Month: May 2013

If you need an explanation, you’re too far gone. Via Ace

But do we have the nerve to follow through to the conclusion?

How Many Times do We have to Hear about the Peaceful 99% of Muslims?

…

Did you know that,

— 99% of the Japanese did not attack Pearl Harbor?

— 99% of the Nazis did not kill Jews or Gypsies, or invade Poland?

— 99% of the Communists did not engage in Stalin’s or Mao’s purges?

— 99% of the Germans killed in Dresden had never bombed England?

— 99% of the Italians did not invade Ethiopia?

— 99% of the Iranians did not occupy the US embassy in Teheran?

— 99% of the Al Qaeda membership did not fly airplanes into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon?

And so on, and on, and so what? What does that “99%” prove? Just one thing: There are consequences in the real world to belonging to organizations or following ideologies and leaders that commit atrocities. That’s the way it works. If 99% of Muslims are not terrorists, and do not support terrorism (that’s the big “if”) where are they? Why can’t they control the crazies and murderers and rioters in their midst? If they can’t they will find that they might just pay the price, even if they did not pull the trigger, or drop the cyanide gas. The Germans and the Japanese discovered that during World War II.

So whether you’re in Boston or Fort Hood, London, Paris or Benghazi, at some point you have to face the fact that this is a cultural struggle we are causing ourselves to lose. Either the terrorists and those who enable them are held accountable by the civilized, or the civilization itself will fall. Do we as a culture have the stones to make the correct decision? I honestly don’t see much evidence of it- we no longer even hold our own leaders to any traditional moral standard, much less those who attack us.

Only by each individual taking a stand- “This far, no further”- will this ever change.  You’ll have to look inside yourselves for the answer to that.

C. S. Lewis:

And all the time — such is the tragi-comedy of our situation — we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more “drive”, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or “creativity”. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

An amazing and perceptive man. His kind would not be allowed in our Brave New World.

Glenn links to this:

Marco Rubio files amendment to punish IRS agents who leak taxpayer docs

– but that is just papering over the problem. The problem is the tax system itself– ridiculously complex and riddled with perks for those with the money or the power to game the system. Ordinary folks need not apply. We need a tax system that is evenly allocated and forces everyone to comply, no exceptions. A national sales tax would do that – a tax on consumption, not income – which would apply equally to a Michael Bloomberg or to me. No exemptions, no deductions, no VAT. No forms to file.

The infrastructure is already in place; it would be relatively painless to implement.

States should also be forbidden an income tax; they, too, would have to rely on a sales tax, and would be forced to be careful how high it was, risking driving business and citizens into lower-taxed states.

The price increases would look painful at first until you realized that nothing was being deducted from your paycheck. The cost savings from reduced overhead would be enormous.

And to me the greatest benefit of all would be the masses of government employees who would have to find jobs in the private sector they so despise. The actions of our government in my lifetime- Democrat, Republican, whatever- have convinced me that a wholesale housecleaning is long overdue. IRS, EPA, DOE, HUD, etc., etc., – I’m talking about you.

It will be wrenching. But if we don’t take back our country we are going to lose it- in our lifetimes. The signs are all there if you have the guts to see.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

      — Robert Heinlein

 

Matt Drudge is a bad, bad man

Article here