JFK: CAN WE GET OVER THIS GUY ALREADY?

This week on my DVR were “50 Years of Questions: The JFK Assassination”, “JFK: 50 Questions Answered”, “Killing Kennedy”, and NOVA’s “Cold Case JFK”. 50 years after his assassination, we still think about it. We’re obsessed. My question is: Why?

Omnipotentblog is biased against conspiracy theories. The notion that many people across different groups and agencies could keep a secret about anything nefarious is spectacularly wrong. Omnipotentblog works for government and at one time, was in the military. Not only that, I was in…MILITARY INTELLIGENCE. (The first to say, “Isn’t that an oxymoron?” was clever. The next ten million were not. Leave it.) Most in the field are patriots. If a large group of them is told to do something evil and corrupt, you can bet $20 that somebody will spill the beans. See Edward Snowden and the other NSA whistle blowers. The very notion of some grand conspiracy about JFK’s assassination doesn’t pass the smell test. Apparently, 59% of us disagree.

Omnipotentblog works with a very diverse population. It has led to one indisputable conclusion: People are idiots. Not all, of course, but humanity at large is not brilliant. In my “What we can learn from a Devil Worshiper” blog, I outlined research showing the vast majority of us are somewhat closed minded. No one, government, military, and Omnipotentblog included, are totally immune from this curse.

Indisputable fact #1: Oswald was a wife beating, deranged communist. He was hospitalized as a young teenager for trying to kill his family. When asked by an American Embassy worker why he was renouncing his citizenship, he stated, “I’m a Marxist”. If only they all were so honest. He lived in the USSR for a while before being disillusioned by breadlines and the cold. Documents reveal that the KGB thought he was a moron and not of much use. He returned to the U.S. annoyed with Russia but still enamored with tin pot dictators like Castro. Hope springs eternal.

Indisputable fact #2: Kennedy was a virulent anti-communist.

Indisputable fact #3: Oswald already had one assassination attempt under his belt. He tried to kill right wing General Edwin Walker on 4/10/63.

Years ago, I watched a documentary featuring Gerald Posner, author of “Case Closed”. He was compelling, demolishing seemingly every theory peddled. Jeffrey Toobin of the Chicago Tribune wrote, “Unlike many of the 2,000 other books that have been written about the Kennedy assassination, (it) is a resolutely sane piece of work…utterly convincing…I started 'Case Closed' as a skeptic…but this fascinating and important book won me over.” Pollster Larry Sabato started a skeptic but as he wrote “The Kennedy Half Century”, became convinced Oswald was the lone gunman. The only person to personally know both men, Priscilla Johnson McMillan worked as a researcher for JFK and interviewed Oswald for six hours in Russia. What she saw was a delusional, unbalanced renegade. She is convinced he alone was responsible. She befriended Oswald’s wife and wrote a book about their tortured relationship. Likewise, Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted Charles Manson (Who might be engaged now. Yay! Congratulations!) wrote an exhaustive, 1600 pages debunking the conspiracy theories. Nobody cares. We will have our conspiracy.

 

Star crossed lovers met on Prison-is-for-lovers.matchmakers.com.

To be fair, there are some interesting questions, notably, Jack Ruby’s connection with the mafia, a major suspect, and the government’s fear that a connection to Russia would lead to nuclear war. More interesting, however, is not the debate over a magic bullet but the sociological implications of our ongoing obsession. If we were honest, we would admit, as Dylan Matthews argues, JFK wasn’t that great. Many experts say JFK, misunderstanding Kruschev’s intentions, escalated the Cuban Missile crisis and almost brought about nuclear war. JFK himself eventually admitted the missiles in Cuba were analogous to those he had just put in Turkey. Matthews also notes the Bay of Pigs invasion. Even JFK thought it was a bad idea but he went ahead anyway. He argues that Kennedy likely would have taken us to war in Viet Nam. JFK also helped overthrow an Iraqi dictator, which brought Saddam Hussein’s Baath party to power. D’oh!

Matthews also argues convincingly that JFK moved very slowly on Civil Rights. He did send troops to protect the Freedom Riders but, according to Jackie Robinson, who had backed Nixon in 1960, JFK had to be heavily pressured by civil rights leaders to back the Civil Rights Act. Matthews states, “It's hard to say if Nixon would have been better on civil rights — though it's worth remembering that he was friends with Martin Luther King Jr., was an NAACP member, and expressed to King his frustration with the tepid pace at which civil rights was moving — but Hubert Humphrey, who made his name in politics with a 1948 stand for civil rights at the Democratic convention, certainly would have been. In any case, Kennedy's record is nothing to write home about”.

Kennedy also passed no domestic legislation of any consequence. He tried to pass MediCare but it was sabotaged by his own bumbling criticism of Congressional Democrats. It took the negotiating skills of LBJ to get it done.

Liberals lionize JFK but the president who quoted him most was Ronald Reagan. Realizing JFK was not quite so liberal, he used him to turn Kennedy Democrats into Reagan Democrats. Some credit Reagan’s supply side economics and the “Laffer Curve” with JFK/LBJ’s 20% tax cut, which increased revenues substantially between 1961 and 1968. JFK once said, “A rising tide lifts all boats”. Sounds very “trickle down” to me.

Some liberals, like the degenerate Oliver Stone, believe JFK would have avoided Vietnam. How so?? He tried to overthrow Castro and he did overthrow Vietnam’s Ngo Diem, showing great eagerness to get involved. His famous “Ich bin ein Berlinner” speech was a warning to East Germany not to encroach. Unlike Stone, JFK hated commies.

What to make of all this? Apparently, we need our heroes. He almost called fire and brimstone down on the east coast and we now know he was bringing prostitutes into the White House. No matter. We need someone to venerate. We idealize and replace what is vague with what is lovely and romantic. We ascribe royalty and create fantastical language like “Camelot” to describe his reign. With Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, the Great Society, and the War on Poverty, LBJ was much more consequential. He was hated for the war in Vietnam but he was a great and powerful liberal. Too bad he’s ugly. And has a Texas drawl, which, if you’re on the left, is where all jerks are from. What cemented Kennedy’s fame were a devastating smile, a fashionable and pretty wife, and the fact that he died before he could screw up. Had he lived, he would have been seen as mediocre. But, like Princess Di, it’s inconceivable someone so special can be cut down by a drunken chauffer or that Obama, our first messiah, can fail simply because he sucks. It must be racism. An American royal killed by a single confused, angry loser? It’s just too terrible.

We like to believe.

THE LIBERALS IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY (IT’S NOT WHO YOU THINK.)

Ah, here we go again. The government shutdown went so well for Republicans in 1995. Newt and others have tried to spin it in a more positive direction lately but even he admitted at the time that it was a disaster that helped reelect Bill Clinton.

 

Democrats are getting a lot of mileage from this and why shouldn’t they? They’re making political gains because the Republicans are the party that hates government. Simplistic? Wrong, maybe? Yes but anybody who has ever seen a man-on-the-street interview knows we are not a well-informed nation of geniuses. No nation is.

 

Charles Krauthammer says this whole thing is “nuts” and has called these stubborn ones, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul, the Kamikaze Caucus. (Three of them are likely presidential candidates for 2016. How interesting.) Many call them the Suicide caucus. How about just “The Stupid Caucus”? Jonah Goldberg said it seems like Cruz’ strategy is: Step 1: Shut down the government. Step 2: Question mark. Question mark. Question mark. Step 3: Total victory. In a closed door meeting with Senate Republicans, it was leaked that Cruz and the rest were savaged by the other Senators. He admitted in interviews on talk radio that he virtually had no support. In contrast to the confident bloviating of his 21 hour filibuster, he seemed quiet and chastised. Humbled even? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Is he stupid like a fox? Maybe. This seemingly amateur move may be designed to cement his nomination for president and it could work.

 

Shut downs are neither recent, nor rare. There have been 18 total, 17 of them since the ‘70’s. There is much hand wringing lately as to what the rest of the world thinks of this circus. Is it a sign that our system doesn’t work? No, it’s a symptom of divided government. We have checks and balances and guess what? One branch is checking the other. Things are working just fine. Don’t like shutdowns? Don’t live in a democracy.

 

Nevertheless, this whole thing is an unnecessary conflagration brought about by people willing to bring the whole temple down on our heads. It is a purely political move. There is no chance Obamacare will be defeated or that it will be weakened in any substantial way. Slightly modified? Mmmm….. possibly. But most don’t know that many of the offers from Republicans were actually reasonable. The almost feckless Republican message machine can’t beat the mainstream press who won’t report these details and the low-info voter that we need remains solidly convinced Republicans are obstinate. FAIL. Omnipotentblog has no problem with purely political moves. You need power to make change. What makes this a farce is that the inevitability of failure is staring us in the face. A substantial majority agrees that Obamacare is bad but also disagrees with shutting down the government over it. When even a Republican majority disagrees with the strategy, how on earth does that compute to victory? For a hot second, I thought Cruz, the Ivy League lawyer who has argued before the Supreme Court eight times, might be a genius. His filibuster was manly and heroic and it looked like Republicans would be responsible after making some effective noise. Nope. They cut the brakes on the Crazy Train and hit the throttle.

 

Democrats are the party of the unhappy, a bunch of utopians who think they can master the universe through feminizing bumper sticker platitudes like “No human is illegal”. Good one. Republicans are the party of masculinity. But conservatism is supposed to be pragmatic and realistic. Liberals do what feels good. Conservatives embrace the tried and true. Yes, Cruz is fighting for a conservative value: smaller government. What makes him and his followers liberal, in a sense, is the tactic. Driven by emotion, they seem to be co-opting the liberals’ reactionary do-something-ism instead of asking the quintessential conservative question: “Will it work”?

 

The chance to retake the Senate in 2014 is realistic and would be devastating to Obama’s legacy. It may be vanishing. An image comes to mind: Republicans are in concrete bunkers on top of a steep hill with machine guns and artillery. In the valley, slogging through the mud are exhausted Democrats. Rather than wait for them to come into range and blow them to pieces (metaphorically speaking, of course), we throw our weapons down, strip down to our underwear, pick up sticks and rubber hoses and sprint down the mountain screaming like mental patients high on PCP to engage the enemy.  Why? It’s the manly thing to do. Thomas Sowell noted that, “There is a United States of America today only because George Washington understood that his army was not able to fight the British troops everywhere, but had to choose carefully when and where to fight. Futile symbolic confrontations were a luxury that could not be afforded then and cannot be afforded now”. The Republicans have a huge strategic advantage because of the common mistrust of Obamacare. Even Mike Tyson would duck punches. So should Republicans.  

 

 

The coming fight over the debt limit is another story and popular sympathies may…may suggest a shutdown could yield some fruit. But Sowell writes, “By making a futile and foredoomed attempt to defund ObamaCare, Congressional Republicans (and Cruz) have created the distraction that Obama so much needs”. If you are still not convinced, take note of this: Richard Nixon proposed federally run daycare, universal health care and a guaranteed minimum income for the poor. These programs were sunk by Ted Kennedy and other Democrats because they didn’t go far enough. Theygot greedy and missed a historic opportunity to permanently expand the welfare state. We should not miss ours to dismantle it, even if it’s just by taking a nibble here and there. Big fights and grand gestures might be sexy but isn’t discretion the better part of valor? Apparently not.

 

So much for 2014.

YOU CAN'T BE SYRIAS!

With the Devil, er, Vladimir Putin whispering in his ear, Assad The Good Hearted is now promising to get rid of his chemistry set. It may, in fact, get us out of this mess. One writer remarked that by getting his head stuck in the bowling ball return, Obama brilliantly tricked Putin into pantsing him.

 

 

Prior to this, the most “anti-war” president in U.S. history wanted to bomb another country and his Democrat cheerleaders were John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi. And France. We are now living in Bizarro World.

 

Lessons Obama has learned about foreign policy:

 

1. Foreign policy is hard.
2. Some people just aren’t nice.
3. No, Putin didn’t just need a hug.

 

Putin looks like a statesman and Obama might as well have rolled up to the G20 summit in a clown car. True, there was never a good option on Syria but now the options are bad and really bad. At least he seems skeptical about the new plan and bombing may still be on the table. While the always sober and reasonable (crazy and paranoid) Glen Beck says that even a person coming out of surgery with a drip bag of heroin coursing through their veins would know that attacking Syria is a bad idea, it’s not that simple.

 

Below are some arguments for and against bombing.

 

Against:

1. Bombing Assad helps Al Qaeda: Influential Israeli blogger Yoni Tidi is a cheerleader for Assad. He quotes Salafist rebels saying that once Damascus is taken, it is on to Jerusalem. Assad is safer and more predictable. Better the devil you know…

2. Chaos will ensue. Remember Iraq?: 1. Assad gets desperate and attacks Israel. Israel responds. WWIII. 2. Assad loses. Terrorists take over. All hell breaks loose. WWIII. 3. Bombing builds sympathy for Assad and Iran gains influence. 4. Assad doesn’t care and uses more chemical weapons. 5. Bombing radicalizes more against the U.S. (I know. Does anything we do matter?) 6. Terrorists retaliate months or even years down the line. 7. Terrorists get ahold of chemicals weapons. Oops. 8. Who the heck knows?

4. Americans don't want it: A recent poll: 58% against attacking, 33 for.

5. Not in our national security interest: What do we get out of this? They’re weak militarily. It’s not going to make us any friends. They don’t even have much oil.

6. An “unbelievably small” strike won't do anything. Assad has already moved his planes and equipment and moved civilians into target areas, providing a real opportunity for dead child propaganda, a Mid East staple. 

7. Saving credibility isn't a reason to attack. Meh, so we lied. Doesn’t everybody? 

8. We can’t save the world: A variation is the “To Hell with Them” doctrine. We’ve spent much blood and treasure defending Muslims in 5 recent wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Somalia) and they still hate us. Let the ingrates blow each other to bits.

9. Evidence is weak: Well, we didn’t have video of OJ either but….

Fence Sitters:

10. We bomb and then what? It seemed fun and easy when Saddam statues were being toppled. Then everything turned to camel dung. Better have a good plan this time or…see #2.

11. The resolution needs to be narrowed. Don’t want to give Obama a blank check. “No ground troops. Truuuust us.”

For:

12. What are we waiting for?  Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead. A good bombing keeps the rust off the trigger finger.

13. OK, but make it small: I guess we have to but we don’t want to make anybody mad.

14. Ok, but make it big: What’s the use of bombing if it doesn’t have a major impact? Take out Assad or weaken him enough for the rebels to do it. 

15. Don't want to embolden Iran: Iran is the real target. Bombing slows their spreading influence. 

16. U.S. credibility at stake: We’ll look weak if we don’t. A weak America is bad for international stability. We scared Khadafi into giving up his WMD program. Other dictators are watching.

17. It's the American thing to do: Do it for the children! The video of foaming, writhing, kindergarteners is hard to watch.

18. Must maintain norms against chemical weapons use: Rightly banned a century ago, they’re just too terrible. If we don’t stop this, we’ll get more of the same.

Omnipotentblog was FOR bombing before he was against it. (A crack at John Kerry, ha ha.) Why? #18. Want more gassed children? Do nothing. Simple as that. If nobody responds, we should stop pretending chemical weapons are banned. Take Assad out? No, but respond nonetheless. Syria’s plan to give up WMD’s, even if it’s fake, may be enough for us to save face without bombing. Also, Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah, all Shi’ite terrorists, are now fighting Al Qaeda Sunni terrorists, a dream come true. But there are other considerations, notably a set of unbelievably complicated geopolitical factors. K.T. McFarland believes Putin’s rout of Obama is a terrible development. Russia’s foreign policy goals are: 1. How do we screw the U.S. 2. How can we make some money out of this, and 3. How do we take over the world. Russian/Iranian dominance of a region that still provides most the world’s oil would be a nightmare. Allied with every bad actor on the planet,  Russia needs a port in the Mediterranean to project power and avoid having to go through the narrow Bosphorus where Turkish teenagers could sink their fleet with sling shots. But it’s even more complicated. Though Syria doesn’t have much oil, they do have plans for a giant pipeline. They chose one out of Iran and Iraq versus Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Maybe that’s why the Saudis and other Gulf states have sent big money and arms to the rebels and have even offered to pay the U.S for a strike. Out of the goodness of their hearts, of course. Lately Sunni nations have been directly asking the U.S. to overtly support them against Iran. Sounds tricky.

Foreign policy is not for kids. Obama has muddled from one debacle to another. When you are so naïve to think that the world’s problems stem from colonialism and American bullying, there could not be another outcome. Omnipotentblog thinks Obama never wanted to bomb Syria in the first place. If so, he slipped on a banana peel and landed on his feet. Right now we have Iran, a country with nuclear ambitions aching to reincarnate the Persian empire and Russia, a country with nuclear weapons aching to recreate a Stalinist Soviet empire. What could possibly go wrong?

POL POT, NICOLAE CEAUSESCU, AND MUHAMMED MORSI WALK INTO A BAR, Part 2

Egyptians are putting on a graduate level course in rioting. They get what they want. Morsi’s constitution, first written on a napkin in a bar as detailed in Part1 (true story, of course) will surely end up burned or shredded or used to wipe their hineys or whatever it is they do when they want to insult a document.

 

The Arab Spring will probably take a generation or more to work itself out. Some believe there will be a dramatic rise in terrorism and unrest as Islam faces a painful, gut-wrenching move towards modernity.

 

Is Islam a utopian vision like Pol Pot’s and Ceausescu’s communism? Yes and no. A Muslim may romanticize the golden age of the past but the true focus is always on heaven. Even Islamofascists understand that Sharia will not be heaven on earth. The seventy virgins come only in death.

 

Religion is two things: It is both revelation and it is simply what its followers do. For coreligionists to debate is nothing new. Jesus exploited differences between Pharisees and Sadducees. But the question of “what is Islam” is particularly confusing. Turkish Prime Minister Tayip Erdogan once said, “There are no interpretations; Islam is Islam”. But take the Koran's famous injunction (2:256) that "there be no compulsion in religion." Is it a call for universal religious tolerance? Does it apply only to various denominations within Islam? Was it limited to non-Muslims in seventh-century Arabia? Does it protect only non-Muslims who agree to live under Muslim rule? Was it overridden by a subsequent Koranic verse? Is it purely symbolic? Apparently, it is all of the above.

 

An Egyptian Coptic Christian once told Omnipotentblog that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. There are only radicals and apostates. Given that the Muslim Brotherhood were recently burning and beheading Copts by the truckload, I can’t argue. Yet, we hear again and again about the “Religion of Peace”. Can it be? Islam expert Daniel Pipes thinks so. He writes that when he entered the field in 1969, Islamic extremism was virtually unheard of. “If things can get worse, they can also get better…If Islamism (wanting to institute universal Sharia law) can thus grow, it can also decline”.

 

Pipes is no apologist but he does seem to engage in wishful thinking when he rattles off a list of “untenable” requirements in Sharia such as “perpetual jihad against non-Muslims”, implying that surely Muslims will one day realize the requirements of Sharia just can’t be met and they should therefore flush it down a squat toilet. Dubious. However, he does cite examples where this already happens. Hiyal or “tricks” are used by jurists to get around things like not charging interest and never going to war against other Muslims. He cites studies of Islamic courts that make relatively flexible and reasonable rulings in apparent contradiction to the harshly patriarchal texts.

 

However, as Pipes himself admits, this “medieval synthesis” is perpetually prone to attack by purists because the texts themselves are considered holy and perfect. When pressed, it is a losing argument.

 

Can Islam be tolerant and modern? Neo-conservatives believed the ballot box had almost magical powers to transform. Then the Palestinians voted in Hamas. It was magical indeed. Emboldened, they took Gaza by gunpoint. Worried about Jewish cooties, they burned millions of dollars in grow houses left by the Israelis. What have other Islamists done? Morsi immediately began packing his government with cronies, enshrining Sharia and codifying discrimination against Christians. Still jailed, word on the street is that he is now reaching out to Mubarak and others to start a support group. Erdogan once said, “Democracy is like a train. Once you get where you’re going, you get off”. He initially governed well but slowly eroded press and other freedoms until the Turks finally had enough and started rioting. He and his Islamist party may not last. Some caution that if Islamists are courted to participate in democracy only to be deposed, they will return to terrorism and subverting democracy. Meh, six and one half dozen the other.

 

Can infidels live in peace with Islam? Maybe, but how do we discern between honest overtures and deceit? Several Islamic principals are troubling. Taqiyya and Kitman are deception and lying to infidels. It is ok to lie about one’s beliefs if one fears persecution. Since followers of the Religion Of Perpetual Outrage still seek revenge for the Crusades, the criteria is not exactly strict. One example is the existence of certain English versions of the Quran in which some of the more violent passages have been removed. Hudna is the establishment of a temporary truce, usually for ten years, for the purpose of rearming to defeat the enemy. Too weak at the time, Muhammed made a treaty with the Quraysh whom he later defeated. In another example of Taqiyya a New York times Op-Ed explains that Hudna’s goal is permanent peace. There is controversy over who broke the truce but Quran 9:5 says, “And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists…capture them and besiege them…” Perhaps most disconcerting is the doctrine of abrogation or Naskh. It is the preeminence of later passages of the Quran over earlier ones. This is frightening because in the earlier passages, Muhammed promoted peace and tolerance. What do some of these later passages say about infidels? Quran(2:191-193) says- "And kill them wherever you find them…And Al-Fitnah [disbelief] is worse than killing...but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah]…”. As Muhammed gained strength, he became bold, bloody, and intolerant.

 

Francis Fukuyama, a pinhead’s pinhead, believes that humanity is on an inevitable path towards progress and democracy. Indeed, Steven Pinker showed that violence over the centuries has decreased tremendously. But democracy is a rare gem in history. From the Greek city-states and Roman senate to the resurgent leftism in Latin America and the creeping totalitarianism of Russia, liberty can die.

 

David Brooks wrote, “There are large populations across the Middle East who feel intense rage and comprehensive dissatisfaction with the status quo but who have no practical idea how to make things better. The modern thinkers who might be able to tell them have been put in jail or forced into exile…It’s not that Egypt doesn’t have a recipe for a democratic transition. It seems to lack even the basic mental ingredients.”

 

Egypt tried once before to modernize and failed. ­­­­­­­­­­­­In the early 1800’s, Muhammad Ali tried to make Egypt a cotton powerhouse. He made European rivals nervous but the nascent vines of industrialization withered under the hot desert sun and the culture’s lack of ambition and innovation. Egypt and the Middle East may yet join the 21^st century but it might take a while and it might be ugly. And bloody.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE PEOPLE: GAYS AND CONSERVATIVISM IN THE MODERN AGE

The Village People

I’ve been struggling with something for a long time. I think it’s time for me to finally come out and tell everybody who I really am. I’m…..heterosexual. I guess now I’ll never get a job in movies or TV.

 

The Supreme Court will soon rule on the Defense of Marriage Act and many conservatives don’t seem too concerned. Maybe it’s because gay marriage (GM) is so inevitable. There is an extreme opinion gap between the generations. It’s going to happen.

 

Rick Hell-in-a-Handbasket Santorum said, “[Gay marriage] threatens my marriage. It threatens all marriages.” Conservatives have always argued this but they’ve never been all that convincing to many, especially the younger crowd. Traditional marriage is the best way to raise children? So what. Many people don’t want children. No culture has accepted gay marriage before? So? Liberals know all who came before them were stupid. Gays are degenerates? Oof. This one now seems cruel and bigoted. Americans like to be fair-minded and that kind of language feels too close to the racism of the past.

 

In college I studied homosexuality intently. I wrote two papers and read countless pages of books and scientific studies. I never felt any animus towards gays (also referring to lesbians and bisexuals) and I always thought the usual slurs were hateful and un-Christian. But there was plenty of research that illuminated some problems among gays. I thought this was reason enough to deem them unhealthy and to justify some sort of stigma. That argument isn’t as convincing to me anymore, mainly because those in glass houses (heterosexuals) shouldn’t throw stones. Sexuality is a complicated matter; it’s all about relationships. Yes, there is a whole book of studies on my shelf showing gays have higher rates of drug use, STD’s, and mental illness, low rates of monogamy, sometimes shocking rates of promiscuity, and so on and so on. A lot of this is true but I now say, so what?

 

Should gay marriage be given parity? Maybe. Maybe not. Omnipotentblog doesn’t think so. There are valid arguments for it but here are some reasons not to.

 

1. Attitudes about sexuality tend to be generalist. If GM is embraced, it is a sign that deeper feelings about chastity, monogamy, and fidelity have also changed. Most people are worried about paying bills and just getting through life. They are not philosophical by nature, which explains the popularity of “JerseyShore.” It would be nice if society could say to gays (or single mothers or divorcees or any other group no longer stigmatized) that they are valuable and deserve happiness while holding to the belief that the other way is better, to not celebrate their relationships but accept them as equals in friendship and life, you know, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Sadly, people are not that complicated. The Swinging-From-Chandeliers Club and the church ladies agree on very little.

To focus on GM is to attack a symptom and not the cause. Like a hidden but festering wound, the true injury to our society is the destruction of broader sexual mores accelerated by the 60’s. It’s unfair to blame gays for destroying marriage because straights have reduced it to rubble. While only about 1/4 of people who marry get divorced, half of all marriages end in divorce (multiple divorces throw off the numbers). 25% of men and 12% of women cheat. Fewer people marry at all; they just cohabitate. Cohabitating couples are much more likely to break up even when they do eventually marry. 41% of all children and 71% of blacks are born out of wedlock. In fact, the difference in incomes between black families and others almost disappears if the parents are married. Volumes of research show the detriment to children raised without fathers including higher rates of substance abuse, mental health issues, incarceration, etc. Married couples earn more than single parent households even when only one parent works. Married people have more and better sex than singles. Data on the benefits of marriage is voluminous, clear, and convincing.

 

2. Attitudes about gender may be equally important. As I showed here, the left hates masculinity. Who hasn’t noticed the epidemic of confused, emasculated men among us? Also, many women are realizing their climb up the corporate ladder wasn’t as satisfying as they had hoped. Feeling betrayed by feminism, they are going home to their families. Since the 60’s, the left has argued that gender differences are merely a cultural construct. Yet, innumerable liberal parents are shocked at their babies’ attraction to gender specific toys. ­­­ David Reimer is a victim of this nonsensical goodthink. In 1965, he had most of his penis cut off during a circumcision. The parents went to Dr. John Money, the world’s foremost “expert” on gender who said, ‘No worries, just surgically give him a vagina and raise him as a girl’. It was a disaster. David committed suicide in 2004. Also, see this outrage.

3. Kids are confused enough already. While gays are only 2-4% of the population, one study showed a full 25% of 12 year olds were unsure of their sexuality. The lesson of the landmark Sex in America survey is that culture has an enormous impact on sexuality. A struggling 14 y.o. “bicurious” client of mine recently had consensual sex with a 16 y.o. girl. It left her feeling dirty, shameful, and suicidal. Of course, not all such dabbling has this effect. That is the point. It is easy to see the consequences of a culture of experimentation. But omnipotentblog, aren’t people born gay? No. See here.

 

 

Many gays are just as boring and staid as omnipotentblog but one thing they have to own up to is the “Party and Play” contingent. It is not small. Most would agree that crystal meth-fueled anonymous sex is dangerous. Also, the community might get a little more respect if Pride Parades weren’t largely vehicles for men in leather thongs to showcase their baton twirling skills. Liberty and libertinism are not the same.

(I had an actual picture of a leather thonged baton twirler but it didn’t pass the censor.)

 

Ultimately, why does any of this matter? MLK argued that people should be judged by the content of their character. Maybe the only questions we should ask about our gay neighbors are: Do they work hard, are they nice, do they pick up their dog’s poop when they take it for a walk? Would gay acceptance really destroy the world? Adam Carolla (I’ve quoted this man twice now??) once remarked how nice gay neighborhoods are. Yes, there was the time I was in San Francisco for all of five minutes and a very drunk gay man licked the hood of my car. But once you look past the leather shops and other assorted weirdness, the communities are actually pretty dang lovely.

 

Tolerance is a two way street. There is a fascist element to gay activism. Google “Dan Savage hate speech” or go here. Or read about this terrifying gay mob attack on a Baptist church. Of course, gay kids are bullied all the time and it would be nice if conservatives would do more than insist, “It’s not hate” when discussing GM. The Family Research Council wanted Bush 43 to fire a man in his administration mainly because he was openly gay. Shameful. Tolerance is not approval but it is the essence of liberty.

 

To live wisely is to ponder, observe, admit that answers are sometimes gray and murky and make adjustments. The point here is to argue for tolerance. And also for intolerance. Both have consequences. As one radio host likes to say, the battle is not between love and hate but compassion and standards. It would be nice to have simple rules to live by and execute them rigidly. Alas, life is complicated.

 

 

 

POL POT, NICOLAE CEAUSESCU, AND MOHAMMED MORSI WALK INTO A BAR, Part 1

 

Bartender says, “What’ll it be, gentlemen?”

 

“Iced Mint Mocha, please”. “Cherry Coke”. “DEATH TO AMERICA!”

 

 “I don’t know how to make that”.

 

“(sigh)…...English Breakfast tea, please”.

 

And they all sat down to discuss politics, life, and Facebook.

 

Not that Egyptians need more to riot than the corner bakery running out of croissants but Morsi’s proposal for a new constitution has again caused mass demonstrations. There are real stirrings in the Arab world for modernization and democracy. However Islam is deeply conflicted about modernization at best and openly hostile at worst. (See “MyGrandpa…”) What does Morsi want? Will he engage the world and lift his people out of poverty or is he a radical who will settle for nothing less than a medieval Koranic utopia? The stories of two men who transformed their countries are instructive.

 

Pol Pot seized Cambodia in 1975. In “Year Zero”, a bloody civil war ended and a bloodier peace began. “Brother Number One” was radical even by Marxist standards. His egalitarian vision purged the nation of class and wealth. The outside world knew nothing because media and foreigners had been expelled. The movie “The Killing Fields” recounted the discovery that the bizarre rumors of torture, mass murder, and cannibalism were true. When the Khmer Rouge finally fled to the jungle, between 1 and 3 million bodies littered ditches, fields, and mass graves.

 

The irony of communism is its glorification of peasantry and its simultaneous worship of elites. But Pot, never having graduated college, executed anyone who reeked of education. Many were murdered for simply looking smart because they wore glasses. Pot closed banks, schools, and churches. Literally all institutions were shuttered and ransacked. Public servants were arrested and executed. Private property was banned. Those caught hiding personal possessions were tortured. Pot’s Eden was a socialist agrarian society without industry, business or even doctors. All cities were evacuated so their inhabitants could work the fields in proletariat harmony. Long lines of evacuees passed bloated corpses on the road. Hundreds of thousands died from starvation, dysentery, and heat stroke.

 

Deemed bourgeois, the family unit itself was banned. Not that many were in a romantic mood but even sexual intercourse was outlawed. Children under six were seized, raised and indoctrinated by Khmer “grandmothers”. The KR utilized gangs of grade-schoolers to enforce their code. Having been thoroughly indoctrinated, the 6 to 12 year olds, armed with AK-47’s and appetites for sadism, murdered indiscriminately. Survivors remarked that they seemed to enjoy making adults cower and beg for their lives.

 

Pot’s motivations were thoroughly Marxist but unlike most Marxists who worship the future, Pot longed to recreate the glory days of the Khmer Empire of the Middle Ages. Like the James Cameron/Avatar liberals, (See also Kevin Costner/Dances with Wolves liberals) he believed that if man went back to his primitive roots, he would be happy. 

 

The nightmare ended in 1979 with the invasion of the Vietnamese, of all people, who must have thought, “Man, communism is awesome and all but these guys are crazy.”

 

 

Despising the oppressive totalitarianism of Hitler, the Romanian people voted in the oppressive totalitarianism of communism in 1946. It worked out well. Nicolae Ceausescu’s rise to the top in 1965 was uneventful. For a while, he was quite popular as he stoked nationalistic pride by vowing to fight Soviet hegemony. Yet, while rejecting the country of Stalin, he was enamored with Stalin-ISM.

 

Ceausescu used the Securitate, the secret police, to spy on citizens, deny free speech, and censor the press. He began a 37-mile long “Death Canal” which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of forced laborers. Treated worse than animals, they died from hunger, beatings, TB, and dysentery. He used the project to rid the country of minorities including those scourges of the earth, the Hungarians. In a nationalism and racial/cultural superiority reminiscent of Nazi Germany and North Korea, he outlawed talking in foreign languages, bulldozed villages, and redistributed 80% of Hungarian owned land.

 

All this was standard fare for aspiring dictators but Ceausescu was “The Visionary Architect of the Nation’s Future”. He was a man of deep faith: In himself and the future. Birth rate is often seen as an indicator of hope for the future. Ceausescu banned contraception and abortion. All women in the factories were subjected to monthly gynecological examinations by the “menstrual police”. In a famous speech, he deemed the fetus as “property of the entire society”. A proliferation of dangerous back alley abortions damaged many women and unborn children. Orphanages sprung up everywhere to deal with the population boom in a society where living standards plummeted.

 

Impressed with Mao Tse Tung’s forced modernization, Ceausescu emptied the countryside of inhabitants and, in contrast to Pol Pot, forced the population to live in the cities. Food production plunged and eventually, people were existing on 7 oz. of food per day. Life support machines in hospitals flickered on and off due to constant power disruptions.

 

Ceausescu and his wife fostered a cult of personality. Embracing the future and the coming socialist utopia, the first family prized enlightenment and education. His wife Elena, not having finished grade school, attached her name to scientific papers, gave herself a PhD in chemistry and named herself the Director of the Institute for Chemistry.

 

Living in unimaginable luxury, everything fell apart for the futurists when a crowd began to heckle the dictator during a speech of party rhetoric and propaganda in 1989. The couple refused to cooperate with the trial as it was clearly beneath them. The overgrown weeds above their bullet-riddled bodies is not.

 

 

During their discussion about the past and the future, Morsi had been rather quiet, scribbling furiously on his napkin. Pot and Nicolae asked what he thought about their ideas. Morsi stated, “Come on guys, your plans didn’t exactly work out well”.

 

Nicolae replied, “Meh. Mistakes were made”.

 

And thus was born Egypt’s current draft constitution, on a napkin in a bar during a discussion with two of history’s strong men. True story.

 

The napkin, its meaning and it’s recycled paper content, only in the next Omnipotentblog…