Bush, the Anti-Anti-Bush Candidate

I never quite thought of it this way, but Wretchard over at the Belmont Club makes a good point:

If Kerry was the anti-Bush, Bush was the anti-anti-Bush, the anti-antiWar candidate. The candidate of action as opposed to the candidate of self-recrimination.

Indeed, the peaceniks and blame-yourselfers left me no choice but to vote for Bush. I was not an anti-Kerry voter -- I voted for Bush. He is the best man for the job. But certainly, the "Bush = Hitler" crowd were people I wanted to be far, far away from, both physically and ideologically.

It is a long and eloquent post. Well worth the read, as usual.

Whew! I Was Worried . . .

From Scott Ott:

(2004-11-03) -- Former Vice President Al Gore today conceded the presidency to the winner of the popular vote, George W. Bush ...

Tighten Up

W Won!
WOOHOOO!!!
Wow!
Wild!
WONDERFUL!!!

Restores my faith in America!

But now, it really is time to tighten up those helmet straps. It is exactly when your enemy has broken that is your greatest military advantage. No time to jump up and down and whoop and holler. They'll get away, regroup, and you'll have to fight 'em again another day.

So tighten that strap, pick up your metaphorical weapon, and let's get to work.

Karzai Wins Presidency

According to CNN:

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Incumbent Hamid Karzai has been declared the winner of Afghanistan's first direct presidential election, the body organizing the vote has said.

Sultan Baheen, spokesman for the U.N.-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body, said a panel examining allegations of election fraud had ruled that while there were irregularities, they did not materially affect the outcome of the October 9 poll, according to Reuters reports.

Karzai won 55.4 percent of the vote, obtaining the majority needed to avoid a run-off against his nearest rival, former education minister Yunus Qanooni.

The poll was the first to take place since the hardline Taliban regime was ousted in 2001 and was seen as a key step in the post-September 11 U.S. campaign to bring democracy to the region.

Excellent.

Temporary Votelock

Living in Japan, I'm up for most of the counting part of this thing. Luckily, today is Culture Day, a national holiday in Japan. Nice of them, eh?

At this point, it looks like Ohio might be close enough that provisional and absentee ballots could make a difference; Bush is ahead by about 135,000 votes, but Kerry claims there are 250,000 absentee and provisional ballots uncounted. I'm not sure how he knows that because even the Ohio election officials don't know how many there are ... Anyway, if Bush doesn't pull out enough to make the uncounted ballots irrelevant, we'll have 11 days to wait to find out who wins.

Here's CNN's results page.

No matter who wins the electoral college vote, Bush has won the popular vote. He currently has more than 3.5 million votes more than Kerry, and there aren't enough uncounted votes out there for Kerry to catch up. Of course, it's not about the popular vote, and if Kerry wins the electoral vote, I'll accept him as the legitimate president of the USA. However, if Kerry does win, I will enjoy torturing my anti-Bushite friends with that every chance I get.

However the presidential race comes out, the Republicans now have a decent majority in both the House (228-198-1 with 8 races still undecided) and Senate (53-44-1 with 2 undecided). Even if Bush loses, the Republicans will still retain a lot of power.

Gone Diplomad

The Diplomad always has great stuff, and I always want to put some good, short quote from them over here with a snappy "Read the whole thing!", but it's hard. Their stuff is really good and you just can't take a tidbit. But here is one good quote I could cut out:

Living and working far from our beloved Republic, perhaps we see the threat to America more vividly than many who live and work there. We live surrounded by people who wish us ill, who hate freedom, education, and the American creed of the Common Man; by people who see those as threats to their lives of privilege and exploitation. There are any number of elites around the world who actively want their countries and people to remain poor and stupid; they don't want American investment or trade; they don't want American education for the common folk; above all, they don't want American ideas of freedom and equality. To keep freedom at bay, they preach a crude nationalism of "victimhood" which once had a heavy almost exclusively Marxist cast to it, but now is infused with other bits and pieces of nonsense picked up from the Western leftist media and Hollywood: American investment is bad for the environment; American education threatens "traditional culture and values"; America wants to destroy Islam; the Americans can't even run an election in Florida; Americans have overreacted to 9/11, which was their fault anyhow, if it actually happened (a French-made DVD popular in Asia claims the 9/11 attack NEVER happened.)

I give up on trying to cherrypick the rest of their posts. Just go read them all.

"When You Win, Tighten Your Helmet Straps!"

「勝って兜の緒を締めよ」(katte kabuto no o wo shime yo)

- Old bushi saying

A reader, Right Wing Bandito, posted the following:

I'm honestly worried. The rest of the world should be, too. What's going to happen if a smallish war like Iraq beats the will of the US? How can Germany, Canada, Japan consider themselves safe when the enemies of a stable world realize that America has lost its courage? Our expensive bombers and large military become meaningless against a less advanced, but more determined China, Iran, N. Korea. Many of us have grown up in a peaceful, stable world. Tomorrow may be the first day of a new, darker future.

I felt that way too . . . Then I realized, half of America doesn't feel that way. They've been led into lies and deceit for 30+ years now. Even if Bush wins, they'll be a huge drag on our nation's potential, just as they have the last four years. Imagine where we'd be in Iraq if 90% of the American people stood behind Bush and worked to make it a success, if there was no division, just a solid will to win and make the world a better place.

It's time to get the truth out.

That's our job, we who believe in America as a truly great nation -- regardless of who is elected president, we must start getting the truth out. We must make our own media, we must get back into the academy, we must challenge socialism and show people it is a failed, has-been theory that destroys or impoverishes the individual and the culture.

If Bush wins, the only good reaction is to tighten our helmet straps, reload our arguments, beat off the counter-attack and push on for total victory over socialism in our own nation. If Kerry wins, that gives us four years as an ideological insurgency to plan, prepare, educate, challenge, retake lost ground. We get another chance with every election.

In the bushi's day, the loser didn't have to worry about helmet straps, or his head, anymore. For us, either way, our ideological war isn't over by a long shot. Better tighten those straps.

America, Lead the Way!

Good Morning, America!

Today is the day we pick which vision of America to pursue.

Do we begin the long, downhill road to the socialist scrapheap where we can console the world by joining the crowd? Or do we take another step on the high, lonely, hard road up to freedom?

Do we lead the way, or fall in line?

The motto of the US Army Infantry is "Follow Me!" It should be our national motto.

Just Vote! Er, No, I Mean, Just Vote For Kerry

Jessica Well posts an interesting set of photos and quotes. (click on over to see her post and the photos.) One photo is of Oprah Winfrey, with Cameron Diaz, Christina Aguilera, and Drew Barrymore. The other is of Afghan women standing in line to vote.

This Oprah photo is from her "Voting Party" where she and several other celebrities encouraged people to get out and vote. Bush and Kerry are never mentioned, so you might think it was a non-partisan effort to get people to just get out and vote. Indeed, in this 8-photo sequence, for the first three frames I had the feeling of "Right on!" They really are just encouraging people to get out and make difference.

Then Cameron has a moment:

Oprah: Cameron is having a moment. What is this about?

Cameron: Well, I'm so proud of my friend [Drew Barrymore]. She took a whole year out of her busy schedule. She's a producer, she's an actor…she did this to take the time to educate people about it. And then I started listening to people saying, 'Oh, I don't vote because it just doesn't affect me. And I just got overwhelmed, because I think this is the best country in the world. And it just scares me that we're just going to squander it all away. That we're going to lay down and let people take it away from us.

Oprah: I am very, very afraid.

Cameron: I'm really scared. I don't know if you guys know this about our country…but people—we're all alone right now. And, where we used to be the strongest in the world, we're alone. So, that's the beginning of something terrible, and so it's very important to go out there.

Oprah: I know. You're afraid of what's going to happen if people do not vote.

This is hilarious. "If people do not vote." Vote for Kerry, obviously. Poor Cameron -- I guess the non-partisan part was just too much. But don't worry, dear Cameron. We have plenty of friends. They just don't speak French or German.

Let's see what the rest of the series holds. Frame 5 switches to Christina Aguilera, no partisanship there. Frame 6 has P Diddy with his "Vote or Die!" motto and in 7 he says the "The revolution will be televised." Nothing blindingly partisan there, but then, I'm not really sure what he's saying, either.

Then Oprah closes out the series:

"If every woman with children voted, then candidates could no longer just pay lip service to the education of your children in this country," Oprah says. "If every woman who has a child really cares about the welfare of her children, the health care for her children, and the education of her children, which is freedom in my mind, then [things] would all change."

Yeah. Well, so much for non-partisanship, eh? It was a good effort, though.

Meanwhile, from Afghanistan:

... Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said those women were warned that Taliban remnants would attack polling places during the Oct. 9 elections. So the women performed the ritual bathing and said the prayers of those facing death. Then, rising at 3 a.m., they trekked an hour to wait in line for the polls to open at 7 a.m. In the province of Kunar an explosion 100 meters from a long line of waiting voters did not cause anyone to leave the line.

Happy Halloween!

Today's posts are about all the politics I can stand for now.

Well, almost. As you know, I've been tracking the various "X for Truth" organizations, and a new one has appeared: Swift Geese Vets For Truth is now running an attack ad against Kerry. Appalling!

Have a great Halloween!

(I'm just gonna wear pajamas; that'll scare 'em!)

(Mug tip to Countercolumn.)

One Reaction to the 9/11 Attack

In 2001 I was an English conversation teacher in Japan. I had a high-level class with three students who had all lived in the US for a year or more. They are some of the kindest, most generous people I have had the pleasure to know over here, and all three are very intelligent and well-educated. All three, from their time in the US, have American friends they still correspond with, and truly like the American people. Even though my work now is very different, and I live in a different part of Japan, I consider all three of them good friends.

A few months after the 9/11 attack, one of them told me in class that, while the attack was terrible, in a small way she felt she had more in common with Osama bin Laden than with the US,

"Bin Laden is fighting for his beliefs, however warped they are" she said. "The US only fights for money."

I was shocked; this comment bore no relation to reality as I saw it. I didn't really know how to respond, and as I was supposed to be teaching a class, I changed the subject and the class went well after that. But I didn't forget the comment. It required thought.

At that time, the US was fighting in Afghanistan, and I'm not sure what she had read or heard that made her feel the US was only fighting for money. But then, I'm not sure it was anything specific about Afghanistan.

From the definitions of communism and socialism I posted earlier:"During the capitalist stage, the dominant bourgeoisie (capitalists who control the means of production) exploit and oppress the proletariat (industrial workers)." "[the various kinds of socialists] have in common a belief that feudal and capitalist societies are run for the benefit of a small economic elite ..." Also, although socialists seem to be much less formal about it, they tend to view economic systems as stages on the road to Utopia: fuedalism to capitalism to socialism to Utopian communism. Many around the world have accepted this view, in one form or another, even though they aren't communists. It is embodied in the popularity of John Lennon's song, Imagine.

Even before the Iraq war, the US was seen around the world as an imperialistic nation which, as a nation, had the sole goal of increasing the wealth of its capitalistic elite. Remember that Lenin's definition of imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism.

Two years later, the invasion of Iraq, and the charge that it was a blatant imperialistic maneuver to gain control of Iraq's oil supplies, fit perfectly into Lenin's definition and greatly reinforced that belief for many people around the world.

In that one reaction by my student, I think, lies the summary of why many intellectuals around the world are anti-American. Most of them are socialists who accept these definitions, and by those definitions, the US was a force for evil even before the invasion of Iraq.

When a nation's intellectuals are primarily socialists, its people will be exposed to a large amount of socialist thought through the media and through education. Think about all the cases where journalists need to consult experts about the economy, politics, etc., and realize all those experts are likely to be socialists, in ideology if not in name. So the media begins to take on a socialist viewpoint even if the reporters themselves are not socialists. The intellectuals also run the education system, and through that and the media reach deeply into every aspect of life in a nation. Many members of the society will adopt socialist views even though they may not call themselves socialists or realize that's what they have done.

This is also one reason so many non-Americans (and so many Americans with socialist views) liked President Clinton -- he edged the US towards the socialist side of the scale. Socialism is progress, as far as most of the world is concerned. As they see it, President Bush, a strong capitalist, is a big step backwards. He is going against the flow of history. Whatever he does will have to be undone in order for progress to be made.

If you look at the anti-war, anti-Bush message, you will repeatedly find the socialist mindset: No Blood for Oil, the tax cuts were only for the rich, Bush is an idiot (remember, pro-capitalist = regressive), and etc. For them, as you would expect from socialists, it's all about economics. They would never give the US the benefit of the doubt, because, by definition, as a highly-developed capitalist nation, the US is oppressive and imperialistic. They don't need to consider the specifics, thank you.

This is basically my answer to my friend's question, "Why are many foreigners anti-American?"

Whew!

This blog's getting pretty dense, what with definitions and Utopianisms and Lennonism floating around. Time for a break.

Kerry: Bush Outsourced Bin Laden Video Production
by Scott Ott

(2004-10-30) -- Just hours after the release of a videotape featuring revered Muslim leader Usama bin Laden lecturing on theology, Democrat presidential hopeful John Forbes Kerry slammed President George Bush for encouraging the outsourcing of such video productions to overseas media companies.

After you recover from Scrappleface, try out Protein Wisdom:

My twelfth brief conversation with a McIntosh apple

me: “You vote yet? Or are you waiting until Tuesday.”

apple: “Um, I can’t vote. I’m a fruit, remember?”

me: “Oh bull$#%*. Bush is not the Taliban, and nobody is denying you your civil rights. I’m tired of hearing this kind of hyperbolic nonsense every time someone disagrees with you on some social issue.”

The apple has a good comeback -- does it use it? You'll never know if you don't click the link!

Imagine

by John Lennon

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You...you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You...you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

***

How much more poetically could the ideals of communism be put?

Oxymoronism: Definitions and the Individual

I have spent two rather long posts giving definitions of various political beliefs like socialism and libertarianism. Any political belief system is a flowing river; the word liberal today does not mean what it meant 100 years ago. In fact, the word liberal has a different definition today for Americans than it does almost anywhere else in the world. Communist doesn't mean the same thing today that it meant in the early 19th century. Even the idea of democracy has changed over the centuries.

If you read the Wikipedia entries for the definitions I use, you'll find that there are many disagreements about what a particular philosophy really says. Also, people on all sides of an issue will use the same word to mean different things. Capitalism has one meaning for a libertarian, and a very different meaning for a communist. This often makes communicating difficult, and is why I decided to define the terms on my blog, so we can all be more or less on the same page.

Also, each individual has their own interpretation, and has personalized their political beliefs. As much as people like to hurl the accusation, there are in fact few robots - people who follow the party line in every particular with no deviation. There are differing degrees of thinking, of course, and many times people in all streams of political thought do merely repeat what they've heard from "their side." But in my experience, people tend to do this in areas they don't know much about, not in every area.

Anyway, the point of this post is that it is difficult enough to define a political philosophy. Defining individuals is often futile. Individuals define for themselves what their political philosophy means in their individual lives. They do not necessarily believe every key point in some encyclopedia discussion of their philosophy.

It bothers me in discussions when someone assumes that because their opponent is in some category, their opponent must believe X, and then attacks them for it. Best to ask first, and find out what that individual really believes. This saves time, and improves the accuracy of your arguments. It is also more civil, and we need more of that these days.

Killer Facts About Karl Marx!

Karl Marx's high school senior thesis was titled: Religion: The Glue That Binds Society Together.

Marx was a Jew, and for political reasons his family and he became Lutherans. (It was the state religion of Prussia, where he grew up.)

In later years, Marx claimed:

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Marx was on the East German 100 mark note.

(I have to confess that I shamelessly stole the "Killer Fact" theme from the inimitable Harry Hutton's Chase Me Ladies, I'm In The Cavalry. Hutton also runs killer-fact.com, a Website dedicated to cataloging his Killer Facts, giving silly quizzes, etc. Highly recommended!)

Definitions, Part 2: State and Individual

All of these definitions come from Dictionary.com and / or Wikipedia, to which I provide links to the appropriate entries below. I have modified some of the Wikipedia material, however, to take into account information in other entries in the Wikipedia and elsewhere, and for stylistic reasons. Because these Websites may change, please understand that, for the sake of consistency, the following (and, where they conflict, NOT the current definitions which the links lead to) are the definitions I will use on this blog.

Capitalism: An economic system based on private ownership of capital [syn: capitalist economy] [ant: socialism] (Source: WordNet ® 2.0, Princeton University, at Dictionary.com.) [Note: I am avoiding the the communist definition of capitalism. I want to use this word in its simplist form.]

Collectivism: In general, a term used to describe a theoretical or practical emphasis on the group, as opposed to (and seen by its opponents to be at the expense of), the individual. It is thus directly opposed to individualism, although many collectivists also derive their philosophy from a concern for the well being of the individual. Some types of collectivism state that the good of the group is more important than the good of the individual, while others argue that, since any group is ultimately made up of individuals, the individual serves his own interests by serving the group's interests (in other words, as the group prospers, all members of the group prosper). Collectivism may also be associated with enforced altruism, such as publicly funded medicine. There is much baggage with the term, and it is considered diametrically opposed to individualism and libertarianism, with Noam Chomsky and Ayn Rand among its detractors. Marxism, communism and democratic socialism, as well as some labor organizations and certain forms of anarchism are it's most ardent proponents. (Wikipedia)

Free market economy: An idealized form of market economy in which buyers and sellers are permitted to carry out transactions based solely on mutual agreement without interventionism in the form of taxes, subsidies, regulation, or government provision of goods or services beyond simply the protection of property rights and enforcement of contracts. The free market is a mainstay of ideologies such as minarchism, libertarianism, and 19th century liberalism, as well as the Western understanding of capitalism. It is anathema to communism and some variants of socialism, although modern liberalism and other variants of socialism seek only to mitigate what they see as the problems of an unrestrained free market. (Wikipedia)

Laissez-faire: Short for "laissez faire, laissez passer," a French phrase meaning to "let things alone, let them pass". First used by the eighteenth century Physiocrats as an injunction against government interference with trade, it is now used as a synonym for strict free market economics. Adam Smith played a large role in popularizing laissez-faire economic theories in English-speaking countries.

Laissez faire (imperative) is distinct from laisser faire (infinitive), which refers to a careless attitude in the application of a policy, implying a lack of consideration, or thought.

The laissez-faire school of thought holds a pure capitalist or free market view, that capitalism is best left to its own devices — that it will dispense with inefficiencies in a more deliberate and quick manner than any legislating body could. The basic idea is that less government interference makes for a better system. (Wikipedia)

Libertarianism: A political philosophy which advocates individual rights and a limited government. Libertarians believe that individuals should be free to do anything they want, so long as they do not infringe upon what they believe to be the equal rights of others. In this respect they agree with many other modern political ideologies. The difference arises from the definition of "rights". For libertarians, there are no material "positive rights" (such as to food, shelter, or health care), only "negative rights" (such as to not be assaulted, abused or robbed). Libertarians further believe that the only legitimate use of force, whether public or private, is to protect these rights. The key rights libertarians believe in are life, liberty and property, and they believe these rights belong to individuals, not groups (nations, classes, races, etc.). (Wikipedia) [Please note that the word "libertarian," like the word "liberal," has VERY different meanings in the US and Europe. For this blog, I use the US definition, which has only been in common use since about 1950. Before that, libertarianism meant something else; see the Wikipedia link for more details.]

Statism: The practice or doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy. (Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, at Dictionary.com.) From the Wikipedia: In general, statists believe that individual rights are in no way natural or absolute, but that they are social constructs; in other words, rights and freedoms are not assigned by nature or some other higher authority, but by human society itself. For example, we have the right to life not because there is anything natural about it (after all, nature does not condemn murder), but because the majority of the human population has agreed that it is in their common interest to respect this right. Therefore, individual rights cannot be separated from the public good, since the public good is the reason why individual rights exist in the first place. If one accepts that a state is necessary to protect individual rights, then one also accepts that a state is necessary to carry out other actions for the public good. (Wikipedia)

Also, see my post Definitions, Part 1: Socialism.


UPDATE: Just a quick note: When reading my definitions posts, my Oxymoronism: Definitions and the Individual post should be kept in mind.

"A Japanophile Is Someone Who Doesn't Know Japan"

Over at [Translator's Note:], Zak gives us an "anti-Japan rant" titled "A Japanophile Is Someone Who Doesn't Know Japan."

The examples he cites are compelling. His opening example:

Right before I left we talked about the Japanese custom of burning treasured items along with the dead when they are cremated.

This is a long-standing custom in Japan, one that is still alive and well despite the lack of attention it garners. One of the main reasons there are so few good old flutes still around today is that families of deceased shakuhachi players will sometimes burn their flutes along with the body. The reasoning is that the more someone loved or held something dear, the more they will want it in the next life. This is why there are so many worthless old flutes floating around: if someone has 5 poor flutes and 1 excellent one made 100 years ago by a renowned maker, guess which one is likely to end up incinerated.

But . . . every society has its stupidities.

In Japan, as Zak points out, they often seem to actively destroy cultural treasures. However, as one of his readers points out, the Japanese do keep traditional skills alive. In the West, it is often the opposite. We attach great importance to ancient things, but no one knows how to use them anymore or really understands the fine details and human genius that went into their development. Which is the greater loss, I wonder.

In any case, I'll be reading [Translator's Note:] more often. Good stuff.

(Mug tip to The Tanuki Ramble.)

Silent Running Calls The Tune

Go here. Read the post on bin Laden's re-appearance, check out Johnny Cash's answer, and if you have broadband, ABSOLUTELY click on the link to the blasphemous audio-visual presentation.

He Is Relaxed About the Hurling of Cakes and Pastries

I will remember that, Harry, should I have the opportunity to meet you . . .

(^u^)V

Germany's Largest Newspaper Endorses Bush

David's Medienkritik, an essential blog for understanding German media, tells us:

Perhaps the largest October surprise in Germany is the BILD newspaper's endorsement of President George W. Bush. BILD, which has the widest circulation of any newspaper in Europe, lists the following 10 reasons why Bush should be re-elected:

...

1. Bush has clear priorities. He sees the inhuman Islamic fundamentalism and the murderous mullahs as the largest danger for the Western world.

2. Bush has learned the lessons of history. Military strength, not pleasant talk, is the only thing that helps against violent fanatics. And with Bush -- unlike with Kerry -- there is no doubt about this.

This is one of the most succinct, clear rationales for re-electing Bush I have seen. In the same post, Medienkritik also discusses the Kerry endorsement and general anti-Americanism of other German media. Click the link to read the rest.

(Mug tip to Instapundit.)