In This Dimension

Participatory Parliamentary Democracy?

Constantly bombarded with articles and columns regarding the internet in politics, many still seem to lack an idea of what it really portends. And it isn’t just money.

True, participatory democracy is enabled by the internet in a way never before possible – but that doesn’t just mean bloggers posting stuff good and bad about candidates.

McCain has made it clear he isn’t planning to go after Obama based on negative campaigning.

Here’s the new media answer: So what?

McCain won’t be shaping his own message anymore. Sure, he can shape the little bit that he says in interviews, speeches and press conferences. But[…]

2057

My kids found this cool show on Discovery – “2057.” They get a charge out of wondering why we can’t have all that stuff now. (They are 10 and 12.)

So I watched it with them this morning. Fun show. Cool ideas. Interesting technologies.

But if you watch an entire episode, the technology is more than overbalanced by the ideology:

A) We’ll be out of oil in 50 years (Fact: More proven reserves exist every decade; more oil is under Montana than Iraq)

B) Burning methane ice (from the ocean floor) will add to global warming (Fact: The earth began cooling in 1998, 2007-8 was the[…]

America is about the future, right?

We have elections for our future leaders. We educate our kids for a future in which they’ll participate. People come here from all over the world for a better future. We have a form of government designed to adapt to the future.

So – if we’re all about the future, why do we spend so much time listening to an entire political party that doesn’t believe in the future?

Don’t believe me? Democrats don’t have kids. Look at the Red/Blue states. Blue states (like the failed demi-continent of Europe) are declining in net population.

In the 2004 presidential election, “Bush carried the 19[…]

Gay Marriage, Judiciocracy and GOP Complicity

As always, the GOP will misunderstand the fundamental issue behind the intelligent reaction to California’s Supreme Court ruling overturning the democratically-expressed will of 61% of the voters of that large, diverse state.

The issue isn’t Gay Marriage.

The issue is four judges overturning the will of millions of voters.

The GOP has, is and will continue to decline as a brand as its members age and as young Americans refuse to vote – ever – for a party so wrong on homosexuality and abortion.

Whether the Left likes it or not – in fact, whether the Right likes it or not, America is not a theocracy[…]

Ike and How to Win a War

There is an argument about Eisenhower’s Broad Front Strategy in World War 2 that is very salient today. One of the schools of thought about the Broad Front was that it was a huge moral failure of the West not to drive straight to Berlin and cut off the head of the NAZI enemy. Doing so, the theory goes, would have enabled the surrender of hundreds of thousands of German soldiers and prevented the deaths of hundreds of thousands soldiers and civilians on both sides of the conflict.

Looked at in the present light, however, perhaps this school of thought is far wrong,[…]

Substitution Test

A “Substitution Test” is when you substitute another person or object for the person or object central to the argument, keep the argument itself the same, and then see if the argument remains logical or acceptable. If the substitute makes the argument unacceptable, then it is hypocritical to accept the original argument.
 
To wit:
 
Obama’s preachers preach several inflammatory statements against the US and against white people. Fine. They certainly are entitled to their opinions, and to call the USA the “US of KKKA,” etc., if they want to. And Obama certainly is free to distance himself - or not - from this kind of[…]

Mrs. Ferraro and Sen. Obama

Can Sen. Obama really think that Ms. Ferraro’s comments on race are neither relevant nor true?

Has the sense of entitlement African-Americans feel become so ingrained that they are incapable of recognizing that their race is a part of their character, part of the tone of media coverage and part of any view taken of minorities by the chattering classes, or anyone else, including themselves?

The last public figure to stress the content of one’s character over the color of one’s skin got shot for it, and Blacks - and liberals - have been preying on skin color ever since.

Sen. Obama has[…]

Why we Fight

Geez, even the idiot 39th President,  understood this one: “History teaches, perhaps, very few clear lessons. But surely one such lesson learned by the world at great cost is that aggression, unopposed, becomes a contagious disease.” — Jimmy Carter, two years after expressing fear of the USSR – when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

But now that we have Baby Boomer candidates for President, and even one post-Boomer candidate (though he just recycles 1960s nonsense) oblivious to what even Carter could grasp.

Kinda makes you understand the need for basic intelligence tests prior to being allowed to vote.

Afraid of Terrorism? Nope

A strengthening discussion is occurring that American may be “overly afraid” of terrorism. The feeling is that one must be afraid of something to want to be rid of it.

This is absurd.

Liberals often ask Conservatives – rhetorically, of course, as Conservative answers never are listened to by liberals – what they are “afraid of” in areas of Affirmative Action, Open Borders, whatever “Multiculturalism” is, and now – Islamic terrorism.

Believe it or not, one can wish to be rid of something and not be afraid of it. Fleas. Liberals. Preferences for education and employment based on what sociologists call “primary characteristics”[…]

Multiculturalism? Really?

Have you noticed that those insisting on identifying themselves as “Multiculturalists” are the same people demanding Western – particularly American – rights, liberties, environmental practices, etc.?

How the media, politicians and pundits can let this go one unchallenged for years escapes me.

Seriously – objectively and non-ideologically: Scratch a “Multiculturalist” and an American Imperialist bleeds.

Child labor laws not recognized in Asian sweatshops? That’d be Western child labor cultural practices.

Pirating intellectual property (movies, software)? That’d be in violation of Western concepts of intellectual property.

Lack of women’s rights in South America and Asia and Africa? That’d be American concepts of women’s rights. (Not even just Western as[…]