Where There's A Will, There's A Way

And where there is a lack of will, there is no way. Our nation needs to summon up the will to shoulder its responsibilities. All of the problems we currently face are ultimately traceable to a lack of will. We don’t have the will to project our military power and mean it. We don’t have the will to control our borders. We just can’t be aroused from our Lay-Z-Boy recliners and our McMansions for much of anything anymore. It’s as if the cosmic phone is ringing and we are collectively waiting for someone else to get up and answer the call. In this case it’s the call of duty, the call to arms, the call to action.

The left may think this is George Bush’s war, but the rest of the world doesn’t see it that way. The rest of the world is watching to see if the bloated, atrophied carcass of the world’s only remaining superpower can finish a fight it initiated with a backward third world country or not. And if we can’t or won’t finish it, it will have repercussions well beyond the Islamists. Every nation in the world will have proof positive that America doesn’t have the fortitude to honor its commitments anymore. We talk the talk, but we can’t be bothered to walk it anymore. We are in a contest of wills with an implacable enemy and the only thing they have that we don’t is the will to see it through, no matter how difficult, no matter the sacrifice.

A nation with a will can put a man on the moon in less than a decade with less computing power on board than today’s automobile has using slide rules to make all of the calculations. If this nation truly had the will, a fence along our borders could be built in a matter of months. The flood of illegal aliens could be staunched in short order if we only had the will to do so. It’s not lack of resources, or manpower, or even a matter of it being the right thing to do: it’s a lack of will and nothing less. We are fighting to maintain our sovereignty with about the same gusto as we are prosecuting the war against radical Islam; half heartedly with half measures in a half assed way.

This nation had better rediscover its backbone soon and drop a pair, or all we believe in will become a thing of the past. A nation that can’t or won't protect itself and its interests, that can’t or won't control its borders, is a nation that cannot long endure. Whatever the course this country is to take, let it take that course either with a will or with a sense of nostalgia for the ambition of generations past that were greater than, and failed by, their progeny.

Scottie

How To Change the World

I think I might be on to something. I’ve discovered a way to change the whole world. All you have to do is be an oddball with a problem and whine about it and everyone on the planet has to drop everything and change everything in their lives to soothe your hurt feelings for being different. Although you may think I’m being facetious, I’m actually serious. Let me give you some examples.

If you are allergic to peanuts, don’t learn to deal with it. Why on earth should you do that? It’s much easier to whine about it and pretty soon, there are no peanuts on airplanes anymore and kids can’t bring peanut butter sandwiches to school anymore. Just a little wailing and gnashing of teeth and the whole world becomes a goober free zone to avoid inconveniencing you. Pretty neat, huh?

Coworker wearing perfume you don’t like? Take a page from the anti-smoking lobby and have a hissy-fit about it until the entire office is declared a perfume and cologne free zone. They can’t let you be inconvenienced by those hundreds of other people. They’re not as important as you are, are they? Just think of the office as your own private little world to shape however you wish and pretty soon you’ll find all kinds of things to be offended by. Calendars, cartoons, even the flowers a coworker gets on her anniversary are fair game.

Now we’re cooking. Can’t get around in your wheelchair? Well pitch a fit! Make every business and public building bow to your wishes. It’s not like the inconvenience and expense of changing the world around you is your problem to deal with, heck no. Keep it up and no matter the cost to society, no matter how many businesses go under, eventually you will have access to every place imaginable. Your whole crowd, what is it twenty or so of you, will have their way at the expense of everyone else. Of course, you’ll take a hit on sympathy and goodwill, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a small price to pay for changing the world, isn’t it? And while you’re at it, ask for a good parking spot as a kicker!

Don’t like the discomfort you experience when confronted about your lack of moral clarity? Well don’t just stand for it! Demand the removal of every vestige of religion in every place you find it. Don’t be concerned with providing a replacement, that’s not important. Just squall and babble until the whole world changes to prevent your discomfort. Now, demand schools teach the religious ideology of an enemy intent on destroying your nation and moan about how we have to tolerate and understand them. That’ll make it easier for them to finish changing the world after you get bored with it.

After those warm up exercises you’re ready for something more substantial like eliminating capitalism. Now that you've got that religion stuff suppressed, it's getting easier. Whip up a Global Warming boogie-man and demand the entire world start doing what you say on no real basis whatsoever. Of course, you don’t have to change your lifestyle, only the little people and anyone that disagrees with you will have to actually do anything. Isn’t this fun? Once you get some momentum started, pile on the “right” to healthcare for good measure. Don’t be concerned with the consequences; you haven’t been so far, why start now? Just jump in with your newfound power and start arbitrarily changing anything you don’t agree with or don’t understand and make the world in whatever manner suits your particular desire. Like God did.

Scottie

Intellectual Odds & Ends

It seems like the anti-military and anti-recruitment zealots aren't against fighting per se. They fight quite vigorously against their fellow citizens and those that ensure their right to protest. It is people that will fight back that seem to escape their unhinged and unpatriotic attacks. If only they could gin up comparable outrage towards those intent on destroying them and their way of life.

I see that California has executed a one-two punch. First they asserted that parents couldn't object to the content being taught to their children under the presumption that the children were put into school voluntarily. Now they are told that they aren't qualified to withhold their children from those same schools to teach them themselves. So are the children's in those schools really there voluntary? Doesn't seem to matter either way, does it? It takes a village to destroy family values.

Most schools don't permit students to participate in extracurricular activities if they are failing in their regular course requirements. Shouldn't we apply the same logic to government? Until they can make the courts work, defend the country, and secure the nation's borders, why should they be given license to dabble in social engineering? I note that most of this extracurricular (and extra-constitutional) activity gets failing grades as well.

I was a capitalist when I had nothing, and although I still have very little, I'm still a capitalist. I don't resent those that have more; I resent those that would try to prevent me from attaining more by demonizing those of greater achievement. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to steer my own life in whichever direction I wished, something very rare in the history of mankind. What I have is largely the result of my own stewardship of my life.

When you give someone the shirt off your back, that is charity. When someone takes your shirt from you at gunpoint to give it someone they deem more worthy, that is tyranny; or socialism as it's currently called.

Nothing ruins a man more than a life of unearned ease. To have succor at the expense of others without the wit, will and ability to achieve it on one's own breeds nothing but contempt for those that labor and sacrifice from those that do not. Hunger and poverty can be powerful motivators, given the chance to work their magic, when combined with the freedom to seek a cure for them by one's own efforts.

I support the idea that every vote should count; but, I do not support the idea that illegitimate votes should. Those opposed to voter ID requirements are really supporting nothing short of fraud and anarchy by implying that those that are disenfranchised by this trifling inconvenience have a legitimate franchise in the first place.


Why do feminists claim on one hand that men are unnecessary to their happiness while bemoaning the refusal of men to grow up and make commitments on the other? Why did they think that marginalizing men as optional wouldn't be reciprocated? If men are essentially reduced to a source of income and insemination, what incentive do men have to share their income and to produce children with those that consider them as little more than that? The feminist movement has done far more to free men from their traditional responsibilities than it has to free women from theirs. The law of unintended consequences will out.

Scottie

Uprooted

She wanders about the old place, lingering here and there to soak in the memories one last time. The house is in total chaos, her children busily scrambling about with various tasks. She directs their efforts, but her heart just isn’t in it. The accumulated treasures of a lifetime are being lovingly packed and sorted by the assembled throng of children, friends and grandchildren. Trucks and trailers line the driveway, waiting to receive the neatly packaged contents of a home she’s lived in for over thirty years. This whole affair has been quite a shock for her and it shows in the concern and fatigue on her normally smiling face.

There’s the china she received from her mother, the furniture she’s lovingly dusted and polished to a brilliant gloss, photo albums, vacation memorabilia, school projects her children made for her, and the millions of little things that one accumulates over the course of a long and fruitful lifetime. These things can be moved of course, but the memories attached to them are a different matter. Every particle of the old place evokes memories and she hears all of them clamoring for a last visit before the cosmic tranquility is permanently broken.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with the new place, but it’s not the same. As her treasures are transferred, she stops by to supervise their delivery and placement for later unpacking. The new house is rapidly becoming a warren of trails through many stacks of boxes and furniture. The physical work of transferring everything will be ably handled by others, but the monumental task of sorting and placing it will be to a large extent her sole domain. It’s going to take some time for her to create a new nest here and even longer to overcome the loss of the old one. But in the end, she’s a tough old bird; she’ll roll up her sleeves and one box at a time she’ll create a new home. And soon the holidays will come, and her new nest will be filled with the love of her extended family as she once again holds court and continues collecting her precious memories of home and hearth and family.

God bless you Phyllis.

Scottie

Self Made Conservatives

One of the consistent themes of American culture is the self-made man. Given the Left’s stranglehold on Hollywood, Academia, and Journalism, it occurs to me that every conservative had to come to their philosophy through dint of personal effort and self-determination. Conservatives certainly didn’t learn the values they hold dear at a University. Their point of view is seldom bolstered by the fare emanating from Hollywood; in fact it is far more likely to be undermined than supported by the glitterati. And they most certainly didn’t arrive at their conclusions by following the lead of our nation’s mainstream media. All conservatives are therefore by definition self-made.

I will acknowledge that many conservatives get a good start from their parents. But parents can only take you so far. It takes tremendous effort and character to run against the prevailing wisdom of the “in” crowd. It takes real courage and a true belief in your core values to hold them dear in the face of ridicule by your peers. I’ll give parents their props, but I didn’t arrive in early adulthood fully formed; none of us do. In the absence of strong parents, the rest of us had to arrive here by forsaking fantasy for reality, by using reason, and by tamping down hysterical emotionalism. In short, we had to grow up.

While the Left claims to champion diversity, what could be more diverse than the multitude of individual paths conservatives have taken? While the Left champions the notion of tolerance, how could any conservative have arrived where they are intellectually without tolerance in abundance? The ranks of the Left swell with those whose only claim to legitimacy is their victimhood; that they have been offended in some way. Who among conservatives gets through a week, let alone an academic year without having their values and sensibilities offended? The difference is conservatives shrug it off and go about their business instead of making themselves the center of attention for something someone else did or failed to do.

Take comfort in the knowledge that conservatives are self-made people. They daily demonstrate tolerance, diversity and honest intellectual curiosity. In fact, you could say conservatives actually live what the Left preaches. No accolades are necessary; our self-esteem is just fine. After all, we’re grown-ups, we’re used to it.

Scottie