An interim post...

I am still working out the details of my aforementioned McQueen/Hoffman scale, but, in the interim, I wanted to post something that happened to me today.

I am presently reading the memoirs of Otto Skorzeny. If you did not know, Otto Skorzeny was a German soldier who fought in WWII, founded the German special forces and personally conducted several daring SF raids. Fascinating man.

On September 12 1943, he lead a daring glider-based assault on the Campo Imperatore Hotel at Gran Sasso, and rescued from the Italian government Mussolini without firing a single bullet.

In October 1944, Hitler sent him to Hungary when he received word that Hungary's Regent, Miklós Horthy was secretly negotiating his country's surrender with the Red Army. This surrender would have cut off a million German troops fighting in the Balkan peninsula. Skorzeny, in another daring "snatch" codenamed Operation Panzerfaust, kidnapped Horthy's son Nicolas and forced his father to abdicate as Regent. A pro-German government was installed in Hungary which fought alongside Germany until German troops were driven out of Hungary by the Red Army in April 1945.

On October 21, Hitler, inspired by an American subterfuge which had put three captured German tanks flying German colours to devastating use at Aachen, summoned Skorzeny to Berlin and assigned him to lead a panzer brigade. As planned by Skorzeny in Operation Greif, about two dozen German soldiers, most of them in captured American army Jeeps and disguised as American soldiers, penetrated American lines in the early hours of the Battle of the Bulge and sowed disorder and confusion behind the Allied lines. A handful of his men were captured by the Americans and spread a rumour that Skorzeny was leading a raid on Paris to kill or capture General Eisenhower. Although this was untrue, Eisenhower was confined to his headquarters for weeks and Skorzeny was labelled "the most dangerous man in Europe".

Skorzeny surrendered to the Allies in May 1945 and was held as a prisoner of war for more than two years before being tried as a war criminal at the Dachau Military Tribunal for his actions in the Battle of the Bulge. However, he was acquitted when Wing Commander Yeo-Thomas G.C. of the SOE testified in his defense that Allied forces had also fought in enemy uniform. But he was held until he escaped from a prison camp on July 27, 1948.

The man is not only an important figure in military history, but an importantly player in world history. Moreover, from what I read in his memoirs, while he joined the NSDAP, he withdrew his membership before the war because they simply never did anything. The man was a true soldier who lived a fierce and daring life. Yes he fought against us in WWII. However, so did Rommel, and he is generally respected by any historian.

OK, so, I am reading his memoirs on the train. The cover of the book appears exactly as follows:

So, this guy sits down next to me on the train, sees the cover of the book, and gives me a look of disgust, gets up from his seat and moves two seats down the line.

What is that about? I mean, if I was reading a book about Stalin, who caused the death of millions, it would not be a big deal. But, because this is a book about someone who he does not know and is wearing an Iron Cross, I am, somehow, transformed into a Neo-Nazi?

People just piss me off.

I figured it out!!!

After teasing and toying and fiddling around like a high-school freshman giving oral for the first time, I finally figured out what I am going to with this blog.

I am not divulging the details yet, because, well, I have yet to work them out in the detail necessary to actually publish it, but, I will soon present to the world:

The McQueen/Hoffman scale of my life's activities.

Fuck You News People.

Apparently, Ed Bradley has died.

As a result, we are getting news feeds and "special reports" concerning the life and works of a news reporter and what a special guy he was.

Approximately 1500 people die from cancer, in the United States alone, each day

Why am I hearing about this guy?

For God sakes, he looked toward a camera and read a teleprompter. When he wasn't doing that, we was reading (or, gasp, perhaps recalling from memory) questions that were written out for him before hand while pausing to make that "I am pondering your answer" head nod all "live interview" newscasters do.

How about the single mother of two who took the bus to the local Friday's in some back-water hole to earn some extra cash to pay the rent and had to try to catch forty-five minutes of sleep next to the loud-mouth on the cell phone because she had to report to her riveting job at 5:30 the morning who just died of lung cancer because her employer wouldn't give the proper NIOSH recommended protections?

What about her, or the 1,498 other people who died today?

Because Bradley was a "media figure" he is given special treatment?

Fuck You News People.

Take a deep breath Democrats.

In the immortal words of "The Wolf": "Well, let's not start suckin' each other's dicks quite yet."

In Franklin D. Roosevelt's sixth year in 1938, Democrats lost 71 seats in the House and six in the Senate.

In Dwight Eisenhower's sixth year in 1958, Republicans lost 47 House seats, 13 in the Senate.

In John F. Kennedy/Lyndon Johnson's sixth year, Democrats lost 47 seats in the House and three in the Senate.

In Richard Nixon/Gerald Ford's sixth year in office in 1974, Republicans lost 43 House seats and three Senate seats.

Even America's greatest president, Ronald Reagan, lost five House seats and eight Senate seats in his sixth year in office.

Simply put, the party controlling the White House nearly always loses House seats in midterm elections, especially in the sixth year.

What happened this year is not some grand political reformation with Nancy Pelosi gearing up to post a 95 Thesis on the White House door. This is the natural course of American politics. In fact, historically speaking, the Democrats did not really fare too well during this sixth year. It is only for the dim-witted with absolutely no concept of history is this a "tsunami" (as MSNBC calls it).

However, notwithstanding history, I am sure we are all in for a big circle-jerk about how America has a "new direction" and a "new mandate" from the people. Hey, remember when Bush was elected by a substantial margin how he called that a "mandate" from the people?

I am going to "come out" here. I am, and always have been a Republican, and a Conservative. However, ever since we had control of Executive and Legislative branches, I have noticed that Republicans have lost their sense of purpose and gotten soft.

I am not sure how it happened, but I have a theory.

As you should be aware, the primary system we currently use (but did not always use) tends to make candidates cast themselves in a more radical light due to the fact that only "hard core" party members really go out of their way to vote in a primary election (e.g. Lamont in Conn.). In this fashion, Republican candidates, assuming the party would always maintain their control of Congress, began to concentrate on themselves, and how to get themselves into power via the primary system. As a result, they started to pander to the "religious right", a voting block that could be depended upon to get out there for a primary election. This, combined with the media's hijacking of the term "Conservative" to mean a person who espouses a government with a religious slant to it, caused the term "Republican-Conservative" to become synonymous with a white, mid-western Christian.

Look, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being white, being from the mid-west or being a Christian, or any combination of the three. However, being perceived as a party comprised solely of such persons will not carry a nation's electorate. It is in this confusion with what is means to be a "Republican Conservative" that caused the party to get "soft."

Simply put, a "Republican" is someone who espouses government functioning at its most influential level at the lowest level possible and respects the text of the Constitution (as it is written). In a nutshell, a Republican believes in the sentiment embodied in the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution which reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.

Thus, according to a true Republican, the Federal Government is a Government of enumerated powers, and, any powers not specifically ceded to it via the text of the Constitution is "reserved for the States respectively, or to the people."

This is not too tough.

However, it is the term "Conservative" that has caused a bit of confusion amongst people. And it must be the goal of the party to get a clear message of what this really means.

This is no easy task. R.J. White once said that: "[t]o put conservatism in a bottle with a label is like trying to liquefy the atmosphere. The difficulty arises from the nature of the thing. For conservatism is less a political doctrine than a habit of mind, a mode of feeling, a way of living." Notwithstanding this foreboding warning, I will attempt.

Conservatives believe that any existing value or institution has undergone the correcting influence of past experience and ought to be respected. This is because traditions draw on the wisdom of many generations and the tests of time, while "reason", or any other "goal", may be a mask for the preferences of one man, and, at best, only represents the untested wisdom of one generation. It is important not to get caught up in the nonsense of what a "fiscal conservative" or a "religious conservative" is. These are silly names invented by people who have no idea what it means to be "Conservative."

In sum, when the Conservatives of this nation let themselves be labeled under the rubric of "white, mid-western Christian," by virtue of their willingness to be defined by a certain voting block, they lost the ability to apply the doctrine of Conservative thought: that property rights are to be held in high regard and the best form of government evolves over time, with a respect for that which came before.

In this, they were wrong.

However, with all of that said, I am still not sure what it means to be a "Liberal-Democrat". However, it seems as if I am going to have at least two years of seeing people trying to figure that one out.

My Kids are Cute