House of Eratosthenes

What's the Chinese symbol for I was doing that thing that our leftists say people like me never ever do, which is listen to others. The subject is Sen. Barbara Boxer, my junior delegate to the Senate. Once again, for reasons unknown to me and never ever explained to me, a sitting Senator was allowed to pretend she was making an inquiry to our Secretary of State…and drone on at length into the microphone as if she was some freakin’ valedictorian or guest-speaker at a graduation ceremony or something. She’d end a sentence with a question-mark, which on the planet from which I come, means it’s obligatory for the other party to start talking in an effort to supply the information that was requested. And then…just…keep…prattling…on.

“Who pays the price?” Boxer asked Rice, who is unmarried and doesn’t have children. “I’m not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with immediate family.

“So who pays the price? The American military and their families.”

Democrat senators, Republican senators. I don’t care. I have never understood why we tolerate this in our Congress. Questions are questions. Answers are answers. Speeches are speeches. Different things.

But I suppose I should get to the content of Sen. Boxer’s whatever-ya-wanna-call-it…since that has been shown to be much more offensive to many more people.

Well now. If she has any point to make here at all, it’s that there is a first-tier and a second-tier of people who may have opinions about the war. Perhaps people in the second tier should have some influence over things, although decidedly subordinate levels of that influence. Or perhaps none at all. One thing is for sure: If she thinks all opinions should be considered on their merits, regardless of the sources of same, or the personal stories behind those sources…her comments are confusing and useless. So the source is meaningful. The terrace-landscaping must hold. Some classes of people have “better” opinions than other classes of people, and this classification has to do with having draft-age children. It seems only through blatant backpedaling, could Boxer herself assert anything different about what she meant to say.

Disclaimer: I have one (1) nine-year-old son. We don’t know how long the war will last, so it’s a matter of opinion whether this places me on Boxer’s first tier or on her second tier.

Ask me if I give a rat’s ass.

I am so utterly sick and tired of this drawing-of-lines about which class or classes of people among us, are allowed to execute policy or form opinions about the war, and which class or classes of people are not. For one thing: It is SO fucking phony. If Dr. Rice was a Clinton cabinet official doing her level-best to get the “Bush lied people died” canard out there, and the “redeploy now” and the “Saddam Hussein was no threat” and the “it’s all for oil” and all the rest of that stupid left-wing Ted Kennedy claptrap…Boxer wouldn’t give two shits if Condoleeza had kids or not. Do I really need to prove that? I shouldn’t have to.

That’s Thing One.

Thing Two:

According to Sen. Boxer’s words, the issue is with “who pays the price.” Well, now. If having a child killed in a war involves paying a price, and I believe it does — how about being that child? How about being the guy in the wrong place at the wrong time — nineteen forever? Can it possibly get more personal than that?

Excuse me Sen. Boxer. This country has a history of drafting MEN. But not women. So going by your logic…why don’t you get your ass in the kitchen and bake me some pie, while us men smoke cigars and figure this whole thing out. No, don’t blame me, that’s your logic. Personal price, remember? In fact, you identified yourself as not exactly being in the thick of this whole thing…defending it later as “how [you] felt.”

See, now we’re muzzling a different demographic. No longer is it Bush administration officials…it’s the gals. The logic hasn’t changed. But I’ll bet — and I’m talking my bottom dollar here — we’ve got a whole different sub-selection out of those among us, who are offended. I’ll bet my rent money on that. Hey gals, it’s the Boxer rule. Personal price. What the hell were we thinking when we let you vote, anyway?

Can we just shitcan this whole you-can-have-an-opinion-but-you-cannot thing. Puh-leeze.

It’s so phony. You have to have military cred to have an opinion…until you’re a military vet who supports President Bush, and then the rules have to change. Everybody knows it works that way — seldom is it mentioned, but everyone understand this. It’s not about the creds. It’s not about military service or “have you ever traveled outside of the U.S.” and it’s not about being eligible for the draft and it’s not about having kids of military-service age. It never was about any of those things. It’s about grasping for straws, and finding another phony-baloney reason to protest the war, and finding ways to muzzle those who might support the war.

Anyway. Back to the subject at hand, I was reading through the letters and I came across this, apparently from someone who’s not too sold on the war in the first place.

It’s easy to point a finger and accuse others.

What has Boxer done to stop or prevent a war? If this is what the Democrats are becoming. I doubt that I will ever vote Democratic again.

Now, this raises an interesting question. What has Boxer done…what have any of the Democrats done…to actually prevent this war. Or, I would add, to win it. Or to do anything…something that involves “paying a price,” personal or political. Just name the agenda. Pro-war, anti-war, forcing rotten public school districts on kids who’d be able to have a better choice if only a voucher system were in place, leaving millions of barrels of crude untapped in Alaska while maniacs in the Middle East use our oil money to fund terrorism, killing babies, getting white guys fired so lesser-qualified women and minorities can be hired instead. Just go through the list.

When has a left-winger…I mean a policitally influential one, an elected one….sacrificed anything? Even done something so trivial as, subordinating one agenda in favor of a different, more important one, where the two agendas conflict? As opposed to simply declaring to everyone within earshot what they ought to be thinking and then changing the subject?

You know, we could start here. Respect for the right of women to live their private lives as they choose — the stated goal of feminism — versus, Barbara Boxer’s brand-spankin’-new reason she cooked up to bash the Bush administration. Bush-bashing-item #23,576 if I’m counting right. How about setting an example for paying this extraordinarily meaningless price — Boxer, or those who are considering whether to repudiate her asinine comments from within, could say: “We have other ways to bash George Bush and his minions. Sen. Boxer is extremely proud of using her creative energies to find yet another, but we’ll let it go in the interest of preserving this higher ideal.”

They seem to have a rule against that. There is no verticality to the things they want to get done; nothing outranks anything else. If two positions are found to be in conflict, the sheeple are told what to think, maybe a sarcastic barb is tossed out Daily-Show style to draw a titter or guffaw or two, and the subject is promptly changed.

One of many reasons I don’t think they’re going to be holding on to this gig for two long. Real life simply doesn’t work that way. In real life, conflict forces a choice, and said choice involves…well, exactly what the dingbat senator was discussing. Tough stuff. Paying a price. Big one, little one. But something. Getting rid of something you’d just as soon keep.

And real life says, when such a choice is not made, this is a lack of leadership and it summons all the plagues that any crisis of leadership will bring. I guess our liberals are dedicated to “bringing it on,” as they say. In all matters. At all times.

Swell. Get ready for a fun ride.

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Stuff That’s ToughSaturday, January 13th, 2007

Stuff That’s Tough
Saturday, January 13th, 2007