Friday, September 24, 2010

The Deuce And Muslims

Is it just me, or are Muslims the biggest trouble makers on the planet?

Wherever Muslims rub up against non-Muslims, there's fighting and bombings and massacres. In Holland, they murder cartoonists; in Paris they riot, burning every car in sight while stoning cops and firefighters; in Africa they form militias and slaughter Christians, Pagans and basically anything that moves that's not doing the head-knock five times a day. In Britain and Spain they like to blow up trains; in Gaza they love launching rockets into Israel; in Fiji they bomb nightclubs; in India they bomb hotels; in the U.S. they like to knock down skyscrapers and then build a mosque a couple of blocks away just to mark their turf.

Now here's the funny part.

"The Quran-burning controversy in the United States has prompted the Islamic bloc at the United Nations to revive its call for the U.N. to set up an “international monitoring mechanism” to track incidents of “Islamophobia.”

But it gets even better.

Introduced by Pakistan on behalf of the OIC, the text condemns “the recent call by an extremist group to organize a ‘Burn a Koran Day’” and says it was among “instances of intolerance, discrimination, profiling and acts of violence against Muslims occurring in many parts of the world.”

Man, life must really suck for Muslims. Imagine, they come home from a long day of slaughtering infidels only to have to put up with "intolerance, discrimination...profiling...". The Horror!

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "But Deuce, not all Muslims are psychotic killers, bent on converting or killing all infidels so as to create the Global Caliphate and bring the entire world under Shariah Law. The vast majority of Muslims, particularly in America, are peace-loving people who only want what the rest of Americans want; peace, prosperity and a better future for their children."

Well, that's one way to interpret the actions, or should I say inaction, of American Muslims. From where I sit, most Muslims in America are simply bidding their time to see which way the wind is going to blow. They don't want to get involved in the more radical aspects of Islamization, but on the other hand they don't want to publicly denounce those Muslims who do because they're afraid of them. They are content to sit back and let the chips fall where they may, waiting for a clear winner to emerge before they commit themselves to one culture or the other. In short, they're playing it safe.

It's what explains the continued existence of C.A.I.R, the Council of American-Islamic Relations, as the premiere Muslim organization in the U.S. Forgotten is the other name C.A.I.R. is known by, "unindicted co-conspirator."

And how deep is C.A.I.R. and it's fellow travellers embedded in America? How about congressional staffers on Capitol Hill? That deep enough for you?

So, what's the take away? It's this. Whenever and wherever you encounter "moderate Muslims", remember that they're not in the game. They don't matter. They may not be on the side of bomb throwing radical Jihadists, but they're not on our side either.

Whenever innocents are blown to bits by Muslims, every Imam in every mosque in American should be making public denunciations of the murderous violence practiced by their radical brethren. The congregation of every mosque in America should be marching in the streets protesting the perversion of their faith. American Muslims should be reporting the jihadists in their mosques to the FBI. American Muslims should be standing up in their mosques demanding that all Muslims all over the world shun the barbaric radicals that have turned Muslims into the most feared and hated group of people since the Nazis.

Until that happens...beware the "moderate Muslim."

Monday, September 20, 2010

Mr. Quarter on our National Identity

Honestly, the state of the country today is enough to make one want to climb aboard the mothership and fly away to a new place and start over. Just jettison the whole deal and move on to a clean slate. I have written previously of this lingering feeling that I have, that it may be time to find a defensible place and hunker down with my family until the worst of it all passes. Reading all the commentary is confusing, for every pessimistic article and opinion one finds an equally optimistic view point. I think what is most distressing is that it seems that the nation has lost its way.

As a nation and as individual citizens it seems our internal compasses are broken. We no longer can seem to agree on what is right or what is wrong. Black is white, strength is weakness, honesty and virtue are extremism, mendacity is virtue, self-interest is for the common good, there are no moral absolutes because everything is a shade of grey along some continuum.

A federal government that hovers over all, sincerely believing the sovereign states and their individual citizens lack the judgment to decide for themselves how they should spend their wealth and what they need to be happy. This is compounded by the stratification of society into ill defined overlapping classes and subclasses: the political elite; the media elite, the elite, the rich (if your are fortunate enough to earn greater than $250K/year), the middle class, the poor, black, white, Hispanic, Muslim, Jew, Christian, atheist, gay lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered, and on and on and on. Everybody wants theirs, each is a political constituency that can swing an election in one direction or another, and few consider the common good as the best outcome. We are weak as a nation.

We the people eke out our living day after day while members of congress make a career of elective office, maneuvering themselves to wealth and power in the guise of “public service”. Who among the writers of the constitution would have dreamed that individuals might server 10 or 20 terms in the House of Representatives or six terms in the Senate? What would those men that put their own lives and wealth at risk say to the proposition that the members of congress and the administration are now the “political elite?” Self-interest and the accumulation of power is in the ascendancy and promoting the common good is in decline.

Is it nostalgic to long for a time when people knew the difference between right and wrong? When the nation and individuals were willing to do the hard things, the tough response, because that was what was right? A time when there existed the freedom to live your life as you saw fit and the awesome and complete responsibility to you for the outcome of your actions was morally correct. When the measures necessary to ensure the common good often meant that the people had to reach in and cut out the cancer that threatened the body of the nation or the community? Until we return to this we as a nation will continue to weaken and decline, just as Rome did.

I look around and see a nation of sedentary, overweight, and self-interested sheep. Few care that as a nation we cannot even produce sufficient young people to staff our armed forces because of lack of education and because they are too overweight to withstand the basic training regimen. Imagine that, our youth are too overweight to run 3 miles at day! What would we do as a nation if we were attacked? Are we so complacent and naive as to believe that no other country on earth could possibly covet our wealth enough to simply take if from us? Even the Afghan army has sufficient recruits; their biggest problem is illiteracy.

The status of our nation? It is fairly clear: we are divided from each other, uninterested, and disconnected from community and country. We are physically unfit to carry on the awesome responsibility that was handed to us by the generations that placed this country into our keeping. We are ruled by a government whose members do not consider the people to be their peers as they are “elite”, and to not believe that we are capable of managing our own lives. We are unwilling to do the hard work and unwilling to be responsible for our own actions. We are weak as a nation and growing steadily weaker.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The Deuce and Women

There are many great mysteries in the world. What happens to us when we die? How did the universe come into existence out of nothingness? Did life on Earth really just happen when a lightening bolt struck a tidal pool that had just the special mix of primordial ooze required to form DNA? And perhaps the most baffling question of all. The one question that has mystified men since Adam and Eve. What do women want?

My first and only marriage lasted for almost 13 years before my wife decided that I was no longer wanted or needed and left me, taking our two kids with her. I'm still single. Of the four best friends I've ever had, one's first marriage lasted 14 years, she taking three kids. He's now on his second marriage. Another's lasted 12 years, she taking three kids. This marriage has not yet ended, but I'm afraid it's headed for divorce. Yet another's for eight, no kids. He's on his third marriage now. The last of the four's first marriage lasted only a year, but his second marriage lasted some 10 years, she taking two kids. He's on his third marriage now.

In four of the five cases, the divorce was initiated by the woman. The one divorce initiated by the man was due to physical abuse...she repeatedly attacked him whenever she was unhappy with him. Yeah, it does happen.

Why did the other four marriages fail? If you watch TV or movies, you would suspect adultry. You would think that the men cheated and were caught, causing the wives to divorce them. You would be wrong. Not one of the divorces was the result of adultry on the man's part. So, if not adultry, what was it that broke up all these four marriages?

Abuse? Not one. Addiction? Not one. Financial woes? Not one. So what was it?

It was the infamous woman's refrain, "I'm not happy."

So they weren't happy? They had homes, children, often a job, er, I mean career, and husbands that loved them. But it wasn't enough. Apparently, you have to love a woman in a very specific way in order for them to feel the love, or at least what they percieve as love.

You have to show PASSION: What women see as passion, men see as unecessary and destructive drama. Women are always looking for excuses to let their emotions run rampant, and when their screaming rants or crying jags don't illicit a similar response from their husbands, they feel a lack of passion, hence a lack of caring, a lack of love.

You have to SHARE THEIR MISERY: When a woman has a problem, they don't want help solving the problem...they want you to wallow in their emotions with them. My own ex-wife once told me, "I don't need your cold logic, I want you to hold me and tell me it will be all right." I responded, "Do you want to solve your problem or revel in it?" She didn't appreciate my contribution. I didn't appreciate her neurosis.

You have to CARE ABOUT WHAT THEY CARE ABOUT: If a women develops an interest in a particular charity, you better be on board and make it your number one charity, devoting your time and money to it, whether or not you actually give a damn. If gardening is her thing, by God you better be willing to go with her to the nursery and spend an afternoon picking out flowers and shrubs and lawn ornaments, and then spending countless hours helping her enjoy her hobby. And if your wife suddenly gets religion, well just get your best suit dry-cleaned because if she's going to church then you are too.

You have to bow to their methods of CHILD REARING: Nobody knows what's best for children like their mother, so men should just keep their mouths shut and let mom handle it. Endless "time outs" that do not correct behavior problems: shut up! Outright defiance coddled: shut up! Temper tantrums endured: shut up! Ceaseless begging after saying no: shut up! Gross disrespect ignored: shut up!

You have to recognize her SPENDING is necessary, yours is frivolous. She has 25 pairs of shoes, you have five. She has nothing to wear to the office party despite a walk-in closet chock full of clothes and buys a new outfit for $200. You buy a couple of new tires to put on her car and it's "Tires? You had to buy tires? You love that car more than me!" You notice while paying bills that she's charging lunch every work day, adding a cool $250 a month to the credit card bill. You suggest that might be a little excessive and recommend she brown bag lunch a few days a week to help keep the bills down so you can put more towards savings and you better be ready for hours of pouting, snide comments, yelling at the kids and total rejection in bed that night. And just to show you who's boss, look for the next months credit card bill to show $300 in lunch charges.

You have to admit her FRIENDS are terrific, loving companions that are 'always there for her, just like the gals on Sex In The City. Yours are boorish uncivilized louts not fit to step foot into her home. Never mind that one of her friends is having an affair, another likes to shoplift to alieviate her occasional boredom and another has had three DUIs. After all, what are those foibles compared to your friends who have been laid off ( financially unreliable ), or work 60 hours a week ( in love with the job, not the wife ) or would rather play golf on Sunday morning rather than go to his wife's Church of Perpetual Misery Because Men Are Assholes.

You have to swallow that her FAMILY is the perfect example of a loving family. Yours are escapees from Hillbilly Ville. Nevermind her mother is a bitter shrew who has brow beat her husband into a walking coma, or the welfare queen sister with three kids by three different boyfriends, or the brother on parole for some mysterious felony the family won't talk about. What are those when compared to your dad, the evil gun collector? Or your mom, who volunteered for that right-wing nazi politician. Or your brother the soldier who's just so busy killing babies in far off Stoneageistan.

So, what do women want?

Some men say, "I don't know, but I'm trying to figure it out."

Other men say, "Who cares? They're all nuts anyway."

What determines how a man answers appears to depend on how many times he's been divorced.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Mr. Quarter says "Excuses are like @$$holes - everybodies got one"

The liberal elitists that comprise the fly-over media understand that something is going badly wrong. But they are reluctant to attribute it to the failure of liberalism or admit that Obama and this Congress have made things much worse. Ultimately they will probably throw Obama under the bus, but for now they are searching for any other excuse they can think of - the "throw enough spaghetti at the wall and sooner or later something sticks" method of intellectual analysis. Peter Wehner of Commentary Magazine.com provides a nicely comprehensive list of the published excuses to date

E.J. Dionne, Jr.: Obama “has chosen not to engage the nation in an extended dialogue about what holds all his achievements together.”

Joe Klein : “If Obama is not reelected, it will be because he comes across as disdaining what he does for a living.”

John Judis: The Obama administration has an “aversion to populism.”

Mr. Quarter loves this one...

Maureen Dowd: “Obama is the head of the dysfunctional family of America — a rational man running a most irrational nation, a high-minded man in a low-minded age. The country is having some weird mass nervous breakdown.”

and this claptrap...

Jonathan Alter: The American people “aren’t rationally aligning belief and action; they’re tempted to lose their spleens in the polling place without fully grasping the consequences.”

Jacob Weisberg: “the biggest culprit in our current predicament” is the “childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.”

Is Mr. Quarter incoherent? Then there are those that place the blame on the in adequacy of the American system of government to accommodate the liberal ideals.

George Packer: “the world’s greatest deliberative body is incapable of addressing” the problems in the country today.

Paul Krugman: the Senate is “ominously dysfunctional” ands “no longer consistent with a functioning government.”

Todd Purdum: “The evidence that Washington cannot function — that it’s ‘broken,’ as Vice President Joe Biden has said — is all around.” The modern presidency “has become a job of such gargantuan size, speed, and complexity as to be all but unrecognizable to most of the previous chief executives.”

Mr. Quarter also senses the presence of that vast right-wing conspiracy.

Ezra Klein: “powerful structural forces in American politics that seem to drag down first-term presidents”

Frank Rich: the problem lies with “the brothers David and Charles Koch,” the “sugar daddies” who are bankrolling the “white Tea Party America.”

Michael Cohen: “Perhaps the greatest hindrance to good governance today is the Republican Party, which has adopted an agenda of pure nihilism for naked political gain.”

Mr. Paul (diarrhea of the laptop) Krugman: “What we learned from the Clinton years is that a significant number of Americans just don’t consider government by liberals — even very moderate liberals — legitimate. Mr. Obama’s election would have enraged those people even if he were white. Of course, the fact that he isn’t, and has an alien-sounding name, adds to the rage.” “powerful forces are promoting and exploiting this rage” — including the “right-wing media.” If they come to gain power, “It will be an ugly scene, and it will be dangerous, too.”

Mr. Quarter thanks the efforts of Mr. Wehner to assemble this group of quotes.