Pandering Ends; Minorities Hardest Hit

From my reading of this article "Many factors fed housing breakdown", about the causes of the mortgage sub-prime market hysteria, it basically boils down to two factors: greed and social engineering.

If you're like me, you're not shocked by the first, but amazed by the second.

Greed

Market speculators wanted a higher return. Who doesn't? So, this pressured lenders into accepting more risk.

A smart lender would examine this equation and say "more risk for me might not be a good trade, even with higher loan revenues". Other lenders might say "Screw risk! Higher returns, baby!"

Huge losses and hilarity ensue.

Social Engineering. Or, the World As We Wish It Were, Instead of As It Is

The Federal Reserve wanted to increase rates of home ownership among minorities, which are apparently historically lower.

But hold on, you might say. Why were they historically lower? Is it because the mortgages were deemed too risky? If so, then does it make sense to just ignore that risk in hopes that somehow they won't be risky any more? And wouldn't that just be plain old "wishing and hoping"? And aren't lenders of other people's money are supposed to be a bit more rigorous than that?

Apparently, being a loan officer is a little more whimsical than I'd previously thought.

I also hadn't realized that the Fed was now in the business of fine-tuning home ownership rates by race instead of by creditworthiness. Who knew?

So there you have it.

Old Fashioned Greed, united in common cause with Helping a Brotha Out. Making folks feel good *and* returning higher cash flow!

Until that ugly risk kicks in the door. Ugh. Bummer.

So this would explain then, at least in part, why minorities are "hardest hit". They were also being pandered to, and over-qualified by their lenders. Set up for failure, in other words.

As past credit checks had apparently predicted, if reality counts for anything these days.

Thank God, the hugging nightmare is over!

Maybe schools could focus on educating our children instead of ... oh, I don't know ... making up stupid rules like "no hugging"? And then invoking said rule to suspend a 13 year old girl for hugging a friend goodbye on a Friday afternoon?

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see much good that can come from rules like :

"Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved."

Let's talk about poor taste, and poor judgment, for a minute.

For the purposes of discussion only, we'll go way, way out on a limb and stipulate that school boards have any business at all making rules, for other people's children, about a perfectly legal, moral, innocent, personal behavior like hugging. Let's go even further out on that limb and assume that school boards have attained such educational heights with their student populations, and have so few issues on campus left to solve, that they have valuable time to spend looking into the "hugging problem", and to formulate policy on it.

So if school boards are now in the business of taste, and judgment, why haven't they done anything about 13 year old girls dressing like sluts, and 13 year old boys dressing like prison thugs with their pants pulled halfway off?

Scumbags like this ...

(link) ... are why lynch mobs were invented.

Michael Rebecca is "one of the most narcissistic, manipulative and perverted individuals we have ever seen," Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran said Monday.

Rebecca, 50, of 750 Court of Birch, Apt. 1, Vernon Hills, faces four charges of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, State's Attorney Michael Waller said, and will likely face many more.

Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. Because two victims were 11 years old, Waller said, Rebecca is eligible for life in prison.

Authorities say Rebecca told police he met his initial victim, a boy who was then 11 years old, in 2003 while working with a relative of the child.

That boy introduced him to others, police said Rebecca told them, and soon there were at least nine members of Rebecca's sex club.

Police said the boys were 11 to 13 years old when they first connected with Rebecca. They live in Buffalo Grove, Wheeling, Arlington Heights, Prospect Heights and Elk Grove Village.

They spent weekends and longer with Rebecca because he was able to gain the trust of their families, Waller said.

"People who do this are very good at picking their victims and picking their victims' parents," Waller said. "When presented the opportunity to leave your child for the weekend with a 50-year-old man, most of us would say no, but these parents did not."

Boys were initiated into the club when Rebecca would strike them lightly with a gavel that police found during a search of his home, police said.

There were hundreds of sex acts between Rebecca and the boys over the years, police said, and at least two of the nine victims known to police said they had sex with Rebecca more than 50 times.

Police said he designed games around sex acts for the boys to play, such as "black light," in which Rebecca would turn on a black light outside his bedroom when he wanted to have sex.

The boys were ranked inside the club at various levels, police said, and those at the highest levels were allowed to spend more time with Rebecca than those at lower levels.

Rebecca, a computer programmer, plied his victims with money and electronic gifts, such as iPods, iPhones and computer games, police said, and allowed them to watch pornography at his home.

Investigators became involved when a 16-year-old boy who was feeling suicidal went to the sheriff's office and detailed his relationship with Rebecca.

Rebecca was taken into custody in Chicago late Friday afternoon and spent the weekend giving police the names of eight additional victims and details of his activities, police said.

In the search of Rebecca's home, police seized seven computers, nine independent hard drives and dozens of compact discs that are undergoing analysis.

Curran said police are concerned there may be additional victims and encouraged anyone with information about Rebecca to contact the sheriff's office, Vernon Hills police or the state's attorney's office.

Congressional Medal of Honor Awarded to Lt. Michael Murphy

I'll wager that most folks, unless they explicitly follow military matters in the news, are not even aware that a U.S. Navy SEAL named Lieutenant Michael Patrick Murphy was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on Oct. 22.

The Navy has erected an entire website in Lt. Murphy's honor. Please, go read about him, and about his life, and about his sacrifice.

Basically, he completely ignored any risk to himself in order to do his duty, to save the lives of his team.

If you're like me, you didn't notice the front page news stories, or the tributes on the evening news. Maybe they had some, I don't know. But if they did, it didn't cause much of a ripple in the public consciousness.

This is stunning. The lack of public acknowledgement and regard for his heroism, and his valor, in the cause of freedom. It doesn't reflect well on us as a people, I'm sad to say.

The Congressional Medal of Honor is the "highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States". It's a big deal, a very, very big deal.

Yet out here in the real world, nobody seems to talk about it, or read about it, or even know about it. We as Americans should know about it, and we should care about it, because part of the reason that brave and admirable young men and women like Lt. Murphy sometimes give their lives is because of who we are, and what we stand for.

They wouldn't bother joining the service in the first place if we didn't have something worth fighting for, here.

Recently, Ken Burns' "The War" was on PBS, amid great fanfare, and I'm sure it got great ratings. I watched much of it myself. Burns did a fine job of showing the horror of war, and the sacrifices made by so many brave young men and women. Over and over, we heard about both civilians and military folk bearing great personal burdens, and sometimes giving their lives, in order to advance the larger cause.

And yet I have to wonder, how many of those watching it realized that 61 years after D-Day, we have other young people making the same sacrifices today? Does Burns himself even realize it? Does PBS? If so, why the hagiography only for heroes from 60 years ago? Where are the stories about today's heroes?

But enough about that. Now is the time to read this fine account of Lt. Murphy's story, and then take a few seconds to thank God that others do our fighting for us. It's hearing stories like his that give me hope for our future as a culture.

Godspeed, Lt. Murphy. My sincere condolences to all his family and friends.

Headline Arguments

I'll Provide Context, Since the Media Refuses To

In my local paper on a Sunday not long ago, on page 2, there appeared the two following AP articles, one just above and to the left of the other:

• Anti-war rally draws actors, thousands
• Iran official: centrifuge installation under way

Two articles, arguging with each other. Gotta love that. It's almost like an argument in your own head, between your emotional side and your rational side.

Emotional side: "Speak Truth to Power, Man!" "No Blood for Oil!" "Bush Lied! People Died!"

Rational side: "Um, excuse me, when you're done ranting, we have this little problem over here that might need some attention. Unless you're cool with insane power-mad delusional Armageddon-preaching halfwits acquiring nuclear ballistic missiles that can reach thousands of miles. Totally up to you."

Ah, the sweet smell of pacifism. And hippies. But then, what is the difference?

And while we all have a soft spot in our hearts, and therefore our heads, for the supposed nobility of pacifism, it is also undeniably a moral choice. And, as with all moral choices, there are inevitable consequences. One consequence of pacifism is to implicitly allow other nations to do whatever the hell they want tomorrow, by avoiding confrontation today. AKA, kicking the can down the road. And when war comes, as it inevitably does, it is on the enemy's timetable. And then you either fight them on their terms, or you surrender.

This is what pacifism is, whether one is for or against it.

And make no mistake: "anti-war" is just another name for pacifism. It is a charade, an end-around the somewhat distasteful social label, the implied cowardice, of the word "pacifist".

Nearly everybody in the free world is anti-war, in the sense that they aren't "pro-war". Nobody is -- practically speaking -- "pro-war". It is never the first option on the table in any sensible foreign policy discussion among free peoples, because it is expensive in both dollars and lives. Everybody understands this, even those who don't label themselves "anti-war" while preening for cameras.

So all those who use the "anti-war" label approvingly are playing games with us. And they must think we are unbelievably stupid. The philosophy they present is that of someone who supports a theoretical war that is quick, decisive, casualty-free, atrocity-free, morally unambiguous, and victorious. Violation of any of these conditions, of course, renders the entire war unjust.

And God forbid, don't show them any pictures of civilians dying - especially children - or that will be the end of their support. Implicit in their simplistic world view is the idea that no good can come from anything where innocent people sometimes die.

Meanwhile, back here in the real world, wars are rarely so clearly and easily judged. In other words, it takes no subtlety whatsoever to navigate these ethical waters, no bravery to declare support for such wars. Partly because there really aren't any such wars.

Which, BINGO!, that is the whole point. They only support wars that are impossible in the real world.

And the unspoken subtext, if we could get these people to psychotherapy for three years or so, is: "It doesn't affect me personally, because I have a cushy life protected by the sacrifices of others, and other poor unfortunate dumbshits will be doing the fighting anyway. So to the extent that I am comfortable, war is not something I wish to pursue at this time, not a burden I am willing to bear."

Which, I guess, there is nothing explicitly wrong with that, if you're OK with announcing yourself as a self-centered twit who doesn't value your own freedom enough to fight for it, and can't be bothered to disrupt your pursuit of wealth for a while in order to help provide some measure of wealth for future generations, including possibly your own offspring. Hey, whatever. Walk like a duck, talk like a duck, guess what? Duck!

But this is the problem, right here. Those who wear the "anti-war" mantle with pride are too pampered, wealthy, and self-obsessed to admit even to themselves that this is who they are, and what they stand for. They refuse to acknowledge that there are causes that might be bigger than themselves, such as a threat to the survival of their society.

Just admit it! Man up, you pampered cowards! Yes, you too, Sheryl Crowe! Quit the pretending that there is any type of real-world, tough-it-out, long slog, fight for freedom type of war that you would endorse. Call yourselves what you are: pacifists.

There ... that wasn't so horrible, was it? And now, that will allow the rest of us to easily differentiate ourselves from you, as non-pacifists who see tough times ahead because we don't care to give in to terrorists as some societies have apparently chosen to do.

And remember what Orwell said about pacifists of the 1940s: objectively pro-fascist. In other words, by not fighting for your side, you are weakening your side, which is admitting you either don't want your side to win, or you actively want the other side to win. There is no third outcome, unlike in Hippy-Dippy Pacifist Land, where war doesn't exist, and if it did, everybody would quit, drop their arms, run home and pour a Big Tall Glass of I'm Too Stupid To Fight For My Own Survival.

As such, it doesn't seem that the actions and motives of pacifists can be distinguished from the enemy's actions and motives, in the psychological warfare that always accompanies true warfare.

The fact that the Soviets funded the nuclear freeze movement of the 70s and 80s is illustration of this point.

This lack of context provided by our "anti-war" pacifist friends introduces some complications into the moral calculus.

So nations like Iran exploit this uniquely Western delusion of pacifism, just like Hitler did in Munich 1938. As Churchill said (something like), "Given a choice between dishonor and war, you chose dishonor. You shall have both."

Not much has really changed since then. The European post-WWI model, where diplomacy is seen as always superior to war, even if diplomacy allows bad actors to rape, murder, and plunder as they choose, has completely taken over the Western world. The fact that WWI was a European war, caused by European pathologies (especially imperialism), and that their fix for their problems not only didn't work back then, for them, but is entirely inappropriate for U.S. problems, or for the world as it exists today, does not seem to register.

If ever there was a case where diplomacy alone, when not backed by the threat of force, directly caused a bad actor like Hitler, Mugabe, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, Ahmedinejad, or anybody else to reconsider their evil ways and become a reasonable person, and renounce aggression, I'd love to hear about it.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if the brave "actors and thousands" could be honest with us and with themselves, they will admit that they have no freaking idea what to do about any of this Iran nuclear stuff. Besides, of course, the usual diplomatic solutions they always advocate, which are a three-stage exercise: (1) preening and patting oneself on the back by pretending that discussions have a realistic chance to contain bad actors, and then (2) washing your hands of the whole mess, which ensures (3) more killing, enslavement, and exploitation by someone, somewhere (maybe even of you, by them).

AKA, kicking the can down the road.

In case facts count for anything, Iran's leader Ahmedinejad talks like Hitler, and is on record calling for the destruction of Israel. Bonus points to those who make the obvious leap to concluding that the West in general would be next, once Iran has nukes. Iran itself has been running proxy wars and terror campaigns for decades, and is one of the two prime sources of arming and organizing today's Iraq conflict (with Saudi Arabia), and is the home of Islamic fundamentalists and anti-American (and anti-West) hatred. Iran has seen the way Iraq and other nations have gamed the UN and the IAEA for decades, buying time with ridiculous diplomatic chicanery that the West naively hopes will lead somewhere useful.

These are people we should negotiate with? To what end? So we can pretend the Iranians are not running time off the clock via endless rounds of diplomacy, until they can activate some plot to set off dirty bombs in 5 or 10 cities simultaneously, via proxies who are probably already here?

Earth to fans of diplomacy: usually diplomacy is nothing more than a cynical tactic to buy time in order to gain advantage. Without a credible threat of force to back it up, it is just exactly like whistling past graveyards.

And while all this goes on largely ignored in the West -- we're too busy blaming presidents and taking freedoms for granted and staging idiotic rallies -- we can't say we weren't warned.

It may come as a shock to the "actors and thousands", but most people are in fact anti-war. But this is not the same as being a pacifist who will always sacrifice long-term security for short term peace. There is a big difference.

And as for these "anti-war" rallies, I'd love to hear about their plans for what to do, rather than what not to do. I'm already down with the anti-war thing, but I'm not nearly so enthused about sitting idly by while certain proven evil, terrorist, murdering scumbags work on their nuclear armaments, in possible preparation for our destruction.

Just In Case You're Wondering What Evil Looks Like

This pretty much covers it:

A technique we saw this weekend is we saw a vehicle with two children in the back seat come up to one of our checkpoints, get stopped by our folks. Children in the back seat lower suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle. The adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back.

A couple of terrorist scumbags in Baghdad, so desperate to break through security checkpoints that they resort to using kids as cover. They get through; then they run from the car and blow it up, with the kids sitting inside.

This is clearly sub-human. What can you say? It's off the charts. There is no degree of evil to which you can "advance" from here.

This happened in March of '07. It is now November.

Yet, that is an official DOD press release I linked up there. Press releases are for, you know, the press.

It's spoon-feeding of pre-packaged news items for reporters.

Yet, no coverage in any mainstream press outlet. Except for this lone Washington Post story, which failed to generate any buzz at all.

And I don't recall any public pronouncements by any brave anti-war politicians on this atrocity. Oh, right, Nancy Pelosi went to Syria to consort with the murderous regime that has been sending terrorists and cash and IEDs into Iraq to blow up our troops. But she meant well.

Where are all the anti-war liberal celebrities and do-gooders on this sub-human behavior? If there is anything that a terrorist can do that can cause liberals in the West to loudly and provocatively condemn them, they apparently haven't yet seen it. Sawing off the heads of live people on video? Nope. Blowing up kids at ice cream parlors? No sir. Using little girls in schoolyards as human shields? Uh-uh.

Yet an overblown frat party like Abu Ghraib gets them all sideways. Self-important twits like Dick Durbin compare our military to Stalin and Pol Pot, yet I don't recall his opinions being offered on any of the multiple victims of beheading. Countless "experts" weigh in on supposed American violations of the Geneva Conventions, and "torture", yet have nothing of import to say when terrorists use civilian cover to blow up innocent people, or to attack our troops, who are risking their own lives to bring freedom to others. And if we have to use the word "torture" to describe sleep deprivation and isolation and 5,000 calorie per day religion-sensitive diets that lead to weight gain, then the word has no meaning, any more.

So, let's just put our cards on the table, for once. All the obfuscation is making me tired. It is self-evident that "anti-war" folks are more interested in the United States losing than in any other possible outcome, regardless of consequence.

This is quite distinct from being "anti-war", or even from being liberal.