen or experienced.  This book White Guilt:  How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era by Shelby Steele is worth your time.  He talks of dissociation and the loss of moral authority because of conscious decisions that came about between the races and was inculcated in just about ever venue of life.  Read it.  Think about it.

Donors now "threatened" by IRS, Justice Dept

I noticed this story (Take a look for yourself.)  and wondered why a political campaign could threaten donors to somebody on the other side.

Churchill on Buffett

Thanks to Steve Hayward on Powerlineblog.com for this:

Churchill on the Buffett Rule

Since I was a couple days late with last week’s helping of Winston, I might as well do this week’s a day or two early, especially since I was reading the source material for this one just this morning—WSC’s 1937 essay about Franklin Roosevelt.  Obama (and Buffett the Buffoon) ought to read this warning, one of several, that Churchill offered about the New Deal:

A second danger to President Roosevelt’s valiant and heroic experiments seems to arise from the disposition to hunt down rich men as if they were noxious beasts.  It is a very attractive sport, and once it gets started quite a lot of people everywhere are found ready to join in the chase.  Moreover, the quarry is at once swift and crafty, and therefore elusive.  The pursuit is long and exciting, and everyone’s blood is infected with its ardour.  The question arises whether the general well-being of the masses of the community will be advanced by an excessive indulgence in this amusement.  The millionaire or multi-millionaire is a highly economic animal.  He sucks up with sponge-like efficiency money from all quarters.  In this process, far from depriving ordinary people of their earnings, he launches enterprise and carries it through, raises values, and he expands that credit without which on a vast scale no fuller economic life can be opened to the millions.  To hunt wealth is not to capture commonwealth.
This money-gathering, credit-producing animal can not only walk—he can run.  And when frightened he can fly.  If his wings are clipped, he can dive or crawl.  When in the end he is hunted down, what is left but a very ordinary individual apologizing volubly for his mistakes, and particularly for not having been able to get away?
But meanwhile great constructions have crumbled to the ground.  Confidence is shaken and enterprise chilled, and the unemployed queue up at the soup kitchen or march out upon the public works with ever-growing expense to the taxpayer and nothing more appetizing to take home to their families than the leg or the wing of what was once a millionaire.  One quite sees that people who have got interested in this fight will not accept such arguments against their sport.  What they will have to accept is the consequences of ignoring such arguments.  It is indispensible to the wealth of nations and to the wage and life standards of labour, that capital and credit should be honoured and cherished partners in the economic system.
If this is rejected there is always, of course, the Russian alternative.  But no one can suppose that the self-reliant population of the United States, which cut down the forests and ploughed up the soil and laced the continent with railways, and carried the wealth-getting and wealth-diffusing to a higher point than has ever been reached by mankind, would be content for a week with the dull brutish servitude of Russia.

Human Animal

I pretty much do all the human animal stuff that is described in this video. I believe that the human animal stuff can be a part of either a man or a woman. It's trying to figure it out and not do it at the wrong time that seems to be the trick.

Coming Apart

A couple of months ago I read Charles Murray's new book Coming Apart. I doubt there will be a more important book published this year. You can view an interview of the author here. It is well worth one's time to watch this. It might help you figure out what is going on.

Afghanistan and Texas and Two Sons

I meet a lot of people in my line of work. I always say that behind every door there is a story. A man came in with a dental problem. During the course of the visit we covered a lot of ground. I asked about his son who is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Texas. The missionary is assigned to work with Spanish speaking people. The area he is in has an LDS ward. Virtually the entire membership including the local leadership (the ward Bishop and other leaders) are in the United States illegally. We had quite a discussion on that, coming to common ground that the border needs to be secured first. His position was that the illegals here, contributing and living their lives should not be deported back to Mexico. I have to agree with that because I don't know how it could be done, and many have fled Mexico to get away from the drug wars while looking for a better life. I added the caveat that anyone here illegally who has been arrested and convicted of a crime must be deported and not allowed back. He understood that and agreed with it.

We then turned to his other son. He is an Army vet, Ranger qualified and served in Afghanistan. While on patrol one of his team stepped on and IED. The resulting explosion took the right arm off of this man's son. He has endured about 20 surgeries to develop some muscle to attach a prosthesis. He has had muscle transplanted from the latissimus dorsi to just below his shoulder. He is in pain that barely diminishes even with the continual use of oxycontin which he has become physiologically and psychologically dependent on.

He talked of the ridiculous rules of engagement our Armed Forces are being forced to follow. They are limited when and how they can use force, thus placing them in more jeopardy. He wondered what our mission was there. If it was to get Bin Laden, well, we're done he explained and we need to bring everyone home. He said he asked one of our US Senators that question at a Town Hall meeting. The Senator said the mission was to keep Afghanistan as stable as possible so Pakistan does not fall with their nuclear arsenal. I listened mostly. But I did say that people either live in Liberty, Tyrany or Chaos. That is the cultural and governmental state of countries. The people in Afghanistan have mostly existed for centuries in Chaos. When looking at these countries as a whole they are use to Tyranny or Chaos, they cannot morph into a culture of Liberty. It just is not possible. I could see the moisture building up in this father's eyes as he talked of his sons. He had hope and happiness while taking of the boy in Texas, but was desperate talking of his son who had been to Afghanistan.

I have a nephew who leaves this Saturday to prepare to go over for his 2nd tour in Afghanistan, having also served a tour in Iraq.