The two-headed snake of Amerian politics

Hallowed Ground has an interesting post up about politics.

Every 4 years the drones (that would be us) are let out of the cage, and given the honor of expressing our "freedom" by picking which head of the snake we chose to be bitten by in the next 4 years. One Party purports to be "against" an issue, and the other party pretends to be in oppostion to said issue. One is overtly Socialist, the other plays the role of being the "Anti-Socialist" party, one is overtly "Pro-Abortion", the other pays lip service the role of being the "Pro-Life" party.

Lots of neat pictures at the home page too. Check it out.

Winning

Zippy Catholic has an interesting post up today about having the proper mindset for victory. The gist of it is that you can't win if you're not prepared to lose.

Victory cannot be had if we aren't truly and genuinely willing to accept losing: to accept actually being a loser. If we can't accept losing then in substance, when we do lose, we will declare victory anyway. Instead of merely losing to that which we oppose we will become what we oppose.

This equates fairly well with something I've told my kids more than once, "If you're acting out of fear, you've already lost."

Or, as Mother Theresa is reported to have said, ""we are not called to be successful, we are called to be faithful"

Fr. Longnecker has a post up today about tolerance and how, when over emphasized, tolerance naturally slides down into tyranny.

This is walking a tightrope. Nobody wants to dispute the fact that tolerance is a virtue, and nobody wants to argue for intolerance, however, there does need to be an ordering of virtue.

Well, I hate to contradict Father, but I'll argue for intolerance any day of the week. We must never tolerate falsehood or dishonesty in public discourse. We should never tolerate our own sinfulness and especially pride. We should not show tolerance for what is contemptible, craven or evil.

Tolerating these things is like tolerating weeds in the garden, it only encourages them. In our locality, our garden is infested with nightshade. It's a beautiful plant, but deadly. Handling the plant without gloves can cause sickness, and ingesting even a small amount of the leaves or berries can kill. It will seed suprisingly quickly if left alone, and likes to hide under other, good plants so that it won't bee seen rooted out and destroyed.

If I were to tolerate this weed, it would soon take over the garden, choking out the good plants, and leaving no harvest but poison and death. Some falsehoods are just as noxious, and just as vigorous, and just as deadly as nightshade.

Whoo Hoo! A Comment!

I got my first unsolicited comment on the last post. I didn't see it because I haven't logged in the last three weeks. Thanks, freebird, for the ego rush.

Traditionalism

Over at Intelletctual Conservative , they're talking about the different types of conservatives. In the comments the topic of a proper name for our (my) side of the debate came up. Mike Tuggles at Rebellion has some thoughts

For my part, I use the term "tradionalist". Wha I mean by that is precisely this: God created man in his image and likeness. Man is born with inborn traits to help him be productive and happy in this world. Due to The Fall, man is also born with traits that will serve to destroy him and thos around him. The prupose of society of any kind is to encourage the good traits and to discourage the bad. The problem is that it's not always obvious which is which, nor how to encourge/discourage them.

Tradition and custom serve to illuminate the puzzle for us. They are the result of thousands of years of actual human experience distilled down to a practical way of life. Contrary to the claims of some, they are not arbitrary. One discards tradition at one's peril.

As a traditionalist, I believe that far too many traditions and customs have been discarded in our modern world, and it's time to start bringing them back in. The role of government is the process of bringing them back is to please GET OUT OF THE WAY. Starting with pulling US troops out of spider-infested third (and first) world countries, reforming of divorce laws, on to closing the border, and eliminating welfare, and ending with a reaffirmation of the 9th and 10th amendments to the constitution, the Us government should simply stop intervening where it has no business, whether in Iraq, Parguay, Serbia, or Oregon.

What's in a name?

Have you noticed that most people described as conservatives today, whether by themselves or the media, just aren't? The prime example is GW Bush. The man's presidency is a complete walking disaster from a real conservative's perspective, and yet he is constantly being described not only as conservative, but as radically conservative.

How did this come about? I have a theory. In the late 60's and early 70's, the left made up a tale of "The Man"(r), a horrid, racist oppressor who is constantly fighting to keep down the poor, the blacks, and the powerless for his own benefit and amusement. While there were certainly people like that in the 70's, they were very few and mostly Democrats. A person who only cared about power in the 70's was just not going into national politics as a Republican. As the Democrats on the left told this story over and over again to itself, it was natural to identify The Man(r) with the Rich, the Elite, the Republicans. Eventually they stereotype took, becoming unquestioned in the minds of the young. So when a young proto-fascist like Rumsfeld or GW Bush was looking for a political home, the GOP seemed like the proper place. And of course, everyone knows that the Republican party is conservative. It must be true!

In reality Conservatism is diametrically opposed to all kinds of social engineering, from socialist health care to wars for democracy. I can't think of a single conservative issue the current batch at the helm of the GOP would be willing to fight for, except (marginally) lower taxes. For us paleoconservatives, tax rates are an important but non-critical issue.

Predictions for 2007

It is customary, at the beginning of the year, for those who are actually smarter than the rest of humanity to show off our greater perspicacity by making predictions of upcoming events. Unfortunately, it is also customary for the deceitful, the arrogant, the self-important and the clueless to do exactly the same thing. The only way to tell the difference is check the predictions against actual events. Since this is a first for me, you have no record to check against. So assign me to one of the above categories and read my:

Predictions for 2007

1. Oil prices, while still volatile, will continue to increase
2. The Bush Administration will try to attack Iran. I think that Congressional Democrats will actually try to stop them. If they manage to get congressional approval (or worse yet, act without congressional approval), we will lose Iraq utterly and for at least a generation.
3. Microsoft Vista will fall flat in the market
4. Some company will actually start marketing an easy-to-install, legally irreproachable media player for Linux. This is the last piece in the puzzle which will lead to world domination for a real and secure operating system.
5. Thanks to e-Music.com and internet marketing, a band will break out and make huge sales without having a recording contract with a record company.
6. Contrary to Republican scare-mongering, the socialists leading the Democrat party will not be able to nationalize health care.
7. No-one will watch television on their cell phone
8. The blogosphere will continue to make no real difference, except for the productivity impact of millions of people talking to each other on company time.
9. Our liberty will continue to be chipped away by the Democrats as it was by the Republicans.

Danby's real name revealed

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Marquess Danby the Nefarious of Lower Beanthrop in the Hedge Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Failed experiment

Well, I posted that this blog was an experiment, and it seems to have failed. I just don't have what it takes to post regularly. I'll keep it going, however sporadically, though. It soothes my ego and gives me a place to put some things I'd rather not lose.

Kansas et al.

Over on Rod Dreher's blog, there was recently an interesting discussion around an article in the NY Times. The article basically chronicles the death of a small town in Kansas. I posted what I thought was a good comment, and I'm duplicating it here on account of I'm so wonderfully humble.

The basic problem in Kansas is that commercial agriculture has become de-humanizing. Working hard is one thing, spend every waking moment in the fields is quite another. A modern commercial farmer needs to harvest a thousand, or 5000 acres to make his equipment payments, and to buy fuel, synthetic fetilizers, weed killers, bug killers, and genetically modified seed.

And of course, that means that the farms are huge and other people are far away. The village as an institution has already died in this country, replaced by pre-fab migrant labor housing. The towns are on their way out, because the pressure to increase the size of the farm is always there.

And when the old man dies, what will become of the land? Most likely leased out to ADM, or ConAgra to be farmed by hirelings. Very few individuals have the kind of cash or credit it would take to buy enough land to get started.

I do have a suggestion to reverse the trend though. Bust the farm up into 40-100 acre parcels. Sell them cheap to people (there are plenty of them) who want to farm using organic/sustainable or even horse-powered methods. Instead of one family on that thousand-acre parcel, there'll be 10 or 20. The work will be on a human scale, and there will be a place for a people-person like Travis.