Towards a New Conservative Paradigm

Since the Republican standard-bearer got his butt kicked in the election, I have heard any number of ridiculous opinions on why we lost so handily and what to do about it.

Why Obama Won So Easily

Take your pick:

• brilliant use of social media
• refusal to compromise
• greatest populist since Perot
• greatest community organizer since Saul Alinsky
• courage to tell lies unabashedly and never repent
• clinging to his credo, come hell or high water

We must decide which of these is true.

Hey, The Campaign Is Over

Some have ridiculed Mr. O's “campaigning” for the “fiscal cliff” by making campaign-style speeches to large crowds around the country. He should be having face-to-face negotiations with Congress, they say.

Au contraire: his strategy is brilliant.

See, after every election, including those by both parties, it is traditional to dismantle the campaign staff, send everyone home, and hire someone to sweep the floors and turn out the lights. Not so with Mr. O: his campaign machine is still running full-throttle and firing on all cylinders. I suspect that this will continue to be so into the 2014/16 elections. This makes for a rather formidable challenge for Republicans from the git-go.

Our Old Message Is Not Enough

Up until now, this is what the conservative wing (now retitled 'tea party' during the last couple of elections) has stood for:

• Second Amendment
• stop the EPA
• against wealth-transfer payments
• fighting abortion
• global warming is a hoax
• reduce the footprint of taxes on the economy
• law and order, military spending

If you were to cook up these ingredients into a stew and serve it for lunch in the California prison system, you would get a citation for cruel-and-unusual-punishment for serving a thin gruel of little nutritional value.

Popular credo seems to have left these in the dust, and conservatives do not seem to have noticed.

What The Punditocracy Says

“Vote like your lady parts depend on it” is the e-card heard 'round the world, and, despite the fact that it was quickly deleted, is the moment when Romney lost the election. See, it communicates the message “we are for you” or “we really care about you”, and notice the important word “you”. For those (especially the well-paid political pundits who flood the airwaves) who think this trivial, I suggest you reread How To Win Friends And Influence People. The effectiveness of this rather shameless pandering?

Humbly suggest you check the final Electoral College tally.

Worse, some have suggested that the more Republican policies resemble those of Democrats, the more votes we will take away. The Bush clan (and, sadly, Cruz), seem to believe that if we surrender on Amnesty, all Mexicans will magically start to vote with us. Rove thinks that all we have to do is triangulate on important issues, and we will clear the table. Both these types of threads got their collective butts kicked in the election.

We will never win by compromising our beliefs and principles.

Step Number 1

We must show Jeb Bush and Karl Rove to the door. full stop. Tell them to not let the screen door hit them on their backsides on the way out.

Conservativism: The Next Generation

We need a new playbook, cuz our old one just ain't gonna do the job. No, I ain't no genius, and do not have the smarts to tell you how to write a new one (a truism I wish a few other prominent pundits would adopt).

Datum #1: we want all of you to be rich, fat, and happy.

Make it easy to start and run your own business. How about making all subchapter S income devoid of taxes below a certain limit? How about preventing local city councils from making it almost impossible to start a new business without a big bankroll and a lawyer on retention to navigate the municipal bureaucracy? How about preventing a new start-up restaurant from being subject to 250 business taxes?

Datum #2: your life will be a great one.

All the Chicken Littles screaming in your ears are totally wrong. You are going to be wealthier, healthier, and happier than your parents. There is no way this is not going to be true.

Datum #3: we are the champs.

The United States of America is the greatest nation to have ever existed. We are all fortunate to be alive at this point in history. We need your help to make it even greater.

Datum #4: we shall never surrender.

Thus intoned Churchill during the darkest hour of WW2. We are who we are, we believe in what we believe in. Never, ever forget that.

Datum #5: prosperity is just around the corner

Ever wonder how FDR presided over the Great Depression that was not only very bad, but got progressively worse under his administration, and still got handily re-elected? He drew pretty pictures of his vision of the future with crayons.

Datum #6: si, pueda.

Reagan, and Nixon before him, won in historic presidential election landslides. They won the electoral votes even in states these days considered to be “blue” and therefore untouchable by current credo: NY and Calif. We did it before, and we can do it again. All we require is courage, something lacking in our presidential nominee for the 2012 elections. What we got was The Cowardly Lion, and he got his butt kicked.

Someone has to start choosing pretty, shiny, colored beads and string them into a necklace that Americans will be proud to own. That task needs to start now, today. Super Tuesday of 2016 is too late.

Mayan Calender Correct – Speaker Bohner Surrenders - End of World

The end of the world, according to the Mayan Calendar, has been widely reported by the major media as predicting the “end of the world” on 12/21/2012. I am still here, enjoying a generic shot of whiskey (yes, I know: cheapskate, on your last day could you at least pop for a bottle Jack Daniels?). Not surprisingly, these propeller-heads got it wrong.

Or did they?

THE TEA PARTY WINS!!!

Surely the end of the world? The tail wagging the dog? For weeks, the Speaker signaled that he would surrender to the Prez, increasing taxes on “the rich”, acceding to the call for class warfare: rich are evil, poor are being cheated. He put all his chips on the table, and put forth his official surrender document for the vote. It lost big time in the House, and you can pin the defeat/victory on the Tea Party. Congress is going home for Christmas with their families, and the proposed surrender of the Republican Party by the Speaker has not occurred.

Either: Hallelujah!!!, or This Is Truly The End.

ABOUT THE MAYAN CALENDAR

Oddly, many moons ago (forgive the rather authentic use of the Coastanoan language), I took a brief archealogical course on Mayan numbering, calendar, and glyphs. You may have heard that they did not have the concept of the number “zero”, and was therefore inferior to the Arabic numbering system.

Poppycock.

The Mayan calendar is based on cycles, ranging from one day to 60 million years. When you reach the end of one cycle, you crank up the next higher level cycle up one and restart the current cycle at “one”.

12/21/2012 marks the end of the current “Baktun” cycle, which occurs every 394 years. This will advance the next “Piktun” cycle, which is 7,885 years per, by one cycle. [accordingly, if we count from the very beginning of the Mayan culture to today, we have not yet traversed one Piktun cycle; yes, there are 4 cycles above the Piktun].

FYI, the lower cycle is “katun”, which is every 19 years. So, by the logic of the NY Times, the world should end every 19 years.

What stupidity.

[note: I no longer have the textbook from a coupl'a decades ago, so the actual numbers above, of which I am not 100% sure, I borrowed from Wikipedia].  

why we cannot criticize Islam or Mohammed

[no, I cribbed this thought, but cannot for the live of me remember where, since I like to give credit where it is due].

Does God Exist?

For now, let us postulate that the answer is “yes”. In that case, does it make sense that he appeared to only one culture? Surely he would have appeared to each and every peoples, speaking to them in ways that are familiar.

Christianity

Politics and religion in our country had their start in the English pub. There, you argue, criticize, speak your mind, freely express your opinion, and debate, no doubt fueled by a pint or two. These are the cultural roots of our Founding Fathers, and is why we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to own guns. It is also why the Protestant church splintered into a thousand pieces, since each is entitled to an opinion.

Islam

Some Arabic peoples originally had their roots in nomadic tribes, a very difficult way of life. Here, order, structure, and obedience are the watchwords. Consensus and agreement is the norm, not criticism or argument. That is why Islam is intolerant of differing viewpoints, and you dare not say anything negative about Mohammed.

In Conclusion

I suspect that this cultural disconnect is why we have such problems with Muslims. No, I absolutely am not advocating multiculturalism. Our culture is reflected in our religion. In both cases, clash does seem to be unavoidable. The question: what do we do about it?

an open letter to the EPA and BLM and DOI from god

To answer your first question: yes, I put my name in lowercase, because I am not so vainglorious as you.

I sat down at my drafting table with T-square, pencil, and eraser (this was before the days when AutoDesk invented the computer program to create blueprints) to design your planet (to answer your second question, yours is not the only inhabited planet in your universe, and, yes, there are multiple universes; and, no, Stephen Hawking does not have the correct solution).

I wanted the “earth”, as you call it, to be a happy, abundant place where living creatures, including humans, can be satisfied. So, I loaded your planet with plants of all sorts and lesser animals so all can eat and enjoy and be full. I made sure that there was such abundance, that running out would not be a problem (OK, I made one or two teeny-weeny mistakes on this account).

It took you a while, but you finally discovered the abundance I put into North America for you to find and use. I filled it with so many lobsters, that you can walk across rivers on their backs. I was disappointed at first when you fed them to your slaves (slavery was an evil I hated, but did not anticipate because I underestimated the treachery of your species) so much so that they petitioned you to feed it to them for only a couple of days a week. I am glad that you have discovered the error of your ways, as you now cherish it and are willing to spend a lot of your resources to enjoy them.

I also loaded up your lands with coal and oil, so you can heat your homes to enjoy warmth, and to create electricity so you can microwave your donuts. I even left other sources of oil, in sand and shale, for you to take at increased effort when the easily drilled pools of oil run out.

So why are some of your race (which you call “EPA” and “BLM” and "DOI") trying to prevent you from using and enjoying the abundance I left for you? I filled your beaches with oysters and clams that are good to eat, so everyone, even the poor and disadvantaged, can enjoy and be full. So why are you preventing farmers from growing oysters in Marin County in California? Besides being good to eat, do you not know that the water is actually cleaner, because I designed oysters to be filter feeders? Others of your kind are preventing you from extracting the oil in rocks in Federal Lands that I left for you to have and use. You also think that coal is evil, while energy from solar is good. Why? Is not energy, in and of itself, good?

You are my children and I love you, even if you do things that I do not fully understand or approve of. 

the Black Market for nuclear materials

Check out this link from AP.
Lest you have any doubt that there is an active, thriving underground market for radioactive isotopes.

The Ugly American, Ugly Mexican, Ugly Han Chinese...

I start with the original message of the novel/movie. In my generation, however, this cliché has metastasized into something uglier still.

The Ugly American In Brazil

When I was in college, a close friend moved to Brazil: his father got a very well paying job, and therefore uprooted his clan to the hot, steamy jungles of the Amazon (well, OK, a well-appointed city on the coast). When he returned, he was puzzled. He lived in a company town where all the Americans lived. In that area, Dutch was the local language, and one said “bon jeer” for “good morning”. Yet, a significant number of residents absolutely refused to use the native words, and steadfastly said “good morning” in a very clear, strong California accent. He could not understand why they would not at least have the courtesy to use some of the more common local words and language, not to mention adopting the local accent.

Sadly, I now have an answer. The folks my friend referred to deliberately and consciously rejected the local language and culture as inferior to the US, and lived in a foreign country only for the $$$ to be gained. Yes, I accuse them of cultural prejudice and racism. As a resident of the United States, I hope you understand my point, as I am about to make an even uglier accusation.

The Ugly Mexican in the United States of America

I have noticed a similar attitude of Mexicans I am acquainted with. They speak English, but only when absolutely necessary, like at work. Shopping and with family and friends and socializing and clubbing and whatever, you will never hear a single word of English: this is by choice, not lack of linguistic ability. They are deliberately refusing to merge with the native culture.

The Ugly Han Chinese in the United States of America

Ditto for Han Chinese I am friends with (I specify “Han” because many, like Uigher, Tibetan, and Mongolian certainly are not ethnic Chinese). They will shop, eat, get haircuts, hire lawyers, plan vacations, exclusively in the Chinatowns in SF and Oakland, not because of better prices or services, but because they know that they will never have to speak a word of English.

Sigh...

I have a tummy ache.