I have recently been expressing doubts about our nation-building in Islamic countries. I am extremely worried about the money we are spending to help people whom I believe hate us. In fact, after the bombing of that golden-domed mosque—they blamed us for not being there.

Some of my favorite readers commented on the article by Paul Craig Roberts. Dr. Roberts has some problems with current measures of our economic progress. One thing he keeps talking about is spending on credit. My commenters think that he is crazy. I don’t like the fact that he gets so angry that he calls Bush names, but I want to know if he is right on the economics.

I have long had a intuitive problem with how we measure economic health. I majored in Economics at Texas A&M—but that experience is not the source of my reservations. My reservation is that I think that consumer debt is a problem. I was terribly angry at the pundits who, after 9-11, told people to go to the mall to buy a bunch of crap to show that we weren’t defeated. Or, who told them to buy stock just for the hell of it—regardless of the company—again as some kind of patriotic gesture.

I just ordered this book. I want to know if we are economically healthy as opposed to appearing so because of credit.

If we aren’t , and our government is killing the golden goose (us) by spending money to rebuild the homes of a bunch of people who will always hate our guts—I am going to be really pissed.

Update:

Walter Williams writes about how we are not a democracy and Iraq shouldn’t be either. He has some good ideas. Maybe his ideas could save us men and money over there.

Update II: Here is another provocative column about the state of the economy by Paul Craig Roberts.

The judge in the Libby case has ruled that Libby doesn’t have the right to know the identity of another government official who told reporters about Plame’s identity. The judge, according the the news story ,based his ruling on the official’s “right to privacy” because he hasn’t been charged.

I don’t understand this ruling. The official is a witness and participant in the Plame saga. He (or she) talked to reporters. The only conversations under the law that have any privilege of privacy are those with physicians, priests , spouses and one’s attorney.

It’s not like the reporters are keeping a source private. The prosecutor knows the identity of this person, and he is not the person’s lawyer.

Under what authority is a goverment official’s statements to reporters made privileged from discovery in a judicial proceeding?

What if this guy is right? He is not a liberal by any stretch of the imagination. I’m not smart enough to refute him.

I feel sick and have to go lay down now.

I’ve been busy figuring out my digital camera and how to compress photos for the web. So, here is more about my adventures in the Big Bend.

After a long drive we pulled into Alpine, Texas located in the Davis Mountains. It’s the beautiful home of Sul Ross University.

Here is a photo of the Holland Hotel. Once Hattie Stillwell, a woman rancher in the Big Bend, ran into the cast of Giant at the restaurant in this hotel.

While in Alpine, we visited a great locally owned bookstore. I bought books particular to the history of the area. While there, a former Alpine City Councilwoman came into the store. We started up a conversation with her and she told us that she had been indicted by the local D.A. for breaking the open meetings laws because she sent an e-mail to other members of the council. The case was dismissed by the Judge, and the D.A. has appealed. She was quite a character.

We also met one of Joe Namath’s wide receivers, Bake Turner. He’s from Alpine. He’s now a musician.

After spending the night in Alpine, it was off to Chinati Springs. Of course, we had to make a stop at the bookstore/coffee bar/art gallery in Marfa.

Here’s the courthouse in Marfa,

Here is the hotel in Marfa where the cast of Giant actually stayed,

Later, more on the trip to Chinati…

I don’t usually watch This Week. I happened to turn it on this morning. A crazy lady who was dominating the discussion with her lip flapping and who wouldn’t let George Will finish a sentence was advocating that we give our money to Hamas! After all, the Palestinians have a right to their own government and not engaging or giving them our money will cause problems in the area. Also, we should give them a chance because we shouldn’t pay attention to words—just actions.

Is this person what passes as an intellectual among liberals these day? She’s crazy.

Hey lady, we—as the taxpayers that you think should be slaves to the rest of the world through the UN—have a right to our own government too. We don’t want our tax dollars going to terrorists! The Palestinians made their own bed, they should lay in it. Part of chosing your own government is living with the consequences of it.

Why are we morally obligated to fund the choice of the Palestinians. I’d give them money. I’d give money to Christian Missionaries to go in there and change their hearts. That’s their only hope in the long run.

Does anybody know who that crazy dark haired woman on This Week is?

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP)—A fire destroyed a warehouse where Christian-themed clothing was manufactured and religious phone-banking was conducted, authorities said.
The blaze in the building owned by Multi Marketing Inc. began at about 11:40 p.m. Friday, said Eric Kehn, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Remember, churches have been burning since the first of February.

James H. Webb, former Secretary of the Navy under Reagan, has announced that he will run as a Democrat against Sen. George Allan of Virginia. I am going to donate to his campaign.

I interviewed him on Mychal Massie’s show Straight Talk on Right Talk Radio last October about his book Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. I blogged about him here and here. Go read his articles here.

Republicans screwed up when they lost this man. I’m not going to support their candidate in Virginia just because he is a Republican.

I’m back from a wonderful trip to the Big Bend Country. I’ll blog about it later. In the meantime, here are some photos.

Here is a photo taken near Ozona,

We are traveling on Old Government Road which is the old frontier trade route,

Here’s the Pecos River,

More to come.

On February 2, six Alabama churches burned. The churches are located in Bibb County and Chilton County near Birmingham. The American Thinker discusses the hypocrisy of law enforcement refusing to label these as hate crimes.

I’m an avid reader of The Gates of Vienna. It was through that blog that I learned of Jamaat ul-Fuqra. Go read that blog’s description of this Muslim terror group which has roots deep in rural America.

After the church fires, I begin to wonder if that group has a training camp in Alabama. Indeed they do. I also thought about the fact that these arsons took place at the beginning of the cartoon controversy.

There doesn’t seem to much followup about the investigation of the burning of these churches. I wonder why.

Tomorrow, I’m off to Chinati Springs in the Big Bend for vacation. I’ll be doing a 7 mile hike along the Rio Grande and soaking in the hot springs.

We’ll stop by Marfa to see the Marfa lights.

Hopefully, I will get some good pictures to post. It’s beautiful country down there.

When we first started talking about regime change in Iraq, there were some voices suggesting that Islamic countries were not capable of integrating ideas of individual liberty. Others, (and I was in that camp) labeled that as an elitist view and argued that all people yearn for freedom.

I held the latter view, until the cartoon riots. I read on a blog somewhere that an Islamic leader said, “To the West, freedom of speech is sacred. To the Muslim, The Prophet is sacred.”

That tore it for me.

I am out of the Wilsonian camp and into the Jacksonian camp. For me, it will take substantial evidence to prove that the Muslim nations will embrace freedom through democracy. In fact, I don’t believe that democracy is indicative that individual liberty thrives in a country, a view I share with Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

To me , this all seems to be a grand experiment on the Middle East. What is the evidence that these countries can reform? Before causing Mrs. Smith’s son to incur the greater risks that accompany making war while simultaneously nation building, shouldn’t we require some level of evidence that such nation building will have a chance in hell? The cartoon wars certainly have revealed evidence to the contrary.

Before we risk our sons and daughters on some additional nation building (we need to finish what we started in Iraq), say in Iran or Syria, shouldn’t we require, at the very least, sufficient evidence to show that it is more likely than not that our efforts will succeed? In the absence of such evidence, if we need to make war on one of these countries, I’m for the Jacksonian approach to warfare.

Once wars begin, a significant element of American public opinion supports waging them at the highest possible level of intensity.

I think that such an approach will make us think really hard about invading Iran or Syria, as it does not take into account the idea that we are liberating the populace. After all, has it been proven that it is more likely than not that the Iranian populace wants us to liberate them?

I profoundly disagree with Hugh Hewitt and others who say that the cartoons should not have been published because they are insulting to Islam. I don’t believe for one minute that this uprising is about the cartoons being published. From what I’ve read, the Muslims have, themselves, been publishing them in order to fan the flames !

This is about Muslims unwillingness to have any aspect of their religions scrutinized and criticized.

What if, instead of cartoons, we were discussing the publication of an article that was critical of some theological point contained in the Koran—say—parts concerning killing unbelievers. And, what if the “Danish” Imans carried that article around the Middle East and republished it as they did the cartoons in order to stir up trouble.

Do you really believe that the reaction of the rioters would be any different? These are people who put so-called “apostates” to death.

Michelle Malkin has the goods on the true intent behind all this. It is an attempt to force Europe to impose a portion of Sharia law,

Jonathon Hunt: So, you want a new set of rules for the way Western Europe lives?

Imam Ahmad Abu Laban: Yes

What if Europe does engage in appeasement whether de jure or de facto? Michelle links to American Thinker.

In other words, this was indeed a campaign, planned by important members of the Islamic world’s power structure, intended to force Denmark to comply with Sharia requirements. A new norm, that a western nation would conform to Sharia regardless of its free exression tradition, would be on the way to being established. Let a few more small nations succumb and someday a United States Supreme Court Justice might cite such behavior as a precedent in a decision.

Absolute defiance is in order here. If they want to burn down their countries, so be it. If they try to burn down Europe, the governments should get out the tanks.

We have a long, distinguished history of defiance, and we are better for it. Martin Luther’s 95 Theses against the Catholic Church were considered blasphemous heresy.

Go read them. They make for some stout reading. If it weren’t for Luther, Christianity (including the Catholic Church) would be the worse for it.

Does Islam need a Martin Luther? In my opinion, the emergence of one would be impossible. Moreover, Luther’s contribution was putting the focus back on the Scriptures. Putting the focus of Muslims on the Koran will only get us more of the same.

To achieve any measure of acceptance of freedom of speech- or freedom of conscience for that matter-a Muslim Martin Luther would have to pull the wool over the eyes of Muslims. Just as we have pulled the wool over our own eyes about the ability of Muslim countries to embrace human liberty.

For those of us who have supported the President, and the idea that people in the Middle East deserve to exercise the freedom that God gives us all, is it time to rethink this idea of “nation-building”? I have to admit that every time the word “democracy” is thrown around, I cringe.

We are NOT a democracy. We are a constitutional republic built on the idea that rights come from God. Our system is built in such a way to prevent minorities from the tyranny of the majority. It took centuries of inter-religious strife and philosophical debate to incubate the very unique idea that people are entitled to liberty. Moreover, we had a powerful foundation.

What do you think the admonition “love one another” is really all about? It is about respect for the person and dignity of others, whether they believe in what you believe, or not. It is not some soppy, fuzzy concept as portrayed in 50’s era Biblical epics. It is the framework upon which our Founding Fathers built to create our Republic.

It is also not refraining from criticizing others. It is about not killing them merely because you disagree with them. From Mark Steyn,

I simply don’t want our soldiers incurring the inevitable additional risks of “nation-building.” If we have to go into Iran, go in like we did Guadalcanal. Iran is a democracy. Thus, the people bear some responsibility for the monster at their helm.

I no longer feel all warm and fuzzy about the Iraqi’s. Go read Iraqi in America. She disagrees with the publication of the cartoons because Iraqi’s are starting to target Iraqi Christians as a result. Scroll down to the comments where she talks about the Chaldean Patriarch being targeted.

From whom are we supposed to liberate these people? Themselves?

That’s a job for the Christian Missionaries. Not our soldiers.

of much of what Christopher Hitchens says in this column, despite Hitchens’ atheism,

The question of “offensiveness” is easy to decide. First: Suppose that we all agreed to comport ourselves in order to avoid offending the believers? How could we ever be sure that we had taken enough precautions? On Saturday, I appeared on CNN, which was so terrified of reprisal that it “pixilated” the very cartoons that its viewers needed to see. And this ignoble fear in Atlanta, Ga., arose because of an illustration in a small Scandinavian newspaper of which nobody had ever heard before! Is it not clear, then, that those who are determined to be “offended” will discover a provocation somewhere? We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.

Second (and important enough to be insisted upon): Can the discussion be carried on without the threat of violence, or the automatic resort to it? When Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses in 1988, he did so in the hope of forwarding a discussion that was already opening in the Muslim world, between extreme Quranic literalists and those who hoped that the text could be interpreted. We know what his own reward was, and we sometimes forget that the fatwa was directed not just against him but against “all those involved in its publication,” which led to the murder of the book’s Japanese translator and the near-deaths of another translator and one publisher. I went on Crossfire at one point, to debate some spokesman for outraged faith, and said that we on our side would happily debate the propriety of using holy writ for literary and artistic purposes. But that we would not exchange a word until the person on the other side of the podium had put away his gun. (The menacing Muslim bigmouth on the other side refused to forswear state-sponsored suborning of assassination, and was of course backed up by the Catholic bigot Pat Buchanan.) The same point holds for international relations: There can be no negotiation under duress or under the threat of blackmail and assassination. And civil society means that free expression trumps the emotions of anyone to whom free expression might be inconvenient. It is depressing to have to restate these obvious precepts, and it is positively outrageous that the administration should have discarded them at the very first sign of a fight.

I don’t understand Hitchens’ pathological hatred of religion, but these words of his remind me of what was going on when Jesus was preaching. His sermons were considered blasphemous by the ruling elite—and rather than putting aside emotions and engaging in honest discourse, they sentenced him to crucifixion.

I for one, intend to stop taking offense at every transgression against Christians, and to use that energy to affirm the message of Jesus. Christians have put themselves in a box with regard to the Islamic cartoon fiasco. By constantly asking for apologies and pushing back at every offense, we have given unwitting support for the argument that the Muslims are somehow reacting in a manner similar to Christians who strenuously object to idiot television shows that would probably die on their own under the weight of their own mediocrity.

Moreover, I think that there is plenty to mock about Islam, just as there was about the Pharisees and Jimmy Swaggert.

Update for more thoughts on mockery:

Mockery of religious beliefs is nothing new. Jesus vociferously mocked the Pharisees as recorded in Matthew 23. Mohammed mocked Christians and Jews when they refused to convert to his new religion. Martin Luther mocked certain Roman Catholic practices. Secular adherents to Enlightment ideals relentlessly mock all religions—and Christians mock secular humanists.

Mockery can be a potent weapon for change, as Jesus obviously realized. Mockery is one antidote to an overabundance of self-importance. The Muslims are certainly demonstrating such an overabundence.

Religious beliefs that condone honor killing, stoning, and suicide bombing deserve mockery. In fact, the absence of freedom to criticize religious beliefs allows such abominations to exist.

These people have NO concept about what freedom of speech is, and they live in this country.

“Just because you can say something doesn’t mean you should say something,” the teenager said. “If somebody showed a picture of the Pope with a bomb on his head, that would cause a great public outcry. Nobody would be talking about freedom of speech.“

REALLY?

“Technically, you have the right to walk into a crowded theater and yell ‘Fire,’ ” said Uzma Unus, 34, a teacher in Sterling who is also vice president of ADAMS. “But is that responsible?”

This person is a teacher?

Europeans could have defused the situation by apologizing instead of staking out a hard-line position of upholding free speech, he said.

Upholding free speech is taking a hard-line position, huh?

Update:

I am really tired of hearing people insist on apologies from those with whom they disagree—unless they are spouses. For instance, I didn’t want an apology from Dick Durbin when he compared the troops to Pol Pot, or whatever. Instead, I wanted others in power to show the world what an absolute doofus he is. To hell with this apology stuff. Insisting on apologies from anyone who “offends” is ridiculous and makes the person insisting look like a pantywaist—unless he is prepared to slap the offender in the face with a glove and to insist on a duel. Otherwise, it’s fricking whining to constantly insist on an apology just because somebody gets under your skin.

What’s worse is asking that people apologize for other people’s statements. Why does public discourse have to be so…so therapeutic for god’s sake?

Back to the article,

“Growing up in America, I’m used to political cartoons, but . . . it’s clear that this just crossed the line,” said Marro, a retired U.S. diplomat. “What would the reaction have been if on Jan. 16, The Washington Post had published a picture of Martin Luther King with gangsta-rap clothing, a crack pipe and a Saturday night special? . . . It would have provoked a storm of outrage.”

Outrage, yes. Burning and rioting—no. Bad analogy.

Majdi Omouri, 30, a limousine driver, was philosophical. “If you look at freedom as something really large, without limits, it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Freedom has to be united with responsibility. . . . In the name of freedom, I cannot insult your beliefs

Uh…yes, you can.

What have we let in? If any of these people are naturalized citizens, how on earth did they pass the test?