In This Dimension

Notice the Shift of Party of the Same Thoughts

“Democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men’s enlightened will.  In the face of great perils never before encountered, our strong purpose is to protect and to perpetuate the integrity of democracy. For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America.”
 FDR’s 3rd Inaugural, 1941

“Our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We have learned that we must live as men, not as ostriches, nor as dogs in the manger. . . . Almighty God has . . . given our people stout hearts and strong arms[…]

Iraq, Baby Boomers and Technology

American warfighting technology is second-to-none. So, why politicians demanding that America surrender?

One reads that America can’t be beaten – we have too many cool weapons with technology that bad guys can’t match. We even have a TV show about Future Weapons technology.

Weapons don’t win wars. Willpower wins wars.

Absent the will to win no weapons system will cause an opponent to lie down and die, or drop his gun, go home and become a consumer with the respect for what we in the West successfully have fought for centuries, and which one assumes we still desire: Peace and freedom.

Recently a combat pilot[…]

Kissinger on Carter

Henry Kissinger observed that the Carter administration had managed the extraordinary feat of having achieved, at one and the same time:

“The worst relations with our allies, the worst relations with our adversaries, and the most serious upheavals in the developing world since the end of the Second World War.”

Nuclear Response

The detonation of a nuclear weapon in America by terrorists no longer is unimaginable.

A need exists for a national conversation regarding such an attack. A response that has been discussed, announced and prepared will be preferable to what Mr. Cuomo described as the ‘discussion of a highway bill’ that followed 9/11.

Do we retaliate immediately or do we need a debate and vote of Congress when NY or LA or SF or DC or Miami or Houston is smoldering?

With the statelessness of terror, against whom do we respond? Given the major funding and spiritual sources for religious terror the answer may[…]

Expansion of Western Liberties

The base issues are liberty and freedom and a government of laws, which is precursor to same.
The objective is spreading those across the planet on the theory that people are better off with those freedoms than not. The question then is how best to do that.
 
Force is one method, and it worked for the West in Japan in 1945. Proselytization is another, one by which the West never has succeeded. Western Civilization – and its freedoms - only has expanded historically through use of force. That may be because of our concern for all — women and children as well[…]

Liquid Travel

Americans travel around the world doing business, spreading ideas, creating wealth, creating jobs, spreading freedom. Does anyone else do this? No. Europeans create basically no jobs. When they run around the world they spread arrogance, not jobs, liberty and wealth. Some Asians do, but mostly they are traveling to America to do it.

So now we have ridiculous airline “security” managed by some of the most intellectually-challenged employees in America to make it more difficult and expensive (and annoying) to travel.

Of course, the Brits know the answer – create a commission on why Muslims hate airplanes. The stupidity boggles the mind.

They[…]

The Role of the Right in the Decline of American Culture

In the recent brouhahas regarding Supreme Court decisions, the largest issue is ignored: the decline of America culture. Counterintuitively, this decline must be attributed to the Right; it is the grown-ups who are allowing this to happen.

This decline is due to the antipathy of the Right to homosexuals and abortion. The Conservative stance on these two issues alone has ensured that for many voters the only choice is between competing Democrats rather than between ideas and Parties.

Teachers’ unions, race demagogues, 40%+ tax burdens, open “borders”, “diversity” that is anything but - all these problems come from many people concluding that the[…]

Copy Protection

A friend of mine, a major studio Sr. VP, and I are in complete agreement on the copy protection (CP) issue: If studios did a global, all-media, all-format day/date release, professional piracy would go away.

You like it at the theater? Impulse buy the DVD on the way out, adding to the revenues of the studios and theater owners. Want to buy the movie but not go to the theater? download it in whatever format you want for $20 (or whatever, but low enough not to encourage a black market).

Think about copy protection. Can you print and market a book in[…]

Popular Sovereignty Mean Anything to You?

The issue is not gay marriage. The issue is the rule of law; that we are a government of laws, not of individuals.

The foundation of our country and of each state is popular sovereignty. The people of CA recently voted overwhelmingly to accept only the traditional meaning of “marriage.” That is their right, and only their right.

It matters not that the subject is gay marriage. What matters is that the people have spoken.

As in California Propositions 187, 209 and a dozen others over the years, one or a few members of a Court, far fewer than the people passing the[…]

Sanctions

To have Europeans lecture us on peace — after WWI, Munich, WWII, Chechnya, after Kosovo, is to be expected.

To listen to them is silly.

From the advent of the nation-state over 500 years ago, to 1945 there were zero periods of peace between the nation-states of Europe lasting more than several years. Under the press of the Soviet Union and NATO, Western Europe was at peace for not quite 50 years for the only time in its history.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, European nations again began fighting amongst themselves — Armenia, Yugoslavia, etc. Other European nations refused to do anything[…]