So, I'm Human

"Dear Mr. Fervor,

Some months ago you wrote an editorial about me entitled She Thinks Her **** Doesn't Stink. Could you not have disparaged my, er, priggishness with words that are readable on radio?

Well anyway, I'm writing today to inform you that you were wrong Mr. Fervor.

I must admit that my story about the tensions I endured while in Bosnia was a real stinker. Peee-Hew! Seeeee! </fantasy>

I made a mistake. I have a different memory. That happens. I'm human. For some people that's a revelation."

Hillary Clinton

They Who Refused To Pay the Piper...

...Today Have No Children.

Most of the most bitter women I have ever met (Cal State Sen. Jackie Goldberg, call your office) were my sisters of the baby boom generation who are now long past their time to bear children. My brothers are merely sad, though some of them are still too adolescent to realize it.

Go read the Brothers Grimm (Hah! Irony!) tale again, and this time with the perspective of what the cost of ridding ones personal life of "rats" -- rugrats being particularly vulnerable to such a mien -- really has been.

Metamorphosis

In Weapons Turned Inward, Wretchard observed how some left-leaning partisans see insanity in the internecine warfare that has erupted in the Democratic Party because of rock star Obama's "new" front moving in from the Left and threatening the Clintonista leadership as nobody has before.

Wretchard opined that it was not truly insanity "but the rational application of the demented rules of left-wing politics."

Well, what are the demented rules to which Wretchard is referring? He mostly alluded to them in much the same manner that the Democratic front-runners avoid admitting what rules they are following.

But in the comments others flushed it out. It is of the politics of division that Democratic Party has nurtured for, it seems, forever. And it has become brittle as its subdivisions jockey for position, in a hierarchy that is now viewed up for grabs. "Me first! No me!"

Wretchard finally gave us an inkling as to how he viewed where the application of those rules were leading with this:

"The problem with the politics of infinite subdivision is that it inevitably fractures the party which manufactures the categories itself. Eventually the Party itself becomes a pile of sticks that can't be shifted without everything falling to the ground."

And that is where he inspired me to comment. I saw that Wretchard's pile of sticks were symbolically what happens when a fasces has lost its binding chord.

I asked Wretchard of what he thought the binding chord was made. He responded: "Hate" and a bit more. Go read it.

Alright, now here's the point of the title of this piece as inspired by Wretchard's invoking the symbol of the fasces.

The fasces was originally a symbol among those with a common interest to provide for their defense. It originated with the Etruscan League.

After the Etruscan King was kicked out of Rome, it was adopted by the Romans to represent their republic: A state formed to provide a common defense among more or less equals; who were bound together in a ways similar to how the sticks bound to the ax handle protects it from attacks to it flank, its weakest point; and who elected its leaders to wield the weapons of the state.

These United States also adopted the fasces. It symbolized the words of Benjamin Franklin:

“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

However, the fasces had also carried over into the Roman Empire as a symbol. The difference was that the dictator then decided who it was that he represented; who it was that protected his flank; and who was not to be included because they were a threat to his power -- and, of course, by extension, a threat to the state. This was the meaning of the symbol that Mussolini has come to represent. It is the meaning most associated with the fasces today.

Wretchard's post clearly shows that in the Democratic Party at least, the common interests that it represented once, working folk, the less privileged members of society, who banded together to elect its leader, have morphed from a republican form into a fascist form of organization. Wherein its leaders decided WHO best represents the special interests for whom it claims to speak. In other words, the leadership decides who are allowed to be the sticks that protect its flank rather than "the sticks" deciding who its leadership should be.

Wretchard laid the groundwork for today's observation a few years ago with this line:

"One of the sources of the inhuman 'strength' of the Left is its refusal to acknowledge the existence of anything smaller than a mass noun. Rhetorical service to the people, masses, workers, peasants; the poor and the downtrodden are objects worthy of the Left; but love, pity and sorrow for individuals is sentiment beneath contempt."

The reason the Left can ignore individuals is because it is not individual's voices that are heard. Individuals from each of the interests groups the Left claims to represent are MARGINALIZED whenever they disagree with the Left's leadership. How could it be made much more clearer than suffering from or even witnessing such behavior? The Left's leadership clearly cares less for members of any of its groups than it does about being able to claim without contradiction to be doing what it wants "in the interest" of its groups. (And largely succeeds since both it and the MSM it inhabits block or discredit complainants from its groups.)

Examples abound. The left calls women who reject feminist ideology female impersonators. It loves Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, men who make demands that provide government an excuse to grow and to steal via taxation, but it hates brilliant economists like Sowell and Williams because they recommend the opposite. Duh. And homosexuals who merely want to be left alone, and are appalled by the radicals' agenda, are dismissed or threatened. In fact they have nasty names and exclusionary labels for members of every group who dare say "Now wait, not so fast..." even before they can finish stating their complaints.

That behavior is simply more obvious in the Left, because it has been going on there much longer. But ask most any conservative today if the GOP hears his complaints. You will hear that his words have been shucked to the side with a sneering "what can you do about it other than elect people who are worse than me? Shut up, you bother me."

In short, what we are seeing here has been metamorphosing in these United States in both main parties, and in the central government as well, but quite a bit more obviously in the Democratic party. The fasces today stands less for the republican form and more for the dictatorial form of the state.

Metamorphosis is how the fasces went from representing the defense of common interests who choose their leader, to one where the leader replaces, one by one, those who represent the individual interests with men of his liking.

Can what is left of free men still form a strong defense for the common interest of all and elect real leaders to defend them? Can the republican form symbolized by the fasces be brought back to save the day? That remains to be seen.

**UPDATE**

I received an email from "Carry_okie" in which he stated something with which I agree in large part because I know how violations of the tenth commandment easily lead to personal unhappiness.

In it Carryokie is indirectly referring to Wretchard's comment that what binds the fasces of the Democratic Party is hate. Carryokie qualified that a bit more:

"Not quite.

Its leaders decide WHO gets protected, who takes the whack, and who gets to define the covetousness with which it is bound.

Covetousness is a better binder than hate because it is entirely subjective and need not be sated. Indeed, it is the insatiable nature of covetousness and the fact that any attempt to sate it leaves the "benefactor" less capable of delivering that makes it such a powerful binder. One need only offer the hope that you'll deliver the goodies, because you can always blame the bad guy if you don't.

Certainly one hates those they envy, but it is the unrequited desire to take that drives that hate." [emphasis added]

Thank you Carryokie.

Something Eternally Undeniable

There are many believers in God: the theist.

There are many believers that God does not exist: the atheist.

But one thing this agnostic does know for a certainty:

The Concept of God exists.

And that irritates all the rulers and demigods and their nefarious aides that ever existed.

Whether or not God exists, the Concept of God stands between the individual and those who would treat him as less than human. All the anti-theistic efforts in the world can never put an end to the Concept.

Where there are human beings -- or, indeed, any thinking beings -- there will be the Concept of God.

Ades to Corruption

aide

–noun
1. nurse's aide.
2. an aide-de-camp.
3. an assistant or helper, esp. a confidential one.

-- from Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

I've long wanted to have a short word that I and others could use that would be an apt label for one who helps forestall or prevent reforms to decadent institutions.

The closest historical word, antidisestablishmentarian, is way too unwieldy to use for reformers to make any headway with.

I initially thought about using the near acronym ADET. This is comprised by taking the first letters of antidisestablishmentarian's two prefixes (Anti and Dis), the the first letter in Establishment and the first letter of the suffix (Tarian). While it has the advantage of a unique appearance, it sounds way too diminutive in speech. Hence I think it sounds far too benign to convey the nastiness that protectors of bad bureaucracies have been known to resort.

However, the word aide already exists, and the word antidisestablishmentarian is clearly a subset of aide definitions 2 and 3. So, I think I've found my answer.

I propose the semi-acronymic word ade be adopted. It is far less cumbersome a word than antidisestablishmentarian, and so lends itself well to public speaking, and better, to public acceptance. Good public speakers should be able, with proper inflections, to make it clear that they are speaking of ades and not the wider aides. And ade also separates such people from the true aids for our woes, the reformers who we so desperately need to stop the growth of Leviathan.

I intend to speak out in print using the word ade, so I just wanted to prepare the way.

**Update**

A reader has suggested this following line helps drive home the point about how much damage antidisestablishmentarians (ades) make inevitable because ades stymie society's natural defenses. Ades hinder society from reforming needed institutions and thwart her from eliminating unneeded and bad ones.

What AIDS does to the body, ades do to society.

The Useful Idiots Who Blindly Assist Achieving Hell On Earth

"For we can make the dead live whether they wish it or not....They cannot refuse the little present." -- C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength.

Lewis gave us a glimpse of hell on earth with that one line. I'd forgotten that that was how it struck me when I first read it. I don't recall if I'd ever told you.

Thus began a comment I left for Fran Porretto in particular response to his using that line from Lewis's great novel in today's Sunday Ruminations: Assorted. Fran had many years ago penned an important series (spurred on by some thoughts I had shared with him) titled: The Convergence of the Death Cults

I continued...

A pity too. Your series on the death cults would have been more compelling had you explored this implication. The lust of some to supplant God is aided by those like your young colleague who remain ignorant of the horrors such hubris is promising to visit upon him. [End comment as it appeared at Eternity Road]

For those who don't know, there was a key character in that novel who very much resembles Fran's young colleague. Sadly, there are quite a few like him abounding today. But it need not remain so. Speak up and loudly my friends.

I don't know how many of my readers or Fran's readers agree with our concerns in this matter. But if you do, I recommend that you not remain silent about such strivings. And don't be foolish enough to be silenced by those who'd glibly fit you for a tinfoil hat. Here's a quip by a late revered spokesman for the Left who bragged about what we can expect from the anti-humanists who hide amongst the research granters:

The more a man can achieve, the more he may be certain that the devil will inhabit a part of his creation. -- Norman Mailer

Courage:
It will not be easy to fight the forces who are actively seeking such "progress." If you think you lack the courage to take on this fight, I am willing to bet that both Fran and I have good suggestions about how you could build some. I doubt I need to say more as to why you'll need it.

Beware The Wrath of 'Cain

McCain, that is. John McCain.

Whether or not we like it – I most certainly do not – John McCain will be the Republican candidate for President. The best reason for not backing his campaign, and not voting for him, are secondary. That is, a government growing, illegal immigrant welcoming Democratic president is more readily thwarted by GOP opposition than is a government growing, illegal immigrant welcoming Republican one.

But let's put that aside just for now. I've a much more important question to ask. What are we going to do while John McCain is at the top of the ticket?

First of all, while John McCain is the Republican standard bearer, he has at his disposal all the facets and funds of the GOP. That is hardly insignificant. There are a number of things, both good and bad, that such control forebodes.

Second. John McCain is a man who wants to be president quite noticeably more – perhaps beyond measure – than displayed by the favorite of many conservatives, Fred Thompson. That desire can be quite a plus. But as I make clear below, it can be an even more terrible minus.

Third, read Pat Buchanan's summarization of John McCain's speech at CPAC. Here are a few excerpts from that [emphasis mine]:

What he said essentially was this. [I]f we do not work together, we lose the presidency. And if we lose the presidency, your causes will be lost, as well as my last chance to be president.

If my end of the dinghy sinks, yours will not stay afloat.

While I know Pat Buchanan's own maverick status is hardly a recommendation to read his spin with a great deal of confidence, he assuredly has himself demonstrated how sour a loser can be. And I think, within Buchanan's summary can be gleaned a warning to conservatives around the country. "Be prepared for anything."

Surely it cannot be unreasonable to expect conservatives to heed the Boyscout motto: Be prepared.

In general, a Democratic president will likely have a favorable congress come January 2009, not the least because there is one there now. And a very strong win by the Democrat could easily put enough Dems in the Senate to kill GOP filibusters.

And should John McCain self-destruct or be pushed by the Dem candidate or her entourage into one of his intemperate exhibitions of bruised ego, his candidacy will be sunk.

And when McCain goes down, our hopes for many very good GOP congressional candidates will be lost too, as a matter of course.

But it can get even much worse than that. And that is why I felt compelled to write this.

For when McCain self destructs, I am virtually certain he is not going to blame himself. He is going to blame conservatives. Thus picturing the following assuredly is not too hard.

From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.

Yes, I know: That scene from Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan, is about as melodramatic as anything ever produced by Gene Roddenberry. But it captures the kind of fire that McCain must have had to endure all that he did at the Hanoi Hilton.

I am daring to risk your displeasure to raise this alarm due to the fact that I believe he can still draw on that fire. We will not like how he'll use it should he think he has not received enough repayment over the years for all he endured. This is where his demand for high office gets tacky. How is it possible that we owe him even up to and including turning over to his unpredictable vicissitudes the signatory protection of cornerstones of the republic itself? Such as protecting the First Amendment. But he feels he deserves the presidency.

As self-centered as his anger has been at times, what must we be ready for should he not get that which he believes he deserves? It is simply too likely that the angry McCain will once again emerge. That McCain will not be content to go down alone in this, his one "last chance."

Because conservative Congressional delegates are vastly more important to our interests than leftist ones, we must not forget to get out the vote. And because McCain will control the purse strings of the GOP from now until the elections, now is the time to prepare to get out the vote (GOTV) on our own.

So, once again, why do we need to be prepared? We must be prepared for the likelihood that McCain's wrath will go full blown. Once he's convinced that he cannot win, and because he already seems poised to blame us for it, then we must prepare now that he will for spite hold back GOTV funds (a Lord knows what other mischief). There will be nothing we can do about it then should we fail to prepare for it now.

I am sorry, but this man's recent history demands that we have a plan B.

We need be prepared to Spock our warp drive so it can propel our conservative ship to safety. We must be prepared for just that time when 'Cain believes that he's gonna fail. For by God or the devil, he'll be damned if he doesn't try take us with him.

Be prepared.