A Necessary Glimpse Of Stark Reality

We've probably all been there at one time in our lives. Staring intently at the screen, on the edge of our seats, as the Good Guy glares down the barrel of his raised gun at the Bad Guy, who repeatedly demands that the Good Guy drop his weapon. In grim futility, we yell at the screen, beseeching the Good Guy to not do it!, but he eventually lowers his gun and dejectedly tosses it aside a mere second before the Bad Guy puts a bullet through the head of the Good Guy's loved one, tosses her lifeless body to the ground and splatters the guts of the Good Guy on the pavement.

The Good Guy's motivation was clear and even understandable to a degree. After all, he did what he thought was the only thing he could do to diffuse a tense situation in which hung the balance of his love's life. We, the audience, knew all along that the situation was hopeless but were powerless to persuade the actor on screen of such. He just couldn't hear us. Sure, the hero recuperates and seeks out those responsible for his loss and necessity for healing, but he has lost any reason for living save for vengeance. So much for fantasy; let's deal with reality.

Barack Obama is much like the hero in the film in as much he can't hear our plaintive cries nor understand the gravity of the peril. But he will gladly toss our weapons aside in the hopes of assuaging our enemies. Fortunately, he has not as yet attained the role of the "hero". He is, however, trying mightily.

The danger lies in the initial days of a Presidency, and one article points out the dark possibilities eloquently; it was written by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown and it casts a glaring, bare flourescent light on an Obama win in November and what it could mean. An excerpt:

On the night of January 20, 2009, a new commander-in-chief will leave the inaugural podium, parade, and festivities for the Oval Office. A national security staff ready with the first "threat briefing" will join him there. On his desk, they will place a thick binder of reports, each focusing on real or emerging threats on our national security. In the quiet of the Oval Office -- in the presence of these stern-faced, deadly serious briefers and advisers -- Barack H. Obama, should he be the next president, will come face-to-face with reality.

To reconcile my analogy, here is another excerpt from the piece:

The USS Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier, is now under construction in Hampton Road, Va. It will be ready to join the fleet in 2015, replacing a carrier launched 47 years ago. Do we know that the USS Ford will be needed in 2015?

No, we do not. But can we afford to bet against it?

Obama thinks so. According to his own campaign literature, he is willing to let the USS Ford, and many more of tomorrow's defense technologies, rust at the pier.

For anyone who fails to see the relevance, we simply cannot afford a Commander in Chief who believes that we can toss our weapons aside and expect to reason with any given number of madmen who still hold theirs. They will surely kill everyone we ever loved if given the opportunity. And we won't even have the potence for revenge. If this is referred to as "cowboy diplomacy", I'll take it over cowardice and appeasement any day.

-Woody

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America Is Still Melting In The Pot...Or Is It?

The great American experiment has been chugging along for over 200 years and it has, for the most part, been a successful endeavor. The Great Melting Pot has produced some amazing people in its relatively brief history. Sometimes, however, when too many ingredients are poured in too rapidly, the fire beneath becomes overburdened.

Through most of the 20th century immigrants to America eagerly leapt into the pot and willfully allowed themselves to become part of the mix, revelling in their new-found home and enthusiastically embracing its culture. Then something changed near the end of the century; new additions began to cling to the side of the pot in an attempt to retain some of their original composition by not submerging themselves fully into what I call the stew. This corresponds to the emergence of hyphenated nationality labels. "Whatyouwill-Americans", e.g.

The stew began to change with these new ingredients being added, even more so than it should have. The flavor was always in flux, true, but the basic composition of the stew was always about a mixture of components. I am at a loss in explaining this change.

Yes, the flavor changes with the ingredients of a stew, but the stew remains relatively unchanged in appearance. This is because everyone cooks down to a common broth. There is change, but the change is so gradual as to be nearly imperceptible. That is, so long as one of the ingredients doesn't thrash about, wailing, as it loses its core identity at the boiling point. One must agree that such an occurrence would be most noticeable to the cook.

Up until the latter part of the 20th century there were no reluctant ingredients being poured into the pot. Sure, they still hit the plate as either orange carrots or white potatoes, but they all shared the plate without quarrel. It was a stew from the "pot", and all were equally consumed without prejudice (3-year-old-racist-picky-eaters notwithstanding). Now we have the ingredients demanding special privileges and prominence on the plate.

To really throw a wrench into the mix, pomegranate has insisted on not only being added to the stew (something which, to my knowledge at least, is unprecedented), but has demanded even further that it be highlighted on the menu. Outrage, I say.

I think the cook needs to turn up the heat and use the ladle to clear the sides of the pot, stirring frequently. We need a common identity once again in order to survive.

-Woody

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An Exercise In Logic (And Why No One Should Vote For Obama)

Forget all the vitriol being spewed by the left regarding racist reasons for shunning Barack Obama. Many on the right are convinced that he's a muslim who should never occupy the White House, while being derided by those on the left for harboring such thoughts. Personally, I have seen enough evidence to make me skeptical, but that's just me. I'm not the one who counts, though.

One argument raging between the denizens of opposite ends of the ideological spectrum is how we view muslims in general. The right insists that they are, by nature and belief, inherently dangerous and therefore not to be trusted. The left corrects the right all the time, pointing out that islamophobia is a sickness, and that we should learn to accept muslims. The key to the argument is this; the reasons that radical jihad happens is because we anger the sensibilities of muslims and that we would be wise to tone down whatever behavior makes them mad in the first place. Oh yes, and learn tolerance.

Let's examine these views. Conservatives will never vote for Obama, not because he's black, not because they think he's a muslim, but because he's just too damned liberal. That much is pretty obvious, at this point. So here is why Liberals should not vote for him.

Say what you will about the Christian Science Monitor, but it is undeniable that they understand religion, and they have a great point; since Obama was indisputably born to a muslim father, the likes of Osama bin Laden will forever view him as a muslim. Know who the muslims hate more than "infidels"? Apostates, those who were "lucky enough" to be born muslim and then shunned Allah's "benevolence".

This makes it obvious, by simple deduction, that Liberals should avoid angering jihadists by not voting for Obama, an apostate that muslims will feel they have every right to kill.

Or, simply wait to see who his running mate is, and then vote for that person, because we know they won't vote for McCain anyway. But I think that they should just refrain from pissing off al Qaeda, period, since that has long been their mantra. Libs, practice what you (forgive the pun) preach.

-Woody

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