Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

For Mike

Monday, October 17th, 2016

General Dachux – The Battle of Chateaubriand (1699)

EU Proposes 70MPH Speed Limiters for all Cars

Sunday, September 1st, 2013





It just makes sense.


The Impending War With Syria

Sunday, September 1st, 2013








The management of violence is brain surgery. Elections have consequences.

It just makes sense.



Where There is No Vision, the People Perish

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011











It just makes sense.


Monday, December 19th, 2011







Therefore, not much of anything will change.

It just makes sense.

Directional Extremism

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

By now you’ve heard most of the story about the 88 year-old shooter that killed Stephen Tyrone Johns while he was on duty as a security guard in the Washington DC Holocaust Museum.  If you’re like most people, you’re sadden at the loss of yet another productive American citizen and sickened at the reports of the shooter’s hatred for so many people.  Depending on where you get your news, you might also be confused over some misleading references to the shooter representing right-wing ideology in America.

Adding to the confusion, is a fundamentally flawed statement in the Homeland Security report on alleged “Rightwing Extremism” inside of the United States.  There were 50 uses of the term “rightwing” in the report.  It even used the term as a single word, instead of the the grammatical correct hyphenated term right-wing.   No references were made to “left-wing extremism,” leaving some to wonder if the report might condone that side of the argument.  Of course even suggesting such a thing might be classified as blasphemy in the near future, so I won’t go any further with that line of reasoning.

Are we really to believe neo-Nazism is right-wing?

If so, that would make the Nazi regime of Hitler’s Germany a right-wing government.  If true, then on the extreme right of the concept of government theory, you have Hitler and the SS running everything.  The rest of us would work as slaves in government-owned factories and fields and have to put up with soldiers banging on our doors at night only to be hauled off to the concentration camp–where we’d die.

So what is the opposite of that?  The communists?

If so, on the extreme left of the concept of government theory, you have Stalin and the KGB running everything.   The rest of us would work as slaves in government-owned factories and fields and have to put up with soldiers banging on our doors at night only to be hauled off to the gulag–where we’d die.

I don’t see a nickel’s worth of difference between those two systems, unless you happen to be a member of the small group that is controlling everything and everyone else.  Which means the popular notice of left and right must be flawed, as the two should be in contrast to each other.

Here’s something that makes much more sense.

Government theory is all about how much power the government has.  The more power the government has, the less power or rights the people have.  On one extreme, government has all power.  On the other extreme, government has no power–or doesn’t exist at all.  That’s also called anarchy.

In theory, anarchy could be a nice thing.  No taxes, no police, no rules to get in your way–every man doing what he things is right.  If everyone were just like Jesus, that might work out pretty good.  But humanity is wrought with selfish behavior–striving to advance oneself over others.  In total anarchy, only the strongest men could retain their property, which would soon be countered by less strong people teaming together to take what they wanted.  Eventually the land would be littered with myriad teams or gangs all striving for their collective superiority over the other groups.  Chaos and mayhem–anarchy is a bloody unproductive state in practice.

So with anarchy at the extreme right, what’s at the extreme left?  Government with total power, of course.

If a single person were powerful enough to control everyone else–that would be extreme left–but with millions and billions of people on earth, nobody is that powerful.  It wouldn’t even work with a small region of several thousand people.  No, the king has to have an army.  That army could consist of knights sitting at a round table or goose-stepping storm troopers–but a king without his army is a pathetic sight.

Throughout history, most kings have had some collection of advisors to assist them in their rule of the masses.  They might be family members or just ideological partners–but loyalty is generally the primary selection criteria.  Kings use a variety of job titles: Potentate, Chief, Czar, Leader, Lord, Master, Commander, Seignior, President, Chairman, Chairwoman, Big Cheese, Skipper, or any other of a multitude of “I’m-the-boss-of-you” sounding titles.  All those various titles only serve to confuse people who are trying to make sense of the left and right of things.

When a relatively small group of people control all or even most all of the power over the people it is called an oligarchy.  If you are not part of the oligarchy, you will be most severely punished by those who control the power if you should oppose any decision they make. The irony is, you don’t even have to oppose the seat of power to be oppressed by it–they have the option of abusing you at their whim.

To the right of an oligarchy, is a democracy–rule by the majority.  In theory a democracy sounds pleasant, but in practice that would only be true if you were part of the majority.  The majority can vote to take the minorities possessions or even their lives.  If the only thing that establishes right is a majority–you basically have mob rule, albeit a majority mob.  Democratic principles are good, but a system of laws that protect the rights of all people is necessary if the people are to really enjoy freedom.

Which brings us to a republic, which is more than just a government controlling the people, it is a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives.  In the great American experiment, the wonderful document called the Constitution spells out just how much power the government is allowed to control.  The rest of the power is supposed to remain with the people.

Some people argue that twenty-first century America is violating certain restrictions of the Constitution, but few people are wanting an America without a central government–the ones who advocate anarchy could correctly be labeled “right-wing extremists.”

The Constitution’s governmental concept is left of anarchy but well right of a direct democracy or an oligarchy.  Some say the Constitution is well right of our current practice and that we’re plunging into socialism.

What’s socialism?

Socialism is the Marxist theory that declares all means of production, distribution, and exchange should be centrally controlled.  The theory is that individuals won’t be able to hoard great wealth if the governing oligarchy has control.  The reality is that the oligarchy hoards the wealth and the people suffer.  You’ve seen the term used in some now defunct oligarchies.

The National Socialists (Nazis) were about a specific people-group’s oligarchy controlling all means of production, distribution, and exchange first in Germany and then hoping to spread across the world.  They were thwarted by America and her allies during World War II.

Remember the USSR (a.k.a Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic)? Soviet Communism was about world conquest by any means, most in order for their oligarchy to control all means of production, distribution, and exchange.  They also were thwarted by America and her allies during the Cold War.

Somehow the Nazis and the Communists were labeled right and left in attempt to suggest you had to go one way of the other.  History shows the two groups didn’t get along very well, but of course each side was fighting for total control.  Unless you were part of their small oligarchy, each of the systems were oppressive–each were extreme leftists.

So what would you call a person, regardless of their age or veteran status, who believes a small group of people should control all power, disregarding the concept that all men are created equal, and also believes he has the right to ignore the Constitution of the United States?

Wouldn’t that be–left-wing extremist?

It just makes sense.

The Solution to the North Korean Nuclear Threat

Friday, May 29th, 2009

















Here’s the solution:




Not at all, I’m sure.


Stop it early.

“Too late for that,” some might say.



It just makes sense.

T.E.A. Party

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

Tax day. That’s what we’ve learned to call April 15, but we really know that taxes hit us every day. It’s April 15 when those dreaded 1040 are due to the IRS, or it’ll cost us even more money. Our income is taxed and everything we spend our post-tax income on is taxed again through a complex web of visible and hidden taxes. This April 15 a lot of people assembled all over the country to express their concern about out of control taxes.

While the concept of maybe attending a Tea-Party had interested me for a while, it wasn’t until I saw the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report that identified a new type of terrorists–the right-wing terrorist–that I knew I needed to go.

Recently the DHS had said they preferred to call terrorism “man-caused disasters” and I satirically suggested that terrorists would then be called “disaster-engineers” in keeping with the kinder words of referring to the most heinous members of the human race. But now I see no restraint in using the T-word.
The report suggests that “right-wing extremists” are potential terrorists. Those people are described as basically anyone who believe abortion kills babies, or that the 2nd Amendment affirms the right to bear arms, and a group of right-wingers that need particular watching are veterans.

Veterans? What the freedom-snatching kind of conclusion is that? Veterans?

Do they mean those men and woman who have offered up their lives to defend the rest of us–those veterans? The same people, whom on November 11 of each year we have a national holiday to honor their service? Those same honorable heros are supposed to be suspected terrorists? All of them?

Why would anyone suggest that?

Could it be because most Americans hold veterans and the military in high esteem? Could it be that the military and it’s veterans need to be taken down a notch or two in the public eye before they begin whatever it is that follows out-of-control tax and spending? I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.
But how could anyone draw a connection between veterans and terrorists?

Well, according the DHS report, veterans have received training that would enable them to do something like Timothy James McVeigh did. Remember him?
McVeigh was the guy that was eventually executed for for the bombing that killed 168 people in the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. He was a veteran. See the connection yet? Me neither.

He did well as a gunner on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but then washed out of Special Forces training in December of the same year. After he left the service he failed at everything else. No girlfriend, no job, and followed the gun show circuit selling white-supremacist literature until he completely slid off the deep end. For some reason he thought it was his calling to violently overthrow the US government.

Does that sound like the typical veteran to you?

All veterans reading this column will immediately feel a bit insulted to be compared with McVeigh. For the folks who didn’t make the cut to become a veteran, that is because all veterans took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, which is the document that allows our government to legally exist. And since veterans are not released from their oath to God when they are discharged–it means McVeigh violated his oath.

And there were other veterans. What about Oswald? You know, Lee Harvey Oswald. Yeah he was a veteran and he killed Kennedy. You know, John F. Kennedy, who was a veteran. Oh yeah. Hmmm. Maybe not all veterans are terrorists.

Some veterans might actually be productive Americans. Americans like Alan Alda (Army Reserves), Tony Bennett (Army), Jim Blackwood (Air Force), Andy Bloom (Air Force), Johnny Carson (Navy), Ted Duncan (Air Force), Clint Eastwood (Army), Reed Estrada (Air Force), Malcolm Forbes (Army), Jim Johnson (Air Force), Rocky Marciano (Army), Vern Moore (Air Force), Montel Williams (Navy) Dave Thomas (Army), Chuck Norris (Air Force) Bill Cosby (Navy) Drew Carey (Marine), Ben Quintana (Air Force), Bob Goss (Air Force), Britt Larson (Air Force), Doug Barnard (Air Force), Steve Harper (Air Force), Ed Miller (Air Force), James Obsborne (Air Force), John Mitchell (Air Force), John Farese (Air Force), Dudley Woods (Air Force), Mel Bowen (Air Force), Moses Winston (Air Force), Pat Travnicek (Air Force), Paul Hill (Air Force), Scotty Briscoe (Air Force), Shawn Riff (Air Force), Steve Hollis (Air Force), Mark Maryak (Air Force), Donald Davitz (Air Force), even Charles Sutherland (Air Force) … and millions others.

No. Being a veteran did not transform McVeigh into what he became. It must have been something else.

It seems some people can find similarities and proof where they want to find them. For instance, I noticed on McVeigh’s mug-shot that he was a tall man–over six foot-two. Did you know that his parents were divorced when he was young–only ten years old.
To make the assumption “tall men whose parents were divorced when they were young might be terrorists” would be stupid. Most readers might have heard of people who fit that description–some of those people hold high-level elected office.

It is just as stupid–no, it is more stupid–to declare someone might be a terrorists because they are a veteran.

As a 32-year veteran, I can tell you with reasonable confidence that the soldiers, sailors, Marines, and Airmen who are protecting you while you sleep tonight are not being taught how to make bombs out of rented trucks, fertilizer and motor-fuel. And as far as I know, there is no program anywhere to train tall men, whose parents were divorced at a young age, to do the same.

Military service to our nation does not produce terrorists.

Of course the Tea-Parties across American were not about the DHS report, they were about a out-of-control tax and spend policy and practice. But isn’t it interesting how seemingly unrelated events can produce similar motivations? Anyway, let me tell about the Tea-Party I went to in Bossier City.

Since my taxes were already mailed off to Uncle Sam–after I got off my 10-hour work day on April 15–I headed down to the Bossier City Civic Center’s green. Having never attended a demonstration of any sort, I really didn’t know what was going to happen. It shouldn’t have surprised me that convenient parking was no where to be found as I joined about 5000 small-business owners, working tax-payers, families, and even college students from all around Bossier and Shreveport. They were regular people–white, black, Hispanic, young, old, male, female, tall, and short–who like me, had just finished the working activities of their day and then came out for a couple of hours to show their concern.  In case you didn’t make it to a Tea-Party, I posted a few videos on You Tube for you.
The links are below.

After assembling, we sang the National Anthem. If you view this 2 minute 18 second video, I think you’d agree that everyone there was just regular people. Lots of flags. Seemed more patriotic than anything else.

Following that those assembled recited the Pledge of Allegiance lead by a local 6th grader.

Then State Representative Jane Smith gave the invocation. We all prayed for our elected officials, for our country, along with thanking God for all our blessings.
Many speakers were there to motivate the attendees to lawful pro-active action. One of these speakers was Mr. Royal Alexander, who was defeated in the 2007 general election to District Attorney for the sixth Judicial District. He commented about the illegalities of the government writing checks with no funds to cover them.

The keynote speaker was Congressman John Fleming of the 4th district of Louisiana. He explained some of the reasons the radical tax and spend policies are being passed in Congress.

Since the first round of Tea-Parties have ended, much of the national media has used crude humor and mockery to denigrate the respectable citizens who lawfully assembled that day. How many people are we talking about here?

Nobody really knows, but guesses are everywhere. Somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 showed up in Atlanta, our group was considerably less, about 5000. Some reports say there were less than 350 Tea-Parties, but that conflicts with data I had seen on one web site, which stated that as of early April 15, there were over 2000 Tea-Parties scheduled. If only half of those actually took place, and if only half as many people as we had in little Bossier City attended each one of them, that would add up to 2.5 million concerned citizens assembled across America.

That’s a lot of people to denigrate.  So is this a one-time fling or the beginning of a movement? And if it is a movement, what is supposed to happen?
This is what I think. We don’t need another political party. Americans need to take back the two parties we already have–the Democrat Party and the Republican Party. Those two parties can be used to balance our national policies between the two extremes of our Constitutional Republic’s existence. We do not need to dissolve into anarchy anymore than we need to be oppressed by a self-serving oligarchy.

Anarchy is the extreme right–no government. It’s where everyone does according to what they believe is right. In other words, it’s a riot with no police. At its worse, it looks a lot like the corner of Florence and Normandy on April 29, 1992.

An oligarchy is the extreme left–a government with all the power invested into a dominant class or party. It’s the most common form of government throughout history. Sometimes words like “socialist” or “communists” are used to describe them–but at the heart of things–the interests of a small group take priority over everything else. Even a monarchy quickly transforms into an oligarchy, because a king without his army is lost.

The only choices of government-types in the middle of those extremes are a democracy and a republic. A democracy sounds good, but a majority can quickly become a mob if the majority wants something the minority possesses. A republic is what Americans have lived in since the beginning. It is based on law. The Constitution is designed to protect the people by limiting the power of the people operating the government.

That is the reason why some people get very upset when they perceive that some policies and practices may be violating the Constitution. Once the Constitution becomes null and void, our nation will quickly slide into an oligarchy. Which is either where we’re currently headed or arguably by a few where–we’ve arrived.

In each of the great oligarchies of the past, the ruling party used the power of swords, bayonets, or guns to take-over the business pursuits of the majority of the people. By controlling the economy and then the physical activity of their subjects–the oligarchies’ ruling class maintained their power. Today, we call that nationalization. Under the guise of the government’s sovereignty the ruling party takes what they want and does what they deem best with the fruits of the peoples’ labor. Looking back, it was a bloody mess that simply highlights the evil of their leaders while their subjects suffered. Anybody want to argue that the Communists of the former USSR were good for most people that lived there, or that the Nazis of the Third Reich were well-meaning, or that Khmer Rouge only wanted the best for the people? I didn’t think so.

Today, the power of the dollar is being wielded to take-over banks and manufacturers–the business pursuits of the majority of the people. Out-of-control tax and spend policies threaten to undermine the rights of the people. What would our founding fathers have said about this?

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, an anxious crowd assembled outside awaiting the results. As Benjamin Franklin emerged from the adjourned convention, a woman was reported to have asked him: “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
“A republic, if you can keep it” responded Franklin.

Never before has that prophetic statement rang more true. Some of us might argue that in light of the current national policies and plans that seem to be determined to tax the United States into oblivion–it’s already too late. Maybe if Franklin were alive today, he would say, “You have a republic if you can salvage it.”

Yes, we can. We can salvage our republic by taking back both of our political parties. In 2010 we can replace every representative who has voted for this madness with people who promise to overturn it. Then if they don’t do what they say, we can replace them with new people in 2012. We still have the power of the ballot. As long as our Constitution still stands as the law of land, we can do things in a civilized manner. We’re still citizens and not subjects–at least not yet.

We the People, can do this.

As one sign at the Tea-Party read, “You can’t fix stupid, but you can vote it out.”

It just makes sense.

The End of the GWOT

Saturday, April 11th, 2009

My personal life is much too depressing to talk about for now … next month should set a new high in panglossian delight … so I’ll just add some political commentary to make you aware of my continued existence–enjoy:

It’s over–well, almost. The Global War on Terror is now called “Overseas Contingency Operations,” which can be a little confusing to some of us. After all, we’ve been using initials to talk about things for a while. Everyone probably already knows about WWI and WWII but what about the O-wars?
The first one was OAF, remember that?

That was Operation Allied Force, where the US provided most of the muscle and all the backbone to stop the murder of Muslims by the Miloshevich-led Serbs. Remember how that ended?

After airpower defeated the Serbian military and was allowed to retreat, Miloshevich wound up being charged with crimes against humanity. However, he died of heart problems before a verdict was delivered.

What vowel comes after A? Here’s a hint–E. OEF was the next O-war.

Operation Enduring Freedom, is where America resisted the temptation to kill everyone after the bold terrorist attacks of 9-11. At first, it was called Operation Infinite Justice but the Bush administration changed the name when they were told it was offensive to Muslims.

Then OEF was subdivided into several sub-OEFs to deal with multi-geographical areas: Afghanistan, Philippines, Horn of Africa, Trans Sahara, Krygyzstan, and Pankisi Gorge (a.k.a. Georgia). The last two ended in 2004, but you don’t hear much about them in the press. Oh, did you think it was only in Afghanistan? I guess the collective press might have been confusing, but it is a global war, remember?

What vowel comes after E? I’m sure you know. I. The third O-war was OIF.

That was Operation Iraqi Freedom, sometimes called the War in Iraq–which just caused more confusion. At the end of it all, Saddam Hussein was tried and hung by his own people. Even with the tyrant dead and gone, a lot of fighting continued inside of Iraq–mostly terrorists killing Iraqis–but many Americans died also–albeit not in toe-to-toe fighting, but from a variety of suicide-terrorist attacks, called “homicide bombers” presumedly not to offend the people who wanted us dead. Anyway, Iraq is doing fairly well after all the American and other folks that have helped them. We’ll be leaving in less than 18 months–except for the 50,000 that will remain behind forever.

So now, Barack Obama has directed everyone to use the term “Overseas Contingency Operation” which I guess could be shortened to OCO. I guess that sounds better than OOF–which would have fit nicely in the series of O-wars–but OCO is what it is. But this is not all that has changed.

Janet Napolitano, our newly appointed Homeland Security Secretary, doesn’t like the word terrorism. She prefers to use “man-caused” disasters. Was the term “terrorism” offensive to the causers of disasters? I don’t know.

So who are the people who cause man-caused disasters? Disaster Engineers?

So we’ve got disaster engineers causing man-caused disasters in the OCO but we are trying our best not to offend anyone or to sound arrogant while we go about winning this war. Someone told me that recently Barack Obama apologized for American arrogance and announced that “America was not a war with Islam.” I must say, I’m a little confused.

Wasn’t OAF about Americans saving Muslims? Hasn’t OEF liberated Muslims in many places? Didn’t OIF result in the removal of a brutal tyrant in Iraq and then giving the country back to the Muslims who live there? Why would Barack Obama’s speech writers think he needed to make such an announcement? I don’t know.

On a completely unrelated note–within a few hours of the North Koreans launching an illegal missile, the US government announced that we’re going to defund our most promising anti-missile technologies. And we’re going to release all the disaster engineers at Gitmo, maybe even inside the US, because their home countries might be mean to them. Wouldn’t want that to happen.

With the advent of OCO, it might mean the GWOT is over. If it is over, what happened?

It’s easy enough to figure out if you look at the facts. We’re disarming, we’re releasing our prisoners, we’re trying not to offend anyone, and we’re not taking action against other countries that violate international law. Have you figured it out yet?

Yep, that’s it–we surrendered.

It just makes sense.

Invasion of the Freedom Snatchers

Saturday, March 21st, 2009




















It just makes sense.