The Deuce, America & Western Civ, I

If you're over 40 and went to college back in the day, you were likely required to take a couple of semesters of a course called Western Civiliation. If so, you were lucky. If not, you likely don't know where you come from nor why you are the way you are, the study of Western Civilization having fallen out of favor in the ivory towers of acadamia.



Western Civ equals The White Man's History. Understand that before you go on. The Greeks, the Romans, Charlamagne, the Vikings and Saxons and Normans. Western Civ means the legends and myths of Achylles, Odysseus and Hector; of Romulas and Remus and the birth of Rome; of Roland and Grindal, King Arthur and Camelot; Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest.




If your ancestry is other than White, then you have your own ways, history and legends, and more power to you, but know this...America was founded by and has remained for 234 years a nation of White peoples of European ancestry. Other peoples have immigrated here, or been forcibly relocated here, but European Whites have remained the majority people, and our culture quite naturally reflects that. We were not the first people here, but we were the first to build a nation-state here. We do not need to apologize for this. We do need to apologize, and have, for what it's worth, for the way we treated other peoples different from ourselves, particularly Amerindians and Blacks. We continue to try and make it right with these peoples as best we can.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking so what? It's all ancient history or kid's stories. 'Don't mean nothin' to me.' But it does...or rather, it should. After all, if you don't know history, you're destined to repeat it, and if you don't know your own history, the history of your people...well, you're just awash in the currents of time, floating here and there, heedless of the people and times and events that made you what you are.



Why do you speak English? Why is Christianity the majority religion in America? Why are we a Representative Republic ( please, not a democracy )? Why are we capitalists? Why do we believe in the rights of the individual, rather than the rights of groups? Why do we believe in primacy of "rugged individualism" rather than the primacy of "the village?" Why do we believe in charity rather than forced redistribution of wealth?

We are these things, and believe in these things, for two reasons. First, where we come from; and second, how we improved upon where we come from. We took what was good and kept it, and created other things that had never been. We got rid of everything else.

If you're having trouble understanding what's happening to America right now, you're not alone, nor are you crazy for thinking that it's all crashing down.
History shows us that all empires eventually fall. America has never been an empire in the classical sense...but in most ways we were an empire for awhile. We tried very hard to be a benevolent empire. An empire that worked and fought to spread our ideals around the world. Ideals like the God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.



What we have failed to realize all these years is that people don't like being pushed, prodded or forced to live by "God given rights" as understood by a foreign power, namely us, no matter how benevolent. Every people wants to make their own way; to live life as they see fit; to honor the history and traditions of their own people. And peoples differ on what ways are best.



This is why our way of life fails to translate to other peoples, and their ways of life to us. The American way of life is apparently ill suited to the Arabs of the Middle East, and to the Asians of the Far East and to the Blacks of Africa. We have our ways, they have theirs. There's no sin in that. We should stop trying to convert all peoples to our own way of life. They resent it, as well they should, and the attempt is bankrupting our treasury and killing our progeny. By the same token, we should resist efforts on their part to convert us to their way of life, and more importantly, we should reject outright any American who sees our way of life as faulty and attempts to forceably inject the ways of other peoples into our culture.



Aspects of other cultures that seem good to us will naturally flow into America and be embraced by us, as we have always done. Those aspects of other cultures that seem to us too alien or injurious to our core beliefs will naturally be resisted.

McChrystal's a True Warrior

Mr. Quarter is not buying the media spin of the McChrystal story. I think that the real story is much more cleaver and involves a level of sacrifice that is uncommon in the US government today. General Stanley McChrystal is a true warrior who fell on his own sword to save the lives of American soldiers and preserve the honor of his country.

General Stanley McChrystal, a 4-star (i.e., FULL) general. A U.S Army Ranger, and leader of the United States arsenal of special operations forces up until the time that he was tabbed to lead the Afghanistan campaign. Is it in any way beliveable that let a 26 year old Gucci wearing fag reporter from Rolling Stone magazine manage to "get the goods" on him and take him down? Mr. Quarter ain't believing it for an instant.

No, Mr. Quarter believes that General McChrystal saw that the Obamaites (James Jones and Carl Eikenberry) were screwing him and backdoor undermining of his efforts. He saw a command quagmire and American soldiers dying needlessly. So he made his plan, and played a reporter from Rolling Stone like a cheap fiddle feeding him information through his subordinates. Get the story out in the press and expose these foolish men for what they were. He knew all along that he would have to fall on his own sword in the end, but it would save lives and hopefully be his last best sacrifice for his country.

It is well known that Jones and Eikenberry were countermanding his orders, interfering with strategy and generally wreaking havoc in the Afghan theater. They reported negatively back to Washington, undermining McChrystal, making it more and more difficult to achieve McChrystal's objectives. By the way, I have not confirmed it, but I have read that Jones and Eikenberry were roommates at West Point. Think they might have a joint agenda if that is true?

So General McChrystal realized that the only way to straighten the situation out was to plant the story, take the hit, hope that Obama has the gonads to do what is right and fire Jones and Eikenberry. In exchange, he makes the deal to retire and keep his mouth shut for a couple years. Then he will write his book. Did anyone notice that no one in the Administration is crowing about it after the day of the firing? Let the media quiet down and move on to the next big story. Part of the deal. Obama tamps down the fervor, Stan takes a quiet walk, and the bobsey twins get fired so that America can win.

Post Script: Eikenberry, in fighting with McChrystal over the past year used many of the same arguments that another American commander, John Abizaid, had used in opposing Petraeus's approach to Iraq. It was Abizaid and Eikenberry that were West Point roommates in the class of 1973.

Moral Authority

Mr. Quarter has often pondered the issue of "Moral Authority" and "Moral Relativism" in the West generally and in the United States specifically. Why is it that maintaining moral authority is perceived as advantaging our nation as opposed defeating our opponents and making our adversaries kneel before us? This is particularly puzzling since reality is that the much of the West practices moral relativism, forgiving the means if the ends are worthy. Shelby Steele opines in today's WSJ on the issue of moral authority had how it has constricted our ability to defend our selves and address the problems that are leading to the rapid demise of our nation. Mr. Steele observed that:

"Today we in the West are reluctant to use our full military might in war lest we seem imperialistic; we hesitate to enforce our borders lest we seem racist; we are reluctant to ask for assimilation from new immigrants lest we seem xenophobic; and we are pained to give Western Civilization primacy in our educational curricula lest we seem supremacist. Today the West lives on the defensive, the very legitimacy of our modern societies requiring constant dissociation from the sins of the Western past—racism, economic exploitation, imperialism and so on."

For 10,000 years, human beings have survived and flourished individually and as societies not by maintaining their moral authority, but by making sure to win all contests with their adversaries and preventing their adversaries from every gaining advantage. This is not moral relativism. Rather it is self-interest and self-preservation. Works rather well. Maybe we should rethink and re-calibrate?

The Deuce and the 2010 World Cup

Soccer blows. Yeah, I said it. That's not exactly a Fox News Alert, like everything else seems to be, but it needed to be said. Now, having said that, I still check out the World Cup. As a sports fan it's pretty much impossible to ignore "the world's biggest sporting event", no matter how irritating it is.

As an American, it is my God given right to celebrate sports that most closely resemble medieval slaughter, hence my love of football, hockey, boxing, MMA and presidential campaigns. Soccer, alas, rarely displays any of the manly arts of mayhem, except the occasional riot, and that doesn't even take place on the "pitch". FIFA should seriously consider making riots a regular half time show. Just let all the soccer hooligans onto the field for a twenty minute melee'. Last man standing wins a guest spot on The View, where four American women will give him a serious beat down, thereby emphasizing the superiority of America, where even our talking head women are tougher than the world's toughest soccer hooligan.

Oh, I admit to admiring the athleticism of the world's greatest soccer players...kind of like I admire the athleticism of the carjacker who thinks he can outrun the police helicopter after he dumps the stolen car. Sure, he weaves his way through six lanes of interstate traffic zipping by at 70 mph and leaps over the ten foot wall into some poor schmuck's back yard before the cops tase him into an epileptic seizure, but he doesn't score. Great moves, but to what end? Soccer is a lot like that.

However, if you know the secrets of the World Cup, your entertainment factor can sky rocket. For example, did you know African and Caribbean teams routinely employ the services of witch doctors?



How great is that? What other sport gives you the public casting of spells and voodoo dolls smoking blunts? Yeah! Can't you just hear the play by play guy? "Clearly Cameroon has the superior team, but Nigeria has some serious juju. It's strategy and skill versus the demons of hell, and it's live on ESPN!"

Despite all the hilarity provided by the voodoo zombies, this World Cup has special problems not seen by any previous venue.



It's the incessant noise of the vuvuzelas. Vuvazelas are three foot long plastic trumpets that South Africans like to blow on special occasions, like when they find some food. But at the World Cup, they blow the damn things for the entire 90 minute game, creating a buzz like a seriously pissed off hornets nest. It's maddening! I mean, they don't just blow the things when their team walks onto the pitch, or when a goal is scored (that would be a waste of the $2.50 it cost to buy one, as goals are rarer than prosperous nations in Africa), but instead they blow them every second of the game, like they're HIV positive and blowing the vuvuzela is the cure. Maybe I shouldn't complain...I'd rather they blow the damn vuvuzela than rape virgins, which is the generally accepted cure for AIDS in Africa.

And if all this doesn't crank your tractor when it comes to soccer, consider this. The winning team gets a cool $30 million. With that kind of cash on the line you have to root for a Brazil vs. South Africa final. Voodoo hexes will take a back seat to more modern cheats, like knives and brass knuckles. It'll be a cage fight with a ball thrown in just so FIFA can call it a soccer match.




Now that's soccer any red blooded American can enjoy.

The Deuce and the Dalai Lama

He looks like a nice enough guy. Interviews show him to be soft spoken and quick to laugh...almost jolly even. But behind that avuncular facade lurks an intellect of stunning stupidity.

"(Marxism has) moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama, 74, said.

This from the man who was exiled from Tibet by the invasion of the Marxist Chinese and has called Chinese rule of Tibet "cultural genocide". Doesn't that just reek of "moral ethics."

How does the Dalai Lama justify his position? Here's how. He wrote;

As for the failure of the Marxist regimes, first of all I do not consider the former USSR, or China, or even Vietnam, to have been true Marxist regimes, for they were far more concerned with their narrow national interests than with the Workers' International;

Isn't it always that way? 'If just the right people would lead we'd have a true Marxist state/world and everyone would live in peace and prosperity.' I bet the Dalai Lama is a BFF of Barack.



But wait, it gets even worse.

I think the major flaw of the Marxist regimes is that they have placed too much emphasis on the need to destroy the ruling class, on class struggle, and this causes them to encourage hatred and to neglect compassion. Although their initial aim might have been to serve the cause of the majority, when they try to implement it all their energy is deflected into destructive activities. Once the revolution is over and the ruling class is destroyed, there is not much left to offer the people; at this point the entire country is impoverished and unfortunately it is almost as if the initial aim were to become poor.

Notice the great man of peace does not object to the destruction of the ruling class ( think Pol Pot's killing fields in Cambodia or the "re-education camps" in the USSR, China and Vietnam ) as long as the "cause of the majority" is served.

So much for the "moral ethics" of Marxism. But what about the second part of the lead in quote, "...whereas capitalism is only about how to make profits."

Out of the man's own mouth;

"(Capitalism) brought a lot of positive to China. Millions of people's living standards improved," he said.

Still more:

As Chinese become richer, "they want more freedoms, they want an independent judiciary, they want to have a free sort of press", he said.

The Dalai Lama confesses profits bring about improved living standards for millions of people, which in turn make people desire increased freedoms, which he seems to support. Yet, capitalism is amoral and Marxism is the answer?

One can hope that since China has started their experiment of a hybrid Marxism, a rapidly growing Pseudo-capitalist economy while continuing a strict communist authoritarian control over all other aspects of the Chinese people, that the Dalai Lama's political and economic philosophy might coalesce into something resembling reality!


(full disclosure, the above photo has been altered from the original)

While I mean no disrespect to Buddhists, the Dalai Lama's beliefs regarding capitalism, Marxism and morality are fabulously incoherent. He should run for the U.S.Congress ( Democrat, of course ). He's already been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, so he should be a lock to get elected.

John Kerry - Just Shut Up, Again!

Mr. Quarter noted in the online US News & World Report today that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts was holding forth with his opinion as to why voters seem so angry at Washington these days. With that cutting insight for which he is well known, his answer was that:"I think there's a comprehension gap." I know, you really can't make this crap up.

In clarifying this insightfull observation, USNews and World Report reporter Paul Bedard put it this way: "[Kerry's]point [is that] while people may not be feeling the benefits of the bailouts and healthcare reform yet, Congress has been working with Obama to right the economic ship." That was charitable, but pretty much a whimp-out.

Senator Kerry then went on to observe of the electorate that, "There's a sense of some things unraveling" Well, no shit. What a surprise.

So, Senator Kerry apparently believes that we little people out here in taxpayer land just simply don't get it. Even though Washington is taking too much of our money away and spending even more, we just don't understand that it is all for our own good! I feel like such a child! It sort of reminds me of when my pop used to tell me that it was for my own good as he finished up a whipping.

Senator Kerry apparently summarized the problem by suggesting that the Democrats need "to better sell what we've done." Yeah sell it in a way that makes it not look like they took all of us for fools. Frankly, I don't think you can sell bullshit except as fertilizer.

When Senator Kerry opens his mouth, I really can only think of a single word: IDIOT!

The Deuce and Atlas

I'm waiting. Every day I look for the CEO of some company to stand up to the Regime. I'm waiting for Atlas to Shrug. Alas, Atlas has yet to show himself.

The Financial sector was the first with the opportunity to stand up...they didn't. Goldman-Sachs and AIG were desperate to avoid bankruptcy, and so instead of telling the Regime to take government ownership and mandates and stuff it, they begged for a bailout and got it...along with the Regime's salary and bonus controls, and the upcoming Finance Bill. No Atlas there.

The Auto industry was next. Instead of just filing for reorganization, GM ( forever after to be known as Government Motors ) and Chrysler, like Goldman-Sachs and AIG, swallowd the hipocritacal abuse of congress and took the tax payers money, and quietly accepted the ring in their nose rather than fix themselves. Not only did we bail them out, but we'll be driving motorized skate boards for the rest of eternity! No Atlas there.

The Energy sector is next. Rather than make an honest profit from the product supplied, they'll accept Cap and Trade legislation. Why fight the Regime when they can just pass on the resulting skyrocketing cost of producing electricity and gasoline to the public? No skin off of their nose...until the public discovers candles, which are preferable to compact fluorescent lamps, or CFLs, because CFLs put out less light than incandescent bulbs regardless of the propaganda you've read; require a full-blown EPA hazmat response should one break, due to their mercury content ( got your moon-suit ready? ), and cost about ten times as much as an incandescent bulb. And gas? Hey! If Europe is willing to pay $8 a gallon, why not Americans? Serves us right for despoiling the Earth with all our civilization. No Atlas there. ( I know what you're thinking. You're thinking the ongoing gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is proof that we should all be living in caves and gnawing on bones while we respectfully expire from starvation, malaria or freezing to death rather than drill for oil. Well hell, that gusher wouldn't be happening if the damn tree-hugging Gaea worshipers would stop fighting us when we want to drill on land! It's called unexpected consequences dip shit. A leak at 5000 feet below sea level is a lot harder to stop and clean up than one at ground level...morons! )

Next will be the Electronic Media. Rather than compete in the free market for customers, TV and radio will accept the Fairness Doctrine, or stringent FCC regulations mandating "equal time" of opposing political views. After all, how long did Air America Radio last? I mean, come on! How long can the Republic last if every single media outlet is not toadying up to the Regime? No Atlas there.

The Food Industry is already caving. Whether they're restaurants or grocers, they simply bow to the Fed's demands for never-ending regulation of the salt, sugar, fat and calorie content of their foods rather than tell the Fed and Michelle Obama to mind their own damn business. How long until surly looking men dressed in fedoras and trench coats hover around us while we stand in line at McDonald's and demand "your calorie counter please." No Atlas there.

The Steel Industry? What steel industry? Most of the steel American companies use is imported from Japan and China, who laugh at supposed environmental and trade regulations. In China, they not only say screw the Spotted Owl, "old growth" forests, swamps ( er, I mean wetlands ) and the Snail Darter, they also say screw the peasants who mine the coal necessary for smelting the iron ore to make steel. After all, what do the Chicoms care if a few thousand coal miners die every year in mines so dangerous that Satan himself wouldn't tread in them. No Atlas there.

How about the Arts? Are you kidding me? Without the National Endowment for the Arts ( taxpayer money ), the only arts in America would be a few Broadway musicals, a handful of the larger city symphonies, community theaters, and the local high school jazz band, all of which support themselves with ticket sales from consumers who are actually willing to pay ( gasp ) to watch their performances. Imagine that! Luckily for the Arts, they Fed is big on financing them but incredibly reluctant to exert any control over their product, hence the Piss Christ, performance art and this silly crap. Please click on the silly crap link. You deserve the laugh. No Atlas there.

Atlas, where are you? If just one of you would stand up and resist the take over, millions would rise up and support you.

Just Shrug. We'll shrug with you.

Are you out there, John Galt?