I have lamented many times on the effort it seems to have become to get back into my own country when I am over in nearby Windsor, Ontario, Canada. If I had the time and the cash I would actually make it worse simply for the pleasure of tying up resources in a manner similar to how my own time is tied up when all I'm trying to do is get back into a country which I have a moral right to be in.
The border guards ask too many questions which, quite bluntly, are none of their damn business. How much money do you have on you, what do you do for a living, and what were you doing in Canada, are among them. And to each and every one of these the correct answer is, "None of your business."
If I have the documentation which proves I am a citizen, I have the right to return to my country unhassled and unharried. If it weren't for the worse trouble it would, I would tell them 'none of your business' every single time even if it meant hours delayed at customs, solely to make a point. That kind of questioning is nothing less than an unwarranted assault on our personal liberty.
If a guard has probable cause to think I'm up to no good, then he ought to have me pull over for a closer inspection. I can even accept the occasional random inspection in order to keep folks honest. But to have me sit for ten minutes asking about things which are none of his concern is simply wrong.
When we have to live that way, to adapt an old cliche, the terrorists have won anyway. There's no point then to even pretending we have the high moral ground on issues of freedom and liberty.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Fumbling Around on a Friday
Sonia Sotomayor has become the first Hispanic Justice on the United States Supreme Court. Just in case you missed it.
Of course, no one is surprised at the confirmation. But it sure would be nice if we could get away from all these firsts and simply raise the best judges to the high court.
Yeah, right. But as we haven't had our first Inuit cross dressing triathlete weathercaster in a position of power yet, that day is a long way off.
A mother, grandmother, and six-month-old were asked to leave a Burger King because the infant wasn't wearing shoes. It was a health matter, you understand. That kid might have triggered the virus which would have killed everyone there.
That's sarcasm, by the way. I should say that, before anyone accuses me of extremism, I am only trying to point out the absurdity of applying otherwise reasonable prohibitions in unreasonable situations. That baby was no health risk; the manager was not exactly using common sense in the matter. Lighten up, BK stooge.
Of course, no one is surprised at the confirmation. But it sure would be nice if we could get away from all these firsts and simply raise the best judges to the high court.
Yeah, right. But as we haven't had our first Inuit cross dressing triathlete weathercaster in a position of power yet, that day is a long way off.
A mother, grandmother, and six-month-old were asked to leave a Burger King because the infant wasn't wearing shoes. It was a health matter, you understand. That kid might have triggered the virus which would have killed everyone there.
That's sarcasm, by the way. I should say that, before anyone accuses me of extremism, I am only trying to point out the absurdity of applying otherwise reasonable prohibitions in unreasonable situations. That baby was no health risk; the manager was not exactly using common sense in the matter. Lighten up, BK stooge.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Obama and the Joker
I don't know if you've seen it yet or not, but apparently there's a poster of President Obama done up as the Joker, as portrayed by Heath Ledger in the most recent Batman flick, making its way across the ether after appearing on telephone poles in and around Los Angeles. The word socialism appears below the face. Needless to say, the left has promptly informed us that it is racist.
You know, until everyone can be mocked equally we will have no real equality in this country. Especially as we saw then President Bush mocked as the very same character last year (in Vanity Fair, no less) and no similar hue and cry erupted from the scions of societal norms in the press; how very selective they can be in their choices of right and wrong. But the bottom line is this: Mr. Obama is President of the United States. He is subject to all the parody and ridicule which comes, unfortunately or not, to those who hold the position. He sought it knowing this, and to be fair to him I have heard no angst from him personally as of this writing. So maybe it's simply his media allies promoting the charge.
They need to chill out. Even if you accept that the poster is in bad taste, which I will entertain that it may be, you need to back off and accept that this sort of thing happens and is not automatically racist. Given that this particular Joker is indeed a very evil persona, at the least play fair and condemn the Bush imagery along with the very pointed jibe at Obama. Because neither man is truly evil; if the current Chief Executive merits defense on the matter on that point, so too does the former.
If it is fair to deride Bush as evil, then it is fair to let others view Obama the same way. If it is unfair to Obama, then it surely was unfair to Bush on similar grounds. The big difference, however, is that the major media were the purveyors of the slight against W.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave...
You know, until everyone can be mocked equally we will have no real equality in this country. Especially as we saw then President Bush mocked as the very same character last year (in Vanity Fair, no less) and no similar hue and cry erupted from the scions of societal norms in the press; how very selective they can be in their choices of right and wrong. But the bottom line is this: Mr. Obama is President of the United States. He is subject to all the parody and ridicule which comes, unfortunately or not, to those who hold the position. He sought it knowing this, and to be fair to him I have heard no angst from him personally as of this writing. So maybe it's simply his media allies promoting the charge.
They need to chill out. Even if you accept that the poster is in bad taste, which I will entertain that it may be, you need to back off and accept that this sort of thing happens and is not automatically racist. Given that this particular Joker is indeed a very evil persona, at the least play fair and condemn the Bush imagery along with the very pointed jibe at Obama. Because neither man is truly evil; if the current Chief Executive merits defense on the matter on that point, so too does the former.
If it is fair to deride Bush as evil, then it is fair to let others view Obama the same way. If it is unfair to Obama, then it surely was unfair to Bush on similar grounds. The big difference, however, is that the major media were the purveyors of the slight against W.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave...
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Enjoy the Ride
While at the Detroit Tigers game last night with friends, watching a perfectly dreadful loss, I was lamenting to one of the guys about how lucky we were to be in first place given the overall mediocre caliber of baseball the Tigers have played. Nick, one of our group and the one with perhaps the best approach to the issue, opined, "Why don't you just enjoy it?"
Well, why not? It makes perfect sense, especially given all the years in the 90's when the locals basically reeked. Now that they are contending in any manner should be a source of happiness and optimism rather than melancholy.
Thanks, Nick old friend. That put the right spin on it. Go Tigers!
Well, why not? It makes perfect sense, especially given all the years in the 90's when the locals basically reeked. Now that they are contending in any manner should be a source of happiness and optimism rather than melancholy.
Thanks, Nick old friend. That put the right spin on it. Go Tigers!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Things Change
The United States Post Office is on the verge of closing 700 local outlets in a cost cutting measure. In the long run, it plans to limit deliveries to three of four times a week. So it goes.
This news goes hand in hand with the slow demise of the newspaper. As people have a wide variety of options in getting their personal news via e-mails and the amount of business which can be done online increases, so too with cable and satellite and the internet are our general news and views updates more readily available. Further, internet based news offers a greater variety of reporting and expression of viewpoints. To wit, we are exposed to the variety which is supposed to the spice of life, the grand diversity which is supposed to be our strength.
I do admit struggling with it. I miss a physical newspaper in he morning, and personal letters and cards through the mail have always been a treat. Yet time marches on, and any objective observer would have to admit that the direction we're headed is better than the funk we were in, especially with news items which were basically monopolized by a few. Faster, cheaper, better; the positive far outpaces the negative.
May as well embrace it. The world wide web isn't going away, and hey, less newsprint saves trees, right? It's a little sad that a bit of Americana is fading, but the future of communication appears bright from here. Things change. So long as there's no immorality or skullduggery involved, I can live with it.
This news goes hand in hand with the slow demise of the newspaper. As people have a wide variety of options in getting their personal news via e-mails and the amount of business which can be done online increases, so too with cable and satellite and the internet are our general news and views updates more readily available. Further, internet based news offers a greater variety of reporting and expression of viewpoints. To wit, we are exposed to the variety which is supposed to the spice of life, the grand diversity which is supposed to be our strength.
I do admit struggling with it. I miss a physical newspaper in he morning, and personal letters and cards through the mail have always been a treat. Yet time marches on, and any objective observer would have to admit that the direction we're headed is better than the funk we were in, especially with news items which were basically monopolized by a few. Faster, cheaper, better; the positive far outpaces the negative.
May as well embrace it. The world wide web isn't going away, and hey, less newsprint saves trees, right? It's a little sad that a bit of Americana is fading, but the future of communication appears bright from here. Things change. So long as there's no immorality or skullduggery involved, I can live with it.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Having Your Cake
"Innovation has been essential to our prosperity in the past, and it will be essential to our prosperity in the future,"
-President Barack Obama
As I believe that I am free to criticize our nation's leaders and leadership, I also feel it only fair to compliment them when they are deserving of it. The above statement, made by the President during his weekly radio talk yesterday, is such an example. American innovation has driven many of the projects which have made our country what she is today: a model for the rest of the world to, hopefully, emulate. Still, his words would resonate more deeply and profoundly if he would take the next necessary step: get Washington out of the way so that innovation may roam free in solving our problems.
"Necessity is the mother of invention," the great philosopher Plato, one of those dead white guys we hear so little about in our enlightened age, opined about 400 years before Christ. To wit, when something is needed, someone will find the thing to fill the void. If, that very big word, if the forces of human nature are allowed to find it.
"The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government," the famed economist Milton Friedman has pointed out. The President seems to believe otherwise as he works incessantly to see that our federal government takes over the major industries of the United States. What possible freedom of movement, freedom to innovate, can come from a group of bureaucrats, who, no matter what the assure us, cannot know an industry like the people within it generally do?
I could go on, but I think the point is made. President Obama, so long as he continues down his current path, speaks with forked tongue. He cannot call for innovation and act towards centralization at the same and expect good results. The innovators will not trust him and the controllers will resent him. It is this type of thinking, a lack of philosophic understanding and commitment, which will doom him in the long run.
Sadly, he apparently means to take us down the path with him.
-President Barack Obama
As I believe that I am free to criticize our nation's leaders and leadership, I also feel it only fair to compliment them when they are deserving of it. The above statement, made by the President during his weekly radio talk yesterday, is such an example. American innovation has driven many of the projects which have made our country what she is today: a model for the rest of the world to, hopefully, emulate. Still, his words would resonate more deeply and profoundly if he would take the next necessary step: get Washington out of the way so that innovation may roam free in solving our problems.
"Necessity is the mother of invention," the great philosopher Plato, one of those dead white guys we hear so little about in our enlightened age, opined about 400 years before Christ. To wit, when something is needed, someone will find the thing to fill the void. If, that very big word, if the forces of human nature are allowed to find it.
"The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government," the famed economist Milton Friedman has pointed out. The President seems to believe otherwise as he works incessantly to see that our federal government takes over the major industries of the United States. What possible freedom of movement, freedom to innovate, can come from a group of bureaucrats, who, no matter what the assure us, cannot know an industry like the people within it generally do?
I could go on, but I think the point is made. President Obama, so long as he continues down his current path, speaks with forked tongue. He cannot call for innovation and act towards centralization at the same and expect good results. The innovators will not trust him and the controllers will resent him. It is this type of thinking, a lack of philosophic understanding and commitment, which will doom him in the long run.
Sadly, he apparently means to take us down the path with him.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Obamabomb V
It's beer thirty at the White House! President Obama invited the participants in the now famous Cambridge melee to Washington. Police Sargent James Crowley and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. went to the nation's capitol for a so-called 'beer summit' to discuss the altercation between the two a few weeks back. The White House is calling this an ongoing 'teachable moment'
Hopefully the primary student was the President himself. Perhaps due to sliding poll numbers, he saw fit to raise the spectre of racism rather than act presidential and allow local authorities to pursue a local matter unless and until it might become more significant. Sure, he's backed off and may be well on his way towards soothing the issues and egos involved. But it is fair to ask whether this is the right approach.
Why not offer a simple apology and let matters stand? White House summits every time a president commits a political faux pas, which we may be inviting with this sort of reaction, seem impractical, to say the least, but it's the type of liberal grandstanding which puts form ahead of substance. It says nothing while appearing to say everything; a moral dead end. Quite frankly, admitting that you acted stupidly followed by apologizing to the offended would mean more. But at this point, hey, let's not act rashly, right?
So have your meeting. And media, gush over it as you surely will. Personally, I think that the best result of the beerfest would have been for Crowley to ask for a Guinness Stout while the President and Professor Gates sip on a Rolling Rock Extra Pale Ale each. That's about the deepest symbolism you can have in such matters.
Hopefully the primary student was the President himself. Perhaps due to sliding poll numbers, he saw fit to raise the spectre of racism rather than act presidential and allow local authorities to pursue a local matter unless and until it might become more significant. Sure, he's backed off and may be well on his way towards soothing the issues and egos involved. But it is fair to ask whether this is the right approach.
Why not offer a simple apology and let matters stand? White House summits every time a president commits a political faux pas, which we may be inviting with this sort of reaction, seem impractical, to say the least, but it's the type of liberal grandstanding which puts form ahead of substance. It says nothing while appearing to say everything; a moral dead end. Quite frankly, admitting that you acted stupidly followed by apologizing to the offended would mean more. But at this point, hey, let's not act rashly, right?
So have your meeting. And media, gush over it as you surely will. Personally, I think that the best result of the beerfest would have been for Crowley to ask for a Guinness Stout while the President and Professor Gates sip on a Rolling Rock Extra Pale Ale each. That's about the deepest symbolism you can have in such matters.
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