Could Smoking Buy You Time?

I saw yet another news item over the weekend where another town council was considering banning smoking. This time it was in all the city's apartment complexes. And for all the real or imagined healthscare reasons you've grown accustomed to reading.

And I also noticed that the majority of the critics had comments that fall under the subheading of "Nanny State intrusiveness."

Now most of us know how badly the Left is infested with radical Greens and thus influenced by Malthusians.  Given such live and let die sorts at the top of the food chain, "Nanny State" sounds far too benign a label for such actions, let alone giving them a label that fits places so civilized as to have nannies.

So let's think about smoking and its effects a little bit more.

First hand smoke, on average, takes decades to actually kill a smoker (if he dies from it). All in all, it only really takes about 10 years off the average life span of all smokers.

But nowadays there's a big push for people to live healthier. Healthier hearts, lungs, kidneys, livers, etc. One might even call it a propagandizing push. Propaganda to improve the health of the population overall can't be a bad thing, right? Bwahahahahaha.

Let's simply concentrate on the smoking issue again. Think of the people who have lung ailments. If they smoked they probably now wish they hadn't. On average it's safe to say that a very large majority of people who are now suffering, and are eligible for a lung transplant, would want the lung of a recently deceased non-smoker. What sense would it make to take a lung from a preserved cadaver that smoked? Thus, the lung from a non-smoker is much more highly prized.

Now many of you have heard the rumors of how China harvests the organs from its prisoners and makes them available on the world transplant market. For some reason it is not publicized. I can't imagine why not. It's not like the rulers of China are like our Western rulers, right?

For instance, we know how open and honest our Western "progressives" are. They'd surely be open and aboveboard with the purpose behind all their machinations, right? Like climate change scientists.

Anyway, if you think about how much more a certified smoke free human lung could fetch at auction, all this effort begins to make sense. Well, in China anyway.

Surely, over there, you can forget about calling it the Nanny State — that’s far too civilized for what their “progressives” have in mind. Call it the Cannibal State.

On a side note. A little outside the box thinking might actually gain you some time. If you were a plant and wanted to make yourself look less attractive to harvesters, and had the will of a human, what might you consider -- cough -- doing?

Progressive Talk Radio -- Wolves Pretending To Be Sheep

I have had enough. Of Michael Medved, of Hugh Hewitt, of Dennis Prager, of Michael Savage. In that order I have listened to them engaging in a subtle press to get conservatives to believe that Romney is our only hope. In the case of the first two, I watched as they created fear so that conservatives backed the carpetbagging Kennedy stooge, Arnold Schwarzenegger, which led to the demise of California and the blame placed on Republican conservatives.

We must fight back. Don't let them do this to the whole country, again. Fight.

ANYBODY BUT ROMNEY

The Principal's Limited Principles

The MSM Agency of Lies was feeding my doubts today. The local "conservative" talk radio Salem station, KRLA, continues to use one of the major network feeds for its hour and half hour news. [I think it's CBS -- I'll take careful note tomorrow and correct this to reflect that.]

They played a snippet of Romney's Illinois primary victory speech that I found troubling. So I searched for a transcript -- which I found at the WAPO "Election2012 blog." In turns out that portion that was played on the radio was near the end of Romney's speech.

"Each day we move closer not just to victory but to a better America. Join us."

The problem for me is knowing that Progressives of both parties would feel reassured in hearing those words. The term better America, coming from the mouth of a "Progressive" Republican, has proven time and again not to be acceptable to conservatives. And from what I hear from independents, it is quite likely not acceptable to them either. The vision of building a better America is always the argument of the Leftists and Statists. WTH is wrong with the American ideal that have been more and more abandoned by the Statist advances of the last few decades? Why did Romney not say, as Reagan would have, "not just to victory, but to a restored America?"  Wellllll, Romneybots? It's because this guy is a PROGRESSIVE. Restoring America is the last thing that ilk has in mind. Any move that does not give them more power is NOT progressive.

But I wanted to give this candidate the benefit of the doubt. The media is far happier with Obama than Romney, so any sound bite they play will quite likely be disingenuous simply because that is what they do.

So I went and found the complete transcript just to find out what Governor Romney said in context. While there was some meat still thrown to conservatives, I was still not happy. The reason was that Gov. Romney spoke of principle only twice. And in both instances he limited that to "economic principle." Is economics the only principles that conservatives care about? Hell no you damn pretender!

"The American economy is fueled by freedom. Economic freedom is the only force that has consistently succeeded in lifting people out of poverty. It is the only principle that has ever created sustained prosperity."

and

"This November, we face a defining decision. Our choice will not be one of party or personality. This election will be about principle. Our economic freedom will be on the ballot." [Emphasis added]

There have been so many illegal moves by the current administration, everywhere from Fast and Furious to attacks on personal liberaties by the Interior Dept and EPA in violation of Constitutional limits. But this clown doesn't want to challenge the Bummer on all those illegalities. How the hell is he any different from the last GOP swan-diver, Jaun McLame?

Principled conservatives -- please stand up!

Instead, the Principal Is Revolting Against Principle

Yesterday I posted Principles Must Revolt Against Principals. We've had "Progressive" Republicans as the Party's nominee since GHWB, and look at the mess we are in. The conservative base abandoned the 2008 swan diver and the independents figured they may as well give the unknown devil a chance rather than one from the party of devils they knew.

So what does the GOP front runner do the day after I post that? He lets his senior adviser admit he's full of hot air. Is that giving independents a real choice or a watered down version of the current president who is surrounded by Marxists and racists and haters of America?

So let's be honest here. The adviser is signalling a knife in the back thanks for any conservatives who fell for Romney and the rest of the unprincipled GOP (I’m looking at to you, Coulter), Romney must believe he’s got the nomination locked up to let his chief strategist say this.

Unfortunately for the liberty-loving of the world, should principled conservatives fail to get uncharacteristically active and loud before nominations are done, you are toast.

Principled conservatives, do NOT fail. The whole world is looking to you to act like your life depended on the outcome.

ANYBODY BUT ROMNEY

Principles Must Revolt Against Principals

In “Oh the humanity!”, a examination of how the Left claims to champion interest groups but actually  harnesses them to an ideology or insists that they remain downtrodden, and one where mayor Bloomberg's actions provide an inhumane example, Wretchard concludes:

Perhaps history will ultimately judge that it was always the Left which after all waged the longest and most enduring war on women and on poor people; and that as a practical matter it kept women obedient servants to an ideology and the poor it kept poor. But nobody ever notices it because they keep saying “we’re on your side”.

Ah, now here’s a story that ought to help us NEVER forget that the Left is not only in the Democratic Party.

There have long been Leftists disguised as Progressives in the GOP since the late 1800s. They have incrementally achieved their aims by never admitting they were really pursuing them. Their job has been to run interference for the most radical Leftists who served as their avante-garde. Nobody with a full brain can honestly contest this any longer. And the GOP, the alleged party of opposition, still permits these incrementalists a cozy spot at the head of the table.

Who here needs reminding that Bloomberg bought himself onto the GOP primary Mayoral ballot all those many years ago and the NYC GOP voted for him in the primary simply because this Dem chose to wear an R and he was bringing his money and influence with him? And that charade was a repeat of what has gone on country wide since GHWB, where the GOP has given us one SKUNC after another as our “choice” to provide an “opposition” to Statism. And now they’re pushing Romney, another damnable SKUNC.

Principles will have to revolt against principals or there will never be a true opposition to the Statist advance. I believe it will be difficult, but I refuse to believe it is impossible.

Cross-posted at Crusader Rabbit.

Their Tactics Cannot Be Used Against Them

I've seen people suggest in several places that we ought to visit upon the Statist the same sort of incremental resistance to their tyranny as they employed to steal our freedoms. The reason we can't act like them is not because such dishonesty and duplicity is wrong, it is because our adversaries will not permit it. They know where they are headed, but will always deny their real ends. A number of us will surmise their ends and attempt to convince the more gullible, but you and I do not own the big megaphones that they own.

But it is far worse than that. There are, to use a precise term, modern casuists in the ranks of our adversaries. These are what you would better recognize by the label "true believers." What happens when the veil falls from their eyes and they see the truth?

The leaders of the avante-garde:
With the radical Left, anyone who tells the mob "hey wait a minute. You're doing it wrong." or "you're going in the wrong direction," or "this is not what we were seeking," is subject to sudden and violent termination for the sin of being a counterrevolutionary. Whatever their actual sins, Robespierre and Trotsky are probably good examples. What was there in power did not need them any longer -- they had outlived their usefulness.

The strategic leaders:
The "Progressives" (as the Jacobins before them) had the appearance of being the rational planners. The radical Left criticized the established order, raised the objections to whatever injustice in the news they could capitalize upon, and with their often violent demonstrations, pushed the envelope of what became tolerable public discussion. All the while the nice sounding and popular "Progressives" like Theodore Roosevelt would stage pleas for leniency to protect the Marxists or anarchists from answering fully to the law for their lawlessness. Those who quite often wanted nothing more than have the miscreants answer for their lawlessness were labeled as reactionaries, no doubt aided by the image painted of the men who reacted in self defense but painted by the media as acting outside the law. Seeing the lies with which today's media has painted both the TEA party and Occupy groups, and knowing of the yellow journalism of the time, I think I'm on firm ground with this speculation.

The pattern to power repeated:
But what of it? Well, it was because the "Progressives" could hide their long range plans and simply repeatedly call for cooler heads to reign, that the Leftward march into and throughout our institutions could be facilitated. They gained one niggling foothold after the other until, voilâ, there we have all sorts of radicals in the Dem party and Progressives Incrementalists in the GOP, and the American equivalent of the Roman Leftist known as Marius sitting in the Oval Office for at least 12 years and maybe more. (We may be at the point of bloody counter-revolution as Ancient Rome under Sulla. But I cannot see how that is any real answer. What will prevent a strong man dictator to come out the other side as happened to the hapless patriotic republicans of Ancient Rome?)

We simply cannot duplicate the actions of the Incrementalists:
But this is why we cannot mimic the actions of the Incrementalists in how they undermined our government. People in our government and in society at large, responded to pressure to allow that the Incrementals were well meaning, so we ought to tolerate their simple requests. Don't punish the radicals too harshly, and allow for little compromises with the radicals. Give in a little and let's see what happens; if their ideas fail, we end the experiment and go back to the way things were -- what's the harm in that? Tolerance, that's the ticket. Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

Like I said at the top: Can you see that being tolerated within in a Statist system? Argue against the top down diktat and find yourself in reeducation camp, sedated under heavy drugs as a mental case, or sent off to the gulags as a counter-revolutionary.

I've seen people suggest in several places that we ought to visit upon the Statist the same sort of incremental resistance to their tyranny as they employed to steal our freedoms. It cannot work that way. And this was why.

Cross-posted at Crusader Rabbit.

The Tragedy of World Reaction to Evil

LOL

Lawyers for the patients say, “we believe this distressing case may be the tip of a very big iceberg.” -- a line from "Doctor Who?" at the Belmont Club.

The rot is much bigger than even these unnamed lawyers could have meant. That big iceberg extends well past healthcare.

In this story, the British bureaucracy stole a child from a mother by means of ordering a doctor to declare her insane. They paid him exorbitant fees to do so. Whatever fee the adoptive parent paid for that child I'd say was dwarfed by its cost to British society. Who could believe that societal harmony and confidence could be further trashed? I imagine that some evil counter-culturalists would be celebrating were they not too busy cooking up another outrage to surpass it. 

Scattered Dreams: The Unraveling of the Global Schemers

Some people complain of shattered dreams. I complain of the scattered variety.

Last night I dreamed that I discovered the key words that dissolved the callouses on the consciences of a significant number the world's top schemers.

The result was a resurgence of individual liberty world wide as various heads of bureaucracies were given orders to stop all work until further notice.

And as the days progressed, the pressure to conform to the new awareness began to spread, as Political Correctness began to swing the other way. The old Sustainability worshipers were suddenly on the defensive and fighting amongst their former colleagues who were ridiculing them for being such pagan throwbacks. It was like the words caused their masks to slip, and they were recognized as either murderers or as the instigators of murder. Murder of people. Murder of human advancement. Murder of thriving civilization.

My complaint is: I do not recall what those "magic" words were.

I only recall noticing how simply worded the phrases were. They were so obvious that I could not understand why nobody had stumbled upon them before. I called out in anger to God to tell me why He had clouded so many minds so as not to see it sooner. All I heard in response was the intensified song of birds greeting the rising sun.

I awoke with a sense of vitality I cannot recall feeling in a long time. And frustrated that I could not remember more of the dream -- scattered as usual -- so that I could share it better with you.

If only the ability to convey love for human life could be spread a fraction as easily as it emerged in this dream.

Afterthought. 
I wonder if this was inspired by something I ate or this by Og? Given all the weird things he dreams of which he suggests are brought on by his intestinal reactions, it could well be due to both.

Some Caesars Had Good Reason

to fear members of the praetorian guard. But are we there already?

US TROOPS DISARMED FOR PANETTA

(Besides, the ides of March are tomorrow, not today.)
h/t to Drudge for the headline and the link. 

Updated to add the news about the desecration of the American flag.

My, what a coincidence that these made news on the same day.

Time for a reminder of how this all became possible:

REPUBLICRATS™

Partials

1. Republicans Now Evenly Divided on Whether Afghanistan War Has Been Worth Fighting  -- Given from the start the enemy-favoring rules of engagement (thanks to W and made worse by the Bummer), it is gratifying to know that there still are many sane people in the Republican Party. Not that the party deserves such decent people as would say "What sort of rat bastards would put our young people into a no-win situation like that?" Were God to intervene on their behalf, He would take out the whole rotten bunch of those under the "Progressive" regressive thumb so that conservatives could be free to choose afresh real representatives.
2. The race is homo sapiens. There is no race called homo sexuals. We are top heavy with people who, in the interest of Sustainability worship, have been promoting lifestyles that lead to less procreation and shorter life spans. If the few radical homo sexual Leftists want to label anyone as racists accurately, it is the leaders in the ever-growing and insatiable Statist leviathan that claims to be their friend but is using their unhappiness as a tool to aid them incrementally decimate the race of which the gay are but a subculture.

Which Is The Evil? Part 3: Silencings Stepped Up

Ann Barnhardt predicts that Catholicism -- the real thing -- will be forced underground. According to her report, a timid soul of a priest knuckled under to a single shouting protestor and did not deliver his homily for the week.

2. With regards to the homosexualist attacks on the Church, it is beginning. A homosexualist invaded a Mass in the U.K. this morning and shouted down the priest who was trying to read a letter from the local bishop on homosexual "marriage". The priest folded and didn't read the letter. (See item #1) People, this is going to soon be a staple at Catholic Masses. The enemy is launching combat operations. It will probably get to the point before the Church is totally schismed and the True Church goes underground that distribution of the Eucharist to the faithful will have to stop in order to protect Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament from being profaned by the demonic homosexualists sent into Masses to disrupt the liturgy and desecrate the Eucharist. Go to confession and receive the Eucharist in a state of grace as much as you possibly can NOW while you still can, because we may have to go without receiving Him physically pretty soon in order to defend Him and show Him how much we love Him. -- Ann Barnhardt - March 11, AD 2012 7:22 PM MST

Regular readers know I've been warning in print since 2006 of attacks on practitioners of all Judeo-Christian religion, and that I have recently upped my commentary about related events as they unfold. In my opinion, those who have been promoting the notion of Sustainability as if it were an official religion (but they would not want that established while the constitution still stands!) will not tolerate any religion that defends human life at conception (or, with each passing day, at ever more points thereafter). The Catholic Church is the largest body still ostensibly doing that (to the extent that closeted pagans have not taken it over altogether as -- it seems -- at some institutions). Although I wish they were consistent and unflinchingly permitted justice to champion for all innocent human life (rather than being joined with the Leftists in obstructing the execution of murderers), I am willing to stand by them as they defend their conscience in this.

I also wish that they as an institution could be counted upon to continue defending their position half as good as I intend to. Miss Barnhardt, in item number 4 at the same link, seems to doubt they will. She sees them folding and not defending Christ as is their task. She is in a better position than I to understand the workings of the Church. I pray she is wrong in her assessment. I bet she does too.

Also in this series
Part 1: Which Is The Evil? [Identifies the dichotomy]
Part 2:  "Be Fruitful and Multiply AND Replenish the Earth"

"Be Fruitful and Multiply AND Replenish the Earth"

This is part 2 of Which is the Evil?

Today's title is from Genesis 1:28:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Critics of the Bible make a habit of selectively referencing only the Be fruitful, and multiply portion. It's so much simpler when using Critical Theory while waging cultural warfare to leave out a critical and common sense part of the equation. For that matter, in order to replenish the earth, it is best to allow men to have dominion of all creatures on the earth so that they can do it, which is found in the final phrases of the same passage.

Of course, those who seek to rule men want unfettered power to treat them like the other critters. (Hence their ongoing campaign to completely shred the United States Constitution because of its limits on their powers.) The Judeo-Christian ethic actually was evolving into its full potential in the United States -- and individuals from around the globe beat back all sorts of obstacles to get here.

But the regressives who cloaked themselves as "Progressives,"  protected the Marxists who implemented Critical Theory while the country was unaware of why they were as critical as they were. At this point they seem to have achieved a tremendous foothold in all our institutions.

When they were out of power, they criticized all they saw who were in power for their lack of perfection. They refused to allow that any of those flawed people could mean well. (The beginnings of Leftist projection started with that right there.) The only people who they permitted to mean well are other progressives and liberals.

They also they never call anyone on the left out for the radicals they are no matter how extreme. Kinda like they tolerate radical jihadis. When they use the word "extremist" that is reserved for ANYONE a smidgeon to the right of them. It's as obscene as Romney trying to run to the right of all other GOP candidates. That's another reason to distrust Romeny by the way -- he's using their tactics, but on the right, in a lying mirror image.

Anyway, the point of this post is that the Judeo-Christian ethic has in it all that is needed for caring for the environment, and none of it has to do with making a sub-species of all human beings who are not in agreement with those who hate the concept of God.

Which Is The Evil?

Which is the evil position? ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH TO DISCUSS IT?

1) Individuals  being left to decide (whatever they choose) on a) having children, and b) as many as they may conceive, even if it appears (logically, from reason alone) that that would ultimately lead to an overcrowded, substance depleted, waste expanding, unlivable planet.

2) Managers must be permitted the power to govern all those individuals so as to manage the number of people inhabiting the planet; to keep the number within some consensus arrived at and agreed upon limits. These managers get to decide who gets to reproduce, and in what numbers, and to assess whether or not the progeny has attributes that are useful and thus may be permitted to continue to exist. These managers agree that they are not all knowing and all seeing and cannot possibly be held accountable if they made mistakes. But because they mean well, and the consequences of the old order's laissez faire attitude was leading to gigantic, unsustainable, overpopulation, it's better that they have been empowered to prevent the Malthusian eventuality. Whatever problems associated with the mistakes in planning are small in comparison to that eventuality. And besides, we've bought mankind the time needed to solve the problems created by centralized planning.

As I Said, Sandy Fluke Was A Tool

I am very pleased to see that there are accounts in print that relate how Sandy Fluke was staging her act in front of Congress, and her subsequent outrage in the media.

 I give you Limbaugh and Our Phony Contraception Debate: A student demands that a Catholic school give up its religion to pay for her birth-control pills.

But C'mon people. It was pretty obvious from a common sense point of view that it was agitprop from the start. (Meaning it didn't require a federally funded study to figure it out). And the media's subsequent lionizing of her behavior was simply typical fare coming from the Agency of Lies (AoL). All to aid the fellow Statists in the Obama administration and Congress whittle away by one more increment your protections from government infringing on your inalienable rights -- in this case, freedom of conscience.

It's your job to continue to tell our friends and relatives in the best way you know how, how the AoL will frame every debate to direct our attention away from anything that sheds light on the various ways they wish to enslave the rest of us.

The Genius of Blaise Pascal

Over the years I've provided bits and pieces of the history of Pascal. At my old website I had several links that were frequently used by visitors to find out more about the man. When I moved my activities here, I overlooked transferring them over. But I never really laid out what I've learned about him over the years.

For a starter, view The peerless Genius - Blaise Pascal (sorry, its author does not permit embeds). The video is pretty good. Beware that the score near the end gets a bit too intense.

Now I'll add a few notable accomplishments that were left out.

Time To Remember the Enemy's Chief Tactic

Rush caved to pressure and published an apology for saying what, IMHO, he should not have said. But once he said it, apologizing in this climate, Jeesh? All he cares about is himself? I expect it to be a disaster for all of us as the extent of that apology's ripple effect has the potential to be pretty much unbounded. Have you seen the crackdown that "free" Australia is facing?

As I pointed out yesterday, had Rush ceased trying to be funny and stressed how much of a tool the object of his scorn was, things would be different.

So today I give you a reminder of what the primary arrow in your enemy's quiver is. "SHUT UP!"



I've an idea. Ask Andrew Klavan to update this video ASAP. Better yet, is there someone else out there with the talent to do something like it? In support of an army of Breitbarts, lets see a few more Klavans.

Is Tool Better Than Slut?

Being a law student and all, Sandra Fluke might feel better had Rush downplayed the nature of her pleas and concentrated on her role on behalf of the death cults who are behind the push for utterly complete Statist control of healthcare.

Feel better now Sandra?

I pray you begin to understand much sooner than "Roe" -- who eventually grew to regret her role. But the media totally ignored her recanting and warning to women and would grant her voice no hearing. She was of no further use for the advancement of the agenda of those who so hate the human race.

**Update**
Just A Grunt confirms my hunch: Sandra Fluke’s Appearance Is No Fluke

Breitbart: Who will take his baton?

He lives! If at time life seems to be a race, remember that it's a relay.

Here's Where New Leaders Come From

Refugees from the world's hell holes know what those places are like. They don't want to see those evil forces, and those that are allied with them in their new homes, gaining sway on the shores that were once havens. If you can't follow them, at least heed their warnings and act like men.

A Pakistani apostate now resident in Spain wants the Spanish government to ban the Koran. From Gates of Vienna No Quran in Spain.

This is the plea of a refugee, “Imran Firasat,” who is aghast that those who rule his new home would consider giving the terror he fled a new crack at him by permitting it a foothold.

The West was once the place to which refugees fled; and to the United States most of all.

For what we permitted to happen to our country in the last few generations, we should be horsewhipped.

Expressing Joy for Life Itself

This is one of those tunes and arrangements from the swing era that carried the West through WW II. It stands homage to that one song that lights you up. After you hear it once or twice, you can understand why some tyrannies cannot tolerate music at all.

I've Heard That Song Before