The REAL problem

Spent some time looking at conservative blogs and publications, conservative mailing lists, discussion groups, etc.

So we have a marxist in the White House destroying the capitalist economy, and some people continue to worry about Comrade Osama's birth certificate. If he was born in Kenya or Hawaii, and what someone who claims to be his great-uncle says.

You know what? Who gives a damn? Prez Comrade is not going to be booted out of office on the basis of his birth certificate or lack thereof. Headlines at worldnetdaily. com screamed something about how shocking it is that "Americans don't care!!" about Comrade Osama's birth certificate. Right. It doesn't matter. It's a non-issue. He's not going to be kicked out of office for lying about his place of birth -- if he is lying. So get off it and move on to something that's really important, like, no matter where he was born, this sonofabitch is anihilating individual liberty.

Elsewhere, I invited some libertarian-leaning people to read my blog about socialized medicine (It ain't NICE.) What was the reaction? Something like seven out of nine comments objected to my calling Comrade Osama "Osama."

Yeah, they put their finger on the big issue there. Not that Comrade Osama is appropriating all the heretofore privately-owned assets of the US health care industry and turning medical professionals into slaves of the state, but that I call him "Osama." I must applaud their breadth of vision and their ability to identify priorities.

In the past, I've been a card-carrying Libertarian and it's worth noting, given a range of issues and activities to pursue, Libertarians will generally head straight for the small potatoes -- the tiny inconsistencies in the "other guy's" argument, the fact that the Reps and Dems omitted from their campaign platforms any consideration about who could "claim" the moon in the course of space exploration. They kinda remind me of that one character in the novel, Catch-22, whose eyes look in two directions at the same time and who was apparently unable to focus on any one thing at a time.

With friends like these, is there any wonder the nation is going down the tubes? Before we look at issues, let's make sure all of our speech is politically correct.

FYI -- I don't play that game. In fact, I believe that's only a tool that the addle-brained use to hamstring political discourse. I try not to cuss too much on this blog. Those who know me in real life might understand that this takes some effort. I tend to call foul people foul names.

Comrade Osama is Comrade Osama. Not an insult, merely an accurate characterization. He's a marxist and a terrorist devoted to destroying the USA. What would you call him?

Am I supposed to show him respect? That would be lying. I don't have any respect for him, or for Pazzo Pelosi or Magic Martian Abracadabrajab, who's just now breaking heads in Iran. Do you respect these people? If so, why?

I actually expected better things from Project 912's web site -- the one launched by Glenn Beck. Some posters there are pretty cool and savvy. However, literally hundreds of posts were responses to some guy who calls himself Elliott, who apparently is trolling the list. For the uninitiated, "trolling" means posting deliberately provocative statements and/or insults that, if they work, distract everyone from the real issues.

They are a key reason why mailing lists usually don't accomplish anything, and why most of them end up being little more than exchanges of personal insults, or "flames." I'm quite certain that Comrade Osama actively recruits his halfwitted minions to surf the web in search of derogatory mailing lists, discussion groups, etc., and has charged them with the task of trolling these lists to keep the legitimate participants unfocused and ultimately impotent and ineffective.

The best and only effective way to deal with trolls on any mailing list is to ignore them. Last I saw on the Project 912 list was that another hundred or so posts had been devoted to figuring out this very simple social principle. I mean, when I was in kindergarten, my mom told me to ignore the obnoxious bullies. They only crave attention, and the more attention you give them, the worse their behavior gets. They're like flashers. Is this a lesson of such profound depth and complexity that it requires a lot of study and commentary? Just ignore the twit and move on.

I may be giving away my age here, but I was around for the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago -- the one where the Chicago Police ended up breaking heads on Clark Street and then again on Michigan Avenue. I didn't go down there; I was actually trying to avoid the police at the time. At any rate....

Had a friend who was working undercover for the FBI at the time. He was a student himself and able to mix with other students in the radical groups. His job was to identify the rabble rousers and report them to the FBI. Added benefit, he was an artist. He could draw portraits of said leftists and pass those to the FBI, since the people who did the inciting moved from place to place and usually operated under a number of aliases. The info my friend provided was almost as good as getting photographs.

At any rate, something the FBI advised my friend to do to break up protests -- even legitimate ones -- was to raise so many issues that the dissenting groups couldn't concentrate their numbers around any one thing. So instead of organizing a really effective and representative group to give voice to protest, you ended up with a bunch of disgruntled and isolated misfits, each nurturing their own petty grievance and battling each other about what was important, while the "powers that be" swept into office on the big issues.

Sound familiar?

Comrade Osama is destroying the concept of individual rights in the USA. He's obliterating capitalism and the free market.

Is there anything more important?

And please, feel free to check my spelling. Then I'll edit your commentary for grammatical errors and misuse of the English language.

Meanwhile, Rome burns.