Do unto thyself what thou wouldn’t let others do

Would we harm our selves in ways that we would never let others harm us?  Yes, actually.  We do this all the time.  This common occurrence has long intrigued me.

About fifteen years ago, I was trying to lose weight.  A diet book I was reading presented a hypothetical, which I have embellished:

Imagine that a gang of strangers repeatedly broke into your house.  Each time they broke in, they brought a large basket of food with them.  Each time they broke in, they tracked you down and forced you to eat food that you didn’t need or want.  “Stop that!”  You would yell.  “I’m not hungry.  Go away!”  Nonetheless, the strangers forced you to eat food that you didn’t want.  They returned every few hours and repeated his attack on you.  Every time you tried to exercise, the strangers appeared and made you sit on the couch to watch television instead. 

Over the course of months, the excess food the strangers forced you to eat caused your body to bloat larger and larger.  Your clothing stopped fitting.  It became difficult to get in and out of your car.  Most of your acquaintances gossiped about how you had become “fat.”  

And it got even worse.  You became diabetic. You got depressed.  You constantly cursed those strangers for making you obese and unhealthy.  You bought special burglar-proof doors and windows (but they didn’t work).  Because this gang repeatedly violated your rights, you even considered buying a gun to defend yourself from

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“Fixing” the United Nations

We all know the story of the League of Nations. An early, botched attempt at international diplomacy, history tells us it collapsed due to its own lack of authority and under the chaos created by a body of countries all fighting for individual interest, rather than global good. In history classes, we read that the League of Nations proved totally ineffectual, doomed from the start by its own design.

In recent years, such criticisms have likewise fallen upon the League’s replacement, the United Nations. Citing failures such as Iraq’s 17 ignored resolutions since 1991, the corruption behind the Oil for Food Programme, and more recently, the UN’s inability to respond to crises such as the genocide in Darfur and the nuclear development of North Korea, the UN’s critics see the body as both powerless and bogged down in bureaucratic corruption. The UN either needs massive reform, critics say, or we should take John Bolton’s suggestion and blow ten stories off the UN Secretary Building and rid ourselves of the mess.

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Don’t question Bush’s newest “Plan” for Iraq

Bush’s newest “Iraq” plan is to continue bashing those who question this costly war.  There’s still no metric and no projection of how many more Iraqi and American deaths will occur or what might be accomplished by those deaths.  Only more rhetoric.

As reported by Media Matters,  the Bush Administration’s Iraq strategy is truly bizarre.  It is not a war strategy at all. It is only a PR strategy and, with very few exceptions, it has been gobbled up by the official stenographer for the Bush Administration: the mainstream media.  Here are the official talking points for the “new” Iraq strategy:

  • Republicans are “pro-military” and “support the troops,” while Democrats are “anti-military” and “attack the troops.”
  • Democrats want to “cut and run.”
  • Iraq is the central front in the war on terror.
  • Democrats are “divided” or “weak” on national security.
  • The Republicans will always win debates on national security.
  • The Republicans won the Iraq debate.

    • What’s especially curious about this “war” strategy” is that it could never have served to justify invading Iraq. Not even neocons could have bought this, could they?  It would have been transpararent for all to see back in 2003. 

    For those who are so currently so numbed to evidence-based reasoning, though, it’s interesting to note that this “Iraq” strategy could actually serve to justify any military endeaver anywhere in the world (just substitute any other country for “Iraq” in the third point).   Notice the absence of facts in this strategy–it is actually a highly …

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    The United States needs a king (or queen).

    My father-in-law (now deceased) sometimes commented that the United States needed an aristocracy to give a "face" to our nation.   He suggested that this arrangement would allow the power-holding leaders of the United States to spend more time doing the hard work of government in a less ostentatious and more effective…

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