Obama & McCain

by Thomas Sowell.

Now that the two parties have finally selected their presidential candidates, it is time for a sober— if not grim— assessment of where we are.

Not since 1972 have we been presented with two such painfully inadequate candidates. When election day came that year, I could not bring myself to vote for either George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I stayed home.

This year, none of us has that luxury. While all sorts of gushing is going on in the media, and posturing is going on in politics, the biggest national sponsor of terrorism in the world— Iran— is moving step by step toward building a nuclear bomb.

The point when they get that bomb will be the point of no return. Iran’s nuclear bomb will be the terrorists’ nuclear bomb— and they can make 9/11 look like child’s play.

All the options that are on the table right now will be swept off the table forever. Our choices will be to give in to whatever the terrorists demand— however outrageous those demands might be— or to risk seeing American cities start disappearing in radioactive mushroom clouds.

All the things we are preoccupied with today, from the price of gasoline to health care to global warming, will suddenly no longer matter.

Just as the Nazis did not find it enough to simply kill people in their concentration camps, but had to humiliate and dehumanize them first, so we can expect terrorists with nuclear weapons to both humiliate us and force us to humiliate ourselves, before they finally start killing us.

They have already telegraphed their punches with their sadistic beheadings of innocent civilians, and with the popularity of videotapes of those beheadings in the Middle East.

Every weekday NewsAndOpinion.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider “must-reading”. HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It’s free. Just click here.

They have already telegraphed their intention to dictate to us with such things as Osama bin Laden’s threats to target those places in America that did not vote the way he prescribed in the 2004 elections. He could not back up those threats then but he may be able to in a very few years.

The terrorists have given us as clear a picture of what they are all about as Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did during the 1930s— and our “leaders” and intelligentsia have ignored the warning signs as resolutely as the “leaders” and intelligentsia of the 1930s downplayed the dangers of Hitler.

We are much like people drifting down the Niagara River, oblivious to the waterfalls up ahead. Once we go over those falls, we cannot come back up again.

What does this have to do with today’s presidential candidates? It has everything to do with them.

One of these candidates will determine what we are going to do to stop Iran from going nuclear— or whether we are going to do anything other than talk, as Western leaders talked in the 1930s.

There is one big difference between now and the 1930s. Although the West’s lack of military preparedness and its political irresolution led to three solid years of devastating losses to Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, nevertheless when all the West’s industrial and military forces were finally mobilized, the democracies were able to turn the tide and win decisively.

But you cannot lose a nuclear war for three years and then come back. You cannot even sustain the will to resist for three years when you are first broken down morally by threats and then devastated by nuclear bombs.

Our one window of opportunity to prevent this will occur within the term of whoever becomes President of the United States next January.

At a time like this, we do not have the luxury of waiting for our ideal candidate or of indulging our emotions by voting for some third party candidate to show our displeasure— at the cost of putting someone in the White House who is not up to the job.

Senator John McCain has been criticized in this column many times. But, when all is said and done, Senator McCain has not spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America.

On the contrary, he has paid a huge price for resisting our enemies, even when they held him prisoner and tortured him. The choice between him and Barack Obama should be a no-brainer.

The Jeep

I’ve decided to avoid writing anymore about the process of buying a car and what not -at least for now.  I may come back to it, but the bad taste is still too fresh in my mind.  Don’t get me wrong, I got what I believe to be a good deal and absolutely LOVE the vehicle I chose, but it was a LOT of work to carefully find and choose a vehicle.  My brother would most likely say I capitulated too early and gave in to the dealer, but I was in a quandary for someone with my particular outlook on life and things that take a great deal of effort:  when faced with the vehicle one wants at the price one had prepared one’s self to pay, what, exactly does one do?  This “one”, my friends, makes the deal and drives home in this:

The (@$%#) Art of Buying an Automobile, Part One

So. The Wife and I have decided it is time to get a slightly larger auto, what with our new addition to the family and the immense amount of stuff that seems to simply “come with” girls of any age. (It may also be largely due to the fact that our 12 year old Maxima, the only car we have that can fit all of us at once, has over 200K miles on it, has no A/C, no radio, won’t pass emissions testing and has tags that expired in April…) ANYWAY…We do things a little differently in our family, though it all seems to somehow make sense to us. What with gas prices being astronomically high these days, many people are trying to cheaply offload their SUV’s in favor of these fancy hybrids and smaller autos that get much better gas mileage and are desperately trying to avoid larger, less gas-miserly vehicles. These people are certainly smart. However, some other also smart people that don’t get talked about a lot are those people who go out at times like these and look specifically for autos others are trying to get rid of and thus end up getting superb deals and finding themselves able to afford ALOT more car than they originally imagined. That’s right, The Wife and I are looking for SUV’s. You may think this is odd, but it makes sense to us to pay a few thousand dollars less for a car that will cost us a little extra in gas prices. Most importantly we really don’t drive all that much TBH, with church being about the farthest we regularly drive. To make a long story short, I hope to be driving a 2002-2004 Jeep Liberty Sport by the time I sit down to write another blog. My next blog will chronicle my journey through the maze of financing, credit, car dealers and raw desire for things simply out of my price range…

Know Anything about 1940?

**THIS BLOG WAS MOVED HERE FROM MYSPACE.  IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON AUGUST 14, 2007**

Ah, history. It has a way of getting “revised” , “edited” or simply forgotten over time. I just can’t help myself, I’m a Sowell-ite.

Those old enough to remember World War II face many painful reminders of how things have changed in Americans’ behavior during a war. Back then, the president’s defeated opponent in the 1940 election — Wendell Wilkie — not only supported the war, he became a personal envoy from President Roosevelt to Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

We were all in it together — and we knew it. People who had been highly critical of American foreign policy before we were attacked at Pearl Harbor now fell silent and devoted themselves to winning the war.

What if the people, institutions, and attitudes of today were somehow taken back in time to World War II? What would have been the result? Would we have ended up winning or losing that war?

What about the great cry of the hour, a cease fire?

It so happens that World War II had the biggest cease fire in history. It was called “the phony war” because, although France was officially at war with Germany, the French did very little fighting for months, while the bulk of the German army was in Poland and France had overwhelming military superiority on the western front.

Famed correspondent William L. Shirer reported on the “unreal” western front, with soldiers “on both sides looking but not shooting.” German soldiers bathed in the Rhine and waved to French soldiers on the other side, who waved back. During this period Hitler offered to negotiate peace with France and England. Kofi Anan would have loved it.

On November 19, 1939, Shirer’s diary reported: “For almost two months now there has been no military action on land, sea, or in the air.” On January 1, 1940, he wrote, “this phony kind of war cannot continue long.” But it was now exactly four months since war was declared. How is that for a cease fire?

Did this de facto cease fire lead to peace? No. Like other cease fires, it helped the aggressor.

It gave Hitler time to move his divisions from the eastern front, after they had conquered Poland, to the western front, facing France.

Now that military superiority along the Rhine had shifted in favor of the German armies, the war suddenly went from being phony to being devastatingly real.

Hitler attacked and France collapsed in six weeks.

Eventually, by 1945, allied armies had both Germany and Japan retreating. What would have happened if we had had Kofi Anan and the mushy mindset called “world opinion” at work then?

Kofi Anan would undoubtedly have called for a cease fire.

He could have pointed out that the American response to Germany was wholly “disproportionate” because the Germans had never landed troops in America or bombed American cities, and were certainly no real threat to the United States at that point.

Much of the Japanese navy was at the bottom of the ocean by this time and most of their planes had been shot down. Why not a negotiated settlement, in order to spare innocent civilian lives?

And what if we had listened to such talk?

No doubt Germany and Japan would have signed some kind of negotiated agreement in order to get the allied armies off their backs and get some breathing room.

Both Germany and Japan had programs to try to build nuclear bombs. One of the Nazis’ last acts before surrendering was to send material by submarine to Japan to help advance their nuclear program.

Any peace we might have negotiated with Japan would have given the Japanese time to develop not only nuclear technology but also war planes whose plans had been gotten from Germany, which had the most advanced planes in the world at that time.

There is not the slightest doubt that Japan would not have had the slightest hesitation to drop nuclear bombs on American cities. And they would not have come back in later years to wring their hands at what they had done, as too many American have done at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But we didn’t cease firing until our enemies were defeated. Kofi Anan and today’s “world opinion” would not have liked that.

The current Israeli/Palestinian/Lebanese conflict.

**THIS BLOG WAS MOVED HERE FROM MYSPACE. IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON AUGUST 7 2007**

The current Israeli/Palestinian/Lebanese conflict.

Can’t stay away from politics, no matter how hard I try. Today I was browsing a friends blog and happened to click the “friends” tab, to see what his friends were blogging about. I came across this conversation after someone had posted an interesting analogy about the current Lebanese-Israeli-Palestininan conflict. I was going to post a response, however I couldn’t post anonymously and was not about to “join” a website just to post one comment. Therefore, here is my comment. Truth be told, I had read a lot of other comments from people on various blogs (some maybe I could post my comments, others I could not) before this particular conversation that got me to the point I had to speak out. Here is another place I was reading from, which may have been the actual catalyst for these particular musings of mine. No offense to anyone who contributed to these, they have their views, here are mine.

Just what had Israel done to set off these latest terrorist acts? It voluntarily pulled out of Gaza, after evacuating its own settlers, and left the land to the Palestinian authorities. Terrorists then used the newly acquired land to launch rockets into Israel and then seized an Israeli soldier. Other terrorists in Lebanon followed suit. The great mantra of the past, “trading land for peace,” is now thoroughly discredited, or should be. It is a little known fact that NOT ONE SINGLE DAY has gone by since Israel pulled out of Gaza one year ago that they have not been hit by at least one attempted rocket attack from the Palestinian “homeland.”

Just curious what would happen if tomorrow someone were able to come in to the middle east (hypothetical situation of course) and all weapons, bombs, guns, etc. (all means of waging war) were confiscated from Hamas and Hezbollah. Would there be peace then in the region, or do you suppose Israel would continue to have reason to bomb (and to carry out bombings)in Lebanon & Palestine? On the flip-side, what if all of Israel’s war-making capabilities were confiscated tomorrow? I believe in the first situation there would be peace, however in the latter another holocaust would be summarily carried out as soon as humanly possible, and the facts support that opinion. But facts mean nothing to people who are determined to find equivalence, whether today in the Middle East or yesterday in the Cold War. Since all things are the same, except for the differences, and different except for the similarities, nothing is easier than to create verbal parallels and moral equivalence, though some people seem to pride themselves on their ability to do such verbal tricks.

–SR–

I’m Singing on MySpace…

**THIS BLOG WAS MOVED HERE FROM MYSPACE. IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON APRIL 6, 2007**

Man it’s been a long time. I have been getting up in front of a few people to dust off the ol’ vocal chords recently – I’ve posted one of the tracks on my myspace. Please check it out if you get a chance, I’m trying to begin the long road out of retirement…

www.myspace.com/steverupp

www.myspace.com/jaesoundtracks

–SDR–

Perspectives you probably have not heard…

**THIS BLOG WAS MOVED HERE FROM MYSPACE. IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON NOVEMBER 2, 2006**

Straight from the horse’s mouth…

JERUSALEM – Everybody has an opinion about next Tuesday’s midterm congressional election in the U.S. – including senior terrorist leaders interviewed by WND who say they hope Americans sweep the Democrats into power because of the party’s position on withdrawing from Iraq, a move, as they see it, that ensures victory for the worldwide Islamic resistance.

The terrorists told WorldNetDaily an electoral win for the Democrats would prove to them Americans are “tired.”

They rejected statements from some prominent Democrats in the U.S. that a withdrawal from Iraq would end the insurgency, explaining an evacuation would prove resistance works and would compel jihadists to continue fighting until America is destroyed.

They said a withdrawal would also embolden their own terror groups to enhance “resistance” against Israel.

“Of course Americans should vote Democrat,” Jihad Jaara, a senior member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group and the infamous leader of the 2002 siege of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, told WND.

“This is why American Muslims will support the Democrats, because there is an atmosphere in America that encourages those who want to withdraw from Iraq. It is time that the American people support those who want to take them out of this Iraqi mud,” said Jaara, speaking to WND from exile in Ireland, where he was sent as part of an internationally brokered deal that ended the church siege.

Jaara was the chief in Bethlehem of the Brigades, the declared “military wing” of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party.

Together with the Islamic Jihad terror group, the Brigades has taken responsibility for every suicide bombing inside Israel the past two years, including an attack in Tel Aviv in April that killed American teenager Daniel Wultz and nine Israelis.

Muhammad Saadi, a senior leader of Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, said the Democrats’ talk of withdrawal from Iraq makes him feel “proud.”

“As Arabs and Muslims we feel proud of this talk,” he told WND. “Very proud from the great successes of the Iraqi resistance. This success that brought the big superpower of the world to discuss a possible withdrawal.”

Abu Abdullah, a leader of Hamas’ military wing in the Gaza Strip, said the policy of withdrawal “proves the strategy of the resistance is the right strategy against the occupation.”

“We warned the Americans that this will be their end in Iraq,” said Abu Abdullah, considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas’ Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, Hamas’ declared “resistance” department. “They did not succeed in stealing Iraq’s oil, at least not at a level that covers their huge expenses. They did not bring stability. Their agents in the [Iraqi] regime seem to have no chance to survive if the Americans withdraw.”

Abu Ayman, an Islamic Jihad leader in Jenin, said he is “emboldened” by those in America who compare the war in Iraq to Vietnam.

“[The mujahedeen fighters] brought the Americans to speak for the first time seriously and sincerely that Iraq is becoming a new Vietnam and that they should fix a schedule for their withdrawal from Iraq,” boasted Abu Ayman.

The terror leaders spoke as the debate regarding the future of America’s war in Iraq has perhaps become the central theme of midterm elections, with most Democrats urging a timetable for withdrawal and Republicans mostly advocating staying the course in Iraq.

President Bush has even said he would send more troops if Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad, said they are needed to stabilize the region

The debate became especially poignant following remarks by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the 2004 presidential candidate who voted in support of the war in Iraq. Earlier this week he intimated American troops are uneducated, and it is the uneducated who “get stuck in Iraq.”

Kerry, under intense pressure from fellow Democrats, now says his remarks were a “botched joke.”

Terror leaders reject Nancy Pelosi’s comments on Iraqi insurgency

Many Democratic politicians and some from the Republican Party have stated a withdrawal from Iraq would end the insurgency there.

In a recent interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, stated, “The jihadists (are) in Iraq. But that doesn’t mean we stay there. They’ll stay there as long as we’re there.”

Pelosi would become House speaker if the Democrats win the majority of seats in next week’s elections.

WND read Pelosi’s remarks to the terror leaders, who unanimously rejected her contention an American withdrawal would end the insurgency.

Islamic Jihad’s Saadi, laughing, stated, “There is no chance that the resistance will stop.”

He said an American withdrawal from Iraq would “prove the resistance is the most important tool and that this tool works. The victory of the Iraqi revolution will mark an important step in the history of the region and in the attitude regarding the United States.”

Jihad Jaara said an American withdrawal would “mark the beginning of the collapse of this tyrant empire (America).”

“Therefore, a victory in Iraq would be a greater defeat for America than in Vietnam.”

Jaara said vacating Iraq would also “reinforce Palestinian resistance organizations, especially from the moral point of view. But we also learn from these (insurgency) movements militarily. We look and learn from them.”

Hamas’ Abu Abdullah argued a withdrawal from Iraq would “convince those among the Palestinians who still have doubts in the efficiency of the resistance.”

“The victory of the resistance in Iraq would prove once more that when the will and the faith are applied victory is not only a slogan. We saw that in Lebanon (during Israel’s confrontation against Hezbollah there in July and August); we saw it in Gaza (after Israel withdrew from the territory last summer) and we will see it everywhere there is occupation,” Abdullah said.

While the terror leaders each independently compelled American citizens to vote for Democratic candidates, not all believed the Democrats would actually carry out a withdrawal from Iraq.

Saadi stated, “Unfortunately I think those who are speaking about a withdrawal will not do so when they are in power and these promises will remain electoral slogans. It is not enough to withdraw from Iraq. They must withdraw from Afghanistan and from every Arab and Muslim land they occupy or have bases.”

He called both Democrats and Republicans “agents of the Zionist lobby in the U.S.”

Abu Abdullah commented once Democrats are in power “the question is whether such a courageous leadership can [withdraw]. I am afraid that even after the American people will elect those who promise to leave Iraq, the U.S. will not do so. I tell the American people vote for withdrawal. Abandon Israel if you want to save America. Now will this Happen? I do not believe it.”

Still Jihad Jaara said the alternative is better than Bush’s party.

“Bush is a sick person, an alcoholic person that has no control of what is going on around him. He calls to send more troops but will very soon get to the conviction that the violence and terror that his war machine is using in Iraq will never impose policies and political regimes in the Arab world.”

Train up a child in the way she should go…

**THIS BLOG WAS MOVED HERE FROM MYSPACE. IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON OCTOBER 4, 2006**

This was introduced in a marriage seminar we attended last weekend. I agree wholeheartedly with everything stated here.

Rosemond’s Bill of Rights for Children:

Because it is the most character-building, two-letter word in the English language, children have the right to hear their parents say “No” at least three times a day.

……………………………………..
Children have the right to find out early in their lives that their parents don’t exist to make them happy, but to offer them the opportunity to learn the skills they-children-will need to eventually make themselves happy.

……………………………………..
Children have a right to scream all they want over the decisions their parents make, albeit their parents have the right to confine said screaming to certain areas of their homes.

……………………………………..
Children have the right to find out early that their parents care deeply for them but don’t give a hoot what their children think about them at any given moment in time.

……………………………………..
Because it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, children have the right to hear their parents say “Because I said so” on a regular and frequent basis.

……………………………………..
Because it is the most character-building activity a child can engage in, children have the right to share significantly in the doing of household chores.

……………………………………..
Every child has the right to discover early in life that he isn’t the center of the universe (or his family or his parents’ lives) that he isn’t a big fish in a small pond, that he isn’t the Second Coming, and that he’s not even-in the total scheme of things-very important at all, no one is, so as to prevent him from becoming an insufferable brat.

……………………………………..
Children have the right to learn to be grateful for what they receive, therefore, they have the right to receive all of what they truly need and very little of what they simply want.

……………………………………..
Children have the right to learn early in their lives that obedience to legitimate authority is not optional, that there are consequences for disobedience, and that said consequences are memorable and, therefore, persuasive.

……………………………………..
Every child has the right to parents who love him/her enough to make sure he/she enjoys all of the above rights.

Frivolous Politics

**THIS BLOG WAS MOVED HERE FROM MYSPACE. IT WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON OCTOBER 24, 2006**

Once again, the spectacular Mr. Sowell has summed up this argument like no other can…

With a war going on in Iraq and with Iran next door moving steadily toward a nuclear bomb that could change the course of world history in the hands of international terrorists, the question for this year’s elections is not whether you or your candidate is a Democrat or a Republican but whether you are serious or frivolous.

That question also needs to be asked about the media. In these grim and foreboding times, our media have this year spent incredible amounts of time on a hunting accident involving Vice President Cheney, a bogus claim that the administration revealed Valerie Plame’s identity as a C.I.A. “agent” — actually a desk job in Virginia — and is now going ballistic over a Congressman who sent raunchy e-mails to Congressional pages.

This is the frivolous media — and the biased media. Republican Congressman Foley was wrong and is out on his ear. But Democrats in both Congress and the White House have gone far beyond words with a page and an intern. Yet the Democrats did not resign and Bill Clinton’s perjury, obstruction of justice, and suborning of perjury by others were treated as if these were irrelevant private matters.

Even when serious issues are addressed, they can be addressed either seriously or frivolously. If you are content to see life and death issues of war and peace addressed with catch phrases like “chicken hawk” or to see a coalition of nations around the world fighting terrorism referred to as “unilateral” U.S. action because France does not go along, then you are content with frivolity.

You may deserve whatever you get if you vote frivolously in this year’s election. But surely the next generation, which has no vote, deserves better.

Weak-kneed members of both parties have been calling for a timetable to be announced for withdrawal from Iraq. No other war in thousands of years of history has ever had such a timetable announced to their enemies. Even if we intended to get out by a given date, there is not the slightest reason to tell the terrorists that. It is frivolous politics at its worst.

There has never been any reason to doubt that American troops will be removed from Iraq. They were removed after the first Gulf War. Before that, they were removed from Grenada and from other Western Hemisphere countries throughout the 20th century. Millions of American troops were removed from Europe after World War II.

Why should there be the slightest doubt that they will be removed from Iraq? The only question is whether you can run a war on a timetable like a railroad and whether you need to announce your plans to your enemies.

All this rhetoric about a withdrawal timetable is based on trying to make political hay out of the fact that the Iraq war is unpopular. But all wars have been unpopular with Americans, as they should be.

Even World War II, won by “the greatest generation,” was never popular, though the home front was united behind the troops a lot better than today. The last shot of that war had barely been sounded before the cry arose to bring our boys back home.

The exuberant celebrations across this country when World War II ended showed that we weren’t looking for more war or more conquests. We weren’t even trying to hold on to all the territory we had conquered. There has probably never been a time in history when a military force in the millions was disbanded so quickly.

Even after the first Gulf War, with its quick success and low casualties, the biggest ovation that the first President Bush got when he addressed Congress afterwards was when he announced that our troops would start coming back home.

Those who discuss the current war in terms of frivolous talking points make a big deal out of the fact we have been in this war longer than in World War II. But, if we are serious, we would know that it is not the duration of a war that is crucial. It is how many lives it costs.

More than twice as many Marines were killed taking one island in the Pacific during World War II than all the Americans killed in the four years of the Iraq war. More Americans were killed in one day during the Civil War.

If we are going to discuss war, the least we can do is be serious.

The “Go” of Relationship

Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two—Matthew 5:41

Our Lord’s teaching can be summed up in this: the relationship that He demands for us is an impossible one unless He has done a super-natural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that His disciple does not allow even the slightest trace of resentment in his heart when faced with tyranny and injustice. No amount of enthusiasm will ever stand up to the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His servant. Only one thing will bear the strain, and that is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ Himself— a relationship that has been examined, purified, and tested until only one purpose remains and I can truly say, “I am here for God to send me where He will.” Everything else may become blurred, but this relationship with Jesus Christ must never be.

The Sermon on the Mount is not some unattainable goal; it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has changed my nature by putting His own nature in me. Jesus Christ is the only One who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount.

If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally. And as long as we consciously maintain the determined purpose to be His disciples, we can be sure that we are not disciples. Jesus says, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you. . .” ( John 15:16 ). That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we can never escape; we can disobey it, but we can never start it or produce it ourselves. We are drawn to God by a work of His supernatural grace, and we can never trace back to find where the work began. Our Lord’s making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity of ours at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are naturally easy for us— He only asks us to do the things that we are perfectly fit to do through His grace, and that is where the cross we must bear will always come.

BTW EVERYONE:

To all who read this and other blogs of mine, if possible, please send me a message when you do so, as I am trying out a new “traffic counter” and am testing it to see if it is working properly.  Also, thanks to everyone who reads this blog, it warms my heart just to know you’re out there.  If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing to my blog as a reader – not only will it help me know who my “readership” is, but every time I make a new post the system will auto-notify everyone who is subscribed to my blog that a new post is available.

Thanks,

–SR–