OldSouth Wishes A Merry Christmas To One And All

OS could release a torrent of words upon the world and not begin to describe the depth of his gratitude to his Creator, Saviour and Sustainer; his Prophet, Priest and King; the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth.

Christ reached down and did for OS what was otherwise impossible--out of his mercy and love he reached down and rescued a young man whose life was completely swirling the drain, restored him to health, sanity, productivity, and placed him into an extraordinary marriage and family. Every bit of it completely undeserved, and yet granted in love. Every day since, Christ has done the same.

While OS is loath to preach, he does wish to convey that the Babe in the manger, who is Lord of Creation, offers you the same grace.

Merry Christmas.

Susan Rice Learns The True Cost Of Loyalty To The Winner Of The Nobel Peace Prize

Liberals become enraged when reminded that words have meaning, and that words spoken by government officials about serious matters really do have consequences.

OS has been amused to hear the name-calling at Outside The Beltway to just such assertions.

Susan Rice will never be Secretary of State. That's because she deliberately spread misinformation about the attacks on Benghazi on September 11, 2012. Not just one time, off-hand, but on five different networks, repeating the same disinformation--that the attacks were 'demonstrations' about a YouTube video that simply got out of hand.

That story was coming apart at the seams even as she was attempting to sell it.  She never refuted it, never returned to any of those networks to withdraw it. It was a case of loyalty trumping integrity, and she is shocked to find that the Senate wants a Secretary of State who is in the habit of telling the truth.
  
The Obama White House knew from the get-go that there never was a demonstration.

They knew it was al-Qaeda.

 Obama was too busy fund-raising to bother to rescue those poor people.

She says she was handed an intelligence briefing, one which the CIA later disavowed. Apparently, she didn't bother to ask questions before being sent out to take one for the team.

So, either she knew it was a lie (likely), or was just too lazy to ask questions (possible). In any case, she was completely willing to go out and try to sell the implausible story that a disorganized mob armed itself with mortars and instantly learned how to use them in a coordinated attack viewed real time by the White House situation room.

 It all fell apart, rapidly. She never went back to correct the record, and salvage her credibility.

Obama won his election, but just like Nixon, the odor of a major scandal lingers in the air.

And in dangerous times like these, the last thing this country needs is a replay of that soap opera.

Just Remember, Our Tax Dollars Rescued These Union Members. Violent Mob Outside The Capitol In Lansing Michigan

And Duh' Left characterizes people who attend Tea Party rallies as goons, people who attend church as intolerant morons, people who vote GOP as racist know-nothings.

And these are The Heroes of Duh' Left, doing what they do best.

Expecting to hear a peep of protest from the White House? Don't hold your breath.



Three cheers for the Michigan legislature and governor. Here's hoping and praying that more legislatures gain inspiration from their example. State by state, county by county, village by village, the Obama agenda can be disassembled, one little Leggo block at a time.

By the way, the governor of Tennessee announced today that his state won't bend its citizenry over the table by establishing one of Obama's 'Health Care Exchanges'.

He concluded that HHS is run by a clown circus, and he wants no part of it. And, he realized that the Tennessee legislature would never cooperate in the scheme.

If Himself wants to run the health care system, he can certainly try. He'll be finding fewer and fewer people willing to cooperate, especially as this video of his most loyal supporters circulates.

Julian Hattem: The Campaign That Never Ends. The Presidency That Never Began

Yep, he nailed it on the head.

Already, it feels like he's back on the trail. Just a month after the election, as the fiscal cliff approaches, President Obama has held just one meeting at the White House with Speaker John Boehner in the last three weeks, yet has taken the time to go to Pennsylvania and Virginia and chat with suburbanites and business owners. From the outside, he's building the consensus that he's looking for in Washington. 

But, but. but---we all thought Himself won the election.

Silly us!

The November election was just a way-stop on his endless campaign. This man possesses zero, nil, no skills required for actually governing. It's a point that many have tried to make about Himself for years. He's a Chicago machine pol, with a couple of years in the Illinois Senate, followed by a couple of years in the US Senate, and then to the White House.

He doesn't negotiate because he doesn't know how to actually hold serious conversations about serious things. He doesn't know how to work with Congress or the states of  the Union, so he issues executive orders and has the Justice Department sue the bejeezus out of anyone who dares go off his script.

He does know how to do one thing: Pander to crowds of disaffected people who look to him as some type of secular Messiah. So, he does that.

It beats working.

Meanwhile, OS encountered some other disaffected people last week:

He enjoys visiting pawn shops and antique malls, a guilty pleasure perhaps. But, he has also purchased some real treasures in these places. Last week OS had two hours free, so off he went to pawn shops in Louisville. He browsed at two, before his free hours expired. The first featured lovely, lovely jewelry--and OS regretted not having enough liquid cash to walk out with one particular ring for the sainted Mrs. OS. It was a dandy!

The second was in a less prosperous neighborhood, to state things diplomatically. For all its loveliness, there are swathes of that fair city which are, well, not prosperous. This pawn shop was flogging a model of a 9mm pistol that sells for well under $200.  There were buyers at the counter, one older black gentleman in particular, eager to buy. The salesman told him "I won't promise you it will be reliable. It may only get one shot off before it jams, and that could be dangerous for you. The brand names we feel confident of start at four to five hundred dollars." The old gent says, "I can't afford that, but I've got to protect my grand-babies from the burglars who are breaking in at night."

He handed over his drivers license for the background check, and the salesman called back to the stockroom for one of the 9mm MaybeItWillFire guns.

There weren't any thugs in the store, just middle-aged and older black folks desperate to protect themselves from the thugs. They aren't criminals--they can legally purchase firearms because they have no criminal records. They used to live in lovely middle-class neighborhoods, where their parents felt no need to lock the doors.

This is Life Under Obama. The Campaign That Never Ends. The Presidency That Never Began.

Right-To-Work Arrives In Michigan: The Protests Seem Hollow To OS

Wow. The Michigan House and Senate, both firmly GOP institutions, passed identical Right-To-Work legislation yesterday.

Man bites dog. Someone got something done.

The Democrats, predictably, screamed cursed and walked out.  That's who they are, that's what they do. They can't stop the legislation from being passed, signed, and made the law of Michigan. Since it contains an appropriation, it can't be put on the ballot for recall, either.

Remember 2009/2010, Washington DC, when the Democrat Congress and Democrat House pushed through the BiggestPileOfPorkInHistory, followed by Obamacare? The GOP members did not scream curse and walk out. They did vote against it, though, and were chastised for being 'partisan'.

Labor types flooded the capitol building in Michigan Thursday, cursing and screaming, attempting to disrupt business. No one in the press or GOP called them names.

Tea Party types wrote their representatives, called their offices, traveled to DC to respectfully protest. They were called horrible names, characterized as ignorant, racist, the scum of the earth. Dads and Moms and children, the people who still maintain intact families, own little businesses and go to church. These became The Enemy.

In early 2009, there was a meeting with House GOP members and Himself, with the GOP members begging the President not to pursue this course of action. They were dismissed out-of-hand, with Himself not attempting to conceal his contempt when he crowed 'Elections have consequences'.

Then he accused them of partisanship.

So, here we are, in Michigan, the home of the US Labor movement. Elections do have consequences, and the GOP is control. (How was it that Obama won the state, given the House and Senate results?)
The place is bleeding jobs, with firms moving to Indiana.

Legislation has been passed, which states that union participation is voluntary, and that payment of dues is voluntary. The Democrat cash cow has just been taken to the slaughterhouse. Union leaders will have work for their money, just like everybody else. Businesses will be able to establish and hire people without threat. Employment may return. Can't have that, you know--it may mean the free market actually works, and make people suspect that the union types may just be thugs after all.

The Justice Department will, of course, sue to overturn. It will lose, but it will burn a lot of Michigans' time/money/energy in the meantime.

So, one final thought for the Michigan Democrat and labor machine: Elections have consequences. 
It sucks to be you.

Once Again, Three Loud Cheers For Dean Dad

OS probably votes differently from Dean Dad, but he admires this gent so much.

Dean Dad has the unenviable task of helping to run a community college in the Northeast. He sees the realities of the lives of the young people (and now many not so young) that he is tasked with shepherding through the lower realms of American post-high-school education.  It gets seriously ugly sometimes. Dean Dad is a far better man than OS, by far.

This post is one of the best that has ever, ever, ever appeared on his little corner of cyberspace. It realistically describes, concretely, why young people need to pursue further education, and the consequences for those who don't. He also makes the case for the states to keep paths to education available for everyone, not just the well-heeled.

Well worth reading and taking to heart.

If Only If Only If Only...

'...the Left and its comrades in the press would express even twenty percent of the outrage about the dictatorship now forming in Egypt as they did about Todd Akins ill-informed view of gynecology, Mitt Romney's wealth, and NFL referees--we might have a chance of the entire Middle east not blowing up just now.

Counting Rifles: Iran Re-arming Hamas Via Sudan

This year, while we were paying attention to vital issues such as Rep. Akin's somewhat antiquated views on gynecology, and listening to an eavesdropped presentation by candidate Romney, and the latest adventures of Snookie (is that how it's spelled?), and NFL replacement referees, other people in other parts of the world were, well, a bit more focused on other things.

Like the Iranians, for instance....

 From the Jerusalem Post:

Israeli intelligence satellites have spied the loading of rockets and other materiel believed to be destined for the Gaza Strip, The Sunday Times reported citing Israeli officials. According to the report, Iran began preparing the weapons shipment around the same time Israel and Hamas negotiated cease-fire understandings late last week.

Sweet...turns out they've been busily arming Hamas with sophisticated missiles (and, naturally one would assume, trained people to operate and keep track of them, as did the Soviets in their day).

The shipment is said to include Iranian-made Fajr-5 medium-range rockets, the same model that was fired into the Tel Aviv and Jerusalem areas during Operation Pillar of Defense, the Times reported.
Last month, following an air attack on a weapons plant near Khartoum, the Defense Ministry's director of policy and political-military affairs accused Sudan of acting as a transit point for weapons shipments to Gaza.

OS does note that the Iranians/Hamas types did wait until after November 6 to begin firing their missiles at Israel--wouldn't want to, you know, disrupt TheObamaNarrative about how wonderfully well Himself has been able to restrain the Iranians and the Islamist crazies. That would have been impolite.


And, simultaneously, it was convenient for the whole Petraeus affair to wait until after November 6 as well. And that silly thing in Libya--well, Hillary was otherwise occupied in Australia at a wine-tasting, just couldn't work in a conversation with Congress.

So, Iran/Hamas politely waited for the official Obama victory lap to Burma (huh? Burma?) to begin setting off its own roman candles in celebration.

They are, after all, polite about this sort of thing. We will serve no mayhem before its time.

OS was walking one of the dogs yesterday, and an old movie came to mind; title forgotten, movie forgettable, but not this scene: A British contingent found itself holed up in a fort somewhere in Southern Africa, surrounded by more pissed-off Zulu tribes than one could count. The Zulu chiefs lined up their troops and staged a frontal assault in broad daylight against a well-prepared defense. The outcome was predictable--hundreds upon hundreds of dead tribesmen, no British losses, general good cheer amongst the troops.

A younger officer exclaims breathlessly to the grizzled veteran about what a great day they had had, and the grizzled old gent in his best stiff-upper-lip counseled him, 'You don't understand what happened here. They were just counting how many rifles we have.'  The movie became a much grimmer affair for the Brits from that point. The lives of several hundred warriors were meaningless to the Zulu chiefs, so long as they got their rifle count.

OS contends we have just witnessed Iran/Hamas counting Israeli and American rifles. Let's fire this many of this kind of missile from these spots, and see how well the air defenses work, and gauge the reaction from the IDF. Sure, they'll bomb the bejeezus out of us, but since we're set up in neighborhoods, all the press will report are images of bombed-out apartment buildings and dead children. Small price to pay to count rifles.

So, they found out that Israel does have good air defenses, so long as the US resupplies them, and they can mobilize 70K reservists in short order (now, where and how did they deploy?), and Miss Hillary will come scurrying from the Burma Victory Tour to make certain the Israelis don't do anything rash like flood Gaza with seventy thousand troops and tear them from limb from limb. After all, they reason, with that Muslim Botherhood sistah' at her side, we're good, and we've got access to every conversation anyway. No worries.

All of this feels so....Spanish Civil War...presented to the world as an epic struggle between the forces of light and dark, with its American brigade, and Picasso paintings and Hemingway and even Kim Philby lurking about, on the English payroll while working for Moscow. The stuff of novel and film and Pulitzer Prizes.

Actually, it was a dress rehearsal for the horrors to come, as the Nazis and the Bolshies tested weapons and tactics, using Spanish cities and civilians as live targets. The outcome didn't much matter, vis-a-vis who ended up in power in Madrid. The bigger question from Berlin was, 'Are we good to go?', and the answer came back a resounding 'Javohl!'.

And so on to the Sudetenland. And Poland.

Sitting here in his small town in the southern United States, there is damned little OS can do about this, except note that it is happening, and contend we have just witnessed a rehearsal.

In the meantime, every day is precious. Mrs. OS is wrapping presents, and there is a grandson to ogle today, and coffee to drink, and music to enjoy. It is a glorious clear chilly day, and the oaks are shedding their leaves.

And, for today, OS will remember the tale of Joseph from Genesis. All those evil people played into Jehovah's hands, and Israel was preserved thereby.

Thanksgiving Weekend, 2012

Life has been busy since OS last greeted his loyal army of readers. Eventful, blessed, productive, frightening at a few moments. 

OS's first grandson was welcomed into the world. If the events of his arrival serve as a portent, this young man is in for some real adventures. Those events (details don't really matter) also helped OS gain a bit of perspective in the process, about what is important, what is less important, and that which matters not at all. OS also learned that his first instincts regarding 'what-I-would-do-in-such-a-situation' were likely not the wisest course of action. He also learned that his daughter is one tough,  smart cookie, level-headed in the worst of crises, and that his son-in-law may be a more capable husband than first suspected.

That was just one episode since 6 November. The election just flew into the slipstream of life, and OS missed out on all the gnashing of GOP teeth in the aftermath.

OS regretted the outcome, but was not shocked by it. And given some days to ruminate, and a bit of newly-earned perspective. he finally has something to say.

Perhaps he has been wrong all along. He thought Obama and crew were an anomalous event, a case of a hustler who dupes his victims until all eventually unravels. He would be found out, moved out, and some semblance of sanity could be regained. This was an incorrect assumption.

Obama and his circle are not an anomalous event, and they are not the major problem we face as a nation (although they are problematic). Obama and Company are not the problem; they are the symptom, the natural product of a culture that has lost its sense of itself, its history, its values. 

Do Obama and Company lie about most everything, daily? Why, yes. The Petraeus Affair is just one example. This is serious stuff, ya'll. Hundreds upon hundreds of young people from the military of both the US and the UK arriving home either dead or maimed in body and spirit from Afghanistan, and we find out that their happily married commander is enthusiastically shagging his biographer, and a Washington Post staffer is serving as a ghost-writer for the biographer who is enthusiastically shagging the happily married commander in Afghanistan, the place from which hundreds upon hundreds of young people serving in the military arrive home to the US or UK either dead or maimed in body and spirit.

The standard Clintonian response is to claim, 'Well, that's just his private business, and does not impact his performance as an officer.' No harm/no foul.

OS dares anyone to try telling that to the bereaved families, or the wounded and their families. 

Go ahead, give it a try...let all of us know how you fare.

But the true moral of the story is, that for the vast majority of the citizens of the country, this stuff just doesn't matter. Truth, untruth/untruth, truth...ni modo, as the Mexicans say with a shrug.

The government runs guns to Mexican gangs, and hundreds of innocents are killed with them, and cabinet officers lie shamelessy about it? No matter.

Reports of no inflation when the price of fuel, milk and corn double? No response.

8.9% percent unemployment stats that really may be closer to 18.9%? No objection here. 

For poor souls like OS and his ilk, who believe we live in a created order, in a universe into which morality is woven, this is maddening. We rage and splutter and protest. But for the other half of the country, many of those assumptions simply do not hold sway. It isn't that they were considered and rejected, it's as if they never existed anyway. They never emerge above the intellectual radar horizon of their lives. It's not about race or income level, lest anyone be tempted toward that assumption. These folks live in all our neighborhoods, rich or poor, white or non-white.

For folks such as these, Obama is comforting, inspiring even. He can tell them WhatTheyWishToHear: That life is about them, their desires, their perceived needs, their fears, their stuff or lack thereof, their resentments, their perception of 'fairness'. That money really does grow on trees, that He Himself will look after them and smite the evil prosperous ones, and go to war against those nasty MiddleClassValues they so disdain.

Some claim, as did Romney and Limbaugh, that the vote was, in effect, bought by government largesse. This really is much too simplistic an answer.

So, given this, what next to do?

That question to be covered in subsequent posts. What to do, how to live in this strange, unfamiliar time?

In the meantime, OS is thoroughly enjoying his weekend with Mrs. OS, tidying up around the house, making soup, watching the Bond movies on the tube, talking with the kids.

And of course, googling at his grandson. For whom he is so grateful...

A Time To Reflect...OS Mulls November 2012

OldSouth hasn't disappeared, loyal legions of readers. But he has taken some time to reflect. The masthead still holds true--Culture Shapes Economy.

There has been much much much hand-wringing about the election outcome of last week. OS did not hold great hope that Mr. Romney would prevail against Himself and Himself's minions, although he came impressively close.

So the first conclusion OS draws is:

There are some 57 million people out in the voting public who did not totally drink the Obama Kool-Aid. That's a lot of people.

Much of the hand wringing has been about 'how the country has changed, it is a blacker/browner/immigrant/food-stamp culture that sees the government as Santa Claus (as Mr. Limbaugh so succinctly states it), etc, etc.'

Well, yes. This should not be surprising. When even gas-station convenience markets along the interstate highway system proudly post signs that that accept SNAP cards and other forms of government assistance cards for payment, the ground has shifted under our feet.

Second conclusion:

Piles of cash left out on the sidewalk will attract all manner of people, from the Jon Corzine types to drug-addicted street people, seeking their share of the loot. We should not be surprised that people will vote for the folks who deliver the piles of cash to the sidewalk. Mr. Romney's comments about the 47% were unfortunate because they was only descriptive. He did not, sadly, address the bigger issue of the moral hazard that accompanies government largesse, be it to banks or single mothers.

One would think, that given his dismal record, Mr. Obama and company didn't stand a chance. It's only logical.

Third conclusion:

Logic is over-rated. The behavior of most people, whether political, financial, romantic etc is driven by emotion. Obama understands this perhaps better than most of this present age. Just as did Eva Peron in hers. 

We are accustomed to a simpler political model: Candidate gains office via election, governs/serves/legislates for the appointed term, and spends some final months of the term making the case for a return to office. Easy. This model no longer is in use. 

OS has a friend in Ohio now exhausted by it all. Turns out, the Obama campaign of 2008 never departed, never let up a moment, kept all its Ohio offices open. These past four years have not been about governance, they have been a perpetual 2012 campaign.

Fourth conclusion:

At some point, chickens do come home to roost, to quote one famous clergyman of Mr. Obama's acquaintance. At some point, Mr. Obama will actually have to govern, and OS hears the faint sounds of clucking and crowing over the horizon. 

All those happy folks in the crowd in Chicago, the TrueBelievers, were jubilant last Tuesday evening. Good for them, they had worked hard, won, and got to celebrate and cheer. No problem there. But OS found himself thinking 'These folk aren't just celebrating that their guy won. They seem to be cheering for some watershed event, that from this day forward the culture of Protestant Heterosexual Monogamy/Work/Frugality has been dealt a mortal blow, and WE are going to replace it with our own Utopian Vision.'


Fifth conclusion:

Be careful what you ask for; you wishes may come true. Those stories about finding the magical lamp are cautionary tales.

Back to the hand-wringing folks. Either our ideas work on the historical long view or they don't. Math is math or it isn't. Physics is physics or it isn't. God is either mocked or He isn't. Christianity asserts that the Almighty is just that. He is the Potentate of Time, and rulers rule only with His forebearance. He always brings good out of evil, as Bonhoeffer reminds us. 

Sixth conclusion:

If we do a bit less hand-wringing, and go quietly about the business of building our families, churches, communities and states, we'll all do better. Instead of railing about Obama and his friends, make certain your grandchildren know their hymns and Psalms. It's pretty difficult to lord it over  people with hearts and heads full of that poetry. Remember the era of samizdat in the old Soviet Union--pulled the regime down brick by brick in the end.

It ain't over 'til its over. God may be doing us a favor, we're not privy to Divine Intentions.

It ain't over yet.