Tuesday, October 30, 2012

No So Good War

http://lewrockwell.com/rep3/was-ww2-good-war.html

This is a great post from Bionic Mosquito, linked to the October 29, 2012 LRC. Mosquito explodes the Myth of the Good War, looking at the Good Guys' means, stated aims and the consequences of their intervention. A must-read for anybody looking for the roots of the American Homicidal Humanitarian Empire.

Here are 18 reasons World War II was not so good, according to Bionic Mosquito:

1) Roosevelt lied to the country regarding his intentions of entering the war.

2) Roosevelt took great strides to get first Germany, and after failing this, Japan, to strike the first blow.

3) Roosevelt ignored and otherwise did not take advantage of the many proposals by Japan that, if acted upon, could have avoided the upcoming armed conflict.

4) Roosevelt entered the war well before any declaration by Congress.

5) Roosevelt encouraged Britain and France to provide a guarantee to Poland, a guarantee known to the Western powers to have no teeth.

6) Roosevelt chose to side with Stalin, who at the beginning of the war had more blood on his hands than all the other leaders of belligerent countries combined.

7) Roosevelt did not extend U.S. support for Jews attempting to emigrate from Central Europe and immigrate into the United States until 1944.

8) Roosevelt knew of the impending attack by Japan somewhere in the Pacific, and very likely specifically that it would come at Pearl Harbor.

9) Roosevelt avoided taking action to properly alert and otherwise protect the troops.

10) Roosevelt made unconditional surrender a requirement of the axis combatants, prolonging the war in both Europe and the Pacific.

11) Roosevelt cut Poland loose to the communists after the war.

12) Truman had many opportunities to end the war in the Pacific in the Spring of 1945, instead choosing to delay the end in order to give time for development of the bomb.

13) Truman continued Roosevelt’s policy of demanding unconditional surrender, despite protests from many military and other advisors.

14) Truman chose to drop two bombs on Japan after months of Japan signaling its willingness to meeting all terms of the allies with the exception of removal of the Emperor (an exception also desired by allied commanders, and an exception granted immediately after the surrender in any case).

15) Truman afforded many diplomatic victories to Russia in Asia, despite the lack of contribution or need of the Russian forces in this victory.

16) Truman backed away from the Chinese Nationalists in favor of the Communists – this despite one purported reason for U.S. animosity toward Japan being U.S. support for the Nationalists.

17) The allies both acquiesced and aided in the forced transfer of up to 14 million Germans to Germany from various locations in Central Europe.

18) The allies both acquiesced and aided in the forced transfer of perhaps several million captured Russian soldiers and other refugees fleeing the communists to Russia against their will, resulting in their imprisonment or execution upon return.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Distributism is Utilitarianism!

Distributists are like communists: just get the right people in office and everything can "work" for "the public good." Let's leave to one side the pipe dream of getting the "right people" in office. Even your run-of-the-mill flaky distributist knows power corrupts.

Focusing on what works is utilitarianism--a vile heresy--and the "public good" is a chimera, defined by the very thieves and thugs whose political machinations have brought Western Civilization to the edge of the abyss on which it finds itself so precariously perched.

What does it mean to own property? How can God have promulgated a Commandment against theft unless the institution of property pre-exists it? Is not property sacrosanct, as is human life? Why would any Christian support the exemption distributists and other socialists have carved for the State with respect to the Seventh Commandment? Is not the hallmark of morality universality?

Not only are Austrianism and libertarianism fully consistent with Christian morality. Statism in any form, distributism included, violates it. What does that leave us with?

Friday, October 26, 2012

AWAD's Thought for the Day, 10/26/2012

The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life -- the sick, the needy and the handicapped. -Hubert Horatio Humphrey, US Vice President (1911-1978)

The quote about the “moral test of government” makes perfect sense coming from so notorious a welfare-warfare statist as H. H. Humphrey. The wonder is that any decent or reasoning human being puts any stock in it.

That the State in fact does anything to ameliorate the plight of the young, the poor, the weak, the elderly or infirm is debatable enough, given the gaping chasm separating its stated aims and realized ends. “Close enough for government work” has become a truism for a reason. More to the point, no moral test worth its salt would so studiously ignore the means employed.

For the State is an extortion racket, impure and simple. It relies on force or threats of force to bring its goals—however noble (or base!)—to fruition. Ultimately, it will kill you. Don’t believe it? Resist the State’s attempt to collect “its” taxes every step of the way. Eventually, the brigands will appear.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Foreign Policy Debate

"I love Israel more than you do."

"No, I love Israel more than you do!"

"Nuh-uh! I'm willing to suck Americans into World War III for Israel!"

"I'm willing to walk over my grandmother and suck Americans into World War III for Israel!"

"No, you aren't!"

"Yes, I am!"

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Drug-Screen the Corporate-Welfare Queens!

Get this. States across the country are instituting drug screening as a condition for welfare benefits. You read that right. You want goodies at taxpayer expense? You have to prove you haven’t injected, ingested or inhaled any of the government-demonized plant products of the day. Private employers check for illicit drug use before hiring. Ought we not to demand the same of those feeding at the public trough?

Consider the great state of Michigan. Not so great lately: with unemployment hovering around 14 percent, plenty of Michiganders find themselves so feeding. To wit, 20 percent of residents are on food stamps, cash assistance or disability. The straining safety net and declining tax base have catapulted public debt. In 2010 dollars, the level of State debt per capita jumped from $724 in 1979 to $2,430 in 2010. Money set aside for unforeseen emergencies, which came to $1.2 billion in 2000, stands well-nigh depleted. According to the 2011 Citizen’s Guide to Michigan’s Financial Health, “At $2.2 million, the balance in the ‘Rainy Day Fund’ is not enough to cover government operations for 30 minutes.”    

Governor Rick Snyder and the State Legislature have responded by implementing a number of austerity measures, including changes in the tax treatment of pension and retirement benefits. (Unlike the federal government, the State of Michigan has no Federal Reserve to monetize its debts; it has no choice but to decrease spending or increase taxes.) Effective January 1, 2012, Michigan law requires pension trusts to withhold income tax on payments to all pension and annuity recipients born on or after January 1, 1946. These payments had been exempt. For those failing to file a Form MI W-4P, the Withholding Certificate for Michigan Pension or Annuity Payments, a default tax rate of 4.35 percent applies.

Tough times call for tough measures. For fixed-income residents of Michigan, the new tax law surely qualifies.

To be sure, austerity has not affected all Michigan residents equally. Take superstar first baseman Prince Fielder, who signed a contract with the Detroit Tigers in January—mere days after the new tax law took effect—for the princely sum of $214 million. He’ll not be collecting public assistance anytime soon! This is not to begrudge him the lucrative terms and conditions of his employment. Fielder brings scarce and much sought-after skills to the marketplace; professional baseball generates ample revenue to reward him for them.

Aside from that, nobody put a gun to Tigers’ owner Mike Ilitch’s head. He freely entered into his contract with the slugger.

What’s that? Well, no, the same can’t be said about Michigan’s taxpayers, and yes, it so happens the State did put a gun to their heads, at Ilitch’s behest, to fund a capital development project for his enterprise some years earlier. You see, the Tigers’ owner collected a princely sum all his own, in 2000: a $189 million public subsidy to build a new ballpark for the Tigers. Money being fungible, the sweetheart deal freed up resources he could then apply toward payroll and other expenses. For all intents and purposes, the State extorted (“taxed”) funds from its beleaguered wage earners—washed-up pension analysts, beaten-down autoworkers, single moms waiting on tables—and transferred them to him, one of the richest men in the state.

He had those funds at his disposal when he negotiated the terms of Prince Fielder’s contract. In a very real sense, both of these fabulously wealthy men are beneficiaries of public largesse.

Now you might find this kind of Robin-Hood-in-reverse arrangement morally and fiscally troubling. You might discern better uses for $189 million in “public” expenditures. You might even deem sweetheart deals like this an egregious abuse of the public trust. But this only goes to show your woeful lack of imagination. For how can anyone put a price tag on the overriding public interest advanced by a new playground for millionaire baseball players and their billionaire employer?

Never mind that Detroit had a classic, cozy, historic, venerable and architecturally sound venue in Tiger Stadium.  Never mind that its successor, Comerica Park, is a tacky and soulless monstrosity.  Never mind that Mike Ilitch never had to pass a drug test to collect his $189 million welfare handout.  

The proposed law to drug-screen aid applicants can make quick work of all that. For the Tigers’ owner is now poised to send an edifying message to drug abusers and the growing legions of welfare recipients alike.

It can all start with a reenactment of Comerica Park’s 2000 groundbreaking ceremony. Governor Snyder can pass the ceremonial shovel to Ilitch, who can proceed to turn over the ceremonial first shovel-full of dirt. Then, amidst fanfare and ribbon-shearing, as the citizens of Michigan sing hosannas to the commissars’ boondoggle and the broken-window jobs created in its wake, a DEA agent can hand Ilitch a urine-specimen bottle and march him to a nearby port-a-johnnie. To add a salutary war-on-terrorism flavor to the extravaganza, a TSA officer can subject him to a freedom-fondle before he enters the commode.

Having peed all over the taxpayers of Michigan, Ilitch can then proceed to pee in the bottle. His 83 years notwithstanding, a clean drug screen is far from a foregone conclusion. By all accounts, the public teat imparts a heady nectar all its own.

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

AWAD Gets Its Comeuppance

"The rabbi inveighed against anyone possessing the popular smartphone: 'A religious person who owns this impure device is an abomination and a disgusting, vile villain,' he said."

One wonders what invective the good rabbi might heap on co-religionists practicing metzitzah b’peh (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/nyregion/infants-death-renews-debate-over-a-circumcision-ritual.html?_r=0). Talk about “impure”! Even the vile Vatican--the focus of all evil in our world--might well classify the practice as “disgusting” and an “abomination.”

Alas, the good rabbi in all likelihood embraces metzitzah b’peh. “Ritual circumcision with oral suction” (!) is widely practiced in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, and even in the wake of an infant boy's death at the mouth of a mohel, it resists calls to end it. In the words of Rabbi David Niederman, “We do not change. And we will not change.”

No doubt the AWAD webmaster will make note of this stiff-necked depravity when he, e.g., introduces a week's worth of Hebrew words that have entered the English language. Then again, he may decide it doesn't become a latitudinarian to pile on. Late night comics and the mass media have already had a field day with this story.

What’s that? You've heard nothing about it?!

Clearly, the Catholic Church wields undue influence in the popular culture. It has so mainstreamed bigotry directed at religious (and irreligious) minorities we hardly even notice.


-----Original Message-----
From: Wordsmith
To: apivetta
Sent: Mon, Oct 8, 2012 4:45 am
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--inveigh

Wordsmith.org The Magic of Words

Oct 8, 2012
This week's theme
Miscellaneous words

This week's words
inveigh

A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

What makes a good usage example for a word? It's not one single attribute. We try to find examples that, besides illustrating a word clearly, are topical, short, funny, and informative, though it's not always feasible to have it all. When it's an unusual word, we're lucky to find more than a couple of recent examples of its use.
Readers sometimes ask if they can read the whole story mentioned in the usage example. It's not always possible as the quoted article may not be freely available on the web.

This week's five words have interesting usage examples and include links to their complete texts. These examples are from several fields -- technology, religion, politics, literature, zoology, and more -- but they are all worth reading and provide food for thought.
inveigh

PRONUNCIATION:
(in-VAY)

MEANING:
verb intr.: To complain or protest with great hostility.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin invehi (to attack with words), from invehere (to carry in). Ultimately from the Indo-European root wegh- (to go or to transport in a vehicle) that also gave us deviate, way, weight, wagon, vogue, vehicle, vector, envoy, and trivial. Earliest documented use: 1486.

USAGE:
"The rabbi inveighed against anyone possessing the popular smartphone. 'A religious person who owns this impure device is an abomination and a disgusting, vile villain,' he said."
Jeremy Sharon; Rabbi Strikes Against iPhone; The Jerusalem Post (Israel); Sep 14, 2012.

Explore "inveigh" in the Visual Thesaurus.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Who knows what Columbus would have discovered if America hadn't got in the way. -Stanislaw J. Lec, poet and aphorist (1909-1966)