Archive for July, 2011

Shades Of Gorbachev

Posted in 2012 Election, Politics on July 22nd, 2011

Obama As GorbachevOne piece of good news for America is that there is more and more evidence that there is little or nothing but bad news for the Liberals and their party of choice, the Democrats. Their days as a political force in our country are coming to a close.

This has happened because Obama, Pelosi, and Reid – and/or their handlers – gambled – in fact the went “all in” – on a big push for Statist measures and a neo-Socialist agenda and they lost, lost big.

All that they achieved was near-beggaring the nation, causing a Hooverian extension and worsening of the economic malaise, and waking up the American people, who then chose to take back their country and its government.

This week’s fight over raising the federal debt limit exposes a key weakness in the warfare-welfare state that has bestowed power onto the Democratic Party: Without an ever-growing share of the economy, it dies. Every vital element of the Democrats’ coalition — unions, government workers, government contractors, “entitlement” consumers — requires constant increases in payments, grants and consulting contracts. Without those payments, they don’t sign checks to re-elect Democrats.

Like it or not, Obama is not the new FDR, but the new Gorbachev: a man forced to preside over the demise of a political system he desperately wants to save.

Democrat champions in the punditocracy confidently predict that the future of the world’s oldest political party is bright. But in fact, the coalition that is the modern Democratic Party is doomed. Every pillar upholding its heavy roof is crumbling.

That’s the problem with going “all in” when you’re bluffing and have nothing to back it up. When you’re called, you lose it all. That’s what has happened to the leftists and their pet politicians.

Obama is now truly much like Gorbachev was then. His mouthings are just the rhetorical floundering of a lost and bewildered politician trying to be heard over the roar of lost faith in a failed model of government. Obama, figurehead, scapegoat, judas goat, or whatever for the Liberals and their Democrats, just cannot be heard anymore – and Pelosi and Reid aren’t even speaking at all.

Thanks to the stupidity of Obama, Pelosi and Reid they even lost the terms of the arguments. Under the new rules of engagement the arguments are now solely voiced in conservative American terms. Liberal and Progressive catch-phrases, terms, and dog-whistles have been cast onto the trash heaps of history.

Even if Obama is granted a second term as POTUS it won’t matter that much. Indeed, perhaps it’s fitting the America’s First Black President be the one who presides over the dissolution of Liberal and Progressive ideology as a political force in America.

Millenial Post

Posted in Announcements on July 21st, 2011

This marks the 1000th post on Reflections From A Murky Pond during the 4 years, 1 month, and 14 days (1505 days) that this blog has been in existence at the time of this millennial post.

This is a pleasantly surprising course of events since I created Reflections From A Murky Pond primarily for the purpose of testing the WordPress blogging platform.

The first post I made here was published on June 7, 2007 at 1:56 PM EST. It was titled, Marriage: A Contract and is reprinted below:

It is my belief that a great deal of time, effort and emotion is being wasted on the controversies centering on who can marry whom. The time has long ago come where the governments – other than theocracies – must remove religious prejudices from their civil law as it regards marriage. Religion has little or no place in what is essentially a civil contract.

Secular marriage today is essentially a civil contract between individuals that enables them to function in much the same manner as a corporation would. It spells out basic financial conjoinments and allows for the signatories to function as legal proxies for each other in most activities. From a contractual perspective there should be no difference between traditional heterosexual monogamous marriages and homosexual monogamous marriages, and heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual polygamous marriages. In all cases secular marriage law would and should function in a manner similar to a partnership with right of survivorship.

Once religion is added to this all manner of prejudices are invoked. The three major western religions – or sects since they worship the same god – each have strong regulations regarding marriage. While those regulations and restrictions may well be appropriate for the worshipers of those religions, they should have no bearing on secular marriage law. Religion and Law should stay well separated.

It is easy to pass over the civil union struggle as a fringe battle for a minority of the population but you have to look at what I am saying with closer eyes. Christians like Nikki do not just look at this issue and refer to the Bible as their standard rule of law they look at EVERY ISSUE using the Bible as their rule of law. This is a flawed view. The Constitution is the correct document to refer to when speaking of secular law, NOT THE BIBLE, or the Koran, or the Torah, or any other religious text. These books help shape lives and their philosophies of love, kindness, and compassion do a lot of good in the world today. I have a deep sense of respect for religious people the world over. That being said, I am not willing to cede my rights to any faith. My rights are based on the Constitution and the powers set forth therein. Any other view is contrary to the spirit of America and exposes the real goal of the religious right. They want a theocracy.

The Bible, The Constitution, and the James Carville Experiment
by Tom Luffman
November 5, 2004

I do not in any way mean to imply that religions and their church hierarchies should be forbidden to restrict access to their wedding ceremonies and rites. Those religious ceremonies are entirely the purview of the respective religious orders and their church leadership has the express right to grant or deny access to their own rites and sacraments however they see fit. Just as religions should not dictate secular law, secular law should not dictate religious doctrine and dogma.

It’s a little odd looking back on a four year-old post but I still think it was a pretty good one. I would – and may – do it differently now though, reversing the underlying position to focus on getting politics out of religious matters, especially the sacraments, rather than getting religion out of political matters.

In any event, a thousand posts in a little over four years and still going strong with a steadily growing readership! Not bad for a project started for purely technical evaluation purposes, i.e., evaulating WordPress as a CMS for reccomendation to a client.

Just Around The Corner

Posted in Politics on July 20th, 2011

If it weren’t both so pathetic and perilous I’d laugh at the various things that Obama and his Liberals mouth about the state of the American economy and their efforts to-date to “fix” it. But Schadenfreude or delectatio morosa over their tangible failures and failure to twist and spin such into a perceived success can only stretch so far when it’s the American people who will have to foot the bill for those failures.

Leaving the fact that everything that the Obama Regime has done has just made thing worse, I’m forced to just sigh and shake my head at their self-centeredness, narcissism, and arrogance.

They jabber on about “protecting normal Americans” and being “on the right road” in the hopes of being reelected as if they think that we haven’t heard all of this before.

Alfred Frueh’s 'Around The Corner' - The New Yorker - January 16, 1932 - Commenting on President Hoover’s statement that prosperity is just around the corner
Prosperity Is Just Around The Corner

In 1932 President Hoover said of the Great Depression, “Prosperity is just around the corner.” As caricaturist, cartoonist and illustrator, Alfred Frueh summed up, those words rang utterly hollow, coming as they did from a POTUS who demanded total deference to his will, was incapable of accepting criticism, and who was described as, “an irresolute and easily frightened man.”

Hoover’s patently ridiculous claim was lampooned when it wasn’t just ignored. What would make anyone with any knowledge of history and economics believe that, with America in similar straits, essentially the same words from a latter day incarnation of Hoover would play any better?

Voodoo Science

Posted in Books & Reading, Technology on July 19th, 2011

Space Shuttle LandingWednesday, July 20, 2011 Space Shuttle Atlantis will complete STS-135 and land for the final time, marking the end of NASA’s  30 year long Shuttle Program.

This the ending of a generation long era and is a bittersweet thing. Many people will miss both the Space Shuttle and America’s manned spaced program, which has probably ended as well.

Nostalgia aside, many people believe that we’ll miss America’s Space Program for a wide variety of tangible technological reasons, citing the plethora of technologies that they believe were either developed by NASA or at NASA’s request.

Perhaps happily, much of what they believe was done by or specifically for NASA wasn’t as the former chair of the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland and founder of Washington Office of the American Physical Society, Dr. Robert L. “Bob” Park has repeatedly stated.

Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud: In 10 well-written essays suitable for a lay audience, Robert Park uses pathological science as a basis for far-reaching discussions on science, society, and the misinformation that reaches the public.

Dr. Park Touches upon everything from Deepak Chopra’s “quantum alternative to growing old,” and “free energy” machines, to the unwarranted hype surrounding the International Space Station.

Like some critics I disagree on some points with Dr. Park and think that he has underplayed the advances in science and technology came as derivatives of the Space Program. Voodoo Science is certainly worth reading however. It sets a framework from which the reader can move on to rationally approach scientific and technological advances as they truly are as opposed to how they are presented to the everyday layman.

It’s Election Season

Posted in 2012 Election on July 18th, 2011

In America we’re getting deeper and deeper into the 2012 election season, though one could argue that, with Obama installed as POTUS, we’ve been in it since January, 2009. Be that as it may, it’s now painfully obvious that we’re fully engaged in the next election.

Nothing lets us know that the 2012 election season is now in full swing more than Obama arranging a “nice” photo-op of him taking his family to church this last Sunday (July 17, 2011).

Obama Goes To Church
Dear Lord and MSM, Grant Me Reelection. I’m Entitled.

Yes, it was a pathetic attempt at courting Christians from a being whose personal theology is a matter of grave doubt, but it the sort of thing Americans have to come to expect from Obama.

Americans have to keep it firmly in their minds that Obama believes that the separation of Church and State is a one-way matter. In what passes for Obama’s and his followers’ mind the Church, other than the Cult of Obama, cannot be allowed to inform the law but the State can make use of the Church where, when, and how it sees fit.

~*~

Keep your eyes open. Travel light but load heavy, and always put another round in the enemy after they’re down. Remember that we are each the Gods’ hands 😉