Churchill said that if you are not a Liberal when you are 20 you have no heart, and if you are not a Conservative when you are 40 you have no brain. I don’t know where that leaves me, since I was a Libertarian at 20, but I have evolved into a Conservative over the years, and where once the differences between the two seemed small, I realize now that they are substantial, and that the two terms should never be used synonymously.

First, let me address the only true point of agreement between Conservatism and Libertarianism: an abiding distrust of big government. Both philosophies espouse small government [though in recent years many Conservatives in power have honored this more in word than deed] out of both fear of the tyranny that big government can lead to, and appreciation of the waste and inefficiency that are the hallmarks of any government.

Having located the point of similarity between the Cons and Libs, it is now time to see where they disagree, and here the chasm is probably wider than most might think. Libs are basically civilized anarchists, who believe in close to absolute freedom for the individual, whose desires and personal decisions are treated as almost sacrosanct. While understanding the need for some structure and restraints, they seek to minimize this as much as possible. They can be atheists, pro gay marriage, anti military, pro-pornography and much more [or less depending on your point of view] because their basic tenet is, everyone should decide for themselves with practically no restraints placed on them by government or other societal regulators. Their’s is a world where drug use is legal, all sexual activity is a matter of personal preference, and external authority is an anachronism which is fought , and only accepted grudgingly if ever. To get a feel for this, just take a look at “Reason” magazine [to which I had a subscription when I was 20].

Conservatives, on the other hand, believe in society as an organic whole, and that since men’s nature is flawed, restraints are needed to prevent his desires and instincts from destroying us. However, they look not to the government, which they see as an instrument of potential tyranny and incapable of harnessing man’s baser character, but rather to the institutions and processes that have evolved [yes a Conservative can use that word in a non-derogatory manner] over time, and which reflect our collective intelligence. Thus religion, marriage, the military, even to some degree, social classes are an integral part of a Conservatives world because they offer the counter weight to the very individual choices which a Libertarian encourages and values. A conservative never mistakes “liberty” for “license”, and while acknowledging and cherishing our individuality, understands that it includes undesirable aspects with which we must constantly struggle, or we are lost.

And so as Conservatives and Libertarians mix and mingle on this website and others, and their views tend to blur around the edges so that it is sometimes easy to confuse the two, it is important that we try to understand the very large differences between these philosophies so that we can choose that which truly fits our beliefs as we face the world with all its potential and pitfalls.

I ran across two articles, one absurd and the other more serious, which reflect the spreading Liberal orthodoxy which is insidiously seeking to hijack our society, and recreate it in its image.

The first story reports on a gym which expelled a member because he grunted while doing 500 pound squats, a violation of their rules which seek to prevent anyone in the gym from being intimidated. Yes, you read that correctly. That's as stupid as...well, I can't really think of anything else that stupid, so let's just consider this absurdity in all its asinine glory. What we have here is the logical continuation of the Liberal quest to eliminate all and any individual actions that may be offensive to anyone for any reason.What started with the sexual harassment laws at work, and continued with equalizing the playing field for females [Title IX] and the physically imperfect [who can forget the "golf cart right "of a player who had trouble walking 18 holes], and even extended into the classroom, where tests, awards, and other signs of achievement were removed to prevent another child from feeling inferior, has now reached the point where the fitness challenged are no longer subject to having to hear someone making an effort to lift a weight. As funny as it sounds, and it does sound funny, it is serious, because all Socialists societies seek to eliminate the exceptional  and create a harmonious, non disturbing world where no one is different. In such  a world, even someone seeking to achieve something by grunting is a danger.

The second story is more serious, and another example of what Anne Coulter cited as a Liberal strategy, the use of an "untouchable" to represent them. In this case, the VFW political action committee supported a Republican against the Democratic female challenger who had lost her legs in Iraq.  Democrats felt this was outrageous, and felt the VFW group should be ashamed of themselves while the VFW explained that they liked the Republican's positions and thus supported him.

Now with all due respect to the Democrat, and I, as we all do, honor her sacrifices for the country, this is a political contest, and should be determined by that, but as usual the Liberals seek to hide behind someone who cannot be impugned as a result of personal tragedy or circumstances; as they do with the WTC widows, they express righteous indignation when their spokesman is questioned, and not slavishly accepted and believed. As their ideas fall further and further from the mainstream, they resort to having those they consider infallible or untouchable represent them, or they know they are lost. In this case the VFW refused to bow to the politically correct. Good for them! 

 As Election Day nears with all it 's gloomy predictions for Republicans, we should all take a moment to consider who is actually running against them, and thus stand to lose if the Republicans are not swept from power.

The obvious answer is the Democrats, a party Ann Coulter has declared "dying", and I think that if they don't take at least control of the House this year, considering that all historical trends and public opinion regarding the Iraqi War are in their favor, they will indeed begin a death spiral as their leftist constituency either succeeds in totally marginalizing the party for the 2008 elections, or perhaps begins to seek another home, leaving a shell behind with no hope of electoral victory. More importantly, at a time when many people are dissatisfied and looking for new ideas, the failure of the Dems to provide these would prove the intellectual bankruptcy of the party, and its inability to connect with the majority of Americans at a time when those Americans are open to being swayed could be a death knell for a party which hasn't offered any substantial ideas since the 1930's. Indeed, in many respects, this is a make or break election for the Democratic party, and they should be very nervous.

But there is another opponent in this race, and that is the MSM, whose Liberal bias has been documented by a recent study that found that this campaign season more than 77% of articles about Dems were positive, versus only 12% of Republican reporting [see article ]. This huge discrepancy has basically removed any attempt at impartiality by the Liberal media, as they , like the Dems, have put it all on the table this election. Since they have, in many instances, just about declared victory, a loss would be reminiscent of that famous headline in 1948 declaring a Dewey Victory over Truman. The loss of credibility for the MSM should be enormous, and where once upon a time there was no alternative, with the rise of cable and the Internet, it is a very real possibility that they, too, could take a fatal hit if the Republicans are not vanquished this year. Who knows, Katie Couric may have arrived just in time to close the lights and lock the door on these dinosaurs.

Lastly, I think it would be fair to assume that polls, which were disparaged somewhat in 2004, would really look foolish if  their assessments of the last two months prove just as wrong as the exit polls in the last Presidential election. Polling is a Liberal construct to some degree, since it is premised on the idea that statistical samples can be extrapolated ad nauseam, and that we are all just actuarial entries[Auguste Comte, the Frenchman who founded sociology, which laid the foundation for studying people as groups as opposed to individuals, was descended from the intellectual genealogy of the French Encyclopedists, the fermenters of the Revolution]. The inherent biases and malleability of polling have been revealed more and more, and today it is hard not to look at them as a tool which is used, just like advertising and glad handing, by political parties to gain an advantage over their opponents. If the Dems are unsuccessful this year, I think the entire polling concept will lose validity in many peoples' eyes, and what little political influence it has will be gone.

There you have it. If we get out and vote, and if we can keep the Republicans in power, we will not only deliver a perhaps fatal blow to the Dems, but we can also register our displeasure with the MSM, and declare our independence from the statistical confines that pollsters seek to wrap us in. Striking a blow against all three would truly make this a very enjoyable election .

This article  reports on how the ACLU and several unions are seeking an international body's decision to counteract  American law and protect the workers' rights of illegal aliens in the US. In reading the article, several things struck me. First, the use of "undocumented" as opposed to "illegal" used by some of the plaintiffs to describe these workers, a verbal sleight of hand which demonstrates the major difference between those who defend the right of alien workers to enter the US at will and those of us who want immigration controlled because THIS IS OUR COUNTRY! Also, when you read the article you will note that some of the complaints pertain to the deportation of aliens who are discovered after  they attempt to protest or organize unions, something their Liberal supporters find detestable, and want to prevent. This is an amazing demand if you think about it, that violators of federal law should have immunity so they can demand greater pay and work privileges from American employers! Even if you don't have a major complaint with the gist of what the ACLU is seeking here, which they describe as obtaining safe working conditions, the idea that deporting illegal aliens who are discovered because they take part in protests or union organizing or whatever is a violation of their rights is absurd! That's like saying if you find a serial killer while he is applying for a job you shouldn't be able to prosecute him or you are violating his right to work! What the ACLU is really doing is trying to expand the asylum and indeed legal protections of illegal aliens to make it harder and harder to deport them, and they are doing it undercover of international rights, the last major bone of contention I have with this whole issue. Liberals are slowly trying to usurp American law and replace it with international norms which are usually more socialistic than our own. We have seen this in Liberal judges who admit to referring to international statutes in formulating their opinions, and we see it here in the ACLU trying to reverse the ramifications of a Supreme Court decision by bypassing the American Courts entirely and going to an International tribunal. So what is playing out here is the Liberal dream of international law protecting illegal immigrants who don't belong here while American citizens look on and wonder how their country got hijacked. 

Kerry's defense of his reprehensible comments regarding our soldiers is very interesting; he was a veteran, so he couldn't have meant what everyone heard him say. Now if there was no video of the event, that argument would probably be gaining traction, but unfortunately Kerry is living in the 21st century, and everything is captured these days so he would seem to be hung, as they say , on his own petard.Yet still he proclaims his innocence based on the obvious inappropriateness and implied stupidity of his remarks. An interesting argument which says that what you hear or see is irrelevant, all that matters is context. This is a little like deconstructionist theory [the small amount I understand of it anyway], in that there is no objective reality, only the interpretations offered by the observer. However, it offers the espousers of Liberal nonsense  the chance to deny or spin all their drivel. Therefore, yes I voted for the Iraq War, but I am a humane Liberal so I couldn't have meant it, or how about I am married, so my vote for Gay marriage was not what it seems. The possibilities are endless, especially for someone like Kerry who has never seen a position he didn't like [at least for a while depending on circumstances] and can now say anything he wants and fall back on what should seem obvious [and he will let you know what that is at the appropriate time].

The ancient Greeks had a name for this kind of Liberal logic. It was called sophistry and it was disparaged by the philosophers who realized it eliminated the idea of truth, and replaced it with rhetorical gymnastics and linguistic gyrations which allowed any argument to be defended [the more things change, the more they remain the same!].  Today we poor, innocent, dare I say naive Conservatives actually believe that people should mean what they say, or at least say what they mean, a mindset which a Liberal must find quaint if not antiquated. And so to the moral relativism and political correctness which the Left has inflicted upon us, add the trivialization of truth which I guess they feel is another artifact of history not worth preserving.

The Left doesn’t like nation-states. To be precise, they do not like the concept that individual countries have special characteristics or traits to recommend them. Thus their advocacy of multiculturalism which in effect says all societies are the same, so none of them are really special, and therefore necessary. Their advocacy of open borders and a European union also becomes understandable, as they seek to mix and match populations and erase any national distinctions. Lastly, their reverence for the United Nations becomes explainable as well, as they seek to reduce international politics to the same mob mentality that fueled the French Revolution, with the Madame Defarges of the third world knitting as the United States and Western countries are tried and condemned time after time at the modern Bastille in New York City, and all are brought to the same level, with no exceptions. Every time Ghana votes down a resolution the United States feels is important, a Liberal smiles.

Actually, this antipathy for nations is just a magnification of the Left’s attitude toward individuals, which is we should be treated as statistics and not unique, and any attempts at rising above the masses should be struck down. Economically this can be attained through Socialism and redistribution of income through progressive taxation. Another manifestation of this , and one which should really trouble us, is the disparagement of gifted children. As a parent in this country I am appalled at the lack of resources we provide for nurturing our best and brightest, while disproportionately helping those who are “challenged” [which has come to mean they might just have a problem sitting still] and under performing. I have no problem helping all children, but our gifted children are truly our most precious asset, the “seeds” for what our society will reap going forward, and when I see competition and grading and awards denigrated as resulting in destroying our children’s self esteem, it angers me to no end. The impracticality of the Left is nowhere more vividly demonstrated than here, where they refuse to acknowledge the real world our children will face, and thus do not prepare them for the future.

Quotas are another facet of the Liberal refusal to accept our uniqueness, and thus all the infinite potential and hugely varying talents each of us possesses is reduced to a number representing our gender or race or religious persuasion. For instance, on the Supreme Court there should be a Woman to represent Them [with an intentional capital]. Well, why not a Black Woman and a white woman? And while we are at it, why not a Single woman and a married woman? Gay and straight anyone? Italian, polish and Irish? The hubris to reduce the entire woman’s population to a vote [or actually votes, since they make up half the population the Left would argue that half the Justices SHOULD be female] is indicative of Liberal mindset. We are each special, and should be appreciated as such. Now I am as guilty as most in classifying people by groups [hence my use of Liberal and Conservative] but the left takes this to the extreme in order to actually get at the opposite result: we are all really the same, and when we attempt to truly differentiate ourselves by our individual effort , they are there to knock us down. Group classification for the purposes of statistical analysis and management is fine, but true acknowledgement of our individuality is never acceptable. Read Ayn Rand if you want to understand the mentality of the Left in this regard.

So what would an ideal Liberal world look like? There would be no countries with their demands and national interests, since these only cause problems. There would be no poverty, but at the same time wealth accumulation would be forbidden, and everyone [except the ruling elite of course, but more about them later] would live at the level determined by the government to be optimum. The handicapped and challenged would be represented at the appropriate proportions in all of society’s activities, or those activities will be outlawed [ Title IX which demands the same sports resources be available for girls and boys in schools is a step in this direction]. Those who try to rise above the average will be discouraged, and if necessary punished [isn’t that what progressive taxation is- punishment for making more money?]. And the State will guide everything with a paternal, sympathetic yet all knowing hand, deciding on our resource allocation [think Kyoto treaty as a model for their top down industrial policy] and all other quality of life choices.

And who will lead this ideal world? Why the Liberal academic and political hierarchy of course, who understand how to control men and women, and know what is best for all. And if they tend to gain a little more wealth, and a lot more power than most, well they deserve it. After all the world NEEDS them. The French Encyclopediasts understood this, as they dismantled their nation state and attempted to do the same throughout Europe, leading to the rise of Napoleon and twenty years of World War. But the descendants of the Revolution, Liberals, would never let a minor setback like that deter them, and so their attempts to change the world in their image continue down to today.

Most of you will recognize this world as the Socialist Utopia which has been unsuccessfully implemented in the 20th century numerous times, all of which failed abysmally, leaving their people destitute and worse. Each of us is a miracle, composed of talents and skills and desires and,yes, faults,  which make us truly special, and any system which ignores this is defying nature and turning its back on what we are capable of, instead offering a vision of what they would like us to be and demanding reality mold itself to their wishes. As opposed to a system which guarantees all a level playing field, where there are no hindrances to succeeding or failing based on our  abilities,  the Liberals seek a world where the results are ordained by them, and if that requires the impostion of rules and regulations and enforced fiats, so be it. If Hispanics make up 20% of the population, THEY WILL be represented at 20% in student bodies,  no matter the mechanism required to bring this about.  If women are 50% of the population, THEY WILL be 50% of the management of the workforce. And so it goes. The irony is that , for  those who don’t know, Utopia actually means “Nowhere” and was used by Thomas More in his book to describe a world that could not be. Obviously the Liberals have not understood the book.

As rancor continues regarding the Iraq War, I think it serves a purpose to point out that Conservatives, in defending it, have gone against their most profound beliefs, while Liberals, too, are acting out of character. The important question is why these two groups have taken on opinions which they shouldn't have based on their histories, and what this says about them.

For Conservatives, the preeminent doctrine is maintaining existing political and societal institutions, which should be changed only with extreme prudence and care. This is a reflection of the rise of Conservatism in England under Edmund Burke as a response to the French Revolution and the upheaval it promised to bring to Europe’s societies. Burke’s defense of the existing governing bodies was premised on his belief that Man’s collective intelligence over time had given birth to the best institutions for harnessing his base instincts, and attempts to uproot and replace these based on Reason exercised by a handful of men, was foolhardy and dangerous. Fareed Zakaria, in his excellent book “The Future of Freedom”, shows all the institutions and structures , among which are an independent judiciary and laws, free press, and powerful private interests groups, that are required to prevent a Democracy being just a tyranny of the majority. For a Conservative, the time required to create these are the argument against trying to impose change quickly .

Given this perspective, our attempt to instill Democracy would seem to a Conservative the ultimate heresy in most circumstances. The problems we are having would appear clear to Burke, who would not be surprised by the internal strife, battles for autonomy and fights for national wealth that are occurring. In truth, we are attempting to build a structure which hasn’t had its foundation laid yet, and we are suffering for it. A Conservative could understand and justify the removal of Saddam, a dangerous man whose mere threat of having WMD’s was enough to warrant overthrowing him. The problem would be our attempt to install a democracy in place of the existing government structure.

However, these are not most circumstances. Faced with the threat of more Islamic nations getting nuclear weapons, combined with the fact that most Arabs live in despotic, repressive regimes with no outlets for grievances and no hope of bettering themselves and are therefore susceptible to the call of the Wahhabi and other forms of extreme Islam, all this can be seen to be leading to a world where the West would be faced with executing a war of extermination to survive. Like a pressure cooker with no release valve, leaving things as they are would invariably lead to a day of reckoning in the not too distant future which is horrible to contemplate. Given the Iranian President’s predilection for using Armageddon and Apocalyptic imagery, we would be dangerously foolish to believe we could whistle past this cemetery. With hindsight, WWII was inevitable given what Hitler believed and how he behaved, but there were times he could have been stopped if only we had listened to him. Well we are listening to the Middle East, and have concluded our only hope was creating an enlightened Democracy which would serve as an example to release the escalating pressure and allow the people of the region to participate in the 21 st century, and hopefully this would nullify the appeal of the radical theology. For this reason, the Conservatives tempered their fears and have supported a war which will be long, complicated and frustrating, but God willing, which will lead to a safer world.

The irony is that the Liberals, the heirs of the French Revolution, the people who have called for humanitarian military efforts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan and numerous other places and the people who do believe that rational decision making and enforced solutions can solve national woes have turned against their base principles and decried this war. A military effort which they should be cheering as liberating millions of people from slavery and blessing them with Liberal self government is instead vilified . Why does the movement which is predicated on the importance of spreading Democracy now stand staunchly against our effort to do just that? The only answer I can arrive at is that for them it is just a bargaining chip, a way to be the opposition and to play to populist sentiments. In other words, it is a selfish attempt to gain power.

And so you have two groups which have suppressed their most fundamental principles, one in order to try and change the world in a way to make it safer for us all, the other to gain political power. Somehow I think Burke would be prouder of his children than Robespierre would be of his.

 This article in the NY Times headlines  42 Iraqis as being killed in a battle, and you have to read several paragraphs before you find out at least 18 were insurgents, whose deaths I would naively take to be a good thing. I found this presentation interesting, because it appears now that even when we are killing the enemy, the MSM is going to be blathering about the bloodbath in Iraq, and reinforcing the horror of what is happening over there. I imagine that even if 75 insurgents and 1 soldier were killed , the headline would have still read "76 Killed in Brutal Battle as Monthly  Death Count Rises ". Doesn't the Times realize its good to kill the enemy? And shouldn't a difference be made between their deaths, and those of the Iraqi army that is defending it's country, and on whose side we are fighting? I may be wrong about this, and just a warmongering neoconservative barbarian, but I WANT to read about the killing of insurgents in a positive light, because it means we  are WINNING. It is disingenuous of the Times [what a surprise!] for them to present war information in this way. Or perhaps it just reflects the fact that they do not recognize a good side and a bad side in this war, and therefore there is no difference.

In considering the NJ Court's recent ruling on Gay marriage, it strikes me that I have never really seen a judge order a law to be written as has happened here. I may be wrong, not being a lawyer, but the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution leaves the drafting of laws to the Congress, and the function of a Court is to evaluate and apply laws, and strike them down if they are unconstitutional. Now I am talking about the Federal Government here, and know even less about the State of New Jerseys Constitution or its structure of Government, but I honestly cannot ever remember any court anywhere demanding a legislative body write a law encompassing the judge's findings. This post is really a question- do any of you have another example of  judges demanding lawmakers write or amend a law to their specifications and requirements, as opposed to invalidating an existing law, and leaving it up to the legislature to decide how to rectify it? Shouldn't the NJ Court either have found the existing law discriminatory and unconstitutional or allowing Gay marriages as written? Is this another step, and a major one, in the judiciary's grasp for power at the expense of the people's will?

The recent Korean nuclear test is exactly the scenario Reagan was seeking to rob of importance by developing a missile defense system. Regardless of the Liberal hysteria at the time warning of a new arms race and the end of the world, missile defense has always been a hedge against  rogue states acquiring a handful of weapons and using them to threaten and extort us, and the Russians and Chinese understood this, even if the Democrats didn't. Now that we are facing just such a possibility, even the limited defense Bush had been able to force down the Liberal's throats gives us at least a modicum of security which the naysayers would have deprived us of. Going forward, if the Democrats gain control of Congress,  we can expect more roadblocks to be thrown up to siderail the defense system, and that is a very scary thought as there are now predictions that as many as 40 more countries may seek to acquire nuclear weapons in the coming years. The arguments will be based on technical terms, with the Liberals claiming it will never work and that we are wasting money [coming from a group that has funded more useless government programs than is imaginable, that is quite a rationale. I guess they have no sense of irony in addition to their other flaws.], but the truth is, it doesn't have to be perfect, it only has to remove the certainty that a missile will reach its target. Once this is no longer a sure thing, even a lunatic like Kim Jong Il will have to think long and hard before threatening to launch an attack.  There are many reasons to oppose the Democrats in this coming election, but the fact that they have waged a campaign to undermine the missile defense program and to keep us hostage to the demands of tin horn dictators with nuclear bombs while they seek to pursue "negotiated" settlements with fanatics in the best tradition of Neville Chamberlain  is one argument that is not getting the hearing it should. Lunatics do get control of countries, and as Hitler proved as he sat in his bunker and allowed Germany to be destroyed because it had "failed" him, they are capable of accepting and or inflicting Armageddon as a result of their megalomania. We have to be protected from this eventuality, and that will not happen with Democrats in control.

Another Court, this time in New Jersey, has decided that the civil rights of Gays is violated if they cannot marry or enter into some other form of union. My question is, has been, and will remain, what civil right is it, and why is it applicable to gays, but I assume not to polygamists, or people who want to marry their a dolphin [there was someone who actually wanted to] , or any other permutation on a theme that you can think of?

In declaring this civil right, the NJ judges found no reason that Gays should be denied the right to marry, as opposed to New York, which found the institution of marriage between a man and a woman as fulfilling a beneficial function for the state. I guess they have not seen the studies from Europe, where in the aftermath of the legalization of Gay marriage there has been an explosion in out of wedlock births as  traditional marriage has lost the imprimatur it has had for centuries. Or all those studies in this country which conclude that a traditional household is the healthiest to raise children in. Instead,  once again an activist court has ignored data which argues against Gay marriage, and invented from whole cloth a right which applies to Homosexual and Heterosexual couples [I guess the number two has a mystical meaning for the judiciary, but nothing else does] but presumably not any other combination of partners, at least not yet. As a Conservative, I naturally defend the sanctity of traditional marriage, but the truly troubling aspect of this is the justification by deference to civil rights. If a state legislature wants to bestow the right of marriage to Gays, fine, let them. But by devising new rights the judges are creating a situation where the law of unintended consequences can literally run riot. This is Liberalism at its worst, devising and imposing changes on society by fiat, with the best [?]of intentions but usually the worst of results. Where it will lead is unknown, but if something isn't done to rein in judicial activists, don't bet against those Dolphin nuptials .

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post writes about the possible candidacy of Barack Obama for the Presidency, and the article frankly sickened me. After honestly admitting the man has no experience or track record to speak of, Cohen advocates for him because he is black, and has "no baggage" regarding the Iraq war! Even throwing in the customary comparisons to JFK, the fawning about his speeches, yadayadayada, this is what his whole argument comes down to: it would be refreshing to see a Black man as President, and he may be able to get us out of Iraq because he essentially never voted to authorize it. This is the man some Democrats are putting forth as their candidate for the most powerful position in the world. Wow, I'm convinced, where do I sign up for "the Obama or bust" movement? Seriously, this shows the intellectual paucity of the Liberal position if anyone still needs proof of it. This candidacy may be "a joke" [Cohen's words], but  that Liberals may be seriously considering it based on these justifications is horrifying. That a professional political reporter like Cohen can even make the argument is just downright depressing. And to top it all off, these are the people who may win control of Congress in two weeks. All I can say, in the spirit of the Halloween season, is be afraid, very afraid.

Jeffrey Skilling of Enron notoriety is to be sentenced today, and most are expecting a minimum of 25 years to be handed down. Last week Lynn Stewart received 28 months for aiding a terrorist,  given to her by a Clinton appointed judge. Thus in our society today a white collar financial felony is considered approximately ten times as heinous as assisting terrorists if we operate under the supposition that the penalty fits the crime. Thus a person who lost money on Enron stock is considered to have been hurt more significantly than one of those who die in a terrorist attack. Think about that, and then realize how our judicial system has been hijacked by the Liberals and made to reflect their political correctness, which equates capitalism and its abuses with the most terrible acts perpetrated by men. Those same Liberals who plead for Gitmo detainees to be humanely treated are salivating at the thought of punishing Skilling with a lifetime conviction. Now I am not making light of his crimes, though having followed the trial and read a book written by a NY Times reporter on it, I cannot in all fairness say Skilling was guilty of all he is charged with, and may be no more culpable than to the extent that he ignored the obvious due to his ambition and pride. But does he deserve to be incarcerated for the rest of his life after Stewart was given essentially a slap on the wrist? And remember, what this really represents is the criminalization of Capitalism and Big Business by the Left, as they are able to make these white collar offenders into the most despicable of people. The statue of this Justice is not blind and balancing a scale, but rather reading a copy of Das Kapital while wearing a Che T-shirt. Thus we see the Liberal agenda for national security: arrest an accountant today.

As a supporter of the Iraq War, I have to admit my major concern has always been the violence espoused in the Qu'ran regarding infidels and apostates. Yes, Christianity has its bloody past as well, but the major difference to me is that, where the Christian episodes have been a result of men's decisions in implementing their Faith, the New Gospel, and Christ's teachings , never advocate the kind of forced conversions, or punishments that the Qu'ran does. The fact that the sword is imbedded in the most basic teachings of Islam is a troubling fact, which is why this article from the Washington Time's reporting on a joint statement by both Shia and Sunni clerics renouncing violence in Iraq is a positive, optimistic event which hopefully will begin to ease the sectarian distrust and violence. And just to note in passing, the NY Times doesn't seem to be following this story yet, but instead is headlining the increasing importance of the militias for the people of Iraq.  As  I have said before, "Only the News They See Fit to Print".

Victor Davis Hanson is a brilliant military historian and writer who is a welcome counterpoint to so many of the so-called "experts" who hold forth on the war in Iraq, spewing nonsense and popular bias as "truth". Here he answers all those Liberal Monday morning generals who decry our lack of an effective strategy in the War on Terror, presenting our multipronged campaign succinctly and effectively.

I think it is worth pointing out here the difference between strategy and tactics, which is basic to any military planning. Strategy encompasses the overarching goals and comprehensive scenario for achieving them, i.e. defeating Nazi Germany by first attacking at the soft underbelly of Europe [Sicily], and then following with a pincer movement from the Normandy beachheads and Russia. The implementation of the plan, the actual battles, would fall under "tactics" which in any war are constantly being adjusted as real life renders theoretical plans moot. Thus, when the MSM announces a plan to pacify Baghdad has "failed", and things have to be changed, this is just an acknowledgment of a tactical adjustment, and should be treated as such, not as a major reassessment of the war or its aims. The constant harping on the tactics, as well as the daily [sometimes hourly] death tolls, especially in  a war where we have had an amazingly low casualty rate by any standard, are just attempts by the Liberal opposition to make mountains out of molehills. The recent discussions about the TET offensive is indeed apt in this instance, for that was a military disaster for the Viet Cong, and should have been hailed as a major victory for our side, but the Media spun it into the opposite, and it is now seen as the turning point of the war. We cannot allow this kind of distortion of the facts to defeat us in Iraq, for the enemy knows that is the only way he can win.