Conservatism Lives!

Near my house is a park where I regularly take my kids to play, and like many parks with small lakes in them, this park is home to a number of wild geese. As I was walking around the lake the other day with my kids, we came upon a sign that declared the following: PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE GEESE.

Now, as a conservative and an individualist, these are just the sorts of rules I often take petty pleasure in breaking, but in this instance, the sign provided me with a reason for why I should obey it. It said something like this:

“While we all love wildlife, it is a mistaken kindness to hand-feed the geese, since it trains them to rely on being fed and diminishes their natural ability to forage on their own. This leads to unsustainable populations and starvation.”

If you’ve been to a park, you’ve probably seen a sign like this. I didn’t think anything of it until later, when it hit me: how is it that we understand the psychology of how handouts would destroy bird populations, but completely fail to see how the same thing might be true in the human world?

I have long believed that most people are conservative in how they live their daily lives, regardless of how they vote, and this is an excellent example. Perhaps what we should do is erect a load of billboards all around Washington reading:

“PLEASE DO NOT FEED MONEY TO THE HUMANS! While we all love the underprivileged, it is a mistaken kindness to hand-feed them cash, since it permanently lowers their expectations of life, develops an incapacitating reliance on government, and destroys their natural ability to work for themselves. This leads to exploitation of diminishing taxpayer resources and unsustainable government debt.”

The problem, unfortunately, is that the government already knows this. That’s pretty much the point.

The same is true of increasing federal and local laws, what so many of us have come to think of as “the Nanny state”. Recently, I heard a politician on the radio claiming that we need more regulations about how people conduct their personal lives (whether it be what they eat, what they do while they are driving, or any number of other nagging details) because people have essentially abandoned their own common sense in favor of a set of external rules and laws that will tell them how they should behave.

Thus, here’s another sign to put up all around Washington, as well as around our own state capital buildings:

Again, such a sign probably wouldn’t work, since those orchestrating over-regulation are obviously aware of its effects, and approve of them. In fact, as is the case with feeding cash to the humans, creating a permanent mentality of reliance on government is exactly the goal.

The obvious truth is that, when Barack Obama has the audacity (of hope, perhaps?) to quote the Bible (incorrectly) with his claim that we should all “be our brothers’ keepers”, he does not mean that you and I are to look out for each other—our neighbors, family and friends. He is not implying that individuals should care for each other. For him, government is the brother who is keeping us. Government will provide for us (or not), grant us our medical care (or not), determine how much of our money we get to keep (or not), and generally set up all the myriad rules and regulations for how we should manage our day-to-day lives in every detail. For President Barack Obama and the Democratic political majority, we are not to be kept by our literal brothers. We are to be kept by Big Brother.

So. Maybe we should abandon any hope of reaching Washington with our warning signs.

Maybe we should turn it around and instead address our warnings to the population at large. How about this sign in front of every polling place in the United States:

This might actually work. What do you think?

Is what’s good for the goose good for the panderer?

I believe that the American value system on which our country was founded is superior to that of every other nation in the world. That isn’t a very popular thing to say these days. Many of my own friends cringe at the thought of that statement. They are quick to point out our national sins and mistakes. I don’t discount those sins. They are real. Some of my friends might even call a statement like that arrogant. Some might ask what gives me the right to make that claim. Simple. I believe in absolute truth. I believe that there are certain “facts” or “truths” that exist as reality whether you believe them or not. They exist whether people who do believe in them make mistakes or not.

I recently started re-reading an old, but classic book by C.S. Lewis called The Screwtape Letters. For those of you not familiar, it is a series of letters written by a higher level demon named Screwtape to a lower level demon named Wormwood instructing him on how best to “manage” the humans to which he is “assigned” in order to keep them away from God. The first, and possibly most important lesson Screwtape attempts to impart to his trainee is that the single most effective thing they can do is to skew the humans’ idea of, or even better, their very belief in the existence of actual truth.

Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines primarily as ‘true’ or ‘false’, but as ‘academic’ or ‘practical’, ‘outworn’ or ‘contemporary’, ‘conventional’ or ‘ruthless’. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that [your philosophy] is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous-that it is the philosophy of the future.

Believe it or not, that book was published in 1942. Perhaps the world hasn’t changed as much as we think it has. Lewis was confronting the same moral battle that rages today about what is and is not true, or for that matter if truth even exists. Interestingly, our founding fathers chose to draft our Declaration of Independence with the words:

“We hold these truths to be self evident…”

They recognized the existence of absolute truth:

“…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

They structured our government around those Rights as best they could:

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

They chose to build our nation on the foundation of those truths even if we failed to live up to those standards before the ink was even dry (that all men are created equal, for example) or even still struggle to do so today. Have we made mistakes? Of course we have. Have we failed to live up to our own moral underpinnings? Absolutely. But that doesn’t change the simple truth, that those underpinnings are morally superior to any other in the world.

As a nation, we value life. Even when we go to war, we go to great pains to reduce the number of innocent or non-combatant lives that are lost in the process. All the while our enemies make a point of targeting civilians. We value liberty. Individual freedom is a cornerstone of our society while in much of the rest of the world, people know only the freedoms granted to them by tyrannical dictators or brutal governmental regimes. We are the land of opportunity. Our foundation upon truth, makes our value system superior. We are as Ronald Reagan said, “a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere”.

I saw Billy Mays as a downloadable Mii for the Wii yesterday. It really struck me as an odd thing. Here stood a tiny cartoon caricature of a man who has become famous for nothing more than selling things on TV. Things. Plural. If its “new”, “revolutionary”, or “not available in stores”, there’s a pretty good chance Billy Mays is pushing it in an infomercial. In a sense, Billy Mays is our modern day version of the snake oil salesman. The thing is, no one seems to mind. We’re used to it. We have become accustomed to being “sold”. We assume that most people we encounter have some sort of hidden agenda. Sarcasm is a standard method of communication. Consequently, sincerity is in short supply these days.

Like any resource, scarcity increases demand and therefore value. Politics is certainly no exception. One thing Obama definitely had going for him during the campaign and even since, is that he comes across as a man of deep sincerity. That’s appealing. Plain and simple. The problem is that the seduction of sincerity obscures the honest evaluation of the message.

To put it simply, sincerity is not an adequate evaluation of a man’s ideas or ideals. Hitler was sincere. Mao was sincere. Even Osama Bin laden is sincere. Unfortunately, in our sincerity starved society, sincerity seems to be enough to convince most people that its presence alone grants merit. That is a foolish, and dangerous place to find ourselves. 

Maybe its the fact that I’ve crossed firmly into my thirties now and have developed a sincere distaste for the fundamentalism of my childhood, or perhaps its just the friends I’ve been keeping the last few years, but as a conservative Christian I find myself in an odd place politically these days. You see, there has been a groundswell of liberalism inside the confines of Christianity. As a matter of fact, I would say that Christians probably represent the largest “growth demographic” for liberal ideology in recent years. Of course First Baptist this and the Wesleyan Church of that by and large are standing firm in their fundamentalism and condemnation of all those (including and perhaps most particularly, other Christians) who do not agree on their 121 points of theology and corresponding list of 363 do’s and don’t for getting into Heaven. But those aren’t the people that I’m talking about. I’m talking about the rank and file majority attending Faith Church this and Community Church that, and even more so, I’m talking about those people’s kids.

These are the people who are struggling to understand why their parents and the “traditional” church believed in the moral superiority of American ideals. These are the people who are asking why the “traditional” church can’t just let people live their lives and marry whomever they want regardless of gender. These are the people who perhaps most loudly are asking how the “traditional” church can scorn an impoverished woman for wondering how she will care for her baby when its born, but refuse to reach out and provide a helping hand. These are the people who voted in droves for Barack Obama. These are the people who rail against the “evils’ of the very companies that provide them with work and health insurance. These are the people who are pushing beyond stewardship to form an idol out of the Earth itself. These are the people who are in the process of reorienting the most basic tenants of what represents the collective worldview of the “church”. And to be honest, these are the people that frighten me.

They don’t frighten me because they represent “change”, or because I fear the loss of power or slipping into some sort of minority. Quite simply, they frighten me because they seem to be poorly versed in history, uneducated economically, content to follow popular whims, and consequently pursuing a course based mainly on temporal and emotional reactionism.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Some of the questions they ask are good ones, excellent ones even. I would even say that they have done a fantastic job of identifying where recent and even historical “Christian conservatives” have failed. Do we not, as believers, have a responsibility to “give”, and to “help” the “less fortunate”? Yes. Absolutely we do and we must. But I would ask, who are “we”, exactly in that context as it related to believers? One of the organizations leading this movement is the “Matthew 25 network” which proudly quotes Matthew 25:40 on its homepage:

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

I believe this is a gross misrepresentation of Scripture and robs the believer of both the responsibility and the joy of caring for those around them. I mean seriously, the verse says whatever you did. It doesn’t say “whatever politician or Presidential candidate you voted for who promised to provide the most social programs”. Yet, that is exactly how the Christian left has made this verse to fit into their agenda. Certainly Christ also said “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”, but the left acts as though that’s the abridged version and that he went on to say “so that he may fulfill the commandments I gave you on your behalf.” Its utterly ridiculous, but that seems to matter little.

You might think I’m talking about the fact that most of the country’s major newspapers are either bankrupt or heading there fast. You might think I’m talking about the fact that a growing number of people admit to getting most of their news from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and yes those are both Comedy Central productions. (I’ll even admit to watching Colbert on a regular basis. Let’s face it. There are few things quite as good as his “Better Know a District” segments. That is, of course, unless he’s interviewing someone from the Brady Campaign.)

No. I’m not talking about outdated business models for news networks or our increasing propensity to want some satire with our news. I am talking about the elimination of the free press entirely. According to ABC News, the Obama White House has decided to create their own news division and report on themselves while not allowing “outside” news agencies to do so. (I especially like the little White House News logo.) The first such incident revolves around a relatively trivial matter of a college basketball team visiting the White House. So you might say, “who cares?” But seriously, the entire point of  “freedom of the press” clause of the first amendment of the Constitution is to provide the citizens with a supposedly unbiased (insert MSNBC and or Chris Matthews and or Keith Olbermann joke here) source of information about our government and elected officials. In short, it is a stop guard designed to attempt to keep them honest. The moment we allow our government to “report” on itself and shut out our press, regardless of how biased we believe that press to be, journalism is truly dead and our freedom won’t be far behind.

We conservatives are oft heard referring to the threat of incrementalization– what is commonly known as “the slippery slope”. For instance, if it makes sense to help the poor and unfortunate by forcing their employers to pay them eight dollars an hour, why not nine? Why not fifteen? Why not fifty, with full medical benefits, child care, and a brand new Prius for them to drive to work? Or in another common example: if it is incumbent upon the government to grant marital benefits to homosexuals, then why not to vegesexuals? Or people who want to marry their pet marmosets? Why should they be excluded? And don’t try to suggest such people don’t exist. We all know they do, and if it’s OK to marginalize them now, it won’t be once we begin to slide down the– say it with me– “slippery slope”.

What I am beginning to wonder, however, is if the slippery slope has already come and gone, probably sometime during the Clinton years. What if there was a cliff at the bottom of that slope, and we’re already off it, falling, speeding toward terminal velocity, beyond any hope whatsoever of going back? Pretty hopeless, eh? I’d sure like to think otherwise– I’m a generally optimistic guy– but I think it may indeed be too late. Here’s my evidence.

The other day, I heard a very well-known conservative talk show host (not Rush Limbaugh, thankfully, but one of his fill-ins) agree with a caller on the following point: the Democrats won the last election because people no longer cast their votes on ideas and issues, they cast their votes based on which candidate their favorite comedians, singers and actors say is cool. Therefore (this caller claimed) we should embrace this new reality and send out our own army of comedians, singers and actors, intent on making conservative candidates cool enough for these dolts to vote for.

The host, woefully, agreed whole-heartedly.

I don’t need to tell you what is wrong with this, but there are probably a few others who don’t see the point, which is this: for the first time in the history of planet earth, people are making their most important life decisions– decisions about their leaders, about their spirituality, about what to stick in their mouths, heads and hearts– without depending on critical thinking, a study of the issues, or conversations with people of different perspectives. For the first time in history, these weighty decisions are being made based on peer pressure, cool-factor, fictional representations, and the opinions of people paid to pretend to be other people (actors). This is bad enough. What’s worse is that our own leaders are not suggesting that we fight this tide of intellectual laziness, but that we embrace it.

Take, for example, the recent announcement that supreme court justice Souter is planning to retire. Conversation immediately turned to who Obama might choose as his replacement. One would assume the conversations might have centered around any potential candidate’s legal and intellectual qualifications. Perhaps there might have been some in-depth analyses of the candidates’ experience, record, writings, education, etc. In short, one would have expected that the main issues would revolve around said candidate’s ability to actually perform the duties required by the highest court in the land. Alas, this was not the case. What, instead, has been the meat of the discussion about Justice Souter’s replacement? Whether this person will be a woman. Or a black. Or maybe a hispanic.

This should seem utterly preposterous to our leaders– a superficial mockery of what the office of Supreme Court justice stands for– and yet it apparently doesn’t. These ridiculously meaningless and insignificant considerations are debated with utter seriousness by the “watchdog” media. No Republican leader, so far as I know, has said “Wait a minute. Shouldn’t we actually be discussing this person’s legal qualifications a bit more than their gender or the color of their skin? I thought judging people on those details was wrong and racist?” No GOP leader is saying that because if they did they’d instantly be called wrong and racist. That, however, is no excuse.

This, unfortunately, is the reality of the post-Obama-election-age. The country’s first MTV president has finally firmly established the fact that a slim majority of Americans now vote for a presidential candidate based entirely on what the TV tells them. And I’m not even talking about the news media. I am talking about singers and actors, about fictional representations of the world as seen through the lens of programs ranging from The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live to Family Guy and Gossip Girl. We conservatives get sidetracked complaining about the “liberal media”, but the sad reality is that Americans aren’t getting their political views from NBC News, CNN, and the Washington Post. They are getting them from Brian Griffin (the dog on Family Guy, for you uninitiates), Sheryl Crow, and Tina Fey. They are abandoning their most important decisions to fictional characters, from Stephen Colbert to Matt Damon (and yes, he is a fictional character; all of his lines are written by moveon.org and George Soros). Most Americans believe– subconsciously, if not overtly– that Sarah Palin is a character played by Tina Fey. They have no more idea of what Ms. Palin has actually said than they do the words of the actual consitution of the United States.

For the first time in history, average Americans now judge entire populations of people — specifically conservatives and Christians — based entirely on their fictional representation, rather than on actual observations of any specific conservatives or Christians. Try this: ask any liberal what a conservative and/or Christian is like. They will give you some variation of the popular stereotype, i.e. they are anti-science, bigoted, homophobic, hate-filled, brainless, hayseeds and rednecks. Nod wisely, and then, as innocently as possible, ask them this: do you know conservatives and Christians like that? Can you name names? Prediction: the liberal will hem and haw a moment, and then blurt out the name of Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. You may choose to remind them that they probably don’t know those people (and likely have never even listened to their shows), but such a reminder would be pointless and will probably just get you fired, ostracized, and called a bitch by some gay gossip columnist. In short, it really isn’t worth the effort, because your liberal friend is utterly convinced that the representation he/she has seen on TV is true and accurate, even if they don’t personally know anyone like that.

I think the people that propose that we conservatives embrace the “popularity contest” mentality of the post-Obama age recognize the truth of what I am proposing. They know that we are over the cliff– there’s no turning back. It is no longer possible to appeal to the masses based on logic, experience and debate. Thus, these leaders tell us, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

The problem is, conservatism will never be “cool”. Conservatism relies on a moral, intellectually honest, logic-based worldview. It cannot be tranformed into something that is merely shallow, hip, and rooted in instant emotional gratification. Even if we wanted to, we cannot promote conservatism in the same way that Democrats can hype liberalism. It’d be like trying to hawk broccoli at a baseball game: “GET yer nuTRICious BROCK-leee! Steamed FRESH and HOT! GOOD and good FOR ya…” It’d be funny, but nobody’d be buying it. If we can’t convince people to eat their veggies by getting them to actually care about what’s good for them, then there is no hope whatsover. In the same way, if we cannot convince the country to vote conservative based on what is best for themselves and the country, there is no way we will get them to vote conservative based on how yummy it is. Liberalism may be an abject failure in terms of effectiveness and intellectual soundness, but its got the market cornered on yumminess, and that’s pretty much all anybody cares about anymore.

This is why I fear that the argument for the “slippery slope” is now officially moot. That argument only works when there is time to stop the slide. I fear that that time is now past. Take a look around. The slope is history. We’re off the cliff now, falling into the abyss. All that’s left now, I suppose, is to enjoy the ride.

Wheee.

Promotional Shot of AF1 Buzzing the NYC Skyline

I am reminded of the scene from the movie Close Encounters when the Air Force general presents a picture to a crowd of agitated citizens and says “This… is a UFO.”  They all begin to babble excitedly, and then the General pulls the photo back and tells them the truth: it’s actually a photo of a pie plate thrown into the air by his son.  I like that scene.  It cracks me up a little.

Today, I get to be like that Air Force General.

A week or so ago, citizens of New York City were understandably thrown into a momentary panic when a large jetliner was seen buzzing the city.  The jetliner in question was not, however, being operated by terrorists (technically).  It was, in fact, Air Force One, the official plane of the President of the United States.  So what was it doing swooping ominously over the New York skyline, unannounced and apparently so secretly that President Obama himself said he didn’t know about it?  Well, according to the official administration explanation, they were taking promotional pictures of it.

Here is a sample of one of the pictures taken during that shoot.

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?  I mean, that’s obviously the New York skyline behind it, majestic and bustling, lit with the new sun of a bright spring day.  And there, of course, is the great jet itself, swooping grandly along the coast, angling gently toward JFK airport.

Or not.

No, it isn’t a pie plate thrown into the air by my son.  It’s a composite I made in Photoshop.  It took me about twenty minutes, and that includes doing a quick online image search to find usable pictures of both Air Force One and the New York City skyline (post 9-11, of course).  Granted, I am a graphic artist.  This is what I do for a living.  It was kind of fun, but not much of a challenge, really.

Which brings me to my question: If the administration’s explanation of that bizarre, unannounced flight over New York is true, then it seems like a rather preposterous length to go to get a photo that, arguably, might actually look better when faked in Photoshop.  Fishy?  Or just incomprehensibly inept?

Frankly, I think this is just a fabulous, blinding example of why the government is so shamelessly awful at running things.  So someone decides that a cool PR shot of the President’s jet over NYC would be cool.  What’s the most obvious way to get that shot?  Well, you send that mofo up, dammit, along with a contingent of fighters with photographers in the copilot’s seats.  So it costs $328,000 or so.  That’s nothing to an organization that measures its budget in the trillions, right?  Does it even occur to someone to consider a cheaper (and saner) alternative?  Pfft.  Why would it?

Granted, I’m not the cheapest graphic artist out there, but I’d have been happy to help the government out in this endeavor.  They could have kept AF1 on the ground, saved the population of New York from nearly losing their breakfasts, and in the end gotten some arguably better promo shots.  I could have even airbrushed the jet up a bit, just like they do with the supermodels on the SI swimsuit edition– taken off a few of those extra pounds here and there, maybe given it a sexy, thinning highlight along its fuselage.

I wouldn’t have charged $328,000.  Heck, I’d have done it for a measly $250,000.  After all, it’d be government work, right?

For those of you who haven’t been watching C-Span (and who does, really??), Captain Planet (aka Al Gore) has been in Washington pushing for a “cap and trade”. During the hearings, John Dingell had the momentary clarity of mind to point out that “nobody in this country realizes that cap and trade is a tax…and it’s a great big one.” Hold on to your wallets people, Captain Planet has a new friend in the White House and they aim to extract even more cash from you than you realize.

Recently, the Obama team has released records of “torture” methods used by the Bush administration on terrorist militants. While the Obama team has chosen not to release any of the life-saving information obtained via said torture methods, they have made a rather serious and damning proclamation about the dangers posed by such actions. America’s use of torture on terrorist detainees, the administration claims, will function as a recruiting tool within the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

Unfortunately, they seem to have a valid point, as evidenced by the release of a recent surveillance document. The following is a transcript of a covertly recorded conversation between an Iraqi teenager and a terrorist recruiter. It may well change your position on the current torture debate.

—–  (transmission begins with the sound of a closing door) —–

“So you are considering a career as an Al Qaeda terrorist, yes?”

“Well… I guess so.”

“You have reservations. This is perfectly natural. Tell me, what is the nature of your apprehension?”

“I don’t know. I mean, what if I get caught? You know? I mean, the Americans… they’re the most powerful military in the world. I hear they torture their prisoners for information. I just… I just don’t know if I could face something like that. I mean, it isn’t all just fun and bombs, you know?”

“You hear correctly, my young friend. The Americans do torture captured terrorist militants. I have a brother in Gitmo. I had two friends who were at Abu Graib. You probably know them. Muhammad and Muhammad.”

“Muhammad’s boys? Yeah sure. My older brother went to school with them. We all used to play cops and suiciders in the back yard.”

“Indeed. The point is, all of them have witnessed and experienced the great Satan’s torture techniques.”

“And lived to tell of them?”

(indistinct; possibly a snicker) “You could put it that way. Let me show you a picture. This was just released by the new American President. It is a ‘candid’ photo of what torture looks like at the hands of the Americans.”

(gasps) “What are they doing to that man?”

“They are grabbing his face. This is what they call a ‘face grab’.”

“Let me guess: this was right before they cut his face off with an electric knife?”

“You would think so, right? I mean, that only makes sense. Alas, no.”

“Did they force him to eat broken glass, maybe?”

“Not a single shard.”

“Then they gouged out his eyes. With a spoon, right? They popped out his eyes and made him look at himself as they urinated on him. Is that it?”

“No, no, and no.”

(Horrified) “Then what? Oh, Allah, what did they do to him?”

“Nothing. After the face grab, he went to the commissary and had a nice rice pilaf and coffee. Weak coffee, I understand. The Americans try, they really do, but they just don’t know how to brew the bean. It’s surprising, really.”

“That’s it?”

“That is it.”

“But surely they were merely teasing him. Surely the next day… I mean, what about Abu Graib? The things I have heard—”

“Are mostly camel fodder. Do you want to know what really happened at Abu Graib?”

“I’m not sure I do. I… I have nightmares…”

(noise of a drawer opening, closing. A pause.) “What is this? A fraternity party at Mosul U?”

“It is from an American newspaper story. This…” (suppressed laughter) “This is a picture of the ‘cruelty’ committed at Abu Graib.”

“…this?”

“Yes.”

“Are those ladies’ panties?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You are yanking my chain.”

“I yank no chains. This is what they call torture. There are Americans for whom this would be a sort of secret fantasy. And not a few of our own countrymen. Am I right? Huh? Yes?”

(Sheepish laughter) “Maybe. Yes. Ah-hah ha!”

(Mocking voice) “Oh no! A dog is barking at me! A leashed dog! I might get dog spit on my nice prison jumpsuit! Oh my goodness gracious! Dear me, there are ladies underpants on my head! Oh what will they do next? A lap-dance? Please, no!”

(Both laughing.)

“All right, all right, I get the point. But that can’t be all they do. I mean, the Americans, they’re as wily as the devil. They play terrible, godless games with their prisoners. I have heard how they can get inside a man’s very own mind, make him afraid, play on his deepest terrors. They have technology that makes nightmares come true, that brings a man’s secret horrors to life.”

“Alas, this is true. My brother, Muhammad, in Gitmo. He has experienced this.”

“He has? What? Tell me! What was his greatest fear?”

(Long, meaningful pause.) “Caterpillars.”

(Ten seconds of silence.)

“Caterpillars?”

“Well, that’s what he told them. They asked him what he was most afraid of, and it was the first thing that came into his head. He considered telling them he was terrified of hot fudge sundaes, but he thought even they wouldn’t believe that. So he said caterpillars.”

“Ooookay. So what did they do? Bio-engineer some sort giant carnivorous caterpillar and drop him off in a forest full of them with only a chicken bone for a weapon?”

“You’d think so, no? I mean, that would have been pretty cool. Scary, yes. But cool.”

“Dead cool.”

“No.”

“Then what? Tell me!”

“They put him in a room with one.”

“One what? One caterpillar?”

“Yes.”

“A regular caterpillar? No genetically enhanced fangs? No poison barbs?”

“Not so much as an electric stinger.”

(laughing again) “You are yanking my chain! Come on, admit it!”

“I tell you, I yank no chains. This is what the Americans do. And you know what? You know what is the most amusing thing of all? They feel bad for it.”

“No!”

“They do! They really do! They berate themselves for it. They conduct big crying fits on their Sunday morning talking shows, telling each other how horrible they are, how they must apologize and beg our forgiveness before we get really mad and do something equally bad to them! Like, oh I don’t know, spilling hot chocolate on them or something.”

“No way!”

“Yes way. They are so riddled with guilt that they give us Korans and prayer rugs—while we are in their custody! They give us lawyers to defend us. It’s true! It would be funny if it wasn’t so totally pathetic. But still, I mean come on, it is pretty funny, is it not?”

“They do know what we do to their people when we catch them, right?”

“Are you kidding? We send them videos! We broadcast the beheadings like spectator sports! We drag their bodies around the streets like piñatas and send them the pieces that are left! It doesn’t matter!”

“Impossible. It must be a trick.”

“Shh!” (Long pause, then whispering) “Do you hear that?”

“What?”

“Stalking… footsteps… coming for you… look out! It’s a… paper tiger!”

(both laughing)

(Falsetto voice) “Meow, meow! Do you have a lawyer! Meow! Are you comfortable? Do you need a new Koran? Meow, meow! Tell me where the bomb is or I’ll… I’ll take away your dessert! I may even grab your face a little! I may stick you in a room with a fuzzy bug! Mee-OW!!”

(growing serious) “That’s all well and good, but what about…”

“Yes, tell me. Get it all out. What is your last worry?”

“Well… what about… waterboarding?”

“I see. You have heard of this. Do you know what it is?”

(pause) “I’ve heard… things. Even the Americans are terrified to talk about it.”

“This is true. And that should tell you everything you need to know about them.”

“But what is it? Do they stick you in a box and fill the box with water until you drown?”

“No. But that’s a pretty good one. Try again.”

“Do they… do they nail you to a board and force you to drink so much water that your stomach explodes?”

“Allah akbar, boy, where do you get this stuff? Heavens no.”

“Well, what is it then? I have to know!”

“You say you have older brothers, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever go to the pool with them?”

“Ugh, yes. They used to tease me. They’d dunk me under the water and then let me up and laugh at me, and then do it again and again. My mother would get so mad at them. Once, I got so much water in my nose that a little bit came out my mouth. It tasted really gross and I had to go sit by the side of the pool for a few minutes. My mom gave me some Fritos and Kool-aid. I hated those guys.”

“Welcome to the resistance, my young friend. Muhammad here will suit you up and get you your machine gun. You have to grow your own beard.”

“Yes sir!”

“And son?”

“Yes sir?”

“If you purposely get yourself caught by the Americans just to go to Gitmo and have Harry Potter audiobooks played at you, I will come there and cut off your head myself.”

(grinning) “You totally would, too. Meow!!”

—– (laughter. Tape ends) —–

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how people like me fit into today’s political society. My conclusion is that increasingly…we don’t. I describe myself as a “hard core conservative”, or sometimes as a “capitalist through and through”, and occasionally even as “a right wing nut job” (I suppose that means that Homeland Security is now watching me), but what I’ve found more and more is that those words don’t even mean the same thing to me as they do to most other people. What’s more, the very way in which I process information and reach conclusions seems to be increasingly at odds with those around me. (I know, that probably sounds like something from the diary of a mad man, but I think its more like something from the thoughts of a man without a country.) I talk about the ideas of freedom, liberty, and wealth creation as ideals that improve the greater good. Most people’s eyes just gloss over and they stare at me like I’m from another planet or speaking some language they don’t understand.

You see, I believe in America. I believe that in spite of our flaws, that the foundational principles on which our nation was built are among the purest and most honorable of any nation. Our fundamental commitment to the principles of natural law and the basic rights of men, and most importantly our commitment to individual freedom and liberty have been unique in the world and created the greatest good for the most number of people of any political or economic system ever devised. However, I find fewer and fewer people with any interest in defending those principles. Most people I talk to are far more interested in imposing their subjective view of “fairness” on society at large than they are in defending the very freedom and liberty that allows them to even entertain such ideas. Today, the common consciousness seems more focused on “social justice” and equality of outcome than it is on equality of opportunity and individual achievement and responsibility.

What’s more, in a sound bite culture with an increasing lack of education about even the most basic of economic principles, our national short sightedness about the economic implications of social issues and the so called “solutions” that are gaining popular support is staggering to me. Our entire economic system is built on the principle of individuals making rational decisions. So the we now have a situation in which government interventions in the market (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) forced irrational mortgage lending which in turn incented irrational mortgage borrowing ultimately resulting in a mortgage meltdown and the market is blamed? That isn’t “capitalism”, but that’s what people think of capitalism.

We point to our current economic woes such as our unemployment rate (8.1% in the most recent month reported, but averaging closer to 6% for the last 20 years) as evidence that “capitalism doesn’t work”. Meanwhile, the more socialist economies of the European Union have long had unemployment rates of almost 10%. Not to mention, their standard of living is much lower. Is no one thinking this through to its conclusion?

As for our elected officials, the differentiations between the parties seems to be quickly eroding as well. Sure, on some issues there are still significant differences that are unlikely to change any time soon (which is why I remain reluctantly attached to the Republicans most of the time), but both sides seems to have caught on to one particularly nasty truth; shifting the source of people’s freedom and rights from their maker to that of a centralized authority grants them increasing power in direct correlation to the amount of freedom and rights which they usurp. Our founding fathers understood this principle. It is, in fact, why we fought for independence in the first place.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

For those of you more recent to the site, I began blogging during the election under the name “Reluctant Republican” (a moniker I’ve kept since that time). That name wasn’t chosen randomly or lightly. The principles of freedom and liberty that I hold dear simply aren’t fully represented by either political party these days. While I believe in much of what George W. Bush did as President as it relates to foreign policy, I also acknowledge full well that he, just like the Democrats, seemed to feel that domestic problems were to be solved with giant piles of borrowed money (certainly a major assault on our national economic liberty). And now President Obama is making President Bush look like an amateur when it comes to spending money we don’t have. (As a side note; how arrogant do you have to be to reprimand business lenders for lending money they shouldn’t have or citizens for borrowing money they couldn’t afford all the while doing the same with the government on a scale that is almost incomprehensible?)

So where does someone like me go from here? Should I remain content to be represented by a political party which represents maybe only half of what I stand for? Should I go rogue and join the Constitution Party or some other third party that doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of ever getting elected to a major office just so I can feel better about myself? Neither of those options seem like good ones to me. It seems to me that the only option is to try to revitalize the Republican party from within, but I fear they’ve already gone too far down the road and can’t be turned back.