The Pendragon's Hall

When, oh when, will the Republicans learn to use the club on recalcitrant Democrats? They still govern like a minority Party. Big news today is that House Republicans reversed the ethics rule change that Democrats were charging was meant to protect Tom DeLay from investigation. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out, Jim McDermott, a Democrat, is also under investigation and would have benefited from this rule change as well. The 2o Republicans who voted against the reversal were right: the American people elected them to be a majority party and they're not really acting like it. I realized recently I probably shouldn't run for any major office (in fact I probably shouldn't be allowed even to be President of the College Republicans) because I allowed Houghton College to arrange and in some ways even finance, through my financial aid, a semester-long trip to Europe that they hoped would change my mind on everything I believe. That's the whole point of sending Christian students to London anyway. This is really all Tom DeLay has done--if he has even done that much. The hypocrisy of the Left on this issue is just mind-boggling, not that it should be by now. Rep. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the committee, said, "To this point the speaker's actions have been positive. The proposal will be considered and evaluated by the bipartisan yardstick.'' This is compromise to a Democrat--give us everything we want and we'll tolerate you being in office till the next election when we try to kick you out. Nancy Pelosi (House Minority Leader) said the Republican reversal was "a victory for the American people. Americans understood what was at stake - the integrity of the House - and in one voice demanded that the House return to a credible, viable and nonpartisan ethics process.'' Credible, viable and nonpartisan eh? Like when House Democrats voted to keep a felon in office simple because he belonged to their Party? Bill Clinton did a little more than "take trips financed by special interest groups." I really wish the Republicans would get their act together and call the Democrats' bluff. Let the American people see Democrats continuing to try and hinder the government from doing its job--it hasn't worked real well for them these past six or eight years. Still, I have to hand it to House Speaker Dennis Hastert; his offer to reverse the rule change told Democrats that the old way would be restored "with all the unfairness in place." Bully for Denny!

I also noted in passing a headline that the NDP leader in Canada is criticizing the Conservatives (big surprise!) for being in bed with the Bloc on the upcoming budget vote. Hypocritical Leftists know no country, do they? He's in bed with the corrupt Liberal government but all he can talk about is the alliance between Conservatives and Separatists on an issue they both agree on--less government control. What was it Jesus said about not being able to see the plank in your own eye because you were focused on the speck in your brother's eye?

I rarely make forays into foreign politics--for one thing, only smug, liberal know-it-alls do that on a regular basis (Exhibit A--Michael Moore). But I have some rather personal ties to Canada right now so a definite interest in what goes on there. I was reading last night how the Liberals gave the NDP (for non-Canadians this is the far-left socialist party, equivalent to our Greens) almost 4.6 billion dollars in spending for the next budget so that they can pass the bill and keep their government in existence. The NDP leader says it is "an agreement in principle." Translation: we're just the same as they are. He might want to think about the implications of that, considering the Liberals are being investigated for corruption. But then again, all Leftists are alike--spending is what they do best. Abraham Lincoln once identified the slave-owner mentality as the idea "that says, 'You sweat and labor and make your bread, and I'll eat it!'" I leave the parallels to your own imagination. According to the news story last night, even with NDP support and two Independents likely to side with the Liberals, the vote count should still stand at 154-153 against the Liberal budget, at least if the Bloc can be counted on and I suspect it can be for this at least. Then it will be up to the Canadian voter. This is not tremendously reassuring, but still....Here's hoping they do the right thing. Besides, I'm hoping a new government means Bush goes to Ottawa again and I can come visit!

Your Inner European is Italian!

Passionate and colorful. You show the world what culture really is.

It is a little early, I know, but the blog Blue State Conservatives has started discussing the 2006 congressional elections so this blue state conservative thought he'd weigh in a bit too. Blue State was discussing which senatorial seats might be open for successful GOP bids--they suggested Minnesota and Vermont. I think New York's will be. You should all know by now that I don't share my fellow conservatives' dread that Hillary Clinton is all but inaugurated and the only hope of a failing Republican Party is dear old Condi Rice who must come and save us from a fate worse than death. (Although I do agree that Condi would be a very strong candidate.) Frankly, I just don't think Hillary is that strong. Her old enemy Howard Dean is now in charge of the DNC, thus all but ensuring that the likes of John Kerry and Ted Kennedy continue to dominate the Party. The Clinton machine is breaking down, not that it couldn't be revitalized in time for a successful Hillary presidential bid in 2008 (let us not be cocky).

What does this mean for the New York Senate seat race in 2006? Well, first of all, since it's only a New York race and Condi is busy running the State Department (and doing a fine job too, I might add), she's not an option. But the names I'm hearing bantered around sound like they would be very strong candidates to oppose and possibly defeat Hillary in her re-election bid. Colin Powell is one: a very popular "centrist" Republican with broad support and a character nobody, not even the British, likes to attack, he could certainly dodge a lot of bullets and put paid to Hillary. Rudy Giuliani is another: he is very popular in the city as well as the state. George Pataki, our current governor, is yet another. I don't like him much, but he is very popular in the state at large (he's been elected governor three times) and I'd vote for him in a heartbeat over Hillary Clinton. Now, there is something to notice: these men are all RINO's (Republican In Name Only), and as such would doubtless be challenged from the Right by a Conservative Party candidate, much as Howard Mills was this past time (did anyone besides me vote for him?), ensuring Chuck Schumer's landslide victory. If either of these three men throw their hat in the ring against Hillary you will see this page cease to criticize him, and I will push for his election with might and main, as a Hillary defeat in 2006 will further undermine her already tenuous presidential ambitions. I think the liberal hegemony in the northeast is crumbling and a determined push by the Republican Party could restore some two-party balance to the region. After all Bush finished with 40% of the vote in New York this last year, up significantly from the year 2000. In 2000, may I add, he was running against a southerner not against a neighbor, and still he did better in New York. In Massachusetts Bush finished up six points from 2000, even though in 2004 he was opposing a native son (anyone remember the native son's name?). He lost Pennsylvania by roughly 2 percentage points in 2004, up again from 2000, showing that his hard work there nearly paid off. He also made a minor push in New Jersey and again increased his vote count, in what has been described as "the bluest state in the Union" and which Al Gore, who couldn't even win his home state, carried by 16 points in 2000. We northeasterners are fed up with living in a liberal wonderland and I think it is self-defeating that Republicans are not actually making an effort to win and hold senate seats in this region. Take the battle to the enemy, for heaven's sake, before they take the battle to you. Run strong popular candidates and watch the voting numbers swing. Make liberals fight to hold onto the northeast, and they won't have time, energy or money for continuing their incursions into the south. I believe Hillary's defeat in 2006 is of utmost importance for conservatives, and I don't really believe it would be all that hard. My pick? Rudy Giuliani.

And so the Catholic Church has a new head and not one to the liking of the Left. He won my support, just for that. Of course they will undoubtedly never forget to bring up his youthful participation in Hitler Youth, although even the ADL has said he "atoned" for that many times over by his attempts to bridge the gap between Jews and Catholics in Germany since the War. You'd think this would earn him plaudits from the tolerance crowd for attempting to reach out to those outside the faith but Jews are another group the status quo doesn't mind discriminating against, all their associations of the Right and Nazis to the contrary. No, the Left is not happy about this pick. They comfort themselves with his age (he just turned 78) and tell each other that the Church picked him as a sort of "stop-gap"--a temporary conservative filler while they prepare the Church for modernization with the next Pope, who will undoubtedly be needed soon. Then they can pick a pope they like better--one from Nigeria or Argentina or whatever country the Left thinks has better claim than Germany. Personally I'm kind of sympathetic to the idea that the next Pope should be from a non-Western country since they have all the Christians, but I think the Left will find itself sadly disillusioned if, after the death of Benedict XVI, a Nigerian pope is chosen. I think they will find the African Church, while being non-traditional in worship style and dynamism perhaps, is actually far more conservative than the western church in areas of morality. The reason being, African Christians are in a toe to toe struggle with Islam, and they hear repeatedly that the sins of the West make Christianity a decadent religion, so there is no way they are going to compromise with homosexuality or any such thing! I applaud the Catholic Church's decision for picking someone to lead their Church, not to water down Christianity even further.

There's an interesting story developing in the Far East that I rather intended to blog about earlier than this but events ruled otherwise. There is a growing dispute between China and Japan, ostensibly about an historical textbook published in Japan, although I agree with Chrenkoff that it's more about China flexing its new muscles rather than an actual argument about historical facts. The facts are these: the recently published history textbook in Japan glosses over (to put it lightly) the barbaric details of the Rape of Nanking. They still refer to it as Japan's "liberation" of China--a liberation in which over ten million people died, I might add. The Chinese are upset about that and millions of them are protesting the new Japanese ambassador in the streets of Beijing. It is a strange thing that Japan, while pretending to be a western country, does not have the sense of shame that western countries have for their history. Europe thinks it should apologize for the Crusades. The US thinks they should repay black immigrants from Africa for what people in no way related to them suffered during slavery. The Japanese think they "liberated" southeast Asia.

Now I wonder a bit how this becomes a diplomatic issue, but I feel torn. Japan has been a good ally to the US and deserves our support in any contest with our enemy China. Nevertheless China has a valid point (if, at least, that's really what this is all about). Of course, the Chinese haven't exactly been honest about their own history. But still, one needs to sympathize with them. It's like a new book about US History describing the "enlightened bondage" of the southern slaves. Or a new book on Islamic History not talking about the wars that prompted the Crusades or the religion of the 9/11 hijackers. Oh wait. Islamic textbooks already don't. But if one is going to teach history, one must teach it rightly. It doesn't mean that we must attack and undermine everything. That is, "History of the US" need not become "History of African-Americans and Their Misery." But it should be taught, warts and all. C.S. Lewis has an interesting comment concerning this in his book The Four Loves:

I guess I'm going to have to say something about this. There's an article here dealing with the lapse of justice in the US and I think, for one, they are right on. About this whole minutemen thing: I at least am glad the Left did not exist in this country till the 1960s or America would never have existed either. For those of you who haven't been following, these minutemen are American citizens who have decided not to wait for the government to fulfill its long-neglected promise to protect our borders and have volunteered themselves to serve without pay as unofficial border guards. All that I have read says they have not threatened or harmed anyone. They simply stalk the illegal aliens stealing in and report them to the actual border guards who then make the arrests. They are roundly condemned by the government of Mexico and even President Bush has referred to them as "vigilantes" as if what they are doing is somehow extra-legal or even illegal. Nor will he, at least according to this article, refer to the Mexican invasion as anything illegal in and of itself. Stand back, folks, this one's going to get ugly....What is your problem, President Bush? Your administration has done nothing to stop this problem. Instead you've been championing ideas of allowing illegals to become legal after the fact regardless of how they got here. How is this different from Clinton? These people are just getting very fed up with the worthless job their government is doing to actually protect them from illegal immigrants. And you call them "vigilantes." The Mexican government is not our friend, and their people pour over the borders every year. And everytime people cry to the government, they get the same answer: "We don't have the manpower or the money." Well, you can't use that excuse anymore, can you? Maybe that's why you don't like it. By all means, condemn excess--if a minuteman gets over-zealous and shoots an illegal, rein it in. But peaceable activity to do what the government should be doing and isn't should be encouraged. This all part of the active, informed citizenship that you will need and say that you want to protect this country from terrorists. I worry about this failure on the part of the current administration. I worry about longterm consequences too. If Republicans do not step forward now and actively govern the way the people concerned want them to govern, they will need to watch out in 2008 because we could end up with a one-issue third party candidate splitting the Republican vote by taking a strong stand on illegal immigration and, just like last time, a Clinton could steal into the office. Don't risk it.

Just when I thought they couldn't sink any lower.... My "Christian" college today hosted an "Earth Day" chapel. I'm all for protecting the environment and if the so-called Green Party ever actually was "green" for the environment and not simply for money for their radical left-wing agenda I might listen once in awhile. But these wackos have gone too far. CNN reported last night that courageous volunteers are wading out 24/7 to rescue some beached dolphins and make sure they don't starve to death or drown while they are trapped. They're even feeding them through a stinking feeding tube! I thought that starvation produced euphoria and what if the dolphins told somebody awhile ago that they wanted to die that way? The respect for animal life but not for human is just unbelieveable.

Something else annoying me right now: the idiocy of the Left when dealing with Tom DeLay. Some know-it-alls on the other sound have moaned about DeLay's request that Congress rein in activist judges (play whiny sniveling voice here): Oh, he's urging violence against judges who disagree with him. Just one more instance of the Left imprinting its own attitude and way of doing things on its opponents. Oh please, who are the people circulating shirts that say: "Tom DeLay: Commit suicide, please. Signed, everyone." Or "For God's Sake, Kill Bush." It's true. Neoconservatives have an understanding that reining in or stopping someone can be done short of murder. Leftists don't. If neoconservatives were eager to knock off their enemies, or people who disagree with them, do you think Hillary Clinton would still be alive? Or Bill? Or AlGore? Or John Kerry? Or the NYT editorial board? Or Michael Moore? There's an awful lot of jabbering Leftists living and breathing if we're really as good and desperate as the Left thinks.

I learned in chapel yesterday that during soccer games in Scotland the other day there was supposed to be a moment of silence for John Paul II and it was drowned out by the jeers of the "Protestant" crowd members. How they found out they were Protestant I don't know and they rightly were denigrated. It's a disgraceful show. I don't think I'd even violate a moment of silence for Jimmy Carter--ah, ah, well I'm not promising anything. It doesn't surprise me it happened in Britain; those people are Philistines all of them, obsessed with their soccer to the exclusion of all else. What I'm wondering is: was it really the "Protestant" element in the crowd that did this or was it the all-too-common-especially-in-Britain "agnostic" group? It's easy to look at people are who anti-Catholic and immediately classify them as Protestants but more often than not, you'll find they just don't like Christians at all, and Catholics especially. Anti-Catholic prejudice has well been named "the last acceptable bigotry" and if you said about blacks, homosexuals, or women half the things that are said with impunity about Catholics you'd be sued for everything you own, including your birth certificate. Evangelicals and Catholics ought to be driven together, you'd think, by their common mistreatment at the hands of "the rest of the world." That we haven't been may be tribute to the words of the Elf-Lords in "Lord of the Rings": "Indeed in nothing is the power of the enemy shown so much than in the estrangement of those who oppose him."

Sometimes, much as I love the Yankees, I am ashamed of my home state. Particularly our politicians. Congressman Charles Rangel (Idiot--NY) told "Hardball's" Chris Matthews the other day that Jesus' message was: Rich people are going to hell. Even Matthews was not hardboiled enough for that! Rangel interpreted Jesus' words concerning service on earth ("I was hungry and you did not feed me....") as referring to Social Security and food stamps. One has to admire the creativity of liberals. It reminds me of when Al Gore said God was displeased with Cain not because he murdered his brother but because Abel's blood polluted the ground and God hates pollution. One might mistake their creative license for intelligence if it wasn't so patently absurd. Did Jesus say rich people would find it hard to enter Heaven? Yes, He did. But then when His disciples asked him how anyone could be saved, He replied, "All things are possible with God." Even saving the rich people. And what's more, if all rich people get sent to Hell, conservatives are still all right anyway. THE LIBERALS ARE THE RICH PEOPLE!!! Don't give me any of this junk about poor, working class liberals--they don't exist. Liberals in this country, with very few exceptions, are composed of the very wealthy and the very poor. If rich people go to hell, then it will be populated with those I expect to be there anyway--Ted Kennedy, George Soros, John Kerry. The rich people the liberals rant about, by and large, are the people doing exactly what Jesus said to do: feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, taking care of those who are needy. John Kerry is not doing that. George Soros is not doing that. Ted Kennedy drowns people but he certainly doesn't help the poor, unless by removing unwanted children after he commits adultery with them. Rush Limbaugh also raised a good point, when he said, and I quote: "What else is wrong with this is very simple. The idea that the Catholic church or the United States of America is not feeding people, is not clothing people, and is not giving people water? Wwho was it that just stood by and let a woman starve or let a woman die of dehydration, folks? Among us, what was the group of people that was doing everything they could to make sure that woman was not given food and water? Don't give me that food stamp jazz and don't give me Social Security jazz. I don't want to hear it -- and he goes on television last night and says that Jesus wants the rich to go to hell because they don't care about Social Security and all this? I'm telling you, these people are at a full-fledged panic out there" (Rush Limbaugh). I've said it before and I think I'll say it again because I never mind saying things over: if I wasn't afraid they'd actually somehow get in charge of the country, I wouldn't mind having liberals around. In fact it's kind of fun listening to them try to come up with intellectual justification for whatever their latest rage is. Projecting their own hatred of an entire class of people onto the loving Son of God is fairly typical. Read their news outlets if you get a chance. The opportunities for laughing are boundless.

It must be killing them, but the NYT had to admit today that Iraqis can handle their own government. Without resorting to violence, the disputing factions actually agreed on the three top positions and said they would wait until the government was functioning to deal with other disagreements. All this took them two months.

Two months? Do you know how insanely short that period of time is? The US didn't even set up a functioning government in that short of a time when we were first forming our Constitution. It took us over two years. Now, of course, I would never suggest that this new Iraqi government is fully functional yet, but this is an important step, let liberal naysayers do all they can to decry it. It demonstrates that even in Arab countries where normally the rifle is the court of first resort, people can choose other ways. I must confess, when Bush painted a glowing picture of the ability of Iraqis and Iranians and Syrians and Arabians to govern themselves I had some serious doubts. Not because of any innate inferiority of the Arab peoples, but simply because they have no history of actually governing themselves, it's always been a despotic system ruling over them. I wondered how people taken from captivity and thrust into such a position would fare. It didn't work well in France in the late 1700s; it didn't work well in Germany after World War 1. But I am happy to see these factions working peaceably together for the future good of their country. The terrorists, along with the dictators of the past (whether Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, or Joseph Stalin), have posited incorrectly that people don't really want freedom--they want bread and circuses. That's at least what they hope. But the winds of change are blowing, even in the dusty backwaters of the Middle East, and I think the anachronisms are about to swept away. Will this good progress keep up? Well, that remains to be seen.

I was eavesdropping on a conversation between two girls in my Russian History & Politics class a few weeks ago and heard one of them complain that she had lost her copy of "Anne of Green Gables" and she lamented: "And that book is like my Bible." She sort of turned towards me as she said it, so I, being the friendly and outgoing person that I sometimes try to be, asked her (in jest): "Which passage was your life passage?" She said it would have to be something about Anne's imagination. I agreed that this was a good one but I said: "I think mine is: 'With Matthew, voting Conservative was part of his religion.'" She knows me so it passed with only a heavy sigh and an, "Oh dear," but I suddenly realized I wasn't joking.

This is not going to be one of those wishy-washy posts that says, "I have come to realize that God is not a conservative Republican, and I was wrong, bla, bla, bla." I'm actually thinking of making bumper stickers that say: "God is not a Republican...He just likes us better." But anyway, what I really want to react against is the all-too-common notion that voting for someone based on their party affiliation is somehow inferior to some other reason. I don't particularly think it is...except for Democrats, of course. Just kidding, just kidding. Lighten up. Supporting Party candidates because they belong to your Party is probably an even better reason that supposedly "researching" the issues in each and every election. Why? Because registering with your Party gives at least some kind of indication that you have researched the issues and come down on one side or another. Thereafter, when you vote the Party line, you are in essence voting for your position on these issues. I actually like the Canadian-British system here (control your shock)--they vote for the party they agree with and that party puts the people in places. This works even better for Democrats than for Republicans actually, because Democrats are all the same; nobody who deviates from the Party line is allowed anywhere near a spokesperson position. So you should be happy if that is your persuasion. But even if you are, like myself, a neo-conservative Republican, for the moment in control of the GOP but always being threatened from the right by the Pat Buchanan types and from the left by John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani ("the big tent" is just that--it houses a lot of different people), you can still benefit from seeing these things that way. I'm a Republican mostly because I agree with a certain set of standards that all Republicans hold to, at least loosely. Even if you are a Republican, or a Democrat, because your parents are, that at least shows that you respect your parents and their stance on the issues enough to accept membership in their Party. You have made a decision based on what you believe. Voting along those lines means you are actually voting your conscience.

Now, of course, some people will say, "But if a Republican candidate that seems more Democratic runs, should I vote the Party line?" I still think that if Parties were more respected, you'd have to wonder how a Republicrat or Demublican (John McCain and Zell Miller) respectively got to be their Party's nominee. Or, you could just use the bumper sticker, "Vote Republican. It's easier than thinking." Nevertheless I don't believe that voting for a candidate because he is a Republican and thus must espouse at least a loose idea of the values you yourself hold is necessarily anything inferior to trying to find someone who matches you blow for blow and end up voting for some third party candidate who only really agrees with you on one issue. This does, by the way, represent a shift in thinking for me, considering this past election was the first in which I voted entirely Republican, even with a Conservative candidate running for senate. You're free to disagree of course, and I'm sure you'll avail yourselves of that, but these are just some thoughts of my own and I'm not going to argue with you if you don't think it's right. I think it's worth thinking about though.

And so another great man passes on into eternity. For any of you who live in a cave, and/or Houghton, John Paul II, the Pope, died today around 3:17 PM (ET). I offer my condolences to the Catholic Church. It's uncanny how many of our great men are dying. Seems to generally be the case. Now with wastes of skin like...but I digress. Pope John Paul II stood firmly for what he believed was right, stared down Nazism and communism, and led the Catholic Church into a new explosion of prominence worldwide, most noticeably outside the traditional areas. Obviously I am not Catholic, do not believe he was infallible, and have several other issues with him. But he was, as far as I can tell, a great man of God who stood for the truth of God's Word against a rising tide of enlightenment thinking in this world. I have nothing but respect for him and for what he accomplished in this world's realm. Rest in peace, Your Holiness. I can only hope and pray that your successor will be as great a man as you were.

Well, we'll see if this works. By the time this finally does happen you're going to read about five different posts at once. I have been blogging all this time; but glitches have prevented publication. I would like to send kudos to the Catholic Church for their united front in defending Terri Schiavo's right to live. It is more and more ironic to me that anti-Catholic prejudice was so prevalent in early America because people feared they would answer more to the pope and international Catholicism than to American law. Now judges do the exact same thing, and nobody thinks anything about it. The judiciary must be humbled--what Alexander Hamilton and James Madison described as "the weakest branch" has used its weakness, Nietzsche-like, to thwart the strong. There is no independence here. The judges simply impose their view of morality on the world at large. And the tide appears to be turning. At this rate, so far from hurting the Republican Party, the Liberals will cease to function by 2008. Democrats tried stonewalling the constitutional process of judicial appointment and their ratings have only fallen.

That's the other thing. When are Republicans going to stop letting Democrats get away with anything they want to? Does anyone in the Democratic Party even know how to filibuster? Watch "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"--the filibustering process is where a senator or group of senators take the floor and hold it, nonstop, preventing a vote on a bill from taking place. The minute the filibustering senator yields the floor and sits down, the filibuster is over, unless another senator of his/her persuasion takes it up from them. But today's Democratic Party just says, "We're filibustering" and they all leave the room. This is not even legal. Maybe Bill Frist and all them should watch "Mr. Smith"--the Vice President can compel a quorum to return and unless the filibustering senators wish to keep to the floor, orating on why it's a bad idea for hours, the filibuster is over and business proceeds as usual. Might hurt some people's feelings but this is politics after all. And it's about time the Republican Party started safeguarding the interests and laws of the people who elected them and not pandering to a minority party on its way out.