Friday, January 2, 2009

A Deadly Infection


Imagine an infection that not only represents a challenge to your body's immune system but that specifically targets and destroys disease-fighting cells, rendering your body almost defenseless. Such an infection would have catastrophic effects. You would inevitably begin to acquire other infections, and a whole range of common pathogens would suddenly become life-threatening. Because your immune system would become diminished in its ability to fight malignancy, you would also be susceptible to a host of exotic cancers. Your life expectancy would be measured in months, not decades.

Unfortunately, we don't have to imagine such an infection. We all know that HIV infection leads to AIDS and causes all of the dreadful problems described above. Hence, AIDS has became one of most frightening diseases of our time.

Our American society is suffering from an infection very much like HIV. Like HIV, the influence of radical leftists threatens to destroy our great civilization through an insidious process: weakening our nation's immune system. Our nation's immune system, the military, is responsible for protecting us from deadly threats all over the world. But the radical left isn't happy about that.  When our nation is at war with our enemies, they are at war with our military.  When our nation enjoys peace, they endeavor to dismantle the very entity responsible for the tranquility we enjoy.

Now we have a President who is of this leftist mindset. Of all the people in the world Obama could have chosen to befriend during his quest to acquire power, Obama has chosen to align himself with people who believe that America's might is one of the world's biggest problems. That concerns me greatly. Perhaps even more concerning is the fact that at least 50% of the electorate doesn't seem to care.

If the U.S. is weakened and is unable to continue to provide stability in this world, what nation will fill that void? Will the world descend into chaos?  

Barack Obama, George Soros, Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers: what are your thoughts on these questions?

More
  • Paul Jenkins: "Let's be thankful for one thing about Bush's presidency: the white male leadership of the Republican Party showed the world once and for all that its cronyism, corruption and discrimination completely outweighed any shred of competence." (Isn't this statement a little bit bigoted?)
  • Study: Teenage 'virginity pledges' are ineffective. Youths who promise abstinence are also less likely to use protection. (Well that settles it. Abstinence education is really stupid. Perhaps 'promiscuity pledges' would work better. While we're at it, let's get real about teen drinking and teen smoking. They're gonna do all this stuff anyway, so let's make sure they do it responsibly. Make sure the sixteen-year-old in your life knows that if he drinks, he needs a designated driver. If he smokes, he should only smoke organic pot.)
  • Y2K millennium bug: Nine years later, the catastrophic disaster finally strikes.

19 comments:

robert verdi said...

The racism in Jenkins statement is only equal to its stupidity.

Humble wife said...

During the Clinton Administration my husband was active duty Army. As an MP we moved many times in Europe as the drawdown of troops occurred and my husband and his unit provided security to near empty bases.

This drawdown was huge, and many of our friends took the buyout and left, even though they planned military careers. With Bush a build up occurred, and now once again we will see the American soldier destructed. Unlike with Clinton who had a self aggrandizing agenda- I see Obama as one who wishes to make America less and more equal to our peers in the world. So more than a drawdown will occur, I see an enlargement of UN peacekeepers filled by our soldiers-I see more foreign training and bases occurring here. Did you know that here in NM Germany has an airforce base? It was startling when we first moved here..as we are the US.

But now with the appeasement agenda, and the "perhaps we are the bad guy" things will be on a no return slope. I pray for the best, but fear that the America that I love is not going to be the same America for my grandkids...

Dan Trabue said...

You said:

Our American society is suffering from an infection very much like HIV. Like HIV, the influence of radical leftists threatens to destroy our great civilization through an insidious process: weakening our nation's immune system. Our nation's immune system, the military, is responsible for protecting us from deadly threats all over the world.

Wow. Comparing the "radical left" to HIV? Really?

I'd suggest that those who'd demonize our fellow citizens do more harm to our nation and the world than the "radical left" ever could.

I'd be interested in your definition of "radical left" - are you talking about the whole of the Left-ish side of the nation? Those Christians, Jews, atheists and others who deeply love our nation but are opposed to a gargantuan military (much like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) thinking that such a creation does more damage to our national security than helps - THOSE left?

Or do you mean some more extreme Leftists - those few who actually would embrace violence to destroy our nation?

For the most part (99%, I'd suggest) those who tend Left in our country love our nation and its ideals and that is why we tend towards the Left. If you want to suggest that it's only those truly few TRULY far left folks out there that you're talking about, then we have nothing to worry about, as their numbers are too small to be a serious problem.

But if you're comparing most of the Left (me, my children, my loving wife, my pastor, my deacons, many of my neighbors and most of my church family, etc, etc) with a disease, well, shame on you. That is the sort of ugly "conservatism" that has repelled so many people away from the Right.

Dan Trabue said...

And, Humble wife, I know of no one who is talking appeasement. I'd suggest we'd all be better off if we stuck to what those we disagree with are ACTUALLY saying/calling for, rather than making up false charges.

robert verdi said...

Dan
One of the elders statesmen of the left, DailyKos, made his bones with screw em, in response to Americans being ripped apart and then having their bodies burnt, why don't you take a look at the left and then get back to us.

Dan Trabue said...

And Daily Kos is, who? (I know it's a website, but is there an actual identifiable person there you're referencing and, if so, what is the actual quote?)

Quote me a legitimate person (someone with a name) who might be in the mainstream of the Left and we'll talk about their actual position based on their actual words.

In the meantime, it is ridiculous to claim that those on "the Left" are a deadly infection and this is the sort of viewpoint that isolates some of those on the Right as not serious representatives of American mainstream thought.

robert verdi said...

Dan,
Dan, look for your self. While your at why don't you study the people who used Sarah Palin's special needs child as a weapon against her.

RightKlik said...

In defining the radical left, examples would include: George Soros, Jeremiah Wright, and Bill Ayers.

Dan Trabue said...

I'm not sure what quotes or opinions Soros might have that you would object to. I just don't know that much about him.

Wright is a minister who by nearly all accounts who has been a marvelous man of God for his whole life, serving the needs of the least of these in the steps of Christ WHO NONETHELESS said several paragraphs worth of incredibly stupid stuff - un-PC stuff - in his lifetime of good works, or so it seems from what I've read. I'm not prepared to condemn a man for a handful of inflammatory statements in a lifetime. He does not strike me as a deadly infection and shame on you for letting a few words call him such a horrible thing.

Ayers is NOT a Left-ish leader or representative of the Left in the US. Rather, he is someone who, as a young man embraced (very wrongly) violence to oppose a legitimate injustice. His embrace of terrorism (or "terrorism-lite" since he specifically strove to avoid deadly violence) puts him way outside of the mainstream Left, which tends towards the more peaceable side of conflict resolution.

It DOES, however, place him closer to the G Gordon Liddy's and Oliver Norths of the Right who are willing to embrace deadly violence in their efforts to stop what they consider wrong.

Your three examples are not very representative of the Left that I know.

IF you'd like to join with me in rejecting the violence and idiocy of the Ayers, Norths and Liddys who embrace violence much too readily, I will join you in calling that sort of behavior a deadly infection. But the extreme stupidity of young Ayers and North/Liddy are not the domain of the Left alone. That level of infection is found amongst the extremes on both the Right and Left.

You would have more credibility if you reserved that sort of demonization (they're like AIDS!) for the truly stupid on both sides of the aisle instead of trying to blanket condemn a whole group of people.

robert verdi said...

Dan.
You left out Wright also scored a million dollar home in a gated community for preaching hatred and racism, which apparently you are either ignorant of or indifferent to.

Dan Trabue said...

I don't appreciate so much when ministers like Falwell, Bakker or Wright get extremely rich, but that's really between them and their congregations. I have not made an issue of Falwell or Bakker's excesses so much and I haven't made an issue of Wright's wealth, either.

If anyone asks me, I will tell them that any minister becoming a millionaire would be disconcerting to me, but that is rather an aside, unless you are interesting in castigating the wealthy - which is not the topic of the post here.

Clearly, if you look at the Rev. Wright's many years of ministry, you can see that he is not a racist or generally hateful. He DID make several (five? six?) really hateful and unfounded comments in his decades of service to God and he has been condemned for that. But are you really interested in calling each minister who has made five or six bad comments in their lifetimes "a deadly infection" upon our land?

Where is your condemnation for Falwell, then? Or many of the other Right wing preachers who have made stupid comments? Are you calling ALL stupid commenters "a deadly infection" or merely those on the Left? If only the Left, then you open yourself to charges of hypocrisy.

Again, if you want to condemn excesses - on the Left and Right - I will join with you, as will my many Leftish friends. But I would not generalize to suggest that "the Right" are a deadly infection. I wouldn't even say that of Falwell or his cohorts. I would just condemn their wrong statements when they make them.

I would hope that others would display the same grace.

Anonymous said...

Dan Trabue, you seem so quick to judge "Rightklik" upon his/her accusations against Jeremiah Wright, yet you still support Wright. Are you too blind to see the hpocrisy in that.

Dan Trabue said...

I'm not at all clear on what you mean.

I agree that Wright said some bad things. He ought to be condemned for those things he said, for they were wrong.

That is not defending Wright.

On the other hand, those were a few words in a lifetime of good ministry. What I am saying is that it is this sort of hyperbole - "Wright said 100 bad words in 30 years of ministry, therefore he is a racist, hateful and a deadly infection like AIDS" - that puts people off on that segment of the Right that behaves thusly.

How is that hypocrisy?

I'm speaking to a very specific action on the part of RK - calling whole groups of people "a deadly infection" - suggesting, 1. That THAT specific action is wrong and 2. that this sort of behavior is what has caused Republican support to dwindle, in my opinion.

I'm not saying that Right Klick is a racist, a bad person, or a disease. I'm merely addressing one specific action.

Wherein is the hypocrisy?

Dan Trabue said...

Let me be clear: I intend no offense in my words.

When I first began visiting here, I thought you all were interested in hearing what the "other side" was thinking. I'm telling you what at least some of us out here are thinking when we hear such inflammatory words.

If I have caused offense, I apologize.

robert verdi said...

dan,
I am not offended by your comments and I would recommend you keep posting here.

RightKlik said...

Take home points: A strong military is like a strong immune system. A weak military is like a weak immune system. If our military does not remain strong, there will be catastrophic consequences for this nation and for nations all over the world. The radical left in this country wants to weaken our nation's immune system. That is a BIG problem. The HIV/AIDS analogy is simple, clear and appropriate.

Dan Trabue said...

RightK said:

A strong military is like a strong immune system. A weak military is like a weak immune system. If our military does not remain strong, there will be catastrophic consequences for this nation and for nations all over the world.

1. This begs the question: How big is a strong military? Patriotic, US-loving progressives and liberals think our military is so large that it is not strong. You can't throw money at problems to solve them, or at least that's what we're told when we're talking school budgets and social needs.

2. This sort of talk seems to suggest a different sort of conservatism than has been traditionally realized: This is the Neo-con belief - BIG gov't solutions when it comes to our military. Many US-loving, church-going mothers, fathers and grandparents disagree with this Big gov't approach.

Thanks Robert, for the invitation to hang around.

RightKlik said...

Comments are always welcome and appreciated on this blog. I draw the line with death threats and comments loaded with F-bombs (these comments are promptly deleted). Everything else is OK.

HW: I did not know about the German air force base. Very interesting.

DT: I'm always in favor of lean, efficent government. As a champion of small government, I'm sure you're happy to know that we only spend about 4% of GDP on military expenditures.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html

Dan Trabue said...

Well, if that's the case (that we only spend 4% of the GDP on military), then I reckon we must only spend .1% (or something like that) on welfare, since we're spending nearly $1 Trillion a year on the military and ~$25 billion on TANF (welfare).

But, no, I'm not happy that we're spending so much on the military - nearly more than the rest of the world combined. We have a bloated military and that ties up resources that could be better used to promote our national security.

Overgrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

~George Washington

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes...known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. ... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

~James Madison