04 November 2006

Innocent Blood part 2000

One of the real distinctives of a Christian, as distinct from a ''progressive'', worldview has to do with moral differences. The more or less 'official' view is that we are, somehow, better people than our ancestors; that as a rule moral issues are products of conditions external to the individual, such as nutrition, poverty, literacy, inclusiveness, etc., and therefore we can of our own experience and wisdom create an ideal society. As one motivational type of years gone by had his adherents chanting, ''Every day in every way, we are getting better and better and better''. The Christian view is rather different. We believe that human beings are inherently flawed, that the flaws - we call the situation ''sin'' - are present by birth in every human being (the single exception being a rather extraordinary one) and that barring a miracle cure, this will be true throughout all human history. It's an old fight.

Sometimes something catches one's attention, something that leads to something very like despair at the human condition.

I've grown up in a society that regarded the Third Reich, the Nazi regime in Germany headed by Adolf Hitler, as being the worst society ever. We can compare bad ones later. We know, for example, that even before they took power, the society accepted some of their beliefs. Among those were that some lives were more worthy than others, and that some lives were better terminated. (If that sounds uncomfortably like Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood, it should. They were friendly.) And that led in turn, inevitably, to evaluation of children (and adults too) and decisions over whether to 'cull the herd'. This sort of thing became part of the list of charges in the Nuremburg Trials that sent several of them to the gallows.

Now I see in the Sunday Times out of London, an article titled ''Doctors: let us kill disabled babies'' which is a serious proposal from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology advocating in favor of ''active euthanesia'' for the ''overall good of families''.

I would have to suspect that Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Mengele - and Sanger - seem to have won that argument. Perhaps we owe an apology for that little gallows incident if we are seriously proposing to admit that their idea was a good one. Particularly if we go beyond consideration into full-blown acceptance, and thence to common practice. It will, I predict, be justified under some sort of ''for the good of All'' boilerplate, and opposing it will be considered some sort of 'hate speech'.

I've never cared much for the Catholic idea of classifying sins. That's a worthy subject for a whole series of posts, if not a book. But they're not totally wrong. The pattern they describe is pretty evident: pride, greed, lust, and envy. We seem to have them all through the history of our race, which brings me back to the worldview issue that began this post. The sins of human beings just seem to repeat. We don't have any fewer today than those that Calvin or Luther or Paul of Tarsus saw. Or Jeremiah for that matter. I'm not sure quite where the shedding of innocent blood falls in there, but it's at least as old as the worship of Baal and Moloch.

This isn't 'progress'' as I define it. It's just the same old thing come around again. The difference is that we have recent experience of where it leads, so we have not even the bad excuse of not knowing better.

I'll go out on not too much of a limb here, and predict that this does not please God. Then again, I doubt seriously that this was one of the objectives of those proposing this policy.


03 November 2006

American Manufacturing Again

There is a good letter in the current version of the online edition of Modern Plastics magazine, in the section called ''As I see It''. You can find it online, titled 'Shortage? What Shortage?' . Go and read it, it's a story I've heard many times, in many places, from many people. I've been there myself. Individuals with excellent track records of accomplishment and value-add, part of the 'collateral damage' of the hollowing out of American manufacturing. Unable to get a job. In some cases, unable to get ANY job, at ANY level. Too qualified for some, or in some cases being experienced in the ''wrong'' CAD package, or something relatively trivial. For being unemployed - the folklore that it's easier to get a job when you already have one is true. Stupid, but true. Even, and this is true, for having a bad credit file. Being unemployed, particularly extended unemployment, is not conducive to a good financial picture. Keeping someone unemployed because of that is beyond asinine, it's something only an HR type or a beancounter could invent. But it happens daily, truly it does. And the type of attitude and business culture it reveals is part of the rot that is part of the real damage to the nation's industrial base - more than finances, quality, or regulatory environment, it's a terrible lack of leadership with a defensible moral philosophy. Part of the overtaking of industry by lawyers, accountants, and other leeches.

Anyway, I came across the letter this afternoon as I was trying to make some calls and navigating through the labyrinth of some of these devil-inspired voice mail systems. I was making the calls trying to get a recommendation for a repair facility for a worn/damaged injection mold. Many of the people I once dealt with are out of business, and the craftsmen they employed are gone to the winds. Let me give you one observer's recollection.

Back in the 1990's, I worked for a now-bought-out major maker of consumer goods. Most of our products were made of rubber and plastics. At one time, so I was told, we operated American-made injection presses, processing American-made polymers through molds made at American tool shops, some near-by. Along the line, someone with a cut-price MBA decided that the molds, the more pedestrian ones, could be made more ''competitively'' off-shore. In Portugal, in fact. So there was less business for the US tool shops, and the trade, the craft, the respect and pay due a tool & die maker, suffered a bit. By the way, so did the profession of the tool engineer. Later, some one with a ''world-class quality'' chant on his lips, decided that we needed to try out some alternative presses, from Japan. Less work of course for the makers of injection presses and all their components, and of course for those who design them. Then it was decided that it was ''too expensive'' to operate these presses in the US, so some of the work was shifted to Mexico, and some to China. Then more and more to China. Then it was decided that it was silly to arrange a product in the US, make the tool in Portugal, and then ship it to China. So the tool build was also contracted into China. Of course, that meant Chinese tool & die makers, using Chinese machine tools to work on Chinese-made steel, made molds to go into Japanese (and then Chinese) injection presses to make consumer goods for American customers. Having work done by slave labor is cheap, but I thought we were better people than that.

Does this give a lower-priced toy at the big-box retailer? Probably. And this is not a bad thing, it may even be a good thing. Is that the only thing that matters?

Meanwhile, now I have trouble finding someone who can reliably repair the collapsing core of a low-volume injection mold. The shop in Ohio that repaired another mold for me two weeks ago is now deemed to be ''too expensive''. But while I could once find a dozen such within a few hours' drive most of those I once knew have been boarded up.

Those who periodically sign up for big government programs that want to up the numbers of students going into the so-called STEM majors (Science, Technical, Engineering, Math) seem blissfully unaware that the history I just recounted is going on all over the country. Finance majors, beancounters, and lawyers seem to be doing just fine. The engineering types, and the honest craftsmen that work with us, see their livelihood and sometimes their designs, heading to China, Mexico, and the like.

This is good for the retailers. And it lets us have more ''stuff''. Is it good for the country? Does it send a good message to our children as they consider their own futures?

01 November 2006

Another ''rape Americans Won't Do''

And yet one more example of the fruits of the criminal non-feasance in office of our high elected officials, and another attack in the de facto state of war that exists between the United States of America and Mexico.
Seems that Leopoldo Sanchez, an illegal alien (I know that's not the term approved by the cultural elites, the MainStream Media, most of the politicians in Washington on either side of the aisle, but heck with them), having once been deported for illegal activities, crossed our porous border again and raped at least one woman in the Houston, Texas area. See the story at the Houston Chronicle under the heading of Rape Suspect Had Been Deported Earlier This Year .
In the meantime, we finally have an agreement to build a fence along a short section of the border, though have no plan in place to finance it.
I have a suggestion, or rather several.

  1. A person who has not learned once won't learn twice. He does not intend to change his behavior. Hang him. Do it today. He is an invader, and is not - in my humble opinion - entitled to the legal protections afforded to US citizens or lawful visitors. He is an invader bent on evil designs. Hang him. Publicly.
  2. Those who have excused such patterns of behavior have acted the part of enablers. There should be consequences. Suggestions are welcome. I like the idea of public floggings, though the stocks and the pillory have their fans.
  3. This is a natural consequence of various public policy decisions on the part of the rulers of Mexico. My view of the matter is that there is now and has for some time been a State of War between the US and Mexico. Therefore:
  • repudiate NAFTA, immediately
  • declare war
  • close the border, totally
  • declare such organizations as LULAC, MALDEF, MEChA, La Raza and their ilk to be subversive and treasonous organizations dedicated to the violent overthrow of the United States. Act accordingly.
FINALLY
If I EVER again hear the lie about ''jobs Americans won't do'', I won't be responsible for my actions. That is a lie, an insult, and it's uncalled for.

30 October 2006

14 Year Old Assyrian Boy Decapitated By Muslim Group

Go ahead. Read it. Consider it for what it is - a single snapshot picture of the extent of the evil being perpetrated against the world by the devotees of a demon-cult called Islam. It is repeated around the world, daily, and on virtually every continent. [I've not heard, yet, of one in Antarctica]. Wander off to some of the sites that I've linked to here, and see for yourself.

Think it won't happen here, say in London or New York? It already has.

In this particular case, these demon-besotted thugs grabbed a teenager, each grabbing a limb, and then they sawed off his head, while they chanted ''Allahu akbar!'', an incantation to their demon-god. His ''crime''? His identity card revealed him as a Christian. And to them, that was enough. Evil is never comfortable in the presence of the Savior.

There are a lot of things that a conservative can disagree with President Bush about. But surely one of them has to be his repeated reference to Islam as ''a religion of peace''. It is no such thing. It is, and always has been, a violent cult, spread almost exclusively at the point of a spear, and which admits of no other belief system.

How long before a 14-year-old in your town is killed by one of these?

The Belmont Club: Mapping Terrorism

There's a great link over at the Belmont Club blog to a site that provides maps showing locations of terrorist incidents around the world. It's at The Belmont Club: Mapping Terrorism
I highly recommend it. We have an unfortunate habit of ignoring the very real pattern of death and destruction of fellow human beings around the world. And there is, equally, a terrible pattern of ignoring the patterns of behavior and worldview links of those perpetrating these atrocities. I guess it's not totally correct to ascribe them ALL to the Mohammedan heathens, there is still the IRA and various Maoist groups are around. But most are the outgrowth of Islam. Check out the site - then consider your choices on Election Day.