Uncommon Commentary #528: The Cross Versus the Cross

(That is, the instrument of our salvation versus those whom it apparently angers.)
Does the mistreatment of Christians and of Christianity by so many in today's Western World truly qualify as persecution?  Obviously, this cultural assault is not the equal of what occurs in places where Islamists simply imprison or behead whoever professes Christianity.  Western countries have laws that prohibit the doing of such things, and so our antichrists must be more cunning; rather than lop off someone's head, they accuse him of intolerance toward others, especially homosexuals, and try to do him whatever personal or professional damage they can do thereby.  Defamation of Christianity and of its followers and values is, therefore, being wielded like a weapon--there's an opening here for a pun on "mass destruction"--, and indeed is persecution.  (It's not that Christians cannot, or ought not to, tolerate any criticism of their religion; respectful objections by unbelievers may have value in keeping the faithful from complacency.  Even the current ostracism, slander, and other tactics in the West may prove useful as training and preparation, if what seems to be the Time of Tribulation spreads to here from those parts of the globe where it has already commenced.)

Miscellaneous Musing #88

Isn't it odd that so many astrophysicists and cosmologists can profess confidence in the existence of things that are purely theoretical (e.g., the Oort Cloud, wormholes, parallel universes) but not in that of God?

Uncommon Commentary #527: You Won't Learn Anything from an Electoral College

Here's another sobering reflection on the latest US presidential election: The Democratic candidate again won the popular vote, as has happened in all but one presidential election since 1988. (The lone exception was in 2004, and, even then, the margin reportedly was the smallest margin ever for a re-elected incumbent.) It's only the luck of the electoral college that the title "President-Elect" is followed by "Trump" rather than "Clinton".

Uncommon Commentary #526: There's a Narrow Way to Heaven, but a Broadway to Hell

The Hamilton controversy seems to be missing something: Why is a Black actor even portraying Aaron Burr?  Can you imagine how people would react if a White man played the rôle of a Black one?

Uncommon Commentary #525: An Election Reflection

Undemocratic Democrats and other leftists are wrong to protest Trump's elevation to the presidency.  Although I'm glad that Dunghillary lost, however, I'm not glad that Trump won.  For a moralist (someone whose primary concerns are matters of right and wrong) such as I, the attainment of great power and honor by a man with such defects of character is lamentable.  Soon, the exhilaration of victory will wear off, and Republicans and unaffiliated but sympathetic voters like me will realize that, although Trump is not a political antichrist, he's not a political messiah either; he's Trump.

Miscellaneous Musing #87

If superior beings from outer space built the smooth-sloped Egyptian pyramids, why didn't they get it right the first time, rather than produce the "Bent Pyramid"?

Uncommon Commentary #524: Donald May or May Not Be a Trump, but He's Not a Clinton

(Two dictionary definitions of "trump" are: "a decisive overriding factor /final resource", and "a dependable and exemplary person".)
To someone who proclaims the intention of voting for Dunghillary, there's a sufficient rejoinder comprising just one word:

Why?

Uncommon Commentary #523

Who needs Halloween?  Nothing is more frightening than the prospect of another Clinton administration.

Uncommon Commentary #522: They Belong in the Big House, Not in the White House

Disrespect for the law is a contributing factor in the committing of crimes.  How much will this disrespect worsen if a couple of unconvicted felons like the Clintons reassume the presidency?

Uncommon Commentary #521: This Isn't Trumpery

("Trumpery" definition 1a: "worthless nonsense".)
Donald Trump ought indeed to withdraw from the US presidential race, but so ought the Dumbocratic, Libertarian, and Green candidates, and probably most of whatever other nominees there may be.  Furthermore, Emperor Nerobama, the Vice-President, and hundreds of US congressmen ought to resign.  It would also help matters if we would recognize that the average member of our fallen human race is too ignorant and self-serving for what we call "democracy" to be effective, and start over with another form of government. (I suggest what I proposed in this u.c.)

Uncommon Commentary #520: Trump's Remarks Ought to Offend Anyone Who Knows Right from Wrong, and Also Leftists

For the sake of good taste, I won't reproduce here the comments made by Donald Trump to television host Billy Bush in 2005--If you want to get some idea of what the future nominee said, read the walls of the boys' room at your local high school--, but I shall make note of something that everyone else seemingly has missed: when Trump spoke that vulgarity, he was a Dumbocrat.

Uncommon Commentary #519: An Immoderate Moderator

It seems to me that the purpose of a debate between vice-presidential candidates is, or ought to be, to give the public an opportunity to see whether those candidates are qualified to become the chief executive if necessary.  The moderator of such a debate therefore ought not to require either nominee to defend his running-mate.

Miscellaneous Musing #86

The purpose of life in this fallen, transitory world is to prepare ourselves for the everlasting life to come.  We ought to take our fleshly existence seriously, therefore, only in regard to how our present actions affect our existence in the spiritual realm--whichever one it may be--where we shall dwell after death.

Uncommon Commentary #518: Is Hillary [sic] All Right? No; She's All Left

In the mid-1980's, the Soviet people didn't know whether Premier Konstantin Chernenko had a cold or was dead; that, however, was the USSR.  I'm glad that we, in the USA, live in a country where no one would try to conceal the truth about the health of a politician!

Uncommon Commentary #517: I'm Only Now Replying to Something that Was Said a Year Ago

(I didn't remember having heard anything of Tim Kaine prior to Dunghillary's selection of him to be her running-mate, and so I searched his name in my information files; this quest revealed only that he ranked among those Democrats who pointedly skipped the address mentioned below, and so I got to thinking about the subject of this u.c.  Incidentally: This lack of distinguishment may make Kaine an ideal choice to fill a largely superfluous office like the vice-presidency!)
This past year, CNN's Christiane Amanpour reported editorialized about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu's address to the US Congress regarding the threat from Iran's ongoing efforts to develop nuclear weapons, opining that fear of her native land is overwrought:

It was a very dark Strangelove-ian speech painting a picture of a really dystopian world.  Raising the specter of a genocidal nation, a genocidal regime spraying nuclear weapons to annihilate the whole world and the whole region.  Now obviously many people are very concerned about Iran and there is a deep lack of trust.  But surely the same was said of the Soviet Union all those years ago.

In other words, she seems to be telling us, we learned to live with a nuclear-armed USSR, and so we can learn to live with a nuclear-armed Iran; if her words were intended to reassure, they really need work.  The prospect of atomic attack by the Soviet Union upon the West terrified mankind, and on several occasions the "Cold War" nearly became a hot World War III, even though Marxist-Leninist theory holds that the capitalist countries will come to an end all by themselves--this is one point of Red ideology that may prove correct--and that military conflict versus these states is therefore unnecessary.  No such doctrine, moreover, is adhered to by Iran (or by post-Communist Russia, which possesses an atomic arsenal superior to that of the USA); indeed, many Muslims, including, reportedly, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, believe that the coming of the Mahdi (Islam's messiah) can be hastened by annihilating the "Great Satan" (the USA) and the "Little Satan" (Israel), and some mullahs have predicted that this eschatological figure will appear only as the consequence of a nuclear apocalypse.
Now, wasn't this u.c. worth waiting for?

Uncommon Commentary #516: I Wish that I Were Civilized Enough to Think up a Title for This Posting

Any people living at the level of civilization that anthropologists have named "savagery" qualify as savages, and so it's not necessarily an insult to refer to Nineteenth-Century American Indians by that term.  This is another example of why one ought to take the time to consult a dictionary before getting indignant over words.  (See UC #145.)

Uncommon Commentary #515: Is Our Navy Led by Milquetoasts--Or Would That Be "Milktoasts"?

When the US Navy has named vessels for men, it has traditionally done so to honor US presidents or other war leaders and heroes.  The most recent person to be so honored is: Harvey Milk, whom "Gay rights" agitators consider to be a martyr for their cause.  The Navy has contracted to a size unseen since an era when the USA was far from being a superpower, but this matters not to the Obama regime, which apparently does not intend for it to fight any war except that over US culture.

Miscellaneous Musing (with a trace of uncommon commentary) #85: Baring (What's Within) My Breast

The French judiciary has overturned bans on the "burkini", a swimsuit designed to cover the bodies of female Muslims.  The purpose of this posting is neither to laud nor to lament the ruling but to note the sad irony that, previously, it was illegal for a woman to thus evince modesty on the same beaches where others went topless with impunity!

Miscellaneous Musing #84

I consider socialism, at least as presently practiced [v.i.], to be inferior to capitalism—others have said and written enough about this subject so that there’s no need for me to elaborate for a well-informed reader—; this inferiority is, however, practical rather than moral. (In fact, one could argue that, since Galatians 6:2 tells us to bear one another’s burdens, a government that commits itself to socialism on Christian principles, and which makes it known to the governed that Christianity is the motivation for the adoption of that system (since, in lieu of this cognizance, people will place their trust in the government rather than in God), would more truly approach the Christian ideal than any other regime that has yet existed. (There have been Christian Socialist parties in Europe, but I don’t know whether any of them have ever held power.) Burdens can be borne by charities, of course, but not everyone who is able to contribute to charity does so, and so the burden is not shared by all.  “Christian Socialism” (or, to be alliterative, Sacred Socialism) might prove less effective economically than (pure) capitalism, but this drawback could be deemed acceptable for the sake of rescuing those who fall into the cracks in the free-market sidewalk.  Anyway, this hypothetical socialist brand could probably be modified from the current bureaucratic model.  Why, for example, couldn’t a government provide the people with services only indirectly, by contracting with charitable organizations (which operate less expensively than government departments and agencies), just as it does with arms manufacturers?

Uncommon Commentary #514: UC #513 Follow-Up

It’s also noteworthy that President Lincoln in the Gettysburg address made no overt reference to slavery, possibly alluding to it once when he expressed anticipation of “a new birth of freedom”, even though he had issued the Emancipation Proclamation a year earlier.  Had he abandoned his presentation of the Union’s war upon the Confederacy, which actually was a hypocritical effort to quell the secession of those 11 Southern States, as a crusade against slavery? (Yes, hypocritical.  It’s only logical that those 11, or any other States, had a right to secede from a country which had itself been founded by a unilateral declaration of independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.  What the Union ought to have done was to simply allow the Confederate States to leave the Union in peace.)

Uncommon Commentary #513: Unlike Lincoln, Most Republicans Are Anti-Union

(Since this u.c. is appearing on the Feast of the Assumption, its alternate title is “Not All Assumptions Ought to Be Celebrated”.)

The words of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address deeply affect people who believe in America—when I put this name in small capitals, I’m referring to the myth rather than to the reality of the USA—as we ought to believe in God; so deeply that it may not occur to them to wonder about the reason for such phrases as “… who here gave their lives that that nation might live” and “… these dead shall not have died in vain … that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”  The President appears to have been trying to persuade his listeners and readers to support the Union war effort by making them think that the secession of the Confederate States somehow posed an existential threat to the United States of America, when, in reality, an ultimate Southern victory would merely have left Lincoln’s country with 11 fewer States than it comprised before the belligerency. (Ironically, the gravest threat at that time to “government of the people …” may have been Lincoln himself, who greatly exceeded the authority granted to the chief executive under the US Constitution.) Some might call it cynicism to assert that this most renowned oration in US political history was wartime propaganda; I call it truthfulness, and cite this truth as another reason to be spiritual rather than worldly, to have faith in nothing but God and His Church.

Uncommon Commentary #512: Eco-Logical, Not Environ-Mental (alternate title: Inhuman Nature)

A pristine wilderness is not an “eden” or a “paradise”; the true Eden was paradisiacal because it existed prior to Original Sin, which resulted not also in the Fall of Man but also in a fall of the rest of creation.  This is important to understand, because there is so much opposition in our era to hunting and to keeping animals in captivity.

All animals die at some time, and, in the case of higher forms that are able to feel both pain and fear, the ways in which they die are usually quite unpleasant.  Human hunters generally are far more humane than their natural counterparts, many of which begin to eat their prey without killing it; those beasts that evade predation commonly perish from such causes as disease, climactic conditions like winter or drought, and starvation, the last of which can occur because of outliving the ability to feed.  In truth, death by bullets or by arrows is about the best demise for which wildlife can hope.  And while they live, animals are better off in zoological gardens (“zoos”), where they have abundant food and protection from above-mentioned threats, than in the wild; they may not have “freedom” in captivity, but, being instinct-driven, they don’t care about this abstract concept, and act only to satisfy physiological urges like hunger.  (It ought to be mentioned also that zoological gardens and often human hunters, ironic though this may seem in the latter case, are important in conservationism.  Some species survive only in captivity, and others were saved from extinction by the establishment of hunting-preserves, as was true of the European bison in the 1900’s.)

God made animals to share our world, but He gave us dominion over them; it’s therefore wrong either to treat them ruthlessly or recklessly or to grant them rights (e.g., life and liberty) that are equal to ours.  Nature must be protected, but not romanticized.

Uncommon Commentary #511: Your Identity Can’t Be Stolen if You've Never Had One

Most peoples of the world have no difficulty in knowing who they are; what it means to be French, for instance, is simply to be French.  For us Yanks, though, it's a problem.  Had you asked a US citizen of the early Nineteenth Century what it meant to be "American," he, knowing that the founding of his country had taken place on a political rather than an ethnic basis, would have told you that it meant believing in “government by the people” and all that.  By the onset of the 1900's, however, some other countries (including the one from which we forcibly separated ourselves for the sake of what's usually been termed political progress) had approached, matched, or exceeded our degree of political freedom.  Further, the composition of the populace had changed, for the USA had received heavy migration from places other than the United Kingdom.  Realizing that "American-ness" needed to be redefined, someone then conceived the symbol of the melting-pot, the idea being that peoples from all over the world were assimilated into a supposed new nationality.  Today, we've repudiated our own melting-pot ideology and replaced it with profession of belief in its antithesis: "multicultural diversity."  The beginnings of three centuries, therefore, and three totally different conceptions of what the United States of America is "about": this amply demonstrates that we have an ongoing identity crisis, which will not be resolved until we acknowledge that, because our culture derives primarily from Great Britain, our country is practically an unofficial member of the Commonwealth. (One might call the USA the nearly-identical twin sister of Canada; the one who ran away from home rather than wait to be given independence, for what it’s worth.)

Miscellaneous Musing #83

The next time that someone says something with which you disagree, don’t leap to the ideological attack, but instead ask the person to explain his viewpoint.  Unless you possess infallibility of judgment, it might turn out that it’s he who is right and you are wrong; even if his words fail to persuade you, he’ll probably have legitimate reasons for thinking as he does, the revelation which ought to teach you to be more tolerant of opinions that differ from yours.

Miscellaneous Musing #82

People who write or speak nowadays of terror in the Near East are nearly always referring to the ISIS.  Why has the world outside the Holy Land paid so little attention as it has to the latest intifada?  Is a terrorist attack in Israel so common an occurrence that our media do not deem it especially newsworthy, or are we incapable of devoting attention to tragedies other than those that claim the greatest number of lives, or do we not care whether violence is done if it’s done against Israelis? (Perhaps all three of these possible explanations are factors.)

Uncommon Commentary #510: A Wrong Right

Sermons delivered at this time of year in the USA often emphasize the value of religious liberty, which, however, is not always a good thing.  The government ought indeed to protect our freedom to worship the one true god, Yahweh, but it also gives us license to worship Ras Tafari, the Manitou, Satan, &c.  I know that this will seem a shocking instance of intolerance to the secular, and make most Christians uncomfortable, but the truth is that countries such as Inquisition-era Spain were much more truly Christian than ours, which permits its people to commit idolatry and, even worse, leads us to believe that we have an inalienable right to do so.

Uncommon Commentary #509: (GB Says) "PU" to the EU

I have not studied the reasons for what has become known by the imbecilic coinage “Brexit”, but the decision to leave the European Union (EU) is probably correct.  I’m in favor of cooperation between countries, but the degree of cooperation mandated by the EU seems excessive; many economists, for instance, have ridiculed the idea that a common market has need of a common currency such as the “Euro” (another stupid name).  And then there’s the EU’s policy of maintaining open borders between member states, which is a reason why the refugee problem in Europe is at crisis level.  (If none of the preceding confirms the wisdom of the UK’s departure, consider also that Obama is opposed to it!)

Uncommon Commentary #508: Trump Towers Over Democrats

Do you recall that Obama told everyone that a vote for McCain would be a vote for a third term for President Bush?  Trump ought to tell everyone that a vote for Hillary [sic] is a vote for a third term for Obama!

Uncommon Commentary #507: Were the Founders Bounders?

The average person is conservative, by which I mean not that he is right-wing but that he resists change; people tend to assume that the way things are is the way that things ought to be, and so, in the 1700’s, the fact that slavery had been legal for as long as anyone could remember meant that people in general did not question whether it were right or wrong.  The USA’s Founding Fathers, being revolutionaries, might be expected not to have shared in the conservative attitude to which I have referred, but, among them, slaveholding was at least widespread and perhaps universal.  Ownership of a fellow human being certainly is difficult to reconcile with the ideas that all men are created equal and that they have a right to “liberty”, but being a hypocrite is not the same as being a monster.

Uncommon Commentary #506: As a Boxer, He Was More of a Mutt!

When “Muhammad Ali”, i.e., Cassius Clay—It’s rather ironic that he discarded his baptismal name, which he shared with a Nineteenth-Century abolitionist, and adopted a name that he shared with a Nineteenth-Century ruler of Egypt, who was a slaver—proclaimed “I am the greatest”, he ought to have added the word “egotist” to the end of his statement. (He was also a hypocrite who based his refusal to serve in the military on the pretext that his Muslim religion forbad violence, even though he was a professional fighter.)

Uncommon Commentary #505: Why Can’t She Be Satisfied with Having Been Co-President in Bill’s Administration?

Bernie Sanders is wrong on nearly every issue of concern to the USA, but he, at least, is not known to deliberately misstate facts, i.e., lie.  It is therefore not Senator Sanders but Dunghillary (see UC #462) who ought to withdraw from the race/contest for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, for the good not of the party but of the country.

Uncommon Commentary #504: (My Answer to) Incarceration Consternation

A better idea than what people are calling “criminal justice reform”: greatly increase the number of crimes that are punished by death rather than by imprisonment.  This would lower our incarceration rate (because history has demonstrated that increases in the severity of punishment drive crime rates down, and because an executed person obviously no longer occupies a prison cell, nor has he ever the opportunity to commit another offense), and would also help move criminals to repentance, since nothing’s better than imminent death for making someone think about the destination of his soul.

Miscellaneous Musing #81: It Would Be Another Miracle if Ignorant People Would Shut Up

As an island state, one that needs to keep the sea lanes open for commerce in order to feed its high population, and one whose people have traditionally feared the ability of an army to seize a government (which a navy cannot do), Great Britain has always emphasized naval over land-based power; it therefore maintained quite a small army (equating to, in the words of one history book, a “colonial police force”) for a country of its importance, even before disarmament diminished its strength through the 1920’s and 1930’s.  In 1940, then, when their ally France quickly terminated resistance to the Blitzkrieg, the British knew that they could not hold territory on the European mainland; they consequently decided upon the long-respected practice of a strategic withdrawal, viz., removing one’s troops to a more easily defensible position, which, in this case, was behind Great Britain’s “moat”, the English Channel.  Anyone who thinks that the evacuation from Dunkirk was a catastrophe doesn’t know much about military strategy; unfortunately, though, public opinion has often been formed by persons who have no expertise in the subject that they are discussing.

Uncommon Commentary #503: This Trump Must Be Played

Among those of us who know that the life-and-death issue of induced abortion takes precedence over lesser matters, nobody can logically refuse to support the GOP’s pending nominee for the presidency.  Would we rather have a chief executive whose anti-fœticide credentials are questionable, or one whose pro-fœticide positions have never been in any doubt?

Miscellaneous Musing #80: That’s Not the Ticket

The strange 2016 presidential contest became yet stranger when Republican non-frontrunner Ted Cruz chose a “running-mate”.  Sen. Cruz’s move (presumably a primary-minded calculation, made for such a reason as to capitalize Donald Trump’s perceived vulnerability with female voters) is interesting to an historian such as I, since this is probably the first time that someone who is unlikely to be nominated for the US presidency has selected someone to be the vice-presidential half of his yet-unrealized ticket.  Will Mr. Cruz’s maneuver set a precedent, or will posterity remember Carly Fiorina as the “running-mate who never was”?

Uncommon Commentary #502: “Old Hickory” Must Have Referred to His Head

I have a mixed reaction to the Obama administration’s plan to replace President Andrew Jackson’s portrait on the $20 bill with that of abolitionist Harriet Tubman, which decision presumably evolved from the intention, announced this past year, of replacing the portrait (of Alexander Hamilton) on the $10 bill with that of “a woman”.  The regime is clearly pandering to women (and probably also to Blacks), which I find objectionable; if, however, one must abolish somebody’s effigy from our currency, then Jackson, who was a corrupt, violent bigot, is a good choice!

Uncommon Commentary #501: Trumped Up

There’s been much talk of a Republican rift, but both that party’s “establishment” and most “conservatives” regard Donald Trump as the antichrist of the GOP.  This is an ironic way for him to prove to be a “unifier”!

Uncommon Commentary #500: Just a Momentum, Please!

What does Donald Trump’s loss in the Wisconsin Republican primary mean, as many have been asking, in regard to his “momentum”?  It means nothing.  Momentum is a principle in physics, not in politics.

Uncommon Commentary #499: (The USA’s Form of Government Isn’t up to) Par(; That’s My) Lament

“Parliamentary democracy” (e.g., the UK’s mode of government) has several advantages over “presidential democracy” (viz., the sort of system used here in the USA):

1. In the former, there is such a thing as a no-confidence vote.  This means that, if enough members of the ruling party are of the opinion that they’ve erred in their choice of a prime minister, they can expel him from his office; they don’t have to wait four years for an opportunity to be rid of a national leader who is unequal to his responsibility, as we do. (A number of US States do have the equivalent, that is, recall elections, but these are not an option at the federal level.)
2. If no party wins a majority of seats in the parliament, the one that got the most votes can form a coalition government by joining forces with parties that espouse similar ideologies.  For instance, if right-of-center Party A wins 200 of 499 seats, left-of-center Party F (since it likely deserves an “F”) wins 150, right-of-center Party B wins 50, and others win the rest, Party A can offer cabinet positions to members of Party B in exchange for the support of Party B as a whole, which will create a coalition with a total of 250 seats; even minor parties can thus play a rôle in government in such a system, and so it’s more truly representative of popular opinion than is ours. (See UC #358.) One major shortcoming of the USA’s winner-take-all system, pertaining to both Advantage #2 and Advantage #4, becomes clear as some frustrated Republicans propose a “conservative” third-party alternative to Donald Trump, which would fatally split the opposition to the Dumbocrats.
3. In a land ruled by a parliament, the loyal opposition doesn’t vote, and so there is none of the legislative “gridlock” that plagues US politics; see Advantage #4.
4. The national leader in a parliamentary country is not elected directly but, rather, chosen by the party or parties that compose the majority in the parliament.  The primary reason why the US government so seldom accomplishes anything is that the chief executive and the majority in one or both houses of Congress so often represent different political parties.

Parliamentary government, though, also has its drawbacks, which may or may not offset the advantages mentioned above.  In truth, I can’t recommend any variation of what we call modern “democracy”, which, in my opinion, is highly overrated. (For a better idea, read UC #241.) If you want to know the most important reason why I think this way, ask yourself two questions: 1) Do you agree that the West is undergoing a perpetual moral crisis? 2) Can you think of a worse method of governance than “democracy” for resolving a moral crisis?

Uncommon Commentary #498: “Anti-Fascist” Fascists

It seems to me that the mindset of the protesters who, when the leading Republican presidential candidate cancelled his planned rally in Chicago out of safety concerns, proclaimed “We stopped Trump!” is identical to that of the fanatics whose intolerance of ideological opposition is dominating life at our institutions of higher learning.  The purpose of the US Constitution’s guarantee of a right of peaceful assembly is to give people the opportunity to express their opinions; modern demonstrators have turned this purpose upside-down, transforming protest into a means of censoring controversial speech!
(For my opinion on a similar subject, see UC #234.)

Miscellaneous Musing #79

It’s well-known that many German war criminals came to the USA after the Third Reich fell, but we probably don’t think about the fact that not all of them had to assume new identities.  Consider the postwar career of Wernher Von Braun, who had been an officer in the SS and then built rockets, using slave labor, for the purpose of massacring civilians.  We ought to have handed him over for trial, but, because our desire to have him (and other, less-prominent scientists with National Socialist connections) in our space program overcame our desire to see the guilty punished, we instead gave him US citizenship, honors, and celebrity!  In doing so, we betrayed the high ideals for which our country purportedly stands, and we also betrayed our allies.  Would the man have escaped justice if his V-2's had been aimed at New York and Washington, DC rather than at London and Antwerp?

Uncommon Commentary #497: Is the End of a Friend What We Intend?

Contrary to what is often said, the USA has never been an “ally” of Israel.  Allies are states (such as the United Nations during World War II) that fight on the same side in wartime, or have an (official) peacetime agreement (e.g., the NATO) that they will fight on the same side during a future war.  The US relationship to Israel could never have been called anything more than friendship; as a description of that portion of the relationship which has now gone on for more than a quarter-century, even that term would be largely inaccurate. (Would a friend try to force a friend to make himself more vulnerable to his enemies?)

Uncommon Commentary #496: UC #4 Follow-Up

When I wrote UC #4, I mentioned only one of my reasons for disliking the practice of using State primaries to decide a political party’s nominations for the US presidency; that error is now rectified, for I here present two others.

1. In my (expert) opinion, the USA had better chief executives when nominees for the office of president were selected in “smoke-filled rooms.”  The newer system may be more “democratic”, but I would prefer something less “democratic” and more effective.         
2. The later the date at which a State’s political-party members caucus, the more likely it is that the party’s eventual nominee will already have been determined effectively or even officially.  This fact can make voting seem even more truly pointless in latecomer States than it does on Election Day (and, thanks to “Super Tuesday”, this onset of irrelevancy can occur very early in the campaign season); further, since voters in these many States may prefer candidates different from those preferred by voters who live elsewhere, but since their different choices may be rendered moot as candidates who gained insufficient support in the earlier primaries—on might call them “primary primaries”—withdraw from the race, the winner of the nomination may not even be the actual favorite of his party’s majority.  It would make more sense for all 50 States and the District of Columbia to hold their primaries on the same day.

(If I come up with any more reasons, I’ll let you know what they are.)

Uncommon Commentary #495: Even a Politician Can’t Speak for 11 Months!

Most politicians traditionally have been of the opinion that the US President, having been “democratically elected” and all that, ought to get the man whom he wants when he nominates someone for a high post.  Since Obama has disgraced his office, I agree with those who believe that he ought not to be treated with the same deference; I do not, however, understand how we can fulfill the Senate Majority Leader’s stated determination not to allow a vote on any nomination of a replacement for Antonin Scalia until a new president assumes office, which would mean going 11 months with an even number of justices on the Supreme Court!  This determination, and Senator Cruz’s vow to filibuster—see the title of this u.c.—any vote that nevertheless takes place on an Obama pick, would make more sense if the GOP did not control the Senate; since Republicans do compose the majority, it seems to me that they ought to abandon the attitude that I mentioned in my opening sentence, and simply reject Obama’s favorites until he tries to salvage as much of his judicial legacy as he can by selecting someone whom the opposition will find tolerable.  Indubitably such a choice would still be inferior to one made by a Republican chief executive, but having injustices rather than justices appointed to our highest court is one of the consequences that ensue when we the people foul up the electoral process.

Alternately (and sarcastically), perhaps we could reduce the membership of the SCOTUS to seven persons, compensating for Scalia’s death forcing the retirement of left-wing bigot Sonia Sotomayor!

Miscellaneous Meditation #78

It’s ironic that so many women nowadays consider a career to be more important than motherhood.  The human species could survive without professional women, but it certainly could not do so without mothers.

Uncommon Commentary #494: Lift High the Cruz?

I have a high opinion generally of Senator Ted Cruz, but he has done and said some odd things.  Several years ago, he filibustered ostensibly against continued government overspending, and then immediately voted for the overspending just like the “establishment” politicians; after the death of Nelson Mandela, who, as a Marxist, a terrorist, a critic of the US War on Terror, and a supporter of abortion-on-demand, was hardly someone whom a conservative ought to admire (see UC #380: Not My Kind of Fella, That Nelson Mandela), Cruz posted a tribute to him on his Facebook page and also attended his funeral.  There may be no truly ideal presidential candidate, but Cruz–if the foreign-born Texan is indeed even eligible to hold our highest office—is perhaps farther from the ideal than a nominee ought to be.

Miscellaneous Musing #77

I’ve recently found that, rather than dislike a person, it’s both more prudent and more charitable to try to dislike only qualities or behaviors of that person.  Hardly anyone completely lacks positive (or negative) character traits, and so my new policy makes it easier to have a good relationship with someone who is not likable overall. (This attitude can be applied even toward an entire ethnic or religious group, as I had already done unknowingly in the last sentence of I Slam Islam?.) If, here at the Doman Domain, I still refer to someone in terms that imply whole disapproval, I’ll do so only for the sake of simplicity in treating of persons whose negative attributes greatly outweigh or outnumber the positive ones (or simply because old habits are hard to quit).

Uncommon Commentary #493: UC #159 Follow-Up

During Obama’s first term as US president, when undercover, independent filmmakers exposed multiple ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now!) offices as being willing to help establish a business importing underage girls from El Salvador for the purpose of prostitution (see Stingers VersusStinkers), the US Senate voted 83-7 to deny the ACORN its customary federal housing-money, which would have amounted to over 1.6 million dollars.  That even seven members of what some call “the world’s greatest deliberative body” voted to preserve such funding was disgraceful, but at least the cutoff passed promptly and overwhelmingly.  This past year, an undercover, independent filmmaker exposed multiple Planned Parenthood offices as conducting a side business in the sale of whole and partial corpses.  Trafficking in cadavers and parts thereof is not the same as trafficking in living human beings, but Planned Parenthood’s ghastly harvesting has been condemned about as widely as was the ACORN’s scandalous behavior, and so: Why is the parallel between the story of the ACORN and that of PP incomplete?  Why, when the US Senate belatedly passed a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, did the measure receive only 52 votes (in a chamber that counts 54 Republicans!), far below the 67 needed to override a presidential veto?  How can the moral standards of any country, even one subjected to the influence of Emperor Nerobama and to that of our odious popular culture, be falling so rapidly as ours are?

Uncommon Commentary #492: “We Need More Time! You Can’t Ruin a Country in Only Two Terms!”

Whomever the Democratic Party nominates to be the next US president ought to use the following campaign slogan: “As if eight years of Obama weren’t bad enough, let’s elect another Democrat to the Oval Office!”

Uncommon Commentary #491: It’s Good that Her Parents Didn’t Name Her for His Sherpa Guide, Tenzing Norgay

I have made occasional reference here at the Doman Domain to the fact that Hillary [sic] Clinton is a liar, and also to the fact that she has a reputation for high intelligence despite misspelling her own first name, which correctly has just one “l”.  I’ve always made the latter reference facetiously, but our non-candid candidate seems to have concern over the issue, for she recently asserted that she was named for the mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary—even though she was already six years old when that Hillary became famous by climbing Mount Everest.  If all her falsehoods should ever manifest physically and be heaped together, they would form a mountain that not even Sir Edmund could scale!

Uncommon Commentary #490: Whether to Vote Against Dunghillary Is Not One of the Hard Choices

According to Judicial Watch, State Department personnel who held concerns about inaccuracy and disclosure of classified information in Hard Choices made an effort to have draught copies destroyed.  If only they’d destroyed the final version!