podpolia

There is an excellent piece here on one of the biggest real failings of the UN. This is one of my pet peeves about the UN (and believe me, I have many) — their unwillingness to do their actual job, and instead start rubbing their grimy noses into stuff that really isn’t their business. Your job is to make the world a better place, ok? Not to try to expand your power until you’re a world government. I think that’s one of the reasons the UN hates the US as much as it does — the US provides much of the UN’s funding and resources, and yet also restricts what the UN can do. In an organization that is essentially a bureaucracy for a state that doesn’t exist, bureaucratic rules apply to the exclusion of the regulatory effect that an executive, legislative, or judicial branch would have. The General Assembly really doesn’t bother to control the bureaucracy at the UN because for the most part, what the bureaucracy does would not provide political power to the constituent governments represented in the Assembly. Not having a true executive or even a concrete reason for existance, the UN serves as a tool to obtain power for the governments that take part in it.
The only true limitations on bureaucratic bloat at the UN are political, not constitutional or procedural. The US provides a strong check in the amount of political power the UN can pick up, so that makes the US the primary opponent to the natural trend of the bureaucracy. It also provides ammunition for other countries who can accuse the US of not ‘cooperating.’ The UN would be a whole lot better if it could be reconstituted with more concrete rules, and a more constitutional system.
Oh, and the link (you know, the one before I started wandering off topic) was via Rantingprofs.

The new book by the Pope is likely to irritate Democrats and European liberals to no end. Comparing abortion to the Holocaust, attacking gay marriage, and criticizing communism — three things covered by the Reuters newswire about the book are all likely to stir up anger among the left. Who knows what other things he says in the book? No doubt there will be quite a furor over this for a while.

This article is interesting. As far as I’m concerned, they can have their urinal stickers (my dad talks about the “Official Jane Fonda Urinal Sticker” that resided in one of the bathrooms in the Naval Depot in Mechanicsburg for years), but the whole bit at the end about arranging to have a reporter fired because he wrote something bad about the government is taking things a little too far. I’m not sure exactly how socialized the news media is in Belgium, but it’s a fairly good illustration of how illiberal socialist systems are. (For an interesting book on that topic, read The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich A. Hayek.)

LGF has a bit of history on Hinchey and the stuff he has said before. Then again, this isn’t really suprising — if somebody is going to say something wacky in public once, it’s likely they’ll be willing to do it repeatedly. And this is just what we’re discovering:
“‘The truth of the matter is that their long-term plan is not to exit,’ Hinchey said. ‘They want to establish several military bases there. Their long-term goal is (to get) the oil.’”
Sounds par for the course circa the Abu Ghraib scandal. Problem is, it’s from an interview with Erin Kelly of the Gannett News Service on February 3, 2005. He even discusses how well the elections went first.
This isn’t particularly suprising. Hinchey joined a lawsuit in February 2003, challenging Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq.
He doesn’t limit his profound pearls of wisdom to foreign policy either (though he seems to prefer it — after all, he did meet with Yassir Arafat in April of 2003 to discuss peace for the Middle East, for all the good that did). On January 20, 2005, Hinchey said, “On the domestic front, I am also deeply concerned by President Bush’s proposal to privatize Social Security, which would eventually result in the overall elimination of the program.” This isn’t even getting into his public noises about attempting to impeach Bush, before “deciding that the time was not right,” acoording to the Cornell Daily Sun.

There are times when it’s good to be cynical, and when politicians are shooting their mouths off is one of them.

There are protests in Beirut against Syria’s puppet government in Lebanon, and other developments are looking good for the spread of democracy farther afield in the Middle East, and at the same time handing a stinging rebuke to Syria.

I figure I should put this up here, since this is the most recent scandal in the blogosphere (we really need to come up with a better word than ‘blogosphere’). The shockwaves that seem to ripple through the internet each and every time a liberal moonbat sticks his loafer between his teeth continue to amaze me. There are idiots out there, people, and not just on that side. We can be shocked and outraged, or we can engage in a little humourous moonbattery in response. Not nice; not productive political conversation, but how DOES one have a productive political conversation with someone who regards belief as solid evidence.

This is one of the best ideas I’ve heard in a long time!

China is expanding its influence in the Caribbean. This isn’t really suprising, but the US response to it is, somewhat: we’re not saying a word. I find it interesting that we’re becoming more and more friendly towards the Chinese, but it is only natural with the way in which China’s economy is growing. The reasoning behind this newer stance is probably that the Chinese, becoming more and more individually wealthy, will seek more political freedoms as well. I don’t fully subscribe to this view myself — the more socially oriented culture in China is likely to make them more accepting of government control — but it is undoubtedly true to an extent. Theoretically, if China becomes more politically open and democratic, Taiwan can be encouraged to rejoin mainland China and a major American headache will be resolved. We’ll see.

UPDATE 02/20/05 11.22PM: Economic expansion is one thing. Military expansion seems to be another.

The Hindrocket actually seems suprised at the crazy-talk that the Power Line Boys have been receiving in the email from certain members of the left about the Jeff Gannon story. I’m personally not particularly suprised at the hatred spouted in this type of thing, because one can generally only hate what one does not fully understand, and these letters usually show how little the authors know about the actual position of the political right. The left has gotten so good at attacking the stereotype of Republicans that they have so successfully projected into society through the media over the years that they are completely ineffectual at attacking the real Republicans when they come face to face with them. In this particular letter (where the guys at Power Line are informed that they are hypocrites, and are going to hell “if there is a god”) the writer is accusing Power Line and the right in general of being hypocrites because we don’t match their stereotype of us. What Republican in public office (besides the rabid Alan Keyes type) has ever said that they hated all gays and would not consider talking to one in public? The real answer is ‘none,’ but so many of the left-of-center types believe it is the case that they can easily brand someone a ‘hypocrite’ for saying one thing, and being portrayed as believing another. Isn’t this the sort of stereotyping behavior that the left is supposed to condemn? The same is true of Christianity (which would be a separate topic, except it is brought up by the author of the particular angry rant mentioned in the Power Line post). Christians (in the propaganda-warped minds of those who wish to believe this) irrationally hate all gays. When a Christian is accepting of gays but not of their lifestyle, said Christian is branded a hypocrite.
Democrats are often portrayed as closet-socialists by some of the more radical members of the right, but how would they react if we started calling them hypocrites for speaking out against a socialist revolution in a third world country? (Not that this is likely, but humor me.) They would naturally think we were nuts. We wouldn’t be (necessarily); we would simply be comparing their actions to our preconceived notions of their beliefs, and judging them on it. Things simply don’t work that way.
The sooner the Democrats get out of the clutches of Howard “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for” Dean and his ilk and return to the table for a legitimate discussion of policies, the better it will be for America. (Howard Dean appears courtesy INDC Journal).