May 30, 2009
TEH AWESOME
Today's must-read on granting the premise from Cassandra:
Staying on Message: Conservatives Should Play Offense, not Defense
(via WifeUnit, who leaned over to me and said I should read this. I love that I have an in-person hat tip!)
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May 20, 2009
A GROKKING POST
I like when other bloggers write about their grokking process. Rachel Lucas is never embarrassed to say, "Hey, I finally get this," and I enjoy reading her for that very reason. She has a new post up about the differences between American and British government. It's a grokking-type post, and I liked it. The comments are worth reading too, I think.
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May 19, 2009
CELEBRATE HOMOGENY
I got an email from an old real-life friend about my Done Waffling post. This friend pointed out that we had a diverse friend group in school, to include Hindus and Muslims, and that exposure to diversity is beneficial for a growing mind. It's a fair point.
My response to that is that no one from our friend group supported honor killings or jihad or shariah.
Look, you all know me by now. You know that I am not really a person who "celebrates diversity." I married someone whose only difference from me is that he likes to sleep. I want to live in a gulch surrounded by people who all think exactly like I do. I don't know if that's an appropriate worldview, but that's who I am. I celebrate homogeny.
But these friends of mine, these other kids who helped make me who I am, they were Americans. Sure, they had a different religion than most of us and they did funny things like fast during Ramadan or not eat beef, but they weren't fundamentally different in value systems than the rest of us. Their families were in the US because they wanted to live under the freedoms and opportunities that the US had to offer, not because they were trying to subvert the system from within.
In short, I don't lump old-school American Muslims in with the ominous groups portrayed in that video.
You don't have to be a WASP to be part of my tribe. But we do have to have common ground: tolerance, respect for the Constitution and institutions of the United States, and an ability to live and let live. Those are decidedly not mainstream beliefs in the communities from whence Muslim immigrants are flooding Europe.
My goal is not to outbreed American Muslims. My husband and I are close friends with two Muslim families that are perfectly lovely, normal, non-terrorist people. My kids could play with their kids any day. And my hope is that their kids will also act as a counterbalance to the extreme Islamofascists' progeny. I consider their kids as part of our American birthrate, not the scary Muslim one depicted in the video.
My goal is to fill our gulch with more like-minded people, to pass on a love for our unique country and all she stands for, and to raise children who can recognize the fundamental difference between the cool brown-skinned kids in their class and the scary enemy.
My response to that is that no one from our friend group supported honor killings or jihad or shariah.
Look, you all know me by now. You know that I am not really a person who "celebrates diversity." I married someone whose only difference from me is that he likes to sleep. I want to live in a gulch surrounded by people who all think exactly like I do. I don't know if that's an appropriate worldview, but that's who I am. I celebrate homogeny.
But these friends of mine, these other kids who helped make me who I am, they were Americans. Sure, they had a different religion than most of us and they did funny things like fast during Ramadan or not eat beef, but they weren't fundamentally different in value systems than the rest of us. Their families were in the US because they wanted to live under the freedoms and opportunities that the US had to offer, not because they were trying to subvert the system from within.
In short, I don't lump old-school American Muslims in with the ominous groups portrayed in that video.
You don't have to be a WASP to be part of my tribe. But we do have to have common ground: tolerance, respect for the Constitution and institutions of the United States, and an ability to live and let live. Those are decidedly not mainstream beliefs in the communities from whence Muslim immigrants are flooding Europe.
My goal is not to outbreed American Muslims. My husband and I are close friends with two Muslim families that are perfectly lovely, normal, non-terrorist people. My kids could play with their kids any day. And my hope is that their kids will also act as a counterbalance to the extreme Islamofascists' progeny. I consider their kids as part of our American birthrate, not the scary Muslim one depicted in the video.
My goal is to fill our gulch with more like-minded people, to pass on a love for our unique country and all she stands for, and to raise children who can recognize the fundamental difference between the cool brown-skinned kids in their class and the scary enemy.
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08:45 PM
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THE YOUTH VOTE
Lawrence Auster got an email that's too good to not be read in its entirety. It's another exchange about not granting the premise, but it starts from a point I never thought to explore:
(Via Amritas)
What an upside down world we live in. Once upon a time, village elders
were revered because they had lived long enough to know a little bit
about life and propriety. Even in the era of democracy, seniority
systems abounded. It's hard to imagine Grover Cleveland campaigning for
the "youth vote." But today we're told that the least experienced
voters are the ones we should be listening to, even as we worship our
least experienced president.
(Via Amritas)
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May 17, 2009
DONE WAFFLING
I spent all day yesterday waffling on the baby issue. Deep down, I don't feel that confident about going forward. I know you all say that babies are better than dogs, but I just don't know how to believe you. A year ago, I said this:
And now that even more time has passed, and we're looking at pain and money coming into the equation, I feel even less motivation. My husband says it's his job to force the issue and make it happen, because I keep changing my mind. He says doing IVF is my own personal deployment of sorts: no one truly wants to deploy, but they do it because it's the right thing to do and it's part of who they are and their value system.
This morning I found a video via Up North Mommy that stopped my waffling.
It reminded me of a major reason why I wanted to procreate in the first place: to create more humans with my value system. To make more Americans. I don't know how it sounds when I say things like that, but I mean it from the depth of everything I believe in. I'm not just being xenophobic or anti-Muslim; it's the loss of my own culture that motivates me. I'd like for there to be more people in this world like my husband and me, more people for my tribe, more people for our gulch.
And I'm now ready to spend $12,000 to make it happen.
And I was never one of those women who loves babies or wanted to be a
kindergarten teacher her whole life. This may sound terrible, but
there's a part of me that's ready to throw in the towel because the
more elusive it gets, the less important it feels. The less
emotional it feels. I think human beings ought to procreate, and I
think that people with stable, loving homes like ours are a good place
for kids. (And Mark Steyn makes me think I need to have ten of them, to
shore up our numbers.) I was always fairly matter-of-fact about having
a baby anyway, and this year of over-thinking it hasn't helped any. My
husband re-convinces me every day to keep trying, because I'd love to
abandon hope and forget about it.
And now that even more time has passed, and we're looking at pain and money coming into the equation, I feel even less motivation. My husband says it's his job to force the issue and make it happen, because I keep changing my mind. He says doing IVF is my own personal deployment of sorts: no one truly wants to deploy, but they do it because it's the right thing to do and it's part of who they are and their value system.
This morning I found a video via Up North Mommy that stopped my waffling.
It reminded me of a major reason why I wanted to procreate in the first place: to create more humans with my value system. To make more Americans. I don't know how it sounds when I say things like that, but I mean it from the depth of everything I believe in. I'm not just being xenophobic or anti-Muslim; it's the loss of my own culture that motivates me. I'd like for there to be more people in this world like my husband and me, more people for my tribe, more people for our gulch.
And I'm now ready to spend $12,000 to make it happen.
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May 16, 2009
SWEEP THE NATION
Still the Biggest Missing Story In Politics:
I believe that could be true. I think Republicans lose because they try to out-Democrat their opponents. I think a real, true conservative who stayed on point and principle, who didn't try to beat Democrats at their own game and instead stopped granting them their premises, would take the nation by storm.
John McCain lost fairly narrowly, and do you know anyone who really wanted him as our candidate?
A fiscal conservative, who
was perceived as a fiscal conservative running against a fiscal
liberal, would win a landslide greater than any in the history of these
two political parties. A candidate perceived as both a social
conservative and a fiscal conservative would win one quarter of the
Democrat Party vote, if the Democrat was perceived as a liberal, and
sweep the nation easily.
I believe that could be true. I think Republicans lose because they try to out-Democrat their opponents. I think a real, true conservative who stayed on point and principle, who didn't try to beat Democrats at their own game and instead stopped granting them their premises, would take the nation by storm.
John McCain lost fairly narrowly, and do you know anyone who really wanted him as our candidate?
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May 10, 2009
A FAMILY
Need more perspective today?
A family came into the store this morning: a father and four pre-teens, probably ranging from age 10-15. They were there to buy a memorial bouquet to put at their mother's grave.
I barely managed to keep the tears in.
My life is good.
A family came into the store this morning: a father and four pre-teens, probably ranging from age 10-15. They were there to buy a memorial bouquet to put at their mother's grave.
I barely managed to keep the tears in.
My life is good.
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May 07, 2009
THE BADNESS OF OBAMA
Amritas pointed me towards a Lawrence Auster post that is the perfect explanation of how I too feel:
I'm frankly battered by the idea that there seem to be so many regular Americans out there who think like I do and want the kind of country I want...and none of them are in Washington.
And all that keeps running through my head is "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another"...
I'm with John Wall: I'm ready for a divorce.
I have not been posting nearly as much about the actions of the
Obama administration as might have been expected. One reason for this
is that the badness of what Obama is doing, and the amount of it, and
the complexity of it, is overwhelming and I frankly find it hard to
take it in and form a view of it. When every day there are things being
done by the administration that are off the chart, outside the scope of
anything ever done by a U.S. president, how do you find adequate words
to describe it and do it justice?
And when we combine this with the fact that Obama is extremely popular according to opinion polls, with 73 percent saying that he "cares about people like me," meaning that three quarters of Americans feel that this manifest anti-American president represents people like them, I frankly find it hard to get a handle on the situation.
I too am overwhelmed by the events unfolding in our country. And I agree with the further comments at that Auster post and the Tea Party guests on last week's Glenn Beck show that our country has gone so far off the tracks that a McCain presidency would've only been incrementally less bad.I'm frankly battered by the idea that there seem to be so many regular Americans out there who think like I do and want the kind of country I want...and none of them are in Washington.
And all that keeps running through my head is "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another"...
I'm with John Wall: I'm ready for a divorce.
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