Attention, everyone who thinks the United Nations can be a force for peace, at least as it’s presently constituted: your heroes are running away after a few bomb attacks.
I do not bring this up to taunt anyone. (Well, at least that’s not the primary reason.) How can an organization that pretends to be the ultimate arbiter of international law, and which has higher pretensions to be a world government and police force, possibly be taken seriously if they’re such cowards in the face of relatively minor resistance?
The French, their sidekicks the Germans, and the rest of the hollow men in the Western world generally agree that the U.N. is the proper instrument for rebuilding and governing Iraq. They say they are altruistic, but really it’s a cynical ploy because they know a U.N.-administered Iraq will be much more pliant than a U.S.-sponsored rebuilding effort. It would help their case greatly if the U.N. would show some backbone in standing up to thugs and terrorists.
I do think a reconstituted U.N. could be a force for good in the world, but they need to begin by kicking out the rogue countries like Cuba, North Korea, and Zimbabwe. Full membership ought to be reserved for countries which meet minimal standards of human rights and non-aggression towards its neighbors. You say that Cuba won’t get kicked out, because it enjoys the support of so many left-leaning governments around the world? You are right, and that is the problem.
Number of people willing to die for their country or religion: millions.
Number of people willing to die for the U.N.: several hundred, but few of them work for the actual organization.
Cost of one U.N. retreat: 2-3 car bombs, sporadic gunfire, scary politico-religious talk.
Cost of one U.S. retreat, as long as G.W. Bush is presiding: not determined.
Author: Eric Johnson
Raising a future ‘Wanderer’ subscriber
So yesterday, my older two kids were playing “church.” My daughter Anna, who is 3, energetic, and mischevous, got up and ran away to the other side of the room, giggling all the way. Charlie, 4, got upset and ran after her, shaking a ruler in his hand and yelling, “Anna, you can’t leave church early before it’s done!”
At least one of my kids isn’t going to do the Judas shuffle after communion when he grows up….
Bush: not the time to ban all abortions
From Reuters:
“Yes, I’ll sign the ban on partial birth abortion,” Bush said at a White House news conference. “And no, I don’t think the culture has changed to the extent that the American people or the Congress would totally ban abortions.”
Note that he’s not saying they shouldn’t be banned, just that it isn’t the right time — not that our supreme judicial masters would permit that.
And I love this passage:
Under the bill that has gone to Bush, a doctor could face up to two years in prison as well as civil lawsuits for performing a “partial birth” abortion, defined as intentionally killing a fetus as it is being delivered. The bill’s sponsors say it entails sticking a sharp object into the base of the fetal skull.
No, Reuters newswire, the abortionists say that’s what they do. Inserting “the bill’s sponsors say” before the statement is a clever way to cast doubt on a fact without explicitly denying it. Nevertheless, the truth is that pro-lifers didn’t invent partial-birth abortion.
On my boss’s door
Is he referring to himself, or to one of us?
The liberal Rush Limbaugh
From the “you can’t make this up” basket is this:
Democratic lawmakers in Washington are asking a North Dakota radio personality to take on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservative talk show hosts.
Ed Schultz, who earlier considered running for governor, has been tapped by national Democratic leaders for a talk show to start in January.
Democratic lawmakers in Washington are raising money for the show, and Democrats have pledged about $1.8 million over two years to get it off the ground, Schultz said Monday. He said a half-dozen stations are looking at whether to carry it.
“The Democrats are getting the tar beat out of them constantly by Limbaugh and Hannity, and they feel they don’t have a platform,” Schultz said. “There’s this conservative mantra that’s being jammed down the throats of the American people, and the other side of the story is not being told.”
So much to say about this article, so short a lunch break. This story should make any conservative’s chest swell with pride, assuming it’s accurate. They’ve got to go to Fargo to come up with a liberal talk-show host? Recall that Rush Limbaugh was wildly popular in New York City (pop. 7,348,000), not North Dakota (pop 635,000) before he went national.
And a “half-dozen” stations are interested in this guy? Wow. Limbaugh is carried on over 600 stations — none of which has dropped his program after he announced his drug troubles — and Hannity is on almost 400.
Maybe, just maybe, the thing that makes conservative talk shows popular isn’t the personalities, but the…conservatism? When people say that conservatism is “jammed down people’s throats,” and that’s why it’s popular, it’s a lot like news stories about the pope that say, “This pope is popular with young people, despite his ingrained conservative theological stances.” Ever think that he’s popular because he offers the perennial things, not the new and the transient?