Let's Bring Back a Little Cultural Imperialism

In India the Hindu practice of Sati or Suttee used to be that, if a husband died, they'd throw all his leftover living wives onto the funeral pyre with their husbands - alive. The horrible British, when they conquered India and made it a protectorate, banned this practice. An Indian leader approached the British general who enforced this law and protested.

"But," the Indian leader complained, "This is our custom, our culture, our religion."

"And it is my custom, culture and religion," said the general, "To hang people who throw innocent women onto funeral pyres."

One forgets that several million widows who lived out their lives in the past century, many of who are still living alive and well in India, owe those lives and some thanks to the British whose laws altered the custom and culture so they did not meet a fiery death simply because their klutzy spouse fell off a train or died in a car crash. Some call this sort of thing "Cultural Imperialism." I call it making the world a better place. The Brits did do some awful things in securing their empire, no question. But in introducing British law to their colonies, they did change some pretty awful "cultural" practices. The status of the so-called untouchables in India, for instance, is far better now than it used to be when being an untouchable was worse than slavery. Also, remember, that the Brits outlawed slavery long before we did and outlawed it throughout the empire, ending a whole lot of misery for a whole lot of people and managed to confine this barbaric practice to non British countries and Islamic states, where it is still practiced to this day.

What we need is a president who is not intimidated by ISIS or the threat of jihad. We need leaders who develop a little righteous anger, when told by ISIS mullahs that stoning women who have been raped or who have the temerity to drive a car should be the law of the world. When confronted by people who fling homosexuals from the tops of tall buildings, who find nothing wrong with pedophilia, who murder those who leave Islam for another religion and who behead Christians for their own amusement, we need leaders who don't just shrug and pretend it's not happening. We need leaders who will tell such monsters in no uncertain terms, that it is our American military's custom to protect innocent women, homosexuals, converts to other religions and Christians who have the misfortune to simply live in Islamic ruled countries.

Who knows? Maybe we have such a president. Perhaps we should start taking actual refugees from those countries that Obama, himself listed as threats to our security. But we should first take those who are Christians, abused women, converts from Islam to other faiths and homosexuals, transsexuals, bisexuals and anyone else that Muslims might want to throw off a building. We should put them way up front in the line. Just saying. Refugee status is for people threatened in their own countries and people who want to be Americans so bad they are willing to go through what it takes to get here legally and become American Citizens.

What do you think? Me, I think America's cultural imperialism through our books and movies, our Internet and music, our goods and fashions is a very good thing. English has rapidly become the lingua franca of the world which improves everyone's communication dramatically across cultural lines. You see the way the culture works my precious snowflakes, is that cultures that bump up against each other share the good things and often to everyone's surprise start eliminating practices that appall their neighbors due to their contact with another more civilized culture.

Cultures are meant to appropriate good things from other cultures. Those which do not almost invariable become aggressive and attack their neighbors. The Brits culturally appropriated from everyone. India gave them a taste for curry. India and Southeast Asia gave them a taste for tea. There are a thousand things the British absorbed into their culture and way of life and many positive things that British subjects absorbed from the Brits themselves.

One thing that is not being absorbed by British culture is the vast stream of Islamic refugees pouring unchecked across their borders from the EU. Europe is experiencing an Invasion that is set upon, not learning from European culture, but upon burying it and wiping it from the face of the planet. The Islamic nations have on many occasions invaded Europe seeking to take the wealth of the West for themselves. This time they may succeed.

Our own forefathers came across the sea to escape the government by the nobility nonsense of the Old World and created the greatest nation ever seen on Earth - the wealthiest, most energetic, diverse and peaceful nation every.  America also unique in that government derives its power from the people and not vice versa as it is in the Old World where the Queen or the politburo bestow rights upon the citizenry at their pleasure. This government of the people idea resulted in the rise of the first dominant nation in history to reject the idea of conquering our neighbors to expand our borders. Well, after the uncalled for war with Mexico which wasn't a terribly just war, even though we bought the land we took from Mexico - land that was just about to break away from their Mexican overlords anyway. The Spanish American War did break Spain's stranglehold on Central and South America, but their influence was almost broken already. Probably because we felt guilty about waging that sort of war, we turned loose the territories we had won in that war - those that wanted to go at least.  If Puerto Rico wanted to go, it could have gone independent like Cuba and the Phillipines, but they keep voting to stay an American protectorate.

We Americans aren't without sin in our conduct around the world, but we're as close to sinless as any powerful nation has ever come. The Islamic nations know that they must silence the voices in the West if they are going to keep their young people fired up about world conquest and creating a Worldwide Caliphate in order to fulfill Mohammad's prophecy.

I think we should not shut up. I think we should not silence the Voice of America broadcasts, but ratchet them way up and throw in some free TV and Internet programs while we're at it. Let's make some friends and be friendly so that we stand in contrast to the vile power-mongers of the First and Third Worlds. 

 

And like the good general, once in a while let us remind them what American custom is. We think we should kick bad guys' butts. The world paused a bit when we had a genuine cowboy in the White House. They'd seen Westerns and they thought they knew what cowboys were like. Maybe it's time we make them believe we've got another one living on Pennsylvania Avenue. I don't think it's a bad thing that America makes some world leaders nervous.

Maybe that's just me.

© 2017 by Tom King

Hypocrites calling Hypocrites Hypocrites

The Descent of Political Discourse

Good cow! Now the Democrats and the Leftist Media are accusing Donald Trump of a "lack of transparency." Really? After the Obama administrations stunningly consistent opaque presidency, perhaps the least transparent in history, the hypocrisy is incredible. If it weren't for the odd open microphone we'd never have known Obama intended to sell us out to the Russians in his second term. If it wasn't for nosy cameras we'd never have seen him bowing to emperors, Saudi kings and assorted other potentates with titles. His signature legislation, Obamacare, was passed famously "before we could know what was in it." Not terribly transparent given that we discovered after it was passed that our health insurance would become more rather than less expensive and that we weren't going to be allowed to keep our doctors and health plans as promised.

I've so far been polite in my responses to most of my liberal friends and not accused them of things not in evidence. And yet, because I like some things Trump has done, I'm accused of Trump hero worship. So I will repeat what I have already said before. Trump is no hero of mine and I never have said he was. On the contrary. I've said I distrust him all along and that I will watch his actions with proper skepticism and set up a howl if he does something I don't like, although it will probably cause Democrats to cheer when he does some such thing.

Democrats are responsible for Trump anyway. They queered the Republican primary by some 12 million crossing over to vote for him and force the nomination, despite strong conservative opposition including mine. They didn't think he could beat Hillary. Unfortunately, they are not as smart as they think they are. Democrats really missed how much Americans disliked Mrs. Clinton.

Trump's their boy at heart. Even his repeal of Obamacare isn't really a repeal at all. Trumpcare is being sold as a better brand of Obamacare. It reminds me of Hitler claiming that Nazism was a better form of Marxism. Trump is obviously no politician. The fact that he hasn't been a politician is one of the few things in his favor as far as I am concerned. He's so inept at politics that the liberal press has their noses more deeply into dark places than they have for the past eight years. They are actually doing their job for a change which is kind of refreshing.

Trump's actions thus far (the official ones, not his tweets and the unimportant things the liberal press keeps harping on) have been heartening, and more than a little entertaining as liberal hair spontaneously combusts every time he sends out a tweet. One liberal friend complained about my use of past historical events, my "written words, sentences and paragraphs" that I used in responding to accusations against the President. What did they want. Should I hum a little tune to soothe their hurt feelings? I could play a little tune on my homemade banjo - a lullaby perhaps? Barring that, I have nothing with which to respond other than words, sentences and paragraphs.

That's the problem with us conservatives, my friends. We read history and we remember some lessons from it. Someone once said, “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history." Two things I have learned from history that apply to my friendly debates with my buddies on the distaff side of the aisle. 

1. Socialism and centralized government power, whether it's held by kings, emperors, commissars, politburos or presidents. It inevitably never works out well for the proletariat. 
2. Socialists do not learn by experience. They keep trying the same thing over and over again, hoping it will turn out better this time.

Sadly, the left, I have discovered, only believe in free speech for themselves. They prefer not to hear opposing opinions that challenge the unearned sense of moral superiority that they gain from believing the "correct" ideology. They tend to want to silence anyone who presents words, sentences and paragraphs which make sense but disagree with the assumptions of their Marxist progressivism and which do not feed the sense of moral superiority that comes with belonging to the special ideological elite who will run things once the progressive agenda is accomplished.

The trouble with Democrats, said Ronald Reagan once, is that so much of what they know just ain't so. I think it's why they don't want to hear from people like me. Instead when I point out the hypocrisy of the left for criticizing their boy Trump for the same things that their boy Obama did during his reign, they tend to stick their fingers in their ears and go "La, la, la, la." No kidding, I heard a reporter refer to Obama's presidency as his "reign" once. It was more than a little disturbing and rather revealing.

Leftist judges have blocked Trump's immigration and travel restrictions from the very same countries that former president Obama identified as threats. The most recent judge actually said that if Obama had done the same thing as Trump it would have been okay, but because of things Trump said, it's not legal. In other words, judges have now created "thought crimes" which they can lay at the president's door.

Well, it's going along just about like I thought it would. It looks like "1984" may take an additional 40 years, but it appears that Orwell's scary state is still coming with it's government altering of history, language and culture for the purposes of creating the proper sort of proletariat that will subsume it's will to the dictates of the collective and, of course, it's elite intellectual leaders, who will, of course, live in luxurious country dachas with servants and security as a reward for being smarter than the rest of us stupid cattle.

As I've said before, I believe that Jesus is loading up the bus to come and get us. I'm not worried about the Marxists. Their idea of creating a man-made Utopia is doomed to fail in a big messy way. I hope to leave on the bus before I am killed in the collapse. If that happens, I'm not worried. I know where I'm going and I am at peace with that.

Just sayin'

© 2017 by Tom King

Cedric Richmond (D) - Oh the Hypocrisy!

 

@CedricRichmond: "Y'all seen that photo of Kellyanne
on couch? She looks familiar in that position."

The Trump-bots are all atwitter over Louisiana Democrat Cedric Richmond's crude shot at Kellyanne Conway's picture kneeling on a couch in the Oval Office during a visit to President Trump by presidents of a number of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). 

And I don't blame them. 

If a Republican Congressman (or any Republican for that matter) had made the same comment (even if it had been about Monica Lewinsky about whom the joke would have been true) the press would have crucified said Republican. Later Congressman Richmond tried to explain that his "joke" wasn't crude. Apparently it just wasn't funny the way he meant it to be. Here's what Richmond said.

• “I decided to use that joke due to the large social media backlash over her inappropriate posture considering there were more than 60 HBCU Presidents in the room.”

And it's exactly what I thought it was when this started up days ago. Once again it's about race. How dare a white woman kneel on a sofa in the presence of all those black men. (I guess she should have knelt on the floor or something.) If there had been 60 white guys or Asian guys or Indo-European guys in there, Conway would not have been expected to genuflect in their presence. But because she did not show the proper obeisance in front of 60 black men, she therefore deserved to have Cedric suggest that she was familiar with that position (i.e. familiar with doing sexual favors for Trump). There was no other way to interpret Richmond's "joke". And by the way, It didn't look like 60 guys in that picture, but I'll give Cedric the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't matter anyway. Kellyanne was working and apparently not overly awed by the gathered crowd of "men". Should a very competent working woman have to bow to these people, especially as this was not an official photo, but a candid caught before the official photos were taken? I'm sure the photographer was looking for something controversial.

A liberal woman would have been applauded if she'd assumed the same posture with a group of 60 white world leaders. Feminiists would have praised her for showing that women were not intimidated by males no matter how important they think they are. Democrats would have defended her to the hilt, but only if she were a Democrat, of course. If we are going to have women in the workplace, it looks to me like we should allow women to be actual women. Women tuck their legs under them on sofas. They've done it since time immemorial (except possibly during the Victorian era when they wore corsets, whalebone and a stick up their backs).  So since Cedric ain't gonna do it, I will say it!

Way to show 'em you aren't intimidated by their race, creed, color or gender, Kellyanne!

You know I really like this lady more and more every day. And you can tell she's getting to them. They're already into creating a fake furor over nothing-burger* incidents. Next there will be books and movies out in which a woman in her position, working for the president is assassinated or causes a scandal or overdoses on drugs or something. Liberals are such hopeless dreamers!

© 2017 by Tom King

*By the way, Ted Cruz, thanks for that new term. I hadn't heard it before, but I like it. I hope you don't mind me stealing it.

Dan Rather - Teacher of Journalistic Integrity?

I finally found time to watch Trump's State of the Union Speech. As my regular readers know, I was not a Trump supporter during the election and don't trust him farther than I could toss him with my two bad knees and galloping arthritis. But I found the speech laudable and found nothing troubling in it. A CNN guy said the speech was full of big words that Trump didn't understand, but in listening to it, I found his language very simple. In fact, if you stumble over any of Trump's word, you probably are not reading at a fifth grade level.  

I didn't agree with every policy in the speech, but even when he talked about things I oppose in principle, I had to agree with him when he talked about how he'd execute the solutions. Whatever you think of Trump, the big thing was that he delivered a clear message. What was funny was the Dan Rather commercial for his "journalistic Integrity" online course (which he is teaching). He said this last election convinced him that journalist integrity was threatened and that he should teach an ethics course for young journalists to save journalism.

If you remember, Dan Rather was forced to resign from Walter Cronkite's old job as evening news anchor because he made up a story about George W. Bush's National Guard Service using forged documents. That Rather would be whinging about journalistic integrity is monumentally laughable. One wonders if he realizes how silly it looks for him to be teaching ethics to journalists given his history.

© 2017 by Tom King

Progressives Aren't Liberals - Really? You're Kidding Right?

Woodrow Wilson - Godfather of Progressivism

A friend recently told me he would rather be a "progressive" than a "stick in the mud".  If he's referring to conservatives as "sticks in the mud", I would challenge that idea.  Then my friend added that "progressive" didn't mean "liberal".  Well if that's true, then progressives need to work on their advertising because in common parlance "progressive", "socialist", "liberal", and "Democrat" all mean practically the same thing or at least are as closely matched as "conservative" and "Republican".

AND conservatives are NOT stuck in the mud. We were once considered liberals. When the country was founded, the founding fathers were very much liberals. It was the American Tories (conservatives) who opposed the Revolution, even serving in the British Army to put down the rebellion. The liberal authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were heavily influenced by the philosophy of noted 18th century philosopher, John Locke, and others of the time. They believed in small government and that all men are created equal. They were against setting up a "noble" class, all except a few Federalists, who thought they ought to become a ruling nobility. Thanks to Jefferson and Washington and others, the idea of creating an American noble class was shot down. 

Later in the 1800s, upper class Americans came to consider themselves a breed apart - a new nobility if you will. They seized on the ideas of Charles Darwin to try and make the case that some folk were genetically superior to others and that those traits were passed down to their progeny. They latched on to socialist ideas propounded by Marx and Engels to justify the idea of an elite ruling class and a classless society or more accurately a single class proletariat which served the collectivist state ostensibly for their own good. Of course, it was clear to these earlier "progressives" that they should rule such a collectivist state, given their genetic intellectual superiority. This was, of course, for the people's own good. 

The Democrats seized on this because it fit the Southern notion that certain folk were naturally inferior to the upper classes and that these societal elites were chosen by God to rule. Actually, most of the upper classes didn't believe in God anyway. As American theologians more and more challenged that notion of the natural superiority of any particular class, the Democrats soon openly pushed aside the notion that God had anything to do with anything anyway and became the socialist, elitist, paternalistic, and damned near atheist political party that it is to day.

Early progressives under Teddy Roosevelt were well-intentioned and actually did some good for the working class. Unfortunately, the very people who were responsible for the exploitation of working Americans seized upon the movement as a means to convince the very people they exploited to embrace socialist style collectivism as a means to achieve freedom for all workers. The slave masters simply adopted a new racket to maintain their position and profitability. It wasn't long before progressives adopted the ideas of the eugenicists and began sterilizing the "mentally feeble" and passing laws to prevent certain immigrant races from owning land, putting quotas on certain racial immigrant groups and discouraging black migration from the South to the North. Progressives built statues of Mussolini at Rockefeller Center and praised Hitler and Stalin's policies and then smoothly morphed into patriots and New Dealers and tried to pretend they'd had nothing to do with their previous "progressive" ideas once it became clear that those were the ideas had bred monsters like Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler.

Democrat/progressive/liberal propaganda links these three nebulous ideologies into a single unified whole in the public mind. Conservatives and Republicans (at least up until the age of Trump) have been defenders of the idea of decentralized, limited government, individual rights and equal opportunity for all. Just because they call themselves "progressives" doesn't make them progressive. The ideals spelled out in the Declaration and the Constitution are as progressive now as they were then. Modern so-called progressivism is, in point of fact, entirely regressive, seeking to drive society backwards to the old feudal system of a one class peasantry (Marx called them the "proletariat") ruled over by an elite class of self-identified "leaders" who live in their dachas and mansions and rule over the human hive that socialism always tries to mold a society into.

The term "liberal" has come to mean the polar opposite of what it meant during the time of the Founding Fathers. In those days liberals believed in the rights of all men and women, equal opportunity, and the elimination of rule by elites. Today "liberal" according to its own advertising means a strong central government that doles out housing, medical care, jobs and opportunity as determined by central planners and a leader class which takes care of the proletariat while the proletariat collectively serves the state.

Like I said, if that's not what liberalism means, then they need to get themselves some new PR guys. What I hear from the left is that liberalism is about feeling good because you give your responsibility for your neighbor over to the government. To me it seems that all that does is make you feel okay about walking past your injured neighbor like the Pharisees of Jesus' parable, secure in the knowledge that he can go to a dot-gov website and apply for government aid if he needs help and you don't have to be bothered about his difficulties. 

© 2017 by Tom King