Things To Ponder

I spent four hours driving back from a vacation on Sunday and in that time I pondered a few things I thought were worth sharing…

– Enron has to be the first time in recent memory that the Democrats seemed to recognize that when a company goes under, the little guys that work for the company are the ones who get hurt. Now if they’d just become as concerned about companies going out of business because of high taxes, regulations, and government interference as they are about corporations going under because of ethics violations, we’d all be better off.

– 9/11 happened because the government completely and utterly failed us. The CIA didn’t have the intelligence to stop the attacks, the INS let our attackers into the United States and then failed to track them and the screeners who let the terrorists onto those planes with boxcutters did so because that was allowed in the FAA regulations. Yet after 9/11 happened, we blamed the airport security that did their jobs correctly instead of the incompetent government agencies that really caused the problem. Because of that we Federalized airport security so the job would “get done right.” Why does this make sense to anyone?

– Although I’m strongly pro-2nd amendment, I don’t think it’s a good idea to arm pilots. For one thing, I want the pilots flying the plane, not playing air marshal. Speaking of air marshals, why do we need armed pilots if we have an effective air marshal program? Also, why are we putting in bullet proof, impenetrable cockpit doors if the pilots are going to be running around in the cabin at the first sign of trouble?

– In recent months people have been focused on the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Iraq, and Afghanistan. However, we shouldn’t forget that violent confrontations with Iran, Syria, and Lebanon, among others might be coming sooner than we think as well.

– I think most people are missing the real scandal in Jenin. It’s not the non-existent massacre, it’s the fact that the UN allowed a refugee camp they controlled to become a terrorist stronghold.

– Do you know what the difference is between Yasser Arafat and Osama Bin Laden? We know where Yasser Arafat is. Thanks to Benjamin Netanyahu for that line.

– If the areas that the Palestinians control inside of Israel are “occupied territory”, why isn’t Texas, Florida, and California considered “occupied territory” as well since we acquired the land in wars just as Israel did?

– The root of terrorism is not poverty, ignorance, or Islam. Terrorism is used because IT WORKS. The only way to stop terrorism is to make the consequences for allowing it to thrive so disastrous that no nation would DARE to allow terrorists to freely operate in their territory.

– Isn’t it about time that we let South Korea, Japan, and Europe defend themselves? We need the manpower and the resources elsewhere and they’re certainly capable of protecting their own borders without our help.

– Journalists write about how things get done. Actors pretend to get things done. Teachers talk about how they think things should be done. All these groups of people tend to be Liberal. Businessmen and people in the military have to actually get things done or face the consequences. They tend to be Conservative.

– Wouldn’t the United States be much better off if Libertarians and Conservatives were battling for the hearts and minds of the American people instead of Conservatives and Liberals?

– Affirmative action is just as morally repugnant as the Jim Crow laws were even if it doesn’t do as much damage.

– Why is it that anti-globalism protestors seem to prefer that Third World workers make 10 cents an hour working for local businesses rather than be ‘exploited’ for 25 cents an hour by multi-national corporations?

– We’ve come up with everything from music, to the Internet, to video games, to Satanism, to Goth culture to try to explain Columbine style killings in the US and Germany. But, I really don’t think there’s an explanation that goes much beyond statistics. There is going to be a tiny subset of people that wants to kill themselves and take others with them. Figuring out who they are before they flip out has proven to be far beyond our capabilities and it probably will be for the foreseeable future. That may not be a satisfying explanation, but I think it’s all we really have.

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