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…

ROBOT LOVE: COURTING THE DARKIES

 

Scene 1: Party. Glass of milk in hand, a middle aged white man in a sleeveless V-neck sweater approaches a young, attractive black woman.

 

Jerrod: Hi. I’ve been watching you for a while and I think we should get married.

 

Roxy: What the…? Who are you?

 

Jerrod: Jerrod.

 

Roxy: Why would I marry you?

 

Jerrod: Well, like I said, I know a little about you. I’ve done some calculating and I think we are compatible.

 

Roxy: Mm hm…Mm hm. Well I have a boyfriend and…..

 

Jerrod: I know but your boyfriend has cheated on you 4 times and he….

 

Roxy: How the *&!@#%! did you know that!!??

 

Jerrod: I know your boyfriend well. He cheats on you and he takes you for granted.

 

Roxy: (sigh)…..I know he’s not perfect but he always knows what to say when he messes up. He writes these sweet poems. He tells me how beautiful I am. He brings me flowers and these cute little gifts all the time. He’s so thoughtful. Why should I dump him?

 

Jerrod: It’s all right here on this chart. See here? Time spent at current job, amount in 401k, my profile on the MMPI personality test, and so on. This mathematical formula here shows the projected number of children we would have, probable universities they would attend, value of our home adjusted for inflation, projected range of happiness, etc. Clearly…..Ok, I can see you are confused by some of this. See, the X and Y axes represent….Let’s just look at this pie chart.

 

Roxy: Mm hm…Mm hm. Well, I tell you what. Here’s my (fake) number. I’ll think it over.

(End of scene 1.)

 

Have you ever witnessed a teenage boy with a severe developmental disorder hit on a pretty woman? I have. It was sweet and kind of touching but also a bit creepy. It was awkward. So goes Republican attempts at wooing minorities. Like the cringe inducing title of this blog, conservatives aren’t overtly racist but they offend nonetheless. (Notice “developmental disorder” was used instead of “retard”? That kind of thing is important.)

 

It is almost a unanimous consensus that Romney’s loss is because of his poor showing with non-whites. Interestingly, no one blames it on anti-Mormon bigotry. George W. Bush got 44% of Latinos and 44% of Asians, and 11% of the African American vote. Romney got 27% of Latinos, 26% of Asians, and 6% of African Americans. The percentage of non-white voters is increasing by about 2% per election. If skin color and liberalism were like conjoined twins, the GOP would indeed be doomed. But the marriage of skin color to Democrats is like worn out Velcro on those shoes from the 80’s (Which, like the mullet, I’m desperately waiting for a come back). Mike Huckabee may have gotten 48% of the black vote in Arkansas’ governor race in 1998. If true, it is not unthinkable for the GOP to make increases on a dramatic scale.

 

Conservatives have long pointed out overlap with non-whites on social issues. It’s true that Latinos have a 53% out of wedlock birthrate but strong family values is still considered a part of the culture. Also, gay marriage is looked down on in the black community and both groups have strong religious roots. The church door may be wide open for the GOP to walk through. While the Catholic Church has a muscular social justice faction, American bishops are often clear and sharp-tongued about the incompatibility of abortion and gay marriage as well as the recent assaults on Church sovereignty through Obamacare. But minorities often agree on other issues as well. Most Hispanics do not believe in bilingual education or open border unlimited immigration and a majority of blacks and Hispanics also believe in requiring an ID to vote. This is not to say minorities hate government and are in love with supply side economics. They’re not. But just because Jesse Jackson gets doughy-eyed when gazing at the Fidel Castro poster in his bedroom, doesn't mean his racial counterparts are the same.

 

The left destroys everything it touches but one thing it has been wildly successful at is branding the right as bigoted. Some of it is intentional and shameless but much of it is pure ignorance. (See “The War on Men”) If a Republican dares to vote against a program for the poor, it must be out of hatred. Yet, for all the righteous whining about racial demagoguery, conservatives shoot themselves in the foot. Again and again and again. The clumsiness and insensitivity in discussing race can be, well, asinine. Rush Limbaugh’s Barack the Magic Negro song was not a big hit in South Central L.A. And, in a moment that surely made Latino Republicans wince in pain, when Ann Coulter was asked about Susana Martinez’ speech at the Republican Convention on The Michael Medved Show, Ann mocked her Spanish accent and said she changed the channel. She then talked about the brilliance of Condaleeza Rice’s speech but the damage was done. Conservatives think that because they feel race is meaningless, they therefore are not racist and they have the freedom to say stupid things about race. No. They don’t.

 

There is a belief among many right wing ideologues that if an attractive, conservative candidate comes along who is true enough and pure enough in their dogma, then conservatives from everywhere would rise from the ground and vote en masse, ensuring eternal victory. It is a stupid fantasy. Conservatives are right to abhor political correctness but while it is good and well to defend philosophy, it is equally important to cultivate relationships. In a marriage, is it important to be right all the time? Should a man point out when his wife’s posterior does indeed look big in those pants? Should a wife tell her man she just knew he wasn’t going to be able to fix that leak and he was an idiot to try? There are rules in relationships and Republicans are breaking them all when it comes to race. Embracing comprehensive immigration is good but that alone will not fix the problem. Everybody now knows the GOP needs minorities. Their attempts to make inroads will look like weak and shameless pandering. Some will argue that the policies themselves need to change, that the GOP needs to moderate. But if the conservative gospel is indeed good for everyone, why should it change? It shouldn’t. Presentation and marketing need drastic overhauls but that is just the beginning. For decades, Republicans virtually ignored these communities while Democrats mined them, exploited them, lied to them, and took them for granted. They are masters of identity politics and we need to play their game, not to pander, but to talk. The right way. And we don’t do that by starting out with, “WHAT PART OF ILLEGAL DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND??!!”

 

        Republican Approach:                                           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

      










      “Hello…attractive…female.”                                                    

               Democrat Approach:

                        "Hey baby."


The fact is the GOP thought it enough to expect people to vote as citizens and not as a member of their race. It’s a noble sentiment but when you claim to be the party that embraces reality, you must accept that a lot of people just want to know who cares about them. Democrats resort to bribery and false promises because it’s easy. The conservative argument is more complicated but it’s also the right one. We have to start making it personal. We need to explain how Reaganomics got people back to work. We need to talk about the civil rights issue of our day, how Republicans want to improve public education with charter schools, vouchers, teacher merit pay, and other good ideas for their sons and daughters. We need to explain how the Democrats are siding with their union stooges and standing in the way. What conservatives need is an army of bright eyed, fresh-faced partisans walking through the worst parts of town, knocking on doors and saying, “I love you, I care about you, and I’m a Republican”. There will be many doors slammed in faces. Some may get shot. But some will invite them in and some will even listen. When that happens, things are going to get interesting.

LETTER TO MY DEMOCRAT FRIENDS

People always say every election is “the most important one ever” but this one may in fact be just that, which is why even hardened Democrats should reconsider their man.

 

 

Like a drunken sailor, the president needs an intervention. 

The Tenneseean, a newspaper from……Tennessee, recently endorsed Romney for president. It has endorsed a Democrat since 1972. Why the shift?

 

“The next president must be the one with the best chance to get the crushing, $16 trillion national debt under control, coupled with the more immediate need of enabling a vibrant job market.”

 

The Des Moine Register also hasn’t endorsed a Republican since 1972. It does now, along with the other three major newspapers in Iowa.

 

Greece collapsed when its debt reached 120% of GDP. Spain, Italy, Ireland, and Portugal, are close to catastrophe and U.S. debt is close to 100% of GDP. The European welfare state has failed yet this is where Obama wants to lead us. Some economists say that economies start to slow at about 90%. While it’s true that Japan’s debt is about 200%, their economy grew at a paltry .69% annually over the last 20 years while the U.S.’ rate of growth was 2.09%.

 

Debt matters. Entitlements more than double defense spending and the Congressional Budget Office projects entitlements to explode the budget, devouring 40% of not just the budget but the entire economy by 2050. The CBO also admits taxing the rich will not fix it. Taxes on everyone would have to skyrocket to balance the budget. We already pay over 200 billion/yr. on interest for the debt. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated the debt is actually a threat to national security.

 

But isn’t Obamacare awesome and don’t the Republicans just want to get rid of it?

 

Obamacare did do one good thing: More people have insurance now though it still leaves 30 million uninsured. The problem is that it didn’t even bother to tackle the three biggest cost drivers:  20% of medical costs are from fear of lawsuits, consumers can’t shop for insurance across state lines, and charging for individual procedures provides no incentive to reduce costs. Once Romney provides Obamacare waivers to all 50 states, there will be great pressure on Republicans to replace it with something and chances are high they would tackle one or all of these issues.

 

But isn’t Trickle-Down Economics a failure? And didn’t Bush cause all this in the first place?

No. Reagan dropped tax rates on all incomes and reduced regulation. The economy boomed. Unemployment rose from 7% in 1980 to 10.8% in 1982, then declined to 5.4% in 1988. The inflation rate declined from 10% in 1980 to 4% in 1988. Economists have blamed the current melt down on two primary issues. Liberals point to the failure of regulation. Indeed, the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed by both Republicans and Clinton. It allowed banks to merge investment and every day banking. But Obama didn’t change this. Conservatives point out that the other major reason for the melt down was government strong-arming banks to loan to disadvantaged borrowers. When Bush tried to fix this problem by reigning in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Democrat congressman Barney Frank basically said, “That’s stupid. We have nothing to worry about”. Oops.

But is deregulation really a good idea? 2011 Gallup poll said small business owners say complying with regulations is the most important problem facing them today. Even George McGovern, former uber-liberal presidential candidate who passed away last month, agreed. In fulfilling a lifelong dream by owning a hotel and restaurant, he was stymied by regulations. In 1992 he wrote for the Wall Street Journal:

I also wish that during the years I was in public office, I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day…Today we are much closer to a general acknowledgment that government must encourage business to expand and grow….Too often, however, public policy does not consider whether we are choking off those opportunities…

 

Not to be outdone by the uselessness of Obamacare, his only other major accomplishment was Dodd-Frank (Yes, that one.), a massive financial regulatory bill. A major gift to New York banks, it didn’t end “too big to fail”, left Fannie and Freddie untouched, and didn’t even bother to end the incestuous relationship between ratings agencies and the companies’ products they rate, another major cause of the meltdown.

 

 

If reelected, the next four years would be rough for Obama. He would face staunch opposition and he has been incredibly vague about his agenda. I don’t think he has one. This nation is at a tipping point and we need a president that accepts the crass reality of money. We’re broke. Maybe you admit that some of the above is true but just can’t bring yourself to vote for those racist bastard Republicans? See “The Oreo, The Coconut, and the Banana”, parts I and II for why conservatives are not racist and liberals are. Then read “The War on Men”. I’m not asking you to burn your American Communist Party card or to remove your I ©Obama bumper sticker. Just go into the booth on Tuesday and, secretly if you must, do the right thing for your country. Just this once.

My Grandpa Went to the Embassy Burning and All I Got Was This Lousy T shirt.

The Middle East is on fire. (Yawn) Again. It’s what they do. Christians have potlucks. Muslims riot. Prediction: The first one to get “Death to America” rubber bracelets to the malls in Cairo is a millionaire.

 

Why do they hate us so much? The endless stream of “experts” drone on about the American overthrow of Iranian democracy in 1953, our support for dictators, Israel, etc., etc. They are either ignorant or lying. The real reasons for this and anything else, really, are cultural and historical.

 

I once asked a friend with a Masters degree in Islamic studies whether the Koran condoned terrorism. She said, “It’s confusing”. The Koran is a bit of a Rorschach test. If you want to justify peace, you will. Violence and hate? It’s there, too.

 

Muslims have a long view of history. The crusades are an esoteric footnote to most Westerners. To many Muslims, they are still a foremost thought. One traveler to the Middle East remarked seeing an odd postcard. Nothing says, “Hey mom, wish you were here”, like a Crusader stabbing the belly of a pregnant woman. Probably the most ubiquitous tourist trinket in all of Turkey is the evil eye (pictured below). Why is the protective talisman always blue? The eyes of the white crusaders were blue . I have one in my own home but white people still come. 

 

 

 

 

Things weren’t always so backwards.  Math and science blossomed during Islam’s golden age from the middle of the 8^th century to 1258 A.D. While Christian Europe stagnated, Muslim culture thrived. Trade brought great wealth. Art, philosophy, and innovation flourished. What happened? Abu Al-Ghazali.

 

Islamic philosophy was once influenced by Hellenism and the Greeks. In a war of thought and debate, the Asharite Ghazali vanquished Mutazilism, which believed the injunctions of God were accessible to rational thought and inquiry. No longer was logic itself valid. Knowledge came only through the holy Koran. Al-Ghazali famously claimed that when fire and cotton are placed in contact, the cotton is burned directly by God rather than by the fire. This victory of revelation over reason arguably led to the feet of Islam being stuck in the mud of the middle ages for a millenium. As a consequence, today, more books are translated by Spain in a single year than have been translated to Arabic in a thousand years. It is why some Arabs still do not believe man has been to the moon. (So do some Americans but don’t get me started.)

 

As most religions do, Islam believes it has the one truth. But while Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists all believe there is some wisdom and truth in other religions, Muslims believe in the utter superiority of Islam. Nothing from the infidels is worth consideration. While Europe was experiencing an explosion of ideas and technological advances, Muslims rejected it all. The ironic exception is in military technology and tactics. Apparently, when it is kill or be killed, ideology loses its hold.

 

Judaism is a religion of government and law but is not universal. Christianity is universal but preaches acceptance of whatever government is in place. In Islam, which actually means “submission”, Allah has decreed that every human on earth should submit to Him and the theocratic set of laws that is Sharia.

 

 

 

The concept of victim hood in XFL running back Rod Smart’s jersey seems to encapsulate much of Arab and Muslim culture. It is embedded, fixed deep in the mind. Islam has been called “ROPO”, a Religion Of Perpetual Outrage. In Bernard Lewis’ “Islam and the West”, he describes an important Muslim concept: “God is justice and justice is God”. It explains much. Justice is an important value but its evil twin is vengeance. While Jews emphasize a people’s liberation and Christians emphasize forgiveness and personal salvation, Muslims emphasize reckoning, evening the score.

 

An Arab’s dignity is like the air he breathes. Honor -- personal, familial, national and so on-- is precious. When pride is injured, there is no “moving on”. It must be reclaimed. This concept is seen in such things as “honor killings”. Not extremely common, they are not rare either. One survey revealed that in Jordan, where it is actually legal, 20% believe Islam condones and even supports murder in the name of family honor.

 

Surrounded by modernity and wealth, to live as a Muslim in a Muslim country is to live in humiliation. With a supremacist belief system and the constant, objective reminders of their own failures, how can there be peace except that the “natural” order of the world be restored? There was once a time when Jews and Christians, the “people of the book”, were tolerated and respected. They lived in peace under Islam. But this was a time when the Caliphate was robust, dominant even. Maybe the festivals of rage we see now did not exist in 1000 A.D. because no one felt insecure when the prophet was disrespected.

 

The forces against moderation, tolerance, and peace are very strong. But we must keep in mind that Muslims are human beings. While it’s easy to focus on the bad, many who travel to these countries are struck by the extreme level of warmth, generosity, and hospitality. Muslims believe in chastity and virtue, in holiness and righteousness, in support for the poor and destitute and, yes, in submission to the creator of the universe. These aren’t such bad things. American Muslims are peaceful and productive and only about 20% of the Muslim world fully supports the harsh ideology of terrorist groups.

 

So what should our response be? If the question is how to change individuals’ hearts, the answer is easy: Love. It is what we are commanded to do even in the face of perplexing anger and insults. If the question is how their societies can change, it’s a bit more complicated. Unnecessary aggression or the return of insults never works but neither does appeasement. Maybe the Islamic Martin Luther is alive today. Maybe events some day will cause Muslims to reexamine Al Ghazila. Maybe they will want peace? Until then, I need to figure out how to get those bracelets to market. 

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Don’t vote for Mitt Romney. He’s a rich bastard. That seems to be the totality of Obama/Biden 2012.
 



 

"Let them eat cake."

 



In Hannah Arendt’s long-winded “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, she dissected the roots of anti-semitism. Her big conclusion? People hate the rich. While most Jews were poor, the monarchs in Medieval and Rennaissance Europe were often supported by Jewish bankers. Arendt believed that people have trouble understanding wealth not connected to power. A wealthy king? Not a problem. A rich person without a title? “We should look into that”. In “The Believer”, loosely based on a true story, Ryan Gosling’s character, a Jewish neo-nazi, asked, “Why do we question anti-semitism? Do we ask why we step on a cockroach?” And so, hatred for the rich, maybe like hatred for the Jews, is so ubiquitous because to many, it just feels right.

 

Do the rich deserve our contempt? I, for one, don’t care for them. Frankly, I’m jealous of their cool cars. But shockingly, the rich are like most of us, flawed but not evil.

 

First, let us dispense with one persistent and asinine belief. When the rich get richer, the poor do not get poorer. The economic pie expands and contracts. The supply of wealth is not finite and unchanging. When one person gets rich, they help their neighbor by creating jobs or introducing efficiencies into the economy. If you question this assertion: 1. Stop reading. 2. Slap yourself in the face. 3. Repeat #2.

 

The Robber Barons so denigrated a century ago donated enormous sums of money. Andrew Carnegie gave away 4.8 billion dollars (adjusted for inflation). The Carnegie Foundation currently has assets of 1.5 billion. J. Rockefeller was an ardently religious man who tithed and helped found Spellman, the first all black female college. His wealth has spawned 14 billion (a.f.i.) in donations since 1913 and his foundation gives about 137 million annually. Bill Gates recently challenged the world’s billionaires to pledge the majority of their wealth. About 40 of them have signed the pledge, including Obama supporter Warren Buffett, who pledged 99% of his wealth. Even if many of the rich aren’t particularly generous, most are actually confused taxophile Democrats. On average, the wealthy donate quite a lot. The top 7% contribute half of all America’s charitable giving. Those making over $300,000/yr. give an average of 4.3% of their income. Those under? 2.3%. Interestingly, the poor are actually more generous than everybody but the very wealthiest, giving 30% more of their income than the majority of the rich. Perhaps it is because they know what it means to need and to suffer.

 

 

Occupy Wall Street, a group of people allergic to soap and sense, has rightly called attention to the sins of Wall Street. But only 14% of the wealthiest 1%--about $300,000/yr.--work in finance. The rest of the top five are non-finance executives (31%), doctors (15%), lawyers (8%), and engineering and science types (4%). These are people who actually work. A lot. Complaints about astronomical CEO pay do seem justified, especially when some tank their companies and float away with a golden parachute. Yet, according to former Clinton Treasury Secretary, Robert Reich, the CEO market is highly competitive. CEO’s are not gods but they are usually uber-talented, hold advanced degrees, and work an average of 60 hours/week, sometimes 80-100. The stockholders and boards apparently think they’re worth it.

 

Do the rich commit crimes? Sure, usually white collar crimes. Violent crime is largely a phenomenon of the poor, however. The actual crime rate of the wealthy is difficult to come by as convictions are not tracked by income. What is clear is that nobody fears getting mugged in La Jolla and most of us feel relatively safe from getting defrauded when we invest our money with a financial expert.

 

I saw a bumper sticker recently that said, “If you are not a rich, white, male and you vote Republican, you’re an idiot!” Subtle. So why are many of the middle class conservative? Most don’t focus every bit and tittle of life through the lens of money and class. “You’re rich? Good for you”. We also recognize that targeting the wealthy can actually hurt us. The rich do not hide their money in goose down mattresses. They spend and invest. When they gold plate their toilet seats, they pay a small business to do it and hire a guy who lives across the tracks to install it. When investing is riskier because of higher taxes, they’re pumping less into the economy. Their focus becomes how to keep what they have through tax shelters and other avoidance schemes. How does that help the middle class?

 

Obama is staking his reelection on raising the top income tax rate. The Heritage Foundation estimates it would cost 800,000 jobs. It would bring in a paltry $460 billion over ten years when this year’s deficit alone was $1.5 trillion. He has remarked before that it isn’t all about the numbers; it’s about fairness. But it seems to me that the left doesn’t love the poor nearly as much as they hate the rich. Why? Maybe it’s because they value things like knowledge and art. It is unconscionable to them that an artist would starve or that a professor should have to drive a Chevy while those whose only skill is making money (how crass) have lots of it. Oh, and power. And therein lies the rubber duck. The combatants of class warfare won’t call it what it is: envy. It never really was about helping the poor. If it was, they would actually…..wait for it…..help the poor. This whole thing is just a good, old-fashioned power struggle.

 

One last thing: if you still hate the rich, hate yourself. If you make $34,000/yr., you’re in the top 1% globally. Rich bastard. 

The Borg President

In what might be the world’s first ever anti-cyborg hate crime, surgically enhanced tech professor, Steve Mann, was assaulted by McDonald’s employees in Paris, France. My first thought? “Not surprised”. Parisians are the rudest people in the world. After looking at this guy, my second thought was, “You mean nobody ever smacked this nerd before?” The natural social order of the world was enforced by pimple-faced French teenagers. *

“Resistance is Futile”.

 In the movie “Star Trek: First Contact”, the Borg were a humanoid species wired together in one ship that shared one mind. They were part organic and part electronic like our friend above. President Obama has been criticized as a bit cold and aloof but it’s never been suspected he is part machine. However, he and his philosophical kind have much in common with the Borg and we should be just…as….wary.

On 7/13/12, the president gave a speech that talked about the virtues of government. He reminisced how his grandfather got the GI Bill and an FHA loan and how his single mother went to school on grants and scholarships. “Of course, I’m always struck by people who think, well, (I must be successful) because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help…Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system…that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Now when he said, “You didn’t build that”, he was talking about the roads and bridges. But he did seem to be saying something Americans don’t often hear: If you sacrificed your blood, sweat, and tears, if you risked every penny you had to create a popscicle stand or a multinational corporation, it really wasn’t that special.

Some say it was a gaffe but I think it was one of those rare moments where he spoke his heart. The idea is that because you live in a system with good education, rule of law, and infrastructure, you owe something to that system. That might be true if everybody didn’t already pay taxes for that system in the first place. The business men, high priced lawyers, and wealthy investors have already paid for the roads with gas taxes and for the public school down the street with their property taxes (And they pay double to send their kids to private school.) They already paid for the salaries of their congressmen and the defense of this country by being part of the 5% that pay 58.7% of all income taxes.

What is this liberal obsession with unity, sameness, the collective? The unity rhetoric has always struck me as pure baloney. They don’t mean it. How could they when class warfare is the mother’s milk of the Democratic party? Is there a conservative position they don’t view as primitive or hateful? What they really mean by unity is that humanity is improving and it’s only a matter of time until we all see the light. Theirs is the enlightened position. Liberals push higher education so much, not necessarily because half the professors are to the left of Castro himself, but because they really believe education equals enlightenment and enlightenment is liberalism. So all of humanity is on this march. Some individuals are slower than others but there will be unity one day.

What is instructive is how Progressives, the intellectual fathers of modern liberals such as Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt explained this thinking. With unlimited optimism they had deep faith in historical progress. The dangers of factiousness present at the founding were dust in the wind. They openly despised the Constitution with its protections for property and its idea of God-given Natural Rights. The people confer the rights on themselves. By the people, of course, they meant that perfect representative of the people: the state. Pure democracy was mankind’s salvation. The great irony, however, is their remarkably undemocratic tool for bringing about this whole project. The grand plan was essentially a fourth branch of government: a lifetime tenured, well paid bureaucracy unburdened by the ugliness of special interests, i.e. politics. The dream? An army of enlightened technocrats free to execute the “true” unified will of the people.

In “The New Freedom”, Wilson explained his utopian vision: “We are architects in our time…(and we will build a system of government and society) until finally, a generation or two from now, the scaffolding will be taken away….where men can live as a single community, co-operative as in a perfected, co-ordinated beehive, not afraid of any storm of nature, not afraid of any artificial storm…”

So when our president denigrates individualism and says we all have responsibilities to our society, when he says there are no red states and no blue states, just the United States of America, what he really means is that we’re all one big blue state and we need to get on with the business of letting go of the broken down ideas of the past. When we free our minds and enlighten ourselves, we will finally see his vision. We will become one and be unified in this great Borg ship, I mean beehive. It’s gonna happen. Resistance is futile.

*Steve Mann appears to be a stand up guy who only wants McD’s to pay for the repair of his equipment and to maybe donate some money to vision research.