Allen October 21st, 2004
Have you heard about TV-B-Gone?
Altman’s key-chain fob was a TV-B-Gone, a new universal remote that turns off almost any television. The device, which looks like an automobile remote, has just one button. When activated, it spends over a minute flashing out 209 different codes to turn off televisions, the most popular brands first.
I’m working on a deal with Amazon to start selling my amazing TV-B-Gone-B-Gone.
Allen October 21st, 2004
When I first heard that the SciFi channel was going to air a remake of the Battlestar Galactica, I was skeptical. After all, a series that has a lines like:
Baltar : And what is the standing order, for humans, from your Imperious Leader?
Cylon: Extermination.
Baltar : Then carry out your orders.
doesn’t deserve to be remade. Well, perhaps as a MST3K-type series.
Allen October 21st, 2004
May the Government Make Us Truly Thankful.
Doesn’t sound right to me. What about you?
James K. Glassman asks Who, or What, Grants Us Our Rights?
He points out the huge gaffe committed by Kerry in the third debate. I missed it. Let’s see if you can do better than I can. Here it is:
Because we are the United States of America, we’re a country with a great, unbelievable Constitution, with rights that we afford people, that you can’t discriminate in the workplace. You can’t discriminate in the rights that you afford people.
Did you spot it? I sure didn’t even the second time. Sounds pretty good to me. I like what he said. Is this really a gaffe? Re-read it and then read this:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
That’s the preamble to the Constitution. While it doesn’t have the force of law, it hints at what the problem is. Perhaps if we look at an even earlier document (the Declaration of Independence), we can spot the gaffe in Kerry’s text.
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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed,
Still no? Let’s try it with some bold text.
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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed,
From Mr. Glassman’s essay:
The key phrase was “rights that we afford people.” This was no mistake. He said it twice.
Kerry believes that the United States government, through the Constitution, “affords” rights to Americans. My dictionary defines “afford,” in this context as “give, grant, confer.” In other words, we fortunate, benighted Americans have a country, a government that grants us rights.
That’s an utterly inaccurate reading of the great documents of the founding of this nation. Our government does not grant us any rights at all. On the contrary, Americans start off with rights, and it is we who grant the government certain limited powers to protect those rights.
I’m astounded that Senator Kerry said it. I’m even more astounded that I didn’t catch it. That says a lot about both of us.
Kerry sees government as a great benefactor, bestowing gifts on us (paid for with our own money), as long as we behave in ways that government approves.
Bush, on Oct. 13, eloquently expressed the opposing vision: “I believe the role of government is to stand side by side with our citizens to help them realize their dreams, not tell citizens how to live their lives.” The founders would agree.
From these two different visions come different policies. Bush wants lower taxes because “it’s your money.” Kerry wants higher taxes so he can build, for example, a nationalized health care system.
Bush will preserve Social Security for people now getting benefits, but he thinks “younger workers ought to be allowed to take some of their own money and put it in a personal savings account.” In an “ownership society,” people are free to control their own assets, their own destiny. Government guards that freedom.
In the debate, Kerry offered no plan to save Social Security. Instead, he blasted Bush’s reform as “an invitation to disaster.” He doesn’t think that Americans can make decisions about big things; he wants government to grant rights and benefits.
Allen October 21st, 2004
Nelson Ascher argues Why I won’t vote for Bush and I must say I agree with him. I probably wouldn’t vote for Bush either.
[Via LGF]
Allen October 21st, 2004
Frank J. is now writing Anti-Bush ads. I guess I can’t blame him. A man has to put bread on the table. If this wasn’t such a failed, miserable economy, he wouldn’t have to stoop this low.
The first one is now available online as an mp3. Expect to hear it soon on a radio near you.
Allen October 21st, 2004
With all apologies to Frank Herbert.
In Ramifications and Recalculations, Dean Esmay (a long favorite of mine) examines the ramifcations of a Kerry election.
If Kerry wins, the American people will have spoken definitively, and for all time so far as I am concerned. They will have, in effect, said, “We will not support pre-emptive wars or large-scale efforts to democratize other nations any longer. We simply haven’t got the stomach for what’s required.”
Because let’s face it: by any rational measure, the Iraq war has gone better than any operation of its type and scale has ever gone in history. And yet the piddling cost and the incredible work of our people is now routinely viewed as a disaster. The press is content merely to report the negative, without any rational or historical context, and the American people are (apparently) content to let them get away with it.
And that’s okay. If that’s what the American people want, it’s what they want. If anyone proposes such a task in the future, I’ll simply say “Look to the Iraq war. It will end in disaster because the press will only report failure and death and excuse that with phony mealy-mouthed claims of “objectivity,” and within a year or two the American people will go wobbly. It’s just who we are as a people.”
It will change forever the calculations those of us who favor hawkishness must make when we advocate any course of action. For those who say the American people always lose heart for any armed conflict that goes on for more than a short period of time will have been vindicated–and those of us who advocate military action will have to always remember it.
And I note that those who advocate military action against us will also always remember it.
In December 1992, bin Laden found the battle he’d been waiting for. The United States was leading a UN-sanctioned rescue mission into Somalia. In the midst of a famine, the country’s government had completely broken down, and warring tribes-largely Muslim–had cut off relief efforts by humanitarian groups. Somalians were starving to death in cities and villages, and the U. S., which had moved quickly to rescue oil-rich Kuwait, had come under mounting criticism for doing nothing.
When the Marines landed in the last days of 1992, bin Laden sent in his own soldiers, armed with AK-47’s and rocket launchers. Soon, using the techniques they had perfected against the Russians, they were shooting down American helicopters. The gruesome pictures of the body of a young army ranger being dragged naked through the streets by cheering crowds flashed around the world. The yearlong American rescue mission for starving Somalians went from humanitarian effort to quagmire in just three weeks. Another superpower humiliated. Another bin Laden victory.
“After leaving Afghanistan, the Muslim fighters headed for Somalia and prepared for a long battle, thinking that the Americans were like the Russians,” bin Laden said. “The youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers and realized more than before that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows ran in defeat. And America forgot all the hoopla and media propaganda … about being the world leader and the leader of the New World Order, and after a few blows they forgot about this title and left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat.”
Just a closing note. I love this passage from Dean’s essay: “In short, when the going gets tough, the whiners whine louder and the sneerers sneer wider.”
Gotta remember that.
Allen October 21st, 2004
I was discussing the election last night with my wife, who is ardently anti-Bush pro-Kerry. I wanted to make clear to her that I wasn’t trying to convert her, but wanted her opinion on a recent article by Beldar about Kerry’s first (and only) term as President. I wrote about it here.
Beldar’s argument is because Kerry has a split constituancy (Deaniacs vs. Prosecute-The-War-More-Effectively), he will be a single-term president.
We discussed the ramifications of Balder’s hypothesis and she wasn’t sure that she agreed, but did think Balder might have a point.
She said at some point in the discussion: “Well, if we lose in this next election…”
Bush will win. Kerry will win. Bush will lose. Kerry will lose. I, personally, will not lose (or win) in this next election.
Although I think a Kerry victory will be bad for this country, we will survive. And just a note for my pro-Kerry readers. If Bush wins, the country will also survive.
Politics is important, but it isn’t personal.