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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Saturday, October 23, 2004
Kerry's Secret Plan My friend Don Kates has used his substantial undercover skills (especially that Amazonian parrot of his) to find out the story on John Kerry's secret plan for Iraq: Since John Kerry announced the existence of his secret plan for victory over terrorism, public and media interest in its secret details has been intense Some of the details are finally surfacing based on perhaps inadvertent comments by the senator and his chief foreign policy adviser, Richard Holbrooke, Predictably the revealed details are stirring up multiple controversies. The controversies have, in turn, prompted various critical revisions of the secret plan. Part Of Why I Appreciate The Guardian Is their ability to make fools of themselves. This is the left-wing British newspaper that tried to recruit fellow left-wing Britons to write letters to Clark County, Ohio, trying to persuade them to vote for George Bush. The results were counterproductive: The cancellation of the project came 24 hours after the first of some 14,000 letters from Guardian readers began arriving in Clark County. The missives led to widespread complaints about foreign interference in a US election.Oh great! This guy (doubtless a Democrat) just called his neighbors parochial illiterates! Wouldn't they like to know who this "senior local politician" is! But I don't understand! If there's an illiteracy problem, why is he worried about his name getting in print? Those hayseeds won't be able to read it anyway! Mr Katz wrote yesterday that the paper had considered the possibility, but "we didn't believe it". He insisted: "Folks in Clark County itself have best recognised the spirit of the enterprise. Local media coverage has been consistently fair and good humoured." Friday, October 22, 2004
Why Are Oil Prices So High? I've heard some of the explanations, and they make some sense: the hurricanes shut down production in the Gulf of Mexico for a while. There has been unrest in Angola. But the Iraq situation shouldn't matter much; they haven't shipped that much oil since Gulf War I. Dan Gifford, a long-time journalist, tells me about the following interesting items that he has heard recently. From financial journalist Jim Cramer (no relation) on CNBC's "Kudlow and Cramer" show: I don't want to sound too conspiratorial here, but there's something about this oil market that just doesn't smell right. Do you think certain big hedge funds could be buying oil contracts to drive the market up in order to make our current leader [George W. Bush] look bad?From Jon Burnham, Burnham Financial Group, October 12, 2004, CNBC-TV, "Closing Bell" 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM ET: The price of oil is high because it's being pushed up by speculators and money from the big hedge funds. The important thing that gets lost in all that is that there is no shortage of crude oil in relation to current demand.And from Adel al-Jubeir, Advisor to the Saudi Crown Prince September 28, 2004 at about 1:40 PM Pacific time, CNBC interview with Maria Bartaromo: We believe the price of oil should be between $22 and $28 per barrel. $25 is a good reasonable price. There is no extra demand accompanying today's very high price for oil. We are seeing no extra customers lined up and there is no shortage of supply. The high prices we are seeing are due to speculation in the oil markets.Then we have this interesting item from the New Yorker (of all places): On August 6th, a week after the Democratic Convention, a clandestine summit meeting took place at the Aspen Institute, in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The participants, all Democrats, were sworn to secrecy, and few of them will discuss the event. One thing that is certain, however, is that the guests formed a tableau that not many people would associate with the Democratic Party of the past. Five billionaires joined half a dozen liberal leaders in a lengthy conversation about the future of progressive politics in America. The billionaires were not especially close socially, nor were they in complete agreement about politics or strategy. Yet they shared a common goal: to use their fortunes to engineer the defeat of President George W. Bush in the 2004 election.Now, the Quantum Fund is no stranger to oil trading. But what is interesting is another remark in the New Yorker article. After explaining that Soros has contributed $18.5 million to defeat George Bush: Critics of Soros see his donations as brazenly hypocritical, considering that, until recently, he was a leading crusader for campaign-finance reform in America. Starting in the late nineteen-nineties, he donated eighteen million dollars to groups that supported the cause, and he is credited with having contributed significantly to the passage of the McCain-Feingold law. When Soros was asked about this reversal, he said, “This is the most important election of my lifetime. These aren’t normal times. The ends justify every legal means possible.”Now, Soros has said in the past that he would give away all his billions if he could be guaranteed of defeating Bush--and you wonder, since Soros has been a big player in currency markets in the past, if he could be manipulating oil prices right now. Remember this: until oil prices started skyrocketing in early summer, the economy seemed to be flying upwards. What would it cost for Soros, Lewis, and some of the other billionaires to manipulate oil markets? It doesn't have to last for long--just long enough to derail the economy into October. You don't need to actually buy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of oil. You can buy and sell oil future delivery contracts for a fraction of the final delivery price. (This highly leveraged nature of futures contracts is why you can make--or lose--an enormous amount of money in commodities trading.) Once you start playing with the price of a commodity, and causing panic buying, you can jerk the price up--or down--quite impressively. I don't know for sure, but I would guess that people at Soros's level can probably spend two or three billion dollars to adjust future prices of 50 or 100 times that much oil--at least for a few months. The Quantum Fund was, back in the 1990s, what is called a "global macro fund", described this way: By borrowing money to buy and sell futures contracts—themselves a powerful form of leverage—macro funds possessed the capability to move indexes like Japan's Nikkei or to influence significantly the value of important international currencies.Now, supposedly the Quantum Fund isn't that powerful anymore. But is it powerful enough? Soros also returned to an active role in the Quantum Fund in 2002--after 9/11, when it became apparent that Soros was going to have to do something to bring down George Bush. Large scale commodities market manipulation can't continue indefinitely, and you can lose your shirt on this sort of thing--but Soros has already said that he was willing to lose it all to defeat Bush. On the other hand, with a little care, he might actually make money. This article reports: Soros, the founder of Quantum Endowment Fund, one of the world's largest hedge funds, was dubbed "The Man who broke the Bank of England" for his role in betting heavily that the pound would fall in 1992. As a result, Britain suffered a humiliating exit from Europe's exchange rate mechanism -- the precursor to Europe's 12-nation currency. It was rumored that Soros earned $1 billion in a day with his bet against the British pound.Of course, I doubt that an oil play like this could be kept secret indefinitely--but certainly, President Kerry's Justice Department isn't going to prosecute George Soros for winning him the election. If we suddenly see oil prices drop down again after the election, I certainly hope the Bush Administration will take a serious look at possible market manipulation. But if Bush loses, there won't be investigation at all. "If It Leeds, It Bleeds" This used to be operating rule of local television news. I guess the problem has spread to "respectable" journalism: BAGHDAD, Iraq--Basking in the sun by the Al Hamra Hotel swimming pool, a Spanish journalist complained to me that "all my editors want is blood, blood, blood. No context. No politics." Hmmm, I Don't Know What To Make Of This Okay, WorldNetDaily is somewhat out on the fringe in a lot of ways. What shall we make of this story about the bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics? Richard Clarke and the Clinton administration were understandably worried about terrorism. At one high-level planning meeting before the Olympics, Clarke has even theorized that terrorists might hijack a 747 and crash it into Olympic stadium. Remember the Bojinka-related "planes as bombs" plot. But in the "feel good" Olympic games of 1996, in the lead up to the Clinton re-nomination, when "everything is wonderful," no official even speculates as to whether Islamic terrorists might be behind the Olympic bombing. An Amazing Quote From John Kerry He really has taken this "internationalist" idea a bit far, at least for an American President: Kerry's belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, he said, "If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no."Now, if the John Birch Society claimed that Kerry had said this, I would wonder about its accuracy. But this is from the Washington Post. Another Suppression of Free Speech A movie theater wanted to show a film critical of one of the candidates--and the threats of violence by the candidate's supporters caused the movie theater to cancel the showing, out of fear. One guess which side is using fascist tactics: The emotion of this politically charged presidential election got the best of some people. People who came out to see the anti-Kerry film, "Stolen Honor" were already upset that management of the Baederwood Theater cancelled the showing after threats of civil disturbances.You know, leftists had better think long and hard about their willingness to use violence and threats of violence to suppress free speech. Do they really want to turn violence into an acceptable form of political activity, especially when our side has most of the guns? Interesting Documentary That Should Change A Lot of Minds But few Americans will ever see it, probably because it would change too many minds about the election. It discusses the problems of guerilla warfare, during and after occupation. It pulls no punches: U.S. forces repeatedly violated the Geneva Convention in frustration, killing prisoners. The insurgents set off bombs, set mines in roadways, killed collaborators who worked with us, and killed our soldiers. Even those that weren't trying to kill us didn't want us there. We imprisoned 200,000 people, and tried 100,000. There were a lot of rapes and other forms of sexual abuse committed by allied troops. But I guess that's where the differences start. You see, we executed at least 800 people for their involvement with the previous government. When Nazi guerillas operating in civilian clothes killed our soldiers, our military engaged in criminal behavior, executing without trial German soldiers who had been taken prisoner while obeying the law of land warfare. We tried and executed large numbers of German "Werewolf" fighters who were engaged in warfare even though not wearing uniforms, by military trial. Even two years later, some of these units were carrying out assassinations and bombings in German cities. It took four years before Germany (at least, West Germany) was able to hold democratic elections, and ten years before we and the other allied powers gave Germany full authority over its own affairs--and we still have troops in Germany (although not as an occupying force). I really wish that every American could see this documentary, and understand that what is going on Iraq is really not all that startling. There is, of course, one difference: Truman's political opponents weren't calling us evil for having overthrown Hitler, and ending a government that engaged in genocide and torture. Moral Absolutism & Moral Relativism Professor Volokh disagrees with Mike Adams's claim that Clifton Snider's problem is "moral relativism": This argument that the Leftist excesses in the academy stem from "moral relativism" is one I've heard often -- but I wonder why we should think that moral relativism is the problem. In fact, as Prof. Adams points out, Prof. Clifton's error is that he's too morally dogmatic: He's so wedded to his position being morally right that he blinds himself to the possibilities that (1) he's mistaken, (2) even if he's correct, others may disagree with him without being bigoted or foolish, (3) in any event, it may be wrong for him to use his English class to spread his moral views about the Bush Administration or whatever else.There are actually two separate issues here. Clifton Snider at CSULB is clearly a moral absolutist about homosexuality; if you disapprove of it, you are a homophobe, and you are going to burn in hell (or whatever the secular equivalent of it is). For many years, as I was growing up, the argument in favor of allowing homosexuality (and then requiring everyone to approve of it) was that there are no moral absolutes, and therefore what two guys do in private is no one's business but their own. I don't think that anyone making that argument really believed it; the real issue was that homosexuals knew that the dominant moral code of American society said that homosexuality was wrong, and the conflict between what they did, and a moral abolutist position, meant that they had to jettison one or the other. The complete moral relativist position--there is nothing right or wrong, whatever you want to do--is at least philosophically consistent. But few people believe in it, because then it allows homophobia, racism, sexism, apartheid, destruction of Mother Earth, eating meat, etc. A true moral relativist is reduced to defending his position, whatever that may be, by appealing to the listener's self-interest or selflessness. If he fails to persuade everyone else of his position, the moral relativist might not be happy, but since he doesn't believe in right and wrong, what's left? He can't even get all self-righteous about it, and mean it. What I, and many others object to, is the claim that moral absolutism is WRONG (with capital letters and all the disapproval that goes with it)--followed up with what Clifton Snider is doing at CSULB. Dr. Snider is only doing openly what is actually a widespread but less openly stated view in many universities: "You are a sinner, because you do not worship at the idol of Political Correctness. We will hammer you in lectures and mark you down in classes until you see the error of your ways, and abandon your heresy. Be glad that we don't have the authority of the auto da fe... yet." What Dr. Snider is revealing is the fanaticism that gave us the Inquisition, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the Holocaust, the Killing Fields, and the Gulag Archipelago--a desperate fear that someone doesn't agree with you--and you know better. I believe that there are moral absolutes; as I said above, almost everyone does. The difference is that I am sufficiently secure in my intellectual position that I don't immediately discount everyone that disagrees with me as a idiot or a fool. (But work at it--you can persuade me of that!) I have changed my political positions over the years, usually because I have found that a very ideologically satisfying argument did not fit my real world experiences very well. As the saying goes, "An ounce of experience is worth a pound of theory." As an example, I used to be a big fan of drug decriminalization. I still think that some form of it could be useful, but living in a place like Sonoma County where, for practical purposes, nearly all drugs are legal, effectively free, and supplied to many kids by their parents, makes me shudder at a full libertarian decriminalization strategy. Occasionally, a very persuasive argument has caused me to rethink my position--sometimes because the argument is thoughtful, and sometimes because the ugliness of the counterargument has shaken me. I still oppose a complete ban on elective abortions, but only because such a law is not currently enforceable. You can't look at pictures of aborted fetuses anymore than you can look at pictures of corpses at Auschwitz without saying, "What happened here? Is this really something that shouldn't bother me?" I look forward to the day when 85% of the population agrees that elective abortions will be severely limited (perhaps for rape, incest, and life-threatening deformities), and the Constitution is amended to correct this. I guess that's the difference between Dr. Snider and myself. I am not ashamed to call myself a moral absolutist. How You Can Tell Liberals Have Been In Your Schools It's the gags on the students: A federal district judge has ordered Michigan’s Ann Arbor Public Schools to pay $102,738 in attorney fees and costs in a case involving a high school’s refusal to let a Christian student express her views on homosexuality.Of course, it isn't just in Michigan. It's pretty clear from reading Dr. Clifton Snider's web page that there is a reason he doesn't tolerate opposition to gay marriage--or maybe it is just a coincidence that he is rather specialized in Oscar Wilde. There's nothing wrong with Oscar Wilde's literature--but let's not forget that he and lot of his circle spent their time hiring poor little boys for sex--sometimes traveling to countries even more impoverished than England to hire them cheap. This topic came up when my wife took Victorian Literature some years ago, but of course, since Wilde & friends were going after little boys, not little girls, the professor did her best to make excuses for it. (Let me add that you can find great intellectuals chasing little girls at the time, too. Flaubert wrote a rather graphic description of his sexual use of 13 and 14 year old Egyptian girls.) Oh yes: homosexuals are just like the rest of us, except for who they love--and often they beat those that they love. At least, that's what homosexuals seem to be saying: (CNSNews.com) - The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association is launching a first-of-its-kind "LGBT Relationship Violence Project" to educate medical professionals about domestic violence in lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender communities.One in three? I know that there is domestic violence in straight homes; my wife and I are trying to help out in a couple of situations that we know about here in Boise. But one in three? I managed to get all the way to 15 years old before I was even aware that domestic violence existed. I was sitting in a car with my mother in Oregon, and I saw a guy in a car not far from us suddenly and without apparent provocation hit the woman in the passenger's seat. If the sun had suddenly exploded, I could not have been more startled: men hitting women? What? UPDATE: I received an email from someone who runs a website devoted to raising awareness of domestic violence. One of the links was to a page from the Family Violence Treatment and Education Association: The overall rate of physical assaults by men against their female partners is 11- 12 per 100 couples; the rate is 12 - 13 per 100 couples for women against their male partners.If there were no overlap between the men battering women and the women battering men, then the overall rate for the general population would be about 23-25% of couples. However, I hope that this won't be a surprise when I tell you that there is overlap. You find couples where the man beats the woman, and never the other way around, and vice versa--but from what I have seen, it is pretty common for both to be present in one couple. I would be surprised if the rate for the general population is higher than 20%. It still shows that LGBT relationships have much higher rates of domestic violence than the average for the population. I presume that this figure for the general population includes LGBT couples, although since there are so few of them, they probably don't increase the average very much. Remember that homosexual men are about 4-4.5% of the male population, and lesbians are about 1-2% of the female population. I would also suspect that lesbians, in spite of being quite rare compared to male homosexuals, are probably half of the long-term homosexual relationships. Imagine If This Guy Were A Christian... And his guidelines for writing a paper included: Subjects to AvoidDo you suppose that California State University Long Beach wouldn't fire him, immediately? So explain why Dr. Clifton Snider gets away with this? He explains that there are certain topics that are not acceptable: 4. Topics on which there is, in my opinion, no other side apart from chauvinistic, religious, or bigoted opinions and pseudo-science (for example, female circumcision, prayer in public schools, same-sex marriage, the so-called faith-based initiative, abortion, hate crime laws, the existence of the Holocaust, and so-called creationism). For example, see Terrence McNally's "Just a Love Story," Los Angeles Times, 13 February 2004: B15. McNally correctly concludes that those who oppose same-sex marriage do so for one reason: homophobia. "Homophobia," as Robert Goss points out, "is the socialized state of fear, threat, aversion, prejudice, and irrational hatred of the feelings of same-sex attraction" (Jesus Acted Up: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto, New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993: 1). In other words, homophobia is to gays and lesbians what racism is to people of color. Neither homophobia nor racism can be tolerated in civilized, rational debate; therefore, I will not accept either as arguments, however disguised, in your papers.His guidelines for a research paper just take my breath away, because in each and every case, when there is a political nature to a suggested topic, he presents one and only one possible perspective as the basis for a paper: 2. "Recreational" Drugs (legalization of, medicinal use of; you must know the current legal status of these issues at both the state and federal levels). For marijuana, probably the best approach is to narrow your topic to medicinal use. See Eric Bailey's "Key Court Victories Boost Medical Marijuana Movement," Los Angeles Times, 23 December 2003: B1+. Even the usually conservative Press-Telegram is calling for a "carefully regulated system of legalization and high taxation" of drugs (editorial, "Gangs and Prohibitions," 3 October 2004: A20).In a very few cases, Dr. Snider presents politically charged questions in a form that is neutral (often because it is so brief): 23. Hiroshima: Was Dropping the Bomb Immoral?But it is just astonishing that so many of his topics are so obviously biased to the left, both in how the question is asked, and how the sources he suggests are biased in that direction. As an example, the gun control topic could have suggested a couple of articles by Dr. John Lott as well--but that would involve admitting that there is more than one side. Just to add to the fascist tendencies of Dr. Snider, when Mike Adams took Dr. Snider to task for this narrow-mindededness, Dr. Snider insisted that Adams was violating his copyright by reproducing parts of it. You can see the nasty letter from Dr. Snider here, and Mike Adams' response: Being exposed as an ideological bigot isn’t much fun, is it? It is especially disheartening when you have been bullying helpless college students and finally encounter an opponent that you cannot control. That would be me.What's really funny is how Dr. Snider has updated his guidelines: Notice to my students: someone has published illegally in what purports to be an "article" material from my web site, that is, portions of my assignments. The article, among many misrepresentations, implies I require that you write about certain topics.Gee, Dr. Snider tells his students that certain topics are unacceptable, because if you disagree with Dr. Snider, you are expressing "chauvinistic, religious, or bigoted opinions and pseudo-science...." Dr. Snider certainly has the right to assign topics for a class. The question is: should tax dollars be used to pay for political indoctrination? UPDATE: I see that one of Dr. Snider's students has filed a complaint: A Long Beach student has filed a complaint against Snider for using an hour and a half of his English class instructional time to talk about his disapproval of George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.I can't claim to be surprised, really. My wife and I both had professors who believed that the primary purpose of a university classroom was to engage in political indoctrination, often without even a pretense of relevance to the subject in question. Examples: a "Music of the World" class in which the professor ranted about how whites trashed the environment, unlike the Indians, who lived in harmony with nature. (If you don't recognize that as factually challenged polemic, you have some reading to do.) A "Critical Thinking" class where the professor used most of the lecture time to attack President Bush Sr. for the Gulf War. A "Womens Studies" class where the professor became incensed because my wife actually did what she was supposed to do: critically evaluate a paper about White Privilege and Male Privilege. Thereafter, for the remainder of the semester, when my wife would raise her hand, the professor would say, "No questions? Okay." Thursday, October 21, 2004
Okay, Identify The Political Leanings of This Writer I won't tell you who wrote it--just listen to the statements, and tell me if this is a leftist, liberal, conservative--and then guess what magazine this appeared in: Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, American Spectator, Village Voice, The Nation? Structurally, the United Nations is utterly incapable of assuring the rule of law and human rights in many of its member countries. Human rights abusers Russia and China, for example, have veto powers in the Security Council. And of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, composed of many unremitting human rights abusers, Sudan itself is a proud member.Okay: he's promoting the idea of a coalition of nations intervening without UN approval in the affairs of other nations. He holds the UN in contempt. Ready to make your guesses? Nat Hentoff, old-time civil libertarian (a fairly quaint creature in modern leftist terms), writing in the Village Voice. One of the reasons that I respect Hentoff, even though I often disagree with him on particular issues, is that he actually stands for something--human rights--and he does so consistently, not just when it is a chance to pro-UN and anti-American. Some of the other parts of the article are worth reading, too: A woman and teenage girl who were raped and abducted by soldiers in western Darfur have claimed that the Sudanese army organized airlifts of sex slaves to serve as the "wives" of government soldiers in Khartoum. . . . "Each of us was raped by between three and six men," said Bokur [Hamis, 21]. "One woman refused to have sex with them, so they split her head into pieces with an axe in front of us." —Benjamin Joffe-Walt, Sunday Telegraph, London, September 19A previous week's column points out that part of what prevents UN action is Sudan's oil industry, which has bought off many nations--including the ones that John Kerry thinks should have some sort of veto power over U.S. foreign policy: In a recent study, Reeves focuses on "the many European and Asian companies that are now propping up the Khartoum regime by means of large commercial investments and capital projects," and as a result, becoming accomplices in genocide.Isn't it amazing that the left has been screeching "No blood for oil" but seems to turn a blind eye to what is much more clearly the corrupt exchange of oil for murder, torture, and rape? I suspect that this is for a very simple reason: the left's primary motivation is the destruction of human rights. For all their efforts to pretend that the Soviet Union was a perversion of communism, the evidence is clear enough, when they refuse to turn any of their rage at George Bush against the Islamic government of Sudan, or nations like Russia and China. The Mackris/O'Reilly Suit I see from CNN's coverage that O'Reilly's attorneys are demanding that if Mackris has tapes of O'Reilly's disgusting phone conversations (which the length and detail of the claimed quotes in the complaint would suggest), that they produce and play those tapes in open court. At first glance, this looks like the actions of someone who is confident that the tapes don't support Mackris's claims, or provide some context that might demolish the claim of sexual harrassment. For example: some of the conversations might have involved Mackris as the aggressor--which would make O'Reilly look like a real cad, but destroy the sexual harrassment claim. However, there is another possibility: if Mackris taped these conversations, and did so unlawfully, then producing those tapes would open her up to criminal prosecution, and I think prevent those tapes from being used in court. But according to this website, New York is one of those states where it is lawful for one party to record a phone conversation without informing the other party. Since it appears that the vast majority of these alleged conversations involved two New Yorkers (O'Reilly and Mackris), I can't see that this strategy would help O'Reilly at all. Perhaps there's some subtle point here that I am missing, but if O'Reilly did indeed do something wrong, demanding that Mackris play the tapes gains O'Reilly nothing, and destroys O'Reilly's reputation. If O'Reilly did nothing wrong, or at least nothing that qualifies as sexual harrassment, demanding that Mackris play the tapes makes lots of sense for O'Reilly--and no sense for Mackris at all. If there are no tapes--then Mackris's complaint starts to smell like fiction. UPDATE: Drudge Report, relying upon unnamed sources, is reporting that Mackris is deeply in debt--consistent with the possibility that she made up (or embellished) this story to solve her financial problems. More Reactionary Narrow-Minded Talk By Bill Cosby He was being a pest in Milwaukee, this time: "It is not all right for your 15-year-old daughter to have a child," the comedian said Wednesday night. "I'm 67 years old. I'm not talking to you any different from a grandfather who would say, 'I wouldn't do that if I were you.'" Neck and Neck Real Clear Politics electoral vote map shows Bush with 227 votes, and Kerry with 206--and 105 votes still battleground. If Bush wins Florida and Pennsylvania, or Florida and Ohio, or Pennsylvania and Ohio and New Hampshire, that puts him over the top. Kerry, on the other hand, has to win Ohio, Pennsylvania, and at least three other states to win. More On Why Blacks Are Slipping Out of the Safe Democratic Column This article from the Boston Globe, earlier this year, discusses the pivotal role of black clergy--historically part of the liberal coalition--in opposing same-sex marriage in Massachusetts: The three major associations of Greater Boston's black clergy, exercising their considerable influence within the minority community and asserting moral authority on civil rights matters, have shaken up the debate over same-sex marriage with their insistence that the quest by gays and lesbians for marriage licenses is not a civil rights issue.No, Mr. Rushing, they are recognizing that the analogy that homosexuals use to being black is bogus. A handful of leading black clergy in Boston are prominent supporters of gay marriage, but all work in historically white denominations. They include the Rev. William G. Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association; the Rev. Peter J. Gomes, the American Baptist minister who is minister of Harvard University's Memorial Church; and Bishop Gayle E. Harris, a suffragan bishop in the Episcopal diocese of Massachusetts.It would have been nice if the reporter had mentioned that Rev. Gomes might have a conflict of interest on this, being openly gay. But within historically black churches, where most black Protestants worship, there appears to be a near consensus that marriage should be defined as the union of a man and a woman. Among those who have voiced their opposition are the Rev. Ray A. Hammond, pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain, the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III, pastor of the Azusa Christian Community, and the Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown, pastor of Union Baptist Church in Cambridge.Exactly. What was wrong with laws against interracial marriage was that they were contrary to the Biblical truths upon which this nation was founded. I am hoping that the Bush campaign will emphasize the yawning gap between Bush and Kerry on not only same-sex marriage (where Kerry has taken both sides, as usual), but also on the question of whether judges may impose same-sex marriage on the states (where Kerry, for once, hasn't waffled). Of course, that would require Bush to really, really want to win. There are days I find myself feeling like Bush Jr. is as bad as Bush Sr.--neither seemed to really want to win--at least, not badly enough to offend the liberals. Oh Dear, Some Nasty Person is Accusing Kerry of Being A Liberal Yes, well-known right-winger Michael Moore: Moore said Kerry may not be perfect, but is far superior to former Vice President Al Gore and this year's other Democratic presidential hopefuls. "There's a reason that they're saying Kerry is the No. 1 liberal in the Senate," said Moore. "It's because he is the No. 1 liberal in the Senate." Washington State Really Is Becoming California A school district in Puyallup, Washington, banned Halloween costumes and celebrations in the schools, and gave three reasons. Two of them make perfect sense, and the third one? Well, this story really catches the insanity well: The superintendent made the decision for three primary reasons, Hansen said. First, Halloween parties and parades waste valuable classroom time. Second, some families can't afford costumes and the celebrations thus can create embarrassment for children. Do Facts Even Matter Anymore? I found this news story from about a month ago that didn't seem to get much attention: Investigations have shown that the former Iraqi dictator grafted and smuggled more than $10 billion from the program that for seven years prior to Saddam's overthrow was meant to bring humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis. And the Sept. 11 Commission has shown a tracery of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda (search) that continued after billions of Oil-for-Food dollars began pouring into Saddam's coffers and Usama bin Laden (search) declared his infamous war on the U.S. Right Down to the Wire... This is going to be very, very close. Yes, Bush has a lead in a number of the polls, but it is a lead within the 95% confidence intervals for surveys of this size. Ordinarily, I wouldn't worry too much, because Democrats tend to be less motivated than Republicans to vote--but this is not an ordinary year. The Democrats have engaged in a campaign of lies unprecedented in my memory, of which Fahrenheit 9/11 is the centerpiece, and the "Rock the Vote" lies using a faked draft notice--with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's faked signature--is the most outrageous. The Democratic Party has decided that getting the White House matters more than protecting liberal democracy from Islamofascism. The cynicism of this strategy takes my breath away--and I have regarded the Democratic Party with contempt for a very long time. Perhaps most of the best examples of the "tell them anything to get elected" nonsense was Edwards claim that electing Kerry was equivalent to visiting a faith healer. As Charles Krauthammer (an MD, although apparently paralysis during medical school turned him into a columnist instead) observes: This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: "If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."Is there anything more cynical and loathsome than Edwards' performance? It makes me long for the 1984 campaign of Walter Mondale who was an unashamed liberal, and claimed that the government could do all sorts of wonderful things for those in need--but never claimed that the government was God. Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Very Specialized Thieves My neighbor came back from deer hunting about 1:00 PM, and parked in his driveway. He was hot and dirty, and went in to take a shower. When he came back a couple hours later, the deer was still in his Jeep--but his rifle, binoculars, and hunting knife were no longer in the front seat. Well, no surprise there. Even in Idaho, there are thieves. But the story gets more bizarre. I asked him to describe the rifle. Browning A-Bolt Stainless Stalker, .270 Winchester, with a Bausch & Lomb Elite 3000 scope. The binoculars were Nikons. (So my neighbor has good taste.) He mentions a friend who lives about a mile over was recently burgled, and the thieves took just two rifles, binoculars, and a hunting knife. His friend calls, having just heard about my neighbor's burglary. What were the two rifles stolen from his friend? Browning A-Bolt Stainless Stalkers, with Leupold scopes. What's going on here? Is this a very selective, very discriminating thief, with exquisite taste? The coincidence is just a little too hard to imagine. The Dishonesty of the Democrats Rock the Vote is still using a fake draft notice to scare young people into voting for Kerry. When you click on it, it takes you to a discussion of the draft that says this: The possibility of a new military draft is not a hoax or an Internet rumor. It's a real issue and it demands real answers.Real answers have been given. There is no support for a draft by the President, by the military, by Congress. The only people who seem to want a draft are the Democrats who introduced a draft bill. Deeper down, you find this dishonest piece of doubletalk: This is not a hoax. Congress voted tonight on the military draft.So "Rock the Vote" says that we should get on the case of the 402 members of Congress who voted against a draft. Why doesn't this say, "Any Member of Congress who votes for this bill should be able to explain why we need a draft"? The dishonesty of the Democratic Party is just beyond belief. More Voter Registration Fraud This news report would seem to suggest that George Soros and the other leftist billionaires received a bit less than they hoped for with these voter registration drives: COLUMBUS - Thousands of cards mailed by county election boards to newly registered voters in Hamilton County and throughout the state are being returned because the people can't be found.I'm glad that many of these Democratic operatives are too stupid to insert real addresses, but I worry about the ones who are smart. If you registered Bob Jones, Max Jones, John Jones, and Larry Jones to vote at the same address, the post office would certainly deliver registration cards for all of them. How would they know how many Jones' lived at that address? Bob Jones goes and votes in person--and Max, John, and Larry all vote absentee ballot. How would you know that there is only Bob Jones living there? You wouldn't. Voter fraud is a rather fundamental part of how the Democratic Party operates, at least in the places where I have lived. When I ran for Santa Monica City Council in 1981, there were some amazing things that I found while talking to people and walking precincts. At the time, the registrar was removing voters from the rolls if they had not voted in the 1978 or 1980 general elections--yet when I talked to apartment managers, they told me that some of the people that I was trying to find had been dead for four years. I was told that there were fourteen people registered to vote in the two bedroom house across the street from Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda's house in Ocean Park. Another source, a mailman, told me |
