Memorial Day





*********************

I Want To Be A Liberal

By Nancy Morgan

I want to be a liberal, because then everyone will like me. My family will start talking to me again, and chances are, my ex-husband will want to renew the marriage vows he broke when I started spouting conservative opinions.

I'd like to be a liberal because its ever so much easier to allow others to form my opinions for me instead of researching an issue myself. That always gets me in trouble, especially when the facts I discover diverge from the latest politically correct consensus.

I'd like to be a liberal because then I'd be rewarded for all my shortcomings and nothing would ever be my fault. I'd be an important cog in the wheel of social justice, and a cherished warrior in the current fight for equality.

If I were a liberal, I would be free to have sex whenever and with whomever I want - and be considered 'empowered' to boot. I could abort any inconvenience with nary a thought because my rights to my body trump the life I would have suctioned out of me.

I'd like to be a liberal because any guilt I would normally feel for what used to be considered deviant, irresponsible behavior may be assuaged by merely advocating the expenditure of other people's money on whatever the cause du jour is. Very cool. Especially since my stock portfolio has been pretty much decimated.

I want to be a liberal because they care so much. They have a lock on all the fashionable emotions, like tolerance, diversity, equality and patriotism. And as long as my intentions are pure and I 'care', I won't have to accept responsibility for any negative consequences that my actions might cause.

I'd like to be a liberal because everyone knows that conservatives are racist, homophobic, stupid and, well, beneath contempt. Conservatives are motivated by gasp, profit, instead of being nice. Enough said.

I'd like to be a liberal because I'd be able to redefine reality to my own specifications. I could turn failure into success, murder into choice, lies into 'misstatements', and theft into investment. I would automatically be considered wise, instead of opinionated. Best of all, I could make up the rules as I go along, change them in midstream and then demonize anyone who doesn't agree with me.

I want to be a liberal because everyone knows they hold the moral high ground. They don't lie, cheat or steal. Oh, and they don't condone torture. The media says so, so it must be true.

Before I am able to join this community of man, however, there are a few ground rules:

I have to acknowledge that government is the best and only solution for any problems America has. Despite the fact that pretty much every government solution to date has been a disaster.

I must agree that America is bad and white Christian males are responsible for all that is wrong with the world. Further, I must agree that terrorists and third world dictators are either freedom fighters or misunderstood men of good will. Oh, and I must acknowledge that dialogue is better than war. Even though decades of dialogue haven't worked, things are different, now that Obama is president. I must have faith. After all, the times, they are a changin'.

I'd, of course, be expected to not only condone, but happily embrace gay marriage and the long list of newly minted sexual behaviors, and swear to never mention the adverse health risks or the proven harm they do to traditional families.

I'd also have to quit judging people (except for conservatives). After all, liberals will allow me to do whatever I want, free from moral censure, and its only fair I do the same for them.

I'd have to immediately quit smoking, in public at least. I'd be required to agree that global warming is real and man is the cause. Even though the earth has cooled in the last decade, everyone knows its still getting warmer. I'd also have to renounce Christianity in favor of Mother Earth and believe that the Constitution is a 'living instrument'.

I'd have to agree that victimhood trumps merit and that liberals know best. Always. And lastly, I'd have to support the notion that racism is still rampant, even if it is the silent 'institutional' type.

In return, I'll be accepted, popular, and invited to the best parties. I'll be eligible for the right to housing, health care, a living wage (even if I don't work) and happiness. And as long as I remain a liberal, no-one is allowed to insult me. How cool is that?

I'll finally get my columns published in my own hometown paper and will have a good chance of getting face time on MSNBC. Best of all, I'll be able to atone for my sins by merely paying Algore for a few carbon credits. Then, I will live happily ever after. Isn't that worth sacrificing such ethereal and frivolous notions like freedom, individualism and principles?

SOURCE

**********************

On offense, Cheney scores points

Former Vice President Dick Cheney's sweeping indictment of administration policy changes on the handling of terrorism-suspect detainees has thrown President Obama on the defensive and scored points for the vice president and his party, according to pollsters and political analysts.

While Mr. Cheney has come under increasing fire from Democrats for charging that Mr. Obama's policies have made the country more vulnerable to future terrorist attacks, polls show a majority of Americans side with him on using aggressive interrogation methods on high value al Qaeda prisoners and are against moving them from the detention facility at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to maximum-security facilities in the U.S. "Cheney's critical comments in recent weeks and the Senate vote against funds for closing Guantanamo did put the president on the defensive and led to his speech" on Friday defending his national security policies, said Thomas Mann, a presidential scholar at the liberal Brookings Institution.

That speech occurred on the same day Mr. Cheney delivered a blistering speech of his own in defense of the Bush administration policies that he helped to shape and that he said had kept the nation safe in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Mr. Cheney's aggressive, nonstop criticism of the White House's actions, beginning with Mr. Obama's ban on harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, have unleashed a wave of attacks from his liberal critics. It has also won him praise from his party's conservative base and, according to polls, support for his positions among independent voters that the GOP needs if it is to make a political comeback in future elections. "I have tested the message and the message clearly helps Republicans," said Whit Ayres, a pollster for Resurgent Republic, a GOP advocacy group. A poll he conducted May 11 to 14 found voters supported "harsh interrogation" of al Qaeda prisoners by a 19-point margin, 53 percent to 34 percent - including 53 percent support among independents.

A similarly "strong majority believes the Guantanamo Base prison helps protect America, rather than undermines our moral authority. Independents are, again, much more like Republicans than Democrats on this issue," Mr. Ayres said in a report on his poll's findings. "The challenge for Republicans now is winning back independents who abandoned Republicans in droves in 2006 and 2008. This helps persuade independents that their values are most closely aligned with Republicans than with Democrats," he said.

While Mr. Cheney has been a constant Democratic target of derision for his outspoken criticism of Mr. Obama's policies on terrorism, polls show his low approval ratings have begun to rise lately. A CNN poll conducted last week found that 55 percent still view the former vice president unfavorably, but 37 percent now have a favorable impression of him, up eight points since January.

"Vice President Cheney has been the target of every media, from mainstream to comic. But he spoke today as before without regard to politics, but with abiding respect for the truth. His address today was direct, well-reasoned and convincing," former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said Thursday.

SOURCE

**************************

A Spy's View of Pelosi's War on the CIA

By Ion Mihai Pacepa

I paid with two death sentences—from my native Romania—for the privilege of serving the CIA, our first line of defense against terrorists and nuclear despots, and I am appalled to see the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and third in line for the White House undermining the security of the United States for personal political gain.

Nancy Pelosi’s blistering public attacks on the CIA will severely damage its ability to recruit ranking sources in enemy countries for years to come. No, the CIA officers will not run for cover—they are anonymous heroes, not cowards. But the potential high-ranking CIA sources in Iran, Syria, North Korea, China, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba and many other tyrannical countries will. Espionage is a matter of life and death. From my own experience as both intelligence recruiter and intelligence defector I know that no high ranking official puts his/her life in the hands of a foreign espionage organization publicly pilloried by its own government.

Trust is the most valuable asset of any espionage service, no matter its nationality or political flavor. This is the most important thing I learned after spending 27 years in Romania’s version of the CIA—six of them managing it—and another 31 years cooperating with the CIA. There are many ways an espionage service can lose trust. Disrespect for its own commitments and careless exposure of its sources and operations are just two of them. But nothing could be more devastating than public distrust from its own government.

I do not intend to compare the CIA with my former Romanian foreign intelligence service, the DIE, but there is a lesson there. At the peak of the Cold War, my DIE recruited as agents the highest-ranking employees the Soviet bloc ever had in NATO: the chief of NATO’s department for secret documents (François Rousilhe) and NATO’s deputy finance director (Col. Nahit Imre). We paid them in gold Napoleon coins. Both were eventually arrested by the French DST, and Romania’s tyrant Ceausescu ordered a vengeful public investigation of the DIE. My service was never again able to recruit any significant sources in any of its target countries. After I broke with communism, Ceausescu ordered another public investigation of the DIE, which soon disintegrated.

The CIA helped the U.S. win the Cold War without firing a shot because it was an ultra-secret organization trusted by its government and able to protect its sources and methods from public exposure. That allowed the CIA to gain the confidence of many ranking officials in both Eastern and Western Europe. Some became builders of democracy, others fighters of communism. In 1962, the U.S. avoided a nuclear war because a ranking CIA source (Soviet colonel Oleg Penkovsky) provided top secret documents proving that Khrushchev was installing nuclear rockets in Cuba. Soon after that, NATO neutralized the Warsaw Pact because another ranking CIA source (Polish colonel Ryszard Kuklinski) passed the CIA over 35,000 pages of Warsaw Pact secret military documents, making Moscow’s strategic plans obsolete.

More HERE

****************************

ELSEWHERE

Black ex-astronaut named as NASA chief: "President Obama on Saturday chose as NASA administrator retired astronaut Charles Bolden Jr., a veteran space pilot and official who would become the agency's first black leader. Mr. Obama also named former NASA associate administrator Lori Garver as the agency's No. 2. Mr. Bolden has flown in space four times and was an assistant deputy administrator at one point. "These talented individuals will help put NASA on course to boldly push the boundaries of science, aeronautics and exploration in the 21st century and ensure the long-term vibrancy of America's space program," Mr. Obama said."

Report Shows Air Quality Improved During Bush Administration: "As the Obama administration considers further steps to fight air pollution, a recent report from a Washington think tank shows that air quality in the United States has improved significantly over the last decade. The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research analyzed data collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and concluded that levels of numerous gases linked with air pollution have fallen off since 2001. Among the findings: Carbon monoxide decreased by 39 percent, ozone by 6 percent, and sulfur dioxide by 32 percent. "Pick any category you want and pollution levels are generally lower than they were seven years ago," said Steven Hayward, the policy analyst who authored the report, titled "Index of Leading Environmental Indicators," for the conservative think tank. "(Environmental groups) said air pollution was out of control, but this was always more about politics than it was fact," Hayward said."

Obama to Consider Preventive Detention: "President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said. Human rights advocates are growing deeply uneasy with Mr. Obama’s stance on these issues... “He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain,” one participant said. “We’ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.” [Imprisonment without trial! Don't forget that gun owners, Christians and vets are potential terrorists to Obama. Soviet USA not far away]

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

****************************

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

****************************