POLIBLOG

POLLIWOG (Tadpole): the early stage of an animal that will eventually become a frog, hoping to be kissed by a princess, turning into a prince! POLIBLOG (Political Blog): the early stage of a center-right political blog that may eventually become a full blown blog of the center-right. Join in if you find any merit in the comments. If you are on the left and disagree, feel free to straighten me out! Who knows, with effort from all of us this blog may turn into a prince!

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Location: San Diego, California, United States

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Jimmy Carter: An Opinion That Makes Sense!

The Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal of December 27, 2007, has the following commentary on Jimmy Carter and the reasons for his bizarre opinions. My take is that the analysis is correct and seems to be a phenomenon of aging liberals who tend to forget that progress only comes with some pain and they cannot accept that pain - but must assure that all underdogs are saved this pain. Interesting to think about!

"Not Bird Nor Plane Nor Even Frog
Is Jimmy Carter an anti-Semite? Shmuley Boteach, who styles himself "America's rabbi," argues in the Jerusalem Post that the answer is no:

Jimmy Carter is not so much anti-Semite as anti-intellectual, not so much a Jew-hater as a boor. The real explanation behind his limitless hostility to Israel is a total lack of any moral understanding.

Carter wants to do what's just. His heart's in the right place. He just can't figure out what the right is. He is, and always has been, a man of good intentions bereft of good judgment. He invariably finds himself defending tyrants and dictators at the expense of their oppressed peoples. Not because he is a bad man, but because he is a confused man.
Carter subscribes to what I call the Always Root for the Underdog school of morality. Rather than develop any real understanding of a conflict, immediately he sides with the weaker party, however wicked or immoral.

Israel has tanks and F-16's. The Palestinians don't. Therefore the Palestinians are being oppressed. Never mind that the Palestinians have rejected every offer to live side by side with Israel in peace and elected a government pledged to Israel's annihilation. Their poverty dictates the righteousness of their cause even if their actions speak otherwise.

Boteach likens this attitude to that of marriage counselors "who always take the side of the wife in an ugly dispute in the belief that a woman, inherently weaker than her husband, is always the innocent and aggrieved party. Even where the evidence points to the wife as being violent and unreasonable, such arbitrators cannot conceive of the husband as anything but the oppressor."

But the "Always Root for the Underdog school" is even more perverse when applied to international relations. It's not just that to side with Yasser Arafat--or Fidel Castro or Saddam Hussein or Robert Mugabe--is to choose the wrong side vis-à-vis Israel, America or some other Western power. It is that to side with these dictators is to side against their own people, who are the actual underdogs in the situation.

Meanwhile, America-hating polemicist Robert Fisk, in London's Independent, sings the praises of Carter, whom he describes as "the only American president approaching sainthood." That Lincoln was such a slacker!"

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Is the West on the road to extinction? Mark Steyn...

says it is becoming quite obvious with headlines such as this: ""Mohammed Overtakes George In List Of Most Popular Names" (Daily Telegraph, London)."" Britain is "George"! But it is rapidly becoming Islamic due to the secularists lack of reproduction, as is a large portion of the world. Read his column. This is the heart of it:

  • "I'm a big 24/7 demographics bore, as readers of my new doomsday book will know, but even I'm a little taken aback at the way its thesis is confirmed every day by some item from some part of the map. These stories are all one story, the biggest story of our time: the self-extinction of most of the developed world."

Will the West's attitude on reproduction and the availability of abortion mean an end to our society? Mr. Steyn thinks so, and I have a difficult time faulting his logic. How about you?

Monday, December 11, 2006

Shall we talk of "Social Security" again?

W is supposed to raise this subject during the next Congress, so it is time we start thinking about how to fix it. Clive Crook, in the National Journal, quotes a gem from the late Milton Friedman - the accepted guru of free-market economics.
  • "Pure Friedman, for instance, are the observations on Social Security. This is a program of two parts, he explained. The first part is a high and steeply regressive income tax, levied with no exemption up to a fixed ceiling. The second part is a welfare subsidy paid without regard to need, based on marital status, longevity, and recent earnings. Nobody in his right mind would support either of these ideas taken one at a time. (Isn't Friedman right about that?) Yet in combination, see what happened. These two wrongs have become the holiest of sacred cows: "What a triumph of imaginative packaging and Madison Avenue advertising," Friedman said. "

To fix you must understand, and the above is the clearest explanation of Social Security I have read. THERE IS NO MONEY. Only each year a terribly regressive income tax (the payroll tax) to pay an outdated welfare subsidy to the elderly. And the subsidy is about to get significantly larger than the tax.

When you accept the above, you can start making decisions about what to do.

Dean Barnett Points Out a Huge Problem!!

Read this analysis of the Congress' interest in and willingness to understand our enemies. Perhaps this is the heart of W's problem?

Maybe a seminar for our politicians might open their eyes. I know what knowledge I will be looking for in my representatives in 2008 - and anyone who wants to win had better become familiar with the problem!